Finding the Balance

Life is all about getting to the sweet spot between careening out of control and sitting still.

Lately, I've felt both the insane feeling of having your hands off the wheel and the quiet solitude that can sometimes drive you crazy.

On one hand, my boyfriend and I have been taking a lot of fun trips here and there and have a lot of weekend plans for USC football -- these things keep us busy and going, going, going.  We get to people-watch, dine at hole-in-the-wall places and stroll hand in hand down the windy streets of San Francisco.  It's perfect. And perfectly draining.

On the other hand, when I am home, I've been doing a lot of reading.  I'm deep in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which requires concentration and a tenacity for keeping names straight.  When I'm not reading that on my iPad, I'm trying to keep up on all of the latest long reads that get mentioned by people on the Internet.  And then there are the regular blogs to keep up with.  (On an aside - it can get overwhelming to think that that there are millions upon billions of words on the Internet, and while many of them are superb and yearn for readers, I will most likely not get to a large fraction of them.)

Which brings me to the third hand (third hand?).  I haven't been doing the thing that I believe hits that sweet spot - writing.  For me, since I am mostly a non-fiction writer, this requires me to step out and away from my normal life and experience ... things.  But it also must be done in a quiet, singular place.  What's unfortunate is that I haven't willed myself into that sweet spot lately (if at all in the past few months).  I'm either careening or sitting still.  I'm either busy or not busy.  I'm never writing.

Maybe I'm not meant to write.  Maybe I'm meant to be a professional reader (no, but seriously, do those exist?).  Maybe instead of creating more words that go into the ether of the Internet, I should try to figure out how to give more attention to the words that are already out there (and get paid for it).

Or maybe...just maybe...I need to write.  To will myself to write.  To do it.  To make myself find the balance and not wait for the balance to find me.

I Miss the Ink

There was one point in my life when I was going to dedicate myself to journalism - I was all in.  So in, in fact, that  I went to get a master's in journalism and believed that, armed with the knowledge Stanford professors tried to shove into my brain, I could handle any city council meeting or football practice.  I was hoping to eventually end up as a long-form journalist, following in the footsteps of Buzz Bissinger & Joe Posnanski.  I was going to embed myself in some town to report on a story that was going to make waves and my Stanford profs would smile and nod when they read my byline..."We did that," they'd say.

Oh, the dreams of a young journalist.

Almost immediately after I graduated with a master's, the journalism industry started to crumble.  Papers weren't hiring and in fact, a good many of them were letting people go.  For a girl who just wanted to write long-form, off-the-beaten-path-sports stories, I was out of luck.  It was either move to Wisconsin to cover local politics or find something else to do with my excellent grammar skills.

Nowadays, most of the writing I'm doing is in clipped, email form.  Sure, I always put the comma in the right spot and try to make my sentences exciting, even if they are just explaining the intricacies of a specific project.  And I yes, I'm doing my darndest to try to post on this blog regularly.  And I've even started to write for some of our content packages at work, so I guess I can say I'm doing some reporting.  But believe me, writing about video games and cooking for one isn't exactly mind-blowing stuff.

There have been moments lately when I crave a good interview.  I reflect on that one time when I interviewed Billy Beane.  Or when I met with a climber who had fallen 100 feet off a cliff wall, which disintegrated his vertebrate and left his right leg a tangled mess (he'd later decide to amputate it so that he could continue living an active lifestyle).  I miss seeing the pain, the joy and enthusiasm, the defeat and success of people.  I want to hear people's stories, what makes them tick, why the did what they did and how it turned out.  A good story will always prevail, but sometimes I feel like those good stories are passing me by.  I want to be writing them, not reading them.

I've made myself a life goal of writing a book.  And I'm hoping that one day, that will happen.  But between work and the puppy and running and going out with the boy...

Until I get to the point when I can fully dedicate myself to researching and reporting and writing a book, I'm going to continue to write as much I can, whenever I can.  I'm going to continue to read the bests, and learn from their sentence structure and writing prowess.  That way, when that perfect story comes my way, I'll be ready. 

A Few Good Reads

Spent my lunch break reading...and reading...and reading some more. There's almost nothing like getting lost in a good story.  But because of that, I didn't have the time to write a proper blog post.  So, instead, let me give you a brief look at what was taking up my time.

Remember His Name - Sports Illustrated

"Even as a boy Pat Tillman felt a destiny, a need to do the right thing whatever it cost him. When the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11, he thought about what he had to do and then walked away from the NFL and became an Army Ranger...."

We all know Pat Tillman's story - football player leaves big bucks to help Uncle Sam win the war against terror, but dies on the battlefield.  The truth eventually comes out that he's killed by friendly fire.  The detail and powerful narrative of Tillman's story is incredibly well-done here.  Reading this, especially after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and recently being semi-connected to Army Rangers, helped me to understand more about how the Army covered up Tillman's death.  It is mind boggling to think that a government branch, one that is in charge of the well-being of so many people, would continue to keep secrets, even after its poster boy died.  

Frank's Story - Runner's World

Frank Shorter is the father of the modern running boom. An enduringly popular speaker, he spins a captivating narrative about winning the 1972 Olympic Marathon. The story he hasn't told is the dark truth about his own father.

Wow. This was an eye-opening story about the physical and mental abuse that Frank Shorter endured at the hands of his own father, a beloved small-town doctor.  The memories that Frank has of being beaten were, at times, hard to read.  "Often Frank could smell liquor on his breath, which was both good news and bad. The bad news was that alcohol would juice his father's fury. The good news was that, if he were sufficiently enraged, he might grow befuddled and use the strap end of his belt instead of the buckle end."  This is the first time that Frank has ever spoken publicly, and at length, of his abusive father.  There's also a video interview of Frank within this story. I found it intriguing when Shorter said that he had learned to compartmentalize the pain while being beaten, and that translated to him being able to push a little harder while running in big races.

I believe that long-form journalism on the Internet, where it can be as long as the author wants, has become really, really well done in recent years.  Some of the places I find these types of stories are below:

Grantland - Any Bill Simmons fans out there?  This is his off-shoot site where he has some great writers contribute on sports and pop culture topics.

Runner's World - They do fantastic features/bios on runners.  While I read a lot of their smaller, more instructive pieces, I really enjoy the longer stuff they have to offer.

Longreads - They compile the best long-form journalism pieces on the web. Super great place to start for good reads.  Bonus: they tell you how long it should take you to read the piece, which helps when you only have an hour lunch break. :)

New York Magazine - Mainly read this for Will Leitch's sports articles (like his latest one about attitudes towards gay athletes, which was superb)

If you have other good sites for long-form journalism pieces, please, let me know!