Monday, March 19, 2012
Whoa, I'm halfway there
This week I weighed in at 237 pounds, which means I've lost a total of 37 pounds so far on my 2012 Make It Happen Diet. It also means that I am officially halfway to my goal of getting down to 200 pounds!
I had a moment of panic last week when for the first time not only did I manage not to lose any weight, but I'd actually succeeded in gaining back a half pound. Granted, thanks to my tooth troubles I had a very unusual week, and despite the fact that you'd imagine an inability to chew would translate into even more weight loss I seem to have found a way to get all of the calories I needed and then some. Looking back on what I ate I'm pretty sure the sudden influx of carbs was to blame - Weight Watchers points or no points, I'm now convinced that pasta is more or less the Devil - but I'm sure it didn't exactly help that I was entirely sedentary for the better part of that week as well.
Whatever the reasons, I was genuinely worried that I'd reached some sort of plateau in my diet, so I was rather anxious about weighing in on Sunday. While I know I should be overjoyed that I've even lost as many pounds as I have at this point, I really want to reach my goal (and maybe then some), so needless to say I was quite happy to see that I am squarely back on track.
Now all I have to do is manage not to stuff myself silly during this week's ILLiad International Conference down in Virginia Beach - no easy task, mind you, as the host Atlas Systems is a firm believer in Southern hospitality! Wish me luck...
I had a moment of panic last week when for the first time not only did I manage not to lose any weight, but I'd actually succeeded in gaining back a half pound. Granted, thanks to my tooth troubles I had a very unusual week, and despite the fact that you'd imagine an inability to chew would translate into even more weight loss I seem to have found a way to get all of the calories I needed and then some. Looking back on what I ate I'm pretty sure the sudden influx of carbs was to blame - Weight Watchers points or no points, I'm now convinced that pasta is more or less the Devil - but I'm sure it didn't exactly help that I was entirely sedentary for the better part of that week as well.
Whatever the reasons, I was genuinely worried that I'd reached some sort of plateau in my diet, so I was rather anxious about weighing in on Sunday. While I know I should be overjoyed that I've even lost as many pounds as I have at this point, I really want to reach my goal (and maybe then some), so needless to say I was quite happy to see that I am squarely back on track.
Now all I have to do is manage not to stuff myself silly during this week's ILLiad International Conference down in Virginia Beach - no easy task, mind you, as the host Atlas Systems is a firm believer in Southern hospitality! Wish me luck...
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Eating the self-pub dogfood
My name is Tom Bruno, and until this year I was a self-publishing hypocrite.
You see, although I had decided to take my fantasy novel Confessions of a Gourmand - which I had shopped around to prospective agents only to get a couple of encouraging words but nothing more - and offer it online as a Kindle edition through Amazon, up to that point I had only read one self-published book (which a friend had written a couple of years ago, way ahead of the self-pub revolution) and nothing else, always opting for traditionally-published fiction instead whenever it came time to decide on something new to read.
That I didn't see this for the hypocrisy that it was is testament to how deeply ingrained the bias against self-publication is among would-be authors such as myself. Even now many aspiring writers would still rather keep editing, workshopping, and re-writing their manuscripts and querying the ever-shrinking pool of literary agents or publishing houses in hopes of landing a contract rather than attach the stigma of self-publication to their books. To these defenders of the traditional publishing model, self-publication is nothing more than a vast digital slush pile that floods the market with writing that didn't deserve to be published in the first place and drowns out "legitimate" authors from getting more attention than they would have gotten otherwise.
Or so the argument goes. This post is not about debating whether or not this is in fact true, although my own personal belief is that quality will always find its way to the top, and that (in the words of a fellow self-published author) "I'd much rather have 10000 people write crap and enjoy doing what they're doing than 9999 people never let their work see the light of day". No, this is about practicing what I preach. If I truly feel that self-publishing has become as legitimate a path for writers as the traditional publication route, then shouldn't I be supporting self-published authors with my dollars and my reading time?
