Here We Go

I actually wrote the last scene of the book tonight, which was weird. It's so strange to write a book so completely out of order. I did the same with GW, but not to this extent. It's funny to be so close that you can taste it, but you still have to write about 5k of transition stuff to get you from one big scene to the next.

So close you can fucking taste it, but so much fucking work still to go. Frustrating as hell.

I'm taking a four-day weekend to finish the book. I'm off tomorrow through Monday. This fucker needs to end.



I cut 1K of what I had last time, so this is actually slightly more progress than it appears.

Tra-la. Early morning tomorrow.

Training

Did 20 minutes of jogging followed by 20 minutes on the bike. I skipped the bike yesterday because my weight training session at work was brutal. Not physically brutal, oddly enough, but mentally brutal. That whole almost crying because I had to do three sets of pushup rows and squat jumps thing was pretty demoralizing. I just couldn't stomach getting back into the gym after that.

But today ended up going really well. The jogging is already getting easier, and this is just my third session. It's fun to feel myself getting stronger, getting back into that old Chicago jogging mindset. It's funny to remember that I used to do 3 (and, when I was feeling cranky, 4) miles back then, before I got sick.

I keep trying not to look ahead at the schedule. At the end of week 11 I should top out at 30 minutes swimming (right now I'm thinking: 30 minutes of laps holy jesus), 45 mnutes of running (HAAH AHAH AHAHahah ahaaha ahah um ha umm hrm), and 55 minutes on the bike (now *that* I can do, seeing's as a bike is my primary mode of transit, and I was commuting an hour and a half to work on a bike [3 hrs a day total] in Chicago for several weeks there at the end).

And now, you know, looking at what I just wrote, it's funny. I forgot about the jogging 3 miles thing. I forgot about the 14 mile roundtrip bike commutes.

You know what?

I still have it in my head that I'm a totally doughy, unfit geek. Isn't that funny? I just had this thing in my head that was like, "Well, you're a doughy person, so this is going to be HARD." But then I remembered biking to work in 25 degree weather with crashing lake water splashing up at me and a brutal headwind and not being able to feel my fingers while I biked merrily home, and I'm remembering... dude. I can do this stuff. *Sticking* with it will be the challenge. But the actual, physical ability to do it?

Shit, I *have* that. I just need to fucking *do* it.

Like I said: just trying not to look too far ahead. It's the vertigo that's the killer, not the fall. It's the fear of failing that keeps you down, not the physical doing.

I just keep telling myself that.

Lost Highway

Continuing my Twin Peaks-inspired Lynch kick, I watched Lost Highway last night.

This is a Lynch I'm a much more comfortable with. The obscure cyclical story. Messages to yourself from the future. Dopplegangers. Body jumping. Choppy, nonsensical narratives. Creepy fellows. And, also, whores who get slaughtered. Ho-hum (I'm thinking that one of the reasons I liked Mulholland Drive is that it's a Lynch movie that actually passed the Bechdel test. Thus far, I have not found any others that do. Maybe Inland Empire? I'm thinking Dern talks to the gypsy about something other than a guy. Maybe). Though at least this one wasn't a damsel in distress.

I think what I like about these whacked-out jump narrative dream-logic movies is that they force my brain to try and make connections between things that just aren't connected. Our web designer tells me this movie was apparently Lynch's way of sorting out the whole OJ trial fiasco, looking into how a guy can live with himself after committing an atrocious murder.

I admit I was struck dumb at that event as the catalyst for this movie. The only connection I see is... guy kills his wife and is set free... um, but he's set free because he literally transforms into somebody else. And then goes and has an affair with his supposedly dead wife, who is now somebody else's wife, only not really.

Um.

It's a Lynch movie, all right?

In any case: dream logic. It's why I like these. It's a crazy brain exercise, which is likely good for my plotting muscles.

This one is a typical Lynchian brain-exercise.

Artifacts

Bees at war.

Kewl.

Reasons to Make Supplemental Income

What you can get for 135K in Portland, OR (price reduced!).

What you can get for 135K in Dayton, OH. Or, if you want something more contemporary. Or something with a bit of land.

Must... write... more... books. And etc.

Fan Art (No, this is not my work!)

Someone has apparently created a pony mod based on Jay Lake's novel, Mainspring.



I've seen a lot of mods inspired by movies and television characters, but I think this is the first I've seen inspired by a book.

Death to Personal Trainers

This was the last day of this quarter's brutal upper body routine with the personal trainers at work. I received relief a couple of weeks ago on the lower body workout (which was primarily walking lunges, squats, and one-legged lunges, all weighted), which made going to the gym bearable (we're now doing drop sets).

Today was my last day of this routine (they change them every 4-6 weeks, depending on how we're performing). I admit that I nearly cried there a couple of times at the beginning, because I fucking hate, fucking hate, fucking hate pushup rows, and knowing this was my last day of them made me hate them even more. And then I hated myself for hating them.

No pain, no gain?

