You Pierced What? Welcome to Mid-Life!

 JENN McKINLAY: Well, hello, mid-life crisis!

Nose stud! Scale of pain from 1-10 with 1 being none, I'd say it was a 2.

I was on the phone the other day, catching up with my former college roommate, a person who has known adult me for almost 40 years. We talked about what was happening in our lives and when I finished, she said, “So, you’re writing fantasy novels, running 5Ks (see photo below), and now you have a nose stud (see photo above). Overall, how do you feel your mid-life crisis is going?”

Me and H2 - Rock and Roll 5K - it was 44 degrees!!!

I laughed and said, “This from a woman who is selling her house and traveling the country in an RV for the next few years to find her perfect retirement location?” She also laughed as we acknowledged we were both managing our middle years in different and surprising ways. (I have always loathed running and she never planned to leave CT).

Side note: neither of us have bought a sports car or traded in our husbands for a younger model. LOL.

My question to you, Reds, is what did your middle-age years look like, what did you do, or plan to do to embrace the next chapter?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Middle years….When was that, again? Remind me?  (Wait, I just re-read your opening paragraph. You have a nose stud? Did I know that?)  Anyway, my middle years are long gone, and I got through them with a strange but inadvertent combination of ignoring them and embracing them. I’m not sure I ever thought of “mid-life crisis.”  I was unmarried and unattached between the ages of 21 and 40, and happily so.  Married at 40, working 24/7 and truly loving it. There was nothing else I wanted to do, and nowhere else I wanted to be. I just wanted to be better at what I was already dong.  Then, after a bit of turmoil,  married Jonathan when I was 46. 

Hmm. I may be the ONLY person, come to think of it, who traded in her husband for an OLDER model. :-) 

So was that before or after mid-life?

I loved my mid-years, and valued them. I’m better now than ever, but I see it as so much of a process.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: How did I not know about the nose stud, either? Is this since the last time we zoomed? I say, “good for you,” and “ouch!”

Middle years? Oh, I did the classic. Wrote a novel. Got a divorce. (For the first time in my life I had my own money! Oh, it was so incredibly liberating!) Married slightly younger model. Bought a sports car. Started making trips to England by myself. (Can you shout “liberating!!!)

The writing, the husband, and the solo trips have stuck. The red sports car, not, alas. I had to come to grips with reality when the warranty ran out. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Mine was a gradual shift. (I’ve always had a keep-one-foot-on-the-dock-and-one-on-the-boat approach to change.) 

The big thing was that I started to write fiction. I’d started a freelance writing business which gave me the flexibility to write stuff that, for quite a long time, I did not get paid for. Meanwhile my daughters were flying the coop and my Jerry was our anchor. I was also letting my hair go gray and Jerry and I were ticking travel destinations off our bucket list. And buying another new white Honda Civic every so often to replace a 14-year-old one. I’m not a big risk taker. 

RHYS BOWEN: It’s funny that my next stand-alone, MRS ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, has the theme of midlife crisis. Dumped by her husband after being the model wife she takes off for the south of France and forges a whole new life there. (Maybe a bit of a living vicariously write?) Anyway my fifties were much better than my forties when husband was laid off and I had three kids in college. Last kid went to college. We traveled and I took the risk of switching from a reliable income writing YA books to writing what I like to read. The first Constable Evans novel got a teeny advance and a print run of 2500. I think it’s worked out okay. If I hadn’t switched I’d never have made all these wonderful friends and been part of this amazing community. 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I got my @$$ tattooed when I turned 36, does that count? Maybe I had an early start on the midlife "say yes to changes" thing, because that's around the time I started to write. 

 

In some ways, I agree with Rhys: my fifties were easier at times than my forties (I had a baby at 39, after all!) And my sixties (so far) are even better. I feel freer, more myself, and more willing to take risks than I was when I was younger. I can't see going in for a piercing, but I could definitely sign up for another tattoo... 

LUCY BURDETTE: whenever someone asks how I started writing, how I switched careers from clinical psychology to mystery writer, I say it was my midlife crisis. I don’t know how else to describe it that would make sense. It certainly wasn’t planned, but I’ve never taken the straight route to anything. The middle years were filled with angst, so I am really enjoying being settled with John and having lots of adventures writing and otherwise along the way.

JENN: In reading these answers, I am reminded of why I absolutely adore the Reds. We're all so different and so uniquely ourselves and there's no judgement just a lot of support. And the nose stud happened in December. Not planned - a totally spur of the moment - why not? - at the mall. LOL.

Your turn readers! What did/does/will mid-life look for you?

