If you're reading this, you're likely acquainted with me through running, be it as a coach, an elite runner for Topo Athletic, or, for those in Italy, the wife of Tor des Geants finisher, Nickademus de la Rosa (ma dai!).
But I’m not going to be writing about running, at least today. Instead, I want to write about writing, and the the place I find myself with writing now.
I’ve been writing for a long time; so long that my dad and my mom, separately, continue to pass on old notebooks from the late 90s and early 2000s that contain stories about foxes and witches and younger brothers. I have a box full of journals, one from most years of my childhood, and so many half-started stories on my computer that I’ve abandoned titles and started numbering them instead: Story 1, 2, 3…10. My academic choices, too, have been crafted around writing. After high school, I began college at Fairhaven College, creating an interdisciplinary degree that involved zoology and writing before transferring to the University of San Diego where I received a BA in English with a creative writing emphasis. From there, I went on to attend Oregon State University’s MFA program for a quarter before transferring to Vermont College of Fine Arts, a low-residency MFA in the quirky capital city of Montpelier (I also met Bernie Sanders there, but that’s a story for another day.) I did my final residency in Ljubljana, Slovenia, graduating in 2018 and having finished the first draft of my novel.
Yes, the novel that has gone through three drafts and sits in a folder labeled JOSPEHINE on my laptop’s desktop.
While working on fiction writing, I’ve also tried to establish a career as a freelance writer. I’ve made some progress and have published articles in magazines like San Diego Magazine, Ultrarunning, and AdvenuturesNW, but I’ve sent more queries than have been accepted (by a massive margin) and still feel like I’m swimming upstream.
This is all to say that I’ve put in my share of Disappointments Related to Writing, because if you’re going to try to get your work published, you’re going to get a lot of nos and more often than that, you’re going to find that most of your emails are never responded to at all. This is a field in which you will send far more emails than you will ever receive.
And still, I continue to send queries. I continue to enter writing competitions that guarantee a 99% chance of receiving an email with the first line “we received so many wonderful stories, but unfortunately…”
Let me finish the sentence: your writing did not make the cut. I’ve been told I’m sensitive (and many times, oversensitive) but I can tell you that even those who have skin as thick as an armadillo hold nothing to me when it comes to criticism about writing.
Part of what helps me feel like I’m not just treading water is running.
I know. I said that this wouldn’t be a post about running, but here we are.
Unlike writing, with every run I do, I know I am actively working toward something. I am gaining fitness, whether that’s for a race next month or five years down the road. I can put in the miles knowing that barring injury or unforeseen life circumstances, I will eventually reap the rewards of the time I’ve dedicated to the sport.
With writing, there’s no guarantee.
It strikes me as ironic that my graduate lecture is titled “Don’t Run Away from Writing, Run Toward It: How Running Can Improve Your Writing,” which is essentially a reminder that past Jade is now trying to impress upon present Jade. In the lecture, I present writers like Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates, and Haruki Murakami, all of who are novelists and all of who use movement as a way of replenishing their imaginations, and thus their creative work.
But are these actually good examples? It seems to me that all of these writers would achieve success regardless of PRing their mile times.
In the lecture, I draw parallels between writing and running like Learn to Break Work into Segments, Improve Endurance, Practice Double Sessions, Find a Community and Develop a Growth Mindset.
All of this is much easier done in running than in writing where the majority of time is spent sitting alone in an echo chamber of your own words that may never venture beyond the confines of your Pages document. Even in the freelance writing world, you can submit a query, have the idea be accepted, write the article, rewrite the article after edits, send accompanying photos, be told a publishing date and be surprised when you pick up the magazine and your article isn’t where the editor said it would be. We just don’t have the space, they said. This happened to me yesterday. I won’t get paid for any of my work.
And still, I write. In fact, I’ll probably submit another query this afternoon.
Maybe the point is in the unknown, even more so in writing than in running. Maybe I will get the words out of my head and onto the page and that will be as far as they ever travel. Maybe they’ll go farther, maybe they won’t.
Perhaps the value in all of it is simply in having tried. And I’m still trying.
(I'm checking the box to share this to Notes so more people can discover you :-)) Jade, I'm so happy to discover you're here, writing about writing! (and running!) At least you send queries. I hardly ever do, except to "safe" editors I already know who'll accept my ideas and give me a green light. My summer project list on a Post-It on my desk includes "clean out files," meaning the disorganized files of journaling and book ideas in nonsensical subfolders—ideas and paragraphs that went nowhere and developed into nothing. I can't bring myself to re-read and organize (or delete) them because I'm afraid my fresh eyes will confirm that the ramblings were pointless or just very mediocre writing. At least you're here, you wrote this post. My 2-year-old Substack "newsletter" (really, a good ol' blog) has given me the structure and an audience I needed. At least I can produce a post every Wednesday, and that adds up to something. Keep at it!