Feminism

~ EMM

At one point this year I tried to write a post about feminism. The post just sat in my drafts for months and months and I couldn’t find the right words. I’ve been thinking a lot about feminism this year, mostly because at some point early in the year I realized that my years of being “one of the guys” and rolling with the raunchy / sexist jokes just didn’t feel right anymore. But I’m still trying to come to grips with where I stand on this issue.

In my youth I struggled a lot with calling myself a “feminist.” Mostly because the term “feminist” was tightly linked in pop culture to man-hating women such as those portrayed in this classic clip from the movie PCU (kind of like a mid-nineties version of Animal House).

However, I don’t think it’s worth denying any more. I’m a feminist, because at the end of the day I think it all boils down to this (buy the tote bag here):

Cartoon by MariNaomi

My feelings on the topic are still very mixed and I’m sorting through where I stand on many issues. So, instead of using my words, I think I’ll just link you to a bunch of articles I read this year that got me thinking more and more about feminism and what I think about feminism.

This was a big year of articles about women in technology. Mostly it was all about the Adria Richards thing (this Forbes article has a good summary and a ton of links to more info). And *maybe* that was what got me thinking about all this to begin with. But I think it started before that.

Around the same time there was a big kerfuffle in the publishing world about sexism. John Scalzi (award winning, best selling SciFi author) decided not to speak at any more conferences where there wasn’t a policy in place for dealing with sexual harassment. He wrote this amazing take-down blog post called “To the Dudebro Who Thinks He’s Insulting Me by Calling Me a Feminist.” Around the same time Chuck Wendig started blogging about “hetero-normative white-dude mountain” and his thoughts on sexism / racism in writing / publishing. And someone did a deep dive analysis on the New York Times YA Best Seller List to determine if the “gut feeling” that women “dominate” that list was based on any shred of evidence. (Spoiler: it’s not true.)

I read a lot of scifi / fantasy / fiction. I always have. It’s great that there is a proliferation of “strong” female characters popping up in all types of genre fiction lately. And while more stories with heroines are great, I worry that we’re moving in the wrong direction with this whole concept of “strong” female characters. Several articles have written about this lately, most notably, this article about Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from Entertainment Weekly , and this article entitled “I Hate Strong Female Characters” by Sophia McDougall for the New Statesman.

The stand-out quote from Joss in the Entertainment Weekly article I link to above, the thing he said that had me thinking, YES! That! was this (emphasis mine):

The thing about Buffy for me is–on a show-by-show basis–are there female characters who are being empowered, who are driving the narrative? The Twilight thing and a lot of these franchise attempts coming out, everything rests on what this girl will do, but she’s completely passive, or not really knowing what the hell is going on. And that’s incredibly frustrating to me because a lot of what’s taking on the oeuvre of Buffy, is actually a reaction against it. Everything is there — except for the Buffy. A lot of things aimed at the younger kids is just Choosing Boyfriends: The Movie.

And, basically Ms. McDougall’s (long and thoughtful) rant boils down to this:

Are our best-loved male heroes Strong Male Characters? Is, say, Sherlock Holmes strong?… It’s not just that the answer is “of course”, it’s that it’s the wrong question….

A better question would be – “What is Sherlock Holmes like?”

He’s a brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, polymath genius.

Adding the word “strong” to that list doesn’t seem to me to enhance it much.

I had mixed feelings about this New Yorker article about feminism and Free Speech and Twitter Trolls: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/08/how-free-should-speech-be-on-twitter.html

I can never understand all the difference between all these “waves” of feminism, but this article in The Guardian talks about the “New Wave of Feminism”: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/27/new-generation-of-feminists-set-agenda

And I can relate with a lot of this article in Rookie, especially this: “I built my feminism Lego-tower-style, brick by brick, adding, removing, and changing components as I went along.”

