Archive for October 2009

My little guy loves They Might Be Giants. The two Johns were brilliant for coming up with entertaining yet educational (shh…) music for kids that parents can enjoy without sugar overload. Serious niche that didn’t hurt their standing with original audience. They are coming to Dallas on Halloween! Little guy will be there with big guy. Rock on! Vote for your top 25 books on writing… or win a book.

Articles with valuable advice…

• @FakeAPStylebook: OK, this belongs in fun… but it’s for writers and I don’t want it mixing in with pumpkins and zombies. Side-splitting stuff.
• The Part of Social Media That Freaks out Freelance Writers: Remember to venture out there. Don’t wait for people to come to your blog.
• About NaNoWriMo — Three Ways to Thrive, One Sure Way to Suck: If I were to do NaNoWriMo, I’d do it with the mission of having fun, challenging myself and stretching my writing boundaries — not as a stepping stone to publish a novel. Larry gives us a good reality check.
• 15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing and 15 More from BookOven: I follow ‘em all.
• Myths about Queries: Insight you may not have heard before.
• What Problems Does Google Wave Solve? Best explanation of what Google Wave does. It even perplexed me at first. [Link: Guy LeCharles]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Why Dogs Don’t Like Halloween: True. Adorable anyway.
• 10 Awesome Homemade Halloween Costumes: Yip yip yip yip… Ah, memories…
• Zombie Love Cake Toppers
• 15 Coolest Google Earth Finds: I can’t tell what that is after the letter “Z.” Anyone? Anyone?
• 12 Insanely Titled Books: Some are the topic of the book…

Welcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas (OK, the blog doesn’t live on a server in my house — but that’s where you’ll find me… in Plano, not in the server). We’re happy to be a stop in Claudine Wolk’s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour. Here’s a bit about fellow hybrid mom (Moms who work) and author of It Gets Easier!…and Other Lies We Tell New Mothers Claudine Wolk… (Stay tuned in this long post if ya wanna win her book!)

About Claudine Wolk

Claudine Wolk is a CPA and mother of three. She lives in Bucks County, PA with her husband Joe and her children, Joseph, Casey & Ally. She writes columns as well as magazine and newspaper articles on all subjects regarding motherhood in the 21st Century. She also is available for humorous but informative workshops on the subjects of “new motherhood” and “mothers returning to the workforce.” Visit Claudine at her web site: Help4NewMoms.com.

How Can I Find the Time to Write? by Claudine Wolk

It’s a question many aspiring writers ask. How can I find the time to write?

Well, the truth is, while I did keep a notebook of ideas, research and interviews while my three kids were babies, I didn’t really get serious about finishing a book until my youngest was a toddler. However, once I made the decision to finish the book, I did have success finding time to write the book after I did one very important thing — I decided that the book was important enough to spend time away from my family, chores, house to work on. I think that decision can happen to a writer at any point in their children’s lives.

The trick is to decide to do something that you have passion for, that may or may not make any money and that has nothing to do with parenthood. That’s a tough decision, especially when money is such a necessity. The reality is, though, not every decision you make about how you spend your time, has to be a financial decision. This concept is tough for folks to grasp. We are so programmed to think that any time spent away from the family must result in some kind of monetary reward that we put off doing the things that excite us.

Once I made the decision to explore the possibility of producing a book, finding the time to write was pretty easy:

• While the kids slept for naps and in the evening. (Not too late, though, as sleep is very important.)
• Waking up extra early before the family was up. (I was infinitely more motivated to wake up early to write, than to wake up early to exercise!)
• Hiring the occasional babysitter during the day so I could edit or finish a chapter of the book.

This last option was the most challenging to justify. How could I pay a babysitter when I wasn’t bringing in the money to pay for her, let alone at a loss? But a realization finally hit me: the time I was spending in writing my book was important. I was laying for the groundwork for a potential new career, for a potentially money-making book, and most importantly, for my own well-being. Those feelings of well-being, of feeling fulfilled, transferred to my family. In short, I was a better Mom. In the end, it was well worth the money and it has paid off.

In essence, I have created a new career for myself, a career that I never knew I always wanted. I blog for my own blog at help4newmoms.blogspot.com as well as for hybridmom.com. I write for parenting magazines, comment on parenting message boards, and contribute my parenting expertise to any freelancers who will have me. I also speak to groups: Moms Clubs, Mom Groups, Local Networking groups, and Baby Expos all over the country. The work has been rewarding and it’s growing in scope. I hope to make a full-blown career of it.

In addition, I’ve learned how much I love the publishing industry: the marketing, the writing and the publicity. I’ve learned and continue to learn so much of the business, hands on, that I sometimes consult other authors interested in self-publishing. As well, learning and utilizing social marketing on web and creating and monitoring a website are skill sets that can be translated to any business.

