From Marathon to Daily Miles: Transitioning Back to Practice
How do you transition back to ordinary after an extraordinary experience? How does a writer move from being “author” to being “writer” again, facing the empty page with nobody around?
I know so many authors who’ve struggled with this, who’ve created structures ahead of time in their writing life to handle the post-partum depression. Some have another book in the hopper (this is my current technique—another novel out in the spring). Some take a long break or go away from their lives to recover. Book birthing can be brutal, even with all the joy and excitement, and it certainly takes us away from our ordinary selves.
At Thanksgiving last week—we hosted 15—one of my very distant relatives by marriage, a man in his seventies, someone I don’t know well but enjoy a lot for his excellent sense of humor and midwestern values, came up to me with some shyness after dinner. He handed me a copy of my new novel and a pen. “Will you sign this?” I was a bit dumbstruck. This man is so far from my ideal reader, at first I couldn’t believe he’d actually read the novel. “Who do you want me to sign it to?” I asked. “To me,” he said, as if that was obvious. “I loved it.”
Then he told me why. And how he’d gotten so involved with the characters, he worried about what might happen next. He wants a sequel.
It was one of the biggest compliments I’ve gotten. Mostly because I saw how the book can touch people I would never guess. An older man, retired from teaching school and working in the tech industry, approaching me with the hope and innocence of a small child. Later, his daughter told me he’d even asked her before the party if she thought I’d be willing to sign his book. Like I wouldn’t?!!
When your book’s life, the circle of its reach into the world, becomes much bigger than you expect, as this book has done for me, it changes you inside. There’s a sense of astonishment and awe about the power of literature to affect people. People you’d never imagine to be open to such a story—a novel about women heroes, about a rock star, and about sisters reuniting.
I learned a lot from this. Never pre-judge what your book can do, if you love it enough to fuel its passage into the world. And be aware that the moment of touching someone else is not really about you. It’s about what you created.
I saw this same man at another gathering two days later (we are a family who has serial thanksgivings to include everyone over several days). Again, he approached me to talk about the book and express his worry (!) for one of the characters. “What will happen to her?” he asked me.
(I have no idea. This is a fictional person. But the question, once again, thrilled me. And got me thinking . . . )
I’m still thinking about this encounter. And a number of other equally astonishing emails and texts and DM’s from readers who are now living with my story and wanting to talk about it. They create a happy crowd, a celebratory noise, and when a writer has run months of this, as a creative work is finding its way to readers, it feels like living with a large family. The readers, hopefully growing in number, now occupy the world you created.
So much joy in this, so much satisfaction. But there has to be a movement back to “writer” instead of “author,” if you’re lucky. Find the silence again, in order to create.
I love winter for its silence. I live in northern New England and it’s already very cold. The moon was full over Thanksgiving weekend and Jupiter shone in the sky, a bright, visible dot of white. I crave the quiet at this time of year, I want to sleep more, I find myself ready for bed by 8:00. And I incubate. Ideas, creative imaginings, future plans for my writing.
After the crowd noise of readers embracing what I’ve poured my heart into for ten years, it’s like the transition between a warm Indian summer day and waking up to stillness and white. The silence can be deafening. It can feel lonely. Where are all the people who have been accompanying me on the journey all these past months? Are they still thinking about my book, are they still talking about it to friends, are they posting about it? I check the online booksellers and Goodreads, notice new reviews. Nurture the noise a bit.
But after a while, the silence is stronger and it calls me in. I begin to let go of the need for the noise and I begin to want to go deep again, find new paths.
It’s a little death, to publish and let go of something you’ve lived with for so long. It’s the welcome outcome, for sure. But it’s like spending the most fabulous week with your best group of friends then saying goodbye at the airport. Who are you, when you aren’t surrounded by all that love?
I’m in a pause between books and I know I need to appreciate the silence, let it refresh me, because soon the next book will be roaring its way into the world and the noise will begin again. So I’m straddling two realities as this next book is in production—with the ebook designer and the audiobook narrator, as I’m lining up publicists for the new year and new marketing campaign. I love this next book as much or even more. It’s my best novel yet, I know that. But I’m still a bit in grief and confusion over the transition.
And I know I’m privileged to even feel that. I’ve been both successful and satisfied with this recent publishing experience.
And we writers often straddle two worlds: our writing and the incubation of that writing, the essence of the creative practice we embrace, along with the dream of readers out there, somewhere, eventually loving our work.
Most of us write with that kind of horizon: the dream of publishing someday, the hope that the publication process will be successful and satisfying. That’s correct. We want to go from talking with ourselves to sharing our creativity with a reader. But after that happens, how do you let go of what you’ve done, the beauty of it, the reader who asks, What happens next to these characters? How do you transition back to the silence of winter, the incubation of daily practice, the stuff that makes you say “I’m a writer”?
