exercise Archives - Laurell K. Hamilton

Back to Work, Coffee Disaster, and the Heavy Bag

Now that the government has decided to get back to work, we take you back to our regularly scheduled blog. When I wrote this it wasn’t below zero temperatures, so everyone stay warm and safe.

I woke up at 4:00 AM and just couldn’t get back to sleep, the book I’m writing was too loud in my head. I thought I’ll get up, feed the dogs really fast, and get to my desk. Of course, it didn’t work that way. I got to chase one of our dogs through the cold, snowy darkness because he was eating poo in the yard – again. But not all was lost, because when I got the dogs back inside the sweet, sweet smell of coffee greeted me from the coffeemaker. Then I heard the first sizzle and pop, and realized water was leaking out of the coffeemaker. Steam rose as the water hit the hot plate under the coffee pot. I thought at first it was smoke, but just steam, thankfully. The pot was full of coffee, so I thought, I’ll try it. The wonderful aroma wafted up as I took that first sip. It was weak like water that coffee had run by and waved at, and so cool that I could put my finger in the liquid and not be burned.

I still hadn’t fed the dogs or gone to my office. I did a quick video about my morning and posted it online, thanks to everyone who hoped my day would get better. I wanted to let you know that the morning’s coffee debacle was the low point and the day improved. I managed to get some writing done, perhaps not as much I wanted, but some days pages are pages. Celebrate your victory and move on.

But what finally chased the last of my morning crankiness away was going to the dojo for Filipino Martial Arts, (FMA). I normally do Kali which is stick and blade training, but tonight I did Jeet Kune Do, (JKD). I had an hour and a half which I was splitting with my daughter. I never dreamed that mother/daughter bonding time would include the dojo, but it’s wonderful that it does. She did Kali with our instructor, our Sifu, while I did JKD, because she’s a lot newer at this than I am. Sifu trusted me to be self-entertaining, so I stretched and then used padded sticks on one of the heavy bags, but I prefer to use sticks of any kind with a partner, so I got gloves from my equipment bag and started working on punches. I have a tendency to like to want to make the bag move as if it’s all about strength, but it’s not, it’s about form. The strongest fighter in the world will lose if they’re fighting someone with more precise technique and better form. The latter will also keep you from hurting yourself when you’re hitting the heavy bag. Sloppy form means injuries, I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. So I had to keep forcing myself to slow down and be precise, turn my body and not just try to muscle through with my arm and shoulder. But it’s my kicks that still aren’t up to snuff, so that’s what I asked for one on one help with when it was my turn with Sifu. I have some new exercises to add at home to help with hip flexibility. We ended with him holding focus mitts for me while I kicked and punched. My kicks were weak enough at the beginning that he wanted me to kick his thigh so I’d get a better feel of it, by the time we were done he wouldn’t let me kick him, just the mitt, which meant I’d improved. Yay!

I’m reading back over this blog and realized just how much I enjoy FMA. Yes, some of Anita Blake’s workouts in the books are based on what I do now, and some of it is what I did in college or my twenties, like the running. Not sure my ankles and knees will take that again, we’ll see. For now I’m apparently very happy to be doing FMA. I don’t think I realized just how happy until I read this over. I was still pleasantly achy from yesterday’s gym workout, which is weights and cardio, before I even started on the heavy bag tonight. I haven’t worked on JKD this long and hard in months. Somewhere in the heavy bag work with the sweat and the sensation of my body hitting something solid on purpose over and over I let go the anger that had started to accumulate with the morning’s coffee debacle. The negative head space had haunted me all day, I just couldn’t shake it until that moment in the dojo tonight. The last of the bad feelings and the dark head space floated away on the feel of my body doing something so physical. Sometimes no amount of mediation or yoga mudras work for me. I need something harder hitting, literally. It helps clear my mind, soothe my spirit, and add strength, dexterity, and speed to my body. What’s not to love?

