Writing on the Run

A photo of my daybook.
I was working on a poem on these pages.

I’m not a runner.  On occasion, I’ve been bold enough to tell myself that this time it will be different.  If I just stick it out, I’ll be able to run a distance without getting winded, without feeling like my heart is trying to fold itself up like a pair of freshly laundered socks.  

The only time I’m able to break this rule is in my writing notebook.  In here, I’m Usain Bolt.  I’m not running to tone and maintain, or to achieve Olympic gold, rather, I’m running for my life, my writing life.  In my notebook, I’m dodging the censor, and the cursor. 

When I have a blank page in my writer’s notebook, I see possibility.  I see the opportunity to simply write without judgment, mine or anyone else’s. .  Here I’m able to, as Don Murray discusses, write badly to write well.  I do not have the distraction of the blinking cursor, taunting me with each blink, or the audience for whom I’m writing whispering in the back of my head that my last line was awful.

Pictures of the important people in my life help provide me
writing inspiration, but also my support system.

I’ve made my writer’s notebook my safe place.  It is bookended by photos of all the people in my life who care for and support me: my husband, my daughter, my parents, my best friend, my mentor, and my dog.  These people provide me with plenty of writing material, but also are those who allow me the freedom to experiment, mess up, and try again.  This comfort allows me to take risks in my writing that I don’t allow myself to take when I’m staring at the cursor. 

There are fewer distractions for me when I’m writing in my notebook, even if the place where I am actually writing has more than noise and activity than a quiet classroom or office.  There are no red squiggly lines reminding me I’m an awful speller, no green hecklers prompting me to doubt my grammar knowledge.  I’m less judgmental about my writing, so I can just write.

When I journey through my writer’s notebook, reliving the writing I’ve recorded, I feel accomplishment.  In this notebook I have found understanding of another’s writing, felt the pain of watching a grandmother succumb to Alzheimer’s (not my grandmothers, but a grandmother of a character I created) and discovered truths about my family and myself. None of these discoveries would have been possible without the security of my writer’s notebook. 

I guess I am a runner of a different sort.  My sharpie pen is laced up, the open track of my notebook ready for sprints.