I think of marathoners—I am not one—who have their practice of daily miles. They train for months to do that one race, perhaps. Do they miss the high after the marathon is over and it’s back to routine? It’s natural to miss the high of a team of book lovers spreading the word about your novel, readers messaging and posting their glowing reviews, the fun of planning a party or other outreach.
But I know this for a fact: the core of the writing life is not about publication. I don’t write to publish, I write to discover.
Yes, I feel honored that so many people enjoy my book, but the real juice of creativity has to emerge from my private expression, my daily practice. I have to keep that element of discovery alive to keep digging into what means the most in my life. It’s the nurturing silence that feeds me.
I’m a bit worried about these next months, to be honest. I’m worried that I’ll get swept too fast into the marathon of a book release again, without enough time and silence to regain my practice and the humility of just me alone with the page. I’m trying to be very disciplined with my recovery time, as I call it. As much sleep as I can talk myself into. Reading. Playing with collage. Playing with some short fiction. Reading my Substack subscriptions. Walks with the dogs. Staring at the full moon.
Publishing is about standing up and saying, This is my work, this is what it means. Writing practice is about inquiry. Nothing is solved, much is being questioned, which is the beauty of it. A kind of listening to that silence that exists between the writer and the page.
A definite nurturing, different from the noise and celebration of publication.
This week, I found the five flash essays I was working on before A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue began its fast flight. In them, I was writing about my mom, the WW II pilot who inspired my novel. She may remain a mystery for me to solve the rest of my life, and these essays are ways to explore what I knew and what I’ll never know about her.
These essays are conversations, nothing more. They are so different from fiction, they are stark in their reality and pain. They are intensely private. And they are helping me a lot during this pause between books, as I transition back to writing practice and silence.
If you, like me, struggle with transitions, here are ten very simple techniques I want to share this week. I view them as doorways from one room to another. The goal is to not get stuck at the threshold, to toggle back to what was and not be able to let go. They help me find a way back to the habit that brought me here.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
Ten short, simple practices to explore this week. Try one. Try two. Notice if they help you with your writing practice in any way, help you transition, help you let go and go deeper into creative incubation.
Poem a day. For one week, read a poem each morning or evening. (Try the online Poem-a-Day or Spotify’s podcast version.) Notice how poetry changes your internal rhythms and what you notice around you. Take this new vibration into practice by distilling the essence of a chapter or scene you’re working on into five poetic lines.
Switch genres. Read a chapter from a book by an author from a different genre or writing style. If you love minimalism, go for exotic and rich. If you’re a sci-fi fantasy geek, turn to history. Notice how the switch affects you. Maybe some rewiring happens? Take this into practice by modeling a few paragraphs or a page from the book you’ve browsed: using the author’s exact structure (number of lines in a paragraph, number of words used), change to your own words. Think of how art students paint copies of the masters' to learn brush stroke variation. Do the same with words and rhythm and structure.
Go on an outing. Leave the house. Find a park, coffee shop, library, community center. Write among sounds you’re not used to. Take down dialogue you hear. Paint word pictures of what you see that’s completely new. Take this into practice by setting a scene in this new location. What might happen?
Fast from media. Julia Cameron suggests this in The Artist’s Way and each time I try it, it revolutionizes my life. She suggests a week—can you try one day? Or even an afternoon away from doom-scrolling and Amazon ratings, to pay attention to new thoughts that emerge without anyone’s prompting. Take this into practice by journaling about your mind’s frantic boredom and how mad/irritated/annoyed you get at someone else making such stupid rules.
Use your hands. After the holidays, when we were arranging back the rooms that had been shifted to seat 15, I found a box of collage materials and immediately got to work on one. Find magazines or print images from Unsplash and arrange in a pleasing or disturbing or any creative way in your writer’s notebook, a poster board, your journal, or a handful of blank large-size index cards. Take it into practice by setting a timer for 20 minutes and writing about the most unexpected collage you create.
Write your gratitude. Make a list of all the people who’ve helped you get to where you are now in your creative life. Each day, choose one to write a thank-you postcard to. Take it into practice by selecting an author whose work helped you grow—write them a thank-you note as well.
Switch the goal. What can you change, renew, invigorate about your practice? Start with your regular goal—word count or page count—and flip it. If you do pages, set 1000-word goals each sit-down session. Take it into writing practice by testing one method each day. Which works better for you this week?
Find a friend. Expand your practice to include a small community of writing buddies. Spend time thinking about what they would do for you, and vice versa. How often would you ideally connect? How? Would you exchange writing or just check in for accountability? Take this into practice by initiating a call, text, or email to someone you’d love to have on your team.
Go deep. Use the week as a break from production of pages. Take up your journal instead of trying to create something formed. Add some play: colored pencils or collage. See what your nonlinear brain has to say.
Use prompts. A battered copy of What If? by Pamela Painter and Anne Bernays sits on my desk. Prompts reacquaint me with discovery.