Monthly Archives: July 2012

July 28, 2012

Of walking (or not) and dodgy pedometers

By Ellen Gregory

Once upon a time I walked 100km. In just under 36 hours. I did this as part of the Oxfam Trailwalker fundraising event back in 2010. The challenge was to walk 100km as a team of four in less than 48 hours. It was an amazing experience — and very very tough. (If you’re interested, our Trailwalker team blog is here.)

The reason I bring this up now is because all I can think about is how much I wish I was wearing a pedometer back then. Not only during the event, but during all the months leading up to it. I hate to think how many kilometres I walked from October 2009 and April 2010 as we trained and trained and trained.

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I’m participating in the Global Corporate Challenge — a 16-week event aimed at getting desk-bound workers moving. I’ve been wearing a pedometer for nine weeks now, trying to average 10,000 steps a day. I was managing it for a few weeks, but recently I’ve been struggling (partly, I recently discovered, due to a dodgy pedometer) and my average has slipped.

This is really difficult for me to handle! Just as I set out to walk 100km within 48 hours two years ago and succeeded, I embarked upon this Global Corporate Challenge with every intention of blitzing it. Surely it couldn’t be that hard to average 10,000 steps a day? Even when I determined it was around an hour a day’s dedicated walking, I thought it would be achievable.

Moreover, this weekend, there’s an added challenge to coincide with the start of the Olympic Games… Over four days (starting yesterday) we’re supposed to target a marathon distance. That’s 42km — approximately 65,000 steps – in four days. Or 16,500 steps a day. Show me such a challenge and all I want to do is achieve it.

After all, it’s less than HALF the Trailwalker distance, and I did that in under two days…

It all comes down to time. One of the reasons I probably won’t ever do Trailwalker again is because of the time investment. For seven months the training consumed me — every weekend and most weeknights. I certainly didn’t make any progress on my WIP. But I considered it a worthwhile endeavour.

With the Global Corporate Challenge, it’s been a challenge to squeeze in the exercise required to average 10,000 steps. Despite my fully functioning elliptical trainer — which I love. But invariably, it’s eating into my evenings — which is my writing time. My time. While I believe the Global Corporate Challenge is also a worthwhile endeavour, this time I’m not willing to make the same sacrifice.

It doesn’t seem possible to succeed at everything, all at once. Alas.

So this is why, when I consider the Global Corporate Challenge and my sub-par average of 9,400 steps, I can’t help but think wistfully back to when I did put walking before writing for a brief period of time… Man, I would have nailed this weekend’s marathon challenge back then!

7 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Reflection

July 20, 2012

D&D chronicles: enter zombies

By Ellen Gregory

Give this ranger a sword!

After our Total Party Kill a few weeks ago, we started a new game for our third D&D session, all playing new characters who entered the scenario in the aftermath of the previous game.

This time I’m playing a ranger, and I even have a backstory consistent with the world we’re playing in. [I should perhaps add that my backstory, hastily scrawled in a cafe over eggs and coffee that morning, comprised all of five dotpoints... Others wrote three pages... Nonetheless!]

This is our party:

  • My ranger, pretty handy with a longsword and not too shabby on the skulking.
  • An ‘innkeeper’s son’ who has no fighting skills whatsoever, but nonetheless seems to make things happen. (We suspect he’s a renegade mage/sorcerer.)
  • A cleric with both longsword and oh-so-useful healing spells
  • A rogue with a hidden agenda that appears to involve zombies…

Once again, our mission is to liberate the copper mine for the local lord — but this time there are rumours of an evil worse than mere goblins. Now the undead seem to be involved as well.

We meet the four idiots

In fact, by the time we barge up the river, swim across a tributary, and fend off walking skeletons, we’re pretty certain we know the fate of those four idiots who preceded us into the mine. Because our next challenge is to defeat three zombies — one wearing bardic robes, another looking remarkably like a druid, and a third appearing rather roguish. (We haven’t come across the undead ranger yet.)