I found this eye opening intro to the currently popular “Retro / Ironic Sexism”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD0Faha2gow

And then this series of videos detailing sexist tropes in movies and video games (which can also be applied to books / writing):

  1. Manic Pixie Dream Girl
  2. Women in Refrigerators
  3. The Smurfette Principle
  4. The Evil Demon Seductress
  5. The Mystical Pregnancy
  6. The Straw Feminist

I bought several books on feminism, but haven’t been able to bring myself to read any of them yet… in my to-be-read (TBR) pile are:

So, 2013 could be said to be the year where I got a little more in touch with my feminist roots. Or the year that I added a bunch of bricks to my Feminism Lego Tower. It’s not done yet, but it’s definitely a stronger tower than it was last year.

What? Me? Read Romance?

~ EMM ~ 4 Comments

Apparently this month I’m all about the romance…

I honestly can’t tell you the last time I read a pure “romance” book… Urban fantasy with romance? Check. Sci fi with romance? Check. Post apocalyptic romance? Double, triple, most definitely, check. Hell, I’ve even read mysteries with romance in them this year. But romance for the sake of romance? Not really my thing. Except, then I go and read three of them back to back in the course of a week and now I don’t know what to think. Because they were good. Surprisingly good. Not formulaic bodice rippers. Not the kind of romance with long-haired, shirtless, hairy chested men on the cover, brooding beneath puffy, swirly book title fonts. So indulge me while I gush a bit about these three books (or two books and a novella, but let’s not get too technical…).

The first book I picked up after NaNoWriMo ended was Suddenly Royal by Nichole Chase. I saw it listed on a book blog’s “best of 2013” list and I decided to check it out. Also, the ebook was cheap. I love finding good, cheap ebooks. Especially because I devour them… like I did with this one… Now, I will be the first to admit, this is pure, ooey gooey romance, and checks all the standard rom-com / chick lit boxes. Girl finds out she’s actually descended from royalty (in this case, she’s s duchess of some tiny European country). Girl falls in love with a Prince. Prince falls in love with the girl. Girl gets to wear lots of amazing dresses and tiaras and other “royal” nonsense. Girl ends up marrying Prince. Happily Ever After. Awwww. Except… two amazing things that blew me away and made me love this book. 1) the girl is SMART not ditzy (grad student in wilderness biology) and takes her studies / work seriously. And she doesn’t become ditzy once she finds out she’s “royal,” either. 2) the Prince loves her first and stays loving her for the entire book. He’s supportive without being smothering. He’s romantic without being creepy. He’s dependable and loving and respectful and basically the exact opposite of all those broody, self-absorbed Edward Cullen types that are so common in many of the genre fantasy books I’ve read recently. I wanted to scream “Girls! THIS! This is what boys are supposed to do when they like you!” (Except, reader beware, there are some relatively graphic sex scenes in this book… you know, graphic in a good way… just, maybe not a good choice for a less mature audience…)

Then, last night I read Night of Cake & Puppets by Laini Taylor. This novella is a little back story, or side story, or out-take, or what-have-you, from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, meant to be a little something to hold fans (like me) over until book three in the series comes out in April (I’ve already pre-ordered it and will be re-reading the first two books in the series before April in preparation). I absolutely LOVE the world and the characters that Laini Taylor has created. This story gives us an inside peak into the romance of an orchestrated “cute-meet” between two of the peripheral characters to the main story (Mik and Zuzana), told alternating between their perspectives. The romance makes you feel all warm inside, even as you are immersed in cold, snowy Prague, lined with rivers spanned by stone bridges, and peppered with hidden cafes and magic. I read it curled up in front of the fire. It was perfect.

