“I don’t mean to say this shit was no thing. I lived through / your basic fistfight underwater, a tryst with destruction” – ‘Beowulf’ translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
Nazis unwelcome: here’s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie. I might forget/get bored and stop. Not today though!
Cotton Xenomorph’s “Cryptids and Climate Change” issue continues, with two flashes from Tara Campbell shrinking all the jellyfish in our literary Nostromo.
Recently, I encouraged a good friend to get an exercise bike. “You don’t have to commit to becoming a workout person,” I said. “I barely even sweat. I’m just on it all the time.”
It’s hard to talk about exercise without sounding like some Mark Wahlburg/The Rock wake-up-at-2:30-workout-for-five-hours-slam-a-cod-and-spinach-protein-shake-pray-for-15-minutes-then-workout-some-more freak.
Or even some the-secret-to-your-depression-is-TOUCH-GRASS scold.
But seriously, I’m shredded now and my depression is cured.
But seriously seriously, I think people ignore physicality. The human need to move our bodies. It wasn’t until I couldn’t work out recently that I realized how important it’s become to not just how I see myself or feeling healthy, but to my workflow.
On Tuesday’s The Line Break/Of Poetry crossover podcast, after the homie Han VanderHart mentioned they were feeling good bc they had done yoga the day we recorded, it made sense—and I mean from a writing practice point of view—and felt natural for me to bring up that I’d been able to work out that day. Recently, I hadn’t been able to—a sinus cold knocked the weights out of my hands. Being well enough to spend the length of Chon’s Grow on the bike was a change of pace that had dramatically improved my day.
So what do I do? Again, not much:
Between 80-100 pushups, in sets of 20: a set of 20 pushups isn’t coffee to me, but it’s almost coffee to me. My mornings start at 8:10 or whenever I get home from taking the kid to school, and I like to take an hour to “read the newspaper”—check my email, browse headlines/open tabs on Defector/Block Club/Substack/Bluesky/wherever. So I do these sets while reading something. Kinda like a set-then read two paragraphs-then a set thing. Surprisingly, doesn’t break my focus reading—actually helps me get through some longform pieces.
Between 80-100 shoulder presses and bicep curls, in sets of either 15 or 20: these are generally not done right after the pushup sets. A lot of times, I’ll do these later in the day as writing motivation. Say I’m stuck on something or having trouble motivating the music image metaphor to get out of the dusty closets of my brain and onto the page. Lift a set then write a paragraph helps way more than I thought it would. Something in my brain screams that the sets will get harder and be less effective if I space them out too much, let my muscles relax, BUT I don’t want to leave the page before I’ve put something substantial on it. Idk. It’s almost like tricking my brain into the same mental states as, say, cramming the night before a paper is due. Words start happening. And for me, something on the page is better than nothing.
Between 18-34 minutes on the bike: I say between 18-34 because I time my bike rides with albums. Music distracts me from how much I don’t enjoy cardio. Chon’s first album, Newborn Sun, is 18 minutes. Grow is 34 minutes. Covet’s Currents EP is 24 minutes, there’s a compromise. If I’m feeling wild, I’ll do DOMi & JD BECK’s 44 minutes of bangers, NOT TiGHT. The point is, unless the cardio is an actual sport, I will look for an excuse to end early. Music is both a distraction and a time keeper. You know what else is a great distraction? BOOKS, dudes, I read so much on my bike. Stationary bike, I should clarify.
Here-and-there bike time: life is busy. We’re a both-parents-work-no-nanny household, and life is busy. You know what takes me about 10 minutes? A four-race Grand Prix on Mario Kart at 200cc. Mario Kart’s a hell of a distraction from the fact that I don’t want to be doing cardio. Once I know that 10 minutes on the bike is nothing, doing a lot of other things for only 10 minutes is easy. Set a phone timer and read for 10 minutes—I can do that after the kid goes to bed. Set a phone timer and read for 10 minutes—I can probably carve that out of any day, honestly. Why not read a book during that time? Bonus points for poems out loud.
Stretching: without putting my five-year-old on blast for the budding OCD tendencies that stretch my portion of the bedtime ritual to 30 minutes (it’s less a bedtime ritual and more a symphony in four movements), just know that I have a lot of time on my feet doing the same thing over and over. During that time, I like to encourage my jet-fuel-in-his-blood child to be cognizant of calming down, to reflect on the day, and to do things to calm his body. One day, I decided to take my own advice. I’m still incredibly, yoga-prohibitively inflexible, but the amount of “too sore and stiff to get out of bed without complaining” in my life is greatly decreased.
Why I am writing this blog about my mid workout regimen? Because I’m thinking about practice.
Who mentioned it first, besides Iverson and Ross Gay, I’m not sure, but some poet recently got me thinking about “your practice.” The idea of writing—since it isn’t a normal 9-5 job, since it is often done around other jobs—as a practice. This has prompted thinking about my approach more holistically. And holistic practices are not about chaining yourself to a desk until a project is done.
It bothers me when people saying “thinking about your writing is writing” or any other “[x writing-adjacent thing] is writing.” While I agree with the sentiment, it’s wrong. Take it from someone who had trauma block keeping them from putting words on the page for years: think about your novel all you want, those thoughts don’t get put in bookstores.
All of those not-writing-but-writing things are super important, though, if you’re actually working on something. Like, so important, I’m almost contradicting the last paragraph. Sometimes you have figure out what a character actually wants, or sometimes you gotta stop editing the same two lines of poetry over and over again. You gotta stop looking at a screen/the page. Your brain and body need to move. The guy in the “Lit” video gets it.
Besides, all these oppressive sections in our lives. “Here is your allotted hour for physical activity, citizen, later, you will have you allotted hour to express your innermost thoughts about the world in a creative fashion. After that, the dishes.” Why shouldn’t we blend work and working out? Why do we act like the body and brain don’t inform each other?
Look, I don’t have a book out. Norton Anthology has not asked Bob and me our price for putting together the next edition. As with all writing or life advice I give out, I’m just saying what works for me. Judge for yourself if anything at all “works” “for” “me.”
Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go read Beowulf on my bike.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris