I'm dieting again, vigorously so, and as before I find it an all-consuming activity.
I have struggled with my weight all my adult life. Ever since the summer before my senior year in high school, when I put on weight purposely to try to do better at football that fall, I have struggled. Every year or two I would diet, sometimes with success. Many years I did not include exercise with that, believing I was too busy to exercise. Diet, I told my doctor, would have to suffice if I were to lose any significant weight.
I could blame genes. On both my dad's and mom's sides of the family we find problems with obesity, especially with their siblings and cousins, and in some earlier generations. But that's futile. Plus, I feel like I am naturally a thin to average weight person, and I have just let go of proper eating and exercise. No, the genes are not the cause in my case, I don't believe. Best to blame myself for laziness and lazy eating.
I peaked in 2005-2006, hitting the same highest weight over several months in those two years. But beginning in March 2006 I began losing, slowly, oh so slowly. I tried to exercise a little more (walking on noon hours, for example), eat a little less, and eat a little better. By the end of the year, I was 20 to 25 pounds lower than my peak. In 2007 I kept it off, and in 2008 I lost another 10.
Beginning the first of the year, running sixteen weeks, the company is having a "biggest loser" sort of contest, organized by some of our employees. I've never watched the program, so I don't know how closely we are matching it. Mainly it's weigh-ins every Tuesday, and encouragement during the week. Some of them are going to the gym together, eating together. The layoffs the end of January cut the ranks of the participants by a few. I was running second or third most of the time (based on percent loss), but last week surged into first. I gained a half pound, but the leader gained four, so I moved ahead.
We weigh at 8:30 AM, but I pre-weighed a little while ago and was down 2 pounds. Hopefully that will keep me in first. More importantly, I'm now at the lowest weight I've been since May 2001 when I slimmed down for my daughter's wedding.
The problem is, when exercising as I have been, and dwelling on correct eating, and resisting the temptations to pig out, I find weight loss to be all-consuming. It's on my mind every moment of the day. In the evening I think about what I could be doing to lose some more. It's on my mind when I turn out the light at night and when I hit the shower in the morning, as I'm sitting in my reading chair and when I'm at the computer.
I'd like to be able to do this without it being so all-consuming. Other things must use the gray cells too, such as writing, Bible study, devotions, reading, etc. I'd like to be able to read ten pages in Dune Messiah without thinking about what isometric I could be doing while sitting, reading, to burn an extra calorie per minute.
Maybe, just maybe, when I reach my target weight goal, I will find the obsession gone. God, let it be so.
Edit on Wednesday: At the official weigh-in yesterday, I was down 2.75 pounds! That kept me in first place. In fact, I stretched out my lead, as the two guys who are closest to me either stayed the same or had smaller loses (as a percent of their body weight). While I'm more interested in losing weight than in winning the contest, being if first place by a healthy margin is a good result. Eight weeks to go.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Clarity
Yesterday morning, as soon as I rose and completed my new litany of exercises (six straight days now), I began a morning walk. My destination: the post office, to mail some bill payments. The post office is about 7/10 ths of a mile away, over fairly level road. However, I wanted a longer walk that that.
So I walked down every side street off Sherlock Road. By way of explanation, Bella Vista is all hills, ridges, and steep valleys--hollows, the locals call them. Collector streets are built on ridge lines, and local streets are cul-de-sacs off the main roads, following finger ridges till they plunge into the hollows.
On the way to the post office, walking on the left side, of course, that meant I had to walk down four side streets. Of course, that meant I had to walk up to get back to the main road. Coming back from the post office, I had three side streets to descend and ascend. The whole walk took sixty-five minutes, and I was plenty tired.
As I made all these side trips, I was struck by the clarity of the woods. By this time in winter, the pin oaks are finally dropping their leaves. A few stubbornly cling, mostly to lower branches, but most are gone. The early budding trees--the Bradford pears, forsythia, red buds, and dogwoods--have not yet popped. Some might by next week, but not now. So this weekend is probably the one with the greatest clarity through the winter woods. Houses across the hollows, unseen most of the year, are obvious. We can see our distant neighbors' backyard business.
