Looking forward… (plus a contest)

This is a repost from the Blaze Authors Blog from Thursday, in case any of the Super Lucky #1 Fun Blog's visitors might like a chance to win a book.

Hey, everyone! Happy… Dear God, mid-November? When did that happen?

I know it's a bit premature, but I've been thinking about goals for the new year. Goals have been on my mind all through 2011, since I've been doing all those ridiculous monthly Lent experiments, and while I don't want to do anything as intensive and constant as Discipline Year again any time soon, I am still very much pro-goal. So what to aim for, in 2012? Some aims are obvious; write and sell as many books as I can. Stay healthy. Learn when to step away from the keyboard. And between July (no sugar) and this month, alcohol-free Novembooze, I'm eager to keep eliminating sugar from my diet (if anyone else shares that mission, I can't recommend this lecture enough as motivation). But here are some more measurable, targeted goals I've been kicking around:

1. Read more. I'd like to read one hundred books in 2012. That's two a week, and I know to some of you voracious types, that's laughable. You could read a hundred books by April, I bet! But in the past few years, since becoming a writer, my fiction-reading skills have taken a battering. Every book I open up turns into a lesson. Not drudgery, not homework, but I'm so semi-consciously preoccupied with seeing how other authors put their words and stories together, it takes me ages to read, now. I'd love to relearn how to read quickly, nuts to turning the act into a learning experience. So, a hundred books in a year. That's my first goal.

2. Cook new things. My vegetarian month, Meat-Free May, and our participation in a farm-share program (we get a box of fresh, local, seasonal vegetables every week) have reminded how much fun it is to try new recipes. I'd like to try a new recipe once a week in the new year, to keep my modest culinary repertoire expanding…and to make grocery shopping a bit more adventurous.

3. Run ten miles. I used to hate running. But in the last decade it's gone from torture to chore to routine to something I even look forward to, some days. But I've yet to run farther than five and a half miles without stopping, and most days I go about three. I'd love to be able to say I ran ten miles, even just once, just to know I can do it. I'm going to aim to reach that goal by my birthday (May 2), with a little help from a renewed YMCA membership once the weather here turns inhospitable. Which could be any second now. [checks watch]

4. Land an agent. I really need to get off my butt and do this! It's a scary goal, because of all the ones I've listed, it's the one whose success is ultimately out of my hands. I can try and try and try, but I could still fall short. But that's a stupid reason to not try, so come January, I'm an author on a mission!

So those are my goals. I think 2012 is going to be an exciting year! I'll be attending my first Romantic Times Booklovers' Convention in April, and those folks actually just nominated Caught on Camera for an RT Reviewers' Choice Award, for best series debut. Pretty cool. So cool, in fact, let's do a contest! Tell me a goal you have in mind for the new year, and I'll pick a commenter [from the original post's comments] at random to win a paperback copy of Caught on Camera (or if you've already read it and you're patient, I promise I'll mail you a copy of my next Blaze, once it's published). I'll even make the contest international, so go ahead—tell me what you hope to accomplish in 2012! I'll pick a winner on Sunday, around noon, EST, and announce it in the Blaze Authors Blog comments.

Take care! Can’t wait to hear what your goals are.

Meg

10K Training, Day One

This morning was my first structured training workout toward my new goal of running a 10K (6.2 miles). Since I wasn't starting directly from the sofa, I picked Week Seven, Day One of the Couch to 10K iPod app's regimen. Five-minute warm-up walk, then alternate four minutes of running with two minutes of walking for fifty-eight minutes, then five minutes' cool-down.

Note to self, eat bigger breakfast…

but not whatever this is.

I'm not used to running for more than a half-hour at a time, so there were some predictably rude awakenings around the halfway point. The artificial energy from my coffee buzz dissipated. My legs went from feeling like capable springs to sacks of meat by the forty-five-minute mark, and my blood sugar crashed right around that same time. I'm going to have to eat a bigger breakfast on training days. Note to self: buy bananas. I didn't get too thirsty since it was cool and damp outside, and the walking intervals gave me adequate opportunities to recupe from all the panting. And to slow my breathing enough to take those inhalations that "hit bottom," as I think of it. But in a few weeks' time I'll probably need one of those runners' hip-holster things with a water bottle slot. And maybe a banana slot.

I started this morning in a funk, one of those randomly lousy Monday moods we all get. I'm still feeling predictably naked, post release-week, and my usual healthy layer of author-armor was nowhere in sight. But after an hour-plus of sweating, my body's so chock-full of serotonin and endorphins and accomplishment, I don't care who says what about me. If my manfriend's reading this, you know which Reddit meme cartoon archetype to picture me as.

The workout was a challenge, but not torture. Oh and as a bonus, I burned about six hundred calories—looking forward to replacing those at lunchtime. My arsenal of ridiculous pop and hip-hop music helped, as always. I had to bulk up my exercise playlist considerably to fill sixty-eight minutes, so I busted out some of my all-time favorite running tracks—Nelly / Ride Wit Me, Lyrics Born / Callin' Out, Skee-Lo / I Wish, plus a ton of Kylie and Gaga and Usher, Missy Elliot and Ludacris and George Michael. A motley, upbeat line-up. My manfriend, when he runs, does so to his beloved mournful, dirgey, lyric-less rock, which does not compute with me. He runs like he's on a vision quest. I run like I'm in my own music video. Whatever keeps your legs moving, I suppose.

Leg-Related Whatnots

Went for my first bike ride of the season this morning, twenty miles along Boston's North Shore. Before you start picturing me in spandex, my manfriend and I both have touring bikes, so we're more jeans-and-sneakers type cyclists, not jerseys-and-toe-clips, cruising not racing. Sadly, my bike computer (a little device on my handlebar that talks to sensor on my wheel and tells me my distance, time, calories, speed, etc.) needs a new battery, so I was in the dark on my vitals. I love anything that tracks progress…if I didn't own a scale I'd probably weigh a lot more than I do, as I'm very number-motivated. I have one of those annoying brains that fixates on quantifiable progress.

Couch to 10K app for iPhone/Touch

It was a nice ride, though my legs were a bit wonked from yesterday's run. Though I ran through the winter at the gym, my recent transition to outdoor running feels as rough as always, asphalt much less forgiving than a treadmill. I'd also forgotten how much tougher it is to run with the temp in the mid-forties, how much harsher it feels in my lungs and how streamy my eyes get from the wind. Still, nice to be outdoors, with spring finally feeling imminent. And the little park near my house has a gravel track running around it, which is exactly a half-mile long. Reasonably kind to joints and very handy for goal-setting.

And I have a new goal for this year. I'm not a distance runner. I'm a pretty ace sprinter and I can run a respectable enough 5K, and on a good day I average about a nine-minute mile. Not bad for a hobby runner. One of the reasons I've managed to stick with running in recent years, when in the past I haven't, is my iPod and its lovely apps. I completed the Couch to 5K program last year and really enjoyed it—it assigns you different run-and-walk workouts in increasingly challenging increments until you can run a full 5K (3.1 miles). Then the next time I had to buy new running shoes I gave the Nike+ system a spin. It's largely awesome, but not perfect. The pedometer effect it produces between an in-shoe sensor (sold separately and for specific models of Nikes, naturally) and my iPod is shockingly accurate, better than any actual pedometer I've ever used. It saves your workouts and stats and tells you your speed, whereas programs like Couch to 5K can only track your time…though I believe the latest Couch to 5K version will interact with the Nike+ program, a clunky marriage of a good training app with a good pedometer app.

But this year I'd like to train myself for a 10K…a solo one, if I don't stumble across a local charity run. The farthest I've ever run without stopping before is 5.1 miles, and every time I say things like, "I wish I was the kind of person who could run a marathon," my manfriend says, "You are, you just don't choose to." So this year I'll choose to be the kind of person who runs a 10K. At 6.2 miles it's within my reach, even if it's still twenty miles short of a marathon. Maybe in the fall I'll sign up for Salem's 6.66-mile Devil's Chase on Halloween morning. And maybe next year I'll find out if I'm fit for a half-marathon. The year after that…who knows.

