Running with novel ideas

Very constantly, even in the midst of everything that's been keeping me busy, I've been thinking about my next novel. The next one and the one after that. There's the one that has been at chapter five since 2005. There's the one that's actually currently a novelistic short story that's never been published. Whenever I have a spare moment, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about what is going to happen in the novel, once I actually sit down to it. And then I think I really need to figure it out before I sit down to it.

And this is why I've been looking forward to my runs in the morning. It's also why I don't run with an ipod or any sort of music stimulant. I use my running to think my through my fiction. That's what I think about when I run. It's true that sometimes, the thinking slows my pace, but the running never slows the thinking. In fact, it stimulates it.

Today, I completed my first 15K run. My time wasn't great; at 2 hours and 20 minutes, you might even call it slow. But I never slowed down as to actually walk throughout the entire thing, which is a good thing.

But the best thing? I know now how my second novel, my first real novel will start, how it will progress and even how it will end.
That's more than just good. It's fantastic.

And It all came together in my mind at the pace of my running feet.

Sage advice to C from K, a sister to a brother

"Here's how it works. The best friendships are when the friends are both leaders. They decide what they are going to do together. They have their own opinions. There are friendships where there is a leader and there is a follower. Sometimes, there are many followers. And they don't care what they do as long as they follow their leader.

The trick to friendship is to be a leader."

Would that I knew this so well and so eloquently at age eleven.