Thursday, May 8, 2008

Stopping to start again

Not long ago, I read an obituary in the New York Times for John Woodruff who was 92 at the time of his death. Woodruff earned his Times obituary largely because, in 1936, he won the gold medal in the 800-meters at the Berlin Olympics; he was one of five African-American athletes whose medals at the Berlin games made a persuasive argument against Adolph Hitler’s insistence that the games would prove Aryan superiority.

 

The obituary writer (Frank Litsky) reported that “Woodruff’s moment in the 800 [meter] final came after he made a freshman mistake: as the other runners began to box him in on the inside, he slowed and briefly stopped.”

 

Litsky quotes Woodruff: “‘I had to do something,’ he told the New York Times in 2006.’I didn’t panic. I just figured if I had only one opportunity to win, this was it. I’ve heard people say that I slowed down or almost stopped. I didn’t almost stop. I stopped and everyone else ran around me.”

 

Once the other runners left him behind, Litsky reports, Woodruff had room to run and, “with an explosion of sprinting power. . .he overtook the others. . .and won.”

 

What does this have to do with writing?

 

At least two things.

 

The obvious lesson:  We often get stuck when we’re writing and we keep on trying to bull through, push push push push – when the more sensible strategy may be to step back, get clear of what has us stuck and then, with new perspective, continue.

 

The less obvious lesson: Try something new, something risky (in your writing, just so I am clear), work against your natural instinct. Just as it seems counter-intuitive to stop completely in the middle of a race (especially a middle-distance race), maybe the way out of being stuck is to work against what we normally do. Change point of view. Change the gender of your point of view. Write the story from the perspective of your character’s mother or brother or girlfriend. Write a story that does not progress chronologically.

 

Stop what you’re doing but then immediately start again.

Posted by at 19:43:50

Stopping to Start Again

Some time ago, I came across an obituary in the New York Times for John Woodruff who died at the age of 92. Woodruff earned a Times obituary by winning the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin — one of five AFrican-American athletes (wth the more famous Jessie Owens) whose success at the games provided a strong argument against Adolph Hitler’s promises that the Olympics that year would demonstrate his theories of the racial superiority of Aryans.

What struck me about Woodruff’s obituary wsa this:

“Woodruff’s moment in the 800 [meter] final came after he had made a freshman mistake; as other runners began to box him in ont eh inside, he slowed and briefly stopped. . .”

“‘I had to do something,’ he told the New York Times in 2006. ‘I didn’t panic. I just figured if I had only one opportunity to win, this was it. I’;ve hearad people say that I slowed down or almost stopped. I didn’t almost stop. I stopped and everyone else ran around me.’”

The obituary goes on to say that his decision “left Woodruff in last place, but also with racing room.”

With that room, Woodruff could maneuver and went on to win the gold by two meters.

The point for writers:

Sometimes, when we get stuck, rather than pushing on asnd pushing on, we need to stop for a moment, get out of the rhythm that has led us into whatever box we’ve found ourselves: start a new, fresh page, maybe; be willing to delete what we’ve written that led to that box. . .and then get back to writing again, no longer hemmed in.

Posted by at 17:06:48
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