Marathon Training Day 1

"Monday is always a day of rest...Let's begin this Monday, the first day of your marathon journey, by contemplating the training that will begin tomorrow."

Hal Higdon

I'm not kidding you. That's what it says under the Monday slot of the marathon training program (follow the link above if you don't believe me). Best marathon training ever.

For those of you who don't know, I made a point of in my first of the year post about how I was going to train for the Chicago Marathon. Sadly that fell through, as the Chicago Marathon was sold out when I went to register for it in April. So after a quick search of US Marathons in Wikipedia, I discovered that Detroit has a marathon and that, for starters, it is marginally cheaper than Chicago's (Detroit is 75, Chicago is 125), and that there are still spots available. I also managed to convince my friend Kate (who has now run two, maybe three marathons) that she should train out in LA, and then we should run it together (and I was successful). So now begins my mad dash towards the gloried 26.2.

That's not the only big news.

Yesterday I hit 100,000 words in the novel. I'd thought when I set out to finish this thing, that this would be the end, but it's shaping up to be about 110-120k...Not a great prospect, but for a first time novel, I'm ok with that. The goal now (after many sad revisions) is that I can squeak out the first draft sometime this week. Then begins the fun editing process...

And on that note I've got to start focusing again back on the internship.

Never Go Back

When typing up a chapter this morning to turn in for my advanced fiction class I was forced to reread it. And upon a second reading it dawned on me how little scene there is in this "scene." That was what we were supposed to turn in. A scene. I'm afraid it's stunted my continued writing.

The first month of writing saw a blast of about 50 pages, and now into my second month that page count has dwindled to about five.

Right now I'm trying to work my way through a conversation with Al Keeder, a man in the woods. I think I know the next step, I'm just unsure of how much magicalness to reveal, how much boy Jack can take on before it becomes too bizarre and unreal even for a lad of 8. Hopefully by Thursday he can be free of this old man and well on his way to facing his first giant and meeting Cole, King of the Gypsies.

Alright. Now I have to pretend to do homework....