I'm going to church today. Haven't been in months, even before Calene passed. I don't really know why I'm going, to tell the truth. The worship music goes on too long, the message will be solid but my mind will drift, and it's a solid twenty-minute drive each way. Gas costing what it is these days, the trip almost seems like a luxury. But I will be around people and my thoughts will focus as I daydream, hopefully answering the questions troubling me this week. Perhaps I will run into someone I know and we will exchange hugs. That will make the journey worth it. In this world of fist bumps and high fives, sometimes the best thing is a solid heartfelt hug.
I am to present my editor with a couple new book ideas tomorrow. No doubt this will be one of the thoughts distracting me. I'd dearly like to do another running book. I hit the sweet spot of my storytelling abilities with The Long Run and I'd like another challenge. I get emails from people telling me that TLR is not what they expected it to be. Instead of the same stories about iconic runners they've read and again, the action seems to rise up off the page. Wit, poignance, and just a bit of my own personal drama.
The Long Run is certainly not about me, though I do allude to some troubled times at home when my Dad was off in Vietnam. Running became my way of coping. I'd slide out the door when things got rough and disappear down a trail for a few solitary miles. I was five feet tall and weighed less than a hundred pounds. The trails could have held all manner of horrors for such a small fourteen-year-old but running was my superpower. I feared nothing.
I've gone as far as I want with that storyline. My mom and I eventually made our peace. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
I said a "couple" new ideas, which means one of them won't be about running. I could do another World War II book but that's been overdone.
I should pause here and point out that when it comes to pitching book ideas there are certain market trends which are understood: the WWII readership is aging out, women read more than men (so write for women), America is turning inward so books about people and events happening on faraway continents are probably not going to get a lot of attention. I am not equipped to write about the Black, queer, or transgender lifestyles, which get reviewed frequently. Any attempt on my part to write fantasy or romance or anything having to do with video games will ring false. I should add to that list Young Adult and children's books. I am particularly suited for writing about grief right now but it has only been ten weeks. Something tells me this bumpy ride is in its infancy.
This narrows my choices considerably. But I am who I am, and I will come up with a very good book idea (or two) sometime today. Something that forces me to travel someplace far away for research. Something fun. Something that doesn't take me away from coaching for too long. Most of all, something I connect to, touching my heart in such a way that I can tell the story with passion and humor, making you connect to it, too.
I'm 65 in three weeks. What I'm not going to do is retire. Hard as they may be to find, a good idea makes for deep fulfillment as it unveils itself on the page. So I will sit in church surrounded by a crowd of people, singing a little, daydreaming a little, waiting for what's next to make itself known.