Realms of the Raven - Erotic Romance Author Maura Anderson

(Cross Posted from the Witchy Chick’s Blog)

You know - writing is a very sedentary job. I know - DUH, how could I have missed that all along? I knew it intellectually but somehow I was just lazy and wasn’t interested in doing anything about it. Until now, that is.

My day job happens to be another sedentary job - I’m a software test engineer at a major software company and that eats up more than 50 hours a week. Then I come home, gulp something down for dinner, play with my cats and my youngest son and then try to write and edit.

I’m just back from Fort Benning, GA, where my oldest son had his Turning Blue and Graduation ceremonies from Army training. He’s now an Army Infantry Rifleman. I was so proud and the changes in him are huge. He’d overcome a lot to make it through and was in great shape, very energized and confident. He’d lost a bunch of weight in BCT and AIT and was in better shape than he’d ever been in his life.

At one point during our visit, he jokingly asked Mr. Maura and myself if we wanted to run a mile or two with him and that hit me like a brick. I’d be lucky right now to run twenty feet without dying. I used to run and really enjoyed it but that was more than twenty years ago. Now I had trouble making time for anything, let alone losing weight and getting into shape.

I did a lot of thinking for the next few days and came to a conclusion. I need to MAKE some time for me or I’ll be in worse trouble than I’m already in. I want Son#1 to be as proud of me as I am of him and right now I’m not proud of how I look. If he could turn from a couch potato into a strong Soldier, I could work at my own fitness!

So I have set myself a goal. By the time my son gets leave after his deployment, I want to be in shape to be able to take that run with him.That should be 14 months or so-subject to change, of course. The more I thought about it, the more important it came to me.

I stepped back and took a look at where I was spending time and made some cuts. If something didn’t feed my writing, family or health goals, I cut it way back or cut it out entirely. Because both my day job and writing is so sedentary, I have to make a conscious effort to improve my health. An unfortunate part of the writing life is that it’s way too easy to become inwardly focused and caught up in the exercise of the mind, while neglecting the body. But they are intertwined - it’s time to work at health now too.