I spent half an hour searching for a market for Judas' Tree, and now I'm pretty sure that such a market doesn't exist. There is a market for Christian fiction, speculative ficition, and even Christian Speculative fiction, but not Christian Speculative Fiction which challenges people's beliefs. (sigh)

Tommorrow I need to start working on the package for Turtle Island.

I think I need to add a goal to my goals too. Since it seems to be impossible to publish what I wrote I should write something else and try to publish it. Now I just need inspiration...

New month, New goals

Nano is done. I need new goals for the upcoming month. Goals which will get me moving and keep me from stagnating like I did this summer.

Goal 1: Keep trying to find a home for Judas' Tree.

Goal 2: Make a submission package for Turtle Island and send it out to 3 agents or publishers.

Goal 3: Make some kind of note card outline for Magic's End, with a goal of making it an a 60,000 word book. Then In January I would follow the outline and write the book out.

And I hope to get more exercise in this month, as soon as my flu goes away, anyway. I'm still feeling icky, though the outward symptoms have disappeared. Standing up leaves me exhausted. It's like I have menstrual cramps!

I finished Nano!!! Here's my winner's Icon!

On another note, y body fat didn't change at all this month. Probably not too surprising, as I was exercising less this month.

Later today I will post my goals for next month and see how I do on those.

Been really sick for the last couple of days. Think I got the flu. I'm pretty sure that I caught it, ironically enough, on the day I took Diana in to get her flu shot. If doctor's offices are really full of germs, and pediatrician's offices are really super-deluper full of germs. But I got back on the writing horse again and pounded out 2000 words, bringing me to 48000 words. Hope to get to 50,000 words tomorrow and complete NaNo! This is short of my goal of 60,000 words, but respectible enough. Last year I didn't even compelte NaNo, so I feel good about this years accomplishment.

Was pretty sick on Thanksgiving, which was a real shame. What's the point of being good on your diet if on the one day you let your self eat as much as you want, on that day you get sick?

Still a bit sick today. Will probably write about 1000 words, but that's all. I still plan on getting 50,000 words done for Nano, but I might not hit 60,000. It depends on how much time I have and if I get better quickly or not, and whether or not I reach the end of the book.

Before Thanksgiving Photo

Here's my photo from today [left] and one from the beginning of the month (actually just before) [right]

No visible differences. Oh well!

If you like Sword and Sorcery and wanta collection of recent stories, check out Sages and Swords

http://www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=0975884050&userid=5EDAFF52-803F-2B7A-707AE7892728C909

This anthology is close to selling out, so get it while it is still around.

I was not published in this, by the way. Then again, I don't recall submitting a story...

I had to write 3800 words today to get back on track. Because Diana was in preschool and I didn't exercise, I was able to manage it. Just barely. But it has left me a bit tired, mentally. It seems like writing is a bit like running. You need time to work up to the longer distances. Time and a lot of training. Tomorrow, thankfully, is only 2250 words. Phew!

Got 2000 words written today. I figure I only need to write 2250 words a day until the end of the month to write 60,000 words total. I think it should be doable, especially as I get farther in the book and the plot gets more tangible and I can see how it will end better.

Diana went on a bus field trip with her preschool today. I was chaperoning along with her. It was kind of fun. Diana said it was the best field trip EVER. Of course, she also says things like, "This is the best pancake I've ever had." And she'll say that to describe more than one pancake. It's a bit funny.

I only got 500 words written yesterday (of the 200 I should have written). My wife wanted to watch Spiderman 3, and that sucked up all of my writing time.

On the plus side I managed to write 3000 words today, so I'm only 500 words behind. Yay!

Didn't exercise today, as catching up on my word count was a higher priority, since today was a light exercise day anyway.

Hope to be all caught up tomorrow!

I wrote the required 2000 words today to stay on schedule. I thought about doing more but decided not to. I'll have plenty of other days to kill myself. Why start now?

Weight loss has been very slow this month. Partially I blame Halloween, but there is another major factor, and that's that I haven't had much time to exercise, what with all the writing. I'm still hoping to have my body fat down to 12% by the end of the month, but I'm also wondering if that is reasonable unless I step up the exercise more.

Tried to make some lowfat, sugar free (Splenda) chocolate chip cookies today. They tasted all right, but they didn't cook like cookies at all. Normally a cookie forms into a nice little cirlce in the oven, and it stays moist, but these were a little bit dry and crunch, and their shape didn't change at all in the oven. I suspect that it is because there was so little butter in them, and the butter is what makes them "melt" in the oven. Maybe I'll try to find another recipe...

I managed to write 3000 words today! Most of the credit goes to my wife who had today off, and gave me a few hours to do it. That means I'm back on schedule! Yay!

I only wrote 1000 words today, of the 2000 I was scheduled to write. I guess I wasted too much of the little time I had to get all my work done. I hope to write 3000 words tomrrow to make up the difference. It might be possible ,since my wife is home tomorrow. Might...

Good news, I am now out of Halloween candy that I want to eat! Now eating healthily will be much easier. THankfullt the next holiday coming up is Thanksgiving and Turkey is low in fat. Woohoo!

Here's the picture. It looks pretty much the same except I opened my eyes and there's a goofy look on my face. It's only been 1 week, so don't expect me to look like a new man yet!

As long as I'm getting pictures off my phone, here's a picture of my daughter all dressed up to go trick-or-treating. She's got an elmo basket and a Super Girl costume. When you're three, I guess finding things that match makes not one wit of difference.

