February 5th, 2015

Current Obsessions: Fitness and Fitbit

I’ve got a lot of little pet obsessions going on these days, so I thought I might get organized enough to do a little post on each one. I’ve had lots of great ideas for blog series that have gone no where lately, so no promises, but here’s the first one…

Mark got me a Fitbit Charge for Christmas, which is basically a watch with a pedometer inside. It does a few other neat things too, like track your sleep habits (it can only measure motion, but motion and poor sleep correlate pretty well) and count the calories you’ve burned in a day. Before I had this, I was using the Noom Walk app on my phone as my pedometer. That’s a pretty good pedometer app (I had other ones before that barely functioned) but it’s just hard to keep your phone on you all the time, especially when you are say running on the treadmill. And Noom wasn’t really totally accurate–the Fitbit is much sharper.

I LOVE it! I have some obsessive tendencies and I love to count things–I find it deeply satisfying to know how many steps it is from my desk to the bathroom, and how many in my daily commute and so on. I check the step counter many times throughout the day and feel like the information is really valuable.

What a Fitbit is for is to make you MORE fit, not just assess what you are currently doing. I am trying to be more fit and active this year–what an original new year’s resolution, I know–so this is a good test of its usefulness. And it does work, in certain ways. For example, the ideal active lifestyle person takes 10 000 steps in a day. When I started keep track, I discovered that I normally take that many without thinking of it, but some days I’m just under and sometimes I’m way under. It was very easy to just do the things I do on the successful days on ALL the days, and now I’m almost never below 10 000, but it took the counter to make me think of it.

I’ve also stopped “wasting” steps. Like, I live on a fairly high floor in my apartment building, but not so high that I’m incapable of walking up the steps–I just never did because who does that? Now I do, at least when I’m not carrying anything heavy. It gives me like 400 steps each way–obviously much easier on the way down, but either way. I’ve also realized that waiting for the bus or subway is a waste so I’ve started pacing. This only works on fairly empty platforms, but it is a good use of time and certainly no one cares what I’m up to. It was funny, one day I didn’t wear the fitbit and I didn’t bother to pace–what was the point if it wasn’t being recorded? It’s funny the way these things will trick the mind. And I’m just in general better about walking a little extra whenever I can.

I haven’t made any big lifestyle changes but every little bit counts, and I’m consistently between 10 000 and 15 000 every day. I would like to try for 20 000 but I think I need the weather to be a bit nicer first. David Sedaris went good and bonkers trying to up his step count, but I’m trying to be more moderate in my goals.

If you’re thinking of doing the same, some tips:

1) Shopping has a million steps–even the grocery store, but especially the mall. If you like the mall, mind you–if you hate the mall you won’t wander around and go back and forth. Strolling through anything that interests you–stores, museums, parks–has lots of steps, because you’re less likely to be linear and thus take more unnecessary steps. All to the good.

2) Running is a better workout than walking, and going uphill is a better workout than level ground, but everything counts the same on a Fitbit. A 10 000 step day is a totally average day for most of us–around 17 000 I’m pretty tired, but I could still do more if I had to. So the Fitbit encourages general healthy practices but isn’t going to make any of us track stars.

3) The flights-of-stairs function has something wrong with it–one day it said I climbed 58 flights of stairs, which no one would ever do, and other times it doesn’t count flights I know I’ve climbed. It’s amusing, but not that helpful.

4) If you are scared pacing will cause the bus driver to zoom right by you, hopping from foot to foot in place also works fine.

5) There is a HUGE difference between transit commuting and car commuting. You don’t realize how many steps even a short walk to the subway, then through the station and down all those stairs, then back up and out and to wherever you were going can be. There’s no where far enough you can park the car that will equal that–plus you can’t pace when you are stuck in traffic.

6) Similarly, there’s a big difference between transit commuting and pedestrian commuting. One day I talked my husband, a walking commuter, into wearing the Fitbit, and in getting to and from work, plus errands at lunch time and the gym in the evening, he was over 22 000 steps. There is no way I could do that without dedicating a significant chunk of my day to the project, a la Sedaris, but Mark has it built right into his schedule.