I continue to look for this clarity in my writing career. Book? Articles? Fiction? Non-fiction? Op-ed? Bible studies? All of these I have tried, and I can see myself writing them all. The writing sages say build a platform first. If you have a platform, editors can't hardly turn you down when submitting book-length queries. I've got platform building ideas, but keep hesitating to trigger them for fear they will sap all the creative time and energy I have.
Yet trigger them I must, if I expect to have any hope of publishing books with traditional, royalty paying publishers. In two future posts (perhaps not consecutive to this one), I'll explain a couple of platform-building ideas I have, one old, one new, and use the blog as a sounding board for them.
ETA: I wrote the draft of this post Saturday night, intending to publish it Sunday afternoon. When I awoke this morning, deprived of an hour of sleep, I saw our huge Bradford pear in the backyard is now white. Overnight the buds popped. Our native woods don't have many volunteer Bradford pears, but it does look as if I'm correct: this weekend should allow maximum clarity.
So I walked down every side street off Sherlock Road. By way of explanation, Bella Vista is all hills, ridges, and steep valleys--hollows, the locals call them. Collector streets are built on ridge lines, and local streets are cul-de-sacs off the main roads, following finger ridges till they plunge into the hollows.
On the way to the post office, walking on the left side, of course, that meant I had to walk down four side streets. Of course, that meant I had to walk up to get back to the main road. Coming back from the post office, I had three side streets to descend and ascend. The whole walk took sixty-five minutes, and I was plenty tired.
As I made all these side trips, I was struck by the clarity of the woods. By this time in winter, the pin oaks are finally dropping their leaves. A few stubbornly cling, mostly to lower branches, but most are gone. The early budding trees--the Bradford pears, forsythia, red buds, and dogwoods--have not yet popped. Some might by next week, but not now. So this weekend is probably the one with the greatest clarity through the winter woods. Houses across the hollows, unseen most of the year, are obvious. We can see our distant neighbors' backyard business.
I continue to look for this clarity in my writing career. Book? Articles? Fiction? Non-fiction? Op-ed? Bible studies? All of these I have tried, and I can see myself writing them all. The writing sages say build a platform first. If you have a platform, editors can't hardly turn you down when submitting book-length queries. I've got platform building ideas, but keep hesitating to trigger them for fear they will sap all the creative time and energy I have.
Yet trigger them I must, if I expect to have any hope of publishing books with traditional, royalty paying publishers. In two future posts (perhaps not consecutive to this one), I'll explain a couple of platform-building ideas I have, one old, one new, and use the blog as a sounding board for them.
ETA: I wrote the draft of this post Saturday night, intending to publish it Sunday afternoon. When I awoke this morning, deprived of an hour of sleep, I saw our huge Bradford pear in the backyard is now white. Overnight the buds popped. Our native woods don't have many volunteer Bradford pears, but it does look as if I'm correct: this weekend should allow maximum clarity.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Current Reading
Having finished The Powers That Be by David Halberstam, I moved down to the next book in my reading pile--actually to the next two books:
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Letters From Hawaii by Mark Twain
When I put my reading pile together last August, making sense of books I had recently acquired, I tried to get a good alternation of fiction and non-fiction. Not that the alternation had to be every-other book, but that I wasn't reading a whole bunch of one and not the other. Since I just finished a long non-fiction book, a novel popped up next. Good planning on my part last August. I'd show you a picture of that pile (now divided into two to prevent toppling), but my digital camera drove to Oklahoma City on Sunday, and hopefully is taking many pictures of my grandson as he passed his 10 month birthday. Perhaps I'll edit a picture in next week.