Edits, Travel, and the Injury at the End

I finished the edits on the next Anita Blake novel, Serpentine at the beginning of March. Jonathon, my husband, and I were already on a romantic vacation, but he helped me take time out to finish the edits that I hadn’t managed before we had to leave for our getaway. At the end I went old school: writing the changes long hand on sticky notes and handed them to Jonathon for him to type into the manuscript edits. I hadn’t written that much long hand in years, but it felt right. I’d already written the book, the edits were small things, or a scene here and there that needed changed for plot or character development. I took out one side plot that had started off as a red herring, but turned out to lead nowhere, so it had to go. I even had to cut a great new character that I hope we get to see later in another book. Larry Kirkland was a character that was actually in one of the rough drafts of the first Anita Blake novel, Guilty Pleasures, but he wouldn’t actually get on stage until book three, The Circus of the Damned. One of my favorite things about writing a series is that characters and plot lines that have to be edited out of one book can still see life later on. Interestingly, Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel try to have a romantic trip in the book, but both her work and Micah’s interfere with it. I wrote that months before Jonathon and I would be on our own trip and my work would cost us the first few days of relaxation, as if my muse knew it was coming. Of course, Anita’s work was a missing person and murder, and Micah’s work was a type of lycanthropy that we’d never seen before. My edits seem so tame in comparison.

I proceeded to take the longest purposeful break from writing that I’ve ever taken. Jonathon and I finished our trip without more work interfering. Then I got to spend our daughter’s spring break with her. My sister and her wife were able to fly into the country and visit with us. I spent all my “vacation” traveling. I’d finally get on the first plane towards home, but in the all out run to make it, I fell.

I was running full out, I was even thinking, “Wow, I can really run now. I’m so glad I can move like this, yay gym!” And then I wiped out. I did a good job of it, because kind strangers came to stand over me, making that face you make when someone hurts themselves in front of you. Thanks to the kind man who offered me a hand up, because I could not have gotten up without help. I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to stand at all, until I tried. I was finally able to limp to my plane like Igor from the Frankenstein movies, but I was just happy to make my plane. I enjoyed my travels, but I was so ready to go home. I made my plane discovering that I was bleeding from the skin I’d lost, but I was able to walk better as I moved more. I still hurt, but I got to my seat. The flight attendant got me bandages, alcohol wipes, and eventually ice bags to put on my knee. Thanks for the care and attention Delta. Thanks also to my seat mate, Charles, who was a gentleman in the best sense of the word, putting my bag overhead for me when he saw I was hurt and helping the flight attendant pass me things to do some first aid. He also kept my mind off how much I was hurting by having an intelligent and calm discussion about our different paths of faith.

The skin is growing back from the scrapes, but I’ve either scraped my meniscus, or got a micro tear in it, which means no gym or martial arts for awhile. The page proofs of Serpentine have come back for one last chance to read over and catch any small things. It hurts to even sit at my desk for too long without propping my leg up. Sigh.

I’m looking forward to finishing the page proofs and getting back to the gym and dojo, and onto writing the next story.

A Twisted Ankle, a Bum Knee, and Dancing All Night

Why do I exercise? How do I stay motivated to do it? Those have been some of your favorite questions for me lately.

Why do I exercise? That’s an easy one, because to begin with I went to the gym to stay out of surgery. I twisted my ankle over five years ago now, and I didn’t think anything of the sprain. I mean we all sprain our ankles now and then, right? Except I twisted it about three times in two weeks. Apparently, I have permanently damaged my Achilles’ tendon. Orthopedist told me that she could do surgery with an almost guaranteed loss of movement, or I could hit the gym and put more muscle around the injury – think of it as an internal splint. I chose gym. I hit it with a vengeance and when I went back months later, she said, “You really did it. You went to the gym.”

“You told me to,” I said.

“I tell a lot of people that, but they never go.”

Hmm . . . surgery in my 40s with a almost certain loss of movement forever in my ankle, so I’d never run again. I’d never . . . do a lot of things again, or I could exercise more. It seemed an easy choice to me, and one I’m very glad I made.

When I walked into the gym three, or is it four years ago, I was medically not allowed to run. Now I can hit 6 mph on the treadmill for sustained periods, not for long sustained periods, but I can do it. Before, the ortho told me, “You can run to save your life, like if a car is about to hit you, but other than that, don’t.” Now I’m looking at signing up for a Monster Run.

