This post is part of The Fit Writer series.
Good news this morning: someone asked me if Crossfit is getting easier, and I was happy to report that my arm muscles weren’t as sore as when I started two weeks ago.
A reason for that could be, my body felt better moving yesterday, compared to not moving over the weekend. And yet just the other day, I was thinking of scaling back Crossfit to maybe three times a week, instead of five.
That would have been a mistake, I see that now.
The more I use my muscles, the stronger they are. I was just noticing today that whereas I used to groan and could hardly bend over at the waist to pick up something, I no longer have that problem.
But that wasn’t the case when I started. Admittedly, I was a wimp then. I had no upper body strength. But over the past two weeks, I have been hauling kettle bells, weights, and balls (while running). Granted, they aren’t as heavy of weights as other people training with me can carry, but hey, a girl’s gotta start somewhere.
♦ ♦ ♦
Same with your writing muscles. If you go too long between writing bouts to revise your story, you may have to start all over.
I sat down this past Saturday and revised 20,000 words of my work-in-progress, Blemish. Except for watching two-hour sessions of General Conference, I sat in a chair revising my story. By the end of the day, my supposed-fit-arms throbbed with pain.
But it was a good pain. When I was done, I printed my finished chapters and marveled at how thick the stack was. I couldn’t have done it had I not sat there and pushed through with the revision. I think it helps that I help edit memoirs for a living. Some days (like today) I sit in a chair the whole day, except for the occasional break and edit in a marathon session.
Three ways to build your writing muscles:
- Start with a chapter. Work up your writing output to several chapters at a time.
- Push yourself. If a goal is too easy, it means there’s room to write faster and longer.
- Make it a daily habit. Take a day or two to recover, enjoy a break, then return to your writing while everything is still fresh.
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