100 ups and downs

For the past few months I’ve been flogging myself half to death trudging up and down the stairs and not because I keep forgetting something! I’m off soon (excited squeak at exactly how soon) on a BIG trek and the up and down the stairs is the bulk of my training. My asthma stops me running and I don’t have time (or the inclination) for the whole gym thing so up and down the stairs has been brilliant. When I first started I could manage about four before a) needing my inhaler or b) my legs threatening to give out but now I can do 100 up and down with no inhaler, and the other day I ran all first 50.

It takes about half an hour to do the 100 and I’ve realised it’s a lot like a word count when writing a book. The first twenty-five are ‘easy’ – I’ve just started and am keen. The first quarter of a book is like that too, after planning I can’t wait to start and meet all the characters and the first chapter, the one that usually led to me writing the book in the first place, practically writes itself.

Twenty-five to fifty up and downs are okay, it starts feeling a little tough but I’m almost at the half-way point so that keeps me going. That part of the book process is okay too, by this point I’m picking up some of the threads I’ve planted at the beginning and I’m putting more in ready for the big finale.

But then I hit fifty-one and it gets hard, harder. And from sixty to seventy-five? They hurt! In book-writing terms fifty thousand in, you hit the dreaded ‘middle of the book sag’. I have (hopefully, although not usually in first draft!) a great beginning and I’ve built in lots to pick up at my exciting dénouement but how do I get from here to there? On a tough day, when the words won’t flow, it can feel impossible, lots of head-desk moments and shouting at myself to just get on with it. If only it was as easy as trying to ignore the pain in my thighs at the top of the stairs!

With lots of teeth-gritting, I hit seventy-five up and downs and I’m so close to the end, my pace picks up. And at seventy thousand-ish words I’ve limped to the point where I’m well on to the ending and can see how it all fits together so writing then is a joy and my laptop struggles to keep up with the speed at which the words fall out of my brain.

And then it’s the magic 100 – the best up and down of the lot – and I’m hot and tired and sweaty and struggle to get back up the stairs to the shower, but I’ve done it, until tomorrow. And when I hit the last full stop at the end of the last chapter, I can type those immortal words ‘the end’. And while first time around they actually mean ‘finished for six weeks when you get to go through it all again and put right where you messed it up’, for the moment, that’s worth celebrating!