Because I looove quantifiable progress, of course I just downloaded a new app. It's called Couch to 10K, though oddly enough it's made by a different developer than Couch to 5K…they must have snuck in there and stolen the name. But it got great ratings and I like the interface, and allegedly it works alongside Nike+ if you want it to. I scanned the workouts, and on Monday I'm going to give it a go, starting on Week Seven (since I'm not starting straight off the couch)—a sixty-eight-minute routine, alternating running and walking. It's so much easier (for me) to get jazzed about goals when they're broken into bite-sized chucks. The same goes for writing, actually. It'd be daunting to see only 100,000 shadowy, unwritten words spread out between you and the distant horizon…but break it down to one or two thousand a day, and before you know it you're typing The End. Well, maybe not before you know it…but eventually.

Anyhow, that's just me blathering about my new goal. I love goals—did you notice? According to this app's schedule, if I go at the pace they suggest (three training runs per week) I'll be ready to run a full 10K in about five weeks. If my janky knee doesn't get other ideas, that is. But I won't know if I don't try, and I won't likely try if I can't quantify. So here goes nothing. Well, here goes nothing but me on my wobbly legs, anyhow.

The Chemistry of Writing

Nope, nothing to do with a leading couple's attraction. Nothing to do with plot formulae. I'm talking about basic bodily chemistry here, and how it affects writing, or how it affects me as a writer, at least. Bear in mind, this ain't proper science…

Proper science.

I think any dedicated fiction writer will agree, this job is unpredictable. One day you write five thousand words, all of them as brilliant as first drafts come. Euphoria! The next day, you tweeze out six hundred, each feeling like a tooth being extracted. In between are the adequate days, maybe one or two thousand usable words, steady forward momentum. But one thing is certain—you can't guess which type of day you're in for until you sit down and start listening to the voices in your head. Or in the case of a bad day, straining to hear them, desperate for the tiniest scrap of inspiration.

That's all very annoying, because some days, due to deadlines both external and self-imposed, we feel we need to hammer out three thousand genius words, but it just isn't going to happen. However, there are certain chemical aids and hindrances you can either avoid or harness to help stack the writing deck in your favor.

Caffeine. If you're a coffee (or Coke or tea) drinker, this is major. I think we underestimate how strong a stimulant caffeine is. A highly reliable scientific reference (Wikipedia) tells us "caffeine is an ergogenic, increasing a person's capability for mental or physical labor." It is my opinion that writing is both a mental and physical labor, so one might think this would bode well. I disagree.

Too much coffee and I swear my brain dries up from a lake to a gully. I may be alert, but the thoughts I'm having feel very surface-level, very uninspired. The movies that play in my head when I write become faint and fuzzy. It's my experience that too much caffeine makes the brain shallow. That reads like the label off a Victorian quack medicine bottle, but I stand by it. Caffeine can push your body into jacked-up faux-survival mode, heart beating faster, all impulses feeling urgent and immediate…kiss your creativity and emotional awareness goodbye. Stick to the same dosage each day. I have a mug of coffee first thing with breakfast, and that's it if I want to stay relaxed enough to write. For me, much of the appeal of coffee is the comfort factor; having a mug of something warm by my side makes work feel less worky, as if I'm getting away with something. My twenty year old self would scoff, but I can't say enough good things about decaf.

Sugar. Similar to caffeine, but different. The illusion of instant energy, but in my opinion, the crash is far worse. I try to not eat anything too sugary until after dinner, because it just wrecks me for the day. Also, during the brief window when one does enjoy a little energy hit, I find myself very distractable. I may be going a million miles a minute, but generally only around and around in circles, from Twitter to Google to the kitchen, to the work-in-progress, which I stare blankly at before deciding to see if anything's changed on Twitter in the ninety seconds since I last visited. Then, cue the robot slumping as it powers down. The only thing worse than a sugar buzz for getting words written is a sugar crash. Just stay away from that white powder…at least until you've hit your word count.

