Amy Sue Nathan

The shuttle run

Do you remember the Shuttle Run? Ready, set, go! Run to the line, pick up a block, run back to the starting line, put it down, run back, pick up, run back, put down. Whew. And all in what? Twelve seconds or something. I think it was a crazy exercise with lots of unnecessary bending. I think it would have been much more time efficient to just have us run in a straight line and time us…although if my memory serves me, they did that too.

And I know sometimes we don’t always get where we’re going in a straight line, and maybe the Shuttle Run is preparation for that. A lot of extra unnecessary stopping and starting and bending but when you get to the end (which is where you started) you know how you got there, how much time it took, and the achievement belongs to you and you alone.

With writing we don’t always go in a straight line either. We write things and delete them only to write them again. We write half of a story only to discover we’re not writing the story we thought. I think that a writer’s shuttle run might be a necessity. The more stopping and starting and bending, the better off we are, and the healthier our writing is. When we get to our own finish line, the energy we expended is directly proportional to the achievement — although both are different for each person.

Another way writers do the Shuttle Run is to have their stops and starts and blocks to pick up before they allow themselves to get to the finish line. Whether those are internal or external, it doesn’t matter.

With the new schedule I’m following I’m trying to run and bend and pick up my blocks before I get to my writing. When I’m writing I’ve compartmentalized my day so that my Shuttle Run is replaced with a few daily sprints.

Hopefully, this way, I’ll make it the finish line in one piece.