There's a term for this: Dogfooding. Eating your own dogfood is a concept that goes back to the 1980's, supposedly from the old ads for Alpo dog food featuring Lorne Greene, who made a point of saying in the commercial that he fed his own dogs Alpo. It was a Microsoft executive who coined the actual phrase, however, expanding the concept beyond actual dogfood into a general vote of confidence in one's product by promoting its use by your own employees. Dogfooding is therefore not just an exercise in public relations, but an active proof of concept.
I've decided to adopt this idea and apply it to self-publishing - to that end, I've resolved that I will only read self-published fiction in 2012. So far I have read three self-pubbed works this year: two novels and a novella. One was a literary thriller, another a fantasy offering, and the the third was a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale. All three were excellent, and each could just as easily have been published via traditional means, had the authors chosen to pursue that route.
While I'm sure that during my yearlong experiment in dogfooding I will no doubt find myself forced to wolf down an unappetizing clunker or two, I must say that I am encouraged by the quality of these initial readings. Perhaps there's more good stuff to be found out there than self-publishing's many detractors would have us believe...
You see, although I had decided to take my fantasy novel Confessions of a Gourmand - which I had shopped around to prospective agents only to get a couple of encouraging words but nothing more - and offer it online as a Kindle edition through Amazon, up to that point I had only read one self-published book (which a friend had written a couple of years ago, way ahead of the self-pub revolution) and nothing else, always opting for traditionally-published fiction instead whenever it came time to decide on something new to read.
That I didn't see this for the hypocrisy that it was is testament to how deeply ingrained the bias against self-publication is among would-be authors such as myself. Even now many aspiring writers would still rather keep editing, workshopping, and re-writing their manuscripts and querying the ever-shrinking pool of literary agents or publishing houses in hopes of landing a contract rather than attach the stigma of self-publication to their books. To these defenders of the traditional publishing model, self-publication is nothing more than a vast digital slush pile that floods the market with writing that didn't deserve to be published in the first place and drowns out "legitimate" authors from getting more attention than they would have gotten otherwise.
Or so the argument goes. This post is not about debating whether or not this is in fact true, although my own personal belief is that quality will always find its way to the top, and that (in the words of a fellow self-published author) "I'd much rather have 10000 people write crap and enjoy doing what they're doing than 9999 people never let their work see the light of day". No, this is about practicing what I preach. If I truly feel that self-publishing has become as legitimate a path for writers as the traditional publication route, then shouldn't I be supporting self-published authors with my dollars and my reading time?
There's a term for this: Dogfooding. Eating your own dogfood is a concept that goes back to the 1980's, supposedly from the old ads for Alpo dog food featuring Lorne Greene, who made a point of saying in the commercial that he fed his own dogs Alpo. It was a Microsoft executive who coined the actual phrase, however, expanding the concept beyond actual dogfood into a general vote of confidence in one's product by promoting its use by your own employees. Dogfooding is therefore not just an exercise in public relations, but an active proof of concept.
I've decided to adopt this idea and apply it to self-publishing - to that end, I've resolved that I will only read self-published fiction in 2012. So far I have read three self-pubbed works this year: two novels and a novella. One was a literary thriller, another a fantasy offering, and the the third was a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale. All three were excellent, and each could just as easily have been published via traditional means, had the authors chosen to pursue that route.
While I'm sure that during my yearlong experiment in dogfooding I will no doubt find myself forced to wolf down an unappetizing clunker or two, I must say that I am encouraged by the quality of these initial readings. Perhaps there's more good stuff to be found out there than self-publishing's many detractors would have us believe...
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Dens sanus in corpore sano
A funny thing happened on my way to Making It Happen in 2012... I forgot that while focusing on externalities such as my weight was all well and good and entirely overdue, being thinner wasn't going to amount to a hill of beans if I didn't address other health problems that were perhaps less immediately visible but no less important to my overall well-being.
Take, for example, Tooth #19- or as I like to call it, the Root Canal of the Living Dead.
To say that I had had an unpleasant root canal experience would be an understatement. It was over ten years ago and I had woken up one morning to find myself in excruciating pain. When I could finally get to my dentist, he informed me that a lifetime of grinding my teeth had resulted in a cracked molar which had become infected and would require an emergency root canal in order to save the tooth.
