Sometimes when you’re going about your day, you see someone and think, ‘I wish that could be me’. It happens to all of us at one time or another, no matter if you’re a paranormal romance writer, an executive, or a stay at home parent.
When I ran track, I always wanted to run the hurdles (let’s save the psych evaluation of that for another day…) Unfortunately (depending on your perspective) I didn’t have the quickness for it.
What I was best at was long distance race walking. My body adapted naturally to the rather odd stride competitive race walkers need and I competed at nationals several times at the 3000 meter distance. In a race, that’s a long time to be alone with your stride, your breath, and your thoughts. While you compete with others on the track of course, you have to know how to adapt your best race tactics to the situation.
Which is why training is so important for athletes – and anyone else who wants to be good at what they do. I trained in the weight room with the football players. I trained with the top sprinters in the region (working on that quickness), and I trained with 5k and 10k runners.
I was good at race walking, and yet… the hurdles looked like much more fun. It was a ‘grass is greener’ sort of thing. The hurdlers stretched, they did cool practice moves, and their races were over almost instantly… I thought it was way more glamorous than keeping one foot on the ground at all times.
But I had to get over it and accept my strengths as they were, even as I admired those with strengths I longed to have. Imagine my shock when the hurdlers asked me to show them how to race walk – and they were bummed that they couldn’t do it!
All those lonely hours with my stride, my breath, and my thoughts probably contributed to my success now as a paranormal romance author. I’ve learned my strengths as a storyteller, I’m not afraid to be alone for long stretches of time, and I’m comfortable with my imagination – even when I have to rein it in during the editing process.
And I’m not ashamed to say I’m glad that my imagination gets the most strenuous workout these days, or that my ‘training’ involves a computer, a full coffee cup, and the instrumental music preferred by the characters of my paranormal romance novels.
Live the adventure!
