DFL Runner: Blog

Chapter 7 is in the queue. Also, as promised, updates have finally been posted for Chapters 1 and 2 to match the tense of the rest of the story.

Chapter 7 is the story of Lisa's first 5K and is, in some respects, the story of my own first 5K, complete with my eyeballs starting to sweat severely as the finisher medal was draped around my neck.

It is, in a way, my hope that this story will demystify running a bit. You don't have to be a size 3 with legs the size of a tree trunk. You don't have to be able to run a seven-minute mile. You just have to be willing to get out and put one foot in front of the other, be willing to train regularly and properly, be willing to challenge yourself, and be willing to commit to finding your best performance - whatever it is - and bringing it to the start line.

The discussion about the music playing before and during the race is completely real-life. In fact, if you're curious, here are my playlists for the 5K I am doing tomorrow morning:

Warmup:

"Come Worship the Lord" - John Michael Talbot

"I Am the Bread of Life" - Collin Raye

"Homeland" - Kenny Rogers

"This Is Me" - Keala Settle

"Home" - Philip Phillips.

Main race:

"Come Early Morning" - Don Williams

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" - The Proclaimers

"Ride Like the Wind" - Christopher Cross

"Walk of Life" - Dire Straits

"Fame" - Irene Cara

"Born To Run" - Bruce Springsteen

"Camouflage" - Brad Paisley

"Pass My Hat" - Chris LeDoux (yes, this part of Ch. 7 is real)

"Invincible" - Pat Benatar

"The Climb" - Miley Cyrus

"Don't Stop Believing" - Journey

"Are You Gonna Go My Way" - Lenny Kravitz

"If You're Going Through Hell" - Rodney Atkins

"Roar" - Katy Perry

Enjoy, and I will see you all next week as we journey to the land where flight attendants lie to you on arrival.

The wonderful jetson63 has returned chapters 5 and 6, while giving me the requisite smack upside the head for some of my literary and stylistic choices. As promised, both chapters have been added to the queue.

The writing, rewriting, and editing of these two chapters (to say nothing of letting my mind drift as I laid on the couch watching mindless daytime television while recuperating from whatever bug I picked up last week) gave rise to a little voice in my head wondering whether I might need a reality check in terms of the way I wrote Lisa's actions and reactions in these chapters.

As such, I am looking to add a female voice on my editorial team, to provide some balance to both sides of this literary relationship. If you are interested, please send me a message.

And, to all my readers, thank you for continuing to read and thank you for your kind words of encouragement and support. I wish you all a safe and happy holiday week.

Authors who advertise a posting schedule and then don't follow it drive me up the wall. And now here I am doing it. I promised to adhere to a Saturday posting schedule and have missed two in a row, first last week because I was traveling out of town for a medical evaluation, and now this week because some manner of stomach bug hitched a ride home with me and I've spent the better part of the past 3+ days ... well ... being sick. I'll spare you details beyond that, except to say that I feel exponentially better today than I did on Friday.

The word from the doctors I saw last week were - relatively - good. I am not in any urgent need of back surgery, although I was taken to task for not being more diligent about sticking to the treatment plan I was previously given (read: physical therapy, which I've always hated doing).

In appreciation for your patience and as atonement for not sticking to my promise, this week be on the lookout for two chapters! Stay tuned.

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it ...

Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield

Last week was National Running Day and the local shoe store sponsored a free 5K to celebrate, except they had to cancel due to lightning. (Rain will not cancel your typical running event, nor will snow, wind, plagues of locusts, etc. Lightning, however, different matter.) It was rescheduled to this evening.

If you're not a runner, you may not be familiar with the meaning of my pen name. DFL is the informal name given to the person who finishes a race dead (channel David Ortiz here) last, and I'm usually that person. But, as the real-life Leanna has said to me, "you still finished ahead of everyone on the couch in front of the television."

Tonight was my first "event" run since last August, courtesy of some serious back problems. It took me slightly over an hour, and I'm in some pain right now ... but I finished. I didn't even DFL, although it was close.

I am hoping to get some time to review my editor's email tomorrow evening and get the next chapter posted before I head out of town on Saturday. If not, however, tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Many authors on here like to recognize the authors they want to emulate. I have three: Don Lockwood, radio_guy, and Oyster50.

I acknowledge often being, at heart, a sappy romantic like Don, although I can only hope to be half the writer he is. I even lifted a couple of lines from his eulogy for "Beth Trovini" in "Rewind" when writing my grandmother's eulogy.

I am a churchgoing man and radio_guy actually has helped progress the later parts of this story as I've drafted it, by drawing a map for how to incorporate characters of faith into a story like this.

And Oyster50, like Don, gives life and depth to his stories and his characters that I hope to one day even be able to approach attaining.

Gentlemen, all three of you, thank you for your writing and thank you for the inspiration.

Chapter 4 has just posted. Although chapter 5 is presently with my wonderful editor, real life may intrude on the posting schedule. One real-life aspect of dwarfism - one which will feature in the story later on - is chronic pain due to bone and joint issues, and a dearth of medical professionals experienced in treating it. There is, IRL, a clinic at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore that specializes in treating people with dwarfism. I have an upcoming evaluation scheduled at the clinic and will be heading up there next weekend. If I'm not able to post it before I leave, it will be posted the following Saturday.

Thanks for reading! Please keep the comments and feedback coming.