I forgot to post yesterday! Whoops! I also forgot to post a new picture, to see if there are any visible hanges in my physique. I'lll be posting one soon.

Writing had been going good. Got up to 7333 words yesterday. Should be up to 9000 by day's end today. Still have to exercise before that.

For some reason I gained 4.5 pounds in 2 days. I can't really explain it. I know it isn't actually fat, that would be physically impossible. My measurements don't seem to show my body fat increasing at all during that period. I guess I've gained water weight. I'll know if it comes off super fast.

I wrote another 1666 words today (roughly), putting me at 5707 (exactly). Awesome!

Weight loss still going good. Lost another half a pound today, making it half a pound a day for 6 days, which is very strange for me. I don't usually lose weight this fast at all. Maybe I'm finally doing something right? :) Or am I losing muscle? :( It's hard to tell by simply measuring my body fat as it is difficult to get an precise and reliable measurement of it.

1666 words written today, putting me right on target! Excellent!

On another happy note, I've lost half a pount a day for 5 days, putting my weight at 162.5, the lowest it has been in quite a while. The secret for me that i was missing was to not eat any kind of sugar within a few hours of bed time. Other than that, I seem to lose weight no matter how much I eat. (Which seems a little weird) Perhaps if I eat the calories during the day, I burn the calories, through activity. But if I eat less, my body just burns fewer calories. I won't be sure. Hrad to do a scientific experiment with only one case study!

I wrote an additional 1333 words today, for a total of about 2333 words. Some of that was going back and adding to what I wrote yesterday. Sometomies I write too much action without having the characters react to it at all, so much of my first level of rewriting is adding those reactions in, as well as adding enough descriptions to follow the story.

I wrote 1004 words today for Nano, which was the amount I promised myself I would write. I might write more, but I don't have enough time today. It's tough fiting in exercise, writing, AND being married.

Plan to write 1333 words tomorrow!

I can't describe how nervous I am about the Nano next month. I haven't written anything in months, so writting a whole book in a month is a lot for me. I I made better use of my time, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but time always seems to trickle away from me. That, and I'm still trying to lose body fat (without losing muscle) whilest doing NaNo, which sucks up a lot of my time. I probably won't be exercising as much in the coming month, so I wsill have to be very strict on my diet to avoid a backslide. I don't mind not osing weight so much, but gaining it could really hurt my ego.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll be writing, or even who the characters are. I may name the main character Diana, after my daughter, just to get the ball rolling. I think the book is going to be some kind of science fiction for young children, but perhaps young adults (teens) depending on how things go.

Actually, I'd better decide on that. After a few moments, I decided young adult. I haven't read enough books for 8 year olds to be sure how to write them. So the target market is going to be something like 10-15 year olds.

Only 100 words to write the first day (more on later days) to get the ball rolling. I promised my friend Robin that I'd do it, so there's no choice for me. I hope inspiration of some sort strikes!

Today I exercised used Jeri Love's 'Get Ripped 1000', which is an hour long workout video that does very high intensity cardio intermixed with high repetition weight lifting. It's probably my favorite workout video. That's true, despite the fact that I seriously doubt it burns 1000 calories, as it claims. I'm certain that while it doesn't burn that much, it does burn at least 500 calories, as well as build muscle and strength.

On a side note, I think Jeri Love might have done the workout too many times, because I'm starting to wonder if she dropped her body fat percentage so low she stopped menstrating. It's really not healthy for women to get too lean...

Again, I did absolutely nothing to prepare for Nano. Here's hoping this lack of preparation doesn't bit me in the ass!

I'll probably post another picture in a week, so I can see if there has been any progress.

Starting photo

Here is my starting photo. I readily admit to cheating, as I had flexed my belly. I'm also surprised at just how tired I look. Why? I get 8 hours of sleep a day, and nap sometimes too! My goal is to improve the amount of 6-pack that is visible over the next month. Now that I have a starting photo, I can see how progress on that is going.

Today was a 2200 calories day... I was going to exercise after Diana went to bed, but then my regular camera broke so I ended up having to use my camera phone and learning how to transfer photos from their to my computer. I was simply too distracted and frustrated to exercise.

Didn't do any writing or writing related things today.

Today I made no preparations for NaNo. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Is it better to dive in or to make tons of prepatory notes? I find myself often wasting a lot of time on prepatory notes that I never use, so maybe it isn't a good idea for me.

Today was my 3000 calorie day on my diet, but I may have gone over. I went to Maharaja (and Indian restaurant) for the all you can eat lunch buffet, and I fear I ate too much. I tried to compensate by exercising an hour and fifteen minutes after that (and another hour after my daughter went to bed) but I'm not sure if I burned enough calories.

Body fat percentage hasn't changed...yet...

First Post--Goals

This is the first post in my new blog (Don't ask me about my old one! Lots of bad memories there).

I'm going to use this to discuss my goals and progress on them. I have two major goals. In November I'm participating in NaNoWriMo (Nation Novel Writing Month), in which I hope to write a 60k Young Adult novel. I'll probably talk a lot more about that as November approaches.

My other major goal is to reduce my body fat. I'd like to get it down to about 12%. Right now it is around 14.5%. That should take me about 5 weeks, I figure.

THe main problem is it might be difficult to achieve both goals at the same time, as I'm either writing or exercising. So November may just cause me to have a nervous breakdown. Let's jsut wait and see.