Mik and Zuzana had my vote for sweetest romance / first meet / first kiss / first date story… until I read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Eleanor and Park’s romance takes place in high school in the mid-eighties. Ms. Rowell’s pop culture references to punk bands and comics and old TV shows made this the perfect teenage misfit love story. I didn’t stay up all night reading this (like I did with Fangirl), but I started it last night (after I finished Cake & Puppets), and spent most of today reading it, even when I knew I should be working on other things. I just couldn’t put it down. Even though I couldn’t shake the worry that something horrible would happen and ruin the sweetest love story ever (sorry, Mik and Zuzana…), I wouldn’t let myself skip to the end to find out what happened. I made myself deal with the tension and worry and, when I finally finished it, I was happy I didn’t spoil the end. I would also like to note that this story, as in the other two, featured a boy who is madly in love with the girl and, even though he is awkward and young, treats her with love and respect and doesn’t try to push her away or act all stupid and brooding… he is another anti-Edward Cullen. I am choosing to take this as evidence that we may be moving on from the creepy, bad-boy boyfriend epidemic, and maybe showing young girls that #TeamPeeta is way better than #TeamEdward any day of the week.

So, now what? Since I’m apparently on a romance kick this month, and have, so far, gone three for three with excellent examples of the genre, I guess that means the only thing left to do is finally read The Fault in Our Stars. Bring on the tissues.

By the Numbers: November 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read since January: 34
(target is 36 total in 2013 — to be on track I should have read 33 books by now)

I read only one book this month: Fangirl. I started it on the bus after work on a Friday and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing it. It’s true that I was starved for a story because I was participating in NaNoWriMo and I’d been devoting all my outside of work free time to writing. But this is also one of those books that you’ll want to devour in one sitting. The characters are well crafted and the romance is really well done. The plot is very “new adult,” focusing on the classic transition to adulthood — going off to college — and all the drama that can contain for someone not so keen on leaving home.

Theme-wise, I found it fitting that I chose to finally read this book (that I’d been hearing so much about) smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo because the main character in the book is a writer, and most of the story revolves around her writing lots and lots of words. For additional inspiration points, the author wrote most of this book during NaNoWriMo. In my world, this makes this pretty much the perfect thing to read for inspiration during NaNoWriMo.

Even though I read only one book this month, I’ve been buying books like crazy. Several hundred (it feels like…) books on my “to read” list ended up with their Amazon Kindle versions on sale this month. So, I’ve used up the last of my birthday gift card buying ALL THE BOOKS. I have a two week vacation at the end of December and I plan to get some serious reading time in. Here are some of the titles I bought this month:

  1. Suddenly Royal (a little sugary “new adult” romance never hurt anyone…)
  2. Three Parts Dead (urban fantasy, weird combo of demons and lawyers…)
  3. The Book Thief (have to read it before I see the movie)
  4. The Amulet of Samarkand (magicians in London? sound familiar to anyone else?)
  5. Legend (I have ridiculously high hopes for this book, it hits all my buttons: dystopia, military, heroine, Western US States break off from the country to form The Republic…)
  6. Outlander (the girls at my last job could not stop talking about this time travel Highlander romance… +1 for ginger beards)
  7. The 5th Wave (alien invasion, sci-fi fiction)
  8. Lean In (it was on sale… I’m extremely skeptical, but decided to see what all the hype is about)
  9. Leviathan (steampunk, WW1-era fiction)

I won’t even get into my whole TBR pile (virtual and/or physical) in this post because it’s grown so large I am sure I have enough books right now to meet my 2014 reading goal and still have some left over.

Writing

This has been a HUGE month for writing. I finished my second-to-last UC Berkeley Extension program class (Developing the Novel), I found an awesome writing group, and I participated in NaNoWriMo. I probably wrote more words this month that I had for the entire year leading up to November.

I spent most of the month behind on my word count and actually only wrote on 21 of the 30 days this month (~2,381 words per day on average). Going in to the last 3 days of the month I had about 11k words left to write to “win” NaNoWriMo. I made it across the finish line, but didn’t really get to a full resolution on the story. I have quite a bit more work to do to fix it up. More world-building, more plotting, more characterization, some continuity editing, and crafting a satisfying ending — all that plus just general editing… As I said, a LOT of work still…

But, I like the bones of this story. And I am slightly in awe of the fact that I basically pulled this completely out of my ass. I had a rough idea for some characters and a world and a kind-of, sort-of plot when I started. But no outline, no details, and each time I sat down to write I had no idea what was going to happen. New characters appeared out of nowhere, new ideas, a slightly more concrete plot, drama… And I “finished” something. Or at least got it to the point where I can see the finish line. Which feels pretty good.

