26 things for feb 2010:

1. structure
2. follow
3. covet
4. triple
5. hands
6. eye
7. fancy
8. time
9. rainbow
10. sadness
11. stack
12. line up
13. wheels
14. an insect
15. into the air
16. direction
17. new
18. half
19. set up
20. 10 mins away
21. in my mailbox
22. sometimes
23. bottle
24. behind the scenes
25. corner
26. a door

In the middle of all the holiday eating, meeting with people, shopping stuff, I decided to do this month’s 26things in HK and completing another 101.1001 task, which is to use a colour theme. It wasn’t hard to decide on red. Click on each pic for brief notes. Link to full set: here

This was written for the author’s challenge for the radlist yahoo group. It used to be that there were more published authors on the challenge but recently more first-time / unpublished writers have sent in their contributions. I know I need to transition to “real” writing, with my own characters and stuff. So when I saw the signup invitation I started thinking about what I could write. This time the theme is “surprise party” and we could interpret freely.

I’m glad I have an archive of shorts and 5 nanos. I focused on nano 2005, which I hadn’t looked at since more than half of it was lost in the NZ flashdrive death incident. If I were to rework it to an original, most of it had to be rewritten anyway. The most exciting bit was finding that I still had the mindmap, so all isn’t lost.

Then it was a matter of writing building the back story (including changing the gender of one of the MCs) and writing the challenge. The result, party planner, is a nice prequel. The original title of the main story was tight, and I’m tentatively changing it to Melody’s on Church. The setting is now at Franklin TN, where Nissan has its headquarters — I met a Japanese HR manager at a networking event and he was telling me a little about life there. The title is the name of the restaurant, and I’ve further defined its cuisine as Japanese-fusion.

The short is the story of how the MCs met. I’m pretty pleased with it, yes it’s a bit fluffy, but hopefully not clichéd. It’s kinda cute and sweet.

I’m not setting resolutions because I think the phrase “new year resolutions” gets associated too much with well-intentioned failures. Too often, people want to change for the better, but make the changes too drastically or without sufficient planning or set the bar too high. Resolutions also get associated with giving up certain things, usually “unhealthy” stuff like butter or cream cakes. That’s my problem, giving up is so negative, it shouldn’t be giving up full fat milk, but rather gaining a taste for skim milk.

Anyway these are my goals for 2010. Yes, the initial reaction is probably “is that it?” since they are not much different from the monthly goals I set regularly. But that’s the point! Goals and targets, and alright — resolutions — should be practical and achievable.

exercise
• 12 races
• 1000km (620 miles) total
• 5k PR
• 10k PR
• distance PR
• finish nrolw

food
• more vegetarian weeks
• eat out more — this may seem odd but I’ve decided that I should live a little more often

writing
• finish at least one of the three planned manuscripts
• 3 short stories

The idea is always the same: brown the protein, add vegetables, add liquid and cook slowly for 2-3hrs until the meat is tender. Serve over some sort of carb that can mop up the sauce.

I saw oxtail and I was so excited. It’s been a long time. I braised it with a bottle of guinness and several ice cubes of chicken stock. The vegetables were standard mirepoix plus canned tomato. I let the finished product sit in the fridge overnight so the extra fat can solidify to be scraped off.

This was served over potato and turnip mash.

My last race of 2009, the santa shuffle 5k at Lincoln Park this morning. It was cold, luckily sunny. All racers were given a hat, beard and santa t-shirt so there were lots of red around. Some others dressed more elaborately in santa costumes, and some were in flannel pajamas — they looked warm.

The race and course itself wasn’t that great. The gear check was one corner of one table with 2 pretty inexperienced people, good thing I dropped my backpack early, some people didn’t make gear check and had to carry their stuff on the race.

The course was a loop up to the zoo then back. The highest number I saw as 1100-something so I’m thinking around 1200 people. On the narrow paths of the park, initially on the pavement along the road then there was one stretch where people running up and down were sharing the same path. Any more runners and it would have been very crowded.

