Hiking, Working Out, and Writing

Yesterday (Sunday) we took a hike to the Rainbow Waterfall area, near Cougar Hot Springs.  Mark wanted to go some place where the pollen wasn't so bad.  The hike was a level jaunt through vine maples, cedars (I think), and the occasional madrone tree.  I took some photos of the flora, but I haven't pulled them off of the camera.

Today (Monday) is a drizzly, colder day (50F)

Working Out:  Today (Monday)is a work-out day.  I continue to use the elliptical for a 15 minute warm-up, followed by 10 minutes on the rowing machine.  I followed this with the usual barbell, pec-fly, lat-pulldown, curl-up, routine.  I think I could read on the elliptical machine, but I'm not sure I could critique on it.  This was the first time I wanted to punch or pick-up the machines; not because I was angry, but because I seemed to have a lot of energy.

Writing:  Sigh.  The manuscript I wanted to submit to Sword and Sorceress is a disaster.  I wasn't quite sure how much of its problems were problems with the sword-and-sorceress-genre (yes, people do swear things like "Lord and Lady") and how much of it was me "back-packing" information from the backstory between every available nook and cranny.  But the latest round of readers pretty much said it's 4500 words of really confusing pastiche and incomprehensible battle scenes.  I've gotten some advice to just re-write the whole thing.... which I'm doing with a few judicious raids from the current manuscript.

I'm more annoyed with myself than anything else.  To quote Darwin:  "I hate the world and myself."

More Writing:  I've been working away at the manuscript Monday and Tuesday.  I've re-worked the first half, and I think the story's plot logic is better.  If I'm really good, I think I can get it in under the dead-line.  I'd really like to get into Sword and Sorceress, but I'm at that new-moon point where it's getting harder and harder to generate any enthusiasm.

More Working Out:  Today (Wednesday) is a work-out day; after thinking about it, I've decided that I should go even though I could work on the manuscript... because not-going means I wont work out until the weekend (which usually doesn't happen...).