LifePundit

How to Increase Writing Productivity

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One reason I've really enjoyed The Biggest Loser is because I'm part of a team and I've made a commitment to show up. Nothing too remarkable about that while you have it and it's working for you. A really big deal, though, when you don't have it and you need it.

So somebody challenged me to use those same principles in my novel writing. Get a team going and make sure that I show up. Believe it or not, I've figured out a way.

Here's how it works: you probably forgot (and maybe I never wrote about) my accountability partner, a freelance writer who lives in the country in circumstances similar to mine out in Oklahoma. For two years this coming January, she and I have e-mailed each other every morning with our plans and goals for the workday, primarily to hold each other accountable in our fiction writing. We've only spoken twice and have never met, yet we know almost everything about each other and have become close friends. I think she has seen my photo but I've never seen hers. 

So we've tried a daring experiment. We have an appointed time every morning, which we call our Sacred Time, when we show up at our desks and do nothing but write fiction. Together. Usually with our cats. Except we've entered a strange new level: we have Skype video calls going while we writ. Yes, she can see me working and I can see her working, and nobody better get up from that chair until our two hours are over. (Though sometimes we have to excuse ourselves to let the cats in and out. That's the only allowed excuse. That and answering the door for people bringing checks, which has only happened once and unfortunately it wasn't for me.)

It felt very awkward at first. We don't talk to each other, we e-mail. So we didn't really know how to carry on a conversation, made worse by the fact that talking on Skype is like talking on a walkie-talkie. We've almost started to end our sentences with radio jargon so the other person will know it's okay to talk, but we don't know radio jargon.

I no longer feel like I'm here working by myself (unless you count the cat). Somebody notices if I goof off or my butt doesn't stay in chair, and I'm really enjoying the silent companionship. At the end of the session we tell how many words we have written and whether it was easy or hard.

Sometimes we'll follow up with an e-mail, which is useful because we now use our regular e-mails to each other as ways to answer our own questions by writing them down. I've learned so much from her and rely on her to help prop me up when I need propping, and I hope I do the same for her.

Everywhere I Look, There's a Waist

A little more than a month to go in my gym's Biggest Loser competition, and I saw something today I haven't seen before:

My teammates all have waists! They didn't have them last week. And they're wearing skimpier (but not skimpy) clothing, as if they no longer need to hide under baggy stuff.

Very exciting. 

I have yet to watch the Biggest Loser on TV. It couldn't possibly be as good as seeing women I've come to know doing their best and getting results. I think we should all go bench press a Volkswagen to celebrate. Then have a cookie.

When You Diet, Your Brain is the First Place to Lose Weight

I'd have blogged more lately but I didn't have enough brain cells left to do it. When you diet, your brain is the first place where you'll lose weight. Mine's now down to the size of a cat's.

The rest of me looks the same, and I figure when the rest of my brain is gone, maybe I'll start to lose weight in visible places. 

The honeymoon with my gym's Biggest Loser competition is over, but I'm still showing up and doing my best. And I'm still feeling very much the winner. 

No matter what my outsides look like, I had a great moment three weeks into this that will keep me going until the end. And maybe even beyond.

Here's what happened: I'd picked up two 50-lb. bags of horse feed and had them in my car for Paul to take to the barn. He forgot to do it so they were still in my car the next morning. It had rained overnight, the horses were hungry and the wheelbarrow was too wet to use (horse feed grows toxins when it gets wet). Groan! How was I going to get the food to the barn?

Horse feed is heavy, there's no where to grab it and if you're not careful it gets out of balance and goes where it wants, usually as I'm struggling to pour it into the feed bin so it goes all over the floor. 

I thought about wrangling a bag into the house and using it from there, but there are many reasons that's not a great idea. So I picked up a bag, not really knowing what I was going to do with it. It wasn't as heavy as I remembered. So I started walking toward the barn. It wasn't really heavy at all, and I easily controlled it. Hot dog! I have super powers! I even dumped it in the feed bin with no trouble.

The horses were happy. And I was even happier. 

So what if I'm too tired to do anything and I hurt all the time? So what if I'm eating eggs whites for breakfast (is there anything less appetizing?). I can do more than I used to do. And that is an awesome new development. 

But don't tell Paul. No reason he shouldn't get a little exercise hauling feed bags around. 

Only Eleven Weeks Left

In spite of the fact that today is a holiday, our Biggest Loser coaches expected us to show up for our team workout. This meant that I missed the barbecue and dessert party at the pool. She busted our behinds and did it with a lovely smile and a great deal of passion. I doubt I could work my jaws to eat barbecue and dessert right now.

