Fast - Day 2 (noon)

I am home this morning, as the car is in for repairs and I did not have access to a loaner, so this is a noon report.

Last night I had very vivid dreams, including a number of dreams where I eat! I am not sure if it is a coincidence or my dreams reflecting the fact that I am really starting to feel hungry, but I suspect the latter. ha ha

I have a caffeine withdrawal headache still, and I feel a little dizzy and nauseated, which I believe means my body has run out of the easy-access sugars and is switching to glycogen. I also have increased joint pain in my bad elbow (tennis elbow, two years ago) and my weak knee (injured in a slip four years ago). These might be related to the fast. Either way, I am in good spirits with no "grumpiness" or unaccountable rages which might be expected after going 48 hours without any food.

Medical Notes
Blood sugar levels drop on the first day of a fast, and the body switches to converting liver glycogen to glucose. This reserve is enough for about half  of a day, at which point the body switches to muscle glycogen.

Headaches, dizziness, nausea, and a thick coatings on the tongue are symptoms at this stage of a fast, and hunger can be very intense. The "basal metabolic rate" lowers, the heart slows, and blood pressure is reduced.

Fast - Day 1

As of noon today, I had gone a full 24 hours consuming only water. I was an hour late for work (got there around 9:00 am) due to blinding headaches... maybe I should have weaned myself off caffeine before this! Other than caffeine withdrawal, it hasn't been too bad. I've been hungry and craving some comfort foods, but nothing I cannot handle. Sailing went well, as I expected, and I did not feel weak or faint or nauseous. It was a stressful day (car problems... ended up getting it towed to a garage) so I did break down in the evening and drank a cup of black tea. I don't believe that this will affect the schedule of my fast, but I will have to avoid a repeat if I want to stick to a strict water fast.

Medical Note
The first full day doesn't include any physiological changes, as there is still food passing through the gut and ample blood sugar in the, er, blood.
 

Started Fasting

Yesterday, after sailing, I went home and ate a normal dinner with a can of diet coke. A little later, I enjoyed a Jamaican patty and another can of diet coke. Today, I had two more Jamaican patties for lunch, and that is that. I have four yogurt cups and a bottle of apple juice in the refrigerator, for emergencies.

After work, I went sailing (practice night) and didn't have any physical problems. A bit hungry, which is still true now that I am at home and preparing for bed. I probably should have even until the evening, so I wouldn't have to count my days noon to noon... but I'm not going to start over ha ha.

The real test starts tomorrow, when I run out of food currently in my digestion tract.

Fasting - The Plan

I will go into the reasons later, but I have been thinking of going on a water fast for several months now. Because of family concerns ("You are going on a starvation diet?!") and my racing schedule, I wasn't able to start until now. Well, this week.

Anyway, there is a lot of information out there on fasting, so I won't bore you with paragraphs and paragraphs of my opinions on the matter. Instead, I'll just post updates as I go. The plan is to start in a couple days, so that I can sail Tuesday and Wednesday without feeling overly faint. The coming weekend is my own, and I have a week of vacation I can take if needed. My hope is that the worst symptoms will be over by June 22nd, when I will be back to sailing.

So, with luck, I will eat my last solid food tomorrow, and will not eat or drink anything other than water until July! Now, I will be keeping yogurt and juice handy in case I feel overly ill or start fainting... but the plan is no digestion for at least three weeks.

Back to Sailing

It was another long winter, but finally sailing season is back! There are a lot of changes this year. First, I am sailing on a new boat. Well, not actually "new"... but a different boat, a Shark 24. Second, I am sailing with a new skipper, Eric, who's previous experience was quite some time ago. That said, he is doing a great job! But we need time to mesh as a crew. Third, I am doing foredeck, which means I far forward, dealing with the spinnaker and acting as more of a lookout. My previous three years of racing was to handle the main and jib sails from the cockpit of a Viking 28.

It is definitely going to take me a while to get used to the new boat, the new position, and the new crew, but after two sails (and one race) I am confident we are going to be competitive this summer.

