Tricks to help your spine align
I borked up my back this week, and noticed lots of writers also have back issues from the unnatural things we do to our selves writing books, so I thought I’d post some tricks to help your spine align. (Or get unborked if you like to be all technical with your words like that.)
1. Yoga: the corpse (flat on your back) and the folded leaf (kneel with your chest on your knees) are very good for just relaxing spasming muscles. Then you can do cat/cow to stretch your back both ways. I bought a book on yoga in the dark ages before the internet and before there were yoga centers everywhere. You can find a yoga instructor, buy a book, or look up how to do these online.
2. Take a walk. Walking is a very gentle way to loosen up.
3. Use a swiss ball. You can stretch your back face up and face down with suppport, then use it to sit on instead of a chair to be kind to your spine.
4. Pillows for the win. A small pillow at the small of your back for lumbar support, or a heated Bucky pillow draped along neck and shoulders do wonders.
5. For stubborn knots, get a small rubber ball and put it under you on the appropriate spot while you lay on your back on the floor. Roll your knotted muscle on it to loosen it up. (Tip from a helpful massage therapist who worked on my knots.)
6. Change positions. I’ve written standing, sitting on a swiss ball, reclined with feet up, etc. to relieve back pressure and keep from being in the same position for too long. Laptops and lap desks are wonderful for making work portable so you can move around.
7. Weights for prevention. I use the 12 Second Sequence workout, and it does a great job of gently, slowly strengthening back muscles and all your major muscle groups to prevent injuries. The kink I put in my back this week is the first time I’ve really had a problem since I started doing this workout about 2 years ago, and it’s probably the reason I got unkinked so quickly.
Whacking through the to do list
I’m shoving a bunch of stuff out the door today; a final proof of one project that will appear in my inbox any moment, I’m sure. Final edits where we make sure all the commas are in the right places for another project. Finishing off another project, which I must then fluff and polish and prettify.
It’s good to be busy, and it’s also good to be busy doing something I enjoy. My 4 yr old wanted to play with me this morning, and when I told her what I was doing, she said, “But isn’t that boring?” “No,” I said. “No, actually, I think it’s fun. It’s what I like to do.” She gave me the patented Grownups Are Insane look, but really I think half the battle in adult life is just finding a way to do what you like to do and are good at. And it’s much easier to whack through your to do list when it’s a want-to-do list.
Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?
Crazy times in publishing. The news that Dorchester sold titles by top authors to Avon made my jaw drop. That’s not the only development that’s shocked me in the last six months. And in the midst of all the shakeups, I lost two long-standing editors. Well, really only one, because she left publishing altogether; the other I followed to her new publisher. Six months ago I couldn’t have predicted that my Samhain editor would be at Carina, or that I’d have a launch title there. Things change too fast to guess what might happen next.
Which is one reason I’ve decided that long-range planning is ridiculous. I’ve always been big on planning, but it’s time to look at it from a different perspective. In development, there’s an approach called scrum. It’s agile, breaking projects down into smaller projects, defining the results stage by stage instead of trying to predict six months out what the end result will be. The principal can be applied to writing projects.
I can’t plan what I should be doing in six months because the landscape can change radically in that time, internally and externally. Instead, it makes much more sense to focus on small, short term goals and to look at the big picture, not in terms of the path I should be following but in terms of values, priorities, desired outcomes. If I know what I value and what I want to accomplish, I can focus on that and be open to new opportunities to pursue that instead of stubbornly persisting along a path that seemed like a good idea before the landscape shifted.
I don’t believe books are going away. But publishing is undergoing radical change, and change is never painless, even when it’s good change. Fortunately, one thing that will never change is the human need to tell stories and to hear them.
5 things to try when your brain doesn’t show up for work
It’s Monday and my brain did not show up for work. Here are the various means I’m using to trick it into putting in an appearance.
1. Chocolate. Chocolate helps you get those happy brain chemicals going if you know what I mean, and I think you do. I keep medicinal chocolate around at all times. Yes, it’s medicinal. Shut up.
2. Coffee. Coffee gets the synapses snapping along. What was I thinking with the herbal tea?
3. A short walk in the fresh air. The air was 9F and may have frozen my brain cells but it did get blood pumping.
4. Re-reading the project to get back in the flow of it.
5. Timed writing. Set the timer, write. Write pure crap, write blithering gibberish, but write.
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