I couldn't be having more fun and had a very happy weigh-in. My team members are interesting, my coaches are great and this all feels shiny and new.

I'm writing this before I collapse in a heap. First off, there's a great free web site for exercise and diet information that I've started using. Lance Armstrong's Livestrong. Makes it easier to keep my exercise and nutrition diary, which I have to show to my leader every time I see her. She's very kind about it and makes suggestions that sometimes make me very happy, such as that I'm not eating often enough. I'm to eat every 2.5 hours and never go beyond 3 hours before eating. No pie or cake was mentioned, however.

I'm learning about perspective, too. Before she released us and I got to crawl out of the door to finally leave, she gave us a pep talk. She said, "Ladies, we've only got 11 weeks left so you really have to start working hard."

A short time to her. A lifetime for those of us dead on the floor.

The Biggest Loser Turns Out to be Fun

It's either go tackle Paul's leftover birthday cake (which I have resisted), eat those cookies I bought for Lily and her friends' after school snack, go crazy or blog.

I know I've been missing, and if there's anyone who missed me, I'm grateful for you. Lily has started high school and I have so very much I could say but since she reads my blog I'll just say...nothing.

No, I'll say this: thank God she went to the single-gender middle school and got her confidence, sense of self and a strengthened sense of independence from peer pressure built up. I'm not sure that sentence says what I want it to say but I need a cookie. Maybe the whole bag. Maybe I'll go trick-or-treating in my neighborhood this very night and see what I can beg from my friends. 

I am hungry. Starved. I hurt all over. And I'm on the first week of The Biggest Loser at my local gym. 

No, we're not on TV. I wouldn't do that. Blogging about it is as far as I'll go. I'm not the size I like me to be, I'm not fit and my blood work at my last appointment could have been better. So, after much belly-button gazing -- combined with the realization that my belly button could use some buttoning up -- I cautiously signed up for the Biggest Loser. I didn't want to tell anyone. I'm not Big Big. I may not even be Medium Big. I might be Small Big. But I'm bigger than I ought to be and too big to be happy about my bigness. 

Did I say that I'm really hungry and that I hurt all over? I haven't been hungry before today, but I spent my calories foolishly earlier in the day so I'm paying for it now. I could eat, but where's the fun in that?

(I know all about the fun in that. I'm trying to persuade myself.) I'm a team player and I'm not going to eat because my team wants to win.

And I hurt, how I hurt. I've been told I will hurt for the next three weeks. Then I'll hurt less. This kind of hurting almost feels good. At least until I try to stand up or do anything that involves more than blinking my eyelids.

I get plenty of food in theory. It's balanced and not some crazy diet, and I'm supposed to eat six meals a day, which is a lot harder than you might think to squeeze in. I'm a little shocked that I'm not supposed to have watermelon. During the summer I cut up watermelon and keep chunks in a container for what I thought was healthy snacking. But I'm following the rules. No watermelon means no watermelon. I'm dying for watermelon. They're in season. The diet is supposed to keep your blood sugar even so you don't have peaks and valleys and watermelon has too much sugar.  Okay. I'll play. I can do anything for 12 weeks. But watermelon? I'll miss you. 

We're the purple team. Our reasons for being there are all different. Some people don't really need to be there, some are trying to get off that last 60 pounds, and some have serious health issues that run in their families and they're trying to outrun them. Good for all of us. 

Each team leader has what must be a serious incentive to have his or her team win. It must be a ticket to heaven, because these people are motivated motivators. For my leader, that means we're supposed to come 30 minutes earlier and work our butts off past quitting time. She even is throwing in extra workouts every week, beyond what I thought I was getting. It sounded expensive when I signed up -- about $37 per week for 12 weeks (on top of monthly membership fees), but I'm getting at least three personal training sessions (though in a small group setting), nutritional help and guidance and lots of pep talks, friendly e-mail reminders and a phone number I can call anytime for moral support. 

Paul says I'm the most excited he's ever seen me. It feels good to be a part of a winning team -- no matter where we end up.

And it's funny, too. I know I'm competitive (as in, "I want to win") when it comes to horse back riding, but I didn't think I was that competitive otherwise. Wrong. Two team members came to the workout late yesterday. I realized I was pissed at them. I can't believe this is me. 

I'd tell you more but I'd have to have a cookie to go on any longer, so I think I'll just go to bed. Hungry. And be grateful that this is a hunger I chose.