Earlier this year, I was working out nine times a week, cranking out revisions on six or seven short stories and starting a business. Now? This blog entry is about the closest I've come to any sort of productivity of my previous magnitude. The business is started. The race is run. The ass is glued to the couch.
There was a week there where I went for a few runs, but my foot got sore and it's just so much easier to sit on the couch and think about running. That way you can watch television while you think about running, and have some ice cream to soothe your anxiety about running.
There isn't going to much more to this entry than whining. I feel that my writing and exercising life are tied together, when one comes back, the other will come back with it. And when it comes back, that feeling of obligation, routine, satisfaction will descend and I'll end the day counting the hours of work, relishing the accomplishments. I just don't know which to start first. Exercise or write? And so I do neither.
A friend emailed me an interview with Murakami. Murakami's a runner, meaning he does marathons and clocks 10K a day. He feels that this is an integral part to his writing. I have to agree. There's something about spending that kind of energy that heals the mind, or prepares it. Or maybe helps me shed any other excess anxiety so I can get down to the core of writing. Or maybe it just tires me out so much there's nothing I can do but sit and unhinge my mind.
I'm thinking a way out of the problem will be to spend money. I'll buy myself a new gadget, like an indoor cycling trainer. Join a pool that's expensive but convenient to the office. A few instructional video tapes. A cool typewriter. If you spend it, it will come.
But that still leaves the question. Which comes first, the excuse or the doing?