What I Learned While Running a 5K by Jenn McKinlay

 

JENN McKINLAY: Hooligan 2 and I have been talking about running a 5K for over a year. Why so long? Well, that's because I hate running with the heat of a thousand suns. 

This is not an exaggeration. When I played basketball in high school and the coach made us run wind sprints, I was certain I would DIE (it was my dramatic years). Same with college rugby - the running absolutely did me in. I lasted one season. Volleyball has always been my sport because the running is limited to very short sprints and I have a solid serve. 

Thus, the contemplating of the 5K for 365+ days. Then in August, H2 and I read that the AZ Diamondbacks were having a 5K race against cancer. We decided it was a worthy cause and, surely, by the end of September the weather would be cooler. 

That was lesson one. The weather does not care about you or your pesky ambitions. It was 89 degrees when we started the race and 93 when we finished (see sweat soaked photo above). Ugh!

As the racers assembled outside the ballpark in downtown Phoenix, I found myself getting nervous. Why? I wasn't competing with anyone but myself. When I confessed to H2 how I was feeling, he said, "Me, too. I expect it's because we've never done this before." That seemed reasonable. I'm at an age where I've had a wide variety of experiences and things that are out of my comfort zone don't come along all that often. It was another lesson - a reminder to challenge myself every now and then, be nervous, do it anyway.

Thankfully, there were plenty of shenanigans with the Diamondback mascot Baxter and the enormous costumed players to distract us from our pre-race anxiety. 

Jenn and "Randy Johnson"

Finally, the starting ceremony commenced and H2 and I took our places with our two-thousand fellow participants. In short order, the horn sounded and we were off. H2 and I had previously agreed that we needed to run our own races and would meet up at the finish line at the end. With my blessing, he left me in the dust. 

The first mile wasn't bad. I'd been running every day for the past month, so my legs burned, my heartbeat got faster, and my lungs started huffing as my body adjusted to the demands I was putting on it. And then, I felt it. That twinge in my right butt cheek that signaled my sciatica had come along for the race. Yep, another lesson! Some things you can't run away from - lol - so you'd better manage it. 

I downshifted into speed walking. The pack thinned and I found my people. As a group, we did a combo of speed walk-jog-speed walk. We hit the halfway point and the leaders of the race passed us on their way back. The woman beside me called them out. "First man!" A few seconds later "First woman!" And then "First Banana!" Yes, the dude in the banana costume was in the top ten...so he was a top banana! LOL!

I checked my time. I was on target. My goal was to finish in less than forty-five minutes. Ideally, I wanted to hit thirty-five, but I'd be happy with forty. Then the sun started creeping up higher in the sky, the breeze died, and it was HOT.

As mile marker two came into sight, the guy behind me said, "Only mile two? Son of a biscuit!" Except he didn't say biscuit. A laugh burst out of me because I was feeling the exact same way. I grabbed water from the wonderful volunteer who said, "Thank you guys for coming out and supporting the cause." Not gonna lie, I needed that reminder that this wasn't about me and my goals but rather about the people not able to just decide to run a 5K because they're busy battling for their lives against cancer. 

The final mile was a beast. I started to doubt everything about being 57 and running my first race. What had I been thinking? I was too old for this nonsense. Never mind that I had been smoked by at least three women in their seventies in the first mile. I continued on (it's not like you really have a choice at this point) but my sciatica was twinging hard. It wasn't pretty. 

When I could see the stadium, I perked up in a the end is nigh feeling (but in a good way) and made sure I had just enough gas in the tank to run over the finish line. I got a high five from Baxter, the MC called out my name, and a cheering dude handed me a medal. 

IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! 

H2 was waiting for me with a Gatorade and we grinned at each other like complete idiots as the endorphins (aka the feeling of joy that hell is over and we survived) flooded our systems. Seriously, you'd think we'd scaled Mt. Everest. We put on our medals and took goofy photos and chatted with our fellow racers. Everyone was buzzing from finishing the run.

It was in that moment that I got it. The whole running thing that had eluded me for years. It's the setting of a goal, the training to achieve the goal, and then accomplishing the goal. And if you can do some good for someone else all the better!

According to my timer, I came in at 40 min and 30 sec (YAY!) but I'm still awaiting the official results. Later, as H2 and I stuffed our faces at iHop with eggs, bacon, hash browns, and pancakes, we excitedly decided that we're signing up for the Rock n Roll Arizona 5K in January. With any luck, it won't be 89 degrees and my sciatica will stay home. LOL.

So, Reds and Readers, what goals have you set for yourselves that you achieved? If you're a runner, what words of wisdom can you share for my future endeavors? 