Adrenaline. This is a tricky one…again, I can only speak for myself. If you work great under pressure, more power to you. But my body does not process adrenaline the way I wish it would. I would love to be one of those people who, when confronted or in the midst of a competition, get a surge of superhuman strength and ride that wave to victory. Not me. My adrenaline highs make me shaky and short of breath, turn my mouth to a desert and my knees to jelly. Ask anyone who's watched me right before I had to spar in Taekwondo or at the start line of a 5K. I would love to be that person who feeds on the surge, but something about my engine just does not process that chemical to the best effect. Flight, not fight, for me.

As such, I know I can't function as a procrastinator and succeed at this job. I don't work well under pressure at all, so instead I go the teacher's pet route and do every assignment as soon as it's given, so I won't find myself in the midst of an anxiety attack the night before it's due.

The only times I do enjoy adrenaline rushes are when I'm competing against myself, with low stakes. If I'm running and I decide to push myself to go a bit faster, a bit farther, suddenly I'm there—an actual, enjoyable adrenaline high, and nothing to lose if I fail. Same with the writing—if I set my daily goal at a thousand words, I nearly always double it or better. It sounds lame and counterintuitive to our reach for the stars culture, but the more reasonable the goal, the more likely you'll surpass it. Set too high a goal and you're inviting pressure. If my goal is a thousand words, I might hit it, get a surge of accomplishment, and write another thousand. Set it at four thousand and the uphill climb wears me out and I begin to doubt myself by word 1,500. I hate to say it, but if you're like me and don't process adrenaline the way Gator-Aid and Under Armour like to suggest we all should, set your hurdles low. You might go soaring over that hurdle way up in the air, but if you set it too high you're likely to just whack your head on the bar.

Endorphins. Ah, what makes running an admissible form of torture for me. I wanted to be sure to offer up a couple of positive chemical aids after villainizing caffeine and sugar and adrenaline. Endorphins are the body's own self-made opiates, triggered by such things as exercise, love, spicy foods, and orgasm. I'll focus on that first one.

This post was actually inspired by my trip to the Y yesterday. I'd started my day less than chipper, filled with low-level angst and mild annoyance, an overall sensation of meh. But I knew from experience that this meant I needed to get a nice sweat on. Thirty to sixty minutes of good old fashioned exercise and I can suddenly find myself staring wide-eyed into a totally new day. During my walk to the gym, the snow looked gray, the people seemed like slow-moving obstacles blocking my way, the cars like death machines hell-bent on running me down. On the walk home, the sun was shining (it had been before, but I hadn't bothered noticing), the people were friendly, and the cars all seemed eager to stop and let me cross the street. Oh, endorphins. Best drug ever, and totally free! Another huge upshot to exercise is of course better health, plus a feeling of accomplishment, competence, a temporary sense superiority to others (if you're a jerk like me), and I firmly believe, increased creativity. Plus you can eat more.

Serotonin. I won't pretend I have any authoritative understanding of this one, but I did want to touch on it. Please don't trust my science. But here's what I believe to be accurate: serotonin is a neurotransmitter that can create in us a sense of well-being and contentment. Highly conducive to writing. The tryptophan in turkey we've all heard about is an amino acid that our bodies convert to serotonin, hence that happy, sleepy feeling many of us Yanks experience after Thanksgiving dinner.

Serotonin production and release is highly influenced by diet, and things like complex carbohydrates help us create it, while things like protein do not. Junk foods, particularly those high in simple carbs, trigger the serotonin effect, but because they don't actually provide us with the nutrients to replace the serotonin they unleash from our bodies' stores, they give us a temporary high that can later result in a depressed sensation. The obvious lesson here—eat junk food in moderation. The little high it gives us is short-lived, often chased by the low that spurred us to head to the cupboard in the first place.

Hmmm… I hadn't intended this post to become an "Eat right and exercise!" PSA, but here we are. I would have liked to cover alcohol as well, but that hotbed of emotion- and impulse-modification is a post or two in itself. Plus, I need to go write…just as soon as I steep myself a cup of decaf.

Uncle!

