Checking in on a catchup Sunday

It's been a while since I've logged any of my progress drafting The Nomad Wilds, partially because I've been rolling so hard I haven't felt the need. This week was the first in three that I've averaged less than a thousand words a day, and that was because circumstances conspired to prevent me from drafting at all on Monday and Tuesday.

And the reason things have been flying along so well is because I finally, after getting about 30,000 words in, have identified the central plot. I have heard that some writers insist on having a plot before they start writing a book, but I refuse to be bound by such notions. Previously, I had thought that Nomads would be a 'smaller' book than BSOH; the central conflict had a more limited scope, and everything just seemed a little less severe. No longer. We've got some serious world-shaking shit going on now, and Brandon and the rest of the crew are in WAY over their heads. The primary antagonists have changed, and their motives are deliciously gray, rather than the stark good vs evil that I was working with before.

So while I had worried earlier in the year that I wasn't going to get Nomads drafted by the end of the year, now I'm thinking that I may get this finished by early December. Which would mark the first time ever that I've met one of my personal deadlines.

In other aspects of the Master Plan, I deloaded about 25lb on squats this week to adjust to my new lifting belt. First workout I hit every rep high, but Thursday I buried dem sumbitches nice and deep, so I'm going to hop on the linear progression train for the next few weeks and see if I can get to a 3 plate squat by Thanksgiving. Can't push lifting too hard because I have a pair of 5k races coming up in the next six weeks, but as long as I drink my milk and don't deadlift the day before the race (yes, I've done it; do not recommend), I should be fine.

And I might as well admit it, my football predictions for this year were juuuust a bit off. Between injuries and bad coaching, the Bears O-line looks worse than it did last year. Cutler and Forte have been playing their balls off, but when the best receiver is an undrafted slot guy, and your best lineman is an injured rookie, you've got problems. And the thing is, all of that would be fine if the defense didn't completely implode over the offseason. Peppers hasn't shown up since week 1, the safety turnstile is spinning so fast it could power a city block, and for all Briggs has complained about wanting a new contract, he sure isn't making a very good case for one. Urlacher can't carry this team anymore, although he's doing his damndest to try.

The good news is the Blackhawks look solid and I've got a date with the Arboretum and a pumpkin patch next weekend. So pop a beer and hunker down; it's time to blitz all the way to the end of the year.

Onward...