Why Writing a Novel is Like Running 50 Miles--Part 1

At the beginning, you think:

“This is going to be the best novel ever written! This is my life’s work! When others write novels after me, they will  think of my novel and say, ‘that is a real novel! If only I could write a novel half as good, I would die happy!’”

At the beginning of a 50 mile race, you’ve been tapering for weeks. You’ve done some killer runs, over marathon distance even. You’ve suffered, and you know what suffering is about. Right?

If you’ve written a novel before, you think—I know how to do this. I know how to suffer. I know how much the middle part hurts. I know how to make myself get though the bad patches. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.

In a race, everyone is smiling those first few miles. You feel like you can go forever like this, which is good, because 50 miles is actually about 20 miles past forever.

In novel writing, you want to query agents or editors because this is going to sell a million copies. This is going to be bigger than The Hunger Games or Harry Potter or Twilight, combined!

(This is also why agents and editors mostly don’t want to hear from you if you haven’t finished the novel. Everyone thinks that they can finish 50 miles faster than they can do it. They hear about doing 15 minutes per mile or 20 minutes per mile and think how easy that is. It IS easy. For the first 5 miles. The race doesn’t even really start until mile 30, though. In novel writing terms, that means about page 200.)

This is the big picture:

It looks awesome, doesn’t it? Running down it is awesome. It’s the running back up, when you’re already got 40 miles on your legs and your heart that it’s going to hurt. But that’s all right. Don’t think about that now. Just enjoy the view. Have fun with your first 20 pages. That’s the addiction that keeps you coming back.