Gymuary day ten, and the inevitable has come to pass. Little Miss Overachiever-Pants pushed too hard and hurt herself. Not badly, nothing grievous…but my left shin, ankle, and knee are not amused. It wasn't a super crazy workout. Half hour on the elliptical, then my beloved ten-minute sprint-fest on the treadmill. I did awesomely, injury nowithstanding…two solid minutes at 7.5 mph, an overall average speed of 6.8. Blazzow! But clearly, I shouldn't be celebrating. In fact as soon as I get the laundry in the dryer I promise I'm going to pop a few Advil and head to bed to elevate my leg and while I self-edit a sub. My left knee has a history of being a prima donna, so at least I know what to do. Looks like Gymuary's about to turn into Swimuary, at least until my leg gives me the all-clear. If anyone catches me tweeting or posting about doing anything aside from swimming or gentle yoga for the rest of the week, feel free to lambaste me in all caps.

Snowy Saturday Whatnots

It's a lazy, snowy Saturday. It's also day eight of Gymuary and I must confess, I feel it. I'm now over a week in and the experiment is more than a quarter complete. Between the running and elliptical machines, Zumba, and yoga, I feel as spring loaded as I did back when I practiced Taekwondo. My body's starting to change shape, if I'm not mistaken. That wasn't the point of Gymuary, merely a side effect, but I won't complain. On the flip side, I'm at a point where I groan like an eighty-year-old when I get out of bed. Not sports-injury bad, but distinctly sore. They're pains of accomplishment, so I welcome them…though I do move slower in the mornings than I did a couple of weeks ago.

But step aside, Gymuary. Make room for Januquery!

So in equally painful and sweaty news, I've officially begun my search for a literary agent. I'm going about it slowly, one query at the time, perhaps five queries a month. A Twitter friend and fellow Blaze author recommended I query her agent, who represents both category and single-title romance, and she even gave her agent a heads-up about me. What a doll! So I'll be starting there in the next few days, once my all-time favorite manuscript's partial is freshly polished and its synopsis whittled down by about 200 words. Gah. If there's anything worse than writing a synopsis, it's shortening one you already slaved to construct. I did get my query drafted and synopsis shortened considerably this morning, so I just need to keep the momentum up.

I haven't queried agents in over a year, and I will admit, I've been putting it off. I'm still a new writer, and I'm intimidated. I don't tend to write high concept books, so I'm very easy to reject. I've had my fair share of rejections and I'm a big girl about them, but they still hurt. Especially when it's my favorite thing I've written, as this manuscript is. But like my 5K time goal for the end of the month, no pain no gain. If I don't get a-queryin', I won't ever be able to share the good news of finding the right agent. Funny how that works.

Goal Within a Goal

First off, God love you if you're still following these posts. I know there are few things more boring than listening to someone tell you about how they went to the gym, so I dread to think how much worse reading about it must be. It's even more boring than hearing about people's dreams, so bless you. I promise February will be better, as you'll get to watch me suffer through a whole month without makeup.

But anyhow, today was day five of Gymuary. My evil conjoined erotica-writing twin has a release out today (not a plug—don't read her book, it's filthy and full of swears and naughty bits being ground together) and was driving me up the wall with her spastic lack of concentration, so heading to the Y for a good brain-wiping workout was just the ticket. I decided to set a little goal within my greater Gymuary goal. Since it's January 5, I ran a 5K on the treadmill. Then, on January 31, I'll run another 3.1 miles (that's how far 5K is, if you didn't know) and I'll see if I can top today's time.

I'd hoped to run it in under 30 minutes, which was a bit of challenge as I underestimated how, um, effective a workout Zumba is. Dude, my ass was grass. But, with the help of a lung-bursting final quarter mile…

Today's 5K time—29:31
That's an average speed of 6.4 miles an hour.

My goal for January 31—28:30 (or better)
That'd be an average speed of just under 6.6 mph. Doesn't sound like a huge leap, but I'm pretty sure it'll suck. Which is good. Fitness goals always suck while you're meeting them, though they do rule afterward.

Now, must shower.

New Tricks

I have no personal affiliation with this excellent dog.

