As of yesterday, my new exercise program has lasted 11 days in a row. So far so good, or at least I’ll have to hope so, because it’s sucking the life out of me. I still enjoy the pleasure of appropriately sore muscles the next day, that knowledge that I’m working what I need to work, and when it’s too nasty hot to walk outside during the day, Paul and I can go for a nice evening stroll. It’s a lovely time in L.A. for blooming flowers, especially jasmine, which has perfumed my entire neighborhood (including my own backyard).
"Downward-facing dog, my ass."
Post-exertional malaise is like a non-sparkly vampire that’s serious about things and doesn’t only want to glare longingly at you. It’s not just about falling asleep for five hours after a 20-minute walk, or feeling like every day is the first day of the flu. It also sucks away my creativity, which is something I take very personally. I’d rather give blood, especially when I’m currently in the middle of several writing projects about which I am seriously excited. My body doesn’t care that I’m excited, though; it’s too busy punishing me for going out in the sunlight. It doesn’t care that I love writing, and that I’m immeasurably frustrated when I can’t get my brain in gear because I did three Wii Fit exercises the day before.
I try to stay positive and I am so, so lucky to have Paul as well as collaborators who are wonderfully patient and understanding about my situation. I am grateful for that every day. Sometimes the physical stuff just overwhelms everything else.
Zen is a pretty good yoga teacher, but I’m sending you off with an even more impressively stretchy, not to mention giant, Burmese.
As you could probably tell from Monday’s post, Kingdom of Loathing is one of my favorite games. So it’s been a lot of fun and a real pleasure to start doing some writing on the game Paradox! the Musical. Paradox! is also a browser-based adventure game, with its own brand of nuttiness. It’s currently in alpha, which means that it’s in its very early stages. I’ve gone on and on about my love for Infocom games and text adventures in general; my last attempt to write one was in BASIC when I was in elementary school, so this is a very welcome creative opportunity.
And speaking of opportunities, boy do I have a deal for you! If you haven’t by now, please note the new ad on the right there, the one showing off that “THINK” pendant. I am very happy to announce a promotion with Surly-Ramics, the de facto jeweler of just about the entire skeptical movement (and owner of the image at left). Surly Amy and her husband Surly Johnny produce these lovely and inexpensive works of wearable ceramic art on subjects ranging from science to skulls to sushi. Or do you like peace signs, music, butterflies, or coffins? And now when you make your purchase, if you enter the code “NERFED” (minus quote) at checkout, you’ll receive 15% off your order! Go and browse, and I bet you’ll find the perfect something for yourself or for a gift. Or both.
I send you off with a new podcast, the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, hosted at Tor.com. This episode features Brian Dunning of Skeptoid, one of my favorite podcasts. I love to see a podcast oriented towards science fiction and fantasy writing bring in a skeptic for an interview. I can’t embed it here of course, but go listen to the episode and enjoy!
A quick tip of the hat to Akismet, the free comment spam catcher. I got spam-bombed again today — only 44 comments, compared to my previous achievement of 73 — and having played enough whack-a-spam as a Halforums admin, I love how easily Akismet catches those comments for you and lets you nuke them all from orbit with one click of a button. They appear to be coming from the United Arab Emirates. Always with the persecution.
I’ve gotten up on my high horse a few times over the past couple of weeks, here and on Twitter, about dreams and motivation and buying the right to bitch if you’re also doing something to improve things for yourself. So I figure it’s only fair for me to “put my money on my chin,” as a devilishly handsome fellow once put it, and mention a few of the things I’m working on.
I will be training for the at-home version of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, founded and directed by Will Shortz and featured in the movie Wordplay. This means going back to doing at least one puzzle a day (as often as I can), and especially working on my speed game, at least on the Monday-Wednesday puzzles. You send in your puzzles with your times — on the honor system, of course, but what’s the point of cheating? — and the judges send you back your scores compared with the actual attendees. I’m thinking about fulfilling a life dream of attending the 2011 tournament in person, with my mother naturally, which would mean a year of more training.
I’ve sent an email to my grad school advisor with a proposal for developing an academic writing project. I hope this will be my master’s thesis, but I don’t know if that’s feasible anymore. It may be a paper for a journal, or possibly an article of some kind.
I’ve decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. This is where you write an entire novel of 50,000 words in the month of November. I have no idea why I’m fixated on this. I’ve never written a novel or even aspired to; I prefer screenwriting. But I have an idea I’ve been kicking around for years, and I think I may be able to milk 50K words out of it.
I’m not too deeply invested in any of these projects. That is to say, if I don’t finish my novel, or I don’t do too well in the tournament, or the academic project doesn’t work out, I’m okay with that. (I say now.) I’m excited to have some interesting things to shoot for, especially ones that can be accomplished on my laptop and at whatever time of day works for me. And if these don’t pan out at all…well, there’s always the next thing.
I send you off with “Sorry I’m Late,” a charming animated short by Tomas Mankovsky.
