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...
Showing posts with label fitness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fitness. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
On being lazy and relaxing
Wow, this has been another rough week for drafting. This week and last just have not amounted to much and I'm not sure why. I'm just not seeing things very clearly in my mind, which is a pretty sharp reversal from most of April. Maybe it's a delayed reaction to day-job stress? Things have lightened up these last couple of weeks and maybe it's made me relax? I don't know.
Although now that I say that, it seems true. I've been slack on my workouts these last couple of weeks as well; today was just the second lifting day in as many weeks, and I've been running once. Not good when I have a 5k scheduled next Sunday.
And I wouldn't be surprised if all of this is tied together. Things relax at work after a couple months of pressure, and that triggers my natural laziness. I relax on my workouts, I relax on my writing, I start thinking that I've earned to some rest and enjoyment during the week.
Which is bullshit. I haven't earned shit, and I need to remember that. Getting the timeline started on Battlesongs doesn't count for accomplishments. That's going to happen no matter what, and the only thing treating the publishing process like it means anything will accomplish is making sure I make mistakes. Best case scenario, Battlesongs gets me halfway to the goal. So with BSoH on autopilot, the most important thing right now is getting Nomad's drafted. I'm still on schedule to finish by the end of the year, but I'm starting to run out of wiggle room.
The good news today is I set a new PR on 5x3 overhead press, and would have gotten a PR in 5x1 deadlifts if I hadn't let my grip relax on rep 3, which threw off my form and made it so I couldn't pull the last two reps.
I'm starting to notice a pattern here.
It's most obvious on squats. At the bottom of the squat, something in my brain at least tells me that the easiest way out of this rather uncomfortable position is to relax my hamstrings and lower back and drive up with my quads. And it would be, if not for the fact that doing so will tear up my ASIS tendons and get crushed like an accordion when I run out of gas halfway up. We call that a "bad thing".
The lesson I have to learn, that I already know, that I have to actually fucking respect is that I am lazy by nature, and if I want to be of any use to anyone, I cannot relax. Weekdays are for work. I am supposed to get up, go to work, come home, work out, write 800 words, make lunch for tomorrow, and go to sleep. That's it. That's what my days should be like.
No sitting around for a half hour looking at email before I start lifting. No reading forums before I start writing. One thing to the next, as efficiently as possible, and no rationalizing deviations from the schedule. No cutting myself a break because of a hard day at work, no blowing off workouts because it's raining/cold, no taking it easy because I did well the day before.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
I give myself more than enough slack already. My Fridays and Saturdays are completely free, at least until Girlfriend schedules things, and later this year I plan on spending all day on Sundays watching football. My word count quotas for Nomad's are a fucking joke compared to what I did for Battlesongs. And if I can't handle a workload this light, maybe I need to tighten things up so I don't get a chance to relax.
Tighten things up, get mad, and get ON this shit.
Although now that I say that, it seems true. I've been slack on my workouts these last couple of weeks as well; today was just the second lifting day in as many weeks, and I've been running once. Not good when I have a 5k scheduled next Sunday.
And I wouldn't be surprised if all of this is tied together. Things relax at work after a couple months of pressure, and that triggers my natural laziness. I relax on my workouts, I relax on my writing, I start thinking that I've earned to some rest and enjoyment during the week.
Which is bullshit. I haven't earned shit, and I need to remember that. Getting the timeline started on Battlesongs doesn't count for accomplishments. That's going to happen no matter what, and the only thing treating the publishing process like it means anything will accomplish is making sure I make mistakes. Best case scenario, Battlesongs gets me halfway to the goal. So with BSoH on autopilot, the most important thing right now is getting Nomad's drafted. I'm still on schedule to finish by the end of the year, but I'm starting to run out of wiggle room.
The good news today is I set a new PR on 5x3 overhead press, and would have gotten a PR in 5x1 deadlifts if I hadn't let my grip relax on rep 3, which threw off my form and made it so I couldn't pull the last two reps.
I'm starting to notice a pattern here.