A few hours later I am whisked away to the local endodontist, who begins work only to discover (SPOILERS: Do not continue reading if you wince at the sound of a dentist's drill!) that my aggrieved tooth is so "hot" that they can't actually get it numb without drilling until they hit the root and injecting it directly with anesthetic. This wasn't just as unpleasant as it sounds, but far, far worse, and was without a doubt the most pain I'd ever experienced in my life to date.
Until last Friday, that is. While I'd been warned by several dentists that my root canal was in danger of failing and that I would either need to make a return visit to the endodontist or have the tooth itself extracted, the combined fear of additional agony and the prospect of several additional bank-breaking copays meant that kept putting off the inevitable until... well, the inevitable happened.
Last week I found myself in an ever-increasing amount of discomfort until late Thursday night when the discomfort ramped up suddenly into blinding pain. Silly me, I actually thought for a moment that I'd be able to tough it out with ibuprofen, ice packs, and some Orajel, but sure enough I was back in the dentist's chair by Saturday, and walked out of the office with a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers, an emergency consult with my endodontist, and my tail tucked decidedly between my legs.
You see, folks, I dun goofed. Making It Happen is an all or nothing prospect. Either I commit myself to radical, transformative change on every front or I might as well not change anything at all. This includes tackling all of the problems that I've always allowed to fester (such as my wayward tooth) because I felt like I never had the time, the resources, or the psychic bandwidth to address. But there is always time for change, if you make time for it. My health does matter, and ensuring good health can only be money well spent in the long run.
As far as committing the psychic bandwidth, this is perhaps still the hardest part. I've struggled for so long on so many fronts that sometimes I let myself believe that it is my lot in life simply to struggle, when all the while success is right there within my grasp if only I can muster to courage to seize it with both hands and never let it go. Okay, Tooth #19, I get it now. It's time to be bold. Time to Make It Happen across the board - no exceptions, no excuses!
The lesson has been learned, thank you very much- now be a good little molar and stop bothering me for another 10-12 years...
Take, for example, Tooth #19- or as I like to call it, the Root Canal of the Living Dead.
To say that I had had an unpleasant root canal experience would be an understatement. It was over ten years ago and I had woken up one morning to find myself in excruciating pain. When I could finally get to my dentist, he informed me that a lifetime of grinding my teeth had resulted in a cracked molar which had become infected and would require an emergency root canal in order to save the tooth.
A few hours later I am whisked away to the local endodontist, who begins work only to discover (SPOILERS: Do not continue reading if you wince at the sound of a dentist's drill!) that my aggrieved tooth is so "hot" that they can't actually get it numb without drilling until they hit the root and injecting it directly with anesthetic. This wasn't just as unpleasant as it sounds, but far, far worse, and was without a doubt the most pain I'd ever experienced in my life to date.
Until last Friday, that is. While I'd been warned by several dentists that my root canal was in danger of failing and that I would either need to make a return visit to the endodontist or have the tooth itself extracted, the combined fear of additional agony and the prospect of several additional bank-breaking copays meant that kept putting off the inevitable until... well, the inevitable happened.
Last week I found myself in an ever-increasing amount of discomfort until late Thursday night when the discomfort ramped up suddenly into blinding pain. Silly me, I actually thought for a moment that I'd be able to tough it out with ibuprofen, ice packs, and some Orajel, but sure enough I was back in the dentist's chair by Saturday, and walked out of the office with a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers, an emergency consult with my endodontist, and my tail tucked decidedly between my legs.
You see, folks, I dun goofed. Making It Happen is an all or nothing prospect. Either I commit myself to radical, transformative change on every front or I might as well not change anything at all. This includes tackling all of the problems that I've always allowed to fester (such as my wayward tooth) because I felt like I never had the time, the resources, or the psychic bandwidth to address. But there is always time for change, if you make time for it. My health does matter, and ensuring good health can only be money well spent in the long run.
As far as committing the psychic bandwidth, this is perhaps still the hardest part. I've struggled for so long on so many fronts that sometimes I let myself believe that it is my lot in life simply to struggle, when all the while success is right there within my grasp if only I can muster to courage to seize it with both hands and never let it go. Okay, Tooth #19, I get it now. It's time to be bold. Time to Make It Happen across the board - no exceptions, no excuses!
