Martin Dugard's Blog, page 3

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.

I did absolutely no writing on Sunday, which only heightened the anticipation. Well, most of Sunday. Seized with inspiration just before watching the White Lotus finale, I scampered out to my office and wrote a couple quick sentences before I forgot them. This is always the sign of a good book. It means I'm engaged. Books that don't capture my soul and feel more like work are forgotten the moment I close my laptop and turn off the light in my office. Books that percolate in my subconscious 24/7 make me feel alive.

Now, I did something on Friday that I don't usually do, and perhaps should not have done at all: showed a few chapters to two people I trust completely for honest feedback. It's always dicey this early in a first draft, because I haven't had the chance to take a helicopter view of the work and see the glaring faults. But, you know, I was feeling my oats. And I have to admit that not having a co-author after fifteen years had me looking for a little dialogue about the written word.

I wouldn't call what happened this morning as "it all came crashing down." Yet I read one batch of comments before I'd gotten around to writing a word. They weren't bad. Not at all. But my very AI-savvy buddy John Burns let ChatGPT have a look. What came back were about a dozen new directions I could take the story. Ugh. To make matters more confounding, they were all brilliant.

There is a dish of peanut butter M&M's on the dining room table as I write this. It's a beautiful day and I've moved to a spot where I can feel the sunshine, listen to the fountain, and smell the deep green of spring as I write. In the sudden confusion about where to go next with the book, I would prefer not to write another word today. Draining the candy dish and day drinking seems a far more attractive option. Avoidant behavior isn't the worst decision in the world, is it?

This is why God invented deadlines. And mortgages. And self-esteem.

Tons of how-to books about writing will talk about creativity and finding your quiet place to listen to your muse. That's not it. Writing is decisions, decisions, decisions. What to write? What's the first word? What's the first sentence? How to get into the chapter and how to get back out? Then, when a whole new batch of data is thrown at the narrative, that also needs to be culled and refined.

So, I'm going to sit with my new garden of storytelling dilemmas. If I really get stuck I'm going to step out of the office for an hour to find a trail. That usually provides clarity. I won't eat the M&M's (other than the five I've already gobbled). There will be no IPA(s). I'll find 1,000 good words. They're going to make me laugh and think and perhaps cry. In this way, day after day, I will write an unforgettable story.

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Somewhere in a New York City recording studio, a team of professionals is recording the audio version of Taking Midway. I receive periodic updates, mostly about pronunciations, though I'm on the other side of the country. I'm spending the morning doom scrolling in the chemo ward, wondering if I should wander over to the cafeteria for a bold cup of coffee or just drink the ordinary stuff from the machine. The wifi isn't so good, so I use my phone as a hotspot. In typing that last sentence I learned that hot and spot make one word instead of two.

You'd be amazed at how quickly the chemo ward becomes routine. The first time is pretty shocking and more than a little sad. My therapist says the trauma of that visit still exists no matter how much I pretend it's not there. Now it's just a normal Monday.

I got up at 5 then headed to the track to coach morning practice. My dreams were chaotic and I woke up wondering their meaning. There was a drizzle as I opened the track shack. Wrote the workout on the white board in black marker, then took my hood off and let the mist hit my face and wake me up as I waited for the team. It's Monday and we raced Saturday, so I resisted the urge to make this morning our typical "Take Your Medicine Monday," which can be very demanding indeed. We had a nice team chat. Then a little tempo, a little speed, and a cooldown before sending them off to the showers.

Got home at 7:15. Calene was waiting, chemo ward cozy blanket in hand. Didn't hit any traffic on the 5. Pulled into the UCI parking garage at 7:45, just after change of shift, making it easier to find a spot. The chemo process begins with blood and labs. Then into the infusion room with its comfortable chairs and IV drips. I have a window seat. The nurse gets approval from the doctor to begin the chemo. Name and birthdate check. Now we just sit and wait for the clear bags of fluid to drain down into the port.

So routine. Sometimes I doze but more often I work on the new book. Callie and I chat, a word or two about White Lotus and Greenland. She reaches over and holds out her phone to show me a funny reel. I lament my busted NCAA bracket. We talk about getting breakfast afterward. If it all takes too long we'll just go straight home because the dogs need to go outside. Passage of time is marked by the slow chemo drip. No clocks in here. Wouldn't matter if there were. Absolutely no one is in a hurry.

