You, John Piper and I

A couple of weeks ago I ran my second marathon. It was a much more enjoyable experience than my first one last year. Probably due to not eating chocolate every day, not hoping I could get through it by downing 15 energy gels and not holding my pee in for much longer than is acceptable for the average human bladder while running 26.2 miles.

A couple of weeks before it though I hit the training wall. This is the moment when you are fed up of running for months and months. When you are sick of timing yourself, for running the same routes, for having to run not out of enjoyment but because of some stupid promise you made yourself and then told other people about.

So I tweeted this

“Bloody marathon. I can’t wait to get my life back.” Continue reading

Hemingway is right; you are wrong.

“The first draft of anything is shit”

Ernest Hemingway said that. He is one of the greatest writers that has ever lived. I am not one of the greatest writers that is even living at this moment. In Belfast. Probably even in my own home. Yet this fills me with confidence, because most of what I write first time is indeed shit. You know what they say, if it looks like shit and smells like shit…it’s probably your first draft.

But I’m in good company apparently.

Often when we start anything creative we compare what we have at the start with what we imagine or hope we have at the end. And it never holds up. It can’t. It hasn’t had time to brew or soak. It needs to just come out unedited and you can worry about moulding it later.

You don’t have to have the finished project on the first go so take the pressure off yourself knowing that you can’t. It’s probably better to listen to Hemingway than yourself on this.

Also, if you thought this post was shit that’s okay because it was my first draft.

See?!

He was right.