The routine:

Pushup rows: set of 12 with 15 lb weights
Squat thrust jumps: set of 10

Repeat X3

Assisted pullup: set of 12
High knee jumps: set of 15

Repeat X3

Lateral raises with band: set of 15
Jumping jacks: set of 12

Repeat X3

And then:

Tricep extensions with 30lb weight: 12 reps
X3

Bicep curls with 20 lb weight: 12 reps
X3

And finally:

Medicine ball situps: 45 sec
Knee tucks: 45 sec
Plank: 45 sec
Oblique crunches left: 45 sec
Obligue crunches right: 45 sec
X2

It was the first time I wanted to kill my personal trainer.

I'll find out next week what new torturous routine he's cooked up for us for the next 6-week cycle.

2081

Or, Harrison reimagined.

This is one of my favorites. Can't wait to see what they do with it.

Find of the Day

Reel Music, a streaming radio broadcast of movie soundtracks.

I do about 95% of my writing while listening to movie soundtracks. This radio station is full of awesome.

Training

Try half an hour of jogging followed by ten minutes of swimming.

You wouldn't think this would be that bad - I mean, there's a 5 min warmup and cooldown attached to that half hour, so it's really only twenty minutes of jogging, and the swimming is only ten minutes - but, but... I only managed four laps before I started seriously worrying about my sugar. It's been so long since I swam laps that I forgot what an incredibly intense exercise this is. I figured, hey, if I can jog, I can do anything!

Oh no it ain't so.

Turned out my sugar was fine at a respectable 148 after exercise. I had plenty of wiggle room to finish out my set.

This week is mainly a fitness test week for me. How much can I do, how hard can I work, etc. I think I'll be able to knock out the swimming part much more easily next time, knowing that my sugar is on track.

Next week, the miles start counting toward Lothlorien.

Where I Was At Tonight

Toby and Scalzi were reading at the Books & co. at The Greene! (don't worry, somebody else got much better pictures). So it was straight from work to the gym to the reading (these guys make a great couple).

Man, I miss the SF/F crowd.

When's Wiscon, again?

Sometimes Synopses are Awesome

I'd been knocking my head against a plot point here at the end of the book the last couple of days.

Today, in preparation for my big weekend push, I printed out and re-read the synopsis I had to write for Black Desert in order to sell the series.

"Ohhhh," I said aloud, "so *that's* how they do that."

Sometimes you get so tangled up with plot threads at the end of a book that you forget that you did, in fact, figure out a way to write yourself out of them.

Putting it in Simple Terms

Hollywood is not creating female heroes.

"Kameron, why do you write what you write?"

Because I want to live in a world that actually tells the stories of female heroes.

Doc Says...

Man, I'm an overanxious freak every time I'm due for a doctor's appointment.

Turns out I have not, in fact, gained any weight since starting the pump. In fact, I've lost two pounds. And my a1c is 6.1, which she says is a pretty incredible a1c for somebody who just started on a pump (for those keeping track: the target a1c for a diabetic is less than 7.0. A non-diabetic a1c is 6.0 or less). My blood pressure, as usual, is great, reflexes all great, etc. etc. And my doc didn't yell at me for anything (I think my first experience with a diabetes doctor in Chicago has just scarred me for life. Why do I always expect to be yelled at and told I'm doing things wrong when I'm, like, a model t1 diabetic?)

Why do I freak out right before every appointment?

You know one of the big reasons I'm not good at math or budgeting? Because I don't believe in it. I don't believe that's it's an unshakable, inevitable truth, like gravity. I keep waiting for some magic.

After the last two years, dramatic weight loss/weight gain is something I've been overanxious and freaked out about, understandably. I keep waiting for some bizarre, nonesense thing.

But here's the deal, yo: I'm using less insulin on the pump. I'm working out three days a week. In a normal world, that would equal a steady to lowering weight and a very nice a1c.

But, you know, I've never lived in rational land. I'm always preparing and expecting the out of the ordinary.

This is probably why I'm a fantasy writer.

But it makes for a pretty overanxious life.

Quote of the Day

“Community approval isn’t the motive for a hero anyway. It’s the motive for a politician. A hero does the right thing because it’s the right thing.”
- Frank Miller

Science

Are you doing it right?

Every year, I go to Wiscon. If I were to go to one other SF/F convention a year....

... which con should it be?

Line edits, how I loathe theeeeee....

Typo of the day

vile - for - phial

I seemed to be absolutely convinced of this spelling. I wrote it as "vile" four times.

Lazy phrase of the day (used at least four times in forty pages)

"His eyes looked too big."

Seriously?

What I Hate About the End of First Drafts....

... is that during the last 1/4 to 1/5 of the book, I'm focusing mainly on tying up plot threads and loose ends. This takes all the fun out of writing, for me, which is why squeezing out the last 10K of this book holds about as much "fun" for me as the idea of running a marathon.

In the next draft, I'll be adding in all the cool scenery and worldbuilding stuff and cleaning up all the dialogue, but for now it's thread, thread, plotpoint, thread, and hunkering down and getting everything to make sense is just no fun at all!

I'm sure David Lynch feels the same way.

I should just throw in some red curtains, backward talking dream sequences, and have my heroine turn into a blue box at the end.

That'll keep `em guessing.

Wishlist

Somebody needs to make a caffeine-free version of Coke Zero.

Then my life would be complete.