I've moved here.

Thanks!

I've never really believed in the whole "work hard then reward reward yourself" idea. This morning's donut, however, might have changed my mind. I wonder if I could request blue and green sprinkles...

I've written letters in my head and silently recited lines of Hamlet.

I can sleep anywhere at virtually anytime. Today it was a post-PB&J snooze upright in Wilson Library over books on racial theory.

But tonight I got nothing.

Me: Good to see you! How are you doing!?
Her: I'm good. How are you?
Me: You know, it's nice to be back.
Her: Where are your shoes?
Me: I took them off so my socks can dry by the time I bike home.
Her: Hmm....You look a little under the weather.
Me: Really? I feel pretty healthy. What makes you say that?
Her: Your eyes look bruised.

First, I do it every day. Even on the coldest, wettest, earliest mornings I'll be there, suiting up and hopping in. Second, I hold myself publicly accountable. I swim with a partner, which means I don't want to let him down and I don't want to let him beat me or get faster than me. I also post and track my workouts publicly against many other swimmers around the world. I try to stay ahead of rivals in Florida, Seattle, California, and Brazil. Next, I set goals. I swim in meets. I swim in open water races. I have a goal for yards per day, per week, and per year. I have goal times. I have expectations. I know how fast I am and I know how fast I want to be. Fourth, I design creative workouts. I create daily workouts that mix things up. It's rarely the same twice. Finally, I love the process. It's not the races or the meets that motivate, it's the daily sense of accomplishment; it's the awareness of my body as I move; it's my mind as it thinks in my hands, my feet, and my hips for every single stroke. Races merely reinforce the need to practice and they help identify and focus those practices; it's the process that I love.

At bottom, though, is a basic and fundamental belief that each and every stroke I take not only makes me faster for meets and open water races, but every stroke also makes me a stronger, smarter, and smoother swimmer overall. There is never a wasted moment in the pool. Warm ups, cool downs, the easy interval between tough sets, the drills, sprints, and long distance, each of these pushes me in different ways, challenging me to be better swimmer.

So generating a successful writing practice out of my experience swimming yields these five features:

• Daily practice. This is the most important step. Set aside a time and place to actually sit and write. Do it. Daily.
• Logs and public accountability. Have a writing partner, a writing group, a mentor, an advisor, anyone who will ask you, "Have you written today?" Log your hours and words written. If you outline or brainstorm, log the time; if you write words and keep them, log the number. Make this public if you can. Post it on your blog. Send regular emails to your writing group. Tell your mom or sister or best friend. Log them, see the progress, and know that each word is building something.
• Goal setting. Set daily, weekly, and yearly goals. Use conference deadlines to prod you on. Set hard deadlines (those set by your univerisity) and soft deadlines (those set by your advisor or writing group). Make these goals public.
• Creative workouts. Writing doesn't have to mean sitting down at your desk or in front of your computer and starting with the first word and ending with the last. Start off in an easy chair with some coffee and brainstorm or free write. Warm up! Then sit down, set your goals for the "main set" and finally, have a cool down where you reflect on what you did, set goals for the next session, or write something fun, like a letter to your aunt or a blog post about your shoelaces.
• Love the process. You're in this profession because you love to write. So write! But learn to love the process. Make it a ritual. Love the moment when you dive in. Enjoy the click of the keys or the scribbles on the paper. Watch your mind as it fumbles and finds words, as sentences come together, as ideas form paragraphs, and as your language is loose and tight in turns. Revise and clarify. Outline and love the clarity that follows. And never forget: writing happens in an environment, so claim your space. Get a comfortable chair, set the mood with the right lighting, find the paper and pens and pencils that make you happy.

Meet Times: 2007-8

For the past two and a half years I've scheduled in swimming. It's a daily activity, and I'm committed to it. Since 2006, I've swam 1,128,750 yards, and that's taking four months off to rehabilitate my shoulders. Somedays it's the only thing I feel I really have to do. For a while now I've been telling myself and others that the pool is the only place where I see consistent progress.

But as a PhD student, there is something else I should be doing every day: writing. And it's a part of my life where consistent progress should also be discernible. That is, if I was writing. This week the discrepancy between my swimming practice and my writing practice became starkly obvious. I am not writing. For my own sake, let me say that again: I am not writing. But I am swimming, coldest weekend of the winter and I'm there in the pool, pushing myself and my shoulder harder than ever.

What's wrong with this picture? Where are my priorities? And most importantly, how can I shift the motivation I have for swimming into writing? After all, they're both skills requiring practice, they're both things I value, and they're both things I expect to do and get better at for the rest of my life? So, why aren't I writing?

I recall a cupboard, mom-stocked with colored boxes of refined grains. It stunned and amazed my friends: all the options. It never contained this variety from Cap'n Crunch (it is, after all, a limited edition variety), but Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter Crunch was definitely a staple. After baking my own granola for the past two and a half years (see below), this sort of cereal does not dare show it's face in my apartment. That is until I put "Fun Cereal" on my Christmas list.

But what is this constructed, red- and green-infused, crunch thing? There's nothing to it. Thank you, but after this box I'll be sticking to the granola. Sorry Cap'n Crunch, it's time we go our separate ways.

Question: If you look closely, doesn't his "mustache" look like a set of tusks and his free-floating "eyebrows" like horns? Are you some kind of wooly mammoth anti-christ, Cap'n? Have I ever truly known you?