In the end, by exploring a passion I had to help new moms, I’ve landed a brand new career that is fulfilling and flexible as well as producing a humorous and helpful guide for new moms that will be available to them forever. Demanding the time to explore a new possibility has been a blessing for me and family. Finding the time to write was well worth it.

About It Gets Easier! … And Other Lies We Tell New Mothers

“There is no question that being a mother is challenging, but this fun, frank, and prescriptive guide tries to do the impossible and make new motherhood easier. Featuring interviews with hundreds of moms and candid stories from author Claudine Wolk’s own experiences as a mother, It Gets Easier!…and Other Lies We Tell New Mothers mixes humor, honesty, and insider strategies that will give new moms a ‘leg-up’. This upbeat and entertaining book drives home the point that new moms are not alone and that there are things they can do to make motherhood a little more controllable and lot more enjoyable. Complete with resources for further exploration and a helpful glossary, this funny, irreverent book will help ease every new mother’s frustration.”

Your Turn: Win Claudine’s Book

Leave a 50+ word comment in this post by 11:59pm on November 4. That’s all ya gotta do to be entered to win this book. Share a favorite parenting tip or a time management tip. The unbiased and robotic Random.org will pick the winner.

I first heard about Thirsty from Christina Katz. Author Kristin Bair O’Keeffe and I connected, and she’ll be stopping by this he’ah blog on November 18 in her book’s blog tour with WOW. You’ll have a chance to win a copy of the book.

I admit I was apprehensive about reading the novel when its description mentions abuse, steel town, a depressing place, heartbreak. I know there’s a lot of sadness in our world, but we hear enough so why read a story for more? Because Thirsty tells a lyrical story about the unbendable spirit of Klara, an immigrant from Croatia.

The story begins in 1883 in Croatia where Klara contends with an abusive father. Her eventual and equally abusive husband, Drago, enters the picture as a likable guy who romances her the old-fashioned way. However, that doesn’t last long. Soon after arriving in the dark town of Thirsty, a town outside of Pittsburgh, Drago changes for the worse.

Klara feels let down as she thought America was supposed to be colorful, full of meadows and an uplifting kind of place. Her depressing beginnings of her life in America compel you to keep reading when you meet the locals consisting of her best friend and her husband, the town drunk and a black man with his own store.

She has three children during the Thirsty’s 40-year journey of her life. O’Keeffe’s writing arouses the reader’s curiosity. The author also doesn’t take the easy way out, so the story never turns into a predictable one. O’Keeffe doesn’t dwell on Klara’s abuse. Instead she touches it — just enough to give you an idea of what she lives with — without wallowing in it.

It’s Klara’s relationships with the town’s people that add helping of color in her dark world. Her neighbor, Katherine doesn’t put up with Klara’s abusive husband. Drago’s dislike of blacks scares Klara into staying  away from BenJo, the shopkeeper whom Klara befriends in spite of her husband’s threats. Klara has strange encounters with Old Man Rupert, the drunk.

Katherine tells captivating stories to Klara, one of which explains how “amen” came to be. This 200-paged novel packs a lot of emotions, events, discoveries, sadness, hardship and growth to keep you intrigued while learning about the times, the working-class, the mills and the traditions.

O’Keeffe tells the enthralling story with amazing eloquence. She takes a reader on a journey of good and bad surprises worth discovering that ends on a fulfilling note without an ounce of predictability.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 25th: 65% off on Romance of Rome: I helped behind the scenes with this one.

Mon. October 26th: 50% off on Miriel’s Enchanted Mystery

Tue. October 27th: 65% off on Ghost Town Mysteries – Bodie

Wed. October 28th: 65% off on Zulu’s Zoo

Thu. October 29th: 100% off on Wizard’s Hat

Fri. October 30th: 65% off on Department 42: The Mystery of the Nine

Sat. October 31st: 50% off on Little Shop – World Traveler

Congratulations to Rich for winning a copy of No Limits.

One Halloween long ago...

Articles with valuable advice…

• Are you a freelancer writer or journalist entre-preneur? Great words for thought. I consider myself a small business that provides writing services. Writing isn’t all I do — I still have to do marketing, networking and all that fun stuff.
• How to Work ON Your Business, Not IN it: Step back… breathe… think…
• It Takes All Kinds: How does a really bad book keep selling?
• The World’s Greatest Marketer: How a woman’s powerful plight turns her into a strong marketer and what we can learn from her.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• @tweetsofold: Follow @tweetsofold for fascinating and funny headlines from old timey newspapers.
• Is It Normal?: We all have questions (not me, of course — heh) that make us wonder whether we’re normal… but we don’t have the courage to ask. Now you have a place to find out.
• 25 Inspirational Pumpkin Carvings: Death Star is most impressive — can’t believe pumpkin didn’t cave.
• Top Ten Mouthwatering Museums: Chocolate… Do not view on empty stomach unless you don’t mind raiding the nearest pantry or convenience store.