While thirty-one in dog years only amounts to a reasonably spry pooch of four and a half, the theme of this past week for me has definitely been learning new tricks. There was an excellent On Point on yesterday on the topic of aging, and it featured 91-year-young Canadian Oga Kotelko, who's a medal-winning track and field star—an active one! She sprints and throws the hammer, javelin, and shot put, among many other pursuits. Apparently after her kids were grown and she retired, she decided it was time to take up exercise, and now in addition to some enviable genes, she credits all the physical activity with her enviable longevity and energy. So, it's never to late to learn new skills and cultivate challenging hobbies. Here are mine:

Touch-typing. I know, I know. I'm a writer, and I don't know how to touch-type? How did I ever manage to finish a single novella? Well, I'm a very adept hunt-and-pecker. So adept, I can hunt-and-peck without looking at the keyboard, with reasonable accuracy. Or as I mused on Twitter, perhaps that just makes me a pecker. So that works and everything. I mean, I hit my 2–4K writing goals most days and the speed of my typing doesn't inhibit my ability to keep up with my thoughts, so what's the problem? Well, the problem is that I've been having pain recently, in my neck, shoulder, and arm, accompanied by a numbness in my hand. I attribute it to a variety of things—the crappy desk chair in which I slump for eight hours a day, my annoying hair pulling habit, and my screwy hand positioning, brought on by my unorthodox typing practices and lame desk set-up. Well, having a disconcertingly numb hand and sore arm is no way to go about being a full-time writer, so on Tuesday I changed cold-turkey.

I got lucky on the hair-pulling front—my recent arm pain made that stupid activity too painful to indulge in, so that habit has faded nearly to nonexistence this week. As for my shitty work station, I've ordered a new Balance Ball chair like the one I used to use at my old graphic design office job. It's nearly impossible to slump on one of those—you'll go rolling backward or topple over. While I wait for it to arrive, I've been using my manfriend's adjustable-height backless desk chair. He's sort of a posture nerd. Good thing to be nerd about. I raised it to the height the ball chair will be, quite a bit higher than the crappo Ikea five-dollar folding chair I usually sit on. I had to completely rearrange my work station, too, as my keyboard drawer is far too low to comfortably type on from a dizzying seat height of twenty-five inches.

The same morning I fixed my desk situation, I began a touch-typing regimen. Aside: when I was in second grade we were supposed to learn how to touch-type, using the PAWS game software on our lab's Apple II-Es. The lessons were timed, and you had to race a cat. I got so worked up by it, I hyperventilated. It absolutely stressed the hell out of me. Just ask my mom. But that was twenty-four years ago now, and I decided it was time to move on from those old traumas. I found this excellent website with step-by-step graduated typing drills. After going through the basics I soon learned it's far easier to type real sentences than random letters, so I've adapted my own daily program, about an hour's worth of writing out whatever sentence pops into my head, then touch-typing it over and over until I get every letter right without any mistakes. I've also forced myself to tweet and chat strictly while touch-typing. I have a deadline at the moment, so my professional writing is still of the break-neck hunting-and-pecking variety, but I'm getting better at proper typing by the day. Next week I'll probably force myself to blog only while touch-typing…look forward to those uncharacteristically concise posts.

Zumba! Their exclamation point, not mine; I'm not that perky. If you don't know, Zumba! is the new hot exercise trend, much the way Tae Bo or Jazzercise were in their heydays. I love the idea of it—high energy dancing to hip-hop and Latin beats. I went to an introductory class at my gym last weekend, and realized this is something I will a) probably love and b) make an ass of myself trying to do in a normal, fast-paced, non-instructive class. So after the intro I dug out my old dance sneaks from salsa class and found some how-to step break-downs on YouTube. I ordered a used set of Zumba DVDs as well, as I'm one of those anxious people who like to enter into new realms prepared. I hope in a couple of weeks I'll feel grounded enough in the basics that I'll be able to walk into a proper class without fear. I know, nobody would care if I walked in and looked a total idiot except me, but it's my personality. I don't like not being good at things, so I think I'll suffer my no-nothing days in privacy, thanks.

