A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline

48 hours until the Toronto marathon. I’m excited but…is that a hamstring pull I feel? And where’d that hangnail on my left toe come from?

Ah yes, the pre-race jitters. Nothing new there. But the stakes are different this time. I want to run 26.2 miles in less than 3 hours. If the stars align, and God looks down and blows a kiss at my legs, then I’ll succeed. If there’s a bad headwind, or if the temperature dips below 5 degrees, or if I eat too much spaghetti on Saturday night and wind up visiting the porta-potty during the race, I’ll fail.

I put my chances at 50-50. Still – I REALLY WANT IT! In the past, whenever someone has asked me my marathon finishing time, I’ve had to give them a number that started with a 3. I finished my first marathon in 3:36. A year later I qualified for Boston with a 3:18. A couple of years after that I nailed a 3:04.

Just imagine, I tell myself, owning a finishing time that starts with a 2. I dream of a 2. My kingdom for a 2!

“Would you say you’re a goal oriented person?” a journalist asked me the other day.

I had to think about this. What is a goal, anyway?

A dream is a goal with a deadline. I didn’t write that. I saw it on the wall at my gym.

I think it’s true though. Dreams are basically useless until you put a clock on them; until you wrestle them to the ground and turn them into reality. If you fail in the attempt, then at least you’ve got a story. But if you succeed, Whoo hoo! Crack open the golden fudge creme Oreos!

So yeah, I suppose I’m a goal oriented person. But I’m not religious about it. I’m cool with failure.

Proof: I tried to break the three-hour barrier once before, and failed. And when I crossed the finish line, I did what I always do at the end of a race: I LAUGHED MY FACE OFF!

Seriously. I always start giggling when I cross a finish line. I’m so happy to not to be running anymore! I often do a pirouette as I sail through the finisher’s chute.

So regardless of my finishing time, I can tell you exactly what I’ll be doing this Sunday morning at 11:45 am. I’ll be cruising up Bay Street in downtown Toronto, with a big goofy grin on my face. I’ll be surrounded by thousands of cheering Torontonians – people kind enough to support loved ones (and some strangers) who are chasing a dream.

And afterward, I’ll go home and rake the leaves in the yard and clean the bathroom upstairs and then I’ll maybe make a borscht. I’ll put my finisher’s medal in the shoebox with all the others. And I’ll laugh about the importance and the folly of the number 2.

Grab your Dream by the Throat and Don’t Let Go

Something lovely happened over the weekend. Mary Ito, the host of CBC’s Fresh Air, gave a great plug for my book.

I didn’t hear it, but friends did. They told me that a woman who’d heard my interview with Mary a couple of weeks back sent an e-mail to the show. She’d given a copy of “Ultra” to her 11 year-old grand-daughter. The grand-daughter devoured it in, like, 2 days.

You have no idea how happy this makes me. Not that Mary read the e-mail (though that was nice too), but that an 11 year-old girl actually liked my book!!!

I spent twenty years writing short stories and novels. They were awful. Then, suddenly, a couple of years ago, a different kind of story burst out of me; a story about the most unlikely of subjects – a 13 year-old boy who runs a 100-mile footrace. And it got published. And now kids are reading it. Not just boys; girls too. That’s thrilling. Better than thrilling. It’s a dream come true.

Which is funny, because that’s what the novel is about too. Dreams coming true. Oh, I know there’s a big, fat running shoe on the cover, and I know the novel is called “Ultra” – as in ULTRA MARATHON, but at its heart, the book isn’t really about running. It’s about something far more universal.

It’s about grabbing your dreams by the throat and never letting them go.

You probably won’t ever run a 100-mile race. That’s okay. Actually, that’s good! 100 mile races aren’t for everyone. It’s an extreme sport, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone – unless they’re into blisters and hallucinations and smacking into bears in the forest.

But here’s what I DO recommend. And here’s what I hope readers will take away from the book. Ready? Here goes. You too can achieve your dreams.

