Archive for October 2009

“Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness to trigger a global discussion.” This year’s topic of global importance is climate change. Why climate change?

“Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees. Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.”

How can writers help with climate change? Create a query to your favorite publication that addresses climate change and its impact on the readers. Think about how the publication’s readers can help solve the problem of climate change or educate them about the problems.

In the meantime, here are some suggestions based on the type of publication to warm you up:

Technology: Standards, companies and products that will help companies cut their carbon footprint as well as how to make the most out of their use.

Business: How businesses can support the problem of climate change in their strategy and goals. Cover the benefits for businesses to pursue this. For example, more customers elect to invest in ecologically-supportive companies.

Family and parenting: What can families do to make a difference. Provide a list of easy and fast things to do.

Politics: Discuss current laws and standards or those undergoing review that affect climate change.

Entertainment: What Hollywood is doing to educate the public on climate change in movies or television shows. Talk about celebrities who are pushing for support.

Sports: Report on professional sports teams that have taken steps to improve their turf from an ecological standpoint. Not just turf as in floor material, but also home turf.

Find experts who might give you a great starting point for ideas on how to help and educate your readers. Let them know you want to do a story on climate change for [publication's topic] audience. Ask them if they can help with ideas on how your readers can make a difference.

What other ways can writers make a difference?

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 Sara Morgan’s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour. Here’s a bit about fellow work from anywhere’r Sara… (Stay tuned in this long post if ya wanna win this book!)

About Sara Morgan

Sara Morgan knows just what it is like to have a good job that is just not the “right” job. As a software developer, she has worked for large and small companies spanning multiple industries. None of these jobs ever provided Sara with the fulfilling life she was searching for and in 2005 she made the jump to self-employment with the start-up of her own consulting company, Custom Solutions, LLC. Sara Morgan is the author of No Limits: How I escaped the clutches of Corporate America to live the Self-employed life of my dreams. For more information about Sara and her book, check out www.nolimitsthebook.com.

Having Multiple Streams of Income Is Key for the Self-employed Individual by Sara Morgan

Four years ago, I quit my high-paying corporate job as a web developer and started my own software consulting business. I was one of the lucky ones, because I had a high-paying and high-in-demand skill set that allowed me to make a good income, despite the inevitable challenges of self-employment.

I realize though that most people seeking self-employment will not be this fortunate. For these people, I strongly suggest having multiple streams of income. By doing so, you can ensure that you are always able to pay the bills, even when one thing you are doing fails to generate the income you need. It is just the simple concept of not putting all your eggs in one basket. This is very old, yet still appropriate advice that applies aptly to the self-employed individual.

For myself, since I am promoting my latest book No Limits full time and have not been doing any software work for over six months, money has just been going out and not coming in. I was lucky enough to have built a small nest egg, which has allowed me to get away with this for a while. However, that can only last so long, so I recently started a third business as an independent garden consultant for The Happy Gardener.

The Happy Gardener is a great company that I only found out about when I interviewed the owner, Annette Pelliccio for my latest book. The company makes and distributes earth-friendly lawn and garden products that are chemical free and actually good for the environment. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know how important it is for all of us to be environmentally conscious, so I am really excited about being able to get behind a company like this.

If you are considering making a jump to self-employment, I would suggest that you have at least three alternative sources of income. This will help you to weather the inevitable “life” storms that affect us all. Other than that, always remember to Work, Live and Have fun!

Your Turn

Leave a 50+ word comment in this post by 11:59pm on October 21. That’s all ya gotta do to be entered to win this book. Tell us about your dream career or whatever strikes ya. The unbiased and robotic Random.org will pick the winner.

Meryl's dad, the Good Humor Man in Brooklyn, NY

And now for something different. Don’t worry — it’s not a regular occurence. You’ll still get your writing, networking, teching and other stuff next time.

Today I’m participating in a mass blogging! WOW! Women On Writing has gathered a group of blogging buddies to write about family relationships. Why family relationships? We’re celebrating the release of Therese Walsh’s debut novel today. The Last Will of Moira Leahy, (Random House, October 13, 2009) is about a mysterious journey that helps a woman learn more about herself and her twin, whom she lost when they were teenagers. See the widget below to read three chapters of the book.

Visit The Muffin to read what Therese has to say about family relationships and view the list of all my blogging buddies. And make sure you visit Therese’s web site to find out more about the author.

Unless you’re a multiple, you’ve probably wondered what it’d be like to have a twin. I have. The closest most of us singles come to having a twin is meeting or hearing about a doppelganger. I’ve encountered one … twice.

