P.S. I Love You a Lot Less Than the Movie

I have always been intrigued by the process of making a book into a movie. It is interesting to see the changes that get made as the story goes from being the creation of one person to a completely different creation of a whole group of people each with their own vision and talents. It also fascinating to me what the two mediums do to a story.

Every time I see a good movie, I look to see if it came from a book. I order it online immediately if it is and spend the next few days pouring over it. Most of the time I end up liking the book more than the movie. I have even started searching for the book before I watch the movie so that I can enjoy the book in it's intended state before the images of the movie director have been imprinted on my brain and before I know the entire story.

Hollywood tends to like a happy ending. I have seen many amazing endings changed when it comes time to make the movie because the director thinks movie-goers want a happy, tightly wrapped up ending. Luckily, sometimes they include the original, not-so-clean ending on the DVD as an alternate ending.

After watching Dear John (one of my more sappy moments) I was pacing around the house frustrated with how a complex relationship was all wrapped up and over simplified with a yes-they-finaly-did-get-together ending, even though it took killing off a great character to get there and ended up selling that relationship short.

When the pacing subsided, I flipped around the DVD for more content and found the alternate ending, one that lines up much more with the book. After seeing the ending that was true to the nature of the relationship I went to bed satisfied that at least one person on the set had enough sense to make the appropriate ending even though it probably got cut when the film was showed to a test audience. When I finally got around to reading the book, I was even more pleased at the meandering relationship developed by so many scenes that got cut in order to let the movie run in 90 minutes.

Last month, I re-watched P.S. I Love You. It was sitting on my DVR and nothing else really was, so I turned it on to burn a couple of hours after a hectic week. Although it was a rather cheesy movie, the second time through I was impressed with the movie's two divergent story lines and how they were weaved together to divulge the right bits of information at the right time. Since Islands and Insulin also uses two overlapping story lines (mine both travel int he same direction, though) I was interested to see if it came from a book and how those story lines played out in the book.

Up comes Amazon on my phone and I have the book in my hands in less than three days. It was another six days before I finished the 500-page (ugh!) book. And I realized all the amazing story-telling and beautifully balanced reveal of information was added by one incredible scriptwriter. None of it was in the book. It was all a reworking of the stripped-down, bare-bones concept of a husband leaving notes for his wife after her death. I think that was the only thing that stayed in there. that and the names of the main characters (the ones who were left in after the reworking.)

Looking at the two stories all of what I loved was added by the scriptwriter. Holly finding her purpose in life, shoe designer in the movie, ad exec in the book; the story of how they met, funny and quirky in the movie, utterly forgettable in the book; the relationship to her mother and similarities of both women's lives, added to the story in the movie, non-existent in the book. All of the magic was added after the fact.

I wonder what a scriptwriter would do to my book if it ever was made into a movie. Who would they leave out? What would they overemphasize to the point of fictionalizing the experience? What would they totally destroy the simplicity of? How big would they make the waves and wind that blew the third day? And could they please, please use a cute actress who would make me out to be a whole lot more charming and much more pleasant to be around???

Getting Your Adventure On with Diabetes (Book Review and Giveaway)

Below is a Book Review for my latest book, Adventure On: Adventure More, Worry Less, and Watch Your Diabetes Motivation Soar originally posted on Diabetes Mine..

Written by Mike Hoskins | Published on March 27, 2017

If you're in search of a motivational diabetes resource that lets you 'Choose Your Own Adventure,' then look no further than the newest paperback by type 1 athlete Erin Spineto!

It's called "Adventure On" and encourages readers to embrace their inner adventurer and not let diabetes hold them back, as per the book's subtitle: "Adventure More, Worry Less, And Watch Your Diabetes Motivation Soar."

For those who may not know her, Erin is a surfer, triathlete, and sailor based in San Diego, CA. Her first book, Islands and Insulin: A Diabetic Sailor's Memoir (published in 2013) chronicles her now-famous 100-mile solo sail through the Florida Keys.

She was diagnosed with T1D in 1996 and eventually found the motivation to become a true adventurer about a decade ago, she says. She created the first-ever, all T1 team swim around Key West before taking a 100-mile stand up paddle adventure along the Intracoastal Waterway in North Carolina.

Her newest self-published 138-page book actually came out in November 2016, and is less narrative than the first; it's more of a "how to" guide on finding your own motivation for adventures.

Let's be clear: This book wants you to dream big -- as in, do more than motivate you to walk around the block with your dog (my style of daily adventure) or even jump on your bike to crank out a few miles. No, the scope here is more along the lines of swimming around an island, biking across America (or a country you live in), surfing every break of a country/region/state, or running the Ice Marathon in Alaska.

"It is time to stop calling ourselves diabetics and start calling ourselves adventurers," Erin writes.

Divided into four main parts, the book walks you through Erin's four-step Adventure On process: Dream, Plan, Train, and Execute.

The clear theme is: Find something that's a challenge. Push yourself. Use your imagination, and your mind and body to experience life and -- at the same time -- grab a little more motivation to better manage diabetes while adventuring on.

I like that theme a lot. Particularly where she describes the "magic of one percent better," aka Brailsford's concept of the Aggregation of Marginal Gains -- basically, the idea that small victories add up to a huge win at some point. I'm a big believer in this mindset when it comes to diabetes management, where it's not about "perfect control" but rather just about "doing better."

Throughout the book, Erin offers references to online resources that present other stories from around the Diabetes Community that are pretty darn inspirational -- from mountain climbers and marathoners, to those who've biked and sailed the world. There are also some great lists in the book of other blogs and organizations that focus on activity, fitness, adventure, and just good 'ole DOC-style peer support.