My nike plus picked today to run out of battery, sigh. I had to rely on the official clock, which told me I finished at 31.29mins, the fastest I’ve been recently. Some people were saying the course was over 5k, I dunno.

Afterwards there was a breakfast buffet and beer at a pub over at Webster. It was over 1 mile and I walked over. Usually after runs we get bananas and energy bars so a hot breakfast (with Bud Light) was welcome. They had bacon, sausage, egg, bagels, french toast, pancake, something with gravy (American gravy, ie white sauce) and an egg filled deep fried thing that was actually spicy and really nice. Well worth the mile walk. There were a lot of runners and the queue for the food was long, I was lucky I got in line early and was within the first 20 people. I wonder how it was at the end, whether they had enough food.

Am I being a jerk if I say “that was easy”? Because, well, it was. I made good progress every day, not always hitting the 5k target, which I later revised down anyway. I got to 50k by the 12th, and this year I even typed it all with capitalisation and punctuation. None of those time saving tricks for me. Plus I didn’t use any dares.

Officially the wordcount is 50,038, which is lower than the Word and writely counts but I don’t really care. There are parts still missing, and will likely remain forever missing.

How do I do it? I think it’s definitely a case of practice. And being relaxed. I have no deadlines except the 30th; my own soft target is always the 15th. I’ve never found writing difficult, provided I have a story. And I outline. For nano I always outline by chapter. For a project manager like me, having a set goal and an outline is something so familiar that I can slip into the process as soon as the first day of november comes round.

I have to think of a decent storyline for next year’s, because this year’s story is the worst I’ve written in my nano career. Heck, my entire writing career. But hey, quality isn’t the point of nano. A lot of people forget that.

Which brings me to a little rant. I’m a nano purist, I make no apologies for it. I’ve been at it long enough to earn it. I see people who are writing a continuation of an existing novel, or rewriting an already written novel, or worrying about editing, and I cringe. That’s not the point. The point is to write a 50k novel from scratch, without editing. We have edmo in march for editing. And I would have thought ‘from scratch’ is self-explanatory. Ah well, that’s other people. It’s a self-challenge and in theory someone can write a single word 50,000 times and still win. Everyone’s mileage varies.

I reached 50k yesterday and I’m stopping. Yes, there are still missing chunks but I’m not invested enough in this story to continue. Certain passages will likely end up in other stories.

For those new friends witnessing me do nano for the first time (the witnessing, not the my doing it), it may seem like I’m some sort of writing machine. But really, I’m not. This is my normal nano speed. Bear in mind that this is nanowrimo, when it comes to writing other stuff I ‘perform’ differently. The point of nano is to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch, and write with abandon, ie no editing, no overthinking. And I achieved this. Other notes on this year’s nano:

• finishing on day 12 is snap bang within my average. I’ve finished between 10 and 16 days since 2004
• average words per day 4,171
• 25 chapters
• average chapter length 1,999
• longest chapter 3015 | shortest 1152
• I didn’t do any dares because they moved the thread to the plot doctoring forum and I kept looking for it in the reaching 50000 forum
• this year’s Mr Ian Woon is a partner in the law firm of Appleby, Esterhaus, Kowalski, Woon and Gregory
• I donated to OLL and will continue to do so every year
• I didn’t buy the t-shirt

I will take advantage of the createspace offer of a free proof copy. But not this novel, I’m probably going to ssend nano2006 instead. It’s time I worked on that one, it has a better story. Chef and I have been casually emailing about writing and submitting for publication. My plan is to have at least 3 novels in good shape before submitting my first one. I like to have reserves always ready. In comp terms we call it keeping some back in the attic.

2,883 words | total 50,057 words

I finished. The big push yesterday really helped, as did the 1000 words I wrote at work today. I only had 2000 words to write at home. There was absolutely no excuse.

There are no more chapters to write, the end had The End. Not all chapters are complete, where I couldn’t write the rest of the scene I put in [more], so one of these days when I want to finish this novel completely I’ll go and write those missing parts.

5,753 words | total 47,174 words

I left work early so I had an extra hour. I should have used it to do weight training but I was lazy and opted to write. That’s the eternal dilemma isn’t it, too little free time, too many other things to take care of.

