by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart
I’m going on a 206-mile road trip next month. No big deal? Yes, if I was traveling by car. But I won’t be. I’ll be on a bicycle. Not an e-bike, the trek will be completely Jim powered. At this point? Not sure I’m going to make it. But I’ll give it everything in my attempt.
A bit of quick background and then I’ll suggest how my approaching adventure is applicable to our writing journey.
I did this ride back in 1993. Our first son, Taylor was six months old and as I rode, I said to myself, “Self? You should do this ride someday with Taylor.” Thirty years later, someday has arrived.
Over the past five months I’ve discovered getting in decent enough shape now is slightly more challenging than it was 30 years ago. Uh, more than slightly.
So I’ve pushed myself. Denied myself. Trained my body like I haven’t trained in many years. At the same time I’ve been reading a book by Michael Easter called, The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. The timing has been perfect.
I’ve been embracing discomfort and the stretching and training of my body and mental strength has spilled over into every other area of my life. Have I always known hard training will yield physical, emotional, and spiritual fruit? Of course. (See Hebrews 12:11, I Corinthians 9: 25 – 27, Titus 1:8, etc.) I simply haven’t embraced discipline/training like this in a long time. But now I have and in ways I do feel I’m reclaiming my life.
I think you know where I’m going with this. If you look for ways to test, tax, and challenge yourself (with both physical challenges and mental challenges) you will develop the mental endurance to finish your manuscript. Finish it faster than you thought possible. Better than you thought possible. With more satisfaction than you thought possible.
Last time I wrote about breaking down your writing goals to nibble size bites. This time I’m talking about having the mental fortitude to nibble those bites when you don’t feel like it. That’s what forsaking comfort and consciously embracing dis-comfort will do for you.
No idea what the best training is for you. Might be physical like riding a bike. Might be fasting a day or two per week. Might be restraining from a habit you know it would be good to curb. (Give up TV for a week, anyone?)
But whatever you choose I encourage you to do it. As Paul says, we need to take the reins: “I discipline my body and bring it under strict control.”
Gotta go, I need to get sixty miles in today. And no, not planning on doing this ride when I’m 90, but then again, you never know.
How Do You Stand Up for Yourself When It Means Losing Everything? Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy.
Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt.
As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s given a journal, anonymously, during a visit to her favorite coffee shop. The pressure to rescue her mom mounts, and Allison pours her fears and heartache into the journal.
But then the unexplainable happens. The words in the journal, her words, begin to disappear. And new ones fill the empty spaces—words that force her to look at everything she knows about herself in a new light.
Ignoring those words could cost her everything . . . but so could embracing them.
James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY, and RT Book Reviews award winning author of ten novels and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories. He’s also a branding expert, audiobook narrator, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington state.