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How Am I Losing Weight?
Got a Couple People Asking Me Today… One thought two pounds a week was too fast, but actually most docs and basic information say that is a safe pace. And it feels right to me so I’m going to try to maintain it. So how am I doing it? First, I know this intense focus on it will end in about ten weeks or so. That helps. Second, I am not depriving myself of anything, really. I have two focuses. First, Exercise… I try to walk 10,000 steps a day, which for me is almost exactly five miles. I allow a 9,000 step day if in the next day or…
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Stay Home for the Holidays…
I Know… I Know… You really want to see family, be with friends. I know. Just don’t this year. Just hang on until your turn comes to get the vaccine, and then hang on and stay safe until this clears. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Today over 3,400 people died from this. And that is going to get worse, a lot worse, before it starts to get better. This death spike right now is the start from the stupidity of Thanksgiving combined with winter. It was expected because so many people traveled and thought it would be all right just that once to be with…
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Chasing the Market
Artistic Freedom Part Two… Yesterday I talked about the wonderful artistic freedom this new world gives writers. If, and only if, the writer takes the freedom and even knows how to recognizes the freedom. I got a number of questions, mostly in e-mails, about what I meant by not writing to market in that post. In short, writing to market means thinking that writing something you have heard is selling well only because you want to make money. In other words, you write into areas you don’t know, don’t even much like, or even like to write, just for the hope of a few more sales. Horrid writer death that…
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Massive Numbers of Writing Things To Do
Way Too Much To Do An amazing thing has happened to writers in this new world of publishing. We are all busy. Extremely busy, with to-do lists that stretch beyond any reality at times. I love this new aspect of writing and publishing. Completely love it. Why? Because it means I am in control. I have the control over all aspects of my writing and publishing. And I have accepted that control. (Amazing how many writers don’t accept the control.) Have you ever noticed in the real world that the person in control of something is usually the busiest person? I personally would rather be the person in control of…
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Back Running
Back Running A bumpy start, but got out running today. Horrid weather, but in the parking garage at the mall the weather is pretty good. No wind or rain, just some cars. I ended up doing six miles of walking and running today. Only about two miles of running. I did some tests. Seems my running pace is a little fast for what I really want to do. About ten minutes per mile. But if I run about a hundred yards, walk ten, run a hundred and keep that pace up, I can do a mile in just over eleven minutes. And got a hunch I could keep that routine…
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Automatic Confidence
Topic of the Night: Automatic Confidence Lots and lots of writers get lost in the process of publishing between the moment they finish their story or novel and the moment it gets into print in one fashion or another. Getting lost in this area often comes from a lack of confidence. And fear. Massive fear. Not sure what writers are afraid of, but sometimes releasing a work for a writer is like walking into nests of spiders. Or worse. This lack of confidence and fear leads to either not publishing or rewriting, which is a form of not publishing. So here tonight is an idea for you, something I call Automatic Confidence. A…
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Focus
Focus It has been sort of a very strange period for me with my writing over the last few weeks or so. And I got a hunch this sort of things happens to everyone at times. Not the first for me, but one of the first times since I started this blog streak three plus years ago. Let me see if I can describe this. It takes, at least for most of us, a level of focus at fiction writing. I am not talking about planning ahead or outlining or anything silly like that. And I am not talking about all the problems that stop us from getting to the…
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Back To Regular Fun
Back to Regular Fun We hit the final hours of the Kickstarter this afternoon and it finished strong. Wow, just wow. Thank you, everyone. And through Kickstarter, when everything is done on their side, I will send out to everyone a survey for the information we need to fulfill the rewards, including the workshop and lecture stuff. That will happen in the first week of October. So now I want to get my focus back on three things. First, I am doing my best to ramp up my running. Second, I want to talk about the two fantastic bundles I have books in. And third, back to the novel and some…
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Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of a Challenge
Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of A Challenge A number of people have written me and made comments on the blogs about how they like the crazy challenges I come up with. Let me give you, in seven points, my reasoning about any challenge. 1st… I have learned it has to be short term. My memory and attention span is so short that if I try for long-term challenge that can’t be broken down into much shorter challenges, I will stop cold or just forget, which is more likely to happen. 2nd… It has to be something I haven’t done before, or have an element that makes it new.…
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Day Two: Novel Challenge
Day Two: Novel Challenge Again for Day Two, a weird day. For the first time all year, it turned sort of hot here. Maybe got up to almost eighty, which here at the coast is a killer for us locals. Silly, I know, but air conditioning is a lost art here. So it was too warm for me to work in my office at WMG, so went out for some walking, got a new pair of running shoes and some running socks as well. Home by 6 p.m., after only about one hour of work, 1 hour of exercise. Too warm to work in here, so I went downstairs and took a…