dear frankenstein, we are the experiment, not you.

I have a bit of a confession: I like to experiment. Ever since I was a child, I always got a bit of a kick figuring out just what would happen if I put the straightening iron too close to my forehead, or if I tossed those rocks at my neighbor's window in hopes of killing the imaginary killer clown living inside.

Realistically, I now know that putting that iron too close will give me a burn and probably make my head itch for several hours afterwards. And we all know there isn't a killer clown hiding in my neighbor's house for the most part. But I can't help wondering why I got such enjoyment from putting myself through these trials. I mean, Frankenstein obviously didn't like being toyed with (but those who really read that HS book will remember that he wasn't actually called Frankenstein (+1) and didn't have a name at all (+2) though sometimes called himself 'Adam' (that's +3 Mrs. Spritzer, see! I did read it) so why do I do it? Why do we do it?

My experiments took on a life of their own this week, though, when I picked up on a new favorite blog of mine and a new issue of Self. I'm constantly looking for ways to keep my favorite foods on my plate without having to go up a jean size, and new exercise moves to tone, trim, and get my heart pumping. The new issue of Self happened to have an article of a boot camp to follow, so what did I do? I said, "Hell, let's do this! But wait, I can make it twice as fun by also doing a writing boot camp the same time!"

Yep. Like I said, I experiment. Probably too much for my own good. So while I catalogue my little adventure doing squats, jogs, weights, dance, yoga, and all the other stuff on this 4-week challenge, I'm also going to take a heavy focus on dishing out some information on Illumine and a new little idea I've got brewing for NaNo this year.

I'll mark all my posts with my 4-week writing/exercising boot camp with the hashtag #writebootcamp, so don't forget to follow along with me!

But before I go, inquiring minds would like to know. Have any of you, bloggers or readers, ever used yourself as the 'experiment' for your own ideas? How did it pan out?