Stopping to start again
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.
