The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

I've been doing all of the usual business for the past few months, to varying degrees of success. I've been trying to eat better, exercise more, read and write more. I can't call myself a healthy eater, or an exercise buff, a writer or an avid reader, but I'm making progress. My goals are getting steadily more difficult and when I fall off the wagon it's easier to pick myself up and get back on.

+ Diet
I found a pretty neat website called Superbetter through Lifehacker, and I have to admit I'm having quite a bit of fun with it so far. It's one of the early projects from Jane McGonigal, who's been preaching a gospel of gamification for the past few years. You know, the idea that you can actually effect positive change by turning a goal into a game. It's an idea I find pretty exciting, because hey -- who doesn't like games?

So besides counting calories (which I'm still doing), I've signed up to Superbetter and it's a place where I pretend to be a super-hero of mental resilience and weight loss. :) I could definitely use some allies, so if you're already on the website or have goals you'd like to hit and are looking for a community to help push you along the way, let me know and we'll hook up. I am...*dramatic pose* The Reading Rabbit.

I took the Full-Plate Diet Power Pack on signing up, and so far I'm digging it quite a bit. The Full-Plate Diet is a relatively simple idea -- basically, you look at eating better as a game of inclusion rather than exclusion. Instead of focusing on all the things you can't have, like sugars and unhealthy fats, you look at including high-fiber whole foods instead. By focusing on finding new foods to love instead of ditching the ones you already do (but aren't serving your waistline well), it makes the whole experience quite a bit more positive.

There are also a few simple tenets that are so...common-sense, it's embarrassing to have to be told this. They are: eat when you're hungry, stop eating when you're not hungry. And: stop to think about what you're choosing to eat. Duh. But it's actually helping me to make better choices and to eat less, so there's that.

This hasn't translated into weight loss yet, but let's see where we are in another month.


+ Exercise
This has been one of those things that are going in fits and starts. I've been trying to focus on running because the Bay to Breakers race is just a few short weeks away, and that hasn't gone too well to say the least.

I've been trying to get into minimal/barefoot running, which means using as little a cushion as possible. This forces you to change your stride to something more...natural, I guess is the right word, because your body knows how to minimize the shock of running a lot better. This presumably reduces the number of injuries you get from running, if you do it right, and since I've had problems with knee pain I figure I'd give it a go.

So I picked up the Nike Free Run+ and a Nike Run sensor for it. So far the shoe isn't quite as minimal as I thought it might be, but it's fine to do this in stages. I'm definitely changing my stride -- my calves and shins are burning like never before after a good run. It's this change and, well, let's be honest, laziness, that makes running a bit more difficult this year. I've only just been able to run for two miles straight without stopping, and went for my longest run yet (4.15 miles) on Saturday. We have a lot of ground to cover if we want to be in fighting shape come mid-May, but Ryan and I are planning to push hard.

In addition to running three times a week, I try to hit the gym thrice a week. Chest and triceps on Sunday, back on Monday, biceps on Thursday or Friday. That leaves Wednesday as our only rest day, which isn't so bad. I like the way that comes off, but the fact remains that we haven't managed a full week yet. I have a good feeling about this one, though.


+ Reading
This is the one area where I'm falling down repeatedly and consistently, I'm ashamed to say. Every time I think about what I'm (not) reading, Stephen King's advice rings like an admonishment in my head. "There are two things a writer must do -- read a lot and write a lot. If you don't have time to do one or the other, you don't have time to be a writer." I'm paraphrasing here, but that's the sentiment and I've taken it to heart.

I think what's getting in the way is the perception that I just don't have time to really sit down and dive into a book. Which is, of course, hogwash. There's always time, I'm just choosing to fill it with something that's not reading. And that's not OK. I always *enjoy* reading once I start, it's just the inertia that gets me. I've spent too much time not-reading and now reading is a habit that's hard to build.

Towards that end I'll be taking my Kindle with me to the work kitchen and reading there while I eat lunch. I could use some time away from my computer (and its distraction of Facebook games) over lunch, and heading off there will allow me to read and pay more attention to what I'm eating. It's a win-win, and I'm sure folks won't mind an hour where I'm out of pocket at least.

Right now I'm reading Mad Ship by Robin Hobb and two apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic short story collections from various folks. What I've found with a lot of anthologies is that writers try to use the opportunity to get cute with their stories, and more often than not that just comes off as annoying. Call me an apocalypse traditionalist, but I'd like to have my PA fiction without any cheeky, self-aware, misanthropic metaphors, thank you.

That being said, there was one story that had a *great* PA world built into it. The story itself was pretty interesting but couldn't quite stick the landing -- the climax just crossed the line of believability. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but I can recommend it. Later. When I remember the title. :)


+ Writing
This actually hasn't been going too badly. I've written a couple of blog entries for my website (http://www.jakebe.com, plug plug) that I wanted to make a bit more polished and professional-looking. I have a bit of a ways to go with that, but we all have to start somewhere. I wanted to talk about writing, stories and how we can learn about or change ourselves through the stories we tell ourselves and the lessons we learn from them. That might change over time, but that's what I'd like to do starting out anyway.