 

View forward from the foredeck, while flying our spinnaker.

We are going out again next Tuesday for a practice, and Wednesday for race number two.

Script Frenzy Ends

Well, between the 6 weeks I had the flu, and all the distractions at work and home... I only managed to write two full pages of script. Not exactly a huge success, when my target was three pages a day for an entire month.

Still, it was a learning experience and I am going to try to complete my horror movie script by the end of June. If I have free time on the Victoria Day weekend, I might get a good start on that in a couple weeks. With sailing season beginning soon, I know I will be even more pressed for time than I was in April, so it will not be easy to find time to write.

Horror Movie Plans

Horror Movie Script
I am a bit behind in the script (100 pages in April, for Script Frenzy), but should be able to catch up this weekend and have next week to polish the first fifteen pages (for a Writer's Digest competition on May 2nd). The concept has evolved quite a bit since my outlining in March, as I am now writing a story about a haunting instead of a Zombie apocalypse!

The title has been a struggle, but I have a few that are currently in consideration:

• Leave This Place - I like the threat that this title implies.
• Left - The idea is "left behind", but the single word "Left" is vague enough to cause some unease in the viewer.
• Dark Place - The idea here is there is a haunted or cursed location.

There are a couple more that I don't want to list at the moment, as using them would require a specific ending for the script... and I am still trying to make some decisions there.

Software
I purchased the full, professional version of Sony Vegas 10 yesterday. I had been using the home version for my Haiti videos and whatnot, but the workflow and limitations would make producing a complicated film difficult. For example, Sony Vegas Platinum HD 10 allows 4 video tracks but completely lacks masking abilities. Sony Vegas Pro 10 allows unlimited video tracks and has advanced masking. Pro also has a nicer workflow, support for a wider variety of plugins, plus a bunch of questionable features (I don't plan on making any 3D movies at this time).

I also purchased a piece of writing software called New Novelist 3, that will replace metapad as my script/novel writing software. It is pretty simple, which is perfect as I really just wanted a simple word processor with support for chapters and scenes. I'll maybe write up a review for it once I've used it a while.

Something weird this way comes

Okay, first I would just like to say that I am a skeptic. I don't believe in ghosts, I don't think Satan is at fault when I choose to do something negative, and I don't believe in so-called "holistic medicine". Give me science over faith, any day of the week. I love the concept of ghosts, and hauntings, but I don't believe in them any more than I believe in Santa Claus.

Today I had a strange experience. Something I cannot explain of laugh away. I was sitting in a chair in my bedroom, with my feet up on my bed. I was playing a PS3 game, and my pet dragon (an adult bearded dragon) was sunning on a stack of pillows in the window. I had been sitting there for about twenty minutes or so when I felt something hit my foot. I jumped, thinking it was perhaps a loose cricket or something... but when I looked down there was a penny sitting there.

Penny, untouched after falling on me.

A penny had fallen on my foot, in the middle of a closed room. A penny, that had no source... there was no place for this penny to fall from, no other person to flick it at me, nothing to explain where it came from. I was surprised enough to take the above (and following) photographs of the penny, but I really didn't think that much about it. Hours later, it started to make me feel a bit "creeped out". I'm not saying this is evidence of ghosts or anything, but I cannot explain it and it is quite outside of my regular experiences. Pennies don't just drop out of nowhere... they drop off things, or are flung by people.

After taking the above photograph, I turned the penny over and took another photograph.

I turned the penny over for this photo.

So, I had a penny drop on me from nowhere, and I cannot explain it. The morning was bright and sunny, so it wasn't even like this happened in a spooky room during a dark and stormy night.

Script Frenzy tomorrow!

Tomorrow Script Frenzy starts! It is going to be very hard to write 3+ pages a day with all of my other commitments, but I am definitely inspired to try.

Tonight, I am writing an outline and coming up with a list of characters for the script. I am also working on a location and prop list to help me keep the script to something I can actually film.

If you are reading this and would like to act in a cheap horror film, please get in touch with me!