In each of these skirmishes, my ranger took point and thankfully I rolled much better and actually managed to take some of them out. Huzzah! Methinks the longsword serves me much better than a few bardic spells and bow and arrow. (Although I would rather like a bow as well…)

And so we reach the mine, where all the goblins seem to be vanquished, and we see a dim light glowing down a tunnel, and hear a fell moaning on the air.

And a sleeping plainsman

My ranger sneaks down the tunnel and discerns a sleeping plainsman and a ward of protection. (I guess someone, maybe me, rolled a good spot check to see the latter.) We decide to immobilise and not kill him with the assistance of a sleep spell from the ‘innkeeper’s son’, and the plainsman proves to be somewhat informative once we win him over.

[The Game Master later revealed to us that in not killing the plainsman, we passed a test and so benefited from his information... He also revealed that he thought he might need a 'non-playing-character' (NPC) to get us novices out of a fix later... Yep!]

Turns out this plainsman has restrained a bunch of the undead behind a ward in one of the tunnels, and we persuade him to accompany us to explore another tunnel that seems the source of the moaning. Turns out there’s a shaft down into a lower chamber (with a fear spell to be combated — and a ghoul to be vanquished with a very stylish roll and thrust manoeuvre by my ranger). Turns out in this lower chamber there’s a chest with a poison needle in the lock (negotiated successfully by our rogue). Turns out there’s a statuette (source of the fear spell — which we smash to pieces) and some chain mail (acquired by our cleric) in the chest.

We open an urn with dire consequences

Turns out there are also several urns in the chamber, one of them containing magic (detected successfully). Our rogue wants to open one of the other urns… I’m reluctant, not because I think anything’s going to happen, but because I don’t think there’s anything to find. Nonetheless, she opens it…

Turns out a flash of LIGHTNING takes out THREE of us and we’re losing hit points every second.

Sigh. At this point I’m envisioning having to roll up another character.

But this is where the plainsman NPC comes in handy. Because he has healing spells. Thank the ranger-gods for that.

And that, more or less, is where we called it a night.

My highlight for the evening (aside from the shimmy down the rope, roll and thrust manoeuvre to kill the ghoul) came as we contemplated using bandages to bind-up a minor wound. The Game Master looked incredulous and said: “Nooo. The standard thing to do would be to use a healing spell…”

We laughed and laughed. Maybe you had to be there.

 

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in D&D Chronicles

July 17, 2012

Thoughts on interval writing

By Ellen Gregory

It’s amazing how fast two weeks can whoosh past. And I’ve just ducked in here to share and comment on this post from literary agent Rachelle Gardner on Interval training for writers.

The basic gist (based on research) is that optimal working habits involve no more than three 90-minute sessions of high concentration, divided by periods of ‘downtime’ or rejuvenation periods.

I find all this interesting for many reasons, the main one being that I’ve long believed I’m most productive working under these exact conditions. Give me a full day with no other commitments, and I’ll happily take three 90-120-minute writing sessions divided by a walk or some housework or a spot of TV in equal measure.

Such are often the days when I actually do write with joy. But I have to say it doesn’t feel all that efficient in terms of time-usage. Is this response merely the result of our modern conditioning to pack a gazillion things into every day?

I spent much of last year’s career sabbatical working in this manner, and felt at the end of it that — while I felt rested and rejuvenated for sure — hadn’t perhaps made the best use of all that time. I kept telling myself I’d probably never have this amount of leisure time again and I should cherish it… the other side of the coin was that I felt I should be grabbing as much of that so-called leisure time to be as productive as possible.

Now it seems perhaps I was being optimally productive after all.

Let me know what you think. Does this resonate with you, or would you rather sit down for an eight-hour session of high focus?

6 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Process

July 2, 2012

And now for some blog joy

By Ellen Gregory

A few days ago I was talking about writing with joy — but now it seems blogging with joy can be good too.

I was thrilled a couple of days ago to be tagged by The Hyperteller for the ‘Tell me about yourself’ award. Perhaps I’m a little more excited than is warranted, but it’s so nice to have people read, comment, and now acknowledge my blog. Since I diversified content at the start of this year, I’ve been trying to figure out which types of posts are of most interest to readers, but to be honest it’s quite hard to tell!

Anyway, thanks Hyperteller for the vote of confidence.