Actually, I began reading Twain's book first. On the trip to Phoenix last week I took both books with me. Fighting a growing cold from the night before the trip, I was pretty sure my mind would not be able to concentrate on Dune Messiah, not if it was anything like Dune, the first of the trilogy. So on the plane from DFW to Phoenix, having messed with the crossword puzzle in the airplane magazine on the previous flight, I pulled out the Hawaii letters and began reading them. Even though they are 140 years old, I found them light and easy to read. On the trip I read about forty pages of them.
Once home, and somewhat recovered from my cold (though it lingers still), I moved back to the first on the pile and began Dune Messiah. As I expected, it is a tougher read than the letters. Still, I know I will enjoy it.
For other reading, I keep A Treasury of Early Christianity beside the bed and read a few pages of it some evenings. These are the non-canonical writings from the first few centuries of Christianity. Well, not all the writings, nor even complete of the ones included. Ann Fremantle has edited those, and we get only part of them in the book. I finished "The Shepherd of Hermes" recently, and am currently working on "Epistle to the Corinthians" by Clement. This book is almost a reference type book, and not to be taken in large doses.
Other than these, I have a stack of newsletters to work my way through, and a few printed articles, such as one from a Jewish literature magazine about Daniel's seventy weeks of years.
So much to read, much to write, much to do at work, and much to do around the house while batching it. What a life.
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Letters From Hawaii by Mark Twain
When I put my reading pile together last August, making sense of books I had recently acquired, I tried to get a good alternation of fiction and non-fiction. Not that the alternation had to be every-other book, but that I wasn't reading a whole bunch of one and not the other. Since I just finished a long non-fiction book, a novel popped up next. Good planning on my part last August. I'd show you a picture of that pile (now divided into two to prevent toppling), but my digital camera drove to Oklahoma City on Sunday, and hopefully is taking many pictures of my grandson as he passed his 10 month birthday. Perhaps I'll edit a picture in next week.
Actually, I began reading Twain's book first. On the trip to Phoenix last week I took both books with me. Fighting a growing cold from the night before the trip, I was pretty sure my mind would not be able to concentrate on Dune Messiah, not if it was anything like Dune, the first of the trilogy. So on the plane from DFW to Phoenix, having messed with the crossword puzzle in the airplane magazine on the previous flight, I pulled out the Hawaii letters and began reading them. Even though they are 140 years old, I found them light and easy to read. On the trip I read about forty pages of them.
Once home, and somewhat recovered from my cold (though it lingers still), I moved back to the first on the pile and began Dune Messiah. As I expected, it is a tougher read than the letters. Still, I know I will enjoy it.
For other reading, I keep A Treasury of Early Christianity beside the bed and read a few pages of it some evenings. These are the non-canonical writings from the first few centuries of Christianity. Well, not all the writings, nor even complete of the ones included. Ann Fremantle has edited those, and we get only part of them in the book. I finished "The Shepherd of Hermes" recently, and am currently working on "Epistle to the Corinthians" by Clement. This book is almost a reference type book, and not to be taken in large doses.
Other than these, I have a stack of newsletters to work my way through, and a few printed articles, such as one from a Jewish literature magazine about Daniel's seventy weeks of years.
So much to read, much to write, much to do at work, and much to do around the house while batching it. What a life.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Book Review: The Powers That Be - Conclusions
David Halberstam's conclusion, or what I draw as his conclusion from his 736 pages of The Powers That Be, is: The changes in the media from the 1930s to the 1970s changed politics, and especially the presidency.
Duh. Did he really need 736 tedious pages to come to this conclusion? As I said or implied in my previous posts about this book (here and here), I had a tough time getting though this book. The writing style, the length of chapters, the flood of names, all worked against easy reading. But Halberstam's main point was obvious throughout, and he makes a fair case. Of course, that seems somewhat obvious. How could politics and the presidency not be changed when the main way news is disseminated changes from twice daily newspapers to sound-bite television? It has to change.
