Guest – Kalayna Price BIC—good for the book, bad for the waist

From Debra: Top Downers! Help me give a rousing welcome to a fabulous new urban fantasy author, Kalayna Price (K-lay-nah). The second in her Haven series, TWICE DEAD is out this month and her new series from Ace/Roc will be out this October.

Kalayna Price's debut novel, ONCE BITTEN, earned rave reviews and reached #1 on Amazon.com's "Fantasy Bestseller List." TWICE DEAD returns readers to a dark, seductive world where magic rules and ancient loyalties collide with modern challenges.

You are not going to believe what this writer does to stay in shape! There are moving pictures. Just you wait.

As any author will likely tell you, novels are written one word at a time. To go from just one word to one hundred thousand words, a serious application of BIC (Butt In Chair) is needed. While BIC gets a novel written, it does lead writers (or at least me) to be rather sedentary. Compound this with a tendency to eat (not so healthy) meals while perched in front of my computer (what, no, —of course— that isn't ketchup on my keyboard) and not only is the novel expanding, but so is the waistline.

Now, I can't speak for anyone else, but the prospect of leaving the computer to go exercise isn't appealing. There is always a looming deadline I need to stay ahead of, emails to answer, blogs to write, or something—anything—that will keep me in front of the keyboard. Okay, I admit it. I just don't like exercising. I own the obligatory exercise machine (don't we all have one we were—sure—we would use, but now resides in some dark corner of the house? Mine's a glider.) but it has such a thick layer of dust on it, I'm sure going near it would cause an asthma attack. I even bought a gym membership once—my checkbook was the only one to get a workout.

But, whether I like exercise or not, it is important. I know that. Not only does exercise keep the waistline in check, movement gets blood flowing to important places, like the brain—which is a good thing when writing a book.

So what is an exercise-hating writer to do? Well, last year I lucked out and discovered a form of "exercise" I actually enjoy: Hoop Dance.

My introduction to hoop dance started around this time last year, and I admit, I wasn't sold on the idea at first. It's rather underground, and (at that time) there were no local hoopers in my area. But my brother saw a hooper at Dragon*Con 2008 and he became obsessed. He made hoops for family and several of our friends and coerced everyone he could into giving it a try. I was reluctant to say the least, but meeting up to hoop was a nice social break, if nothing else, and I quickly learned it was a great work out too. Then we began learning tricks, and I started to really have fun. Oh yeah, and when I mentioned it was a good workout? I recently found out hooping burns approximately 150 calories per 10 minutes of activity (compare that to 180 p/10 mins of running) so yes, good work out indeed.

Fun, social, and good for me? I finally found an exercise I can get into. Now I just have to make sure it doesn't interrupt my writing!

Kalayna Price is the urban fantasy author of the Haven series and of the upcoming Alex Craft novels. She draws ideas from the world around her, her studies into ancient mythologies, and her readings of classic folklore. Her stories contain not only the mystical elements of fantasy, but also a dash of romance, a bit of gritty horror, some humor, and a large serving of mystery. To find out more, please visit her at www.kalayna.com.