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A couple of short story publications to report:

My sci/fiy story Some Observations on Ageing and the Flow of Time was just published by The Fantastic Other magazine. The entire edition can be downloaded as a free PDF from here.

Meanwhile, my fantasy story Their Ruby Eyes Glinting has just been published by Bards and Sages Quarterly – retailer links here. The story isn’t free to read, but you can get 25% off the edition if you purchase it here from Smashwords and use the promo code T6BY5.

Delighted to report that my spooky tale From The Lighthouse (couldn’t resist the Virginia Woolf reference!) has been recorded by the wonderful Thirteen podcast and made available to all their subscribers. They did such a great job with it: it’s atmospheric, claustrophobic, unsettling. Do check it out.

The story was originally set in a British lighthouse, but we relocated it to the USA’s Atlantic coast for this dramatization. I think it sits there very nicely indeed…

Ah, the Bookwyrm – it’s one of my favourite creations, for sure. So much so, that these odd little creatures actually appear in two completely unrelated series of books: one shows up in the Cloven Land Trilogy, while another (perhaps even the same one) is in the Office of the Witchfinder General books. They’re immensely useful, very self-important – and often irritable.

The creature first appears in Hedge Witch. Fer, a young woman from Andar, is taken by Hellen Meggenwar – an old and somewhat fearsome witch – into the crypts below Islagray Wycka to study an old text. The Bookwyrm is there. It’s described like this:

Hellen stopped at a particular page. The representation of a small dragon, its body all curving, intertwined lines like the knotted shoots of a bramble, or the silverwork of a master jeweller, filled half of a page. It had been painted with breath-taking care, each tiny scale painted in gold or silver. Its eyes were shut, as if asleep, but the features on its face were so vivid it could have been alive. It curved around the words as if guarding treasure.
Hellen placed the black book directly next to the picture, then passed a hand across the dragon, touching it gently. The drawing moved. The creature opened one eye, seeming to lift its head off the page. Fer could see its tiny gilded rib cage moving in and out as it breathed. It looked around at them, sniffing in the air with its long, gold and red snout. It stopped when it saw the black book. Slowly, it uncurled itself.
It was incredible to see. She knew it was merely a drawing, however exquisite. Just paint and ink on the pages of a book. At the same time, its legs moved as it walked, the words visible through its body. The illuminated dragon flowed across the gap to the black book. It shrank in size as it crossed onto the smaller pages. It stopped, turned around once, then burrowed down through the pages into its new home. In a moment, it was gone.

Later, Hellen explains a little about the creature:

“What was that?”
“An archaeon. A bookwyrm, if you prefer. Very rare. Very ancient. There are a few still inhabiting the archive.”
“I have never heard of such a being.”
“They are creatures of spirit, of thought. Not flesh and blood. They eat and sleep ideas. They don’t really live in our world at all. What few there are have found their way to libraries like ours. They love words; it’s the perfect habitat for them. This one will have been roaming around in our scrolls and tomes for centuries.”

The creature, it turns out, has a pivotal role to play in the Cloven Land series as it becomes one of Fer’s key companions in her adventures in our world.

Meanwhile, one of the creatures also shows up in the Cardiff library of the Office of the Witchfinder General. In The Seven Succubi, Danesh goes to visit Lady Coldwater as he researches his case. It’s his first visit down to Level -2 of the library. Lady Coldwater shows Danesh a book being kept in a locked display-case. The description goes like this:

It was one of those beautifully illustrated tomes that mediaeval Monks devoted their whole lives to creating: hand-written and illuminated with colourful decorations and depictions of fabulous beasts. The colours were vivid: purples, reds, shining gold. The opening letter of each page was rendered in highly-decorative calligraphy, all loops and curls, and I could see that a creature like a stylized dragon or demon had also been drawn on each, weaving its tail around the lines of text that followed.

Danesh has these impressions:

I was about to ask what, precisely, I was looking for when I saw it: the dragon was moving. Two tiny, stylized puffs of smoke lifted from its nostrils, to rise up the page and fade into nothingness. The creature’s sides – as colourful as any stained-glass windows with the sunlight streaming through them – were slowly inflating and deflating. The little drawn creature was animated there in the ancient book. It was alive.
“I don’t … what is it?” I breathed.
The Lady’s voice was a whisper, as if she were afraid of startling the creature. “They have many names: archaeon is one, bookwyrm is another since they appear to enjoy taking on the form of a dragon such as this one. They’re often to be found in the really old libraries. This one came here with the chained books.”

The bookwyrm doesn’t have quite such a big part to play here as in the Cloven Land books – it helps Danesh learn the meaning of certain runes that are being used in a grim and powerful incantation. In both books, though, I have some fun with the creatures – in particular, speculating what they might do and how they might respond if they get introduced to the internet…

I do a lot of writing and I do a lot of running – and it often strikes me that there are significant parallels between the two. I mean, yes, the differences are obvious: for one thing, I sit down when I write, and I rarely get out of breath. But the similarities are there. Honestly.

