I recently finished listening to the audiobook What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami. I don’t know how to write a proper book review, nor do I actually care to know, to be honest. However, I thought I’d write my impressions of it for consideration of writing such a book myself, having been a runner for almost 25 years now, and not shy to writing collections of vignettes. I didn’t keep great notes during those years, not even racing stats, but I’ve just started a new phase of running where I am running differently, and have technology for it like never before in the form of a Garmin. So perhaps I can write that running book, a sequel to a book I had never written, with some flashbacks to what would have been in that prequel. That’s possible, is it not?
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Coping with a Predeterministic Existence
What if everything you do won’t ever matter because all the outcomes were predetermined? What if everything everybody ever does won’t matter because all those outcomes were predetermined? What if everything that happens in the universe were predetermined? And not just our petty little lives. And what if those what if scenarios were real instead of hypothetical? Because it is scientifically plausible. What are you going to do to cope with it? Not believe it?
Borrowed a Library Book That was Still in Quarantine
Today, I had an unexpected and interesting experience. I borrowed a library book while it was still in quarantine. Yes, it was still in quarantine, not me, for protection from potential COVID spread. Apparently, the Halifax Public Library , and I’m sure many other libraries, disinfect books after they are returned, and leave them for 24 hours, at which time any possible COVID on it will have died off and not be transmittable. I just didn’t know that in how I came about it.
To Read or Not to Read, for Learning Writing
Early in my writing journey, I’ve come to my first dilemma for which I don’t have a clear answer, and not one I don’t think anyone can provide me with an answer, either. That dilemma is how much should I be reading to learn about writing styles? A lot? A little? Somewhere in between? What I like? What I don’t like? A mix of both? And what else?
Words to End a Book With… or Not
If you were writing a book, after tens of thousands of words, possibly over a hundred words, would you care what would be your last word? And if you did, what would it be? Or perhaps, more realistically, what wouldn’t it be? Or maybe what wouldn’t it be along the lines of? I would never have cared before today, because I had never thought of it. However, I got an unintended prompt a few days ago that, from now on, I will commit to caring.
