Why am I whining today? Because I am doing two - that's right, two - challenges this month. At day 4 of each of them I'm starting to lose motivation, and at times, really hate my life (like that time yesterday that I almost couldn't finish my elliptical workout because I was so hungry). Firstly, I'm doing a Dietbet challenge: 28 days to lose 4% of my body weight. If I succeed, I win part of the pot. If I fail, I lose the $20 I put in. So there's the monetary motivation, but at times I feel that the end date (May 28) is so far away, I have plenty of time, and I could just this once go without a workout. The rational part of my brain knows that I will not succeed if I do this, because this is how I've been thinking the entirety of last year, and that's why I have not succeeded before. Secondly, I'm doing this 30 day blog challenge to form a daily writing habit, which you are reading about right here.
I suppose I could've combined the two. I could have blogged about my Dietbet challenge! Why didn't I just do that? Because I don't want to blog about losing weight. I
So then, why am I putting myself through the pain and suffering of two challenges this month? I will be completely honest: I feel like a complete and total failure at life. I quit my job months ago to work full time on this novel, and I'm still not completely 1/3 of the way through it yet. I also stopped taking the medication that caused me to gain weight around the same time, and yet, even with an increased fitness habit since then, I haven't lost; I've gained . Doing two challenges where I have people
You'd never know from my writing that I am not a motivated person. (And yes, I WILL be posting actual snippets of what I've written in future blog posts). My characters are all extremely motivated. Robin, my protagonist, is the Greenwitch of her village (kind of like a healer/apothecary/medicine woman). She's very committed to her duty of making herbal remedies for the people there, and she's always hard at work either in her shop or down on the ground foraging for herbs. I mean that literally: remember, I said they live up in the trees (more on that later). Her brother Rory is a woodworker and is constantly either fixing or improving things in the town. Their friend Iris, even though she didn't grow up there and doesn't work for anyone in town, still spends her time improving her skill at shooting her bow or helping her family, who are all refugees. I have very few indolent characters. The only one I can think of is the Viscountess Lynden (Iris's mother), who has led a life of luxury until the war forced her family to flee, and old habits die hard. She's content to let her family and the two servants she's brought with her continue to wait on her hand and foot in a place where you have to shoot your own dinner. I suppose when you live in a fantasy world where you have no internet to suck out your life and time and have to work hard for your survival it keeps you quite motivated.
Today I think I'm going to plug away a bit more on the short story. As close as I am to finishing it, I keep having to add more. That probably means I'm doing it wrong. At least I'll be writing something. Usually I make it a rule not to write on the weekends (unless I get a really brilliant flash of inspiration) so I can spend time with my husband, but I suppose for at least one month he won't mind too much.
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