2017 Live Writing Marathon – 1. The starting line

Friday morning and time to start the writing marathon. This is the second time I have done a writing marathon. The first one took place in August 2015, so there has been quite a gap in between, taken up with figuring out how to turn a manuscript into a fully fledged book (Values Count).

Over the next four days there will be regular updates here on the blog as I am #workingoutloud to capture the learning from the process as it emerges. That’s likely to mean that there will be as many as 8-10 blog posts. So, if this isn’t of interest to you, please ignore me until the middle of next week!

The last few weeks have involved preparation for today. I started a Writing Marathon Preparation Diary which I have completed most days for 10 minutes. This gave me a short amount of time each day where I was committed to thinking about the marathon and really focused on how to prepare and how best to use the time over the weekend.

Fortunately, I had the blog posts from the first marathon and a detailed set of journal entries that I have drawn on to build and fully prepare for the next 4 days. This has really given me a sharp focus and clear sense of direction.

Since the last marathon I have read “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi which is regarded by many as the key text on how to get into a flow state and be really creative and productive. That has set me in good stead for the next few days. Also, as preparation I read Seth Godin‘s “What to do when it’s your turn (and it’s always your turn” over the last couple of weeks and found it really inspiring.

So, what are my goals for this marathon?

I’ve set out some key targets for the time ahead of me:

1. People who inspire me – over the last couple of years I have written some blog posts about people who have inspired my thinking and my overall approach to life and work. I’ve a long list of 20 or so other people that I want to write about. This will be like a form of biography of ideas. I’m aiming to write a further 10,000 words for this in addition to the 5,000 words already written.
2. Coaching Ideas book – this has an outline and some initial writing and I want to add another 5,000 words to this book.
3. Hang Fire – my latest collection of poetry. I have 12 poems written already and will add another 8 poems over the next 4 days.
4. Live blogging – aiming for 2 blog posts each day

I then have some other goals regarding time spent on the meditation cushion to keep my head clear, music that I will listen to whilst working, and time for exercise too.

So, that’s the territory I am aiming to cover. The next post here will be at the end of today, to summarise the first day’s progress. Thanks for reading…

(I’m going to use a set of photos for this blog series which were taken from the train one sunny morning a couple of weeks ago. I thought the physical journey was a good metaphor for the creative journey. Hope you enjoy them)

Also published on Medium.