Books, books, glorious books!

Who doesn’t love a good giveaway?

It’s about time for another book giveaway, wouldn’t you say?

Writers, this one’s for you. I received a copy of Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder from the amazing and wonderful Holly Bodger.

I’ve read this book cover-to-cover (please note the “character” lines on the cover) and I can promise that for the right writer, this is going to be a GREAT resource.

You Want This Book If…

• You love movies as well as books
• You want to learn more about a very structured method of building a story
• You want to write what I’d call “traditional, sellable*” stories—which I’ll define as stories with a traditional story arc of goal, rising conflict, climax, closure.
• You like specific examples to illustrate rules
• You’re looking for an organizational method to keep track of your plot—one that allows for easy modification as the writing process changes things. (Note: I first read this book shortly after I developed my Outlining Method, and I find it hilarious how similar the process in this book is. They’re not exact, but it was definitely a warmfuzzy for me.

You do NOT want this book if…

• You are not a writer
• You dislike movies or movie storylines
• You dislike structured plotting and outlining
• You find the idea of writing a “commercial” storyline repellant

My Goal

My goal is to get this book into the hands of someone who will read it and learn from it. Hopefully the above list will help YOU decide whether or not this book will help you.

How To Enter

1) Comment here and tell me you want the book

AND

2) Let me know what your favorite post from:

• This Site OR
• Egotistical Priest (for the old school folks. Holla!) OR
• Choose

The post can be anything at all…a piece of art, a piece of flash fiction, a random real life tidbit, or a piece of writing advice.

Each person may only enter one time.

Winner will be random-number-generated.

Please comment with a good contact email so I can get the mailing address for the winner privately via email. If I don’t hear from the winner in one week, I’ll pick a backup winner.

I want to know what I’ve written that you guys have either enjoyed the most or found the most valuable. This way we both win!

Contest Close

Contest will close ONE WEEK from the day this post goes live.

*this is not to say that stories which follow a different path are not sellable, simply that the traditional storyline is more EASILY sold, most of the time.

Related posts:

1. UF Novel Giveaway Winners!
2. Audio Book Magic
3. UF Novel Giveaway!

A lot.

That being said, the more sane among you may be wondering why in the name of little green goblins I would replace office chairs with bouncy balls.

First off, the replaced chairs were unsuitable at the outset. Mine was a $2 garage sale find that looked like its heydey had been in the seventies and Steven’s was a monstrous leather beast gifted to him over a decade ago.

Neither of them offered any kind of back support or posture improvement, and both of them were causing us problems. Pain problems. The kinds of pain problems that are easily preventable.

On the other hand, I REALLY hate shopping for office chairs.

I don’t know what “good” feels like (hint: it’s not “comfortable”). Heck, my work bought new office chairs for my whole department. First thing I did? Take off the arms. And I STILL slouch in it because the seat is almost longer than my thighs, so it’s difficult to press my back into the lumbar support it offers.

Add to that, office chairs are EXPENSIVE. I know I’m a frugal shopper and all, but I just can see dropping $100 on a low-end office chair only to find out it’s just as bad as the $2 jobber I was using before!

So I did some research. And I remembered that Brad-O had one of these that he was using as an office chair oh-so-many years ago. (That night was wicked fun. I don’t regret moving to Wisconsin, but I totally regret not hanging out with you two more before I moved.)

The Bouncy Ball chair can be purchased with a stabilizing platform for the TRULY balance impaired, but for the rest of us, it improves balance and can actually strengthen the core because the variable surface means you’re constantly checking and altering your balance. Not so much that it’s distracting (usually) but enough to make a difference.

The biggest benefit, however, was my posture.

My posture is PERFECT on this ball.

I CAN slouch, but I almost have to try. My default sitting posture on the ball is note perfect.

Seeing my success, Steven decided to join in the fun and get his own ball (a bigger one, to match his much taller height).