It was my ankle injury that got me into the gym, but my back and hip stopped hurting from all those hours typing at my desk. At the very end of a book I give up nearly all gym time, and most everything else that isn’t writing, and my back starts aching again, so exercise is better for all of me, not just my ankle.

I admit that about three years ago I was doing more cardio, eating better, and had attained the weight I wanted, and then I lost my workout partner – a lot of things happened and I started to lose some of my progress. I hadn’t realized how much until my knees started hurting. I went to a different orthopedist, one for knees and found out that if I don’t lean down and take off the weight I’ve gained back, and put the muscle I’ve lost back on, I’m headed for knee replacement with in two to five years, and probably more like two, or I can hit the gym harder. I’m going to hit the gym, thanks.

I haven’t gained that much weight back, but it’s not how much you weigh, it’s how much your body can tolerate. Think of your body as a car, some can pull heavier loads than others without ruining their suspension. Apparently, I’m over my weight limit and need to get some strengthening done to my undercarriage, that would be the muscle I need back. So, Jon and I have started eating better again, but this time we mean to stay with it as a permanent nutrition change, a lifestyle change. He was told that he, too, needs to lean down and muscle up if he doesn’t want to have another knee surgery, and since early heart attacks run in his family that’s another good reason to exercise and eat healthier.

And before you ask, we do not exercise together. It’s one of the few areas where we are not compatible.

So, we exercise to stay healthy and out of the operating room as the patient. I like that I’m a size 8, but it would never have been enough reward on it’s own for me to do all this, but being able to go up a flight of stairs without pain, now that’s a reward. I also find that my mood is lighter, happier, and just all around better when I exercise consistently. That’s not just me, studies have shown that exercise truly is a mood lifter, and a natural antidepressant. It won’t cure serious depression on it’s own, but it helps.

If your body doesn’t need as much exercise as mine does to stay healthy, great for you. It really is a genetic thing how much weight your body can carry and be in good working order. The same goes for how much junk food you can eat without upsetting your system. Everyone is different, so do what makes you feel good, but I’ll add that the older you get the harder it is to stay in shape, especially if you don’t exercise and eat junk food. Our goal is to get Jon at his “fighting” weight before he hits 40, because that is a metabolic milestone that makes everything harder. Whatever weight you want to lose, muscle you want to gain, doing it before you hit another decade is usually a smart idea, because it does get harder from there. I love every decade, life just gets better, but the one thing I have noticed is that its harder to get in shape and stay there, but thanks in part to the fact that I do workout, it’s the only downside to getting older that I’ve found. I believe sincerely that the amount of good, consistent exercise, and healthier eating habits are a large part of why I get mistaken for being ten to twenty years younger than I am. I admit that part is awesome, but I’m also happier, healthier, not in constant pain, and Jon and I can dance for hours again. We danced a lot when we dated, but injuries and lack of exercise had stolen that from us. Hard work in the gym and the kitchen won back what we thought was gone forever and we just recently proved that we can literally dance the night away again. That was a very sweet extra to all this healthy stuff, and more romantic than we could have imagined. Yay, gym workout and eating better, who knew they could be so damned romantic?

My Ass, and Bare Faced Beauty

I posted this picture on twitter. I was pleased that I could tell the gym work was paying off, so I posted. I figure if those of us with curves don’t post, as well, that too many people will keep thinking that only thin women exist. Besides, at 51 I’m pretty pleased that gym work can still make me want to show my ass on line. It was sort of a bit of happy silliness, and then another woman on Twitter said, “That was very brave.”

Brave? It was brave to put up a picture of my ass on line? I thought bravery was running into burning buildings to save people, or putting a gun to your shoulder and defending the constitution of this United States, or holding the hand of someone you love while they go through chemo – all that takes bravery. I really didn’t think my picture went in the same category as things that can win you medals, or give you the stuff of tragedies. But other women echoed the sentiment, and I sort of understood, but not really.

