Friday, September 16, 2011

Keeping it real

By Julie

I’ve been losing weight slowly over the last 18 months or so, figuring that’s the best way to do it and keep it off. It’s working so far, but I got into a slump over the summer and that number just kept going up and down two or three pounds, over and over. I finally climbed back on the wagon a few weeks ago with the help of an iPhone app called Lose It! recommended by my wonderful foster daughter, who is grown now with kids of her own and baby weight she’s trying to lose.

The weight is now steadily coming off again, just like it’s supposed to. And who knew? It really is about calories. Counting fat grams and exercising like a madwoman can’t hurt, and are certainly good for my heart and health in general, but the weight loss is all about the calories in the end.

This morning, I got on the scale, and as usual, the number was one thing the first time, and another the second—the second being higher. Of course, I got on and off several times, hoping it would be the lower number again, but it stuck. Lose It! lets you enter your daily weight whenever you want to, and I thought about putting the lower number. After all, it came up first, right? But in the interest of keeping it real, I’m entering the number that stuck—even if the first one sounded good.

We try hard here at What Women Write to keep it real, too. We do our best to approach authors we feel confident about when considering interviews—ones we believe we’ll enjoy reading and want to recommend to our readers. Ever so rarely, it gets awkward, but 99.99% of the time, when we do our homework, it turns out well. I believe we’ve compiled a pretty remarkable archive of helpful, interesting interviews about authors and their books.

On a similar note, we were going to run a contest on the blog today, as we have in the past, for a prize pack offered in conjunction with a new movie release. Several of us attended a screening of the movie and decided in the end, it really wasn’t for our audience given much gratuitous violence, most especially one particular act of violence to a woman.

So, in the interest of keeping it real and being faithful to our audience and our personal convictions, we’re not going to offer the giveaway.

I worried a bit about the reaction of the promoter, as we really do enjoy these screenings that often relate to writing in some vein. I sent a note with my honest reaction and said we hoped the promoter would keep us in mind for future screenings and giveaways regardless. I was so pleased to receive a reply thanking me for my honesty and assuring no offense was taken.

Doesn’t it seem like life often works like that? Not always, but as a rule, if you keep it real, things work out well in the long run.

If I don’t fool myself about my weight, I’m going to slowly and steadily get to that number I want to see before I go get those official author photos I hope to need one day soon!

And if we don’t fool ourselves about what we like just for the sake of giving away a prize, our readers here will keep trusting us to deliver information about the stories we believe in.

Happy weekend, readers. Keep it real!

6 comments:

  1. Good for you, Julie. Every time we give in because we're afraid of one thing or another, we all lose. I have plenty of violence against women in my books, but not gratuitous--it's there to illustrate the way it really is. I won't write fairy tales any more. Poor women--without power--mostly live in a hell of want and need and exploitation. Wealthy women have often sold their souls for comfort. And there's plenty left to go around for middle class women--lower wages, poor health care, second class attention from a lot of publishers. If we all stop pretending and look at the world the way it is, we can change things--just as our mothers and grandmothers did in their time.

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  2. I agree, Elizabeth. I have no problem with movies or books with violence against people as long as it moves the story forward in an appropriate way. Sometimes it just doesn't. When it feels like it's just for entertainment value, it crosses way over the line for me.

    Thanks for stopping by the blog! Your books look interesting!

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  3. "...if you keep it real, things work out well in the long run." Just think about all the real situations in the Bible. King David kills Uriah the husband of Bathsheba by putting him on the front lines of battle...so that he can get her in bed...but David pays for it in the end! So many stories like this in "real life!" I think that's why so many other writers base much of what they have published on the Bible and Biblical themes. Things really worked out for that Author, don't you think? He "moves the story forward in anppropriate way." And, how many books has He sold? Quite a few, I'd say.

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  4. Julie, I loved this post but it didn't take me by surprise at all. For as long as I've known you, you've 'kept it real' and I'd expect nothing less. BTW, I do that step-on-step-off the scale dance too. Who am I kidding? It's just a number that only I see. :)

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  5. Dad, you are correct! I'm proud of you for managing to post a comment ... even if your name came up as a 500 digit number. ;-) Thank you for checking in on the blog!

    Pamela, thank you. Isn't it hilarious about the scale? I even see my husband do it and crack up.

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  6. Great post, Julie. At times it's challenging to 'keep it real', but so worth going for. You've proven that.

    LOL. I bet most of us do that step-on-step-off the scale dance.

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