Running Through the Dark – My Writing Process
Day Three - Pre-orders now available | The Writing Process | How the book changed
Pre-orders for ‘Running Through the Dark’ are now available.
The Pennine Way Record ‘Case’
As I talked about in the last post, I had set out writing about the Pennine Way records, collecting the stories before we lost them, and looking for the female footsteps in the records and why there wasn’t a female record. I approached this similar to my legal casework, I had a folder, notebook, lists of contacts and telephone numbers. I started to speak to these old names, asking about the Pennine Way, and arranging to meet them for more in-depth interviews at later dates.
The words didn’t flow though. I felt stunted writing about others. I was worried about misrepresentation. It felt like they weren’t my stories to tell. I persevered, wondering if it was my legal background, making me too cautious about embellishing facts to tell a story, and getting one word wrong.
Parallel to this I started writing about my own reasons for running the Pennine Way. This stayed as the second chapter in the book. I had written a couple of running blogs before, and after races, so I thought this introductory chapter would be similar, and then on to the other runner’s stories.
I had planned to run the Pennine Way that year, in 2019, and had a date set.
Writing What I Needed to Write
I don’t think it is a spoiler, but I didn’t run it on that date. I caught a cold in April 2019, and it took me the next two and a half years to recover. During this time, the focus was survival. Chronic illness is a lonely place, with close friends not understanding just how ill I was, with no support from medical professionals, and a limited life. I wasn’t writing regularly, but when I felt up to it, it was a place where I could put down what I was feeling, and what I was missing, and start to unpick how my life had ended up so far from the one I wanted it.
I had a small laptop, which I used for writing it down. I didn’t have a plan about what I was writing at all, as my original plan had been to spend a chapter on each Pennine Way record, and then the final chapter would be me, maybe an earlier chapter about my training, but nothing so personal.
I wrote whatever I felt I needed to write, often leaving paragraphs unfinished and picking them up later. I didn’t think about it ever being seen, as it felt so far removed from the book I set out to write for Vertebrate.
I had written about 20,000 words when Kirsty became my contact at Vertebrate and asked me how things were going with the book. I said things weren’t going to plan and decided to press send and show her. Having been a lawyer, with high standards, it felt reckless to press send on something so unfinished, that I hadn’t even read through or put a spellchecker on. I assumed the answer would be that no one would be interested in my illness, and this would be the end of the Pennine Way project until I was back to full health and ready to train. The feedback I got was to keep writing.
I continued to write when I felt the urge, but still in a very unstructured way. I would write when I was free from distractions, even away off-grid at Skiddaw House hostel and mountaineering club huts, or on other trips. I found when I had space to write, it would flow, putting an order to the last few years.
A few years on I was at about 50,000 words. I was no longer fatigued but was trying to process news on my diagnosis about my knees. Writing was helping that. I didn’t feel the need to share much publicly. I was still running coaching and didn’t want to talk openly about how hard that was. I was still sponsored by companies and wasn’t sure I wanted to announce I wouldn’t be running again. There was a lot of denial, but writing about it, and working out my next stage in life helped move through it slowly. I didn’t need anyone to read it. I didn’t even want anyone to. If I had thought it would become the book, I would have censored myself more, I would have paused in that moment of flow when I was writing the words.
I started a habit of writing. I would take Sherlock outside for a walk in the Peak District, then come home to an empty house, while Marcus was out for his run. I made a coffee, sat with my laptop on the sofa, and would set myself the goal of writing 500 words. I often wrote more. I set myself 500 words because it didn’t seem too much to miss on the days I was working away, usually doing outdoor work, and it also seemed easy to reach and go beyond on the days I sat down to write. I found my mind thinking on my walk to where my fingers would go and what they needed to write about. I never re-read anything I had previously written, but would try to find unfinished sections and chapters to complete.
I still didn’t think it would ever be published. In my head I thought the book wouldn’t be finished until I had run the Pennine Way and that was slipping by. There was a freedom in this though, I could write anything I wanted, never worrying about the audience or what people wanted. I wrote because it helped me, and came with ease. I never once agonised over words or sentences, I didn’t think at all, I just wrote. I just let what I needed to say come out.
The second to last chapter I wrote was about my work, which I hadn’t mentioned before. It felt like working backwards, unpicking where the stress had come from, where the perfectionism had come from, where the shy teenager had come from. It was unravelling so much of my life as I wrote.
Pressing Send
The last few paragraphs came quickly; I knew that if I didn’t try to finish this piece of writing, it would be left unfinished forever. I didn’t know what I was about to write before it appeared on the page. I stopped there. It felt like I had written everything I needed to.
The word count was about 79,500 words but I was never writing to hit a figure. It was just how it had ended.
I didn’t read through, I didn’t even spellcheck or grammar check. I just pressed send; to Marcus, to Kirsty at Vertebrate, and to my friend Matt who had agreed to read it.
In the next post, I will write about the editing process.
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If you have a question about book, or processes please comment or message and I will answer any that are not answered already over the coming days in a bonus post.
Jen I read your book from cover to cover over the bank holiday weekend - it was delivered while I was reading something else so I thought I would have a peek. You drew me in - you certainly have a gift for writing. And what a journey you have had. I’m not sure I would understand what it’s like to live with a chronic illness and surviving tough times. Thankyou 🌷