The lesson has been learned, thank you very much- now be a good little molar and stop bothering me for another 10-12 years...
Monday, February 27, 2012
De-Wookiefication
I promise my wife that I'd get a haircut once I hit my 10% weight loss goal. I figured it was a good time to see what I actually looked like under all of that fur...
Monday, February 20, 2012
Ten foods to lose weight by
One of the things that's helped me lose almost thirty pounds (and counting!) since starting my diet back at the beginning of January is having a small arsenal of "go-to" foods that I can eat when the urge to snack strikes. Some of them are what Weight Watchers would refer to as Zero Point foods - i.e., foods that don't count against my daily allowance of points for meals - but others are simply items that are low in fat or carbohydrates. Since I love food and would inevitably self-sabotage any attempt to stick to a diet based on austerity just on basic principle, it's important that whatever foods I do resort to as an alternative to, say, a box of Cheez-Its are sufficiently delicious in their own right.
After about two months of successful dieting, these are my Top 10 alternative snacks, in no particular order:
1. Giardineira. I'm a big fan of pickled anything, so when I'm hungry one of my favorite things to eat even when I'm not trying to lose weight is a nice helping of pickled garden vegetables. There's a Lebanese company called Chtaura that makes giardineira with baby eggplant and turnips as well as the standard accompaniment of cauliflower, carrots, and other veggies - whenever I see their stuff at the local supermarket, I snap it up.
1a. (Regular) Pickles. See #1. Sometimes a nice big crunchy kosher dill is just what the doctor ordered.
2. Pop Chips. These potato puff things are surprisingly low in all of the bad stuff, and the serving size is actually large enough that it doesn't feel like a cruel joke to eat them (unlike other salty snacks). Also, these just happen to go splendidly with...
3. Trader Joe's Red Pepper Spread. I love this stuff like crack. 'Nuff said!
4. Hummus. Any store-bought kind will do, although I will also make my own when I feel like breaking out the food processor. Instead of pita bread or chips, I like to dip them in...
5. Raw carrots. Not "baby carrots," mind you, but the real deal. I don't even peel them, for the full Bugs Bunny experience.
6. Raw celery. This is the salty yang to the sweet carrot's yin. Also good with hummus.
7. Sugar Snap Peas. A bowl of fresh sugar snap peas, raw and with a light sprinkling of salt is the perfect snack. Raw green beans are an acceptable substitute as well.
8. Clementines. Why are these things not in season all year round? By far these are my favorite "snack" fruit, and are the perfect 3pm pick-me-up at the office.
9. Cabot 75% Reduced Fat Cheddar. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again - I am very particular about my cheeses, especially cheddar, but somehow the Cabot Creamery managed to make a low-fat cheese which does not suck, which means I can have a reasonable amount of it and not feel I've train-wrecked my diet.
10. Hormel Turkey Pepperoni. Okay, despite all the rabbit food above I still do occasionally consume meat from time to time, and with a service size of 17 slices this stuff goes a long way at snacktime.
Honorary Mention: Smartfood, a.k.a. The Only Thing In The Library Vending Machine I Can Still Eat With A Clear Conscience.
So there you have it. This list definitely beats unflavored rice cakes, that's for sure!
After about two months of successful dieting, these are my Top 10 alternative snacks, in no particular order:
1. Giardineira. I'm a big fan of pickled anything, so when I'm hungry one of my favorite things to eat even when I'm not trying to lose weight is a nice helping of pickled garden vegetables. There's a Lebanese company called Chtaura that makes giardineira with baby eggplant and turnips as well as the standard accompaniment of cauliflower, carrots, and other veggies - whenever I see their stuff at the local supermarket, I snap it up.
1a. (Regular) Pickles. See #1. Sometimes a nice big crunchy kosher dill is just what the doctor ordered.
2. Pop Chips. These potato puff things are surprisingly low in all of the bad stuff, and the serving size is actually large enough that it doesn't feel like a cruel joke to eat them (unlike other salty snacks). Also, these just happen to go splendidly with...
3. Trader Joe's Red Pepper Spread. I love this stuff like crack. 'Nuff said!
4. Hummus. Any store-bought kind will do, although I will also make my own when I feel like breaking out the food processor. Instead of pita bread or chips, I like to dip them in...