Sometimes when I talk in such matter-of-fact terms about chemo day, friends give me a slightly horrified look, as if the topic should only be spoken in whispers. I catch myself and realize it's not so regular to them and change the subject. Not everyone understands how routine this all feels. Just another Take Your Medicine Monday.

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Somewhere in a New York City recording studio, a team of professionals is recording the audio version of Taking Midway. I receive periodic updates, mostly about pronunciations, though I'm on the other side of the country. I'm spending the morning doom scrolling in the chemo ward, wondering if I should wander over to the cafeteria for a bold cup of coffee or just drink the ordinary stuff from the machine. The wifi isn't so good, so I use my phone as a hotspot. In typing that last sentence I learned that hot and spot make one word instead of two.

You'd be amazed at how quickly the chemo ward becomes routine. The first time is pretty shocking and more than a little sad. My therapist says the trauma of that visit still exists no matter how much I pretend it's not there. Now it's just a normal Monday.

I got up at 5 then headed to the track to coach morning practice. My dreams were chaotic and I woke up wondering their meaning. There was a drizzle as I opened the track shack. Wrote the workout on the white board in black marker, then took my hood off and let the mist hit my face and wake me up as I waited for the team. It's Monday and we raced Saturday, so I resisted the urge to make this morning our typical "Take Your Medicine Monday," which can be very demanding indeed. We had a nice team chat. Then a little tempo, a little speed, and a cooldown before sending them off to the showers.

Got home at 7:15. Calene was waiting, chemo ward cozy blanket in hand. Didn't hit any traffic on the 5. Pulled into the UCI parking garage at 7:45, just after change of shift, making it easier to find a spot. The chemo process begins with blood and labs. Then into the infusion room with its comfortable chairs and IV drips. I have a window seat. The nurse gets approval from the doctor to begin the chemo. Name and birthdate check. Now we just sit and wait for the clear bags of fluid to drain down into the port.

So routine. Sometimes I doze but more often I work on the new book. Callie and I chat, a word or two about White Lotus and Greenland. She reaches over and holds out her phone to show me a funny reel. I lament my busted NCAA bracket. We talk about getting breakfast afterward. If it all takes too long we'll just go straight home because the dogs need to go outside. Passage of time is marked by the slow chemo drip. No clocks in here. Wouldn't matter if there were. Absolutely no one is in a hurry.

Sometimes when I talk in such matter-of-fact terms about chemo day, friends give me a slightly horrified look, as if the topic should only be spoken in whispers. I catch myself and realize it's not so regular to them and change the subject. Not everyone understands how routine this all feels. Just another Take Your Medicine Monday.

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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.

Then on the set of Survivor, writing a whole companion book and also finishing Farther Than Any Man just yards from the clear blue ocean, in the communal dining/socializing/television-watching area.

I once got so caught up that I missed a flight, even though it boarded about thirty feet from me. To my defense, I was in Argentina and they called the flight in Spanish. But still, there's losing yourself in the words and there are bonehead moments. Hoping that one never happens again, particularly if I'm in some corner of the world where flights only land and depart once a day — or week.

I sat there alone with Chapter Eight. Inside of a minute I knew it needed a lot of work. But I plowed on, putting a line through a sentence or two, writing in a word here and there. Sometimes, these moments reveal the chance to add some unique commentary, as if no writer in the world ever had the same vision. It's a lot of staring at the page. A lot. By the time I got done, it was clear the chapter would have to be totally rewritten. It isn't horrible but it is certainly sloppy. It's easy to fall into despair when a week's worth of work reveals itself as shite. But I knew it could be fixed.

Gathering my pencil and pages, I said goodbye to the guy next to me who'd been surreptitiously reading over my shoulder and went home to think. I can only imagine what he thought of the horrible writing.

The Long Run comes out next April, in time for the Boston Marathon. Let's not put the cart before the horse, because Taking Midway will be in stores on May 20. Order your copy today. It got a great review from Publisher's Weekly, a publishing industry staple. So I definitely think you'll be turning the pages long into the night with this one. Cool characters. Lots of action.

I am currently reading one of Rick Atkinson's World War II books. As a research nerd, I heartily applaud and am inspired by the depth of his digging. Maybe one day I will write something as long and exhaustive in my dotage. But for now I like to write heavily researched, page-turning history, for people who love history and for people who say they don't. My goal is to expand my audience, because the average history reader is over forty. Sure would be great to reach a few college kids and young parents. I want to entertain and inform. Midway is one such book.

The Long Run will be too. There's never been a history of the running boom quite like it.

But first I need to get past Chapter Eight.