The story I “won” NaNoWriMo with back in 2007 was a crazy hodgepodge of about four or five different story ideas I had, all mashed together. I basically sat down and said: what would happen if I tried to connect all these different characters / scenarios into one story? And I did that. I went back and read it earlier this year and it’s not terrible. It’s a hot mess with no clear main character and a plot supported by some very hazy details, but there are some nuggets of goodness in there. Maybe 2014 will be the year of novel editing… until November 2014, at least, because the novel writing fever in November is excellent for creating new things.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 10 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 18.65 miles (target was ~30 miles)

My original swimming goal for this year was 250 miles and I’m now at just over 300 miles for the year. I have a slim chance of making it to 350 miles by the end of the year depending on how many miles I can squeeze into December.

I meant to get more swimming days in this month but this turned out to not be a good month for swimming. I got sick early in November and was out of the pool for a week. Then I took it easy when I got back in. Then the pool was closed for three days over Thanksgiving. I’m REALLY looking forward to getting back in the swimming groove in December. I signed up for my first race of 2014: the Santa Rosa Flower Power meet. So it’s time to put the training into high gear so I’m ready for Nationals in May.

Movies

Not a big month for movies… pretty much all free time spent writing.

  • Francis Ha — wasn’t sure about this movie at first and almost bailed on it a couple times, but needed a break from writing and got excited when I saw it was on streaming on Netflix. ended up being a good movie. nice evolution from uncomfortably awkward to heartwarming and rewarding, yet still quirky.
  • Epic — Pixar movie. Had this for weeks before I finally watched it on Thanksgiving. Cuter movie than I expected. Great wilderness scenes that sort of overwhelmed the plot. But it was cute and surprising. I liked it.
  • Hunger Games — re-watched this on Netflix streaming so it was fresh in my mind when I went to see the sequel. Forgot how good this movie is.
  • Catching Fire — A movie in the movie theater! This was an excellent follow-up movie, except for the ending. I know that’s pretty much how the book ends, but it’s still got a little “middle movie syndrome” with the whole non-ending, ending… but overall I can’t complain. And that thing that Jennifer Lawrence does with her face when she’s processing the destruction of District 12… that’s some good acting.

Today is the first day of December… is it really the last month of the year already? Wow.
Almost time to check in on how I did against my personal goals for this year, and set some new ones for next year… And, I should probably do a “best of” post (at least for books) because everyone else is doing it. 🙂

Happy holidays, blogverse!

Just another weekend in November

~ EMM

noveling

I’m sick. I’ve been moving fast, but the cold that has been chasing me finally caught up to me. And I’m hopelessly behind in my word count. But it’s okay. Since I’m sick I’ve got nothing better to do then sit here in the comfy chair and alternate between writing and watching movies. And drink all the tea. Not a bad way to spend the weekend. Luckily, Greg got his cast off on Thursday, so now it’s his turn to take care of me. More tea please! And now back to the noveling…

By the Numbers: October 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read since January: 33
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 24 books by now)

Big reading month! I am just three books away from hitting my goal for the year and I have two more months! Probably a good thing, too. I don’t think I’ll be doing much reading next month… November is for writing! Anyway, here’s what I read:

  • Outlining Your Novel — I forgot I’d purchased this one. Then one day I decided I needed an outline for my work in progress project and dug this up on my Kindle. If you are working on a writing project that is feeling like it’s getting a little complicated, or if you are not quite sure where you are going with your story, I highly recommend checking out this book. Even if you are devoted to the “pantser” camp… you may just discover (as I did) that life on the other side really isn’t that different — it’s really just organized notes, not a soulless, Roman Numeral dotted doc that you must then follow mindlessly. The author of this book has some excellent advice that you can put to use immediately. (Longer review on Goodreads…)
  • Booby Trap — My manager at my previous job is a breast cancer survivor and she wrote and published this book about her experience. She wrote most of it while she was undergoing treatment, and based this book on blog posts she was writing for her friends and family. The book provides an inside scoop about the breast cancer experience and manages to be light hearted and even funny. I recommend it if you or someone you know is going through something similar. Or if you’re just curious. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Allison, and knowing more about what she went through and how she handled it (I could totally picture her and her husband and kids while I was reading this) just added to that respect.
  • The Great Gatsby — re-read this for the first time since high school. I remember loving this book in high school, so much so that I kept my copy of the book (instead of returning it to the school at the end of the class). I’m now tempted to go dig up the paper I wrote about this book in high school so that I can see what “deep thoughts” I had as a teenager about this book.
  • The Girl of Fire and Thorns — I had been thinking about getting this one for a while and it ended up on a Kindle Daily Deal, so I pounced on it. I think I tore through it in a weekend. The story is a bit of a twist on your average epic heroine fantasy adventure. The heroine, for one, is not your typical heroine. She’s very devout, and pretty much eats her feelings. But she’s “chosen” so you know there’s gonna be an adventure. There is also some romance, but no love triangle (thank you! so sick of the damn love triangles!). One of the main dudes in the story has a mustache (also different!). The book is flavored with all sorts of things that aren’t quite what you’d expect that make this feel like a “new” story, instead of the old same thing. If you enjoy feisty ladies going on adventures and saving the world, you should check this out.
  • The Shambling Guide to New York City — This one was kind of a surprise. I stumbled on this author based on a recommendation somewhere on the interwebs. I think she might have won a best first novel award or something. I thought her book looked interesting, and it was reasonably priced on Kindle, so I took a chance. I ended up devouring this book. It’s a fast, fun read along the lines of Christopher Moore (especially his novel A Dirty Job, which is my favorite of the ones I’ve read). If you like books and TV shows about monsters living among us, you should definitely check out this book.

I feel a little bad that I was kind of stingy with the stars this month in my Goodreads reviews. I’ve been taking a UC Berkeley Extension class called “Developing the Novel” and working on my own thing, plus workshoping my classmates’ work. So, I’m a little more critical than usual of writing and story craft. These were all good books, but all got three stars because I was being picky about the writing, character development, and/or the plot structure. At the same time, since I know how hard it is to do those things really well, I don’t want to criticize.

Writing

I didn’t blog this month. That was kind of on purpose. I didn’t have much to say. There is a lot going on and I needed a break. I did finish my Mystery Fiction class, and I wrote a bunch on my chosen work in progress project for my Developing the Novel class. I got into a pretty good groove of writing almost daily for the past couple of weeks. I discovered Scrivener which is a software program for writers (fiction and non-fiction), and has this awesome little progress bar that shows how you are progressing to your daily word count goal. I love it. But I have a feeling there won’t be too much blogging for the rest of this year. I’m going to focus on finishing up my work in process project. I’ll blog if I feel the urge, but otherwise things may be a little quiet around here until January.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 15 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 27.73 miles (target was ~30 miles)

This month was part taper and part recovery with one big, 2-day race in the middle. I’ve already blown past my goal of 250 miles for this year. As of today I’m at 285 miles for the year. I am hoping to get to 340 miles for the year. That would be an average of about a mile a day for 365 days with about two weeks off. I have no races for the rest of the year, just training and getting psyched for the spring short course yards racing season that kicks off in January.