Marathon runners don’t prepare for marathons by running for miles. They start small and build up. It’s that muscle memory thing. Some of our writing assignments can be big and daunting. So we attempt to write only to let ourselves be interrupted many times in the course of an hour.

Meet the Pomodoro Technique. This procrastination busting approach can work great for writers. If GTD works for you (Pomodoro doesn’t replace GTD — it only contains a small part of GTD), there’s no reason to try something different or change it unless you think it’ll work better. After all, if we stick with status quo, we forgo opportunities to find ways to do things better, faster and more efficiently.

If you’re on a roll and can’t stop writing; by all means, don’t! The Pomodoro gives you an option when you’re struggling to write at all or without interruptions. Maybe you feel overwhelmed by all the things you need to do. Stop.

Focus on one task at a time as the following steps quickly show you how the Pomodoro works:

1. Pick a task and do that task for 25 minutes straight.
2. Take a short break — about five minutes.
3. Work on the task again or pick another one to do for another 25 minutes.
4. Repeat until you’ve done this four times.
5. Take a longer break.

While I don’t struggle to get work done, I gave it a shot and it worked well by the second round of 25 minutes. I gave in to my powerful urge to check email during the first one — I’m gosh awful about that.

The tasks can include doing research for a story, writing an article for X publication, blogging for Y client, doing your marketing for the day, completing your administrative work, replying to emails. You get it. Just stick with one thing for those 25 minutes. You begin with a sprint and work you way up to completing the marathon of an article, book, whatever without feeling like, “Oh, man. I have 24 miles to go.” Instead, “I’m going to do two miles. No problem.”

In a way, you’ll build your muscle memory. You complete these tasks in short, doable bites. Maybe you’ll find that this works so well for you that you’ll stretch the time or go on an writing spree. (Remember to take a computer break for the sake of your eyes and hands.)

Of course, you might be anti-GTD and everything and it works for you like it does for Jamie.

How do you complete your writing tasks or projects?

Image credit: Michael Lorenzo

If you’ve played a sport, you’ve probably done the same drills over and over until something felt like it would fall off. A tennis coach loved to tell us why he started every single practice with volley drills. To build  ”muscle memory.” “What do tennis pros think about when on the court playing a match?” he asked.

“Nothing. Zero. Zip,” the entire team replied having heard this many times.

Training the Body and Brain

The pros drill and practice everything for hours to build muscle memory, to make it second nature. Walking, talking and eating. All those involve muscle memory. Muscle memory means doing tasks over and over so the brain just knows to do it.

You know how sometimes you can’t remember if you took your medicine or locked the door? You’ve done these so many times that they’re automatic. We all slip up at times, thus muscle memory makes it harder for us to recall whether we forgot.

A fellow tennis teammate told me about a match she played against a friend who ran marathons. When the match crossed the three hour mark, the marathoner couldn’t play anymore. She was used to working for three hours, her typical marathon time. She didn’t train her body to go beyond that.

Many of us adults haven’t practiced our math facts in years. So when we encounter one of those brain exercise games, we’re slow. But keep playing the game and we’ll get faster and more accurate. I’ve tested this theory a few times in reviewing a handful of brain games. It works.

Does your hand cramp when you try to write a lot? Most of us use the keyboard (that’s muscle memory, too), so we’re out of practice in writing anything more than a single thank you note. I handwrite thank you notes to my clients every year. I have to do them a few at a time to avoid muscle cramp.

Muscle Memory Applied to Writing

So what does that have to do with writing? Same thing. Writers practice, practice, practice. They get faster. They improve in word usage. They make their words flow better. They bump up word count to where thousands of words won’t faze them. Christina Katz points out the importance of repetition to develop muscle memory.

We use many of the same words in our writing, sometimes forgetting wonderful words that could turn a sentence into a lyrical one. So encourage yourself to review a handful of words every week by coming up with a weekly goal that won’t overwhelm you to the point that you paralyze yourself and stop trying.

But should we write until our eyes and fingers blister or sleep calls? Iain Broome says no. I agree with his statement: “Whichever side of the fence you sit, I think it’s really important to stop and question even the most common pieces of writing advice from time to time.”

Besides, if you write without purpose — you’re not likely to put out valuable content or truly exercise your muscle memory. It’s akin to leaning on your stair climber — you won’t benefit from the exercise when you do that.

