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I bought this scale at the beginning of 2013. At the time there was only this on and another by FitBit. Since then almost every connected-device fitness company came out with their own scale. I was swayed toward the Withings because it connected to almost everything. They didn’t make a fitness tracker then. So they were open to every app I used. This is still true. I don’t even need the Withings app installed for my weight data to be sent to the apps that I do use.

This is something I had never heard of before. Apparently the League tries to even out a team’s loss of quality players by awarding extra draft picks. The number of picks a team receives equals the net loss of compensatory free agents up to a maximum of four. The 32 compensatory choices announced today will supplement the 224 choices in the seven rounds of the 2015 NFL Draft held on April 30-May 2 in Chicago.

So far this year has been about writing. I’ve worked to improve my quality, quantity, and visible output. This blog has been huge help. Making the commitment to put my writing out in the world was both scary and liberating. I’ve also learned about myself. I’ve had to come up with new work habits and strategies. It’s also been an education in goal setting. The one thing that I wasn’t expecting was the weight gain.

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. This week started out strong, but I was hit with intense shoulder pain that sidelined me for the weekend.

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books. First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

Sometimes you don’t notice something until it’s gone. In this case it’s TV commercials.1 I watch most of my shows on HuluPlus. Usually via an AppleTV box plugged into the main screen. As for the AppleTV, it’s probably in the top ten of tech items I’ve ever bought. It just works. The hardware can only go so far. The apps are what make my life better. Hulu is one of the better deals.

Genetics is something I only have a passing acquaintance with. When it comes to stuff like this, I have to start researching just to get a handle on the words used by people that actually work in the field. But I ran across something very interesting today: The idea of gene drive. My initial confusion came because I didn’t understand how the word “drive” was being used. My first mental picture was of something like a hard drive for genes.

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books.1 First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

No, I just got through it. Stories are always really, really hard. I think it’s totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you. § An old photo editor of mine always said you’re only as good as your last shot.

Those who try to master perfection will always fall to those who iterate, and reiterate, and create, and recreate. Art is better than philosophy. Creation, however clumsy, is always better than sitting on your hands and fearing what damage they can do. Kill the perfect. Slay the angels. Fuck the gods. You’re human. You’ll get it wrong. Everybody gets it wrong. But getting it wrong is the only way you get close to getting it right.