When did body issues become the stuff of medal worthy bravery? When the hell did it become an act of courage to show our bodies unretouched to the world? Then Robin McKinley, another writer, put up a link to a story in the Guardian. It was about Botox celebrating it’s twelfth anniversary, and how common place it had become. The article further stated that one of the reasons Botox is so common and popular is that teenagers are using it so their selfies on line look smooth and ageless. What? I mean, What the Fuck? Teenagers are injecting themselves to look “ageless”? They’re teens for Gods’s sake, how much more ageless do they want to look?

I wear light makeup most of the time, and for photo shoots I wear what my makeup artist puts on me, hairstylist, too, but enough was enough. I took a selfie of myself without any makeup on, my hair in it’s natural fuzz of curl, and I put it up on Twitter. There, done! I got some lovely compliments, and other people echoing my surprise that teenagers should be worried enough to take Botox, or anything else to look smoother. Then I ran into a strange controversy that seems to have come up around the #barefacedbeauty campaign that was originally supposed to help support money going to cancer research, but had also been high jacked by women on both sides of the makeup divide, those who do and those who don’t. Apparently, some anti-makeup women were trying to bully those that wore makeup, telling them they were a selling out the modern feminist movement, or some such nonsense. The movement to raise money for cancer research is still a good cause to support, so if you want to contribute, please do. I thought the issue of some women arguing about makeup at almost a moral question level was just another example of how we, as a group, seem to let differences divide us, rather than letting our common ground unite us.

How about everybody leave everybody else alone? If you want to wear makeup, do. If you don’t want to wear makeup, don’t. Do what makes you happiest. The same goes for curves vs no curves. Be whatever is a healthy weight for your body. Some women struggle to gain weight their whole lives, and other’s struggle to lose, and some people have wonderful genetics that helps them stay at whatever weight they want. Let’s stop the body shaming and just own that women come in all shapes and sizes. No one size, or body type is better than the other, just be healthy, whatever that means for your body.

Post Book Blues, or I finished my novel, now what?

Restless as hell. Don’t want to watch anymore TV, movies, even the great book I’m reading is just irritating. If we have anymore sex we’re both going to have rubby spots. Somewhere around day three after I finish a book, I get so restless I’m almost angry. It just seems to be part of my process of post-book down time. It doesn’t matter where I go, I’ve tried the ocean, heck I’ve gone to Disney World, and still this awful restlessness takes possession of me.
The day I wrote, The End, on the newest Merry Gentry novel, A Shiver of Light, I was on such a writer’s high, it was awesome! When the high left, the tiredness hit like it always does. First full day of not writing the book, was a day of my mood going up, and down – up and down. This mood swing is also just part of the post-book process for me. I know it and I don’t let the sad rain all over everyone. I know what is happening and I just ask my husband, Jon, “Happy, sad, happy, sad; do I always do this?”
Jon says, “Yes.”
The only thing I didn’t do per usual was I didn’t have a whole day of what I call, “The little lost lamb day,” where I wander around the house, or wherever drifting from room to room, or yard, as if I don’t know where I’m going, or what I’m doing, which is pretty accurate. Months, or a year, or more, of concentrating on this one project and suddenly it’s gone. The structure to my day, the thing that consumed me for so long and it’s done, and I’m at loose ends. I think the reason that I didn’t have as much of the “lost lamb” day is that this book was so emotionally draining I was happy to be done, and happy to begin to rest up before edits come back from New York.
Now, I’m tired, but don’t want to sleep, as I said at the beginning I don’t want to do any of the things I was looking forward to catching up on, or I’ve done them for three days and enough is enough.
I’ve tried leaving as soon as I finish a book and going some place warm with an ocean view, but I still go through the same post-book process. I’m just restless and angry staring off at amazing Caribbean blue water and palm trees, instead of St. Louis in the winter. It usually just pisses me off that I’m someplace great and still can’t be happy. But I’ve finally embraced the truth, that all this emotional angst is part of me coming down from writing a novel. I wish I was one of those writers that doesn’t go through all this, but a writer doesn’t choose their creative process, anymore than they choose what ideas come to them. J. K. Rowling says in the Harry Potter books, “The wand chooses the wizard.” Well, the idea chooses the writer.
I think the same is true of how our entire creative process works, from how we gather ourselves to write a novel, to the writing of it, and the celebrating and grieving process after it’s written. Some of us struggle to get enough ideas to write, others of us have more ideas than any one lifetime can allow us to write. Some need silence and solitude to work, others need a busy cafe around them, and still others do solitude with music blasting; we are all as different as our stories.
Now, I’m going to take this restless, cranky mood and get on the treadmill, because until I work some of this energy out I won’t sleep. I almost went to gym today, but was afraid I wouldn’t concentrate well enough for weights. Next time I’ll listen to myself and do gym sooner, but for right now treadmill. Gotta walk some of this off.

