Good morning, Readers!

This morning marked the return to weight lifting for the first time since I went on holidays for Christmas.  I had intended to go during the holiday, but found my bed entirely too enticing.  Oh well!  Knowing I've lost a fair amount of strength, I started off a little lighter than when I left off at the end of last year.  And good thing, too.  My left arm is in a state, let me tell you.

Anyway, it felt great to be back at it, even if my left arm was being a bum.

Martial arts training also begins again this week.  I'm going to die.  But in all seriousness, I'm really looking forward to it.  I've missed everyone.  Half the reason I go is the people.  They're wonderful.

I am also teaching women's only martial arts classes through Carleton University this year again.  These classes have a special place in my heart.  I adore my students, and it's so gratifying watching them realise just how badass they are.  Though it's run through Carleton U, all of my classes are open to the public, and are for all ages.

If you're remotely interested, I'll list the classes below, as well as the registration link.  Even if you don't think you'd be much good, if you're a woman who is at all interested in martial arts, I highly encourage you to sign up to a class.  It doesn't have to be mine (but, you know, I would also encourage that).  Martial arts really did fundamentally change me for the better.

Right, onto the classes!

Saturdays 10:30 - 11:30
January 12 - April 6

Learn to fight with a dynamic art, combining traditional Shaolin Kung Fu and modern Kick Boxing. Reap the benefits of an excellent cardio workout with self-defense techniques using the legs, knees, elbows, and boxing. Increase your aerobic capacity and improve strength, agility and speed while developing an impenetrable defense and a devastating offense in a fun and engaging atmosphere.
​
Boxing gloves are recommended and will be available from your instructor. (Cost $40)

Cost is $60.00 for the semester.  Register here.

Right, that's all.

I'm excited to get this semester started!

For now, however, I must write.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Well, yesterday was not a fantastic day of writing.  I didn't even hit 1K words.  Still, I did write, and so that was something.  At least I wrote, and that has to count.  I hope to do more writing today.

Tomorrow I'm working on an art commission.  Well, two really, but one needs to be finished faster than the other.  I was thrilled to get this commission, for more reasons than one (my goddaughter is getting a sibling, and the art is to celebrate that).  So tomorrow shall be a no-writing day.

Hopefully I'll have a bumper writing session today (HAH!) to make up for the terrible day yesterday.

Still, writing is a marathon... More accurately it's like one of those weird cross-country ultra-marathons where  you run forever in weird, difficult terrain and start hallucinating after, like, day three.  If you want to reach the end, you just gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Eventually, you'll reach your destination.

Eventually.

Actually that's really good advice for anything I want to get done.  I'm learning to play the guitar.  I'm not going to be Tommy Emmanuel overnight.  I have to keep plugging away and practicing.  Half an hour a day, every day, for a week, a month, a year, a decade.  I'll never be a brilliant player, but I'll be good enough to play for enjoyment.  There's my destination.

Strength training?  Well, I just keep showing up in the mornings.  I just keep working out, keep trying and, probably without noticing it, I'll be lifting my body weight.  That's my destination.  In practical terms, I would like to be able to haul someone my size out of trouble without too much trouble, or lift my own chubby arse over a wall.  You know, in case we get hit with a zombie plague, or something.

Also on my list of things to learn in case of zombie plague - bow hunting, tracking, and outdoorsmanship (I'm joking about the zombies, but these skills are genuinely on my wish list).

Right, this blog post got away from me.  The point was supposed to be that I didn't have a good writing day yesterday, but will keep pushing on.  It's a game of inches, as they say.  I don't know who 'they' are.  I think I read Chuck Wendig saying something to that effect in a blog post or three.

Right, I have to go.  I have work to do.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

My goodness, it's actually me.  I'm sitting here in front of a computer writing this in real time.  Which is why it's late.  So....

Anyway, I'm glad to be back, though I do miss the sleeping in and days of kitten cuddles.  I needed this break.  I needed to get away from real life for a bit and just be variously alone (with the cats and their cuddles and purrs) and with really awesome people whom I love very much.  I managed a little bit of both this holiday, and it was a balm to my soul. I am feeling rested.  It's been a little while since I've felt this rested, and I'm enjoying it.  I'm expecting it to last maybe all of a week.  Still, it's lovely while it lasts.

