A couple weeks ago, I picked up a bike rack for the trunk of my car and this week I had my handlebars raised on my bike. I also purchased a water bottle holder to attach to my bike and my dad fixed my kick stand. All of these tasks were in preparation for going on regular cycling trips.

I will admit that I am out of shape. I have asthma, I am overweight for my height/age, and I really want to be stronger. I am going to try to go for bike rides on Fridays. With the use of the bike rack, I’ll be able to check out new areas in the Lower Mainland as well as selecting trails that suit my fitness level.

I’ve been following SmuttySteff on Twitter and she’s been tweeting about her cycling achievements. It’s been very inspirational and the other day I emailed her for some cycling advice. Steff said I can share some of her advice here:

• I ALWAYS have a hard time breathing in the first 5-10 minutes of cycling. Even now. Not as hard as I used to, but there’s a marked difference in my ease of breathing after 30 minutes than when I first start. Why? The lungs just need to warm up. Give it time. Huff, puff and wheeze through it. You’re allowed to take a break here or there, but I recommend just shifting down as low as you can and peddling lighter till you catch your breath.
• [For cycling as transportation] It’s really hard for the first four weeks. It’s supposed to suck. It’s supposed to hurt. All you have to do is make some allowances for that, but you have to push harder & further than you THINK you can, because it’s totally a mind game. Do that, that’s where the accomplishment comes from.
• Get yourself a tripometer at MEC for $15-20 so you know how far you’re cycling and at what speed. Tracking progress feels great and is more black/white than numbers on a scale or measurements — when the others aren’t coming for you, knowing there’s progress in performance compensates fabulously.

Steff had tons more recommendations and I’d like to publicly thank her for emailing me back! Now, without further ado, my bike ride!

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Does this box make my butt look big?

Henry is a simple cat; he likes crumpled paper, plastic bags, and cardboard boxes. I usually have one for him that’s an appropriate size, but when I finished unpacking his cat food the other week, he immediately settled in. I find the standard 11 x 17 -ish boxes to be a tad small, so I usually save a sodapop flat from Costco for him.

P.S. No, Henry doesn’t have a complex about his weight. He’s happy, healthy, and living on the larger side of life.

Happy Whiskers on Wednesday!

I haven’t been blogging much because… well a number of reasons. One of which is that I am in my final course for the SFU Writing & Publishing Program. I am in a certificate program for editing. While looking through some notes to complete my project, I came across a print out one of my instructors shared. I thought it would be appropriate to share it here.

A good editor will pick every nit. No use accusing them of nit-picking. It’s their job. — Margaret Atwood

What kind of person makes a good editor? When hiring new staff, I look for such useful attributes as genius, charisma, adaptability, and disdain for high wages. I also look for signs of a neurotic trait called compulsiveness, which in one form is indispensable to editors, and in another disabling. — Arthur Plotnik

Good editors are not obsessed with commas, spacing around headings, or parallelism. We are obsessed with readers and their ability to understand printed words and thoughts as effortlessly as possible. — Mary J. Scroggins

If you do not tolerate a certain level of anxiety over a considerable length of time (say, an entire career), then you are probably not constituted to be an editor. — Gerald Gross

The writer’s job is to write while the editor’s job is to worry. — Gregory Clark

If you look at any list of great modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, you’ll notice two things about them: (1) they all had editors; and (2) they are all dead. Thus we can draw the scientific conclusion that editors are fatal. — Dave Barry

Lisa Moore’s second novel, February, got some good reviews when it first came out including The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, and shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

In February 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine’s Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O’Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns. It begins in the present-day, but spirals back again and again to the “February” that persists in Helen’s mind and heart.

From the publisher, House of Anansi Press

The story centers around a Newfoundland disaster in 1982: the collapse of the oil rig, Ocean Ranger. Being born in 1988 and from the opposite end of Canada (learning BC history in school as well as general Canadian history), I wasn’t familiar with this horrific accident.

Lisa Moore, who is from St. John’s, Newfoundland was quoted in a 2009 article in the Toronto Star saying that, “Even though it was 27 years ago, it is still close to the surface for people. … In Newfoundland, it is a sacred topic. And it’s still very raw.”

Helen is an astonishing character who has lived through the most horrible thing imaginable to me: the loss of your life partner. The book is very striking without being a sob-fest. You really feel Helen’s pain, see her emotional distance after the disaster, and heal with her through her life. The story is a very personal journey for Helen and her family, and it isn’t a particularly plot-driven or linear story. February is all about the characters and their struggle through the disaster of the Ocean Ranger and their life following it.

Extras for February by Lisa Moore:

• Watch a 1982 newscast reporting on the Ocean Ranger
• Review in The Globe and Mail
• Review by National Post‘s blog “The Afterword”
• Review in Quill & Quire
• Selected by Globe and Mail for Top 100 Books of the Year (2009)
• Selected for Quill & Quire’s 2009 Books of the Year
• Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) — Best Book 2010
• Selected as Editors’ Choice (2009) by the New York Times

A few weekends ago I attended the first ever FreelanceCamp Vancouver at The Network Hub downtown.

This was very well-spent $10 admission, but with an unconference style only some of the talks appealed to me.

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