Here, then, are eight reasons why writing is like running:

1. They’re both about stamina

When I first started to run and to write after a post-school hiatus, I could barely do either. I’d loved both activities in my youth, and I could do both reasonably well – but then I stopped for a number of years because, life. When I tried running again – this was forty years later – I assumed I could more or less pick up where I left off. Dear reader, I could not. I could barely manage a few hundred metres without having to stop and basically die. It was the same with writing. The gap was smaller (fifteen years) but the effect was the same: I could manage only a few hundred words, and then I was done. Running a marathon or completing a novel – both these things were utterly inconceivable.

Slowly, I’ve built up my stamina. What once seemed like a superhuman impossibility is now mundane. My longest run so far is a half-marathon (21 kilomeres) and my longest novel around 110, 000 words. I’m not saying either was a doddle, but both were well within my capabilities. Somehow, over the years, with practice and practice, barely even noticing, I’ve grown stronger at both. What was once impossible became possible. Writing and running are the same: the more you do them, the more you can do them.

2. At their best, they’re both effortless

There are times when I’m running – and when I’m writing – that my conscious mind is barely there. All the nagging worries are gone. I’m in the moment, that state of flow, when everything is effortless and the world makes sense. My legs drift across the kilometres; my fingers rattle out the words that are coming from … somewhere. It’s a joy – although, I may not even notice at the time, because my conscious mind/inner editor is quiet. I’m not doing, I’m being. And yet, somehow, things are happening. I arrive at the end of the run or the chapter and there’s barely any sense of effort being expended. And it feels very good.

3. A lot of the time, they’re both a slog

It’s not always like that, though. In fact, most of the time it isn’t like that. Sometimes, you have to forget about the distant goal, the far-away finishing line, and think only about putting one (metrical) foot in front of the other. And repeating. This. Word. This. Step. Each requires a conscious effort. You want to give up. Sometimes, you do give up and try again another time, but most of the time you battle through, because that’s how you get stronger. Writing (and running) when it’s an effort is where the growth happens. It increases your capacity for the good “effortless” stuff described above. The serious runner/writer knows that you have to work at your craft.

4. Getting into a rhythm is the key

I’ve talked about flow already, and about putting in the work so that reaching that happy state gets easier. This is where it’s important to establish a rhythm. I don’t just mean the small beats of typing words/taking steps – I mean setting aside time to write and to run regularly, to cover long distances/word counts in a single attempt. Write each day, run every other day, whatever works for you. It’s hard to do when life is busy, I know, but both activities become easier when you build them into your day. That way, your subconscious learns that they’re simply what happens and gets on with doing them.

5. They’re both solitary; they’re both social

I love running alone, just me outside in nature, but I do really value the camaraderie and connection of group running, too. Did I mention that I’ve just done my 250th parkrun? It’s the bond of the shared experience. Writing, too, is mostly a solitary activity, but then comes the involvement of editors, readers, publishers, publicists, fellow-authors – and loved ones reassuring you that you’re not the worst writer in the world. Sometimes, it takes a village. There’s a joy in that, as well, the sense of being part of something larger. Maybe that’s not for everyone, but I value it enormously.

6. They’re both lovely when you stop

There’s a famous quote (often misattributed to Dorothy Parker) along the lines of “I hate to write, but I love having written.” I get that, and you could certainly substitute run for write and written in there. A lot of the time, despite the occasional flow, the fact is that both activities can be gruelling – and it feels so good when the run is over or you nailed the chapter. The sense of achievement to both is considerable.

7. Sometimes to do them better, you have to stop doing them

Running puts a strain on the tissues, and you have to give yourself rest days to allow your muscles time to heal and to prevent injury. After a long run – a marathon say – you might take a week or two off. When you come back to it, you’ll be fresher and raring to go. Same with writing: sometimes, it’s good to stop, to step away from the keyboard for days or even weeks. A lot of writing takes place elsewhere anyway, as ideas circulate around the brain. Sometimes, it’s good to let those glimmers simmer and grow before pinning them to the page. A break of a couple of weeks is fine: it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, it means your susbconscious is being given the freedom to think up new and intriguing stuff. Write/run regularly, but allow yourself the freedom not to if you need it.

8. Both writing and running feel like me

Even when writing and running are hard work, they’re also enjoyable on a deeper level. Enjoyable is a slippery word. Hacking up a steep hill or through a difficult scene might be physically or intellectually uncomfortable, but they can also both (weirdly) be extremely satisfying. They’re something I wouldn’t miss for the world because they connect with (I don’t know) some deep evolutionary or personal need. They both feel good because they both feel like me. It may seem strange to relish running through a soaking rain storm – it seems strange to me – but I do it anyway, because for some reason I want to…

Any thoughts? Do your experiences of writing and running (or whatever your chosen physical activity is) chime with the above?