Christmas this year was so wonderful.  I feel very spoilt.

And now the decision I said I needed to make in yesterday's blog post has gotten harder.  You see, I thought I had made my decision about which skill I intended to learn.  Guitar.  I thought I had decided to learn the guitar.  To that end, I bought myself a really cheap classical six-string guitar (like, REALLY cheap.  The thing doesn't stay in tune for more than five minutes of playing time) on which to learn.  I'll save up for a better guitar later (I hear that Yamaha makes pretty decent classical guitars, and they're not expensive).

So, decision made, right?

Weeeelllllllll.... the Amazing Flatmate gave me the best Christmas present ever.  She made me an easel.  SHE MADE IT HERSELF.  Look, I gave her the moniker of Amazing Flatmate for a reason.  It's beautiful, and I love it.  She knew I wanted to learn how to paint with oils.  How could she not?  I've been talking about it for the better part of a year now.

The lack of easel is a big part of why I decided to go with the guitar.  Now that's not a factor anymore.

Since I now have a guitar and an easel, I guess I'm just going to have to learn both guitar and oil painting.  I'll stick with just guitar for now, and in the spring/summer start mucking about with oil painting.  From what I remember of oil painting, you clean with turpentine, and that's a whole whack of crazy fumes I don't want to be mucking about with inside without much ventilation.  When the weather is warmer, I can take the canvas and turpentine outside to paint.

So that's my adjusted plan for the whole learning a new skill thing I wanted to do.  For the record, I've already started to teach myself to play the guitar.  I'm finding it much easier than the violin, and I've picked it up rather quickly, all things considered.  I'm currently learning to play Ode to Joy and Jingle Bells.  Badly, mind you, but I can play them. Kinda.

I told you, I was spoilt this Christmas.

Right, I have to go and get my writing stuff in order.  It's back to work for me in all ways, and I have a draft of Outcast to be finishing.

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Yesterday, I looked back on 2018 and went through the goals I had made about this time last year to see what I had managed to do, and what I utterly failed at.  I failed more than I succeeded, but I cared more about the things I succeeded at, so I'm not all that upset about it.

As with last year, I don't have resolutions this time.  I have goals.  They're things to work towards; a to-do list for the year, not some hodge-podge of vague wishes and dreams.  They are actionable things that I can do to improve my life.  This year, I'm using what I've learnt from my failures last year to populate this list.  So, here we are, my goals for 2019:

Okay, that's my goal list for 2019.  Most of these are pretty attainable, actually.  I think.  I mean, I thought meditation was attainable last year, and we all know how that turned out.

What are the big things you would like to do in 2019?  I'm not talking about resolutions like 'lose weight' or anything like thing.  I mean goals - actionable, attainable goals.  Leave them in the comments below, so I can wave my pompoms and cheer for you!

Well, I'll be back at work tomorrow, and the pre-written and scheduled blog posts will have ceased.  I wonder if I'll have anything to blog about.  We'll find out!

Until then, ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Well, 2018 is over.  Pretty much.

What a year.

It was, like most years, a pretty good one and a pretty terrible one.  I very nearly collapsed back into the very worst mental health space (for those of you who are new, I have clinical depression, and have struggled with it since my early teens. It was undiagnosed then, and untreated.  The result was hellish — I was cutting, and had several suicide attempts.  Yeah.  It was a rough time for me.  It's better now, thanks to a diagnosis, therapy, and occasional medications (that was new to this year, and very short term, but I want to stress that taking medication for your mental health is absolutely valid and nothing to be ashamed of.)). Anyway, I got dangerously close to all that again. I'll not go into the details, but the whole situation was really messed up and did a lot of damage.

It's been a while since it happened, though, so it hurts a little less with distance and time.  I'm in a much better place now, but it still makes me extremely sad from time to time to think back on what happened and what was lost.

Since then, however, things have much improved on the personal level, once that got out of the way.  I'm in a healthy place mentally. Though it is up and down, it's absolutely manageable.  I'm happier and healthier, and have been improving in the last quarter or so of 2018.  In short, on a personal level, 2018 was far better for me than 2017.

