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DRIVING DAY

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DRIVING DAY

The shower in our Mammoth condo has the coldest water. Comes right off the mountain as snowmelt and blasts out of the faucet like a river of ice. A solid minute of that, followed by a quick turn to the right and instant hot water makes for an invigorating way to start the day.

That's not the only reason I'm driving to Mammoth tonight. The Southern Section track and field finals will go until 5:30 and then it's four hours up the mountain. I need to get away for a few days, go someplace where I can think and pray. Get the perspective that only distance can provide. This past week was just plain rough and I need to escape.

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SCATTERED

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SCATTERED

"I read your blog," Calene told me the other day. This is news. Callie doesn't read my books and doesn't always venture into this space. It goes with the territory. Jerry Seinfeld says his wife doesn't think he's funny. Author's wives don't need to read our stuff because we (at least me) download about it verbally all the time.

"What'd you think?"

"It sounded scattered. Like the way you've been acting lately."

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A KEEPER

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A KEEPER

I got on the subject of coaches wives with my good friend Sean Zeitler this morning. Coaching is such an all-consuming passion that not only do we spend countless hours obsessing about the athletic performances of other people's children, we bring it home. It becomes dinner table conversation, morning coffee conversation, and one of those narratives that always lingers in our subconscious waiting to launch into a discussion.

MAY GRAY

MAY GRAY

I don't know how it got to be May. There are boxes of Christmas decorations on the garage floor outside my office waiting for me to put them away. We're almost halfway to Christmas. Do I just leave them out? They're not bothering anyone.

I was listening to a podcast (Huberman Lab) the other day. He was talking about the auditory process, and how white noise helps people focus. As those Christmas decorations attest, I don't have that problem. When a project has me in its grip I can shut out everything else. This goes double when a book project combines with coaching to overwhelm my subconscious….

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OUT ON A LIMB

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OUT ON A LIMB

Woke up this morning feeling very good about The Long Run. Last Saturday I had lunch with a good friend who was a mover and shaker in the running business. He pointed me down a new line of inquiry for the book — one so novel and out of nowhere that I couldn't wait to weave it into the text. At last, after months laboring to separate fact from legend, a clear path forward.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

I just finished Chapter Eight of the new book on Friday. Printed it out then headed to Board & Brew after practice to edit. Just me, the pages, and a pencil. Sitting in a crowded place and losing myself in the words is easy, having spent the early years of my career writing at the kitchen table when the boys were newborns.

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FINAL COUNTDOWN

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FINAL COUNTDOWN

Taking London comes out seven weeks from Tuesday. I've been doing this a long time so I know it's best to try not to think about it. The gestation cycle is so long between finishing a book and seeing it in print. I will be euphoric and perhaps weep when I receive my first box of finished copies, cracking it open to hold the new book in my hands for the first time.

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BOOK WRITING 101

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BOOK WRITING 101

Had a nice zoom with my editor this morning. Second Pass for Taking London is coming my way on Thursday, which is the last time I'll see the words before it gets sent to the printer, there to be bound and shipped to the four corners of the earth. I'll read it one more time, hoping there are no completely awful sentences. It's a year this week since I began writing it, but the research went on for a while before that…