Fit Happens!

Jenn McKinlay: It’s been four years since I gave up my day job, which involved playing Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero with the teens and parachute jump and bubble time with the toddlers. Yes, I was a part-time children’s librarian and, boy howdy, did those kids keep me fit.

Now that I’m a full time writer, I have what is essentially a desk job. I am like the “time to make the donuts” guy, but it’s more like “time to make the pages” gal, but I don’t have a mustache or access to copious amounts of pastry. Darn it – on the pastry not the mustache.

I try to write ten pages a day, which is a lot of butt in chair time, especially when I spend seventy-five percent of that time with my fingers perched over the keyboard staring out the window waiting for the words to come. Some days it’s quite a long wait not unlike the back of the line at the DMV but without all the entertaining people watching.

So here I am, getting all the things my friends, who’ve been cubicle moles and desk jockeys for years, warned me about. There is some posterior spread happening, as well as a pooch over the waistband that is actually in the shape of a donut. Why can’t these things be considered attractive? 

My muscle mass since the early years of wrangling hooligans into baths, beds, cars, shopping carriages, swings, and my lap, has diminished considerably into a more spongy substance, which is sad because at my best, when they were both under three, I think I could have bench pressed a car.

A few months ago, I decided that I had to make more of a structured effort to work out. I’ve never belonged to a gym, and that staring out the window thing takes a lot of time, so I didn’t want to give up anymore by having to drive to a place to sweat in public. Why humiliate yourself in front of others, when you can do it at home in front of your pets?

Okay, first up, I got the thingy-- yes, technical name-- that was all the rage developed by some lady on Shark Tank. Seriously, this thing was next to every checkout counter from Walgreens to Ace Hardware, you couldn’t avoid it if you tried. I didn’t try. You’re supposed to stand on it and swivel back and forth like doing the twist only on the plastic thingy-- I know, enough with the technical terms already. Hub watched me tackle this beast and his observation was, as he yelled after me, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to leave the room on it.” It now lives under the TV console for future use at a yard sale.

I HATE YOU.

Next, I decided I needed arms like Michelle Obama, because that would totally distract from the flab that was my doopah. Push-ups were the way to go. But I wasn’t going to settle for regular pushups. Heck no! I bought these two swivelly handle dealies – yes, more jargon – to maximize my efforts. Uh huh. The hooligans came home and found me lying face down on the floor between the dealies. I didn’t have enough arm strength left to pick myself up. After they hefted me to my feet, I think they threw them out or hid them. I have not seen the dealies since, but in all honesty I haven’t looked that hard.

I HATE YOU MORE.

Finally, my latest purchase was the ginormous rubber band thing-a-ma-jig. I have since come to the conclusion that whoever invented this thing, hates their fellow man. Not just hates them, but wants to torture them, too. I watched a YouTube tutorial, convinced that this was the item for me. I studied the routine and then put on "Happy" by Pharrell Williams and busted out my moves. Halfway through the song, I felt like I was made of Jell-O. I lost my grip on my rubber band and it thwacked me upside the head. In short, it was not a "happy" workout.

I HATE YOU MOST OF ALL.

So, now I have a treadmill and am attempting the dreaded 4X4 intensity workout (four minutes of hardcore running four times with brisk walking wedged in between intervals). If you don't hear from me...assume it did me in!

How about you, Reds? Do you exercise? And if so, what are your preferred torture devices…er…accoutrements?

HALLIE EPHRON: I used to go to a fitness center and take a class twice a week. Loved it. But the my hip went wonky and I ended up in PT... so now I exercise alone. At home. In front of the TV. Exercise bike. Floor pad. It's all very sad.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I have to say I have aerobic danced until I got shin splints, and I ran until I blew out my knees. I loved stationary bike, but got over it.  I really tried Nordic track, but I am not coordinated enough. And then---I discovered walking. I am in love with walking. I have a wonderful treadmill, and I walk. I get to watch movies, and news, and episodes of Chopped. I walk outside, when the weather is even marginally bearable.  It's fabulous. And with my beloved FitBit, neurotic me gets constant approval.  I get ideas walking, and get to be off my phone, all good.  Who could ask for anything more? 
Well, I guess I could, I have zero upper body strength. It is embarrassing to try to put my suitcase up in the overhead. Any ideas?

