K is for Kinetic Writing

Not gonna lie, I’m hyperactive.

I used to be frightening when I was younger. My pace and energy levels were off the charts. But time has caught up with me, and now I’m a reasonable degree of hyper.

Now, I have to bow to my health, which is mildly irritating. I’m a diabetic on insulin and I have had eight cardiac procedures before my 50th birthday this summer. So there’s that. There’s other stuff, too. It sucks.

That’s not for you to say, aww, poor Becca. That’s so you understand what a freaking lunatic I’d be if I were healthy.

Slowing down has actually forced me to acquire an attention span, which has been great for writing a, what is it now, nine?-novel series. Before I was doing well to write 500 word flash fiction stories. Now I’m downright Tolstoy-esque. Tolkien-like. Gabaldon-ish.

(Ha! I wish!)

This weekend, the Facebook writing group I adore, Ten Minute Novelists, is doing an event called 5K/5k. In a 24-hour period, I am to write 5,000 words and walk five kilometers.

I would never believe such a feat was possible for me, except I did it just last October. (Actually, I finished close enough to within 24-hours that they showed mercy on the sick old lady. Sometimes you gotta play that card.)

I enjoy challenges like this. My body wants to move more than it does. My brain wants to write more than it does. Giving them both what they want is entirely fulfilling and exhaustingly exhilarating. In fact, you can put those words in any order and you’ll be about right.

Having a full-time teaching job and a couple of teenage boys at home and a husband who sometimes wants my attention and hobbies and all the rest has provided me precious little writing time. Sometimes, I have to make do. I have to record scene ideas in the car on the way to work. (It’s fun when I act them out, just ask that driver over there.) Sometimes I type a bit between classes at work, or while I’m at the store, or late-late at night.

I’m a writer in motion. A tired writer in motion these days, but I keep going anyway.

I have to keep going, keep up the momentum, be hyper and kinetic… because who knows how much time is left? When you live with a chronic illness or three, that’s always right there, not even under the surface. I don’t get much time to brood or dwell, to question my writing talent or my sanity, to weep over a lousy scene or a negative criticism. I have to keep pushing forward.

Being a kinetic writer, spraying on the Teflon as needed for agony, perhaps has been the best part of this whole thing. I can either dwell on the negative–and nobody would blame me if I did. Or I can say, meh, screw it, I got a book to write here, and just keep swimming.

What do we do? We swim.

Or walk five kilometers.

So seriously. What’s making you brood? What’s bringing you down? ‘Cause you ain’t got time for that, dude. Here, let me give you a hug. Okay? Clock’s-a-tickin’. Let’s move!