I did a little work on it yesterday, sitting on the back porch as a hummingbird hovered at the fountain, taking long sips of falling water. My outdoor writing table is in the shade until about 3 pm, when it is bathed in so much sunlight that I can't see my computer screen. But I didn't hurry. Chapter Eight is nine pages long, soon to be six. I whittled out redundancies and deleted sentences that seemed so brilliant when I wrote them. I am ready to move on to Chapter Nine, which I will today.

But even as I go forward (because if you stay in one place too long you can get very, very stuck), I'll take an hour every morning and go back to Chapter Eight until it's just what it needs to be. Might take a week. A month. Perhaps I will set it aside and come back to it. But it will get fixed.

So next April when The Long Run comes out, and you find yourself turning the page to begin Chapter Eight, remember this blog post and know that the first draft was chaos. If I do my job right — and I completely intend to — those same words will be magical by the time you hold them in your hands. When that day comes, drop me a line and let me know what you think.

We held a neighborhood St. Patrick's Day party in the cul de sac on Saturday night. Everyone brought an entrée and a dessert. BYOB. It was nice catching up with everyone in person, rather than just waving as they drive by on their way to work. The evening sky was clear but it was California-cold, most of us wearing something down.

I like my neighbors. We make each other laugh. I'd spent a long day in the sun at a track meet in Laguna. I wasn't sure I'd be in the mood to socialize. But I hung around longer than I thought I would, then did the Irish exit, which seemed appropriate for this holiday.

At one point, a neighbor introduced me to her teenage daughter, who is writing a book. She wanted advice. I am always happy to offer an opinion when it comes to writing. The conversation really got rolling when the young girl told me she's about a hundred pages in. This implies commitment to the story. It means she's figuring out the characters and their arc. Most of all, it means she's putting in the time. The smile on her face as she described how much she enjoys writing was infectious. That's exactly how I feel when I talk writing. It never gets old.

She asked for some guidance so I offered a few nuggets of advice and offered to read her book when she's done. I'm not sure I was of much help but I know from personal experience that making the public statement that writing is your calling is very hard indeed, so kudos to her for her courage.

The conversation was brief. I don't know if it was uplifting for her, but it sure did me a lot of good. This week has seen my new book really find its voice, which is a great place to be in the writing process. But I also spent a whole lot of time learning the language of insurance companies and body shops after last week's Rover crash. It's no fun.

Back when I first made the decision to chase the writing life, I thought of the process as solely creative. You know: write pretty sentences and tell fun stories. I remember thinking that once I made a million dollars I would hang it up. Not sure where I got that number or that idea, but looking back it seems averse to who I really am. I need writing like I need to draw breath.

Now I know that writing is not just about a good story or making words dance a jig on the page. It's letting the process transport me to a place I can't completely describe unless you've been there. It's not an easy place. Sometimes it's loaded with deep emotional pain. Sometimes it's magical, so enchanting that the rest of the world doesn't exist. I'm lucky enough to go there three or four hours a day.

Sunday night it was my turn for inspiration. Callie and I went to watch Fortune Feimster at the Irvine Improv. She was trying out a new act, which meant taking occasional breaks from the comedy to look at her notes. I could see her working the same process of what works and what doesn't that I enjoy so much. I laughed a lot, which felt great. I drove home empowered, getting so much from watching her work her magic in real time. In a year or so I'll see the final version on Netflix and marvel at how her act evolved. Yet it was still hilarious.

Gosh, it felt so good to laugh out loud.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I'm a good driver. I told someone the other day that I hadn't been in a car crash since 1982, but that is wrong. I was also in an incident on the way to Devin's lacrosse practice back in 2004. That was pretty terrifying. Some guy stopped in the middle of the road and the only way to avoid hitting him was to swerve up onto a grassy slope. I was driving a Suburban, a wonderful vehicle with the protection of a tank. Devin was fine. I was fine. The vehicle needed a little work but it was drivable soon after. Months later, when I smelled woodsmoke coming from the chassis, I got under the car and found a piece of a tree branch from that day wedged into the metal.

I mention all this because it happened again the other day. Just minding my own business when a guy abruptly pulled into my lane and his car died. Completely. With no chance to stop in time, I slammed hard on the brakes. I was sure I was about to die. Air bag opened on collision, which broke my Oakley's but spared my head. I won't go into any more details. Suffice to say that I'm reliving it just writing about it now. My Rover is driveable, though that wouldn't be smart or aesthetically pleasing, given the bashed in front end, coolant leak, and crumpled hood.