LUCY BURDETTE: I consider it a necessary evil--do not want my bones to disintegrate as I get older. When in Key West, I go to a small local gym where my trainer, Leigh, cracks the whip twice a week--mostly weight training and balance. Unlike my hub, I would not do these things without an appointment! In CT, it's a pilates class. And I also choose walking, Hank. Tonka is a good motivater there, and I get a lot of good ideas while putting one paw in front of the other. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, you need to get some weight resistance training going - slender white women are far more prone to osteoporosis and other bone problems than anyone else. My mother, who's been a size six her entire life, has excellent cardiovascular health but has been struggling with finding a bone density medication that doesn't have nasty side effects. 

As for me, I've NEVER been a fan of exercise-qua-exercise. From my teens to my early thirties, I skied as much as I could every winter, and in my thirties I picked up running (usually while pushing a jogging stroller.) At the gym, I loved lifting weights, and I also enjoyed hiking and cross-country skiing. Unfortunately, my genetic heritage of arthritis caught up to me. By the time I was  fifty, my knees were in bad enough shape that all those sports were closed to me, and now I can't even walk for more than a mile without pain. (My doctor has recommended knee replacement surgery, which I will get just as soon as I'm in a position where I don't have to drive anywhere or do anything for three months.)

So I've switched to swimming at the Y, which I really like, despite the fact that I am a terrible swimmer. I'm like the little old lady driving 35 in a 50mph speed zone. It's embarrassing when I have to share a lane. I've been interested to hear about Lucy's experience with a trainer - there are trainers available at the Y, and I've been considering hiring one for a few sessions to get me back into weight work. I'd like to know how to strengthen the muscles around my bum knees while not, you know, injuring myself.

INGRID THOFT: I love exercise.  I do!  I love working up a good sweat in the weight room or on the stair climber (the thing that looks like a giant rolling staircase.)  I used to spin a lot and do Zumba, but my back issues put the brakes on those activities.  Now I lift and do the stair climber, elliptical, and hills on the treadmill.  I also love to walk outside when possible and hike when the weather improves.  Swimming is great, too, but preferably in the ocean.  Swimming laps bores me to tears.

I work out with a trainer, and I highly recommend it.  Even if you only have a few sessions, a good trainer will design a program so that you get the most out of your time at the gym.  Even though I love to exercise, I don't want to do it all day, and I love having a plan and getting it done.  I second Julia's suggestion about weight bearing exercise for slim, white ladies, and really, all ladies.  There are plenty of exercises that can be done using your own body weight (that's the sort of info a trainer can provide) that contribute to better bone density, which is a huge issue as we age.  Plus, then you can get your suitcase in the overhead yourself!

A friend of mine says that when he exercises it "feels like a sunny day in my head," even if it's pouring rain in Seattle.  I couldn't agree more!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm a walker, too. I've never been good at any sort of program, or exercise equipment. And I've had dogs for most of my adult life so walking is both a pleasure and a necessity. It's also great for generating chunks of scenes and dialogue and working out plot issues! My new insurance includes a free membership to LA Fitness but I really really doubt I will darken their doors. 

Although I have to say I've fallen off the wagon a bit this winter. There's just been one thing or another, and it's been unusually cold here (I know those of you from the Great North are laughing at me, but I'm a weather wimp.) So I really need to start getting out there every day!

(Does the constant lifting of two-year-old count as weight training?)

RHYS BOWEN: Absolutely, Debs. I developed huge muscles lifting grandkids in and out of the back seat of cars in their car seats! I have always been a hiker. I still love to hike with friends--it's therapy as well as exercise. John and I walk every day. I swim most days. I used to be a passionate tennis player, then a disk between my shoulder blades was damaged so no more tennis for me. Sob. My favorite form of exercise involves the ocean--which is hard in Phoenix, and in California where it's too cold. I love snorkeling and boogie boarding.

For the past two months I've been going to physical therapy twice a week for a problem knee/ankle. PT stands for physical torture. It's like a personal trainer, only worse. Three sets of twenty. Now with a band around your ankles. But I have to say it is working brilliantly and my knee is back to normal. My ankle still suffering from the torn ligament between the two. So standing on one foot and raising and lowering myself is still not fun.


I really believe that physical exercise clears the brain and lets me work better. 

JENN: I agree, Rhys, it does clear the head. I am very active. I'm just not very structured about it. I think you and Ingrid are onto something with the trainer!

What about you, Readers? What's your exercise jam?

A Chilling Challenge: a guest post by S.J. Bolton

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I have to confess, I thought I "discovered" S.J. Bolton. Last year, I picked up Now You See Me, the first mystery in her DC Lacey Flint series. I ripped through it and went looking for the next, Dead Scared. I was recommending the books to friends, patting myself on the back on being able to introduce people to this great unknown British author... until I found out she wasn't really that unknown. In fact, she's been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, the Theakston's Old Peculier prize for crime novel of the year, the International Thriller Writers' Best First Novel award and the Mary Higgins Clark award (four times in a row! Her thriller Awakening won that one.)