The first was at an event when someone said I looked just like a relative that she almost mistook me for her. The second time happened when I came across a phone ad that I thought I blanked out on a modeling assignment (HA!).

As soon as my dad found a copy, he showed it to everyone claiming it was me. That was Dad. He took pride in his three kids that he’d bragged about us as much as possible. We never needed to worry about bragging — we had Dad for that. He was a fabulous guy. Born and raised in Brooklyn. Sold Good Humor ice cream. Had a football scholarship that he didn’t take. Went into the Air Force, which led him to Fort Worth where he met Mom.

Dad had one annoyance. He could act obnoxious at times. “Ow, my arm hurts,” I’d say.

“Want me to cut it off and make it feel better?” he’d reply. He’d often say, “Drink coffee! It puts hair on your chest.”

Sometimes he didn’t know when to quit.

And that’s a trait I’ve gotten from him! I find myself saying stuff like that to the kids, but at least I know to stop right away. I can’t imagine how it comes across with my deaf accent — maybe not funny at all. So I’ve learned to add “I’m just kidding” whenever I joke around to make sure people know I’m funning with ‘em. I’m trying to cut it out even though it’s often me being playful with the kids.

My middle child also acts this way. And like Dad, he doesn’t know when to quit.

So yes, I’ve encountered the dreaded, “Oh my gosh, I am my mom!” or “I’m channeling Dad again!”

This kind of explains why some kids from abusive homes turn around and become abusers themselves even though they hated it as children. I’m just grateful this behavior is more of an annoyance than something serious. Besides, it can be funny sometimes.

How have you found yourself copying your parents or other family members? How do you handle it?

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 11th: 65% off on Bato

Mon. October 12th: 60% off on Hero’s Tale Enhanced Edition

Tue. October 13th: 60% off on Dawn’s Light

Wed. October 14th: 60% off on Little Space Duo

Thu. October 15th: 60% off on Foxy Fox Game

Fri. October 16th: 60% off on Mole : Great Adventure Game

Sat. October 17th: 50% off on SPACEDROID Attack Episode I

I’m working on a how to related to social media. I think using a theme would make the topic a more interesting read. But it’s not about me, it’s about helping you and others like you. So you’re the best ones to tell me what you like and don’t like.

Here are some brainstorms. Feel free to add your own thoughts.

• Sports / playbook
• Playbook
• Biblical: Like the 10 commandments for writers using SM post, but not hard like The Richest Man in Babylon
• Rock star
• Western
• Texas
• Theater
• Cookbook
• Hacking (in a good way)
• Decrypt / demystify / degeeking (not so much a theme, but title)
• 101
• Travel
• Brew: Coffee / tea shop
• Animal: Make animal character doing the talking.

Anything ring with you? Some are overused — notice I didn’t use “Dummies” as that is associated with the yellow books.

Articles with valuable advice…

• 7 Weekly Tasks for Authors: To keep you sane…
• The Writing Process: My Dance with the Pants
• Giving Yourself Permission: Maria Schneider shares depressing facts, but she finishes off her post on a positive note.
• 50 Awesome Open Courses for Web Writers: List sorted by topic, too!
• Life Is Too Short to Memorize 25,376 Writing Tips: Yes, sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the great writing blogs out there. This post gives you the basics for business writing.

And for fun because we’re allowed!

• Clipgenerator: Select favorite music, pick music and download ‘em.
• 12 Amazingly Tiny Pieces of Art: Amazing!
• 13 Most Creative Toasters: I’ll stick with my toaster oven, which can do more than just toast bread.
• Threadcakes: Online cake competition based on Threadless tees. Dang… I love beautifully decorated cakes. Hate that I missed Bronwen Weber‘s cake at the CakeWrecks visit in Frisco.
• Tanks A Lot: A collection of pun shop names. Get ready to smile and laugh lots. [Link: Cake Wrecks]

Image credit: Josh Klute

Limits. That stayed out of my vocabulary even though I first appeared in Harris Hospital in Fort Worth without hearing. My life became about proving  I could do as well as anyone, if not better. This nurtured my competitive spirit, which worked for and against me in my life.

The phone had the honor of being the first limit. I didn’t have a teletypewriter (TTY) until the first job after college. I never considered the inability to follow TV programs a limit because I enjoyed cartoons and Sesame Street. Besides, I stayed out of the house always going to practice here and a game there as I played all kinds of sports.

Then I received my first closed-caption decoder at age 13. No more than 10 shows, if that, contained closed-captions. I think the first captioned program I ever caught was a James Bond movie. The first TV series I loved watching was Dynasty. I adored Joan Collins’ British accent (I still love seeing accents especially the British) — yes, I could lipread and recognize accents although I couldn’t place them all.

