Step one: reread

I've never revised my creative writing. Not in any meaningful way, anyway. In the past I'd finish a manuscript, print it out, and stick it in a binder, never to be seen again. But with my latest, I'm excited to revise. There are sections I want to tighten up, foreshadowing to enhance, and extraneous scenes to cut. But, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm a little nervous. What if I take the manuscript out and absolute hate it? What if I find the whole thing boring? What if the necessary revisions are too daunting?

Following generally accepted writing advice, I put the manuscript aside for three months and began rereading it in March. And I can say, with relief and amazement, I've actually had a good time.

What is it about 9 miles?

Training for the Vancouver half has been going much better than the training-that-wasn't for my birthday race. Is it the better weather? The burden of the holiday season being a thing of the past? Matt's official swearing-in lifting the crushing anxiety from my shoulders? 

Oh yeah, that happened!

Who knows. Whatever the cause, training finally feels like it's going according to plan.

(Knock on wood.)

What I read this month: March 2024

 

I didn't read in February, so I felt like I needed to prioritize it in March. I worked all last year to grow my reading muscle again and I don't want to regress! Sometimes it's pretty sad to realize I just can't read the way I did 20 years ago, when any book could hold my attention non-stop and I could read for 12-hours straight, pausing only for snacks.

But I also feel like it's easier now than it was this time last year, so cheers to progress! Let's dive in.

We're running a half!

 

I'm not using the royal "we". For the first time in my running journey, Matt is going to join me for a half marathon! We won't run it together since he's much faster than I am, but that's beside the point, which is that Matt's seen me run over a dozen half marathons and wasn't interested in trying himself until a firefighter buddy of his ran one in Seattle. Suddenly, his interest was piqued.

Gear Review: Shokz OpenFit

It's been awhile since I've written about running gadgets. In the past few years I've gotten new running watches and headphones and tested new shoes, but nothing really seems to merit a full blog post. However, when I was thinking about getting the new Shokz OpenFit headphones, I realized no one I knew had switched from the classic bone conducting Shokz headphones to these new true-wireless options. The responses I got were generally, "I love my Shokz, let me know what you think of the OpenFit if you get them!" So it seemed like a review was in order.

This is 38

Last year, I had a pretty rough birthday. With Matt completely occupied by the early days of drill school, we didn't have the time or capacity to do anything beyond the usual dinner-and-cake after the big day had already passed.

This year, he more than made up for it. Of course we still had cake and dinner, but we also took a weekend trip to Victoria, BC, and he coordinated the whole thing.

My Better Half 10k 2024

Let me start by saying how absolutely relieved I am that I chose to run the 10k instead of the half this year. If had I any doubts that I was making the right decision, they fled the moment I checked the weather report for race day.

44°? No problem. Perfect, even. 90% chance of rain? No thanks.

Decision time

Last time I posted a training update, I was feeling a little better about my upcoming half marathon. Since then, things have unraveled. I've made the hard decision to switch to the 10k.

January reads

Not knowing what to read next is always the biggest obstacle in my way when it comes to reading, and having easy access to a series solves that issue. 

Around mid-January, I took stock and realized I had already finished 5 books! Part of me wanted to pause because I was worried about this blog post, but that seemed like a silly reason to stop reading so...it is what it is! By the end of the month, my grand total was 11, which is one more than my goal for the whole year of 2023.

The thing is, having a series to plow through or a newly discovered favorite author makes picking up the next book effortless; no wonder I was so good at reading as a kid! I had so many unread Stephen King books to discover!

MBHM training update

When I last posted about how training was going for the 2024 My Better Half Marathon, I was feeling pretty down. Still, I've been plugging away, so all things considered, I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made.

2023 in Review

At the start of 2023, I wrote my usual "year in review" post for 2022 and ended it with this: I don’t have resolutions for 2023, but I have a goal to finally put the effort and time into cultivating a friend group here in Seattle. I’ve been in therapy since June 2021 and if nothing else, I now feel completely capable of moving beyond my anxiety and fear to just do things. The more I do things the more they seem to pay off, and it’s liberating to get to finally see what’s on the other side of fear.

My other goals for this year all revolve around the simple idea that I want to build my life into something that makes me feel whole and fulfilled. I want to feel I’m not wasting my days. So I will continue to run and lift weights. I will make friends. I will dive back into this blog and into my creative writing.

I can honestly say I didn't let myself down this year. 2023 was full of challenges unlike any I've faced before, but it was also so incredibly rewarding. Rather than go through monthly highlights, I'm going to reflect on the year's big events, because there were many.