And now I’m supposed to share seven things about me. Before I start (and right now I have no idea what I’m going to write) I’ll let you know I already came up with seven things in January, when the Versatile Blogger recognition was bestowed upon me. (Actually, Mike Schulenberg nominated me again about six weeks ago, and I never thanked him — oops. Thanks, Mike!) So if you’re really interested, and would in fact like to know 14 things about me in total, you could check out this post as well.

But now, seven new things:

1. I think Farscape is just about the best TV series ever. Who ever would’ve thought a science fiction series with muppets would work? But it did and it was awesome. The ensemble of disparate (and desperate) characters, each with their own agenda, coupled with the sheer creative brilliance and humour of the writers, made for a wonderful series that tackled deep issues but didn’t take itself too seriously. I recently re-watched all four seasons, and felt tempted to go straight back to the beginning again. If you haven’t already, check it out!

2. My favourite scene in the iconic BBC production of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle) isn’t that scene, but the one that comes after it. Most women will know what I mean by that scene, but for the uninitiated, it’s the one where Mr Darcy strips off his outer garments and dives into the lake. Anyway, while this is truly a piece of art, I absolutely love the following scene, when Elizabeth is strolling through the grounds of Pemberleigh and comes across Darcy returning to the house (somewhat deshabille). Her embarrassment and mortification at being sprung checking out his magnificent abode, so soon after rejecting his suit, are so exactly how I imagine that scene in the book. Brilliance.

3. My boots are my current favourite item of ‘clothing’. I honestly don’t know why it’s taken so many years to buy a pair of long black boots; but now I have them I’m totally hooked. I’ve changed my entire mode of dressing to accommodate them. Once you wouldn’t have seen me dead in a dress; now I put one on every other day. This has of course necessitated more shopping to acquire said dresses. And leggings. And skinny jeans to wear under the boots. I’m obsessed, I tell you!

4. I have a decided fondness for cake. This may not come as a total surprise, given my post about a vanilla slices a while back, but you may not appreciate the extent of the devotion with which I worship at the temple of cake. Favourites include tira misu, baked cheesecake, chocolate mud cake (and any variation that involves caramel or mars bars or toblerone…), citrus tart, anything involving custard, anything involving almond (I’ve just devoured two WeightWatchers cherry Bakewell tarts), flourless orange cake… Show me an old-fashioned English high tea and I’m there — the most famous I’ve sampled are those at the Pump House in Bath, England… and at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Check out this photo of the Hopetoun Tearooms in Melbourne (vanilla slices bottom right):

5. My favourite Mr Man is Mr Tickle. Enough said.

6. Part of me would love to live in a cute English cottage with a thatched roof, uneven timber floors, and low ceilings. This cottage would have brilliant insulation, an open fire, and state-of-the art electrical wiring to accommodate my broadband internet, home entertainment system and computer setup. Said cottage would be located in a quaint village — or it could be positioned on the edge of a cliff or halfway up a secluded mountainside. And that would be my writing cave.

7. My favourite travel destinations are those where I can soak up history and culture. It’s possible my all-time highlight is still Delphi in Greece, which was one of the first overseas places I ever visited almost 20 years ago. It’s such a magical site, with its Temple of Apollo and ancient theatre, and that magnificent view down the valley. No matter where I go in the world, I gravitate towards the ancient monuments, the old castles and forts, the traditional marketplaces. A walking tour is always first on the agenda. I like to do things when I travel. I’m not one for a beach holiday. Here’s a photo I took on my last trip. It’s the magnificent Roman Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain.

And now for the part where I tag seven other friendly bloggers for the next round. This bit is really hard, because when I count them up, I’m reading and enjoying way more than seven blogs… Arrrgh! But I do have to leave some for others to tag, I guess… Without further ado, here are the seven. I’ll leave it to them whether they want to play or not, but check out their blogs!

  1. Tami Clayton
  2. Liv Rancourt
  3. Sara Walpert Foster
  4. Mike Schulenberg
  5. Nikki McCormack
  6. Kim Griffin
  7. Elaine Smothers

That’s it from me, for now! Let me know what you think.

15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Favourites, Reflection

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