One interesting aspect of the narrative is how the four media highlighted in the book (CBS, Washington Post, Time Inc., and the Los Angeles Times) shifted from conservative-Republican outlets--or in the case of CBS a non-ideological outlet--to become liberal, Democratic-leaning outlets. I'd have to do some more study to necessarily agree with this conclusion, but I won't dismiss it outright. Maybe these media outlets were conservative once. Interesting concept.
I cannot recommend this book to others. Oh, if you are a media junkie who loves history and easily retains names and facts repeated or updated on widely separated pages, this book may be for you. This will go immediately to the "books for sale box" in the garage, not to a shelf of books being kept. And, to keep from repeating what I feel was Halberstam's primary error, I will cut this review short.
Duh. Did he really need 736 tedious pages to come to this conclusion? As I said or implied in my previous posts about this book (here and here), I had a tough time getting though this book. The writing style, the length of chapters, the flood of names, all worked against easy reading. But Halberstam's main point was obvious throughout, and he makes a fair case. Of course, that seems somewhat obvious. How could politics and the presidency not be changed when the main way news is disseminated changes from twice daily newspapers to sound-bite television? It has to change.
One interesting aspect of the narrative is how the four media highlighted in the book (CBS, Washington Post, Time Inc., and the Los Angeles Times) shifted from conservative-Republican outlets--or in the case of CBS a non-ideological outlet--to become liberal, Democratic-leaning outlets. I'd have to do some more study to necessarily agree with this conclusion, but I won't dismiss it outright. Maybe these media outlets were conservative once. Interesting concept.
I cannot recommend this book to others. Oh, if you are a media junkie who loves history and easily retains names and facts repeated or updated on widely separated pages, this book may be for you. This will go immediately to the "books for sale box" in the garage, not to a shelf of books being kept. And, to keep from repeating what I feel was Halberstam's primary error, I will cut this review short.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Book Review: The Powers That Be - writing style
I began my review of David Halberstam's The Powers That Be here, and now continue, this time discussing Halberstam's writing style.
After the seventeen page Prelude, Halberstam gave us a twenty-two page chapter on CBS, then a forty-nine page chapter on Time Incorporated (Time and Life magazines), then a twenty-seven page chapter on the Los Angeles Times. A hundred pages and three chapters. Looking through this I almost gave up reading before I began. Such long chapters, all of dense writing, presents the reader used to half-hour or hour long reading stints with a daunting task. A chapter break indicates a break in subject; lack of a chapter break indicates no break in subject and that the reader should keep reading. But that was often impossible, and a mid-chapter break became essential. Getting back into the midst of a chapter the next day was difficult.
When I say the writing was dense, I don't mean intellectually, but rather in terms of names, facts, and opinions. Each chapter was full of names: publication or institution founder, heirs, spouses, spouses ancestors, politicians, politicians' media assistants, publishers, editors, reporters. Keeping them all straight was pretty much impossible, and a third of the way through the book I gave up. If on page 250 I encountered a name I was pretty sure I read somewhere in the first fifty pages, and Halberstam was now telling of how his career had moved, I knew I should flip back, find the name, re-read what I read the week (or two) before to have the full context, then continue at page 250. I didn't, however. I just kept reading, hoping new context would give me enough to not worry about exactly what this assistant editor did earlier in his career. Perhaps my understanding of the history was thus lacking, but that was the only way for me to get through the book this decade.
In my review of David Morrell's The Totem, I talked about the B-A-C writing style; that is, where a writer begins at a certain point of time, the present moment (B), then goes back in time for context (A), then forward from the present moment into the future (C). I used that technique quite a bit in Doctor Luke's Assistant. Since Halberstam is writing history, not fiction, he had no future to move on to, but he used this B-A-C technique, though in a much more complicated way. He began at a point in time in his history, then went backwards, then forward somewhat but not yet to the starting point, then backward in a tangent thread, then forward but still not to the starting point, then somewhere else. This looked something like a G-B-F-A-C-E-D-I-J-K style. This was way too much, especially in the longer chapters. I became hopelessly confused in know where I was--or wasn't--in time.