My physical health is on the up, too.  I did manage to get an injury in my left shoulder/upper arm area that prevented me from doing much by the way of weights and other exercise.  I lost a lot of my strength gains this year, after breaking for a month an a half in an effort to get my arm healed.  It's still a bit weird, but there's no longer the sharp pain there when I lift.  I've been back at weights for roughly a month at the writing of this, and it's been good.

My martial arts training and teaching continued to be a highlight of my life in 2018.  Despite being royally fucked over by Algonquin College, who neglected to tell anyone that we no longer had a space until just a few weeks before class was due to start again in September, we nevertheless found a space to training, and train we did.  My goal beginning this year was to start sparring.  I did.  After I started, my goal was to get in on the tall blokes to comfortably land a punch.  The tall lads all have ridiculous reaches, which puts me at a distinct disadvantage.  My goal was to find a way around or through that.  And I did.  Only once, but I did it.  I'm counting that as a victory.

That is the limit of my recollections of 2018.  So, let's stop relying on my own faulty brain. At the beginning of last year I decided to list out a few goals.  I want to go through them and see how I went.  Here's what I wrote last year:

I can happily say that I managed to achieve all three of my writing goals this year.  Skylark found a home with the amazing people at Renaissance Press and was published in October 2018.  I'm thrilled about that.  I love this book, and I think it looks amazing.

I finished rough drafts for both Soldier and Outworlder (still looking for a better title for that one, which is extremely annoying).  I even finished them in time to send each manuscript to all three of my beta readers, and received feedback from them all for both manuscripts.  I haven't finished editing Outworlder yet, as I haven't had the time to go through the final beta reader's comments on that one.  But that point is, the rough drafts were all finished this year.  I'm happy about that.

So, 2018 writing goals, absolutely hit those out of the park.  Go me!

Health goals were less successful.  I had to stop weight training for too long, and midway in the year, I just stopped entirely for no reason.  I've started up again for the last little bit of 2018, though, with an adjusted schedule, which I plan to keep up in 2019.  So weight training wasn't a total L, but I didn't stick with it as much as I wanted, either.

No sugar... AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH.  We'll just put a big fat F on that test, shall we?

Meditate.  I totally forgot that was a goal of mine.  Holy hell.  I didn't do it.  Not even once.  Welp...

Help my kick-boxing ladies.  This I think I did manage alright.  At least, I'm hoping I did.  I even managed to get a new women's only class - traditional kung fu.  It was great.  My students were great.  I really adore teaching women's only martial arts classes.  It makes me so happy to watch women discover their strength and realise that they're far more able and amazing than they thought they were.  I love it so much!

No more skipping training.  Uh... so... that is also a fail.  I did skip a few days without actual reason, so I also failed here.  I'm not that mad about it, to be honest.

Personal goals that are optional was almost entirely a wash.  I didn't do the paint along to Bob Ross thing I wanted to do.  I didn't save enough for a trip to Australia.  I didn't art harder at all.  And I did not double my Twitch followers.  To be fair, I didn't place particular emphasis or work particularly hard towards those particular goals.

I did hug my friends more, though, which I count as the biggest personal win of 2018.

​Right, tomorrow, I shall go through my new goals for 2019. How did you all manage with your 2018 goals?  Leave your celebrations and sorrows in the comments below!

Good morning, Readers!

I'm not here.  I'm on holidays.  Before I went on holiday, I put out a call for guest posts to fill in the void of my absence.

Oh hush. I know you miss me.

Anyway, wonderful human and good friend Jaggy responded with a great, personal post about Christmas and what she has learnt about in the year between this one and the last.

​Read on!

Good day peeps!
 
My amazing friend S.M. Carrière was looking for guest posts to fill her blog over the holiday season. I figured since I've never done a guest post before, it was time to give it a go!
 
Today I'll be talking about Christmas time and what it means to me. Though, it is a season that I both love and hate. And to explain that, I have to talk a little bit about the lead up to the holidays.
 
Many in my family were born in November, meaning that the holidays is always a financially difficult time. It is a time that puts me into chaos because I'm one of those November babies.
 
