Getting Stripped

As many of you know, I've started running again. It's wonderful, thrilling, and at times, painful.

I was doing just fine until I picked up my pace. I was at a place in my training where I knew my body could do more, go faster, further.

But the faster you go, the harder your legs pound the pavement. The place where my Achilles tendon meets with the calf muscle started aching in both legs, but only when I ran. Not when I walked.

Since I go to a sports chiropractor I told him about it. He basically said, "No problem." He pulled out a little plastic tool and proceeded to RAKE my muscle over that sore spot. Let me just say, it was worse then giving birth! And yes, I've done that naturally, so I know!

I had to go to my happy place and breathe as though I were in labor. Just when I knew I couldn't stand another second, (and yes, I did scream a couple of times. Couldn't help it!) he switched to my other leg! Then went back and forth between the two. The thing is, I could totally feel where the knots were. He thought that maybe there were some little tears that had scar tissue building up and this "stripping" would get rid of those and I'd heal up.

The point is this. IT FREAKIN' HURT!

Often, we go through experiences like this in our writing careers. We write a fabulous story and it gets rejected time and time again. We take our fabulous story to a critique group and it gets raked over the coals.

So we re-write and re-write until we can't take it anymore! We go to our happy place and breathe deeply, then get back on that horse and query another publisher or agent.

Then, after all that pain, we finally get accepted. We are so happy! But the work doesn't stop there. It starts all over again on another level with your editor who's job it is to rake your story over the coals. If you're lucky, you get a good one like I have. Although, K didn't pull any punches. There were days when I thought she must think I was the biggest ding dong alive.

It was hard not to feel like an idiot, a child, and a failure. I was embarrassed that my writing was so "bad" and she knew it. But the pain doesn't last forever! Just like my chiropractor quit stripping, my editor did too.

Now, she praises my revisions! Loves where my story is heading. It's like manna to a starving soul.

The moral of the story is . . . don't stop when it hurts! If you do, you'll never get the scar tissue out! You'll never be able to run at full capacity! You HAVE to go through that hard stuff to be even better! Think Olympic novelist! That is your potential. To be one of the best! If an Olympic athlete quit when it got hard, they'd never make it!

Good luck and keep going, because just when you think you're going to die, you won't!