Conversational Italian. My Pimsleur CDs just came in via inter-library loan this morning! The manfriendiTunes and learn them while I cook dinner each evening. Even if we never go, it's supposed to be great for the brain to keep learning languages, despite the fact that our noggins are faaaar better at that sort of thing when we're young and spongy. Anyhow, I'll let you all know how that goes.

The weather has taken a distinctly December-in-New-England turn of late, so it feels like a perfect time to keep myself occupied, even as the gray skies and frigid temps try to seduce me into the cozy clutches of laziness. Anyone else trying something new this winter (or summer, to you lovely Southern Hemispherians)? Tell me about it! Just don't tell me in Italian just yet.

Busting the Bon-Bon Myth

Writers know their daily Ks don't belong to the screen alone.

Writers endure a tremendous amount of pressure—from their editors, publishers, readers, spouses and suffering bank accounts, and most of all themselves— to keep their "butts in the chair". That means sit down each day and do your job. Write. Fingers on keys.

Sterling advice, worthy of a stone tablet…or at least an overpriced Moleskine. But is it worthy of an uncomfortably snug pair of jeans? Dear God, say it ain't so.

I do most of my socializing within the authorsphere on Twitter, and one really cool thing I've noticed is how many of us make exercise a priority. Writers—individuals in any profession in which there's pressure, often self-induced, to stay glued to your screen and keyboard—have a reputation for being…how can I put this? A bit soft around the edges.

But we don't all work in our slippers and pajamas, drinking can after can of caffeinated soda and snacking as we type. Writers take their jobs very seriously, even if the hard work isn't always reflected in the paychecks. And I'd suggest we take our health seriously, too. I spot tweets all day that prove my fellow authors care just as much about the Ks they're walking as the ones they're writing.

I usually tweet when I'm about to take my morning run, in part because I know somebody will be kind enough to point out, "Aren't you supposed to be running by now?" when I invariably get waylaid by the conversations or my own work-in-progress. Writers are encouraged to put their WIPs before their waistlines, and to do otherwise can be seen as a distraction from their artistic and professional calling.

Nonsense!

I love when I catch others' tweets about favorite yoga positions, who's heading out to the gym, who got an awesome idea for a story on their morning walk. I love seeing my fellow desk-jockeys jazzed about a new jump-start workout song or crazy high-tech sneakers or a fitness goal reached. So take that, stereotypes and self-induced productivity guilt!

That said, it is a sedentary existence, being a full-time writer. For those who are slacking a bit on their fitness regimen, I think setting a goal for exercise as one would words (such as, "I will write 2K today and walk that same distance") is wise, not only for your health, but also your creativity. Getting your blood moving through cardio and stretching is fantastic for your brain. It clears out the cobwebs and freshens your head, relaxes you so your ideas can flow more easily, and it boosts your confidence. Think I'm talking out of my ass? Go for a vigorous 45-minute walk and tell me you don't feel more lucid and capable when you next sit down to flagellate yourself in service to the almighty word count god. I walk when I'm stuck for a story's turning point and it nearly always does the trick. It can also get you out of the house, which is key in a job where the tiniest observation can blossom into a full-blown epic at any serendipitous moment.

So, to any scoffers out there who still think writers spend more time reaching for the bon-bons than the dumbbells, the tweets beg to differ. And to the writers who need a little kick in the priorities, consider committing yourself to a 2K-a-day style exercise goal. It may take a perceived 25–30 minutes away from your precious writing time, but I promise you, you'll see a difference not only in your daily calorie tally, but also in your word count.

Away She Runs

It's just after seven in the morning. Toast has been consumed and coffee is about to fall victim to the same fate. In less than an hour I'll be puffing away down the roads and walking trails that run along my town's coastline, praying those dark clouds outside have already shed their load.

I'm not a natural runner. I'm sort of decent at most amateur athletics, as long as they don't require too much upper body strength, but I really enjoy walking and cycling and running. Walking is the one that churns up the most new writing ideas, but running is the best calorie burner…plus I've come to really love sweating, and when I'm finished I feel high from the endorphins and my stress levels are reset. That's a boon to writing as well.