5. Raw carrots. Not "baby carrots," mind you, but the real deal. I don't even peel them, for the full Bugs Bunny experience.
6. Raw celery. This is the salty yang to the sweet carrot's yin. Also good with hummus.
7. Sugar Snap Peas. A bowl of fresh sugar snap peas, raw and with a light sprinkling of salt is the perfect snack. Raw green beans are an acceptable substitute as well.
8. Clementines. Why are these things not in season all year round? By far these are my favorite "snack" fruit, and are the perfect 3pm pick-me-up at the office.
9. Cabot 75% Reduced Fat Cheddar. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again - I am very particular about my cheeses, especially cheddar, but somehow the Cabot Creamery managed to make a low-fat cheese which does not suck, which means I can have a reasonable amount of it and not feel I've train-wrecked my diet.
10. Hormel Turkey Pepperoni. Okay, despite all the rabbit food above I still do occasionally consume meat from time to time, and with a service size of 17 slices this stuff goes a long way at snacktime.
Honorary Mention: Smartfood, a.k.a. The Only Thing In The Library Vending Machine I Can Still Eat With A Clear Conscience.
So there you have it. This list definitely beats unflavored rice cakes, that's for sure!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The Incredible Shrinking Man (and other tales)
Though my Make It Happen 2012 blog posts have been a little fewer and further between, rest assured that I am holding the course:
1. As of this morning I have lost 28.8 pounds since starting with Weight Watchers Online at the beginning of January, which means I've officially reached my 10% milestone! At this point I only have 46 pounds to go in order to reach my goal of 199 pounds- I'm more than 1/3 of the way there now...
2. I've gotten serious about the business end of my writing, with the result that every weekend I have either posted a new story online for sale or offered a promotion for an existing work.
Right now I have my novel Confessions of a Gourmand, or How to Cook Dragon, my Red Sox horror novella Bambino, and my sci-fi librarian short story Bibliophile all available for sale, with a couple of new offerings waiting in the wings.
3. Speaking of promotions, Bibliophile is a free download on Smashwords from now until February 21st- just use coupon code WC33L during checkout!
4. Also, I've decided to relaunch the Confessions of a Gourmand blog and post new updates as Van d'Allamitri travels the world and tries to sell his novel (and I attempt to do the same in the real world). I'm hoping to include not just additional fantasy food dispatches but also have Van solicit and answer reader questions about his own life as well as life in the Three Continents.
5. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest announces its Round Two authors this Thursday (February 23rd). I'm eager to see if my fantasy novel The Librarian's Tale made it to the second round!
So that's it for now- more random bullet points of awesomeness soon, I promise.
1. As of this morning I have lost 28.8 pounds since starting with Weight Watchers Online at the beginning of January, which means I've officially reached my 10% milestone! At this point I only have 46 pounds to go in order to reach my goal of 199 pounds- I'm more than 1/3 of the way there now...
2. I've gotten serious about the business end of my writing, with the result that every weekend I have either posted a new story online for sale or offered a promotion for an existing work.
Right now I have my novel Confessions of a Gourmand, or How to Cook Dragon, my Red Sox horror novella Bambino, and my sci-fi librarian short story Bibliophile all available for sale, with a couple of new offerings waiting in the wings.
3. Speaking of promotions, Bibliophile is a free download on Smashwords from now until February 21st- just use coupon code WC33L during checkout!
4. Also, I've decided to relaunch the Confessions of a Gourmand blog and post new updates as Van d'Allamitri travels the world and tries to sell his novel (and I attempt to do the same in the real world). I'm hoping to include not just additional fantasy food dispatches but also have Van solicit and answer reader questions about his own life as well as life in the Three Continents.
5. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest announces its Round Two authors this Thursday (February 23rd). I'm eager to see if my fantasy novel The Librarian's Tale made it to the second round!
So that's it for now- more random bullet points of awesomeness soon, I promise.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Reflections
I took a picture of the sky reflected in Gloucester Harbor last week...
(Thanks again to Good Morning Gloucester for posting my pic!)
(Thanks again to Good Morning Gloucester for posting my pic!)
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