I got out and got real functional, calling AAA, and Calene, and talking to the cop who came to survey the scene. I've learned to stay cool in such situations, or at least try to. We've had a series of ambulances coming to the house over the past six months so I try not to act rattled when I talk to first responders. I gathered details, swapped insurance info, got my essentials out of my car before they loaded it onto the tow truck. Essentials differ by circumstance, but I was also due at practice that afternoon. So I grabbed a spike wrench and two stopwatches along with my wallet and a spare hoodie in case it got cold. The rest of the stuff I left. Then I began walking the three miles to track practice.

My good friend Jon Clark called and offered to give me a ride, which was exceptional. I was starting to feel a little shaky as the adrenaline wore off. I was mad that my car was broken. I was thankful to walk away from what could have been a fatal collision. I called the insurance company and filed a claim, checking more boxes in my attempts to keep my wits about me.

Practice turned out to be a bad idea. I was emotionally disconnected and still in a daze. My muscles were beginning to stiffen and I was acting funny. Calene called and said she was coming to get me. I tried to act normal but she wasn't surprised when I abruptly went to bed at 7:30. I slept until midnight then lay awake until dawn, when it was time to go to practice again.

So I stood there on the beach near the San Clemente pier yesterday morning, waves breaking on a clear cold morning, waiting for my athletes to arrive for the weekly long run as organizers of a surf competition set up on the beach. It was just me, them, and the morning. I still don't know what to make of all this. What I've been striving for over the last six months, more than anything else, is a sense of normalcy. I like to pretend I've got it all under control.

The word "trauma" has become vogue lately, to the point that I think it sometimes sounds excessive. But I'm wrong. It's not just the car crash but the last six months. Trauma is real and present. No matter how cool and un-rattled I try to be, I can't deny that this shit isn't going away overnight. Nothing routine about it.

How does trauma feel? For me, it's anger, confusion, disbelief, and uncertainty. It’s the feeling that I can’t believe what just happened.

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In light of the shit show in the Oval Office the other day, the historian in me is tempted to write at length about Ronald Reagan rolling over in his grave. I fear for the future of democracy. That line is as close as I'll come to going in-depth about the historical reasons I believe this to be a very real concern. I don't even want to think about it, let alone write about it. Instead, I'm watching Black Labrador reels on Insta, among them a very cute story about a dog who looks very much like my Sadie on her way to Starbucks for a pup cup. Just can't get enough of Black Labs. The algorithm knows this. I get constant Springsteen and Lab reels as I scroll, which lifts my spirits in these uncertain times.

In that vein, I'm also re-reading Taking Midway in its entirety. Second Pass arrived Friday. It's about 350 pages. I went to print it out Friday night because editing on the page is so much better than off the screen. But I was almost out of paper, so I could only print a few hundred pages. I read them at the track meet yesterday, in between the 3200's at dawn, the 800's at noon, and the 1600's at 4 pm. Sat there amid the chaos of athlete check-in and DK on the PA (IYKYK) with my pencil, carefully going over every line. It was calming. My thoughts only shifted to authoritarian dictatorships and personality cults a couple times, when I let my guard down and my mind wandered.

Back to Second Pass. The publisher needs it back Monday. So I'll buy more paper at Staples today, then edit again before the Academy Awards (must watch TV in my house since I was a child, though I haven't seen all this year's nominees). I'll finish up in the waiting room with the bad lighting during tomorrow's hospital visit, which is scheduled to be three hours long. That's how you read a whole book in a weekend. A man can get a lot of peace of mind by getting lost in the words. If they're good I forget they're my own. If they're bad I fix them until they're good.

It was as cold at yesterday's meet as it was warm last week. My runners continue to amaze me. The undoubted highlight was watching a runner who'd never won a race find the courage to make a bold move and sprint away to victory. So amazing. I did not cry. Almost. But I was very misty. She got a big bear hug for the effort. I am sparing with my hugs, so I hope it carried heft.

Went to a 90th birthday for my father-in-law afterward. Successfully avoided giving in to my historical concerns during the thirty minutes there and back. Though now that I think of it, FDR preferred Stalin over Churchill in the waning days of WWII as a display of realpolitik. Truman had to clean up that gross misjudgment of character and national ambition, even sitting with Churchill as the former prime minister delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech. Stayed up late with Calene, watching TV and catching up after the long day at the meet. It can be exhausting to coach for so long but I really wasn't tired. It was hard to escape the nagging concerns when SNL did a cold open about the Oval Office craziness, which was pretty funny. Felt cathartic to laugh about it.