7) When I forget an item and have to go back for it, I feel less stupid now because at least the steps count.

So, Fitbit–one of my many obsessions and darn entertaining!

December 27th, 2010

Reverb 27

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown) (www.reverb10.com)

I seriously don’t know if I have an ordinary. I have a pretty low threshold for stress, and change, and excitement. One of the nicer things anyone has said about me is that he thought I was a really “calm person.” I was so shocked by this I went home and repeated it to my roommate, who said, “You’re not not calm, you just…get a lot out of things.”

That’s a generous interpretation, but fair enough–I can’t think of the last time I had an “ordinary” day because there’s always some special meeting, or hard assignment, or a new food to eat, or I get an unexpected phone call, any of which can throw me into a whirlwind of joy or despair. I exaggerate, but only a little.

So, trying to round down to ordinary…how about yesterday? It was cold out, but my brother and I were stir-crazy from all the indoor holiday time, so we went out the rail-trail the community had built when they finally got rid of the trains that run out that way.

I’ve been in and out of that town all my life, but this was a place I’d never been before–when I was a kid, because it was dangerous (trains!) and when they finally built the trail, I was living away and didn’t really know what was going on. I would never have thought to go see; it was my folks that urged us.

It turned out to be gorgeous–so quiet, with a weird-angled view of farmers’ fields and people’s yards. The snow was very loud and crunchy underfoot, or maybe it just seemed louder because it was the only sound. We only ran into two people (plus their dogs), and that was at the very beginning of the walk. It was so great to be outside, and I was so bundled up (two sweaters!!) that I didn’t even feel cold. It was nice not to be rushing, not to have anywhere to be, and walk as long as we felt like. It was nice to have unlimited time with my brother, which is rare.

It was basically a long walk on a cold day, very ordinary, or maybe not.

December 14th, 2010

Reverb 12

This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds) (www.reverb10.com)

I don’t think I really relate to the world in these terms…Scott’s take on it pretty much articulates my general feeling of “what?” (the nice thing about doing these answers late is you can “borrow” other people’s).

But if I were really going to try to take the spirit of the thing, I’d say: swimming. I probably only swam once in 2009, and perhaps half a dozen times in 2010, so that’s already a huge increase. I used to swim 3-4 times a week, and loved it, and I think I would like to go back. I’m no athlete, just lane swimming in the “medium” lane, but it’s such a beautiful monotony–you’re moving your whole body in concert, and yet your mind is free to think about the story your working on, birthday gifts, the fate of the universe. Actually, maybe that’s the opposite of what this question is asking, but it’s a really beautiful feeling.

November 25th, 2009

Writing Exercises: advice column plot

Ok, apparently I’m not all that busy, so here’s a random writing exercise that I used to use a lot: write a letter to an advice column in the voice of a character in a story you are working on. Have the character summarize his/her concerns at the midpoint in the story.

This is a bit of a specific exercise. When I was last posting writing exercises, most of those were geared towards or at least open to creating an entirely new piece, and that really won’t work with this one (I would be very impressed to see an entire short-story in the form of an advice column letter; it could be done [I once read a good one that was entirely in blog comments] but it wouldn’t be easy).

This one works when you are in the middle of writing something and feel stuck (stories are of course the only thing I’ve tried it with; wonder if a novelist could use it?) It also needs to be a piece that’s fairly plot- and character-driven–otherwise, it will be a very boring letter and not really shed a lot of light on the story itself.

I find this helpful in stories where I feel like I’ve lost my bead on a character’s motivation, and/or can’t quite guess what that person would do next because I don’t know what they want. This exercise can fix that because it concentrates not on what is *actually happening in the story* but how the character sees that stuff.

Whether it’s first or third person, the characters still know a lot less than the author, unless the characters is static, omniscient Mary Sue who doesn’t grow or change at all in the story because he/she is already perfect. Ahem.