Honestly, one of the best parts of the book for me was the intro where Erin describes the "Why Adventure?" question, sharing her personal story from 2009 when she was uninspired to stay on top of diabetes. She was just feeling BLAH, which we all can relate to so well. In the "Training" section, I enjoyed how Erin does outline some mini-adventures that you can take in your own little corner -- from an exploration of local wildlife, to embarking the train a few stops before your home or work destination so you can walk or bike the rest of the distance. Those suggestions hit home with me.

But the bulk of the focus is about planning for major adventures like an ultra-marathon or world travel, and much of that felt out of reach for me -- not because I don't think PWDs aren't able to achieve anything and everything they want for the most part, but simply because it was so grand in scale: travel the world, rather than find adventures closer to home.

Let's be honest: how many of us are really going to go "zorbing" across a city, build our own wooden boat and sail it along an entire coastline, or go volcano-boarding down the face of an active volcano on a plywood toboggan?! More likely, my kind of practical adventure is sprinting between airport terminals on tight layovers, or maybe golfing every hole on Michigan's golf courses.

Along with the more extreme and hardcore adventures highlighted, I did appreciate Erin's discussion of taking safety precautions and not going on these adventures alone. In one chapter, she even fully fleshes out a "What If" scenario of getting thrown off course during a sailing adventure, and how you can find your way back to land, people and eventually a hospital to get insulin -- yikes!!

Plan for the worst, but hope for the best... story of our D-lives, isn't it?! ;)

Overall, I found the book to be a fine read that serves the purpose of laying out action ideas, tips and tricks for planning, and definitely inspiring the reader to tackle an adventure of some sort.

Thanks to Erin, I am inspired to try something new now that Spring has finally arrived. Here's to choosing our own adventures, sooner rather than later!

You can find this book in paperback on Amazon for $9.99, but before you buy it, here's your chance to win a free, autographed copy of Erin's book for yourself...

This contest is now closed. Congrats to Deborah Perlongo who was chosen by Random.org as the winner.

Coming Up Short

We finished our One Drop Caicos adventure hiking, paddling, swimming, and cycling in July 2017. These are stories from that adventure.

THE UNICORN

In the world of diabetes, we all shoot for that magical blood sugar of 100. We post pictures of our meters when they spit out that perfect number. We celebrate with out friends with high-fives and Woot-Woots. We finally feel like we’re good enough.

But, why? What is so great about 100? Isn’t a blood sugar of 99 better than a 100? Isn’t a 105 just as good?

Sure, it is, but we still shoot for that perfect 100.

And, sadly to say, most of the time we don’t hit our goal. We go over it. We go under it. Sometimes, we triple or quadruple it.

COMING UP SHORT

The One Drop Caicos adventure is the third adventure of mine where I have set up a goal of hitting 100+ miles. And each time I have come up short for one reason or another. On my 100-mile solo sail in the Florida Keys a small craft advisory made it nearly impossible to finish the last seven miles to reach the far end of Key West on the final day of my adventure. Instead, I spent the day covering the island on bike.

On our 100-mile stand up paddle up the Intracoastal Waterway in North and South Carolina, we were run off the waterway one afternoon by thunderstorms that didn’t let up until after dark. We were forced to stuff our twelve-foot paddle boards into a party bus to drive the last eight miles to our hotel that night.

Each time, we made a decision to stay safe instead of covering the miles. When you plan an adventure, you make these great plans of what the perfect adventure will be. But it is just a plan. And in the wild things can and do go wrong. I have never been on an adventure where some aspect of our plans didn’t change.

THE ZIKA CHANGE

On our One Drop Caicos trip just a few weeks back, we had to make another plan change. A few days before we left, one of my teammates called me worried about the Zika outbreak in Turks and Caicos.

When doing research for this trip, I noticed the Zika warning but didn’t think much about it since I was done having kids. What I failed to notice was that two of my teammates were still young and had yet to have kids. For them, Zika could be a big threat to their future children.

And no one wants to get sick in a foreign country with limited medical care on top of having Type 1 diabetes.

So we had to limit our exposure as best we could. The best way to prevent Zika is to limit your exposure to mosquitoes, which meant we had to stay near the populated areas of the country, where there would be regular spraying for the buggars, and be indoors before dusk. This meant some major changes to our itinerary.

We did the best we could to modify our routes and the times we would leave or finish. Sometimes the limited daylight meant we had to shorten a leg or two. Sometimes wind direction and the layout of the land dictated the changes we made.

But going on these adventures isn’t about hitting a magical mileage number any more than taking care of diabetes is about hitting a blood sugar of 100. It is about doing the best we can and always trying to push ourselves to do even better than we did yesterday.

And we did just that. Over the six months of training leading up to this trip, we got stronger and fitter. We increased our skills in a sport that was fairly new to some of us. And we each learned things about how our bodies respond to insulin and exercise.

During our expedition, we pushed each other to go harder and longer. We pushed ourselves into situations we weren’t quite sure we could handle. We fought of sun and heat and seasickness. We tried to sleep through the hundreds of Dexcom low alarms that went off from our three Dexcoms each night.

We set up huge goals and set out to reach them. And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get to prove all of our training by completing the 120 miles. We came out way ahead of where we would have been if we had never tried at all.

It's the same with diabetes. We may not always hit our perfect 100. But as long as we are constantly trying to do this thing we call diabetes better than yesterday we are doing well.