Movies

Oh the movies this month… I think we got four really good movies from Netflix this month. I expected one or two to be good, but was totally impressed with (at least aspects of) all four. Unfortunately, I’ve spent so long writing the other bits that it’s getting late. I’ll keep this brief…

  • Much Ado About Nothing — Just watch this. Shakespeare’s words in a modern day setting. It’s so good. And I’m not just saying that because Joss Whedon made this.
  • The Great Gatsby — The update. The Leo version. Great soundtrack. Too much “old boy.” And what is it about Tobey Maguire that I find so annoying? Leo is actually really good in this. So is Carey Mulligan.
  • Galaxy Quest — OMG. How did I miss this? SO GOOD. It’s like an inside joke for sci fi fans. And Alan Rickman is amazing. Also, Tim Allen is really good in this. Hell, the whole cast is great. If you haven’t seen this movie, just go watch it.
  • Iron Man 3 — So, I loved the first Iron Man movie. The second was meh. The Avengers was great. Thor and Captain America were both terrible. I’m kind of getting sick of super heros. I had no idea what to expect here. I watched it out of loyalty to the franchise and because of Robert Downey Jr. So I was totally unprepared to really like this movie. It’s a good movie. I was amazed. And, spoiler, they don’t do the damsel in distress thing. I mean, they trick you into thinking that they are going that way, and then they don’t! Hurrah! I still don’t think it would pass the Bechdel Test, but… I’ll give them credit for progress.

Tomorrow starts my second most favorite month of the year… NOVEMBER!!! November is exactly half-way to my birthday month, and it’s the first real month where the weather gets colder (relatively speaking… it is California…) and it feels like you should be cozying up with a book and a mug of tea next to the fire. Or, writing a novel, because November is also NaNoWriMo. So there’s that. I can’t wait!

By the Numbers: September 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read since January: 28
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 24 books by now)

I didn’t have much time to read this month. I only finished two books. But I started (and nearly finished) two more — see the Goodreads “currently reading” box in the side bar for a preview of what’s coming next month…

  • Crown of Midnight — worthy sequel to Throne of Glass… but feels a bit like a “middle book”… still, I really like this world and these characters, so I devoured this one and am eagerly awaiting the next one in the series. When I have more time I may go back and re-read the first one and then this one and try to write something more thoughtful later. There are many references to events in the first book which I barely remembered, and it relies heavily on knowledge of what happened in the first novel to understand what’s going on in this one.
  • Silent Harmony — super fast, fun read… talented and ambitious “underdog” heroine + boarding school + horses… definitely a literature niche that appeals to many young women and girls — and I would definitely recommend this to anyone that likes that combination. The mystery aspect was mostly well done and kept me guessing about “who done it” until the end. Though, if I knew more about horses and horse culture politics I might have had a better idea from the hints provided. I only gave it two stars because I’m several years past my horses + boarding school phase. However, I can see how this would be a 3-4 star book for someone who is still really drawn to that stuff.

Writing

I’ve been working on “developing the novel” this month and, besides the swimming workout posts, managed to write four blog posts in September. I was trying to match the swimming workout posts one for one so that anyone who doesn’t like to read about my swimming workouts would still have something to read on my blog.

I started having a bit of a “blog crisis” over the weekend… these are the periodical events that cause me to kill my blog and hide under a social media rock for a while. Not sure exactly what’s behind this one, but for now I’m resisting the urge to retreat into my shell.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 20 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 38.78 miles (target was ~30 miles)

Last month of the “training” phase of my workout plan. I hit it hard and am looking forward to taper and a big race and a little rest in October before jumping back into the training phase and starting prep for the spring racing season.

Movies

Three movies this month! I am still not in much of a movie watching mood. But since Greg broke his foot and has been in a cast, movie watching picked back up again in September. The movies we watched this month were:

  • Winter’s Bone — resisted watching this for a while because I wasn’t sure I would like it, but boy was I wrong! This was a really good movie — possibly the best movie we watched all year. Definitely the best movie from this month. After watching this I went and added all the “2013 Oscar buzz” movies to my queue so I won’t be the last to watch the good movies this year.
  • Spy Game — this is an older movie that Greg added to the queue (I am getting sick of Netflix and movies, and he’s the one with the cast on his leg, so I let him pick). Again I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a spy movie and it has Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, so I wasn’t expecting much. But, it’s a really well done spy movie… not a special effects, blow things up, ooh look at all my awesome technology spy movie. A nice change of pace.
  • Kings of Summer — I thought this was going to be good. I missed the free screening at work, and the trailer looked promising. It was okay. Some parts were really funny. Some parts were really thoughtful. But I lost count after the third “bonding montage” of the boys in the woods. And Greg was frustrated because he didn’t find it at all realistic that they would have been able to build this cabin in the woods in such a short period of time and with nothing but bikes to haul stuff to the construction site. But… the funny parts were funny… oh well.