Keeping my New Year’s Resolutions

The First Day of 2013:

Today I meditated and performed a ritual to welcome in the first day of the year. This goes with my goal of doing more rituals for my faith in the coming year. I meditate almost daily, but actual ritual is less frequent.
I worked on Affliction which is the next Anita Blake novel. I’m in the end game of the book, but I’m having to throw out part of my outline and redo plot points from here on out. The major mystery has remained the same, but the clues and how-to catch the bad guys have been impacted by the book to date. I’m an organic writer which means the book grows and changes. The writing goals are always part of my new year thinking.
Then the rest of the family was finally up and we had breakfast together. That’s another goal, to do more family stuff and enjoy the real people in my life more this year. That includes friends, as well, as family.
Jon and I went to the gym and worked out. That hits the exercise goals that we’ve set for the year. I’m proud of us for going on New Year’s Day, I think it’s a first?
I think I’m out of daylight for reading part of a book that I did not write today, but I’ll try tomorrow.
I did make a start on planning my next tattoo which I’m wanting to get this year. I’ve been working on the idea for about two years and finally think I’ve found an artist to help me design it.
There are other goals for the year, but I’ll stop here so that I can go to bed with Jon, and cuddle on this the first full night of 2013.

The Second Day of 2013:

Jon and I went to the gun range. We put rounds through my two new hand guns that have been languishing in their boxes since my wonderful husband bought them for me. One of my goals for this year was to go to the range more.
I went to the gym again today, and along with the weight lifting, squats, etc . . . ran! I’m running more and better every time. I did not appreciate it before I injured myself and couldn’t run. Now, every time down that track is a gift.
My sister, Chica, had her foot surgery today, and that gets her closer to the goal of being completely healed this year. No more accidents!
I have not hit my writing goal for the day on Affliction. I’ve written, but I haven’t hit the point in the chapter I wanted to be at before I went to bed.
There is no time to read for pleasure today. I’ve given up on that until tomorrow. I’ll try again then. That whole reading for pleasure is a New Year’s resolution that usually dies a quick death. I’m determined this year to do better than last, but as I type this I can’t choose reading someone else’s book over working on my own, especially with a deadline fast approaching. Since I’ve spent most of the last decade on deadline maybe that’s why I stopped reading for pleasure. Hmm . . . it does seem to be a pattern. *laughs*

I’m Back!

A week ago I was in the hospital for my second day. I caught a virus, just a stomach virus. We’ve all caught plenty of them in our lifetime, but I’ve never had one like this before. I spent about two weeks throwing up, and a pretty solid week of being unable to hold anything down, including water. I now understand why they think dehydration killed many of the victims of flue epidemics in the early 1900s, before there was such a thing as intravenous fluids to give the sick, and stop that spiral downward. I was never so happy to be on an IV in my life. I’m feeling much better, though still surprisingly tired with very little effort to show for it. My doctor warned me to increase slowly back to a normal activity level. What he didn’t say was that I’d feel so weak and tire so easily that I would have little choice but to behave myself. But everyday is a bit better, and so am I.
A funny thing happened during this illness, it sort of cleared away a lot of mental debris. Put things into perspective, as it were. I found a quote that says a lot of what I learned, and what I’m still enjoying.

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.” – Mary Jean Iron.

