I heard officially from Editor Paul Genesse that my third story, “Wild Card,” will appear in volume 4 of the Crimson Pact series, which will feature a story from my friend Leigh Dragoon, her first appearance in the CP. (Yay!)

I also got a sneak peek at volume 3 (offering to help proofread is a great way to do that), and there are some very fun stories in there as well, including a horror retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale that I enjoyed quite a bit, “The Scarlet Cloak” by Karen Bovenmyer, and a story by Lucy Curtis, “Shen Lhamo’s Daughter,” set in ancient Tibet during the time when Buddhism was first making inroads and people hadn’t quite let go of their traditional beliefs yet–but no matter what you believe, the demons can still kill you if you aren’t careful!

Volume 3 also has a very cool cover:

The Crimson Pact Volume 3, edited by Paul Genesse

Watch the Crimson Pact site and Paul’s blog for news about both upcoming volumes; v.3 should be out in e-book format within a couple of weeks, and v.4 is slated for a May release.

This is what you see when you upload stats into the included software. The smiley faces are the best.

After reading an article about this study,* which showed how much exercise (or lack thereof) can affect the body’s ability to regulate and use blood sugar, I was inspired to buy a shiny new pedometer. The authors of the study used them (and an armband device) to measure the physical activity of the people in their study, and reported that activity mostly in terms of steps per day.

I wanted to increase my own activity level, and walking seemed like a good way to do it, because it has the virtue of simplicity, both in terms of measurement and execution. Have I moved around enough today? Check the pedometer (measurement). If the number is less than my daily goal for steps, get up and move around (execution). Now that I’m measuring my steps, I’ve walked to work every day, walked to do some errands that I would very likely have driven to before, and am generally moving around a lot more.

Contrast that with previous efforts to get in shape: I vowed to get to the gym to exercise at least three times a week, but it was easy to put off; there was no device reminding me that I had been a couch potato that day and could use some physical movement.

How does this fit into the writing life? I tend to associate going to the gym with time spent away from writing (so in competition with it). On the other hand, if I’m stuck in my writing, I’ll frequently go for a walk around the block, or at least pace around the house, because the bilateral movement seems to help shake things loose in my brain, get new ideas flowing, and help me develop new solutions to problems I’m struggling with. In that not-entirely-rational framework, more time at the gym = less writing, but more time walking = better writing, and probably more writing (because less time being stuck).

So measuring minutes spent at the gym didn’t work for me nearly as well as measuring steps taken–at least so far. This highlights the importance of measuring the right things. David Kammler’s essay, “The Well-Intentioned Commissar,” is a great demonstration of that concept; each time the Commissar changes the metrics of success, one of his directors finds a way to subvert it, resulting in great numbers in terms of the metric but poor performance on a practical level. In my gym example, it would be as if I logged 90 minutes at the gym, but 60 of those minutes were spent changing, showering, waiting to use my favorite machine, etc.–I’d have to modify my metric to “time spent actually exercising at a specific level of intensity.”

Like metrics for health, metrics for “writing productivity” are deucedly difficult to get right. For drafting, the number of words a day or number of scenes written might be the right metrics; for editing, the number of pages edited a day could work, and for pre-writing? Maybe the amount of time spent in the chair, thinking/noodling/journaling/outlining the project? Writing is also a notoriously nonlinear process for many of us, with highly variable output.

What are the writing metrics that work for you?

* Mikus CR, Oberlin DJ, Libla JL, Taylor AM, Booth FW, Thyfault JP. Lowering physical activity impairs glycemic control in healthy volunteers. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2012 Feb;44(2):225-31. PubMed PMID: 21716152.

Editor Paul Genesse tells me that there will be not only a Crimson Pact Vol. 3 but also a Vol. 4! I have a story under consideration (“Wild Card”) and will keep y’all posted; it’s a direct sequel to “Hidden Collection” in Vol. 1 and “Dark Archive” in Vol. 2.

Another little perk of attending ALA Midwinter is the presence of several publishers (thought I’m told not as many as attend the ALA annual conference in June) whose sole purpose is to throw large numbers of advanced reader copies (ARC’s) of the books, about which they are hoping to create some readerly buzz,  at all the librarians in attendance. Having just spent a few weeks winnowing down my book collection (more on that in a future post), I felt like a semi-recovered addict thrown back into the opium den. Ahem. But I got some cool books.

Chief among those is the new young adult book by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities, NOT to be confused with The Drowning City (Necromancer Chronicles, Bk 1) by Amanda Downum or Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel by Mike Mignola (of Hellboy fame) and Christopher Golden, for which I also got an ARC, but I haven’t read it yet.

I have read Paolo Bacigalupi’s book, and it’s my favorite of his so far (I’ve read his Pump Six collection, The Windup Girl, and Ship Breaker), with particularly strong storytelling. It’s a near-future dystopian young adult novel in which climate change has caused massive changes in the former United States, parts of which have devolved into permanent civil war, terrorized by roving gangs of child soldiers. It’s a terrible world, made all the more terrible with the knowledge that what Bacigalupi describes in this fictional world is actually happening, now, in the real world. The locals’ attitudes about meddling foreign government and the experiences of the main character, Mahlia, who is the abandoned daughter of a foreign peacekeeping soldier and local woman are reminiscent of the children of American G.I.’s in Vietnam (derisively called “children of the dust”).

There’s also a really sophisticated treatment of nonviolence in the book, as Mahlia decides what she is willing to do to survive, and how far she is willing to go to try to save her friend, Mouse, aided by Tool, an half-man augmented with the DNA of half a dozen predators to turn him into the perfect killing machine, who nevertheless shows more humanity at times than the full humans around him.

In short, highly recommended. The book isn’t available until April/May, unfortunately, and if I really had my ARC act together I’d wait until closer to the release date, but the last time I did that I wound up forgetting and then never posting a review (for Ready Player One, which was also a good read), and that made me feel bad. So here ya go…