Demon Slaying

Today was something of a milestone for me. I spoke to a students at a local school about my experiences in Haiti. This is the first time in my entire life that I was able to stand up and an do "Public Speaking" like that. Not that it was smooth, I had some technical issues with the hardware for showing my videos... but for 90 minutes I stood up there and spoke. Anyone who knows this Stephen Hermer, knows he is not a fan of public speaking or even attention.

The students were great, asking lots of good questions and only peppering me with silly ones very rarely. It was definitely a friendly crowd, which helps! Especially when the plan to mainly show video falls through. ha ha

Stephen Hermer, March 28, 2011

I am also feeling a bit better, health-wise, so there is some hope I can catch up at work and start writing again.

Tuberculosis? Probably not, but I feel pretty crummy

I've been fighting something for over a six weeks now. It started as a bad cold, and it cost me my sick days right at the start. My lingering cough and general lassitude cost me a lot of hours at work, so my income was reduced perhaps 20%. After a few weeks, I was down to just a chronic cough. Then, almost overnight, I was hit again and left work midday to go to my family doctor. Weakness, coughing, intense chest pain... I wasn't going to mess around anymore.

My doctor got me in with an hour's notice (that is something, here in Canada), and gave me prescriptions for co-azithromycin (an antibiotic) and hycodan (a cough suppressant). I was virtually bedridden for the next four days, missing two and a half work days. In my entire work history, I have never missed so much work in a single year.

By the following Monday I was feeling a bit better, but still weak and coughing so I worked 6-7 hour days. By Saturday, I was starting to feel weaker and more ill again, and coughed up blood a couple times. This makes me exceptionally nervous as weakness, chest pains, chronic coughing, and blood in the sputum are definite signs of tuberculosis. Of course, they can be symptoms of other illnesses as well.

I just want this over with... I haven't had any energy or motivation for work or my writing, I haven't even been keeping up with my blogging or status updates on social media sites. I almost feel like I need to take a week of my vacation time, so I can spend it sleeping and maybe fight this thing off.

Japan Earthquake

My heart goes out to the victims of the massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan today.

Zdeno Chara's hit perfectly fine, According to the NHL

I am all for fighting and hitting in the NHL, but dangerous hits like this one should be discouraged some way. Zedno Chara did not get a suspension, or a fine, or anything for this tragic "accident". Meanwhile, Max Pacioretty recovers in hospital from a concussion and broken vertebra. Right now, there is a good chance that Mac Pacioretty will never play hockey again. Air Canada, a sponsor for all six Canadian teams, is unhappy as well, and has demanded that the league crack down on these.

The NHL players are split, half of them saying that this is just part of the game, and half saying that this kind of this is not acceptable. Everyone knows where these danger spots are, and Chara should be aware of them. Funny thing, one of the reasons stated for the lack of punishment was Chara has a clean record... and he still does, since nothing came of this.

So, decide for yourself, does the above photo look like a clean hit to you? If it does, maybe you need to check out this clip too.

      

Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking is my hero. Heroin. Er, heroine.

I first read about her success on J.A. Konrath's blog, and because I am interested in writing I started to follow her on Amazon. On January 19, 2011, I purchased her novel Hollowland, partially because I wanted to read something she had written and partially because I really like Zombies.

The novel was quite good! I was surprised at how well she wrote and at how much I enjoyed it, despite it being written for the young-adult market. I am looking forward to a sequel.

Why am I writing a blog post about Amanda Hocking now when I could have written about her in January (when I finished her book)? Well, she has made the news! CNN, newspapers, the works. This indie author, with nine eBooks published in 2010, has earned around $2,000,000 on those books! She has optioned three of her books for a movie deal as well. It is an incredible success story, and one that any author (or aspiring author) could dream for.

So, what is her secret?

• She has been writing for years, and has worked hard to perfect her craft.
• She writes about interesting topics, and targets a demographic (young adults).
• She markets her books by getting bloggers to review them.

Seems straightforward enough, no? To be a successful author, one needs to write well, write about topics people are interested in, and get market their work.

Borders goes bankrupt in the U.S.

