Only two more days, two more sleeps, two more chapters until the end of National Novel Writing Month. I’ve had so much fun, writing alone yet in a group of hundreds of thousands, that I’ll be sad to see it end. I’ve achieved far more than I expected; heck as of today, I achieved the…
Tag: Personal
Met and Passed 50,000 Words for NaNoWriMo
Last year, I didn’t think I could do National Novel Writing Month — write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November — too onerous. This year, I wanted to try but not sure, again, if I could. Then I read a Writer’s Digest article about it, checked it out, and in a…
Santa Claus Comes to Town
One of my favourite memories of winter was when the snow first fell and Santa Claus came to town. I wrote this short, memory-story for an e-mail course I took to relearn how to write back in 2003. It took place on a day like today, many years ago, when Santa Claus came to Toronto,…
My Early Days of NaNoWriMo
I’ve completed four days of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and I do believe it was a good decision, joining NaNoWriMo. The days and the writing have been scary, like pulling hens teeth, slow, and exhausting. But no matter how much I think I’m not going to do it or how much I want to…
Day One of NaNoWriMo, and I’m Off!
When I first heard about National Novel Writing Month, I thought that I could never do. When I read about it last month, I thought, hmmmm… When I came across other people talking about it online, I thought this is just what I need to get my novel written. I don’t have someone to organize…
Less Than 24 Hours to NaNoWriMo
Less than 24 hours now, and National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, begins. By this time tomorrow, I won’t have started writing. First, I got to prepare, breathe deeply, have lunch, and pray pray pray. Then I begin. I’m both excited and a little bit terrified as NaNo-Day approaches. I’ve filled out my NaNoWriMo profile,…
The Core of The GI Diet by Gallop: The Glycemic Index
Aside from my rebellious first impressions of The GI Diet by Rick Gallop, I have to admit that this book does one thing very well: makes the glycemic index intelligible and practical. Dr David Jenkins* at the University of Toronto developed the glycemic index as a way to measure how a particular food affects glucose…
What Does it Take for a Person to Change Their Diet?
The Toronto Star today calls the Canadian diet a “dog’s breakfast.” Citing toxic foods and a sedentary lifestyle as the causes of obesity, it looks into how one Québec doctor, Dr. Jean-Pierre Després, is developing a program to counter this trend. I saw two problems with his work: all male — why in the 21st…
Head Injury, Rising Heart Rate, and Diabetes: A Crappy Combo
I’m angry. I’m angry about my diabetes diagnosis. But not because I have it, but because it may’ve been preventable if I’d received adequate support during the years I was being diagnosed and actively treated for closed head injury. I have the feast and famine gene. That means one is prone to developing diabetes Type…