Okay, I wasn't the first to find out about Sharon Bolton. But - and here we get to today's theme - I wouldn't have discovered her if I hadn't been reading out of my comfort zone. Like a lot of us, I had fallen into the habit of picking up a narrow range of books. British police procedurals (excepting our own Deb Crombie's series) were not on the list. But last year, I challenged myself to dig into books that I normally wouldn't seek out. And you know what? It was a great experience. Here's S.J. (Sharon) Bolton to tell us about her pushing the envelope moments.

Photo: Modernista

On Mothers’ Day this year (10th March in the UK) I ran a five km race through ankle-deep mud. I scaled hills, fell down slopes, crawled through drainpipes, clambered over hay-bales and waded through waist-deep water. I didn’t cover myself in glory (I finished 4^th from last) nor did I behave with great dignity. ‘Feel free to give me a shove up the arse,’ I told the man who was coming up behind me in the pipe. ‘Can’t,’ he replied. ‘My shorts are coming down.’

I’m not a natural runner. But my son runs, and I’ve learned that the key to family cohesion can lie in common interests; even if this invariably pushes parents way beyond their comfort zones.

I run so that I can share something with my son. Physical fitness is a fringe benefit. Another is the emotional growth that comes from the willingness to embracing a new challenge.

Now, life lessons can often be applied to writing, I find. Writers who grow are those who stretch themselves. Not so long ago, I met another writer at a dinner. She described herself, several times, as an ‘unsuccessful writer.’ After a while I asked the obvious - what kind of writer she might consider to be successful? ‘Someone whose books are in shops, not just libraries,’ she replied. I was tempted to feel sorry for her. Until she went on to tell me that for the last twenty years she’d written and published two books a year. ‘Stop it, now!’ I wanted to yell at her. ‘Take a break, clear your head, and then WRITE SOMETHING DECENT!’

This was a writer, forever trapped in her comfort zone, forever doomed to be disappointed.

I will not be one of these, even though, ultimately, I may end up shooting myself in the foot. (I thought my publishers would dump me over my third book BLOOD HARVEST – three major re-writes before it was accepted.)

I didn’t want to be labeled a writer of English rural gothic so with my fourth book I went urban. I wanted to see if I could pull off a credible police procedural, so made all my main characters police officers. I wondered if I could write an engaging series character, so created Lacey Flint. It was a major change and not everyone liked it. A writer friend accused me of going over to the dark side, because of the book’s twin themes of sexual abuse and violence against women.

It’s hard, isn’t it? When you’re living the life you dreamed of, (that plenty of others still long for) when armed with a reasonably successful product, you find yourself on the book-a-year treadmill. It’s hard to step off when you know you might never get back on again. Thunderous applause, therefore, to Gillian Flynn, whose first novel came out six years ago. GONE GIRL followed a four year gap. Flynn took her time. She had confidence in herself. She produced an absolute masterpiece.

I’m not that brave. But I do feel the time has come for a change. I’m finishing off my fifth Lacey Flint story and it’s been an effort. Not that I’m tired of Lacey, but I think I’ve gone as far as I can with this series for now. Time to move on.

What I’m reasonably good at is plotting (although it has been suggested that my readers don’t so much suspend disbelief as throw it gleefully out of the window) and my books are totally story driven. I’m less good at characterization. Most crime writers veer naturally towards one or the other, I find. If they’re character led writers, they write psychological crime. If action led, they write thrillers and action-packed mysteries.

I want to see if I can write a book in which very little happens. A book that’s success hinges on whether the characters work or not.

So, there will be no subterranean chases, no helicopter rescues, no mythical creatures lurking in the shadows and no rural communities haunted by the mistakes and ghosts of their past. There will be three people, whose lives have been destroyed by a single event, and who deal with it in very separate ways.

You know what, I think I’d rather be stuck in a muddy pipe with a half naked stranger.

 Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone, dear readers? How have you challenged yourselves in the past year - and in the year going forward? Let us know, and one lucky commenter will win the hardcover of Dead Scared!

Sharon's new Lacey Flint short story, IF SNOW HADN’T FALLEN, is published on 2 April (ebook only) and the new book, LOST, is out in June. You can find out more about S.J. Bolton, and read excerpts from her books, at her website.  You can friend her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter as @authorsjbolton, share reviews with her on Goodreads and enjoy her writing on her blog.