Wednesday, May 4, 2011

One step at a time

I have run the same route so many times that I can tell within the first 3 minutes how fast I'm going to run. Actually, the first 2 minutes 38 seconds. If I make it to the light on Multnomah at 2:37 or before, it's going to be a good run.

Today it was 2:37, so I decided to push myself.  But it's hard to keep up a sprint for five miles.  What I did today that worked really well was to pick something about 20 feet away - a leaf, a crack - and focus on running hard to that point.  Then once I got there, I picked another point, again about 20 feet away, and just repeated the process.  And I had the best time I had in months.  

I'm approaching my writing like that today.  Focusing on small goals, not being overwhelmed by my killer deadline, about how yesterday I worked for hours and only had a net 300 words to show for it.  Sure, on paper I should be writing between 1,000-2,000 words every day to make my deadline, but what I need to focus on now is going through my outline, step by step, and making sure it makes sense and that it keeps the tension high.  Today I need to concentrate on writing in 20-feet increments.

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