You would think I would have learned this lesson by now, but I hadn’t. I thought my mother’s death when I was six had taught me this, but maybe there was too much pain attached to that “lesson”, so that it taught me other things. Some things helped me appreciate what I had and take chances and set goals and DO THINGS! But it didn’t teach me to lay in the dark and listen to my husband’s breathing, and cuddle tight to the smooth, warmth of his body, and be grateful that I wasn’t hurting. They gave me morphine in the hospital for the pain, I’d never had morphine – warm, trickling through my veins, the weirdest feeling, like I could trace it through my body, and then the pain abated for the first time in days. I was able to sleep with enough medicine in me, and that, too, was a wonderful thing. Death didn’t teach me to appreciate sitting in my office and typing this to all of you, but life did. I love the view from my office now more than ever before, I no longer bemoan that it’s not a lake, or an ocean, which is the only thing my dream office lacks. I’m happy with my tall green trees now. I no longer think wistfully of that Dalmatian, or English setter, that I’ll never own because I’m not runner enough to keep them happy, but am thrilled with the silky fur of our two Japanese chins, and the comforting snoring of our pug. I realize that the desire for the Dalmatian that came when I was twelve, after reading Dodie Smith’s book “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” is really a wish to be a different person than I am. I’ve worked too long and too hard to be who I am to wish for such changes. I go to the gym, but a marathon runner I will never be, and that’s okay. I guess there was still a tiny part of me that wanted to be tall, and blond, and gazelle like, but I am short, dark, and . . . and what? Certainly not gazelle like. *laughs* Zebra like? Something sturdy . . . a horse? Pony? In old vaudeville slang I would certainly be a pony, tall leggy girls were stallions.
When I was a little girl I wanted to be either tall, blonde and leggy, and a natural athlete, or darkly exotic and ethnic anything but my Northern European background. There’s still part of me that wants to be that tall athletic girl that I will never be. I am competent in the gym now, but it’s not natural. I will never put a hand out in a slow, easy arc and catch a ball, and throw it without thought, easy as breathing, but then those girls didn’t read much. They certainly didn’t write. I’m not saying athletes can’t be writers, but I think I would have made a choice, been different, aimed outward, rather than inward, and in the end that’s what a writer is – we aim inward. The real world effects us, Gods know, but it is our processing of that reality inside our heads, our hearts, our very souls, that makes the difference. In the last few years I’ve learned to live in my body in a happier, healthier way than ever before, and make peace with the fact that I have to work a little harder to do what some people take for granted in the gym, but that’s okay, they ask me, “How can you write a whole book?” I ask, “How can you run marathons? How can you lift four hundred pounds?” I guess, we all look at the other half and either wonder about them, or even wonder what we might be like if we were them.
It’s okay to wonder, even day dream about being other people, which is part of my job description, I guess. I put myself in other people’s lives, thoughts, what if . . . what if . . . But today I am grateful for what is, because what is, is pretty damn good. I will endeavor to hold this lesson tight and close and not forget that the ordinary is actually pretty extraordinary.

The Plan

I’m going to try and do a blog at least three days a week from this point on. I do not plan to go back to a blog a day, that became burdensome. But so many of you have said how much you enjoy the blog and miss me posting one regularly that I’m going to try.

Proposed topics for future blogs:

Hair care for curly hair. This is actually one of the most requested.

Skin care. People want to know what I’m doing. Again, a strangely popular request.

Gym: what am I doing to stay in shape.

Nutrition and healthy eating.

Writing:

Ideas, how to get them, what inspires me.

How do I write characters with so much real life in them? (I’m honestly not certain I can answer this question. If I can’t figure out how to explain it, then I won’t blog about it. Fair?)

Muse, the Muse, the Muses, or my Muse/Muses – A lot of people seem to believe that the Muse is a real person in my life; sorry to disappoint, but nope. But apparently I need to explain in more detail what I mean by the muse, or my muse.

Is there going to be more Anita books, yes, I’m currently writing next one. Ditto for Merry, and yes, she’s talking in my head again. But a lot of you want to know news, and insights about one, or both of my girls. If I can do it without huge spoilers I will.

Maybe I should just do a blog about the most common questions asked, like will there be more of, and such.

Wiccan – what it means to be Wiccan and how our family follows our path of faith.

Wiccan – books to recommend.

The Holidays, and do we really have to be so bloody cheerful?

Favorite books of mine.

DragonCon – what Jon and I did this year.

The Anne Rice Vampire Ball and New Orleans

The Anita Blake comic/graphic novel. I’ll try to post some line art. It’s yummy!