Halberstan liked to mention moments of irony, normally with paired statements of opposites. He tried to show how one generation of owners either passed on or failed to pass on to the next generation the importance of certain values, but I don't know that he fully accomplished this goal.
In the next (and last) post, I'll review Halberstam's apparent conclusions and give some of my own.
After the seventeen page Prelude, Halberstam gave us a twenty-two page chapter on CBS, then a forty-nine page chapter on Time Incorporated (Time and Life magazines), then a twenty-seven page chapter on the Los Angeles Times. A hundred pages and three chapters. Looking through this I almost gave up reading before I began. Such long chapters, all of dense writing, presents the reader used to half-hour or hour long reading stints with a daunting task. A chapter break indicates a break in subject; lack of a chapter break indicates no break in subject and that the reader should keep reading. But that was often impossible, and a mid-chapter break became essential. Getting back into the midst of a chapter the next day was difficult.
When I say the writing was dense, I don't mean intellectually, but rather in terms of names, facts, and opinions. Each chapter was full of names: publication or institution founder, heirs, spouses, spouses ancestors, politicians, politicians' media assistants, publishers, editors, reporters. Keeping them all straight was pretty much impossible, and a third of the way through the book I gave up. If on page 250 I encountered a name I was pretty sure I read somewhere in the first fifty pages, and Halberstam was now telling of how his career had moved, I knew I should flip back, find the name, re-read what I read the week (or two) before to have the full context, then continue at page 250. I didn't, however. I just kept reading, hoping new context would give me enough to not worry about exactly what this assistant editor did earlier in his career. Perhaps my understanding of the history was thus lacking, but that was the only way for me to get through the book this decade.
In my review of David Morrell's The Totem, I talked about the B-A-C writing style; that is, where a writer begins at a certain point of time, the present moment (B), then goes back in time for context (A), then forward from the present moment into the future (C). I used that technique quite a bit in Doctor Luke's Assistant. Since Halberstam is writing history, not fiction, he had no future to move on to, but he used this B-A-C technique, though in a much more complicated way. He began at a point in time in his history, then went backwards, then forward somewhat but not yet to the starting point, then backward in a tangent thread, then forward but still not to the starting point, then somewhere else. This looked something like a G-B-F-A-C-E-D-I-J-K style. This was way too much, especially in the longer chapters. I became hopelessly confused in know where I was--or wasn't--in time.
Halberstan liked to mention moments of irony, normally with paired statements of opposites. He tried to show how one generation of owners either passed on or failed to pass on to the next generation the importance of certain values, but I don't know that he fully accomplished this goal.
In the next (and last) post, I'll review Halberstam's apparent conclusions and give some of my own.
Monday, March 2, 2009
March 2009 Goals
Ah, time for my monthly ritual of setting short-term goals. Once again, trying to be realistic considering life circumstances. I have to get the taxes done this month; yard work begins; and some un-done work is piling up, indicating the need for some extra hours, at least this week.
1. Blog 10 to 12 times. This seems very achievable, based on the past three months.
2. Complete the few remaining tasks for A Harmony of the Gospels; print; put in the hands of two beta readers.
3. Attend at least one writers critique group; present one of my Documenting America columns.
4. Monitor 5 writing blogs. As I mentioned in my last post, I may have to find a couple of new ones.
5. Complete beta reading of a YA novel for someone at an on-line writers site. I received this late last week, and hope to begin tonight and finish before the end of the month.
6. Write at least one chapter of In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.
7. Market Mom's Letter to at least five markets.
These were written kind of quickly. I may come back and edit in a day or so.
