{"id":142986289,"date":"2024-03-27T12:31:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T12:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=142986289"},"modified":"2024-03-27T12:31:26","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T12:31:26","slug":"physicality-in-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=142986289","title":{"rendered":"Physicality In Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI don\u2019t mean to say this shit was no thing. I lived through \/ your basic fistfight underwater, a tryst with destruction\u201d – ‘Beowulf’ translated by Maria Dahvana Headley <\/h2>

Nazis unwelcome: here\u2019s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon<\/a>. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie<\/a>. I might forget\/get bored and stop. Not today though!<\/em><\/p>

Cotton Xenomorph\u2019s \u201cCryptids and Climate Change\u201d issue continues, with two flashes from Tara Campbell<\/a> shrinking all the jellyfish in our literary <\/em>Nostromo.<\/p>

Recently, I encouraged a good friend to get an exercise bike. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to commit to becoming a workout person,\u201d I said. \u201cI barely even sweat. I\u2019m just on it<\/em> all the time.\u201d<\/p>

It\u2019s 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. <\/p>

Or even some the-secret-to-your-depression-is-TOUCH-GRASS scold. <\/p>

But seriously, I\u2019m shredded<\/em> now and my depression is cured. <\/p>

But seriously seriously, I think people ignore physicality. The human need to move our bodies. It wasn\u2019t until I couldn\u2019t<\/em> work out recently that I realized how important it\u2019s become to not just how I see myself or feeling healthy, but to my workflow. <\/p>

On Tuesday\u2019s The Line Break<\/em>\/Of Poetry<\/em> crossover podcast, after the homie Han VanderHart mentioned they were feeling good bc they had done yoga the day we recorded, it made sense\u2014and I mean from a writing practice point of view\u2014and felt natural for me to bring up that I\u2019d been able to work out that day. Recently, I hadn\u2019t been able to\u2014a sinus cold knocked the weights out of my hands. Being well enough to spend the length of Chon\u2019s Grow<\/em> on the bike was a change of pace that had dramatically improved my day.\u00a0<\/p>

\"a<\/figure>

So what do I do? Again, not much: <\/p>

  • Between 80-100 pushups, in sets of 20: <\/strong>a set of 20 pushups isn\u2019t coffee to me, but it\u2019s 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 \u201cread the newspaper\u201d\u2014check my email, browse headlines\/open tabs on Defector<\/em>\/Block Club<\/em>\/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\u2019t break my focus reading\u2014actually helps me get through some longform pieces. <\/p><\/li>

  • Between 80-100 shoulder presses and bicep curls, in sets of either 15 or 20: <\/strong>these are generally not done right after the pushup sets. A lot of times, I\u2019ll do these later in the day as writing motivation. Say I\u2019m 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<\/em> 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\u2019t want to leave the page before I\u2019ve put something substantial on it. Idk. It\u2019s 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. <\/p><\/li>

  • Between 18-34 minutes on the bike: <\/strong>I say between 18-34 because I time my bike rides with albums. Music distracts me from how much I don\u2019t enjoy cardio. Chon\u2019s first album, Newborn Sun<\/em>, is 18 minutes. Grow <\/em>is 34 minutes. Covet\u2019s Currents <\/em>EP is 24 minutes, there\u2019s a compromise. If I\u2019m feeling wild, I\u2019ll do DOMi & JD BECK\u2019s 44 minutes of bangers, NOT TiGHT<\/em>. 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<\/em> bike, I should clarify.<\/p><\/li>

  • Here-and-there bike time: <\/strong>life is busy. We\u2019re 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<\/em> at 200cc. Mario Kart<\/em>\u2019s a hell of a distraction from the fact that I don\u2019t 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\u2014I can do that after the kid goes to bed. Set a phone timer and read for 10 minutes\u2014I can probably carve that out of any day<\/em>, honestly. Why not read a book during that time? Bonus points for poems out loud. <\/p><\/li>

  • Stretching: <\/strong>without putting my five-year-old on blast for the budding OCD tendencies that stretch my portion<\/em> of the bedtime ritual to 30 minutes (it\u2019s 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\u2019m still incredibly, yoga-prohibitively<\/em> inflexible, but the amount of \u201ctoo sore and stiff to get out of bed without complaining\u201d in my life is greatly decreased.<\/p><\/li><\/ul>

    Why I am writing this blog about my mid workout regimen? Because I\u2019m thinking about practice<\/em>.<\/p>

    \"a<\/figure>

    Who mentioned it first, besides Iverson and Ross Gay, I\u2019m not sure, but some poet recently got me thinking about \u201cyour practice.\u201d The idea of writing\u2014since it isn\u2019t a normal 9-5 job, since it is often done around other jobs\u2014as 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. <\/p>

    \"File:HarryHoudini1899.jpg\"\/<\/figure>

    It bothers me when people saying \u201cthinking about your writing is writing\u201d or any other \u201c[x writing-adjacent thing] is writing.\u201d While I agree with the sentiment, it\u2019s wrong. Take it from someone who had trauma block keeping them from putting words on the page for years<\/em>: think about your novel all you want, those thoughts don\u2019t get put in bookstores. <\/p>

    \"File:Bookstore<\/figure>

    All of those not-writing-but-writing things are super important, though, if you\u2019re actually working on something. Like, so important<\/em>, I\u2019m 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.\u00a0The guy in the \u201cLit\u201d video gets it.<\/p>

    \n