These are just a few of the topics people have requested that I blog about. I reserve the right to come up with brand new ideas and blog those instead of the above. The blog, like all writing, is better if a little inspiration is included, or at least it’s easier for me to write, and as I’m on a very tight deadline right now, easier is better.

Move the body; move the mind

I’d had a frustrating day of three pages, and not sure I get to keep any of them. The book was going great guns, and now, suddenly, nothing. Okay, not nothing, but it’s painful inch by inch movement, fighting for every word, every paragraph. I won’t even bother to say that I fought for every page, I never gained enough momentum to count my progress in pages. Words, sentences, paragraphs, they add up, but not to much today. As I said, a very frustrating day at the computer.

What the hell was wrong with me? With the book? I’ve learned that when a book that was going well suddenly hits a serious wall one of several things is likely. First, the plot has derailed and no matter how much you like the scene it’s not the right one. Either not the next scene, or it belongs in a different book, or it just needs to not happen at all. Second, I just haven’t found quite the right way to write the scene and I need some other bit of thought, knowledge, or inspiration to hit before I’ll know how to do it. Third, something in the real world is interfering with the creative process. I know that this sounds all mysterious and Oooo-Ooooo, like it’s a fake reason for things to stop working, but you know what, it’s a legitimate reason for a book to stall. I’ve had it happen over the years. I had a book stall from when my daughter was a baby, and I lost my babysitter to a serious illness. Babysitter ended up being fine; yay, but I was suddenly trying to finish the last third of a novel with a baby and no daytime help. When I realized my first marriage was over I found it really hard to write. Divorce is not inspirational. But I’ve had other much smaller things stop me in my creative tracks, like a fight with my sweetie, or a disagreement with my grandmother, or even an unpleasant conversation with an aunt. So, what was wrong today?

I wasn’t sure, but at the end of the day I had little to show for all my desk time. It was time to get ready and go to the gym. Did I cancel gym and keep pounding my head against the brick wall that my book had become, or did I keep my gym appointment? I was truly debating, and leaning heavily to staying at my desk, but I texted a good friend who is even more devoted to the gym than I am. His schedule is also more punishing than mine, so I told him I was debating gym, or no gym. He told me, “You can do it!” I know it seems a small thing, but I respect my friend and his dedication to exercising. In fact, when I could keep up with him in a workout (lower weights for me) I was very, very pleased with myself. Him telling me I have good form ranks up there with my trainer saying it. So, when my will power was weak I turned to him, and he encouraged me. He didn’t tell me to do it, just that I could do it. I boo-boo faced for a minute, still debating, and then grabbed my stuff and went for the gym. I wasn’t sure it was the right decision, but getting away from my desk for awhile seemed like it might be a good idea.

I was still arguing with myself even as I drove. Then I saw a hawk circling high overhead. The second hawk was flying low, skimming the trees beside the highway. Seeing a bird of prey always lifts my spirits, and I drove for the gym feeling better about the decision to leave my desk. I saw a third hawk across the road while I was warming up on the treadmill. By the time I’d warmed up, I was ready to go in mind as well as body.

My trainer, Ryan, always seems to either rise to my mood, or find a way to get me motivated, but the best days are when I’m already motivated and he can just push me harder. Today was one of those days.

We started with T-Rex (TRX) suspension jack knifes, sort of a push-up with your ankles in the TRX bands, but your butt comes up as you bend at the waist. Yes, they are as hard as they sound. 🙂 Then crunches on the big ball, while you hold a weight plate in your hands. The ball forces you to hold your core in lots of places besides just your abs, simply to maintain balance. Then a thirty second plank. Now repeat; a lot. Wait, I forgot that we started with the machines and working on the arms, chest, and especially lats. I think they pale in comparison to the challenge of the later exercises, so I keep forgetting them. *grin* Hang cleans were next, and then the Tabata dead lifts so I ended with some serious cardio. Tabata dead lifts mean I have weights in hand as if I’m going to do a normal dead lift, but I do it as fast as I can and maintain good form for so long, then a few seconds rest, and back at it, for a total of four minutes, I think. Four, or five minutes. You can do Tabata intervals with pretty much any exercise, but make sure your form is really good, when you’re working with weights and doing it fast enough to make it cardio you want to make sure form is near perfect so you don’t injure yourself. There are some more shoulders in there somewhere, but again, they don’t stand out compared to the hang cleans and Tabata intervals. I’m especially happy that I can do Tabata dead lifts, because when I first came to Hammer Bodies Gym I could barely do a squat with just my own body weight without pain, or issues with injuries. The old injuries that I came to the gym with, at the suggestion of my orthopedist. She wanted me to put some muscle around my joints to avoid surgery. That I can do weighted dead lifts as Tabata intervals just totally rocks!