Seriously cannot believe it’s October already! This year is going by so quickly.

Swim Workouts: week of 2013-09-30

~ EMM

Last week was my last full week of “training” workouts (12 weeks total!). This week I’m only planning on two “training” workouts, and then I’m going to start my (much anticipated) taper. Yay!

I’m only going to plan two workouts for this week. I’m going to try to fit in at least two more days (for four total), but I don’t know yet when or how long I’ll swim. At the least, I’ll do my full warm up and full cool down (1350 yards). I’ll probably try to get in at least another 1000 yards (for around 2500 yards total). For the main set I’ll probably do some race pace intervals (like 4 x 50 at race pace for a 200), and then swim easy for 200 yards and repeat with various strokes / paces.

(See my Swimming page for tips and links to more workouts.)

Here’s my usual warm-up:
400 swim (free)
4 x 100 individual medley (fly / back / breast / free) on 2:00 swim interval (SI)
4 x 50 free descending (each one faster than the previous) on 1:00 SI

And here’s my current cool-down:
200 kick (br) with kickboard
50 – 100 kick fly on back
50 easy (bk)
50 elementary backstroke

Here are the workouts I picked for this week…..

Monday (middle distance):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

2 x 600 as 2x: 200 fr / 100 br with :40 RI
4 x 150 as 50 easy / 50 fast / 50 mod with :20 RI
4 x 100 fast on 1:40 SI

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3550 yrds

Tuesday (stroke):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

10 x 100 as odds free, evens breast on 1:45 SI
500 fr (mod)
10 x 50 as odds free, evens breast on 1:00 SI

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3350 yrds

Wednesday (off)

Thursday (taper):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

main set (~1200 yrds)

cool down (350 yards)

Total = 2550 yrds

Friday (off)

Saturday (taper):

warm-up (1000 yrds)

main set (~1200 yrds)

cool down (350 yards)

Total = 2550 yrds

Sunday (off… and set up next week’s workouts…)

Happy swimming!

Swim Workouts: week of 2013-09-23

~ EMM

Last week was not a great week for a number of reasons. One good thing was I managed to get in 4 workouts (instead of the 3 I had planned). Some parts of my workouts felt good, other felt slower than usual. But I am starting to feel more confident about my fast-approaching 200 fly race.  Only 3 weeks left until the Pacific Masters short course meters championships!

I have been ramping up my training volume (and intensity) for about 11 weeks now. I feel pretty good about having this solid stretch of training under my belt going into this meet. This will probably be my last week of high volume training until after the swim meet. That will make it 12 weeks of training leading into my taper.

I plan to start dialing back my training volume (but not intensity), starting in the middle of next week. That will give me about a week and a half of taper. So, the goal for this week is to hit it hard for 5 workouts, and maybe squeeze in a small set at race pace each day.

(See my Swimming page for tips on how to modify these (or any other) workouts.)

As always, each workout will be preceded by my usual warm-up:
400 swim (free)
4 x 100 individual medley (fly / back / breast / free) on 2:00 swim interval (SI)
4 x 50 free descending (each one faster than the previous) on 1:00 SI

I’ve been messing around a bit with my usual cool-down. This week I’m going to try for the following:
200 kick (br) with kickboard
50 kick fly on back
50 easy (bk)
50 elementary backstroke

Here are the five workouts I picked for this week…..

