So, I’m back to the basement again for the first time in a while writing my journal down here. I’ve noticed that my back is feeling a little bit sore these days, which I’m attributing to sitting down too much using the laptop in the upstairs living room. While, I enjoy the view much more from up there with the bay window, I suspect, that sitting in that chair and working all the time, is not the best thing for my back. I do believe that sitting has to be one of the worst things for your back, and when I’m working from up there, I don’t get as much opportunity to stand. There is no stand up desk up there. My basement office is much more ergonomic in that regards. Maybe, I need some sort of stand up gear up there. It’s probably also why, my back went out so bad at the boat last year. What with all the sitting down and working I was doing. I had no way to stand up and work there. I need to think of a better way of doing that. So, yesterday was interesting. I did manage to write my first critique on the CritiqueCircle.com website. I went sort of looking for a very beginner writer story that I could work on. Someone, that was actually worse then me. And, I found him. And, I did learn a lot about writing a critique in the process. I read a bunch of helpful tips and articles first before I wrote the actual critique. He was very guilty of using far too many words. Words, that didn’t really add much to the story. And, I know myself, that I do that quite a bit. I just did here. I need to work on being a little more brief and direct in my writing style. Especially when I do my first draft. If I could be more concise, and selective about choosing the right words when I’m doing my first draft, then of course my edits will get that much easier as well. I suppose, that I could practice doing that in my morning journals. I do I’m guilty of being too verbose here. The trick, would be to get to the point, where I’m being more concise in my word selection, without turning my internal editor on too much, and having him ruin the free flow of ideas. Especially in the draft stage. Today, now, I need to get at least a few thousand words out there for my first story on CritiqueCircle. Whatever you do though, don’t take forever getting your story ready for the site. I do want to go back, and edit my beginning chapter with some of what I’ve learned already about editing/critiquing. I’m sure, there are plenty of words that I can chop. The idea, is to get the piece out there, and get this editing back in gear again. I would like to have a 1st pass done on my story this week. Today, is already Wendesday, and I think, I’m less then half way through it. Although, I could likely push through, and get 60K words edited by the weekend. Depends on how much I can get through today with my submission to CritiqueCircle (CC). On the health side of things, the scale did seem to budge maybe a smidgen to the light side of 170. Certainly not 169, and perhaps, I’m being a bit too anal about this, but I would really like to get below that number. I haven’t been south of 170 in memory. I’m sure, I was probably down there in 1983, when I was marching with lancers, but I have not idea how light I was. Certainly, it wasn’t a healthy light. I didn’t have much muscle definition based on a few old pictures that I can see, and this time, if I can get to 155, then I will definitely have some muscle definition. But the trick is to get there. I certainly believe it will be easy to maintain it once I’m there. The month of March was pretty easy to maintain my weight, eating just about whatever I wanted as long as it didn’t have refined sugar in it. I ate fruit, nuts, whatever I wanted, and I stuck around 175. Now, since I’ve cut back on the fruit and nuts, I’ve managed to drop another 5 this month. I was hoping for another 10, but I’ll settle for 5 or maybe a little more.

TIGERBLOOD: yes DAILYMOOD: good – worried LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: critiquing PUSHUPS: 3:30 wall sit TODO: submit story to CC, editing TV: Mad Men BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: walk for 70 minutes WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: none DINNER: ham, brocolli salad SNACKS: orange, grapes, apple ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 10:45 AWAKE: 7:00