Helicopter Flights & a #ROW80 Update!

Flying the unfriendly skies...

A super-busy week- I've been doing lots of writing - mainly recommendations for Navy Commendation Medals (but I did ghost-write a Bronze Star on behalf of the Commanding General - good times!) Also, editing and writing a variety of letters in an attempt to get my Marines Combat Meritorious Promotions, etc...

It hasn't left a lot of time for other things, but I did go for a ride on a CH-53 helicopter out over the Helmand River Valley to watch one of my Marines re-enlist at 3000 feet - what a great way to end the day!

Of course, the day won't really be over until I post this note, after which time I can grab my gear and go catch a few hours of sleep, but here goes:

WRITING
- Wrote a smidgen of the Perfidious Mister Wickham…

- Posted Chapter 30 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham…

- Wrote a few more pages of Stephen Pressfield’s “The Warrior Ethos”: One Marine Officer’s Critique and Counterpoint… Did some editing and created the cover art... Slowly getting there!

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 17th issue of the Squadron newsletter – 9 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 10 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat still at 13% - gotta work on diet, abs and cardio to get down to 12%...

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, now looking for a C-130 ride to Bagram to test out next month...

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals! How did you do with yours?

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and is all set for another productive week!

A la prochaine!

Edward

#ROW80 Update from a #Warzone!

Everyone smile for the camera! 
Oh, wait, Marines don't smile...

A quiet week in some ways here, a very busy one in others!

Writing awards and orders, finishing up one International Relations class, and preparing to teach another, and taking a 3-day-a-week French class via online video-linked classroom (thanks, Special Operations Command!) so as is often the case, I’m struggling to make time to write, let alone publish or promote!

That said, I have gotten a little bit more done on Steven Pressfield’s “The Warrior Ethos”: One Marine Officer’s Critique & Counterpoint. Shooting for publication before the end of the month, so lots to do with that! And I have to finish the final proofs for my interview in Laurence Raw and Robert G. Dryden’s upcoming book Global Jane Austen: Pleasure, Passion, and Possessiveness in the Jane Austen Community.

So, I trust you’ll pardon the very brief goals update:

WRITING

- Posted Chapter 29 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham…

- Wrote 1500 words on my critique of Pressfield’s The Warrior Ethos.

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 16th issue of the Squadron newsletter – Mother’s Day edition!

FITNESS
- Added 10 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat down to 13.4% - next stop, 12%

- Scored 284 (out of 300) on my latest Physical Fitness Test!

LANGUAGE
- Got in 5 solid hours of French study this week, 4 of those in a class taught all in French… Je suis un bien eleve!

NETWORKING
- Found a couple of people interested in my Core Group! Still looking for more, though – anyone joins will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals! How did you do with yours?

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and is all set for another productive week!

A la prochaine! 
Edward

Busy Week in Afghanistan... a #ROW80 Update!



Sometimes it gets noisy here...

Well, the Spring Fighting Season has arrived, so this has been a very busy week.

Had to fill in for the Commanding Officer for a few days, and had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from an old friend who was touring Afghanistan with a General – on top of that, I’m preparing to shepherd my International Relations class through their final exam, so not a lot of time left for writing, publishing, or promoting, I’m afraid!

I ran a few free days on KDP Select for Happily Ever After and the German translation, Und Wenn Sie Nicht Gestorben Sind, giving away about two hundred copies that will, with a bit of luck, result in a few more reviews and some sales of my other stories… If anyone reads German and would be interested in a free reviewer's copy, let me know!

A quick review of my goals from the start of ROW80 reveals that I’m doing fine with the fitness, language study, and am actually ahead on The Perfidious Mister Wickham project, but am falling behind on the writing and publication of my stock in trade, short stories. I will make an effort to get back into the saddle on short stories this coming week – we shall see if that works!

So, here’s a brief goals update:

WRITING

- Posted Chapter 28 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham… A wedding in St. Clements!

- Finished and sent in to the editor my review of Torture and State Violence in the United States for the Air Force Research Institute.

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 15th issue of the Squadron newsletter – 11 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 10 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat down to 14% - eating really healthy, not as much cardio this week as I’d like, but shooting for 13% next week!

- Did 20 pull-ups (max score!) and feeling good for an upcoming Physical Fitness test next Saturday

LANGUAGE
- Only a few solid hours of French study this week… Je ne pas bien eleve!

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com...

So, that’s it for my goals! How did you do with yours?

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and is all set for another productive week!

A bientot!

Edward

Windy Sunday #ROW80 Update from Afghanistan!

My Weekly Squadron Publishing Project

Still waiting for the kick-off of the Spring Fighting Season, but am making the most of the relative quiet time.

My days still start with a long run at 5:30 am, do not end until 11:00 pm, and are filled with a variety of work-related activities, in amongst which I squeeze in some writing, studying, and extra physical training. 

I have finished my critique of The Warrior Ethos and am now engaged in writing the second half of this book – a counterpoint suggesting a more suitable philosophy for the modern warrior. I look forward to being done with the writing in a few more days, and then being able to turn to editing and publishing around the second week of May.

Until that’s done, I don’t expect to do any of my planned work on Learning Indonesian or the Parasol Books imprint to get done, but will be getting back to work on those as soon as my critique & counterpoint of Pressfield’s book is published. Looking back at my original goals post, I notice that I’m a bit behind on the short-story writing and publishing that I’m supposed to be doing – but there are only so many hours in the day!

So, here’s a brief goals update:

WRITING
- Wrote 3 chapters of the Perfidious Mister Wickham…

- Posted Chapter 27 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham… Darcy arrives!