Monday (distance):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

400 free with :30 RI
2 x 200 free (desc) with :20 RI
300 free with :30 RI
2 x 150 free (desc) with :20 RI
200 free with :30 RI
2 x 100 free (desc) with :20 RI
100 breast with :30 RI
2 x 50 breast (target :40 pace) with :20 RI

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3350 yrds

Tuesday (stroke):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

2x:
3 x 50 as 25 drill / 25 swim with :15 RI
2 x 100 with :15 RI
150 free with :20 RI
200 breast (build) with :30 RI

8 x 50 as 2x: fly, bk, br, fr

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3150 yrds

Wednesday (middle distance):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

4 x 75 free with :20 RI
100 breast (fast) with 1:00 RI
4 x 100 free (build) with :20 RI
100 breast (fast) with 1:00 RI
4 x 150 free (build) with :20 RI
100 breast (fast) with 1:00 RI
100 bk (easy)
300 as 2x: 100 fr / 50 br

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3350 yrds

Thursday (off)

Friday (individual medley):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

2 x 100 as 50 fly / 50 bk with :15 RI
100 free with :20 RI
2 x 100 as 50 br / 50 fr with :15 RI
100 free with :30 RI
3 x 100 IM (fast, target 1:30 pace) on 2:00 SI
2 x 75 as 25 fly / 25 bk / 25 br with :15 RI
150 free with :20 RI
2 x 75 as 25 bk / 25 br / 25 fr with :15 RI
150 free with :30 RI
2 x 200 IM (fast) with :40 RI

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3250 yrds

Saturday (middle distance):
warm-up (1000 yrds)

25 x 100 on 1:45 SI

cool-down (350 yrds)

Total = 3850 yrds

Sunday (off… and set up next week’s workouts…)

Happy swimming!

Going backwards

~ EMM

I finally let someone besides me read that pile of crappy writing that I’m trying to shape into a novel. My husband, Greg, is almost always my first reader, and even though this isn’t close to being done yet, and it’s totally not the genre he prefers reading, it was time to let him read it. I need to hand in the first (or any) twenty pages to my class tomorrow so they can read it and critique it for our workshop session next week. I’m really nervous about this and I wanted Greg’s opinion first.

I’ve done workshops before, and I find them to be very valuable. The feedback from other writers and readers that are learning to think critically about the craft of writing helps me figure out what’s working and what’s not working in my stories. Usually I learn that worlds I can see perfectly in my head are not coming across as clearly to readers who’ve never seen them before.

But this time I find myself dreading this workshop and regretting that I chose this story to work on during this class. Still, I won’t let myself back down and change gears. I already committed to completing this one. Besides, the reason I’m dreading feedback on this story is because there are some very obvious flaws in the beginning of my story. It gets better. But those first chapters are rough. Or they were rough. I spent today overhauling the first twenty pages and arm wrestling them into something that I feel a little more confident about sharing with others.

So I let Greg read the first twenty pages of my raw first draft, almost all of which was written almost three years ago. He sort of puked all over it. The story is very squarely in the “YA” fantasy genre which is most definitely NOT his thing. YA SciFi or YA post-apocalyptic is more to his liking. All three of the other stories I have started are more in that genre. Of course I had to pick the one that he would hate to start with. But his feedback was exactly what I would have told myself, and what I knew he would say.

So I’ve been tearing things apart and putting them back together again. I added a new first chapter which works way better. I edited a ton of the whiney teenage girl romance crap (there’s still some, but it is YA…). And I ended up with something I feel much better about. Greg, after reminding me that the genre was still not his thing, admitted that he was actually curious to find out what happened next. Score! Outside of my own head, he is my toughest critic, by far.

Feeling pretty good about where I landed, I saved off my excerpt to send to my class and then checked my total word count. I mean, I’d done a ton of work and added a whole chapter. That had to count for something, right? The final net increase was only 24 words. Awesome. An entire day’s work and I only increased my word count by 24 words. Sigh. I think this is why authors write a first draft before they start trying to edit their work. It’s too depressing to take two steps forward only to find you actually went one step back.

(cue Paula Abdul to sing me out…)