Running

There is a strong connection between exercise and my mental wellbeing. After about of month of not working out or doing anything to really get my heart rate up, I went for a run with a friend. It was painful. My lungs hated me. I had a stich in my side. I'm sore. But its amazing how well I slept that night. Weirdly when I write stories, running ends up being a part of how I write and think about my characters. Its part of the reality of the worlds I create. In epics like Lord of the Rings, running is part of the story. The great race of the three hunters in the beginning of the Two Towers. Of course we tend to not thing about that hardness of what the characters are doing. I don't know what the equivalant is, but I have always imagined it was like running a marathon a day for several days in a row. People have done this, it is not impossible. It is however an amazing feat.

I normally think of my characters as either in shape or out of shape. Those that are in shape, could run 3 to 5 miles with very little problem. The out of shape would be hard pressed to do one mile. However, there is a third group, the extordinary. This group could run a marathon today, fight and win agaist 2000 tomorrow, and not appear to be tired. I almost never write about characters that are this outside the normal, possibly because it seems so impossible. I like writing about normal people doing things outside of what they, or others, think they are capable of.

One thing that I have never done is write about a character practicing or working out. But the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a problem. If I want to write about things that are based in reality, I need to make sure that I keep reality in mind. To often I get in the world of a story and I forget about rooting it in some sort of reality. But the reality of the story is so important to the understanding of the reader.

Its like building a house. If you see the foundation of the house once its built, you can't see all of it. You almost forget that it is there. But since the house (story) is built on that foundation, every time you see a bit of the foundation, it shouldn't throw you off, it is part of the house. It belongs with the house and the house belongs on the foundation. Without the foundation, the house would fall apart. So my reality of the world in which I write, of the characters I create must be placed on an understandable, recognizable foundation.