Another reason I tend to fret about the holidays is because I write for video games media. As such, there are innumerable article possibilities and there are copious amounts of Steam sales. Christmas time also marks the time of countless arbitrary video game award ceremonies. What that means is, as a person in the media, I have the option to write about these things. Video games media doesn't stop for the holidays...
 
The reasons I listed the above things demonstrates only part of why Christmas is stressful. Last year was honestly the tipping point. I was in the lowest slump ever, but what I learned from the chaos caused me to realize a very important lesson. It is that lesson that I hope to impart to you readers.
 
To briefly recap last year at Christmas time, the relationship I was in, crumbled for reasons I still don't understand. To make matters worse, it ended the same way the most recent previous couple of relationships ended. I was ghosted. Another thing about that time was that I thought I had a serious health issue, which scared me more than anything, and as a result, I descended into the worst mental state I've ever been in. If that wasn't enough, it was around that time that my coaching group ended rather abruptly, causing me to feel lost and unfocused. And finally, my regular writing outlet was not continuing in the format I had been accustomed to. Basically, my life had spiralled out of control.

After erecting the biggest emotional wall of my life, I decided to write something that I didn't talk about or publish until a couple months later. My blog page ended up being my only outlet, since I couldn't focus on my novels or on video game news. Up until that point, I had managed to write a post every week, worked on my novel regularly, and wrote daily articles. Every week I was an admin for some online tournaments. All of this crashed. I had to find a way to keep myself stable, but by Christmas time, I was a wreck and I retreated.
 
Writing was the only thing I had left and so I wrote, though, I did not want to be a Debbie Downer. Instead, I pulled myself out of the horrible mental state I was in and wrote how I managed to turn life around. This blog post was actually the last 'blog' post I wrote, and the focal point was for people to recognize that feeling sad, alone, and worthless are just temporary emotions. Things can change. Good can happen out of a mountain of bad. And I was crawling my way out of my deep hole.
 
This year, everything changed. My outlook on life changed, my outlook on the world changed, my ability to have more compassion for people has exponentially increased, and I am finally in a decent place. As a result, I've approached Christmas time differently. Somehow, I haven't felt stress or dread, and I actually feel happy for once.
 
It took surrounding myself with certain people who constantly remind me that I deserve as much love and respect as I give others. And bear in mind that a large majority of these people are online friends but they aren't the only ones who impacted me.
 
Here's what I learned: a family member reminded me that I should never be ashamed to smile. Another friend saw me on a day I was having a complete breakdown and he reminded me that I'm loved – regardless of what the issue was. (What's interesting is I have no idea if he knows how much that one statement meant.) Another person has really changed my life and not by forcing me to do anything specific. He let me be me without judgment. It's hard to explain why or how, but every single day I feel more connected to that person, because he's always been there – even at my lowest points.
 
With all of that said, I'd like to remind you to take this holiday season to reflect on the important things in your life like family, friends, food in your stomach, roofs over your head, and most importantly loving who you are. And if you already do have those things, then the best gift any of us could ever give is hope and love that things will always find a way to get better. Sometimes that reminder is all it takes.
 
I'll leave you with a song done by my favourite artist of all time, The Cruxshadows. Every year Rogue, the lead singer, puts together a Christmas song that people can download either for free or they can donate as much money as they would like. If you are interested in checking out the variety of Christmas songs they've released, the website can be found here.
Every year I listen to this song and I find it is the most important message I've ever heard. This is 'Tabhartas De', my favourite Christmas song by The Cruxshadows. I hope you like it. (And yes, I realize it's not a style of music people tend to listen to. Officially they are classified as 'Synth-pop, Dark Wave, or Gothic Rock' depending on which songs you listen to.

My name has been Jaggy and I write video game articles and reviews on www.chalgyr.com. I can be found on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
 
Have a great December and I'll see you next time

Good morning, Readers!

So... we're all exhausted and a little bit hungover today, right?

Can we all just agree to leave each other alone today?  Cool?  Cool.

Ciao!

P.S. - I hope you got everything you wanted from Santa this holidays, and that gathering in large numbers with large numbers of people wasn't too stressful.  Now, let's go back to bed and sleep the holidays off, m'kay?