Borders, the second largest chain bookstore in the U.S. has gone bankrupt! 2011 is not shaping up to be a good year for brick & mortar book sellers.

Read details here.

It isn't really a surprise. Borders has been in trouble for a while, and were slow to embrace online sales. In fact, Borders used Amazon for online sales until 2008, and they have contracted Kobo as their eBook channel.

Borders (and other large chains) were responsible for the loss of countless independent bookstores, so this may be good news to small, struggling bookstores in markets where Borders will be closing mega-stores. So it isn't ALL bad news.

List of alternatives to closing Borders stores.

Like the H.B. Fenn bankruptcy, this means a lot of publishing houses are owed a lot of money that they may never see. A wave of bankruptcies or companies scaling back publishing plans is more and more possible. Physical books are hardly doomed... but eBooks are going to continue to look better and better as long as the bad news for physical books continues.

Yesterday...

So, I started writing my mémoire, in a pretty rough draft format, and it brought back a lot more memories than I expected. It turns out that when you start to really concentrate on your past, you can pull out all kinds of interesting memories that otherwise would languish in obscurity. I spent almost two hours writing "stream of consciousness" memories without editing or spell checking. I suppose I might go back and edit the results into a second and/or third draft at some point, but who knows... my intention was not to eventually publish an autobiography or something.

No, my plans were to confront my demons, dredge up painful truths, and face my regrets. And, like anyone, I have a lot of all three. As I wrote yesterday, I felt a terrible sense of loss. Loss of innocence? Not sure. Loss of loved ones? Definitely. All of my grandparents and great uncles and aunts have passed on, and it is surprisingly painful to write about them even now.

I have only made it to the age of seven so far, but I have a whole year to write my mémoires to the age of fourty or so. I might go further, but my life is a moving target and I do want to finish this thing at some point.

The next entry will cover the move to the house on MacLellan St, meeting new friends, starting at a new school, and maybe end with my second sister's birth.

Biography or memoire?

I've been reading Is Life Like This, by John Dufresne, and one of his biggest suggestions (at least early in the book) seems to be to write an autobiographical history. Not necessarily for other to read, perhaps just as a source of ideas for stories. But it got me thinking, perhaps that would be a good idea for me.

My personal memoire

Reasons:

• Writing is good practice for writing, and remembering the past is exactly the same as remembering (imagining, if you will) the future.
• Writing about painful memories might help me to exercise some personal demons.
• Writing honestly is hard, writing honestly about myself might be impossible... but it is a worthy goal.
• Writing about my past might help me to conjure up some good memories that I haven't thought about in years.
• Maybe, just maybe, it will be of interest to others.

So, over the next year, I am going to try to cover my life story. Not always in detail, and I will try to remember to leave other people's names out, but I'll write what I remember as honestly and fully as I can.

Web Sites and Writing

I spent the morning setting up several more book pages on my wordpress blog. Having a separate section/blog for each book is great for several reasons:

1. I will use each of these dedicated blogs to help me to stay focused... they are a public statement that I am working on each of those books.
   
2. I can use the blogs to post samples and ask for feedback.
3. I can use the blogs to help organize research and background for each book.
4. Finally, I can use the blogs for marketing purposes once the books are ready to be published.
   

So far, I have setup spots for the following novels:

A Forbidden Path
This is going to be a dark fantasy novel about a young man who, forced to abandon his heritage, takes an interest in forbidden magic. Might end up being high-fantasy or fantasy-horror by the time it is done, but the plan is dark fantasy.

Technology of the Soul
This is the story of a former priest who regains his faith just as the church and the human race have lost theirs. This book is science-fiction, and is set in the near future. This may end up as a trilogy, as the first story will only scratch the surface of what this future world really means.

The Darkness Encroaches
This horror novel is set in the future, after an apocalypse has destroyed civilization and humanity has carved a new life for itself out of the ruins.

Largest Canadian-owned book distributor goes bankrupt

H.B. Fenn, Canada's largest ditributor of books has gone bankrupt! Apparently it was well known that the company was in trouble, but the bankruptcy was something of a surprise.

