A Writing Marathon

I wrote recently about some of the ideas in “Accidental Genius” by Mark Levy. It’s a really inspiring book full of great practical ideas to get the creativity flowing.

One of these ideas, which I was really struck by is the idea of a Writing Marathon. For a while now I have been using a simple, short technique to think out loud, particularly with ideas that are stuck. It’s a 10 minute dash. I take a topic that needs work, and set a timer. Then I write for 10 minutes on the topic – making sure that once the time is up I create a list of any key actions that flow from the thinking. It’s a great way to move things forward.

The idea of the Writing Marathon is at the other end of the spectrum. Instead of short stints of writing, it’s based on the somewhat extreme idea of writing for a really prolonged period of time. As Mark Levy says, at the end of this, you can expect to be pretty exhausted, empty of energy and ideas.

I’ve been working up to doing one of these. But, it struck me that you  would be mad (or Eddie Izzard) to just go ahead and do a running marathon without any training. And from that flowed the idea of the Writing 5K, Writing 10k, Half Marathon and Full Marathon.

Today I am setting off on my first Writing 5K – about 90 minutes of concentrated writing time. Headphones in, drone sounds (courtesy of Richard Skelton) to aid concentration and a clear set of things to get writing about.

I did a “10 minutes on” dash yesterday to set out what I would focus on – and I am about to start the “writing run”. From this I will then work my way up to a full marathon.

It’s great to experiment with these ideas – and I love the idea of stretching the metaphor as far it goes.

… and if the marathon is achievable perhaps there is a writing equivalent of an Iron Man waiting for me to attempt. Wish me luck!