The next day, we threw out that monstrosity of an office chair. (Victory! Cheering! Pompoms! Confetti!)

… second biggest benefit is WHEEE is it fun! *bounce, bounce, bounce*

Okay, back to being an adult.

My ball is a slightly higher quality Gaiam Balance Ball and Steven’s is a Gold’s Gym one from Walmart. Mine has some sandbags in the bottom to help stabilize it a little, while his is empty.

I think we were out about $50 for the pair of them.

If you’re thinking about buying one, PLEASE check the recommended heights to ball sizes. Steven’s ball is WAY too tall for me, but perfect for him.

You

Anyone else ever tried the bouncy ball office chair? Any other office chairs you remember using and liking or hating?

(It’s worth noting that the biggest negative cited by the review for a Balance Ball chair I read involved the squishing of sensitive bits. Be careful, boys!)

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1. Office Tunes
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In the interest of getting fitter, two friends and myself (Web Divas Represent! Woot!) are encouraging each other through the 100 pushups challenge.

100 pushups

The goal of the 100 pushups challenge is to, at the end of a four-week period, crank out 100 pushups during a single session.

The methodology used by 100 pushups to achieve this goal is fantastic.

1. Evaluate your fitness level (from 1-4, where 4 is “you probably don’t need this program” and 1 is “Howsabout we start with onesies and twosies?”)
2. Three days a week, you will perform five sets of pushups to a prescribed number, based on your fitness level.
3. Each day, the number of pushups in each set will increase (and the time between sets varies depending on the day of the week as well)

That’s it. Determine where you are (your fitness level), where you want to be (100 pushups), then establish an incremental system to get from here to there without breaking yourself.

Team

Doing this as a team has been key. Lucky for us, we’re all in the same fitness category, so we’re all doing the same sets on the same days … which means we’re also sharing the same aches, pains, shakes, and victories.

I’d have given up already without them, and they’ve said as much to me. It’s been awesome, and I’m proud to be on a team with them.

Other Goals

This has been going SO VERY WELL, actually, that I’ve started to eyeball other long-term goals I have with a mind to actually achieving them.

Meditation

Take, for example, meditation.

I kind of suck at it. My brain’s like a jackrabbit on speed. The moment I breathe deeply and try to focus on nothing (or a candle flame, or whatever), I get about one and a half seconds in before I’m off like a rocket, building grocery lists or thinking about writing problems or reminding myself of what I need to be doing.

The closest I’ve ever been able to come to meditation is a kind of waking dream, where I visualize, say, a forest, and my mind tells me stories about it. (So far, I’ve been a koi-fish mermaid and a border collie in these “meditation sessions”)

So this year, I’m taking a 100 pushups viewpoint on it. Twice a week, I will sit quietly in the closet while soothing music plays and try to meditate. I will begin with 5 minutes, and work my way up to 15 (one hopes) by the end of the year.

I can hardly fault myself for being terrible at something I’ve never given more than a week’s thought to, now can I?

Even if the waking dream is all I ever accomplish, it’s AWFULLY nice to sit quietly and breathe deeply for a few minutes.

Writing

On a less “Hippy” note, how about writing sessions?

“Write every day!” says the advice-giving writer, and they’re not WRONG … but me trying to write every day is like me trying to crank out 100 pushups right away.

I’m liable to hurt something (and in this case, it’s be my muse rather than my biceps).

Start out small. Ease your way into daily, lengthy writing sessions.

How about … three a week, with a minimum of only five minutes?

FIVE MINUTES. That’s it. If I want to keep writing, I can. If I don’t? Well, five minutes is all I need to spend grimacing at a blank page. Easy peasy.

Next month, maybe I’ll up it to ten minutes, or four a week. Who knows? I’ll evaluate how well I did this month and base my progress off of that.

You?

What goals do you have that might be assisted by a 100 pushups baby-steps mentality?

Related posts:

1. Resolutions and Goals
2. Defining Realistic Goals
3. P90X First Week