Most of what I know about writing, I’ve learned through running every day.
Haruki Murakami
The Language Centre is ten years old this year and the Writing Lab decided to celebrate this accomplishment by doing what we do best – helping writers to write.
A particular challenge for all writers is finding time to write while juggling family, work and other commitments. Academic writers are no exception. On 23 April we invited lecturers and postgraduate students to spend the day with us running a writing marathon.
The idea for a writing marathon came from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing down the bones. There are many similarities between writing and long-distance running. Both require persistence and regularity even when you don’t feel like doing your half hour for the day. There is support from running/writing groups, but both activities require solo commitment. And everyone can do it. We might not all win, but we can all finish. Running and writing can also help participants to clear their heads and engage with the activity with renewed focus, allowing new ideas to come out of hiding.
During our writing marathon, we started with a series of warm-up exercises – just like before running. The warm-ups had a dual purpose: first, to make participants feel comfortable in the writing environment and second, to give the writers strategies to use when they hit that infamous wall. And then we were off.
We wrote for about an hour and a half, and then slowed down for a bit of sustenance – sharing our writing over delicious treats. And then went back to running. The pace-setter was there the whole time to encourage, drag, push, carry – whatever the writers needed.
The writing marathon was so successful that the Language Centre’s birthday festivities spilled over to Tygerberg with a marathon in June and the next marathon at Stellenbosch took place on 16 October. Join the revelry in 2013! No muscle soreness guaranteed.
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