What running taught me about being a writer

Eight years ago, I finished my first novel. It took seven years from the first idea to publication. Today I publish a new book with over three hundred pages every two months. You can read what this has to do with being a runner in this article.

Starting from zero — running

A few months before I started my first novel, I had started running. I was now in my late thirties and entirely out of shape. As a child and as a teenager, I was a real sports acrobat, but over the years, I had become lazy and weak.

So starting to run was hard for me. I started with a Finntes level close to zero. I still remember my first run dimly. It was early in the morning, and I stepped outside the front door. The last run I could remember was years ago.

I started running and started much too fast, of course. It was clear from the beginning that I would not get far at this pace, but because I had run the last time as a young man, I only remembered fast and powerful runs. I couldn’t get my legs to run slower.

After barely five minutes, I stopped panting, and everything turned. The next five minutes, I could only stroll. For me, it felt like a defeat.

But then I started again, but this time a bit slower. I managed to run again for five minutes before I had to stop again.

When I got home half an hour later, I had run almost two kilometers, and I had just walked the rest of the way.

I didn’t feel particularly heroic when I was in the shower afterward.

My Fitness was on the ground, and my youth only a pale memory. That’s how Al Bundy must have felt when he thinks back to his glorious four touchdowns for Polk High at the 1966 city championship while sitting on the couch with a beer.

Perhaps it was a fortunate coincidence that on that day I managed to defy that feeling of despair and say to myself, “Now more than ever. I would not give up, and soon I would be an actual running machine. That’s what I wanted to do at that time.

Starting from zero — writing

I had the desire to write a book when I first read “ IT “ by Stephen King. Never before had I been so bound by a book. I thought how great it would be to create such a world myself.

But after that first impulse, it took years before I dared to tackle the project. I decided to do an Urban Fantasy story about a tribe of telepaths living unrecognized among us.

Since I had no idea how to write a book, I just started and hoped that while I was writing it, I would find out how to do it.

Fortunately, it worked for me, but the progress I made took a long time. Again and again, I interrupted my writing process for weeks, sometimes months. Whenever I came to a point where I couldn’t go on, I did everything I could to learn.

How do you build tension in a story? I read books about it. How do you write dialogues that sound natural and advance the story? I read books about it.

In the seven years I wrote my book, I read dozens of books about writing and did all the writing exercises recommended in those books. And with time, I became more confident and better.

In between, I was often at the point where it seemed I would never make it. But in the meantime, I had made significant progress in running. I could now run ten kilometers without interruption, and I remembered the first run well, where I almost collapsed after five minutes.

This experience strengthened my conviction that all I had to do was hold on and slowly improve to one day be ready to finish the book.

Every time my book didn’t seem to go any further, I said to myself the same thing I did after the first run: “Now more than ever.

Consistency and Time — Running

I don’t remember exactly how long it took to get from zero to ten kilometers today, but it took a long time.

The ten kilometers had been my goal from the beginning, and when I had reached that goal, I set the next one. At first, I wanted to run the ten kilometers in less than an hour. Later, when I had managed that, I aimed for twelve kilometers and later on, finally, eighteen. I also reached these goals.

But there were also some blows in between. Sometimes I didn’t manage to train three times a week. There were times when I even had to skip two weeks because life was different, or I got sick.

I made progress when I trained regularly and quickly lost Fitness whenever I took an unwanted break.

I learned a crucial lesson: Success only comes if you invest a lot of effort over a long time.

Consistency and Time — Writing

After the first book, it never took me so long again to finish a novel. I had found my voice as an author, knew the rules, and mastered basic techniques.

But the second book, a sequel to the first novel, didn’t start until over a year later.

Of course, the first book had hardly sold at all, because nobody knew me. So nobody bought the second book. It was frustrating to have invested so much work and to have no success.

In this challenging time, I began to read books about success, self-development, and perseverance. I wanted to know how others managed to be successful and sell their books.

It turned out that most successful writers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs had one thing in common: they were exceptionally productive. The most successful writers at Amazon Kindle were those who continually published new books.

More than a year between two books was not enough to gradually build a readership. After such a long time, the public doesn’t remember you. If you don’t deliver something new to your readers every few months, your name will never reach them.

So I decided I had to write more books faster. That’s what I did, but I made other mistakes. I then published four more books within a few months, but apparently, nothing happened.

Although I was very active on Facebook and made contacts with many authors, hardly anyone seemed to know what I stand for.

My mistake was that I was only seemingly consistent. Although I had increased the frequency of my publications, I wrote these books in three different genres.