It's most obvious on squats. At the bottom of the squat, something in my brain at least tells me that the easiest way out of this rather uncomfortable position is to relax my hamstrings and lower back and drive up with my quads. And it would be, if not for the fact that doing so will tear up my ASIS tendons and get crushed like an accordion when I run out of gas halfway up. We call that a "bad thing".
The lesson I have to learn, that I already know, that I have to actually fucking respect is that I am lazy by nature, and if I want to be of any use to anyone, I cannot relax. Weekdays are for work. I am supposed to get up, go to work, come home, work out, write 800 words, make lunch for tomorrow, and go to sleep. That's it. That's what my days should be like.
No sitting around for a half hour looking at email before I start lifting. No reading forums before I start writing. One thing to the next, as efficiently as possible, and no rationalizing deviations from the schedule. No cutting myself a break because of a hard day at work, no blowing off workouts because it's raining/cold, no taking it easy because I did well the day before.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
I give myself more than enough slack already. My Fridays and Saturdays are completely free, at least until Girlfriend schedules things, and later this year I plan on spending all day on Sundays watching football. My word count quotas for Nomad's are a fucking joke compared to what I did for Battlesongs. And if I can't handle a workload this light, maybe I need to tighten things up so I don't get a chance to relax.
Tighten things up, get mad, and get ON this shit.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Crotch Squats
I've been loosely following Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength program since November and have gotten some decent results on it. Between November 1 and January 10, I gained 24 pounds and brought my squat up from 170lb for 3 sets of 5 to 250lb for 3 sets of 5. But when the weight started to get heavy, a number of old nagging injuries, combined with inconsistent recovery forced me to deload and re-evaluate my squat form.
And today after two months of experimentation, I finally figured out what the Starting Strength book describes, but never explicitly states as the key to good squat form.
You squat with your crotch.
You squat with your crotch because the squat is a hip movement, not a leg movement, and if you're going to drop your pelvis below your knees without giving yourself tendonitis in every joint below your shoulders, you need to squat with your crotch.
To get a feeling of what the key muscle involved is, do a classic adducator stretch before you start.
The muscles stretched are the ones you want to load on the way down in the squat. Rippetoe can tell you how to start the squat here. But the key cue for me is not to shove my fucking knees out, which is Rippetoe's constant refrain, but to make sure the adducator muscles take the load on the descent and initiate the bounce out of the bottom.
When the adducators take the stretch, it is impossible for your knees to slide forward or in, and it is likewise impossible for your lower back to round at the bottom. It's an odd feeling to load a muscle so rarely used by an office worker, but doing so allows for a surprisingly heavy weight to be moved with no form degradation. And moving weight with good form means the only thing to worry about on recovery days is sleeping and eating, rather than stretching or icing tender spots.
And today after two months of experimentation, I finally figured out what the Starting Strength book describes, but never explicitly states as the key to good squat form.
You squat with your crotch.
You squat with your crotch because the squat is a hip movement, not a leg movement, and if you're going to drop your pelvis below your knees without giving yourself tendonitis in every joint below your shoulders, you need to squat with your crotch.
To get a feeling of what the key muscle involved is, do a classic adducator stretch before you start.
The muscles stretched are the ones you want to load on the way down in the squat. Rippetoe can tell you how to start the squat here. But the key cue for me is not to shove my fucking knees out, which is Rippetoe's constant refrain, but to make sure the adducator muscles take the load on the descent and initiate the bounce out of the bottom.
When the adducators take the stretch, it is impossible for your knees to slide forward or in, and it is likewise impossible for your lower back to round at the bottom. It's an odd feeling to load a muscle so rarely used by an office worker, but doing so allows for a surprisingly heavy weight to be moved with no form degradation. And moving weight with good form means the only thing to worry about on recovery days is sleeping and eating, rather than stretching or icing tender spots.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Battlesongs of Hope World Almanac Part 2: The Ancients
When humans first settled into cities, they did so alongside or at the behest of creatures known as Ancients. Unlike Dragons, which were part of the world itself, or Wizards, which were born naturally from humans in a magical world, Ancients instead evolved out of the energy of Humanity as a whole. The Delphi Archives note that there is some debate whether the Ancients shaped humanity as an amalgamation of themselves, or whether humanity unwittingly created the Ancients to embody aspects of human psyche. Whatever their origin, the Ancients were long the driving force of Humanity's history.
