Ink & Iron Challenge

Now that March is almost half gone, I suppose I should actually explain why I’ve been more active on social media than usual: I am participating in a social media/writing challenge with one of the writer groups I’m in. With querying being as slow and frustrating of a process as it is, it can be difficult to maintain momentum and motivation while playing the waiting game. It’s hard not to resent the “gatekeeping,” even though I know it’s not the agents’ fault that they can accept so few new clients and take so long to reply to cold queries, if they ever do. The prevalence of AI slop is compounding the already over-saturated market, and I know it must be difficult to weed through the garbage to find the human-written gems. And then they have to weed through the gems to find the ones that sparkle the most.

Hopefully my work has the kind of sparkle someone is looking for; it only takes one “yes,” after all. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, back to Ink & Iron. I registered for the challenge in the hopes that it would revive some of the joy of writing for me, and so far it is. I’m making progress on both the short story I’m working on (which I discussed in my last post) as well as the third installment in the main series, which has been plotted for months now and then stalled. It’s also forcing me to engage more on social media, which is...hard for me. I’m not as introverted as my heroine, but I am most definitely an introvert, so taking selfies and being more up front about my life etc does not come naturally, but as a veteran whose friends are scattered all over the country (several countries, actually), social media is really the only way to keep in touch. It’s not like I’m much of a phone talker lol.

Another aspect of the challenge is physical wellness—hence the Iron—which has been encouraging me to drink more water instead of just coffee and tea (ha!) and get moving again. I was doing really well in the fall with running and working out a few times a week, now that my kiddo is in preschool. He’s way too big for the running stroller, not to mention too active to be willing to just chill in a stroller as I plod through five miles anyway, so I hadn’t been able to run for a hot minute prior to his starting school. Can’t exactly leave a three-year-old at home alone so I can go for a run lol. Then winter came, and between being sick every other week (again...preschool...) and snow days and holiday breaks, I hadn’t had a solid run since November. So I’ve been easing back into the physical activity, going for easier runs—gone are my 5milers at a sub-9min pace, at least for now—and then incorporating some actual weights.

For the record, I hate lifting weights. Utterly despise it. But I really do need to be better about strength training long term, because one of the main side-effects of the medicine I have to take for my epilepsy is calcium loss. My meds slowly leech the calcium from my bones, which pretty much guarantees I’ll have early onset osteoporosis (which is also already a risk in my family). One of the best ways to increase my bone density and stave that off is strength training.

But ugh. You have no idea how much I loathe picking things up and putting them down. I am a cardio girl for sure.

All for now. I’ll be back in a few days with installment 2 of my Slavic Warrior Women series!