We actually didn’t get to do a full workout today, had to skip some shoulders, because two stalled cars and a fender bender made traffic interesting on the way to the gym, so we had to cut something. I sort of forgot that earlier, got distracted by all the hawks. But at my request, and me getting back into position for the next exercise more quickly, Ryan and I are starting to cut rest time between sets. He makes sure I have a bit between, but we are whittling away at it. I like it, and it seems to be working. By the time I finished the Tabata dead lifts though, my legs were rubbery and my arms a little shaky. I love it when I end the workout session like that, it means I’ve really worked my body.

Somewhere in all that sweat and exercise I seem to have shaken something lose for the writing. I think I’ve just been trying to start the scene too far out, and over explain. Sometimes when there’s action to be had, guns to be drawn, and bad guys to catch, you just need to cut to the action and back fill if it’s needed. Less talk, more action, for the scene. I find more and more that when I move my body, it helps move the mind, and my muse. Apparently, my muse likes muscle fatigue and sweat. Me, too.

The Day so Far

I did hill intervals on the treadmill for the first time ever today! I thought the speed was too slow until we hit that six incline, and suddenly slow was just fine. You’d think I’d learn by now that just because it feels slow doesn’t mean your body needs to go faster, just yet. *grin*

Then a healthy breakfast for the whole family. Jon made us all eggs and Ezekeial toast. No dairy used in breakfast, and fruit spread that is just fruit, no extra sweetners added. Left to our own devices Jon and I prefer strong tea as our breakfast of choice, but it’s all about keeping the sugar levels up and stable. It helps cut down on the mood swings, metabolism crash, and a host of other things that are actually caused by your body not having enough good fuel to keep it going in mid-morning, or mid-afternoon. It’s made a huge difference in how I feel during the day and evening.

Breakfast was done so quickly I had to shower after, and then the wheels came off the cart of my schedule. First, we had a leisurely family breakfast, including having a lovely talk with my mother-in-law. It’s rare that Jon and I get to have that kind of breakfast with Trinity, let alone Jon’s mom, so we took our time. That’s cool, but when I went upstairs for shower, I was in the middle of things and . . . no water. Apparently, a water main broke and there will be no running water for a few hours. Good – I wasn’t covered in soap and shampoo when it happened. Bad – I didn’t really get to shower. Interesting – my hair is it’s more natural fluffy waves, because the hair care products that tame it need some water to “activate”. It’s been awhile since I saw my hair like a frothy mass spilling around my shoulders. It’s not a bad look, but I am at the mercy of the humidity, so we’ll see what I look like by evening. On one trip to visits out of state friends I forgot my hair care products, and the next morning he got to see me with just the natural poof. He tried, but ended up laughing his ass off. Normally, I use four different hair care products, two of them leave-in. Good – I had already made tea in my office, so I have tea to work to. My productivty actually goes down if I cut back on my tea consumption. 🙂

So, I am finally at my desk, ready to work. I actually dashed upstairs on the way to the treadmill this morning to make a few quick notes that’s part of what delayed the start of the day, but I don’t regret it. I’ve learned that those brilliant inisights and ideas don’t stay in my head forever. If I don’t write, or type them down, they fly away, and then I’m left going, “Damn it, I had an idea for how to make this scene better. What was it?” Write it down! It’s one of the first rules of writing. Write it down so you don’t forget it. Write it down so someone else can read it. First rule; write it down.

I’m off to make more pages. Have a great day everyone. Hopefully we’ll get our water back on before my tea pot runs dry. 🙂