It is really useful to lay out exactly how a character sees the world, and what they see as going wrong. This is especially useful to do with minor characters; I often find I know exactly what the central folks are up to, but not at all how the surrounding characters will understand the situation or react to it, what lies they believe, what information they’ve missed or ignored. And I like to know all this–even if someone is only on the story-stage for a couple paragraphs, I’d like them to be realistic and human there, not a prop or a piece of the scenery.

I probably won’t post an example of this one because, I said, boring! But I do find this so useful to do, even if only in your brain.

RR

August 12th, 2009

Writing Exercise: Questions Game: RR’s response

(This answers an earlier post.)

Facing Kate, Sarah felt the same déjà vu she always feels. The two girls were the exact same height, and their shoulders are the same width across.

“What are you doing, Sarah?”

Sarah struggled for a long moment with that, before lying back down on the floor again, so that it would be obvious. She put her head a bit farther from the toilet this time, but she could still feel damp creeping through her hairnet and hair. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Kate inhaled as if she were about to blow up a balloon. “And this is supposed to accomplish what, exactly?”

From the floor, Kate looked enormously tall. Sarah thought this was more appropriate, really; Kate’s personality was much taller than hers. “Why would I want to accomplish anything?”

“Yeah, why would you?” Kate plummeted abruptly down, her legs accordianing under her until she was crossed-legged beside Sarah’s wet head. “Why try to keep your job, or your dignity, or even your clothes clean? Why not just give up on anything that’s fucking adult, and go cry like a little kid?”

Sarah slurped snot up her nose and tried to breathe evenly. She stared at the domed light fixture on the ceiling—clean, but with dozens of dead-fly bodies in the nipple of it. When she turned to look at Kate, Kate’s small watery blue eyes were trained right on Sarah’s forehead, like gun sights.

“Is it my turn to talk now?” Sarah said weakly.

“Do you want it to be? Do you have anything to say?”

“Why don’t you just speak for me, say whatever you think I should say? What would say right now, Kate, if you’d just lost it in front of a customer and were lying here in a puddle of maybe pee, and the only reason you hadn’t been fired yet is that Darin is scared to come in the ladies room?”

Kate flinched and peered more deeply at Sarah’s face, before flattening down onto her stomach beside her, so their elbows touched. “Do you really think he’ll fire you?”

“Why wouldn’t he? How much of an asset to the team am I, really?” Sarah had meant to say it with all the grim bravado Kate would have brought to such a damning self-assessment, but the truth of her own uselessness hit her hard in the stomach midway through asset, and the rest of the words were watery with tears. “What use am I at all?”

Kate’s eyes narrowed even more, pale slits with the light of the fluorescent tube reflecting in them. “Can’t you just…just…get it together?”

Sarah tried for another deep breath but there was the weight of a sob resting on her lungs and she didn’t get much. “No.”

***

RR thinks: this is *way* easier when you’ve got some narrative to play with, not just the questions themselves to build the whole scene. And I hand-picked a part of the story I was working on where evading the question makes sense. And ended with a statement. But I still used the *spirit* of the exercise, I’d say, plus I think I’ll actually be able to keep most of this in the piece as it stands, which is useful.

Anybody else?

RR

August 11th, 2009

Writing Exercise: Tom Stoppard’s Questions Game

Sunday evening I rewatched the film version of Tom Stoppard‘s brilliant play Rosencrantz and Guidenstern Are Dead. Since the author directed the film, it is just as wondrous as the play.

If you’ve never read or viewed this one, it’s the left-out lives of Hamlet‘s two retainers, who die off-stage and without tears or explanation towards the end of that play. It’s also about the act of writing and the definition of character, the concept of performance, and a variety of physical principals and simple machines, which are explored by one of the characters in a series of subtle and hilarious protracted gags.

This is one of the funniest movies you’re likely to see, but to get all the jokes, it helps to see it multiple times (I think this was my forth, and I saw a lot that was new!) One scene I did remember distinctly and with joy from childhood viewing was the great Questions game, that the protagonists play on Hamlet’s indoor tennis court.