The last few chapters have been long, the story is hitting that ‘final push’ place. I’d like to get to 50k tomorrow, cos I like even numbers and 12 days sound better than 13 days. Fingers crossed.

3,153 words | total 41,421 words

Yeah, the stupid wrist pain has returned. At least it waited till day 10. (Actually day 9 cos it was hurting yesterday.) The end is almost here anyway, so I can live with the pain. I’ll be in wrist braces tomorrow, both of them, looking like those steampunk gloves that my vampire wars character has. Anyway I’ve reached the 40k milestone, which is psychologically huge.

The characters continue to defy my attempt to give them angst, they’re simply too happy to have re-discovered each other. Who can blame them? I’m writing both chapter 21 and 22 at the same time. Chapter 21 is about a nice evening with “steaks and vegetables on the grill followed by whipped cream and rich chocolate mousse spread thickly over her body for me to lick off all night.” Chapter 22 is about helping the SEC inspectors in a fraud investigation. I’m literally writing 1 or 2 paragraphs of one chapter, then turning to the other chapter and writing a passage. Strange how my brain can switch between such different topics. LOL

3,066 words | total 38,268 words

I had a meeting that was cancelled at lunchtime, so I managed to write 600 words at work. I’ve decided to be less demanding of myself and reduce the daily target from 5000 to 3000 words. I suppose I can do that cos I’m ahead, and even with the smaller target I’m aiming to get to 50k by the weekend.

My characters have gone away for a much needed weekend trip to the coast. They’re enjoying each other’s company, going out for great seafood and visiting local attractions. My MC went for a long run along the beach. I wish I were them.

4,181 words | total 35,202 words

I stayed later than usual at Car’s house today. We went to the supermarket, then to the cemetery. Early dinner of a nice big steak her mom cooked for us. I headed out at around 5pm, and got home just after 6pm. By the time I showered, unpacked all my purchases over the weekend and made lunch for tomorrow it was 6.45pm. And TAR started at 7pm. I was too distracted to even watch Iron Chef, the secret ingredient is almond which I don’t like. I’ll catch it on repeat during the week.

To add insult to injury the flapper valve on my toilet broke. Now I have to figure out where the nearest plumbing supply store is. grrrr.

Back to the novel. I did a pretty good job of writing filler material today, padding what was originally one chapter into two. I’m averaging 1,956 words per chapter, meaning I will need a total of 25.6 chapters at this rate. I’ve only outlined 23 so from somewhere I need to find 3 more chapters, or make each chapter longer to catch up.

3,168 words | total 31,021 words

Been up since 7am, we went to the outlet mall at Michigan City. I bought 2 pairs of Timberland shoes, a pair of black Crocs with lining, salt & pepper shakers, a couple of storage jars, a long sleeved Nike running shirt and running gloves. I’m pleased at my haul.

Even though we got home at 4pm and was finished with dinner by 5.30pm, writing was tough. I was bored and had zero motivation. The story crawled along, and I was so distracted that I was hitting word count every hundred words or so.

I’m at chapter 16. I notice that I’ve been doing 2 chapters a day. I’m also not following the outline, I strayed away a bit yesterday and today’s 2 chapters were quite a significant departure. It’s okay though, the main plot is still there. It will just take a different route.

So, some stats after 7 days:

• Total word count: 31,021
• Average words per day: 4,432
• Total hours writing: 25hrs
• Completion: 62%
• Projected completion: 13-Nov-09

5,147 words | total 25,229 words

I managed to write about 1000 words at work today, which made the task easier when I got home. I was also home early enough to fit in a run, my first this week. I’m not getting my workouts in…fail.

The novel turned nice today. I had wanted to write more ‘difficult relationship’ stuff, but the characters decided they were having none of that and preferred to spend the weekend in each other’s company, mostly in bed. Hahaha. I love it when characters decide to throw the outline completely out of the window and go all tangential on me.