When we write for a new publication for the first time, it feels awkward and slow. While our ability to write hasn’t changed, the publication’s style and audience is new to us. This happens when you try a different writing style or genre. Nonfiction writers who haven’t done fiction or poetry in years will struggle and need to practice. People who write short stuff like tips, lists and blog entries might feel overwhelmed trying to write a 2500-word essay.

How do you pump your writing muscle memory?

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 18th: 50% off on RichMan Games – Monopoly of New York

Mon. October 19th: 50% off on Zombie Shooter

Tue. October 20th: 50% off on Zombie Shooter 2

Wed. October 21st: 50% off on Alien Shooter – Revisited

Thu. October 22nd: 50% off on Alien Shooter 2

Fri. October 23rd: 50% off on 4 Elements (I love 4 Elements!)

Sat. October 24th: 50% off on SPACEDROID Attack Episode I

Diner Dash’s Flo steps into her first adventure as she helps Wedding Dash’s Quinn prepare for a wedding or Mr. Big’s daughter to Tony, the pizza maker. Everything goes wrong. Avenue Flo starts with many mishaps. The bride’s white dog runs away looking like a lobster after a run in with red dye. The rings disappear. The cake spoils. The dress falls apart. Quinn calls her friend for help.

Those who have played many games from Playfirst will recognize characters throughout the adventure. No worries if you’ve never played a drop of these. It’s like hearing an inside joke when you come across the characters.

The adventure retains the friendly and eye-catching cartoon styles in the Dash games. Story updates appear in cut scenes that you can speed up. The story splits into four parts based on the locales. Flo will move around each locale to complete the tasks that Quinn has asked her to do as well as the favors she does for folks in order to get something Flo needs.

Avenue Flo doesn’t occur in the past or take place in Greece or some other popular time. Its theme makes it different from the other adventure games out there. Flo talks to the characters in every store and out ‘n about the neighborhood to find out what’s going on and to receive clues. She also needs to collect butterflies for the wedding and bottles for recycling to get subway tokens as three places require the subway.

At first, the game doesn’t look like a long one. Then as you move along, you discover it’ll keep you busy for a good while. Flo keeps notes so she can stay on top of all the things she needs to do or find to complete her tasks. A map also comes in handy for every location; although every location has a T-shape for easy navigation. One street goes from one end to the other, and in the middle there’s another street that takes you in a different direction.

My six-year-old loves this game and keeps pushing me to play the game when I had other work to do. He helps me with some of the mini-games that blend in with the game’s story. For example, the beads from wedding dress fall off and Flo needs to find them all. (See the second image from the mini-game.)  She also offers to sew them back on with a fancy stitching gadget. The sewing part becomes a mini-game in which you need to put the beads on in a pattern. Obviously, this makes a great game for the family.

In another mini-game, Flo meets a hen chorale. To get eggs from them for the wedding cake, she plays a Simon-style mini-game. This involves watching the hens sing and repeat their song. While I dislike Simon “do what I do” games, it works well in this situation. When you complete the adventure, you can play any of the mini-games, which extends the game’s replay value.

While I may be deaf, I’ve come across annoying sounding voice acting that compelled me to turn off the sound. Not in this one. It sounds like you expect a cartoon to sound: pleasant and friendly. Avenue Flo contains all the ingredients of a good adventure game: cool graphics, good story, humor and plenty of action.

Download and try the game.

• Twitter Tools and Resources for Finding People [Link: Joanna Penn]
• 5 Wild Things about a Classic Children’s Story: This Maurice Sendak story originally scared my little guy — understandable. He and his older brother saw the movie today and they liked it. My mom claims I liked it when I was a child. But my first encounter with the story — that I remember — was in my favorite college class ever: Children’s Literature.
• It’s Not Business as Usual — Stop Acting Like It: “…it’s the current business model of most publishers that’s under stress, not the community service of publishing itself,” writes Guy Gonzalez.
• The Power of Perseverance: Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, author of Thirsty: A Novel, is an example of patience, perseverance and passion. She started her book in 1992! She’ll be stopping by here next month and you have a chance to win a copy of her book!

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 130 Halloween Pumpkin Carvings for Your Inspiration: These put my little Snoopy carving to shame. I’ve no idea where the Snoopy pumpkin photo is, so here’s Linux instead.
• Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About: Hilarious! [Link: @socialmedium @Mediabistro]
• The Years Are Short: What may be ordinary to you, may be extraordinary to a child. Enjoy your time together.
• 10 Coolest Laptops: My jaw dropped watching the Roller Laptop video. That would be incredible for on the go.
• 15 of the World’s Strangest Flags