The game is what it sounds like, to keep a (semi-)logical fast-paced conversation going using only questions. The characters have rules against not only statements but repetition, non-sequiteurs, rhetoric, synonyms and hesitation. This keeps the conversation fast, intense, somewhat surreal, and very tight–people are trying to win, after all.

Stoppard’s style of dialogue in general like that; the Questions game comes up almost as a kind of parody of R&G’s usual quick, confused/confusing banter. This style also reminds me of Sanford Meisner‘s repetition exercise for actors–another way of creating fast, tight dialogue.

As a lover of fine dialogue of both real and artificial forms, needless to say, a) I love this stuff and b) it’s very hard to do well, or even at all. As I said, I watched this movie as a kid, with my bro, and the first time we encountered a tennis court, we did try to play it–so frustrating! Even when you leave out some of the secondary rules about hesitation, non-sequiteurs, etc.

So, obviously, this is a great writing exercise. Obviously, you won’t end up with anything quite *realistic* in the usual sense, and if realistic is what your project is, you’ll have to redraft to use the exercise. But in addition to pace and rhythm, the all-questions-no-answers style brings a great deal of tension to dialogue–nothing says recalcitrant witness like answering a question with a question.

Ok, the exercise is: write a scene with two (or more, if you really want to push yourself) characters, in which all dialogue is in the form of question. Use the other rules at your discretion, or not at all. I’ll post mine when I’ve written it. If you write one, I’d love to see it if you send me a link, post it as a comment, or send it some other way.

I’m glad I came up with this after my actual teaching term finished–I think it’s gonna be really hard.

I’m a wrecking ball in a summer dress

RR

March 25th, 2009

Writing exercises: how to get over yourself

I spent today running three workshops with 30 kids each–I can barely hold my head up, but the experience was amazing, and in a few cases I was genuinely excited about the promise of more work by these kids. The interesting thing about most of my students, and I’d have to gender-stereotype here and say especially the boys, is that they are in no danger of taking themselves too seriously. They don’t draft and they don’t fret; if it’s not good the first time, well, then it’s not going to be good. An amazing proportion of the work *is* good, that’s the startling thing, which speaks to a) natural talent and b) the power of egoless writing.

It’s harder for an adult to write without hoping to impress someone, even ourselves. We aim for perfection, truth and posterity, and are crestfallen when we just obtain accurate interesting prose. Not that a little truth and perfection isn’t a lovely thing, but writing fast and furious, without wondering, “But is it *beautiful*?” can often show a writer just what he or she is capable of.

Here’s a couple exercises given to me a few years back by my wonderous mentor, Leon Rooke. I had a bit more free time back then, but I’d still recommend doing these if you have a free weekend. They’re fun and low-pressure, if a lot of work. I’ll bet you’ll be as surprised as I was at how much good material you produce. Lots of nonsense, too, but you can’t make a cake without breaking some eggs.

1) Write 20 opening paragraphs. Go from one to the next if you can, and don’t follow up on any of them until you’ve got all 20 down. Use as many different voices, tenses, tones and styles as you can.

2) Write 3 stories in 3 days. I guess this one would take a long weekend, or you could space 3 days apart. But only 24 hours allotted to each story, which means you probably can’t revise at all on this draft. Which is ok. Really. I promise. Unlike the whippersnappers, I won’t check your work.

And now I have to go, because the funny thing is, *I’m* being workshopped tonight. It’s a theme day. And so, I must make pizza.

Sweet summer all around
RR

February 22nd, 2009

My Plot Variant Exercise

Three different plot variations inspired by this scenario–woman attempts to step into crosswalk, man jogs a few steps to catch up from behind her and grabs her arm to pull her back.

#1.
Her foot was almost off the sidewalk, when he cupped his palm around her elbow when and somehow managed to yank her back. His heart pounded, but not much, it had been so quick. He saw the dumptruck turn left into the condo construction lot before she turned on him.

“The hell? What do you want?”

“You were about to walk right in front of that truck. I just—”

“It turned. It was turning.”