There’s a group of us doing nano this year. I’m privileged to be writing buddies with actual published authors. And I’m one of the ones who are ahead of the 1667-a-day official target. Except my target is 5000 a day. This is nothing new, I’ve always had a big daily target, and I always finish early. I think I’ll freak out if I ever fall behind.

4,078 words | total 20,082 words

If it’s even possible, I was busier today than yesterday. Booked solid from 9am to 4.30pm, only able to sneak lunch when the 11.30am finished early. So exhausting.

On chapter 11 already. The 2 chapters I wrote today were better. Better flow, better direction. It’s getting towards the middle section of the novel and things are starting to happen. I just wish I can get more rest. At this point, I’m relying a lot on my nano experience to get through the next few days. Just type the words. Keep an eye on the wordcount. Discipline.

3,355 words | total 16,004 words

It was a long, intense day full of meetings and discussions. I was so tired when I got home. Luckily I had leftover risotto, so I didn’t have to cook.

Writing began at 7.30pm. I decided that I hate my novel. There is no story and the premise is thinner than ice. I’m not writing any descriptions and it feels like I’m just writing a very long blog post. This is gonna be a tough, hard slog.

5,023 words | total 12,649 words

Barely managed 180 words at work today, there was just no time. Got home and decided to make mushroom risotto, which turned out to be tasty but time consuming.

Started writing at 7.45pm, got to 9000 words at 9pm — the reward was ice cream and baseball break for 15mins. I just finished, almost at midnight. I’m at chapter 7, but I’m not liking this novel at all. It’s hard to write and it’s not making sense. But I’ll hack away at it.

7,626 words

I started around 10.30am, after the race and shower. TV off, heating on, outline ready. Wrote steadily albeit slowly till lunchtime, when I reached 2200 words. Got majorly distracted by mafia and vampire wars, and still managed to get to 6000 words at 7pm. I had an ambitious target of 10000 but once TAR started I knew I won’t make it. There was TAR, Next Iron Chef and Iron Chef — 3 hours of TV that cut into writing time. I’d done pretty good today, so I’m happy.

I outlined 22 chapters. I was able to split chapter 1 into 2, and that gives me another happy.

Woke up at 6am (argh, on a sunday) to do the hot chocolate 5k. Didn’t get a fantastic start — the stupid bus ran the stop, and the other passengers and I were like “the hell?” As I was checking the bus schedules, the red line pulled up so I had to sprint up to the platform. Pulled my thigh a little, and was uncomfortable leading up to the start of the race.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning, perfect for running. I kept the running jacket on, thought I got hot and should have checked it. Finished in just over 31mins.

Afterwards, the food was chocolate fondue. It was a small plate of: 1 apple slice, half a banana, 1 marshmallow and a couple of biscuits. Pretty puny. There was also a small cup of hot chocolate. Still, better than the banana and cereal bar combinations we get at other races. There was also a Nike+ tent, and by showing the run on the ipod, we were eligible for a prize draw. I got an armband, which is timely cos my existing one is showing signs of old age and use.

Home and showered by 10am. Dealt with fb game stuff and the rest of the day will be nano.

The first run I logged in my nike+, which to all intents and purposes was the beginning of my running career, was on 29 October 2008. So what have I achieved in 1 year:

• 752.07km | 467.31miles
• 83 hours 32 mins
• reduced speed from over 8min/km to around 6.40min/km
• ran in: JPMC corporate challenge, elvis is alive, beachathlon, aids run/walk so far — hot chocolate 15/5 and santa shuffle left this year
• lost 35 pounds, then stopped weighing myself

I have enough goals and tasks already, but generally in the next year I want to try to run one race a month, run faster and move up to half marathon. Achievable? I think so.

Even though I signed up for the nike human race that is supposed to happen today, I seriously doubted that I’d be able to do it. Today was Gram’s funeral and I’ve been up since 6am, driving down to the house, then we were at the funeral home, church, cemetery and the luncheon. It was a sad day for the loss of such a wonderful person, and yet a day where family and friends gathered together.

I got home just after 6pm, and the run was tickling at the back of my mind. The other concern was of course that I’m sick and the only exercise I’d done in the past 3 weeks was the one run at Ptown.