We have company coming in today from South Dakota. The next week has no track meets so we'll just train hard. I sent my editor a couple new chapters from the running book and she liked them with exclamation marks. So I'll push forward on that after I finish Second Pass.

Then how will I escape? I won't. With nowhere else to turn I'll probably doom scroll on X, soaking up the political furor from both sides. I am deeply worried about our country, the global balance of power, and the future of democracy. It frightens me beyond words.

But that's for later, when I run out of ways to escape. Now I'm watching the pup cup reel once again. It makes me smile.

As Ronald Reagan rolls over in his grave.

Track season started yesterday. The weather was glorious, the sort of sunshine-y, not-too-hot-not-cold day that reminded me why I love living in Southern California. Mother Saddleback loomed in the distant background as runners circled the track in their new singlets and shorts. The race announcer backed out at the last minute so I was on the mic. This put me in the position of amiable commentator, calling out each race and its contestants while also turning off the sound so I could coach my runners as they passed. Tacos and Co. sold burritos for lunch, which meant that I bought mine at 10:15 to beat the rush. Carnitas with spicy red sauce.

We have a small building next to the starting line for storage of spikes, wickets, cones, whistles, stopwatches, phone chargers, and everything else needed to coach track. I took a break to eat my burrito inside the Track Shack and listened as the two timers from Finished Results went about their business. A track meet is a leisurely pursuit. A day in the sun where any topic of conversation might surface. The subject of retirement came up, Scott from Laguna talking about next steps in his professional life. I've been hearing a lot of that talk lately as my friends wind down their careers.

Way back when I worked in the corporate world, I'd hear chatter at lunchtime as we all took the escalator down to the cafeteria at 11:45. Lots of people counting down the days until they could leave their cubicle, cash in their 401k, and get on with their lives. I was twenty-five at the time. Retirement at sixty-five was forty years away. From this side of things, forty years is a blink. I don't know where they've gone but it doesn't seem like four decades. Births, deaths, travel, graduations, laughter, and tears. That's what forty years feels like now. Forty years at twenty-five felt like a death sentence.

The purpose of retirement is to end one period of activity and begin a new focus on whatever may come next. Some say the purpose is to have no purpose while others believe life without purpose leads to a quick death. But with all this talk about retirement in the air, a man can't help but think what that would look like. I mean, does a writer ever really retire?

Standing in the sunshine, listening to the bell lap bell and crack of the starter's pistol (stand too close and your ears ring), surrounded by teenagers doing their best to run fast around the oval and having absolutely no idea about the cavalcade of extraordinary things that will happen to them in the next forty years, I realized I've been retired for quite some time. I get up when I want, drink a little coffee, spend a few hours alone writing, play my music too loud, work out in a wilderness forest, indulge my passion for coaching distance runners for a couple hours, have a pint at the local as the sun begins to set, then spend the evening with Calene. There might be some travel, maybe a lunch or dinner to alter the routine. But if someone told me that writing and coaching were jobs and I needed to stop doing them in the name of retirement, I really wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Writing professionally has its difficulties. Coaching does, too. I'm not saying it's all a bed of roses. But when I look back at those forty years since I left the corporate world, I don't remember the checks from publishers that arrived two months late and woke me at 3 a.m. with fear about paying the mortgage. I don't think of the visits to a principal's office to justify why I coach the way I do. I just think of how lucky I am to do this at all.

My goal going forth is to keep on keeping on, living large with Calene. She's the one who got me to leave the corporate world, just as she's been my companion on so many incredible journeys in parenting and travel and that thing called love, which takes on many shapes and sizes in this thing called marriage.

Life is an adventure or nothing at all.

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I've been to New York dozens of times so I don't feel like I'm a tourist. But I don't actually live in New York so that means I am. That in mind, I did my own version of the tourist experience the past four days as I wandered the city.

I was in town for a number of very good reasons: lunch with my agent, speech at the Harvard Club, USATF Foundation Board meeting, Millrose Games track meet, and an after-party. There was a lot of downtime built in so I made this a vacation of sorts. I didn't write while I was there but I carried a pencil and a thick stack of pages in need of edit wherever I went. So when I sat down for a coffee or a beer, I pulled that sloppy attempt at a first draft out of my back pocket and went over them word by word. Carrying a book is too cumbersome but pages and a pencil are good companions.

