booksofchange

Postmortem: A Study In Magic: The Application, Chapter 10

Attention, Chapter Ten: Mr. Lestrade’s Most Productive Day of A Study In Magic: The Application is up! Yes, it took two months! I acknowledge the title could be better! I will also submit to any ear-boxing for taking so long!

At the risk of sounding like a creaky wheel, I want to state for the record writing this chapter was bloody agony. I never discarded so many drafts as this one. Last I checked, I had twenty plus drafts — for each scene! The only thing that survived from the first draft was the POV. It was Lestrade or bust. (more…)

By booksofchange, ago

Taking Care of the Mind Through Exercise: Does Strength Training Help?

In a previous post, I said I wanted to test if physical exercise improves my mind, hence writing. My tests are by no means scientific. For starters, the subject is only me. Also, I haven’t settled on what measures indicate “writing improved”. But in the meantime, I figured I could get my body ready for exercise.

The Challenges

Self-experiments like these, you have to do it for at least a year to gather good data. Or better, multiple years. That takes grit. Have I mentioned that I’m physically lazy and yearn to be a disembodied brain? I’m not unhealthy, but I’m no athlete. The only thing I’ve got going is my curiosity and need to test things.

To make things easier for me, I concentrated on two areas: cardio and strength. In plainer English: I ran and lifted barbells. Yes, I ignored flexibility, except to always stretch after a workout. For running, I did a lot of 5ks and 10ks. For strength, I chose the stronglifts  program because,

  1. focuses on increasing max strength
  2. involves only five exercises
  3. I can get away with doing only two workouts a week.

Today I’m going to talk about the strength training results:
(more…)

By booksofchange, ago