I try to run four to six days a week. Before anyone decides to be impressed, I don't run especially far, typically only two and a half to three miles. That's 20 to 30 minutes, which is good amount of time for me. It gets my blood pumping without risking injury to my sometimes fussy knees. On a good day I run an average of nine minutes a mile, closer to ten if I'm groggy or if it's reeeaaallly humid. I know this because I invested in some good Nikes with a sensor that sends info to my iPod—that thing's cool enough to warrant its own post some other day.

Right now I've got a goal. I ran my first charity 5K (3.1 miles) a couple weekends ago. I didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped…nerves made my mouth incredibly dry and my bladder antsy. Charming. Plus I'd never run in a race before, and I assumed listening to music wasn't kosher. Well half the other runners had their headphones on, and I could have used some music to block out the sound of my own raspy breathing. Next time, I'm bringing entertainment. But I did finish the 5K and only a minute or so later than I'd hoped, somewhere in the top 40% of the racers. Now I'm "training" to run the Devil's Chase on Halloween in Salem—that's 6.66 miles. Twice as far as the 5K and then some. I have a marathon-running brother so when I first got back into running I thought a 5K wasn't long enough to count as "real running". Well, I've come to accept that I'm not my brother, and 5K is plenty long. And 6.66 miles will be tough for a morning jogger like me, even if my big brother runs eight miles before breakfast in under an hour.

My training regimen's super simple. I started last week with a "long run" goal of 3.25 miles. This week—today—the goal is 3.5. If I add a quarter mile to my "long run" each week between now and Halloween, I'll be up to 6.25, and then there's just that extra push on race day to hit 6.66. And thank goodness, the humidity and temperatures will be far better for running in late October than they are at the height of summer. And the only goal I'm setting myself for the race is to show up and to finish—no time pressure.

Damn, it's starting to rain now…I hate putting my run off so late that my caffeine runs out. In the meantime I'll get my iPod loaded up…two episodes of the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, plus a few songs inbetween should be enough to fill up those 3.5 miles. And when I get back, rain- and sweat-soaked and beet-red in my freckly Irish face, I'll feel fantastic.

And…begin.

Well hello there. Welcome to my first post here at the Super Lucky #1 Fun Blog*.

By the time I decided to become a more frequent poster [read: this morning], I had earlier blogging experiences under my belt to draw upon. Before I was a published I blogged weekly-ish on the topic of my experiences as an aspiring writer. I wrote very long and exhausting and largely informative posts, and invested much time in editing them to perceived perfection. After I became published in erotic romance early this year, I was invited to join a group of like-minded and saucy gals, where my conjoined erotica-writing evil twin still blogs every other Thursday on the topic of writing, erotica, and other [mostly] related topics. She, too, writes incredibly long-winded posts, which she spends considerable time editing, posts which if she were required to pen more than twice a month would eat up all of her fiction-writing time and energy.

What I've taken away from these two earlier blogging experiences is that a) it seems wise to post on a set topic, as consistency is desirable and doing so would hopefully attract people with similar interests and needs, and b) I can't help but write too much.

That's all about to change. For this blog, I have three objectives: post often, post short, and post about whatever. Much of it will likely revolve around the so-called writer's life, and come spring 2011 when my first two romances are due to come out, some title-dropping of my books may get folded into the mix. Self-promo makes me feel dirty (the bad kind of dirty), but I'd be lying if I said I shan't stoop to it…though I promise to try to keep it to a minimum.

Where was I? Right—post frequent. And that means short, otherwise I'll burn out or use up all the creativity I need to keep the paltry paychecks coming in. And short means not spouting out thesis-driven posts that go on for days. That brings us to the third item—post whatever. Whatever happened to me today. For example, this morning I ran three and a half miles and my playlist consisted of two episodes of The Archers separated by Skee-Lo's "I Wish". That's the sort of bull you're in for. Recipes. Rants. Pictures of stuff I saw (or perhaps more likely, pictures off the net of little round birds, as I'm a bit obsessed with little round birds).

So starting tomorrow (as this post is already verging on the long-winded) I shall post about whatever comes to mind. Hope to see you there.

* Please note, blog may not live up to its illustrious name.