What You Can Learn About Writing From Running
It’s boring, there’s no winner or finish line.
If there’s one sport to which you can compare the work of a writer — it’s long-distance running.
It’s Boring On The Outside
Both writing and running are hard. But not in the way you think.
In both running and writing, regularity and momentum are key. When you get ready for a marathon, you train every day, trying to build stamina. It doesn’t matter how many words you wrote today, or how many hours you’ve worked if you’re too exhausted to get back in the game tomorrow.
Stephen King writes 2,000 words every day. On Christmas. On his birthday. On the fourth of July. Srinivas Rao famously shared how writing 1,000 words each day changed his life. Hemingway wrote for 2 hours each day before breakfast.
There are creatives — not just writers, but entrepreneurs and artists from other fields — who boast working 8–12 hour days. While you may marvel at such productivity, it’s unsustainable. Writing requires deep concentration and focus — ‘deep work’ as Cal Newport calls it — which can’t be done for more than 2–4 hours per day. Regularity, consistency, and — to be honest — pure stubbornness is essential when it comes to writing and running.
Think about it. If you write 1,000 words per day, your output is 300K words per year. That’s three full-sized novels, right there.
Of course, when you read about writers working ‘just’ 2 hours per day, it might seem they have it easy. But it’s those other 22 hours — your ‘downtime’ — when the real writing happens. That’s when ideas come, and you live (and rest) during those 22 hours for the sake of showing up tomorrow and creating something great. Again. And again.
Someone getting ready for a marathon doesn’t run all day long, they train in the morning for a few hours and rest. It’s in the resting, recovery time that muscles are built.
There are vocations where speed matters. But both writing and running are quite slow and tedious on the outside. Each day is the same, and your life resembles the Groundhog Day movie. But it’s in that regular patient pace that great novels are written, and vast distances are conquered.
It Requires Discipline
Jim Collins spent years researching what makes great companies tick. In one of his books, he talks about the “20-mile march”: great entrepreneurs (as opposed to merely ‘good’) all possessed this quality of consistent progress. Don’t feel like getting up in the morning? March twenty miles. The weather is excellent, and you can march more? You still walk twenty miles.
Both great writers and great runners are incredibly disciplined. What are they disciplined in?
- In showing up each day;
- In not waiting for quick results;
- In internalizing their goals.
In one of his books, Steven Pressfield wrote about how horses are trained. You’d think that running horses are exhausted by their trainer during practice. Not at all. «The horse that so desperately wants to get out on the track will always outrun the horse that’s overworked,» he writes.
The most important thing that writers — and runners — need to discipline themselves in, is not overworking themselves to exhaustion. The key is to get back in the game tomorrow, not overworking yourself today.
When I write, there are a bunch of things I have to discipline myself in, including not checking stats, not getting discouraged when a particular piece didn’t get enough attention, and writing something worth reading each day.
When I train for a marathon, I can’t afford to think how fast I run or whether I’ll beat my time. All I care about is running more kilometers this month than last.
There’s No Winner
Unlike most sports, in long-distance running — there’s no clear winner. Of course, there are people who run the fastest marathons, but few runners think about competing with other runners. Running is about beating your past self, not others.
Writing is the same. Great writers don’t care about ‘beating the competition.’ They write because it gives them pleasure, and they write for themselves. Srinivas Rao calls this «working for the audience of one.» Because if you — your audience — love what you’ve got, chances are there will be other people who do, too. And if you don’t like it — what’s the point?
Warren Buffet is famous for many quotes, but one of his great concepts is the «inner vs. outer scorecard.» You live by the outer scorecard if you care about what other people think of you, and you rely on others for validation of your results. And you live by your inner scorecard if knowing that you’ve done well — is enough for you.
«Would you be the world’s best lover, but have all people think you’re the worst, or would you be the world’s worst lover, but have other people think you’re the best?» Warren asks.
The answer to that question will show you which scorecard you’re living by.
When does a runner succeed in a race? When he beat his best time. When does a writer finish his work? When he feels he’s finished. You’re done when you think you’re done.
Both writers and runners are people who live by inner scorecards. They know that if they start focusing on what other people think, or what prize they should win, or how much money they should make from their writing — all is lost. Writing and running are all about goal internalization: you do it because you are enjoying the process. You do it because you want to become better today than you were yesterday.
You’re a stoic. All you care about is your effort — doing the best you can. If you did all you could, you’re a winner. What happens as a result is not up to you to decide. You control only the effort, not the outcome.
There’s No Finish Line
Steven Pressfield recalls finishing his first novel and showing it to his mentor. His mentor replied, «Good for you. Rest, and start the next one right away.»
People love to finish things. When you cross off an item on your to-do list, dopamine rushes through your body, and you feel great. You’re productive. Unfortunately, when you’re a writer (or a runner), you’ll have to become comfortable with not finishing things. You’ll have to learn to sit with an unfinished manuscript and to accept that 10K is just 25% of the marathon distance.
In both writing and running, you’re never finished. Even if you finish the book or the race, there will be another one. Every day is day one.
But the good news is, not everyone should be a writer. I chose writing (and running) because I am happy doing those things. They allow me to make use of my natural talent for self-discipline. I love showing up each day, knowing that I am never finished.
The key is, as always, knowing yourself — and what works for you. But if you’re a writer, you’ll find that all of the above holds.