Training to be a faster cyclist is simple. I didn’t say easy, but it is simple. While you can fuss over aero, over weight (of you and the bike), over nutrition, and over every other detail, there’s one simple correlation: The fastest cyclists ride the most. Volume, number of miles ridden, is the most important factor by far, and by the time a second one makes a notable difference you’re already a crit racer. This doesn’t mean you can ignore the other factors; you won’t make it through your rides if you don’t eat, and making smart bike choices that do make a difference (like tires and a seat that fits your body) will make it easier to ride more. Still, volume is king: you must ride more before you can ride faster.

Weirdly, writing is the same way. You can fuss over your characters or your commas or any number of other things, but actually producing more words is the only thing that will make you better. You do need to keep reading, yes, to keep seeing and absorbing examples of good writing, but ultimately writing more is going to help you write better.

I am in the midst of a volume strategy for cycling. It’s somewhat compensatory; when I started commuting by bike I was riding nearly 100 miles a week by default, and needless to say I got into shape faster and stayed at a higher level of fitness longer. Now, my commute is a single flight of stairs long, and every mile I ride needs to be deliberate. Sure, there’s a couple times a week I ride somewhere to see a friend or do some light shopping, but unless I choose a farflung destination to get miles in, that’s…five? Eight? It’s not a lot.

As far as results, I’m doing…ok. I manage a 60+ mile week roughly every other week, while I should be aiming to do that, well, every single week. My totals are a bit better as those numbers come from Strava and I rarely record my around-town rides, but for the most part it’s not enough to push any of the ‘below 60’ weeks into ‘above 60’ territory. I’ve also been tweaking my bike here and there…I’m still searching for a saddle that works for me, so every incremental improvement makes it easier to go on longer and longer rides and be comfortable. Realistically, though, I need to push to be more consistent.

It’s the same story with writing. Two blog posts a week is a great start, but it’s been difficult to make any progress on my side projects (which is really where most of my goals are located). With everything going on it’s often hard to find the energy to write an additional 1-2000 words a week over and above the 1-2000 words here and the 1-2000 words at Cannibal Halfling. I am aware, though, that I have time, and that’s where I need to find the real parallel between writing and cycling, the parallel which is why I’m confident I’ll get my riding cadence down but am not yet with writing.

It’s not secret, sexy, or saleable, but the key to meeting your goals is forcing yourself to do it some of the time. I’m not motivated to go ride three times a week, and since I no longer need to use the bike to get to work I don’t have an immediate incentive other than if I feel motivated. Unfortunately, no matter what people say, motivation alone doesn’t do it. Sometimes it will suck, and it’s okay to need to drag yourself through it until it sucks a bit less. As volume is the key to being a faster cyclist, the cyclists who get out there because of motivation alone are either lying or very slow. The same goes for writing; it’s why NaNoWriMo works for me so well because once you get in the mindset that skipping writing is almost certain to make you fail, you don’t skip writing and then you write every day. Similarly, I likely need a goal to measure against. Ride three times a week works. Write two blog posts a week works. What goal should I add to that?

I’m now entering the point where I’m out of GMing Mode and it’s past my birthday so I have a stretch of time into the summer where doing additional writing should be within reasonable mental energy expenditure limits. I’ve also spent a lot of time looking at the barebones skeleton of my game setting, slowly adding elements but not really adding wordcount or making any forward progress. This may be a place where I can make some forward progress. Past me was smart enough to make a checklist, and each item on the checklist is separable (though some are larger than others, especially as you move down the list). It’s also likely I will economize on posting to this blog (I mean, fictional worlds are certainly within its purview, so why not), though I’ll still need to keep in mind my goal of posting one piece of fiction a month as well.

So there’s a goal. Let’s push on checking off one of those worldbuilding project boxes this week. Then, next week I’ll come back and tell you all about it. From there, it’s really up to me to figure out what method of pushing myself to write works and then committing to it. And even with all that, I’m also going to continue to bike three times a week, at least. Just keep pushing volume, everything else will come together after that.