I thought to myself, no harm trying. If I get to tired, I can stop before 10k. I didn’t run to the lake, just made the rounds up and down the neighbourhood streets. And no, I didn’t get tired. I finished in a fairly normal time of 1hr 6 mins.

Finished 7/8 tasks, the first time I’ve not achieved 100% completion.

exercise
• run a full 10k // done
• nrolw complete stage 1 // done
• deadlift half my body weight // done
• full pushup // did that one nrolw workout

food
• vegetarian day x4 // done
• quinoa recipe x1 // done

other
• sort gcls videos // sigh, I’m not sure when I’ll get round to this
• 6-word novels x20 // done

Mid-month update.

exercise
• run a full 10k // not yet, may be this weekend
• nrolw complete stage 1 // at s1-6b, 7 to go
• deadlift half my body weight // next weight increase at s1-7a
• full pushup // did that one nrolw workout

food
• vegetarian day x4 // 2 of 4
• quinoa recipe x1 // this week

other
• sort gcls videos // ooops
• 6-word novels x20 // done

exercise
• run a full 10k
• nrolw complete stage 1
• deadlift half my body weight
• full pushup

food
• vegetarian day x4
• quinoa recipe x1

other
• sort gcls videos
• 6-word novels x20

Final August TDP challenge results — all done.

exercise
• run 50km // 50.11km
• 5k race in under 36mins // 33mins
• weights x8 // 8 of 8
• 1000 squats, lunges, abs // 1034 — since I started NROL I’m also counting deadlifts and step-ups

food
• vegetarian day x4 // 4 of 4
• meet calorie goals 24 days // 24 of 24 — I gave myself a margin of error of 10 calories

other
• organise story outlines // done
• get driver’s licence // done, got a car to go with the licence too

exercise
• run 50km // 27.05km
• 5k race in under 36mins // 33mins
• weights x8 // 2 of 8
• 1000 squats, lunges, abs // 400

food
• vegetarian day x4 // 2 days
• meet calorie goals 24 days // 11 days

other
• organise story outlines // procrastinating
• get driver’s licence // done

I want to get back to setting monthly goals. I didn’t reach my goal for GCLS, those last 2-3 pounds are proving extremely stubborn. If anything, I haven’t been watching what i eat as carefully as before and i’ve gained 2 pounds. That said, several people have remarked that I don’t need to lose any more, which suggests to me that I’ve reached, or am close to reaching, my optimum weight. Each person has a default weight that their body is comfortable with, trying too hard to get below that tends to backfire, causing more harm than good. So, I’m not going to stress out too much about it.

I realise I should switch to tracking body fat % instead of weight. So I got a $4.99 body fat caliper. I’m still trying to learn to use it, my BF% range from 22-25%, and according to my scale it’s 30%. Yikes, that’s not good.

So anyway, goals:

exercise
• run 50k
• 5k race in under 36mins (allowance for knee)
• weights x8
• 1000 squats, lunges, crunches

food
• vegetarian day x4
• meet calorie goals 24 days

other
• organise story outlines
• get driver’s licence

I’m not going to set any exercise or food challenge. With me moving in, a business trip to London next week and various summer festivals/events coming up, I think I’d be too stressed out to, say, make sure I run 50k or do 500 squats.

I am still going to set some goals, cos it’s fun. So the challenge for June is: complete 10 goals or sub—goals from the 101 tasks in 1001 days list.

Background: way back in December 2007 I set 101 tasks to be completed in 1001 days. I have until August 2010. I kinda screwed up by setting tasks into sub-tasks, which meant I had to finish 238 tasks. Silly me. Anyway, I’m not doing terribly well, so it’s time to try to catch up.