“But I didn’t know, it was coming straight—”

“It signalled.”

He drew himself up a little, still under her hairlines. “It’s never safe to jaywalk, you know.”

#2.
Tentatively, he jabbed her arm as she was about to step off the kerb. Pushy, yes, but he just had to see if it was Sienna. Sienna, after all these years, the same silky hazelnut hair down her back…

She turned, a faceful of freckles under wide Britney sunglasses, a tiny mischief mouth. Not Sienna.

“Oh, sorry, I thought I knew you from—”

“Do we?” Underneath the big lavender lenses, her eyebrows scrunched.

“No, I’m sorry, I—”

The brows unscrunched, popped back over the tops of the glasses. “Yes, from the gym, of course.”

He startled, took a step back. Did she go to his gym? He didn’t look at people very closely there, mainly–certainly no eye-contact. “Is it that?”

“Of course!” She flapped her hands, yanking shopping bags up and down. “The free-weights hog, from—”

“Well, I don’t really hog them. I just use a range….” He grinned.

“Yeah, you do.” She grinned back. “Everyone at Bally’s knows about you.”

A taxi whizzed by, windows crowded with heads.

“Bally’s?”

She nodded, still smiling.

“I guess you’ve…ah, got the wrong guy. I go to Trainers.”

Her smile fumbled, eyebrows reclenched. “Trainers?”

“On, ah. Bathurst. Good gym.”

She stared.

“Just a case of…mistaken identity. I guess.” And, not knowing what else to do, he brushed past her into the crosswalk.

#3.
He couldn’t believe it when the white “Walk” man appeared and she actually turned to go.

“Wait,” he said but her shoulders continued to twist as if she would not wait, and his hand shot out to snatch her elbow.

She spun, silk hair flowing away from her shell ears, so lovely. Her eyes were wide on his face. Her mouth of opened pink, but she didn’t say anything.

“I just—so, we’re broken up, then?”

“Broken…? Were we– It was just a coffee, David, a couple of times. We were never–“

“It was, Aisha…something. To me. I felt, with you, I felt— God, you’re amazing, you know that? You don’t even know that, do you?”

“David, I don’t want–“

“I think I could impress you, Aisha. When I think of how I feel about you, I think I could be impressive. I could do anything.”

“David, I’m sorry–“

“Aisha, would you listen? You don’t listen.”

“David!”

He looked down and saw his hand still on her arm, his fingertips digging white bloodless dents into her honey skin.

When your home is your headstone
RR

February 19th, 2009

Writing Exercises: The Plot-Variant One

Try this: next time you see a stranger or strangers doing something interesting, take the image home (in your mind; I think strangers don’t like it when you photograph them) and write a little mini-story about what’s going on, how it came to occur and/or what happened next. Then write another that has nothing to do with the characters and situation of the first, but still explains the scenario. Then another. Do as many as you feel like, but three is a good number to break you loose from that sense that a good idea is good for one thing only.

If you are low on interesting strangers in your life, you can have some of mine:
–teenaged boy talking on cell-phone, teenaged girl berating him and is ignored. Finally, she kicks him in the shins.
–woman attempts to step into crosswalk, man jogs a few steps to catch up from behind her and grabs her arm to pull her back
–extremely attractive young couple in restaurant, talking extremely loudly. Man congratulates woman repeatedly on “respecting herself” and “standing up for hereself”
–middle-aged couple in Bulk Barn, puzzled and argumentative over selection of popcorn-shaker flavours

Writing exercises just sort of float in the ether and there are a million different versions of everything, but I suppose I should be giving credit to where I’ve found’em. This exercise adapted from one in the (very good) book What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter (and the strangers, for good or ill, are my own). The last one is one I made up, and the one before that was originally given to me by my very first (and brilliant) writing teacher, Pam North.

Enjoy! I’ll post my version in few days!

The lights are on and the party’s over
RR

February 14th, 2009

Character Exercise: Holiday Letter Inspired by Personal Ad

Dearest Friends and Family,

Well, it’s that time of year again–the lights, the hugs, the presents, and all those spinning spinning dreidels: it’s Hannukah!

