HALLIE EPHRON: For the last week I’ve been in warm, lovely Key West Florida enjoying the company of dear friends and my grandkids who are on school break and happy to spend 24/7 in a swimming pool.
My granddaughter has been swimming competitively after school, and the first thing she wanted to know was: how many laps would she have to swim to make a mile. It’s a lot.
She then proceeded to swim that many laps, stroke after stroke, skimming through the water, apparently effortlessly. Flip turn at the end of each lap. Pushing off and shooting back.
I watched her in awe.
I swim more like a beached whale, not convinced at all that the water will support me. Struggling and fighting for every stroke. Exhausted by the end of a few laps. Exhausted and bored.
Sometimes writing feels like that. Such a laborious process at times, and so effortless at others when I'm in the groove and can lay down word after word without braking a sweat.
Can you swim like that, at one with the water, as it were? Write like that when the ideas flow?
Or maybe there’s some other activity that you do better when you stop trying so hard?
Back when my knees allowed me to run, I used to compare writing to my regular three mile loop in our neighborhood. The first mile was ALWAYS agony, puffing and panting, my muscles complaining, wondering why the heck I was doing this to myself. Then, right around the start of the second mile, I broke through, and could enjoy my effort and the pace and the scenery around me. The third mile was triumphant - yes! I can do this and I am! It was a great feeling and I miss it.
There’s nothing like the flow state in writing, when it stops feeling like you’re laying a wall brick by brick and suddenly becomes flying. I think it’s those times that keeps us going.
RHYS BOWEN: when I was a child swimming was in an unheated pool. We learned breaststroke, swam a width and got a certificate. We swam in the cold sea on vacation, so I never got proficient.
But then I discovered snorkeling. Put a mask and find on me and I am one with the water. I can go forever, as John will tell you. Once in Grand Cayman I followed the reef out, never looking up or hearing him shout. When I did look up the shore looked as if someone had drawn a pencil line far away. I looked around. Not a soul in sight. Then I had to swim all the way back to a frantic John
Most of my married life we’ve had a pool so swimming is something I do every day. Our kids were all competitive swimmers!
As for writing: every book is the same. First hundred pages in pure panic mode, convinced it’s never going to work. Then next hundred getting into the rhythm and seeing the way ahead and the last hundred or so rushing at full steam.
LUCY BURDETTE: I’m a good solid swimmer, though it’s never quite effortless. I wonder if I write like that too? I’d like to write like Rhys (except for the pure panic), but for me it feels like the beginning is joyful.
But then the original spark runs out of juice and I’m left wondering how I can possibly fill more pages.
JENN McKINLAY: I like swimming in pools but not laps because…boring. But I love diving games or basketball or volleyball in the pool.
Clearly, I’m not a regimented swimmer. I am not a deep sea ocean swimmer because sharks,,,duh. But like Rhys, I love snorkeling or boogie boarding or paddle boarding.
I think writing is similar to swimming for me only in that if it’s boring, I can’t do it. The second I lose interest in my story a fictional someone is getting murdered or heartbroken or hit by a witch’s curse.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hallie, you must be having such fun with the kids! I liked swimming when I was a kid but not so much these days. I don’t like getting my face in the water–a big handicap! At least not in chlorinated water.
The few times I’ve been snorkeling I have loved it but I have to be able to touch the bottom. I’m terrified of deep water. Maybe this is why I like to have a road map when I’m writing?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I think absolutely everything works better when you stop trying so hard, the secret being that you have to work so hard and learn so much in order to be able to not have to try as hard. I’m an experienced okay swimmer , and once absolutely caused a gasp from my grandson when I did a perfectly good dive off the side of the pool. I think he thought I was incapable.
But do I love swimming? No. I love floating on a raft in the pool with a book and a glass of lemonade. That’s pretty fabulous. Or walking in the ocean up to my ankles.
Let’s just put it this way. My feet like to swim.
As for writing and swimming. I do a lot of preparation mentally and emotionally, then I dive off the end in a great wave of enthusiasm, swimming swimming swimming until whatever the equivalent of page 36 is.