Simple isn’t it? Totally doable. Doesn’t matter what your dream is. Want to write the perfect pop song? You can do it. Want to study at the Cordon Bleu cooking school? You can do it. Want to save Blackberry from extinction? You can do it. Want to become a marine biologist and swim with the dolphins? You can do that too. You’ll get wet, but you can do it.

Figure out your dream, then HANG ON TIGHT. As tightly if you were riding the back of a whale.

Keep chasing your dreams. I know they move fast. But trust me: You are FASTER!!!!!

“Ultra” on the Radio

On the off-chance you weren’t up at 7:30 last Sunday morning, and missed my CBC Radio interview, in which I discussed falling asleep while running, running into trees, and running into hallucinations that look a LOT like giant teapots, you can catch it here… (Follow the link below, then click on “listen”):

http://www.cbc.ca/freshair/episodes/2013/09/29/sunday-september-29/

Inch by Inch it’s a Cinch

A friend recently wrote this on her Facebook wall: Need advice on how to balance 9-5 job with creative projects.

The comments rained down. Kill your TV, get a housekeeper, lose the social life, sleep less.

I thought this: Any self-respecting creative project won’t give you any choice. It’ll hijack your life all on its own.

I know this first-hand. My last creative project (a middle grade novel called “Ultra”) picked me up by the ankles and shook me upside down until 45,000 words came tumbling out.

It was exciting to be swallowed up by the project, but it left me feeling pretty queasy. My little “creative project” informed me, in no uncertain terms, what aspects of my life were priorities, and which aspects needed to be discarded.

There was only one priority. Namely, the novel. Absolutely everything else (family, friends, relationship, wardrobe, personal cleanliness, Game of Thrones) got jettisoned.

I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m still apologising to my wife for that 12-month stretch when I went AWOL.

There is a better way, of course. If you want to lead a creative life and still keep your job and hang out with your friends and family and children from time to time, the best approach is to play the long game. Don’t try to paint or write or dance or strum or quilt a masterpiece in a month or two. Instead, scratch out a few minutes, here and there, whenever you can. Every single day. And then – don’t stop.

If you’re a writer, try to write one page per day. That might not sound like a lot, but if you do it religiously, you’ll have an entire book by year’s end.

(True story: I know a writer who keeps a writing pad in the car, so she can jot down ideas in 15 second bursts, whenever she hits a red light.)

It’s like exercising. Experts recommend that we get 45 minutes of physical activity per day, a minimum of 3 days per week. That’s not a lot – barely 2% of the week. And yet if we do it religiously, it’s enough to dramatically transform our lives.

Photo hat tip: big brother Andy.

This Girl is Six!

People tell me that running 100 miles is crazy. “It’s impossible!” they say.

Yes it is – almost.

But somewhere along the way, I must’ve decided that I wanted to accomplish the impossible, so I went out and tackled that suckah to the ground.

You can do the same thing. Not run 100 miles necessarily. But each one of us is capable of something extraordinary. The trick is to figure out what it is, and then go after it.

Like this girl, Terry, the flyest 6 year-old dancer around. She’s a b-girl prodigy:

Do the world a favour and watch the whole three minutes. If you don’t have time, be sure to check out the handstands at 1:35 and the head spins at 2:28. And remember: this girl is six!

Real Life Superheroes, Part 3

Heroes are everywhere – in comic books, movies, and of course my novel. But real-life superheroes pop up in some pretty surprising places. Like the running track, or even the basketball court.

Check out this video that’s been making the rounds:

So often these days, sports stories have to do with money, or winning-at-all-costs, or banned substances (yeah, I’m looking at you, Lance Armstrong).

But that’s not the whole story. Here’s an entire football team of real-life superheroes:

It doesn’t take much to be heroic. You don’t need X-ray vision, or six-pack abs. All you need is a little kindness.

Facing Down a Tornado

There’s a scene in my novel (now available, by the way!), in which the main character runs into a tornado while running a 100-mile race.