- Wrote 8 more pages of Stephen Pressfield’s “The Warrior Ethos”: One Marine Officer’s Critique and Counterpoint…

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 14th issue of the Squadron newsletter – 9 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 15 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat back to 15% - the rollercoaster is headed down again! Hopefully it stays pointed in that direction and I can report 14% next week!

- Did 19 pull-ups (one away from the max score) in a contest, and ran a 23 minute 3-mile race. Getting stronger & faster every day!

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, donc,  je deviens plus mieux tout jour! (Ou si j’espere!)

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals! How did you do with yours?

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and is all set for another productive week!

A la prochaine!

Edward

Rainy Sunday #ROW80 Update from Afghanistan

The weather forecast here calls for “lightning, hail, torrential rain, and localized flooding. Severe downbursts and sudden wind shifts with heavy dust fronts may exist in the vicinity of thunderstorms.”

Ahh, the joys of life in the Afghan desert. But as long as rain and hail are the only things falling from the sky, I’m quite content here! Another busy week, and again, I’ve missed the Wednesday update, but shall endeavor to make up for it here.

The Wi-Fi provided by the base has been almost non-functioning this week, but my Marines are working to put up a satellite connection that will be under our control, and not only much more reliable, but also located closer to where we spend most of our time. Once that’s up and running, I should be able to do a better job of social networking – in the meantime, what little free time I have is devoted to writing.

My military duties keep me quite busy, but I’ve been managing to eat healthy, drink my 3 liters of water per day, and logged 9 miles of running this week. I also read a few rather interesting books – Steven Pressfield’s The Warrior Ethos and Joshua Ramos’ The Age of the Unthinkable. In fact, my reading led directly to another writing project – I was so annoyed by the questionable logic and conclusions found in Pressfield’s book that I felt obliged to write a book-length critique and counterpoint – so the majority of my non-fiction writing this week has gone into that endeavour, which has yielded 16,000 words so far, and encouraged literary expeditions into the works of Herodotus and the epic Indian saga the Bhagavad-Gita.

For that reason, no progress to report on Learning Indonesian or the Parasol Books imprint, but I did manage to get a little networking done! Final edits on the book review for the Air Force Research Institute got moved to the back burner as well, but hopefully I’ll knock those out next week.

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham…
- Wrote 16,000 words of Stephen Pressfield’s “The Warrior Ethos”: One Marine Officer’s Critique and Counterpoint…

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 13th issue of the Squadron newsletter – 9 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press… - Bodyfat back to 16% - this is a bit annoying, but I’ll continue once-a-week measurements and see what happens…

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, mais, je suis encore un idiote!

NETWORKING
- Visited my friend Nicole Basaraba’s new webpage – it’s lovely, do check it out!
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals! How did you do with yours? I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and is all set for another productive week!

Bonne chance!
Edward   

Another #ROW80 Check-in from the Desert!

One of the several types of
aircraft we support here...

So, my Wednesday check-ins are proving challenging, which is perhaps a good reason to make more of an effort at doing them… 

My “battle-rhythm” here has my workload heavily weighted to Monday-Friday (even though we work 7 days a week, at least 12 hours a day…) But the two classes I teach, the squadron newsletter which I edit, and most of my other recurring tasks occur earlier in the week, so this week when Wednesday came around, I found I had very little to report…

By the end of the week, though, I’d paid the flood insurance on one of my houses, and goten a little information on another investment property that I’m interested in… I also had run 13 miles, including a 5K race which I finished in exactly 24 minutes (thus setting a baseline for future improvement!) I accomplished 5 solid workouts, and have been eating very healthy and drinking 3 liters of water a day…

Will work on getting better at spreading my various tasks throughout the week… C’est la vie!

I fell a bit short on a few of my target goals – didn’t get a chapter of the Learning Indonesian book written, but did get some other non-goal writing done… Also didn’t make any forward progress on the Parasol Books imprint, or do much in the way of networking, but overall, another generally successful week in most goal-specific areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - in which Wickham absconds to London with Lydia in tow!
- Completed most of a professional book review for the Air Force Research Institute… Will send it off next week…

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 11th issue of our Squadron newsletter – 6 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat down by 1 percent – now at 15 percent… The goal is 9 percent!

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, et ecrire un petit letre pour ma niece en Francais!

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Another quiet week in Afghanistan – no rockets, no bombs, just a big windstorm and some heavy rain… So, no complaints!

I hope everyone has had a great week of writing, and I will try to do better about getting out and about and commenting on other people’s blogs…

Best regards!

Edward

Sunday Check-in from Camp Bastion...

Hmmm, you may be off to a rough start at ROW80 when you totally miss the first check-in, like I did on Wednesday! But, in my defense, I only missed it because I was so busy accomplishing all my weekly goals…

And it was an incentive for me to get my Sunday check-in done early, so here goes! A successful week in most areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - where we discover how Lydia and Wickham became intimately entangled…
- Wrote Chapter 2 of my Learning Indonesian book… The Indonesian alphabet!
- Did the last bit of research needed to finish up Ho B-52 .

PUBLISHING
- Did a little research into a logo and domain registration for the Parasol Books imprint.
- Brainstormed marketing ideas for the short story collection.

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press, which brought me up to 195 lbs, or 1.2 times my own bodyweight.
- Bodyfat actually went up this week, but I’m not worried, because the test for it is notoriously finicky, and I’m confident my diet/workout routines will get me where I want to be.

LANGUAGE
- Knocked my goal of 5 hours of training out of the park! Finished off the last part of an 80-hour training syllabus, and started in on another course. Je comprend l’Francais a peu plus bien maintenant!

NETWORKING
- Looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Otherwise, life goes on in the desert… A quiet week, which is always good when you live in a warzone! I hope everyone is having a similarly productive start to their ROW, and I shall look forward to perusing the results as part of my effort to expand my social networks.

Best regards!
Edward