Time Management Tuesday: The Snowshoe Model

Anyone who has spent years here with me is well aware that I'm a bit obsessed with my annual January Retreat Week, an event which goes back to at least 2007. If you are a Facebook friend, you may have seen my Retreat Week albums for 2016...2015...2014...2013...2012. (I'll be putting up one for this year soon.) And you are probably aware that among my greatest Retreat Week obsessions is the snowshoe trip to the Slayton Pasture Cabin. That is one rough haul that started becoming easier last year because my personal Sherpa, who has some obsessions of his own, changed how we approach the summit.

What he did was break the 3.1 mile climb into segments, which he timed. Each segment has a waypoint that we are heading toward. When we reach one waypoint, we can then determine how long it will take us to get to the next one. The whole trip up to the cabin takes us nearly two hours. But the longest segment is only fifteen minutes.

Psychologically, that makes a huge difference.

It's also a time management technique suggested by people like Alan Lakein back in the 1970s. Complex or difficult tasks often get put off because they're just too overwhelming. Climbing that "knoll" or...writing a book...are good examples. Breaking the job into smaller tasks makes the work involved seem doable.

How Are You Going To Make This Analogy Work, Gail?

Fox Track Connector

First Waypoint. Most of our snowshoe waypoints were spots where the snowshoe trail crossed a cross-country ski trail. The first waypoint, for instance, was the Fox Track connector. What is comparable with books?

Well, some writers like to begin with a disturbance to the main character's world, something that initiates action. Getting that introduced could be a waypoint, a chunk of work a writer concentrates on instead of focusing on, Oh, my gosh! I have to write a whole book.

Starting a book is actually more difficult than starting this snowshoe climb. The first few waypoints come before the climb. Whereas starting a book is much more of a trail. There's no material there. Find a writing waypoint. That can lead you to the next one.

Sign For Parizo Trail

A Waypoint At The End Of A Difficult Portion Of The Trail. One of our later waypoints is the trail sign to the Parizo Trail. This is good waypoint not just because there's a sign, but because after a steep climb, one of the worst of the trip, the trail turns and we start walking along the side of the knoll instead of up it. There's a definite change in the climb.

This happens with writing books, too. Some sections are more difficult to come up with material for than others. You may realize you're wandering too much, you haven't been careful about planning a specific goal for a scene, there are too many characters. Finally getting that section done to your satisfaction, at least for now, is a definite waypoint. It's like making a turn after a difficult climb.

Owl's Howl Trail

The Mid-Waypoint. Can't say enough about how great it is to know you've made it to the halfway point on a difficult trail. I mean, yeah, sure, you still have half the trip to go. But if you have any positive feelings toward life at all, you're halfway done.

Having a mid-point in mind for a manuscript can be hugely helpful. Some writing process people suggest that a novel's mid-point should be where something specific happens with protagonists. They may make a decision. They may change their behavior for some reason. They may experience a revelation that means they're going to do something. If while you're working on the first half of the book, you can come up with a mid-waypoint, when you get there and you have any positive feelings toward life at all, you're halfway done.

Barbed Wire

A Dramatic Waypoint. One of our waypoints in the second half of our snowshoe trip involves an area with remnants of a barbed wire fence. When I was little, I ran into a barbed wire with my sled. Yeah, that was a dramatic moment. You can be sure I'm going to notice barbed wire out of the woods.

In the second half of a book, there's going to be at least one dramatic moment of some type. A climax at the very least. That's a writing waypoint.

End Of The Trail

The End Waypoint. Seeing that last waypoint up ahead is a great moment, both when you're snowshoeing and writing a book. Here's a weird thing that happens, though. It seems as if you have to walk forever across that meadow to get to the cabin.

And, in my experience, that's what happens when writing a book. There's the ending waypoint, you're all excited, and then you realize, "Shoot. I need another chapter." You get that done and, damn, if you don't need another.

You Finally Meet All Your Waypoints. Whether you're snowshoeing or writing a novel, dividing the job into pieces with waypoints helps makes the job less overwhelming.

What Snowshoeing And Writing Does To You

Oh, and by the way? Hitting all your waypoints, either snowshoeing or writing, takes a lot out of you. You'll be soaked in sweat. You'll have no idea that your hair is sticking straight up. Nor will you care. You won't even know what you're wearing, for that matter. That thermal underwear I've got on in the picture to the right? I looked down and saw one sleeve had a stain. Because I'd worn it while staining woodwork. Presumably in cold weather. 

A Rerun: The Snowshoeing/Book Writing Analogy

I'm back from Retreat Week where, once again, I made the snowshoe trek to the Slayton Pasture Cabin. Though I am what I'd call an exercise hobbyist, perhaps dilettante, I always find this six-mile round trip trying. I actually worry about it for months and start training in October with some climbs on a small hill behind my house. While I was out on the snowshoe trail last Wednesday, my mind began to wander away from how much I was suffering to how much what I was doing was like writing. I could do a blog post about this, I thought. And then I thought, this sounds very familiar.

That was because I had already had the same idea while making the same trip in 2015 and had, indeed, done a blog post about it. So, people, for your enjoyment, here it is again.

A Snowshoeing/Book Writing Analogy.

Many people who have not written a book may wonder what it would be like to just knock one off. I think if you took a  journey up a mountain on snowshoes, you'd get a pretty good idea of what it feels like to write a book.

Okay, say you're going to head up a trail, and just to make this piece of writing specific, let's say it's the trail to the Slayton Pasture Cabin in Stowe, Vermont. You've been up to the cabin a few times before, and you know it's one of the tougher outdoor activities you take part in. You feel some anxiety about this whole thing. But then you figure, What the Hell? I've done this before.

So you start out and things are pretty easy at first, and you're thinking, What was I worried about? Yes. I have done this before. I've done it successfully. People have liked what I've done in the past. Of course, I can do this.

Then you hit that Hellacious, straight up climb, the part of the job you'd really feared. It is horrendous. You think it will never end. You'll never get through it. You think, I cannot do this again. This has got to be the last time. Is that my heart I feel thumping away in my chest? Have I ever felt that before? Is it going to explode? Is there any cellphone service here?

Then you take that turn and things get better. Since you've done this before, you know some landmarks. You know that nothing will be as bad as that part of the job you just did. You know that the snowshoe trail crosses a ski trail at the X minute point, so you can think of this job as a series of short tasks instead of Oh my God I'm, going to be on this trail for two hours. And that's just one way!

You actually experience one of those break through the wall things that you've heard about with marathoners. You might actually be okay.

And, then...And then, you see the cabin. A chorus of angels begins to sing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. They all sound just like K.D. Lang. You're going to make it!

Except...you still have to get through the pasture. Sure, this part is easy. But you're exhausted. You still have a ways to go. There's a fire in the cabin. There's food. Can you do it?  "Maybe there is a God," as Lenny Cohen says, because you can!!! You stagger up onto the cabin porch.

And that is what it's like to write a book.

But what about when you're in the cabin? Well, once you're in the cabin, you find that all the other writers, I mean, showshoers aren't wearing old thermal undershirts that are kind of too big for the shirt they're wearing over them. Nor do they wear hats their sons refused to wear. And they're talking about all the great places they've snowshoed and how long it took them to get to the cabin and how awesome it was, and it's always less time than it took you, and it's always far, far more awesome.

And that is what it's like to have published a book.

You come down off the mountain and feel pretty damn fine because it's always way better to have snowshoed than it is to snowshoe.

Just as it is always better to have written a book than it is to write it.