New Project

What can I say?  A fantastic day at 7,000 words.  I do feel I'm getting a feel for the story and characters now.  There are a few things that are dropping in as I write that I'm really loving.  The first one was the very first bit I wrote this morning.  I was planning to do just a couple of sentences to tee up something to happen a lot later in the book and ended up writing 1,000 words.  It really told me a lot about who this character I'm building is.  Now I can't wait to introduce her.

I also managed a bit of exercise this morning.  I think that is the biggest disappointment of the past year (other than very few people buying my books).  At the end of May last year I was the fittest I had ever been.  Four times a week I would do:

70 push ups
70 sit ups
7 chin ups (these were new and I was building them up)
3 x 35 bicep curls
2 x 10 weight rep (I don't know what any of these are called)
2 x 20 weight rep
2 x 10 weight rep
3 x 50 weight rep
3 min plank
2 x 10 mile bicycle
Once a week run 3.5 miles
Once a week do an hour of Karate

Pretty good for a guy in his mid-thirties.  I was fit and I felt great.  I could go out and eat whatever I liked.  I didn't stint on my normal portions and worried I wasn't eating enough.  I would wake up in the middle of the night hungry.  I didn't get ill either.

The loss of routine killed me.  The daily cycle was to and from work.  No matter the weather, when you have to go to work, it cancels out the 'can't be bothered' attitude.  I don't think I've cycled anywhere since July.

The worst thing is that it took me four years to get to this point.  At the start I was doing 25 push ups and cycling 3.5 miles to work.  I built it up slowly, changing my route, doing an extra 5 push ups and adding new exercises.  Four years of hard work.  It's not all gone.  I can still manage each individual exercise, though I am down to 60 push ups now.  It's just very hard to do the full rep and when I want to write 7,000 words in a day, spending an hour on the bike, that includes warm up and cool down time, is just not an option.

Oh well, boohoo me.  Only one person can change this.  I need to suck it up and get on with it.  I did it once and I still have a good basic level of fitness so I can do it again.

Total now at 27,000 words.