1. Blog 10 to 12 times. This seems very achievable, based on the past three months.
2. Complete the few remaining tasks for A Harmony of the Gospels; print; put in the hands of two beta readers.
3. Attend at least one writers critique group; present one of my Documenting America columns.
4. Monitor 5 writing blogs. As I mentioned in my last post, I may have to find a couple of new ones.
5. Complete beta reading of a YA novel for someone at an on-line writers site. I received this late last week, and hope to begin tonight and finish before the end of the month.
6. Write at least one chapter of In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.
7. Market Mom's Letter to at least five markets.
These were written kind of quickly. I may come back and edit in a day or so.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
February Report
It's time for my monthly report, when I consider how I did in my writing relative to my goals set at the beginning of the month. I was somewhat slowed down this month by my home computer deciding to have a boot error, being unusable for two weeks. I had another computer to monitor with, but not to type on.
1. Blog 10 to 12 times. Achieved this; I think I had 12 exactly.
2. Monitor the five blogs I've been monitoring on a regular basis. Achieved this. One of those five blogs has gone dormant, and one no longer seems relevant. I'm going to have to find two others or will cut back.
3. Complete as much of the Harmony of the gospels as I can. This will include:- All NIV footnotes entered- Formatting for reading completed- Introduction written and typed- Passage notes cleaned up and typed for a few key passages- Appendixes identified, and one written Did better on this than I expected. I added all the footnotes, the Introduction is 90 percent written and typed (maybe 95 percent), I did the passage notes for a couple of key passages (enough for my beta reader version), and I identified all the appendixes and wrote one. I did not get the text formatted for reading yet, but this is a one day task I will complete tomorrow. This evening I completed typing a round of edits.
4. Market "Mom's Letter" to someone; includes marketing research. Came real close on this. Got the marketing research mostly done, narrowing the submittal places down to ten, of which I intend to submit to five.
5. Attend one critique group session; present a Documenting America column. Did not attend either session, due to the pressures of work, home, family, and avocation. Hopefully this month.
6. More fully capture, for future development, a couple of Bible study ideas that have recently flittered through my mind and managed to make their way on to a capture list. I partly completed this. I wrote a couple of pages on one of these Bible studies, and I managed to come up with a priority list of studies I will work on.
7. As time allows, work on my essay on the Resurrection. Did not do this. In fact, a month after I wrote this, I wonder if I will do this at all. The circumstances that made this seem so important a month ago are now a faded memory.
1. Blog 10 to 12 times. Achieved this; I think I had 12 exactly.
2. Monitor the five blogs I've been monitoring on a regular basis. Achieved this. One of those five blogs has gone dormant, and one no longer seems relevant. I'm going to have to find two others or will cut back.
3. Complete as much of the Harmony of the gospels as I can. This will include:- All NIV footnotes entered- Formatting for reading completed- Introduction written and typed- Passage notes cleaned up and typed for a few key passages- Appendixes identified, and one written Did better on this than I expected. I added all the footnotes, the Introduction is 90 percent written and typed (maybe 95 percent), I did the passage notes for a couple of key passages (enough for my beta reader version), and I identified all the appendixes and wrote one. I did not get the text formatted for reading yet, but this is a one day task I will complete tomorrow. This evening I completed typing a round of edits.
4. Market "Mom's Letter" to someone; includes marketing research. Came real close on this. Got the marketing research mostly done, narrowing the submittal places down to ten, of which I intend to submit to five.
5. Attend one critique group session; present a Documenting America column. Did not attend either session, due to the pressures of work, home, family, and avocation. Hopefully this month.
6. More fully capture, for future development, a couple of Bible study ideas that have recently flittered through my mind and managed to make their way on to a capture list. I partly completed this. I wrote a couple of pages on one of these Bible studies, and I managed to come up with a priority list of studies I will work on.
7. As time allows, work on my essay on the Resurrection. Did not do this. In fact, a month after I wrote this, I wonder if I will do this at all. The circumstances that made this seem so important a month ago are now a faded memory.
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