two stories

Glorifying Terrorism, the anthology of political SF/F assembled in protest of a dumb British law, is officially out and about in the world as of today. It's already netted a mention on Boing Boing, which constitutes some pretty awesome publicity. You can order it from the webpage above, though I'll admit it's on the expensive side if you're an American like me (which would be most of the readers of this journal, I imagine). But my story "Execution Morning" is in it, and you want to read that, right?

It remains to be seen whether any of the UK authors involved in the anthology end up being prosecuted for it. They could be, in theory; that's the point of the antho.

In much less politically provocative news, "A Thousand Souls" is live at Aberrant Dreams. You can read that one for free.

Man, this selling and publishing of stories is an addictive thing, ne? It's only been a few days since my last sale, and already I'm jonesing for another. ^_^

In which the Swan admits she has no upper body strength

See that icon? Yeah, I'm nowhere near that.

These numbers will be a little embarrassing, but I want to record for posterity what I'm lifting here at the start of my exercise regimen, on the principle that I can then feel proud when I look back and see how far I've come. (In theory.) So here is what I'm doing for strength training right now.

• Bench press: 2 x 12-15, 12 lbs. (It was disappointing to discover that the bar alone on the normal bench is heavier than I feel capable of. Not sure how much that thing weighs. Fortuantely, they have these nice, padded weight bars in a variety of numbers. I'll start with those and work my way up.)
  
• Shoulder press: 2 x 15, 12 lbs. (See above about the weight bar. I quite like those things.)
  
• Row: 2 x 15, 5 lbs. (Nothing like a single-digit number to make you feel pathetically weak, but since I do the exercises in this order, by the time I get this far, those muscles are already tired.)
  
• Lat pulldown: 2 x 15, 30 lbs. (A higher weight, at last! And I'm going to add to this one the next time I do it; it isn't tiring me much at all, at the current weight.)
  
• Back hyperextensions: 2 x 12, no weight. (Today's addition to the regimen. I really need to strengthen my lower back more.)
  
• Crunches: 2 x 15. (God, I hate crunches.)
  

So there you have it. I'm not doing lower-body stuff as yet; leg muscle has never been a problem for me, and my cardio work alone will give me some of that. I think I may add "pullups" on the lat machine, though, as a step toward doing proper pullups, since those always look cool.

I don't have any particular goals regarding what I want these numbers to be in six months; I don't have enough experience with weights to know what's reasonable to aim for. But I'll be keeping an eye on the stats, and reporting back in when I feel like I've made progress.