On Being A Better Person

Friday night I was reading a writing guide by Orson Scott Card.  It had the usual writing 101 advice in it, along with the MICE Quotient idea in it.  At the end of the last chapter, one of the rules he listed about writing was "remember to be a good person."   He then went on to say something along the lines of "be like the good guy protagonists you like to read and write about."

Fast forward to Monday morning.  I was listening to "Performance Today" on KWAX, and a famous Greek violinist was telling how she studied under Itzhak Perlman, and his first rule of being a good violist was "being a good person comes before everything else."  

I'm taking this as A Sign and a gentle reminder as I climb back onto the horse of writing as a spiritual practice.  

OK. True confession time:  Clash of Clans is an evil, addicting time sink.  It uses a combination of scheduled reinforcement (jewel awards, which can be cashed in for game resources), and random reinforcement (trophies for winning battles or successfully defending from other players' attacks) to keep you coming back.  Since the village is infinitely configurable, there's a draw to fiddle with village walls and defenses to get That Perfect Design.  And since training troops (barbarians, archers, giants, wizards, etc), building defenses (cannons, archer towers, wizard towers, Tesla towers, etc) , and developing resources (gold mine, and elixir pumping stations) have built-in time delays--anything from 5 minutes to 2 days--there's always that new perk waiting for you around the corner.

Why, yes; I'm playing it as a family activity so I can be a better person.

Writing:  Been working on critiques for Wordos, and also finishing up the S&S story.  I'm doing line edits and noticing where the staging needs some work.

Working Out:  Monday was a work-out day.  I'm still cutting back on the rowing machine, doing 650 cal / hour instead of 750; managed 150 cal in about 15 minutes.  Added some front dips to the routine; going slow so I don't pull anything in my right arm.  I've dropped the cable cross flies on the theory that contributed to my tennis elbow.  Did the usual lateral pull-downs, triceps pull-down, and barbell work.  I meant to do the pec flies, but didn't.