Exercise and food goals were met. Didn’t do any writing. Still debating whether to set June challenge. Business trip and moving — too many moving parts.

exercise
• run 50k || done 62.89km
• 5k in under 30mins x4 || done
• 500 crunches || done
• 500 squats || done

food
• vegetarian day x4 || done
• meet calorie goal 24 days || done

other
• find an apartment! || DONE!!!
• finish writing WS || nope

Week 3 of the TDP challenge was dominated by the orporate challenge on thursday. OTOH I don’t think the writing is going to happen. What remains to be written is a pivotal love scene and expanding on the bit when the MCs confront the villain. I haven’t been able to write love scenes for a long time — I know i can do it, but just not recently. sigh.

exercise
• run 50k || done 54.56km
• 5k in under 30mins x4 || 3/4
• 500 crunches || 350/500
• 500 squats || 350/500

food
• vegetarian day x4 || 3/4
• meet calorie goal 24 days || 20/24

other
• find an apartment! || DONE!!!
• finish writing WS || difficult

so I did the corporate challenge today. Almost 25% of our Chicago office people showed up, most of them participants. There were also lots of volunteers. We had a big tent, and the atmosphere was nice.

The start was a bit crowded, it took a while for me to get to the starting line. But I used my nike+ as timer, starting only when I crossed the start line. It was a nice run. Officially 3.5miles, or 5.63km. I got 5.80km. I was looking out for our company’s shirt throughout but didn’t see many.

When I crossed the finish line my time was 37mins, but my nike+ gave me 35.17 so I’m taking that. Of course there were people faster, our fastest runner clocked 20mins.

There was a nice barbeque, beer and fruit. I even took away some leftovers. It was a great event, i’d do it again next year.

Week 2 of the TDP challenge went pretty okay, especially the finding a place to live bit.

exercise
• run 50k || 33.88/50
• 5k in under 30mins x4 || 1/4
• 500 crunches || 300/500
• 500 squats || 250/500

food
• vegetarian day x4 || 2/4
• meet calorie goal 24 days || 16/24

other
• find an apartment! || DONE!!!
• finish writing WS || working on it

update after week 1 of the TDP challenge - May. Getting sick earlier in the week really put the challenge back, but the last few days I’ve tried to pick it up.

exercise
• run 50k || 20.42/50
• 5k in under 30mins x4 || 0/4
• 500 crunches || 100/500
• 500 squats || 100/500

food
• vegetarian day x4 || 1/4
• meet calorie goal 24 days || 9/24

other
• find an apartment! || still looking
• finish writing WS || nope

After the mostly successful completion of the March challenge, i thought I’d pick it up again and do a May challenge.

exercise
• run 50k
• 5k in under 30mins x4
• 500 crunches
• 500 squats

food
• vegetarian day x4
• meet calorie goal 24 days

other
• find an apartment!
• finish writing WS

I signed up for the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 5k run/walk to take place at Grant Park on 21 May. I don’t know much about it, other than it’s a run, the company will pay for the entry fee and it has to be done as a company. It’ll be good to run.

Results of the March TDP challenge.

• run 50k // done 79.10km
• intervals x8 // done 9/8
• strength training x8 // done 8/8
• increase bench press weight by 10lbs // done 24—>40
• track every day // done 31/31
• 2 veg every day // sort of done, I haven’t counted exactly
• meet calorie goal 24 days // sort of done, if I give myself a cushion of 50 calories, then I met my goal for 26 days
• finish editing nanonovel // done round 1 edits, need to write a couple of missing scenes

mid-month update for the TDP challenge.

• run 50k // 37.8/50
• intervals x8 // 3/8
• strength training x8 // 4/8
• increase bench press weight by 10lbs // done 24—>40
• track every day // 15/31
• 2 veg every day // 15/31
• meet calorie goal 24 days // 11/24
• finish editing nanonovel // 10/25

I track food and calories at dailyplate. Basic exercise, to the extent I’m able to using a free account. Detailed exercise I twitter.

On the TDP forum there’s a monthly challenge, which I think is pretty cool. So I’m gonna post my March challenge, and progress every week. A bit late for week 1, whatever. I’ll take the opportunity to update as of today.

• run 50k // 12.5/50
• intervals x8 // 1/8
• strength training x8 // 2/8
• increase bench press weight by 10lbs // done 24—>40
• track every day // 4/31
• 2 veg every day // 4/31
• meet calorie goal 24 days // 4/24
• finish editing nanonovel // 10/25