Just kidding! Of course, I am as Christian as a candidate for American public office, and now that Adrienne Goldberg is no longer in my life, I haven’t the slightest need to light a candle during the month of Kislev. As I string the lights and tinsel from fridge to coat-stand and back again, I am sending all my friends and family out in the great white north my sincerest good wishes for merriment at this merry time.

What’s this, you are wondering? Why kill perfectly good trees with this silly letter, Trevor, you might be asking, when you will be home among us, wishing us Merry Christmas in person while attending the Satelliteberg Elementary Festive Singalong and eating your weight in buttertarts at Aunt Sally’s Advent party and falling asleep at the pre-dawn prayer gathering!

Sadly, I won’t make it this year, my dearest friends and family. It’s been a tough year–I don’t like to complain, but managing a hedge fund has gotten a lot less glamourous in the past few months. After the layoffs, you’d think I would have been left with a good deal of free time, but with the class-action suit along with the divorce proceedings finally proceeding, I wound up spending most of my days with lawyers, and my nights in an Manischewitz-wine-soaked despair.

Kidding! Although you know my endless regard for Adrienne hasn’t ended, I abide by her report that we “want different things”! Although I don’t even know what that means! From what I can see across the arbitration table, we’re still both putting non-dairy creamer in our caffeinated beverages when the milk is in pitchers, because that little Kosher “u” just makes us feel better. And when, during our extremely pleasant smalltalk while one of the lawyers is in the restroom, Adrienne mentions a tv show she has enjoyed, it’s almost always one I’ve enjoyed too, or else one I was just about to rent the complete DVD collection of.

So don’t buy me any DVDs for Christmas this year, I’ve seen almost everything in an effort to have something new to present at arbitration smalltalk! Also, they might get busted in the mail. Please just don’t worry about it!

I know, I know, you might think that the end of a six-year marriage and a brilliant career would be an excellent time for the warm embrace of high-school classmates and second cousins, for the comforting tones of my mother asking if I knew all along there was something wrong with a marriage in a synagogue and that’s why we never had kids?

Oh, mom, I love you! But I’m bound and determined to spend the holidays and the remains of my savings on a trip to Israel to finally see where Adrienne’s people came from–I figure it’s the least I can do for the woman I spent the best years of my life with. And I know what you are thinking, Laurence, that Adrienne’s people were from Newark, which means there’s no reason to go where they are firing bombs and don’t even speak English instead of where the beer is cheap and G-d smiles on our OHL team, and yes, but you know what I mean, you big anti-Semitic galoot!

But I really think that this embrace of the Chosen People is an excellent way to illustrate to Adrienne how very much she is my chosen person. I also think that those of you who have chosen to keep her in your hearts and in the family by sending cards and letters are doing *almost* the right thing. However, I know from personal experience in the arbitration room that, now that we are no longer wed (legal as of this morning) she would rather not receive explicitly Christian images in the mail, such as creches, angels, or the seasonally inappropriate cruxifiction scene you sent, Laurence–nice, really nice.

So, without further ado, I’m off on my Birthright tour (if they contact any of you, please be discreet about any small fudgings of the truth of my “birthright”!) Should you miss me enough to want to send gifts, you could give instead to the local Jewish Community Centre. Hah! Of course there is no Jewish Community Centre in Satelliteberg, or even any Jews since the Weinbergers got into that tiff about prayer in school (I’ll finally weigh in on this one: yes, I think grace *is* technically a prayer) and lobbied the county to move the town line so that the family now lives in Burrsbury.

If you are still inclined towards gifting, perhaps you could forward your cheques to one of the fine Jewish organizations in Newark, New Jersey.

I’ll send postcards from the Wailing Wall.

Love,
Trevor

(This wound up having very very little to do with the poor guy whose personal ad I used, and I will *not* be linking to it. He was, I think, quite a catch, and this sort of nonsense would not be helpful to him or his pursuit of happiness.)