What's transpired since last time

Hey, Folks!

Here's another update of my progress through life, liberty, and the pursuit of crush-grip.

1) Paul Genesse and I did some final tweaking on the story we were collaborating on. I think it turned out great. Paul had some fine ideas for deepening the impact of some of the story events, and we had a great phone consultation as we were integrating those new ideas in. The story's off to the editor at long last, and I hope she digs it. No hard/fast news as to when the story might see the light of day, but you'll hear it soon after I do.

2) Joined a gym again. Yep. Taking the plunge, and really setting my sights on getting back to my high school weight (right now, 15-20 pounds away). I'm committed to ACTUALLY doing cardio and abs every time, as opposed to the, "maybe, if I feel like it," attitude I've taken in the past. The place I'm going is actually a Community Center that was just opened last weekend, which is nice. Dues aren't bad, and they have an Olympic pool, when I get skinny enough to go shirtless in front of strangers.

3) Have been enjoying my reading of late. I'm most of the way through "Baal" by Robert McCammon. Fun stuff. It's clear that it's his first novel, and has some rough edges, but the prologue absolutely kills, and it's a rollicking adventure through the growing apocalypse. Just finished "Passing Strange" by Daniel Waters, which is book 3 in the Generation Dead series. I was absolutely aching for this one to come out, and I'm not disappointed. I ate it up in less than three days, and want more. I'm also reading "Soulless" by Gail Carriger and "The American Girl" by Monika Fagerholm. I'm not far into "Soulless", but it's great fun. My writer buddy Julie Frost essentially said that I was duty-bound to read it, and so I am. "The American Girl" is a fascinating, challenging, dreamlike book translated from the original Swedish text. I'll have more to say about all of these books on my GoodReads account.

4) More bending and crush-gripping. My routine for last night is as follows:

Bending (overhand fold) 5 "green" Iron Mind nails (warmup)
Bending (underhand fold) 1 "yellow" nail
Bending (overhand) 2 more yellows
Bending (overhand) 3 blue nails
Crushing 15 reps/hand with COC #1 grippers
Crushing 8 reps/hand with COC #1.5 grippers
Crushing 3 reps/hand with COC #2 grippers (failure point for left hand
Crushing 6 x 10 reps/hand with COC "Sport" (normal grip)
Crushing 6 x 10 reps/hand with COC "Sport" (inverted grip)
Crushing to failure with old plastic "heavy duty" grippers

I went until the muscles became too pumped to let the carpals operate. No unusual soreness experienced the morning after, which I count as a win.

5) Watching Stargate: SG1 on DVD. Having fun with it. Just finished the first season. Not life-changing stuff, but superb entertainment value. I love their tactic for always revealing the inciting event/emergency within the first five minutes. Keeps the pace high and the interest strong. I think that we can learn from this tactic and use it to make the beginnings of our stories stronger.

Well, that's the news. Hope everyone's well.