After Fantasy didn’t seem to work for me, I chose Horror. When that also flopped, I tried two Mystery Romance novels. This was followed by a science fiction zombie crossover novel.

The latter even had a little success. This book earned me over 1000 € for the first three months. The problem was that I didn’t want to continue writing in this genre. Above all, I had little hope of earning a lot of money with science fiction. Other genres regularly led the bestseller lists.

So the mistake I made was that I hadn’t positioned myself in a niche. If you liked my zombie novel, you couldn’t relate to my fantasy novels, and my Mystery Romance books were in themselves a genre mix without a clear target audience.

I only had a real breakthrough when I decided to write thrillers from then on. I had decided on the genre because thrillers regularly dominated the top 100 at Amazon. If I ever wanted to play at the top, I had to write in this genre.

The other dominant genre was Romance, but that wasn’t for me to discuss. I don’t read Romance books and could never write one.

I could have avoided these aberrations if I had remembered my experiences of running in time. How had I managed to get from just under two kilometers to eighteen? Through regular running training.

I didn’t run for a month, then switch to volleyball and then to chess. I stayed in one sport and got better.

It’s very similar to writing, but you have to understand one thing: Writing may be a great sport, but within this sport, there are many disciplines. Fantasy is one discipline, Romance is another, and thrillers are another.

You have to specialize in one discipline if you want to make progress. Each discipline appeals to a different audience, and an audience is what you have to build to be successful in the long run.

Coming back after a setback — running

Success stories seldom run straight. There are phases of rapid progress, phases of stagnation, and sometimes massive setbacks.

While running, my massive setback was a knee injury. One day I couldn’t finish a run because I had a stabbing pain in my knee. Even in the days that followed, things didn’t get any better.

The doctor finally diagnosed a runner’s knee and prescribed a break of at least three months.

In these three months, I completely lost my momentum. Also, my then employer moved to another location, which is why my journey to work was suddenly no longer ten minutes, but one hour.

The three months turned into six, and when my knee was finally resilient again, I didn’t manage to resume my training.

The job and above all, the journey to work ate up my time and my strength, which had more than halved anyway due to the lack of training.

Before the company moved, I always ran before work in the morning. That was no longer possible.

It turned out that training after work, that is in the evening, was not feasible. I was exhausted from the day, and also, I had to shop, cook and clean the flat.

I didn’t know then that this break would last over eight years. I haven’t managed to integrate regular running training into my life for so long.

But in the meantime, I wrote one book after another, and my income grew over the years. Finally, in March 2018, I earned over 8000 € for the first time in a single month just with my Kindle Ebooks.

I decided that I wanted to quit my job and earn my living by writing.

November 01, 2018, was my last working day. It took another four months until I had gotten so involved in my new life as a freelance author that I was able to tackle another challenge: I started running again.

I knew that I was entirely out of shape, but when I needed over twenty minutes for two kilometers on my first run, I knew it would be hard.

My weight had risen from 78 kilos to 96 kilos in recent years, and I had been smoking the whole time. I was a healthy wreck that had ruined itself for its 9 to 5 job.

But I accepted the challenge and have been running every two days ever since.

Today I manage another six kilometers, and it takes me about 45 minutes. I think that for half a year this is remarkable progress. In four months at the latest, I want to be able to run ten kilometers for the first time in years.

I was also able to reduce my weight by six kilograms through the training.

In contrast to the past, my progress today is much slower. I have to invest more time and effort to do what I did back then. But that’s okay for me. Because one thing hasn’t changed: The principle that success comes from continuous work over a long period.

Coming back after a setback — writing

I haven’t had a significant setback like when running when writing yet, but in the last months, I had an experience that is quite similar.

My thrillers continue to sell well, and my productivity is still high.

But in March of this year, I started writing on Medium. On this platform, I was an absolute beginner. Thousands of readers in Germany are of no use to me on this English-language platform.

So I started all over again. The first two months, I wrote articles only occasionally and tried to learn as much as possible. In May, I accepted the challenge to write and publish an article every day.

I quickly realized that views, claps, reads, and fans increased when I publish daily. So I was on the right track.

But then I had to take care of publishing my next book and update my advertising strategy. Before I knew what was going on, I hadn’t released an article on Medium for two months.

My account was literally dead. My stories were forgotten; my already small income from this platform fell to almost zero.

Since the middle of August, I’m writing a daily article again, and it’s going uphill again. But it was hard to regain the momentum. If I had continued writing in June and July without interruption, I might already be at Triple Eonkommen today. Who knows that?

But I know one thing for sure: Once again, I will not allow myself to suffer a setback here.

I’m here, and you can’t get rid of me anymore.

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