As far as fiction goes, that's stalled just a little bit. I'm writing a short story that'll be shown to a friend, privately, and then after that I'll be moving on to other projects I've been wanting to get off the ground. I'm also running a Pathfinder game and that tends to eat a lot of time for preparation and story development. I've got a really good bunch of players and I don't want to let them down.

So that's pretty much what I've been up to recently. How's everyone else? ;)

In case you haven’t noticed, I love the end of the year. The holidays are a great time to remind ourselves what’s really important, and by and large I think we do. Sure, there’s the craziness of materialism and bad vibes put off by overworked shoppers (and workers) in search of the peace that’s meant to be found this time of year, but I think there are always one or two moments where we find ourselves contented and grateful. And I also think that the more we look for them, the more of them there are, lurking between the hunts for parking spaces, the drama with family and friends, the stress of getting everyone on the same page. Maybe it’s just the naivete that comes with joining the holiday scene later than everyone else, but I hope I never lose the warm glow this time of year gives to me.

Now, though, the end of the year is behind us, and it’s time to look forward to the long dark night of January and February. The next two months will see the same old problems creeping up on us, sapping our will to be better people, breaking our focus on New Year’s resolutions. We all make them. We all break them. I’m no stranger to looking back on the hope and potential I had one year ago and cringing. Where did it all go? How did I lose sight of what I set out to do so earnestly last year? Well, to be honest, life just gets in the way. It’s hard to sustain the drive for betterment over the course of an entire year. Hell, it’s hard to do it for a couple of months. So by March, the laundry list of things we needed to do this year is discarded.

I’m not ready to give up on the idea of resolutions just yet. Yeah, we should be able to start bettering ourselves at any time, and January 1st is a pretty arbitrary time to focus on for it, but so what? If we need the crutch to get us started, use the damn crutch.

What I’m trying to do this year is break up my resolutions into shorter, more manageable goals, so I always have something to work towards. By doing that it’s easier to measure progress, I’m forced to come up with an achievable frame for what it is I want to do and the time for reflection is built-in -- I need to figure out whether or not I’ve achieved my goals before I can really think about the next ones. If I haven’t, I can keep on trying until I get it right. If I have, I can use that success to springboard me to the next goal.

I’ve read somewhere that it takes about six weeks to build a habit properly. I’ve always thought it was a month, but it’s nice to have that extra two weeks to make sure something’s firmly taken hold. So, the plan is to create eight ‘pods’ of goals throughout the year, each lasting six weeks. At the end of the pod, I see whether I’ve succeeded or failed and why, and set goals for the next six weeks. Six weeks is also a good chunk of time to devote to a project (or piece of one) so that the deadline isn’t so far I put it off, or so close I can’t manage it. If I devote a little time each day to it, there’s no reason I can’t complete something in that time frame.

For the first pod, I want to focus on the basics: being a better (more consistent) writer, being consistent with my diet, and being consistent about my appearance. I’ve had vague goals for all of these at some point last year, and they’ve all failed, so I figure it’s a good test to see how the new system handles.

Goal 1. Write 3500 words per week for six weeks. This comes out to 21,000 words by the end of Pod 1. I feel like I should clarify this a bit; it includes blog posts (posted here, on Blogger and FA), short stories, character studies and the like. The word count only goes towards things I put up through various sites; that means prep work for short stories don’t count, but character studies I put into FA scraps will. The goal, at least for the short term, is to make writing a consistent habit; once that’s sorted I can work on the more involved work of creating short stories, novels and the like.

Goal 2. Average 1750 Calories a day for six weeks. This should get me a weight loss of 1 - 1.5 pounds per week. It’s about what I’ve been doing, inconsistently, for some time, but focusing on making sure I keep to that will provide me with a nice foundation for tweaking the caloric intake as necessary. Calories burned through exercise (usually running, elliptical training or weight lifting) will be included in the count. Sorry, Laz, I know you think that’s cheating; we’ll see if it hurts me too much at the end of the pod.

Goal 3. Make sure effort goes into looking my best. This is the most nebulous goal, because there aren’t hard numbers there. But it’s simple enough to do; pay attention to my grooming so that I don’t go out looking too scraggly. I have a bad habit of missing a lot of dates with my razor, and far too often I’ll go out with just jeans and any old t-shirt I can find. It’s time to start looking like some thought went into my appearance. I might not look dapper by the end of six weeks, but I’d at least like to look well-kempt.

I’m only going with three goals because I really don’t want to overload myself, and it’s better if I put all of my focus into just a few things. There are other things I’d like to get started on this year, but those will have to wait. My priorities are set.

The end of this first pod will be February 14th. I should have a post up no later than the 17th going over how I did and setting the goals for the next six weeks. I’m already looking forward to posting rousing successes all across the board.