Rubber Legs & Solid Progress

Quick Update

This is going to be a fast update once again because it's been a little bit crazy recently, and I'm actually pretty tired even though it's only 1:47 a.m. For those of you who know me, you know how tied that means I am right now.

Well the goals from the previous post are a bit delayed, and I'm giving myself an extra week for most of them for what seems like a really good reason to me: shortly after the last blog post, only a week after recovering from severe dental surgery that saw the removal of multiple wisdom teeth and impacted molars, everybody in our apartment caught a severe strain of stomach flu. So a lot of strained muscles in the back and side later, some (lots) of kidney pain later, and after all the unpleasant details that I'll skip the long and short of it can be summed up in this: I lost 9 lbs in one day.

Not very nice, and since solids were off the menu, again, it's taken me until today to recover, and I'm still running on only about 60% normal energy. Worked out in the gym today for the first time in 3 weeks, and felt the rust. Rubber legs and a lot of soreness, but I did manage 15 miles doing hills on the exercise bike and I did it in 40 minutes, which felt like breaking through to some crazy new level so I was really happy with being able to push myself like that considering how sore, stiff, and rubbery-legged I felt even before getting started.

Also had one of my best buddies from Alaska call me, and he was kind enough to let me vent some minor frustrations that have been building up, and that's just healthy. Talked to his wife, who is also a very good friend of mine and I forgot how much her voice always sounds cheerful and uplifting. Wish there was a lot more of that in the world.

Recently on my writing blog I wrote a post I wanted to link to because in a lot of ways it reflects my shifting back in thought, my refusal to let the slide go on any longer, and a willingness to work and take risks again. This post was on my ridiculously ambitious writing goals for the next month. I even failed to mention that the supporting articles I would need to write would number around 300 for the month on top of everything mentioned.

On the plus side: so far so good. I know it's only three days into the month, but so far I'm even doing slightly better than my writing goals. And in addition to that, a strange thing has happened that has already made my month. Usually when I am buried in freelance work, my creative work suffers or disappears or becomes a chore. The part of my brain that functions highly for freelancing has always been the complete opposite of the one that is firing when I'm getting ideas left and right for my fiction, poetry, and screen writing.

Except this time, for the first time, my creative writing mind is firing on all cylinders again at the same time I'm absolutely killing the freelance writing. In the last couple days I thought of a new idea for a great story, wrote the outline, wrote some killer lines, and am already two full pages (single spaced) into it. Even while writing this post I stopped and put down a couple paragraphs of a pretty sweet soliloquy for another future story. Oh yeah, I already wrote something like 20 articles today and did some editing work, too.

Started reading a Clive Cussler novel. I'm a big fan of Cussler, and I find it easy to get into his stories because I've always been a huge history buff and a huge David Morrell fan, and Clive seems to hit the 50/50 balance that fuses the two.

Along with everything else going on, I have a split in my heel. I think from my skin getting way way too dry, and it's painful, so hopefully over time that heals and I can earn the money this month to get the rest of my teeth fixed. Those are the most important medical issues now. Already having the wisdom teeth out and recovering has made a huge difference.

So the more detailed posts are still going to be later this week, and I think I have some dandies lined up, but for now, I think it's bed time :)