IIlustration from an early version of the novel

That’s Quinn, the main character, running along the shore of Hither Lake. Hailstones were crashing down around him, “like rocks in a blender.”

I included this extreme weather in the story because I once experienced a tornado while hanging out at my family cottage in Ontario. Nobody got hurt, but our nerves sure got frayed. Trees broke in two. We lost power for weeks.

This past summer, we had another tornado warning. My brother, The Photographer, caught the threatening skies on film. Here’s what the lake actually looked like.

This is What a Dream Comes True Looks Like:

Yesssss!

My first novel. In my hands. For realsies.

It was the hardest thing I ever did. Writing the thing was only half the battle. Getting it published was even harder.

But this feeling, this moment, makes it all worthwhile.

To those of you who are struggling to get your writing into print, please, don’t give up! It can be done. Hard work pays off.

And I must give a huge shout-out to my nieces and nephews – who inspired this story, lent their names to some of the characters, helped me with the jokes and dialogue, and even shared early versions of the book with their classmates. You all deserve a finisher’s medal:

Aaron, Alex, Ali, Ben, Benjamin, Brody, Caelan, Caitlin, Caleb, Christopher, Daniel, Darcie, Grace S., Grace W., Jackson, Julia, Julian, Kara, Kelsey, Kiernan, Leonardo, Lucy-Claire, Luke, Monty, Madelaine, Maggie, Mateos, Nate, Oliver, Olivia, Parisinia, Quinn, Ray, Riley, River, Rowan, Rylee, Sacha, Skyler, Sofia, Sydney, Tahnee, Tobias, Zoe.

Gifts from our Journals

Write in a journal long enough, and you’ll eventually earn some interest on your deposits.

I’ve been scribbling in journals since 1994. And seeing as I burn through a 200-page notebook in the same time it takes me to sand down a pair of running shoes (every two months or so), I must have close to 120 old ones lying around.

From time to time, I’ll pick one up and read it. Just to remind myself what I was thinking at a particular time.

Every now and again I’ll come across a nice turn of phrase, maybe even something I can use in a future story. For instance, I just found the line “she had sunburned cheeks, the colour of squashed plums.” It’s a bit florid, but you never know, I may use it someday.

Occasionally I’ll come across something that I’m not 100% certain that I wrote. For instance:

“Family is like a staple in your heart. It hurts like hell. But it holds us together.”

Usually when I steal a line from someone else, I’ll attribute the source. But in that case, I didn’t credit anyone. Does that mean I wrote those great lines myself?

Possible, but not likely. I was sorely tempted to use those lines in my soon-to-be-published book, but in the end, I didn’t trust that it was mine, so I left it out.

Sometimes, while sniffing through old journals, I’ll come across an unexpected surprise. I have no idea why I was thinking about fables in 2009, but here’s what I wrote in September of that year:

One day Cricket was tired. Turtle was passing by, and so she let Cricket climb onto her back. Turtle swam through the water, which made Cricket very excited. The waves! The sunshine! The sense of adventure!

In gratitude, Cricket bent his legs, and sang a song for Turtle. Turtle pulled up onto the shore, and sat there awhile, listening to the beautiful music. Turtle fell in love with Cricket’s song, and the pair stayed together for many years. They were very happy, what with Cricket singing songs, and Turtle ferrying the two of them back and forth across the river.

One day, Turtle dug a hole and lay an egg. When the egg hatched, a funny-looking creature popped out. It sang songs like a cricket, and had long legs which it used to jump. But it loved to swim through the water with webbed hands and feet.

And that is how Frog came into the world.

Again, I didn’t attribute it to anyone. Does that mean I actually wrote it myself? Or did I hear it told aloud at a storytelling event, or from a child, and rush home to share it with my journal?

I can’t be sure. I don’t remember. So if anyone recognizes this story, please let me know.

The Re-write Blues

Rewriting a novel is like arriving at your new apartment right after the movers have dropped off all your stuff. Everything you need is in that huge mountain of boxes, only you have no idea where.