Discipline

Starting today, Ann and I are entering into prep mode for Utopiales in France the end of the month. What that means is renewed and higher levels of discipline: working out at the gym every day, with weight training and lots of cardio. Not eating anything unhealthy and not drinking anything alcoholic. Coffee and water for me the next 30 days. I plan on dropping about six pounds before Utopiales. And every morning, I'll be writing fiction at least three to four hours.Why? you might ask. Is Utopiales some kind of athletic competition? In a sense, yes. The thing we've learned from years now of going to events, especially events that last a week or more, is that if you don't physically prep yourself for them, you wind up fatter and not as healthy on the other end. Because no matter how much you say you're going to maintain your routine while abroad, it simply isn't always possible. So we try now to get into a place where, at the very worst, when we get back we're still in decent shape.And, to be blunt, we've seen lots of people who do the convention circuit wind up fat and unhealthy, so if you're reading this and you're a first-time novelist or in some other way just beginning to do a bunch of these kinds of events and you're healthy and fit right now...keep it that way. Don't do what Ann and I had to do, which was radically re-do our lives to get back to being healthy. (Around 2002, we both lost a lot of weight--Ann lost about 40 pounds and I lost about 80 pounds.)The other thing is that an event like this--fun and exciting as it is--is a disruptive thing to my writing. I actually lose about a week of writing on either side of it, so it's important to generate as much rough draft material beforehand as possible. Then, I can spend that week editing stuff I've already written.Jeff