I walked wherever I went. The wind was harsh and there was snow in the air but my hotel was far enough from Central Park that I didn't feel like battling pedestrians to make it uptown. A few weeks ago I walked to track practice here in my town. It was just three miles but I arrived exhausted. Not so in New York. I walked mile after mile and felt just fine. Punctuating the journey with visits to museums and stop lights probably makes a difference. I visited the Intrepid, MoMA, had a cheeseburger at PJ Clarke's, a steak at Smith and Wollensky's, and was startled when a bartender at the Irish Pub on Seventh Avenue recognized the name on the credit card and asked if I wrote books just to see if I was the same guy.

Calene hasn't been cleared to fly yet. Exploring all these places alone was not my preference but I went full tourist and sent photos. We first visited as a couple in 1988, when we drove around the country for five weeks after getting married. It was a honeymoon after the honeymoon, an adventure before we got the inevitable post-college real job. Our hotel in New York was the Lexington on 48th. It was an expensive dump. I stayed there again last week, First time I'd set foot inside since then. It's still a dump. I almost changed hotels, which is something I've never done. The mattress was too soft, the bathroom was a phone booth, and the view was just ok. But I'm a romantic. The place grew on me. I'm glad I stayed.

Was there a highlight? Definitely. That cheeseburger was phenomenal. I remember cities by their food.

And watching two world records set at the MIllrose Games in dramatic fashion was the epitome of great racing. I sat ten feet from the banked turns on the indoor track at the Armory, so close to the action I could feel the thunder as runners raced past.

I had a very early flight on Sunday morning and left the after-party and a dozen good friends earlier than I wanted. A heavy wet snow had begun falling on Soho. I almost slipped four times as I walked over to Broadway to find a cab. Then I stood in the falling snow, feeling like a Californian as I strained to wave down that ride back to my hotel. I had a moment of despair, as if I would be stuck for quite awhile. My phone pinged, a message from United telling me I had the upgrade for the flight home.

Sometimes a business trip can be a fiasco. Sometimes mundane. But standing in the snow, pages jammed in my back pocket, wind and wet snow making me blink as it soaked through my down jacket, I had to admit that being a tourist can feel pretty amazing.

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The author’s own mini forest.

This author life is a wonderful thing, equal parts strangers writing to tell me how much they enjoy Taking London and others emailing to say their hands are shaking in rage about something I wrote in Confronting the Presidents and they'll never read a word of mine again. I listen intently to the nice words and reply with a thank you. The haters get nothing, not even the nasty response they're praying to re-post on X to show my spiteful nature.

What can I say? The check cashed just fine. My job is to be the best I can be. Working someone into a hot lather is far preferable to people not caring at all.

I'm three chapters into the new history piece and this comme ci, comme ça sort of audience response plays a prominent role, as it does with the first 100 pages of any book. I want readers to be happy, to get where I'm coming from. Only this one's about running, which is even more emotional and personal than your favorite president. I can already hear the voices telling me how to do it better.

I will bleed on the page a whole lot between now and my deadline. It's stressful. Calene says I'm walking around with a frown on my face. I get snappish, out of sorts. When a woman from the HOA told me my runners couldn't gather in a local park this morning without a permit, it took every ounce of willpower to smile and let it roll of my shoulders. This has been going on all week. One of my runners even called me out on Wednesday. I had no answer when she demanded if something was wrong.

People don't understand when creative dilemmas are eating at my soul. Creativity is supposed to be giddy and ethereal, which it can be. I saw a logo from some firm while in line at BevMo the other day. I won't print the name of the company, but "creative" was in the title. It looked so magical. Made me want to change my name on the cover: "Dugard Creative." I can see it now. Burden lifted.

Won't work. Creative is only magical when the project is done.

But this misery — and I use this term to the full depth of its meaning, surpassed by only the total agony of being in love, as they say in Love, Actually ("Get a grip,” Emma Thompson tells Liam Neeson. "Everyone hates sissies") — is the only way to get to Page 100. Every writer needs to walk through the minefield. The project percolates in your subconscious 24/7, white noise in the brain, and you don't even know it's there.

This is why many writers quit a book. It's not coming easily and they believe that's a sign it's never going to happen. It doesn't work like that. There's no shortcut. Even if it comes easily, it's usually shit that has to be rewritten. Easy means sloppy.

This is why I'm sitting in my mini-forest, listening to the sound of running water, and reading Agatha Christie. The great ones are inspirational. The running book will find itself. The words will come. In the meantime, I just need to remind myself, after so many books and so many years, that "creative" is total agony until it's not.