They were powerful creatures, taking the names given to them by humans but never changing their forms, which were as varied as their personalities. No single description could possibly fit all Ancients. Save perhaps for these: the Ancients did not age. Nor were they immortal, as the Two Houses displayed. They could exert great influence upon the world and its inhabitants, although the form by which this took varied widely. Some were exceptionally physically powerful, others raised armies of their progeny, others could conjure magical devices, and still others could transform life into their own image.
The Ancients spawned many of the magical creatures in the world. Shadow men, vampires, orcs, gremlins, fairies, nymphs, and a dozen other species were either created to serve the Ancients, or as a result of their influence. These societies were as varied and as lively as their human counterparts, and lived alongside Humanity for thousands of years. They feuded with humans and each other, had kings and presidents and merchants and parents, and found their way in the world just as humans did.
Few of these societies and even fewer of their founding Ancients survive today. There used to be an Ancient of alchemy and plants, one who was very tied to the earth, but they killed her. There used to be a great inventor Ancient, who created machines for every use and user, but they killed him. There used to be one who was like the sun, a bringer of light, but they killed her too. Michael the storyteller survived, as stories often do. There is still an orc lord living in the mountains, a lord of war, who fought and lost against the Wizards before the Two Houses arose, and his being driven to the mountains at the top of the world saved him from the Two Houses.
Some wonder if the Ancients could return, now that The Anarchist Murmur has come and gone.
They were powerful creatures, taking the names given to them by humans but never changing their forms, which were as varied as their personalities. No single description could possibly fit all Ancients. Save perhaps for these: the Ancients did not age. Nor were they immortal, as the Two Houses displayed. They could exert great influence upon the world and its inhabitants, although the form by which this took varied widely. Some were exceptionally physically powerful, others raised armies of their progeny, others could conjure magical devices, and still others could transform life into their own image.
The Ancients spawned many of the magical creatures in the world. Shadow men, vampires, orcs, gremlins, fairies, nymphs, and a dozen other species were either created to serve the Ancients, or as a result of their influence. These societies were as varied and as lively as their human counterparts, and lived alongside Humanity for thousands of years. They feuded with humans and each other, had kings and presidents and merchants and parents, and found their way in the world just as humans did.
Few of these societies and even fewer of their founding Ancients survive today. There used to be an Ancient of alchemy and plants, one who was very tied to the earth, but they killed her. There used to be a great inventor Ancient, who created machines for every use and user, but they killed him. There used to be one who was like the sun, a bringer of light, but they killed her too. Michael the storyteller survived, as stories often do. There is still an orc lord living in the mountains, a lord of war, who fought and lost against the Wizards before the Two Houses arose, and his being driven to the mountains at the top of the world saved him from the Two Houses.
Some wonder if the Ancients could return, now that The Anarchist Murmur has come and gone.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Candypepper spice
One of the keys to eating healthy is making sure you can feed yourself on days when you don't feel like cooking. Make this spice rub and you can prepare a couple of servings of chicken or pork chops in about one minute. Cut up a green pepper while the seasoned meat is grilling on a Foreman, and you have a decent lunch or a good start on dinner in about 5 minutes.
Prep time: 15 minutes
3 Tablespoon salt
4 T white sugar
4 T light brown sugar
4 T black pepper
5 T cayenne pepper
2 T chili powder
2 T thyme
1 T garlic powder
1 T paprika
1 T nutmeg
1 T cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
Mix together in a bowl, and store in a ziploc bag with a small piece of bread to keep the brown sugar from clumping.
Prep time: 15 minutes
3 Tablespoon salt
4 T white sugar
4 T light brown sugar
4 T black pepper
5 T cayenne pepper
2 T chili powder
2 T thyme
1 T garlic powder
1 T paprika
1 T nutmeg
1 T cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
Mix together in a bowl, and store in a ziploc bag with a small piece of bread to keep the brown sugar from clumping.
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