The great thing about attending RWA’s national conference is the time spent with people who get you: women who write, who know the excitement and terror of putting stories on the page and hoping the effort results in happy readers. The bad thing about RWA national conference? The food. Not the quality–it’s usually fantastic–but the quantity. The restaurants. The cocktails celebrating new opportunities. The chocolate. And more chocolate. Post-conference euphoria (I’m finishing the WIP! I’m submitting the book!) deflates in the face of Good God, is that the number on my scale?

Which is exactly what happened to moi a couple of days ago. Yeesh. Talk about a scary number–and it’s not like I didn’t suspect it would happen. I’ve been in la-la-la-I’m-not-listening mode when it comes to my weight for a while. It’s easy to ignore yourself when then world is full of other women who are worse off than you are, so to speak. But excusing yourself that way is just that: excuse. At this point, I really don’t give a flying you-know-what about how I look in a bikini, but I sure would like plenty of years left to decide whether or not to buy one.

And then there’s the writing part, which in some ways is even more painful than the number on the scale. Dream Agent is endlessly patient with me. Endlessly. As she very correctly pointed out, I am great with ideas. Follow through? Not so much.

So now I have homework on two fronts. First, I need to work on my work. Those ideas need to get on paper, even if they don’t come out perfectly. The evil perfectionist who lives in my head keeps expecting works to leap out on the page like the Goddess Athena from Zeus’s brow, complete with breastplate, helmet, and owl on her shoulder, even when I know (and even enjoy) the much messier revision process. And if they aren’t perfect, well, what’s the use in springing? Ugh. So, as Anne Lamott puts it, shitty first drafts. After that, I can clean them up and send them to the ball.

Next up, work on the butt. Not just the one that needs to get in gear, but the one that needs to get off of the sofa and get moving. I spend too much time sitting. School starting up again will help, especially since my temporary room is on the second floor. Stairs! Stairs are good! I also need to spend more time walking between here and there instead of parking it in front of a computer screen. Maybe I should buy myself a hideous pair of those Sketchers GoWalk shoes that Bubbles loves and keep them in my desk drawer. However it happens, more movement, less stasis; better food, fewer guilty snacks.

I have two great assets: a brain and a body. It’s high time I got both of them in gear.