Then there is a lot of treading water going on. A lot. Of. Treading water.
Then comes the persistence, and when I see the shore, I have a sudden spurt of energy.
But yes, absolutely, those days that I am at one in the writing water, that is the reason I keep doing it.
HALLIE: I do find it's the same way with cooking. When I'm in the groove, I'm not stressed at all and improvising... the food comes out tastier. Ditto Falling asleep: definitely works best when I stop trying.
And that scary feeling when you enter a room full of strangers? Just relax and lean into it. Conversations will flow.
What about everyone else? What gets easier when you stop trying so hard?
What fun, Hallie . . . spending time with grandkids is always great . . . .
ReplyDeleteI'm in awe of your granddaughter [I don't swim at all] . . .
I think most everything gets easier when you stop trying so hard [and you're not so stressed] . . . .
Truth! When I stop trying so hard, things feel easier. I figure out that when I practice, it becomes easier for me?
DeletePractice! And Getting myself in the "zone" -- imagining doing whatever it is well, relaxing, and then doing helps me.
DeleteI was a competitive swimmer in high school. What was the thing I was able to do after I stopped trying so hard?
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to figure it out! My attempts in speech therapy after my brilliant speech therapist moved away was futile! As an adult now I figured that the times when I could speak effortlessly was when I sang along to songs while watching someone singing on tv. I’ve noticed that when I sing, the words come out clearer! I forgot to do that at the left coast crime conference and everyone was patient with me!
That's completely fascinating! And Diana, you're making me realize how rarely I have to "search" for a word when I'm singing a song. It's just there.
DeleteI enjoy doing many things, including swimming, but I am not sure I do any of them effortlessly. Possibly reading. And breathing.
ReplyDeleteWell that's two pretty important activities. I effortlessly wisecrack, something I wish I could stifle ... sometimes. But only with 20-20 hindsight.
DeleteDefinitely NOT swimming. It bores me silly. This might sound funny, but I've learned in the balance class I've taken over the last couple of years how to stand from a chair without groaning or needing to push up or pull myself up. My core has gotten stronger and I know where to put my feet and arms, so now I get up without thinking about it. Yay, me!
ReplyDeleteI'm with the Reds on living for those times when the writing flows out, when I come up for air after writing a couple thousand words and am surprised at the time. Writing isn't always like that, but when it is, I'm reminded of why I do what I do.
Also, like Julia, I remember those days of being in the zone while running, especially on a six- or ten-mile weekend run. I felt like I could run all the way to Rio. Sadly, I no longer run, although I do enjoy a long walk when all body parts decide to cooperate.
DeleteHallie, how wonderful to be in Key West with your grandchildren! How simply delightful!
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother owned a big lakeside cottage near my hometown and my mom used to take us there almost every day during the summer. My cousins stayed there, sometimes 3 families at once. Incredible memories! That is where I learned to swim and to row. I am not a distance swimmer. I am very neat with precise strokes that look nice...but after a couple lengths in a regulation size pool, I have to do a backstroke. I never take in sufficient air when I swim, even doing the breast stroke. Part of the problem when doing the crawl is that mechanically, I cannot close my nose when my face is upturned. So I can't do "full immersion" because you must turn face-up underwater before you grab a breath. A few years ago I was swimming laps a few times a week and getting stronger, but the pandemic hit and I never went back to it.
My first date with Irwin I gave him a swimming lesson.
I loved swimming as a child and teenager, took classes for many years and spent many summer afternoons at the local pool. I don't know if it was ever really effortless though. As an adult, I don't swim regularly, but if there's a pool where I'm staying, I will swim a few laps, mostly lazy breast stroke, and enjoy that feeling of being held by the water.My son's dad is both a musician and a pilot, and he talks about being in the zone, both when he's performing and when he's flying. He says that you practice, practice, practice and get that muscle memory down. After all that practice, the skill comes pretty easily and he feels like he is just floating along with an easy concentration that allows him to leave himself behind. I'm not sure there's anything in my life that feels that way at the moment==maybe when I'm doing a long run and the movement seems effortless for a few minutes.
ReplyDelete