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How writing (and any creative activity, for that matter) is similar to a marathon.

Frank Chimero in a new post (Running Towards) where he likens writing to running a marathon:

In the effort of trying to make something good, we will not look good. Making is messy business, and from the outside, it frequently looks like toiling. So, like our business, we will be a mess, both inside and out. Unkept hair, sloppy apartment, and a general knot in our guts because there is a big thing not yet done. We will wear our pain on our faces, and mop the sweat from our brow. The thud of our feet hitting the pavement will jolt up through our legs and shake our shoulders. Our cheeks will tremble with each step.

We will hurt, but, oddly, to run well, we must relax. So we should relax. We will not care how we look. Running long distances has an aesthetic ugliness, and yet, also simultaneously has a beauty to the endeavor. There is a grace of appearances and a grace of effort, but the two may never meet. The runners that worry if they look good are the ones that usually lose. We choose to run, hurt, and look ugly. We celebrate this.