You can read more details here.

H.B. Fenn doesn't just push books around, they own Key Porter Books. So far, Key Porter seems okay, but it seems probable that they will get sold off or picked apart.

What does this mean to Canadian authors? Probably not a lot, since who distributes books doesn't really mean much to the author, but it is a sad day for Canada none-the-less.

Half-Day

Today is a half day, and perhaps a chance to catch up on my writing challenge (2000 words behind already). I'm leaving work soon to drive my parents to Kingston, to see the plastic surgeon who worked on my father's eyes.

Driving will be a lot more pleasant today, since it is cold and clear. Yesterday we had the "storm of the century" blow through... and while it was not as bad as predicted, driving was treacherous and my parents are nervous passengers.

Snow Day?

I hope tomorrow is a snow day! It feels like I have only missed work because of weather maybe three or four times in as long as I can remember... perhaps twenty years. I'm too adventurous or the weather just isn't all that bad in eastern Ontario any more. Or both.

It seems like this storm has some potential, though, with news agencies reporting thousands of cancelled flights and one hundred million people potentially missing work. If that is true, perhaps there is some hope for me! ha ha

I was feeling a little under the weather today, so I missed my writing target for the day... in fact, I didn't write one word towards a novel. Going to have to make it up tomorrow if I want to average 1000 words a day in February.

Haiti Blog Update

Well, I finally finished my personal Haiti blog, or at least the "in country" part of it!

I cross-posted it to our team blog at action.ministrybuilder.com as well.

I recently spent a week in Haiti, and it was a life-changing experience. If you want to read more about it, or see photographs and videos I took on the trip, click one of the above links and take a look.

Still figuring all this out

So, I have a personal website through my work, and I have two external blogs set up... this one, and another at wordpress. Why bother with these external blogs? Well, several reasons:

1. My personal website is all over the place, so having a couple of separate blogs can help keep things more orderly.


2. I like to compare things, so this gives me three different blog/content managements systems to explore.


3. If I am going to be serious about writing, I should try to dedicate one site to it.


4. If I ever get some books published, having more sites might help with future marketing plans.

So, that is the plan... but I am having trouble figuring out best uses for each. For now, I'm going to keep StephenHermer.com as my personal site for everything except writing, my wordpress blog for writing, and this one for... musing?

StephenHermer.com - Haiti Trip 2010

Finally got day six posted. This post includes a sample of music from a Haitian church service in Lanzac.

StephenHermer.com - Haiti Trip 2010

Started a new outline for a novel

Between work, family, and headaches, I've been slow to get started in 2011... but yesterday I managed to get about half-way through a rough outline for a new novel I am planning. Tonight I will try to finish it off, if I can figure out how I want to end it.

I've been trying to write short reviews of the books I've read in the last six months... and it isn't easy either. For someone who wants to write, I'm finding it damn difficult to actually sit down and do it!

Mid-January Update

We finally have a company blog setup for the trip we took to Haiti! Located at action.ministrybuilder.com, it has blogs for everyone who went in November, 2010. For my part, I am simply reposting my blog entries from stephenhermer.com, but for the others this will be the only place they share their experiences. Well worth checking out!

I have not made a lot of writing progress in the last two weeks, between headaches and work I did not have the ambition. I did purchase a great little laser printer, though... so I can finally make hard copies of research notes and chapter summaries. If you are interested, it is a Samsung CLP-325, and I picked it up for $70 CDN at Staples.

Novel Idea Day

Today is my official start of the 2011 writing year!!

Today's goals are to:

1. Get this blog configured and linked into my website at StephenHermer.com.
   
2. Write out one paragraph summaries for ten novels to write.
3. Pick two or three novels for this year, and schedule out time to work on them for the year.

Why am I picking out three novels to start at once? Well, the easy answer is I plan to self-edit a lot, and I believe it will work better if I have breaks from each project between drafts. Potentially, this kind of scheduling might give me an escape from writer's block or allow me to play with different novel writing systems as well.