Sunday, April 15, 2012

Brenda's Eclectic Editing

Girlfriend's business has been going places lately. Which makes sense, because she's really, really good at what she does.

Everything I've written in the last couple of years has gone through her before anyone else has seen it. Working with her has improved my writing more than any college level writing course did, and I'm pretty sure in another couple of years I'll have learned more from her than I did from my degree. A lot of the improvements in my process have come in part from conversations with her, and I don't even keep track of how many times she's helped talk me through a sticking point in a plot.

If you ever need a helpful ear, or a critical eye for anything you write, I can't recommend BEE Editing enough. Check it out; it's awesome.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Getting back into running

I'm restarting all sorts of things these last few weeks. I spent the winter bulking up to drive my lifting, but now that it's getting nice out again I've started running again.

Just like with lifting, I'm not a particularly good runner. My best 5k time was 26:55 and that was two years and 25lb ago. Last year I ran three races and finished between 28 and 30 minutes on all of them.

But even so, I like running. Usually I don't waste my time doing things I'm bad at, but running is different than, say, darts or first person shooters. I can 'sprint' for a couple of blocks and walk for a couple of blocks and still have fun because I get to go fast for a little bit. Or I can plod along for most of a mile and feel good because I did manage to catch and pass someone walking their dog.

And in a way, that might be part of why I like running. Most everything else I do I have to work for, whether it's hitting a PR squat, or banging out a chapter, or even beating a videogame. Doing poorly at any of those things hurts in one way or another. But it's okay to suck at running; the worst that can happen is I end up going for a walk instead.

And so I'll head out again today in my funny toe shoes and cat-scratched shorts and just have fun looking at the trees and feeling the sun and breathing the crisp spring air.