Today, the majority of national TV shows come with captions. Now I can choose what I want to watch. Back then, I’d watch anything that was captioned. I, of course, hope this will happen with videos and shows on the Internet. However, I’m a realist. I understand the problem of some folks being hobbyists and it would take a lot of time to caption longer videos. Videos under 10 minutes are easy to caption even I caption my videos.

Whenever someone sends me a link to a video or posts a video on a web site, I ignore it most of the time knowing it most likely won’t have subtitles or captions. I do catch the ones without words, but they don’t come along very often. A bill, HR 3101, is working to change this.

Often, I wonder how much more I could accomplish if I could hear. I’d be a better listener — rarely needing to ask people to repeat themselves or tell me what topic we’re discussing. I’d speak without a deaf accent avoiding the stares from young eyes thinking I’m strange or adult eyes thinking I’m not bright. I’d be able to go to networking events and conferences without a worry whether I’ll make the most out of my investment. I’d be able to make and receive phone calls. I’d be able to conduct phone interviews. I’d be able to attend online conferences.

But then I remember my being deaf compelled me to work harder. If I didn’t have that difference, would I have worked as hard? Maybe I would’ve resigned to living an average life as I would’ve felt I had no limit or anything to prove. Maybe I’d still be in a corporate job.

It took me years to learn that I may lead a better life as a deaf person than as a hearing person. After all, motivation can make a huge difference.

This is a contribution to the Group Writing Project What I Learned from Limits. You have until Sunday, October 12, to join in! I’d love to hear your thoughts (pun intended — but really I’d like to read your thoughts) on the topic. Thank you, Robert, for giving an idea for a post.

Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse starts with a happy beginning in which Isabella prepares to marry her prince (marrying a servant just doesn’t have the same thrill, I suppose). She goes out horseback riding when her castle goes all “Beauty and the Beast” falling under a witch’s curse (bet you didn’t see that coming). Instead of turning people into teacups, candlesticks and silverware, the staff and royalty turn into mirrors.

You play Isabella. Tinkerbell — at least her doppelganger — has your back as she flits and flees around helping you break things, burn things, blow things and all that jazz. She doesn’t have the ability to do anything when you first meet her. Instead, she lets you know what you need to do or what’s happening in the room. As you make way around the darkened castle, you’ll find potions to give her abilities.

Your job is to undo the curse in every room of the castle by finding items, using them with other objects and completing puzzles. Some items you’ll use in the same room as you found it, or in another room. At times, you’ll enter a room or object in which you need to do a traditional seek and find. You’ll find and pick up the broken mirror pieces.

The rooms also have broken mirror pieces for your collecting. When you have all the pieces for a mirror, you put it back together jigsaw puzzle-style to release the staff member or royalty. After freeing them, they give you clues for your journey.

The castle has many rooms that you can lose track of where all the rooms are located. It’s dizzying when a game has you walking in circles. However, you won’t have that stress getting in your way as you can access a map anytime that lets you jump from place to place.

Many adventure hidden object games lean heavily on the latter. Not this one. You never know what to expect in Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse other than fix all of the mirrors. So you won’t zone out while playing.

I had trouble loading the game a few times. Once I realized this, I left it open until I finished the game. This happened prior to buying the full version, so you should know if it’s a problem on your computer or not.

The story flows nicely with its bite-sized snippets spread throughout the game to avoid bogging you down with too much text. Although, some of the text and annoying audio had me close to putting a curse on the game. After you chase out the bad spirits from the room, the fairy will say something and then “Yay!” It’s worse than corny to my cochlear implant.

Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse may not sound like an original story, but the whole thing together provides a delectable adventure lasting just the right amount of time.

Download the game from Big Fish Games.

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 honored to be a stop in Celia Rivenbark’s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour. Here’s a bit about fellow southerner Celia… Yes, Texas counts as the South not the West! (Stay tuned in this long post if ya wanna win this book!)

About Celia Rivenbark

Celia Rivenbark dishes essays about the old south, the new south, and everything in between in her fifth book You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning. In addition to a collection of essays so funny you’ll shoot co’cola out of your nose, Celia gives readers a treasure trove of Southern recipes and the hilarious stories behind them.

For eight years Celia wrote for her hometown paper, the Wallace, NC Enterprise. She covered everything from weddings to funky fruit to dead bodies (sometimes all in the same day). But the big city beckoned so Celia packed her bags and headed to Wilmington, NC and the Morning Star. More weddings but eventually she achieved every Southern girl’s dream. She was paid to be a smart ass (a.k.a. write a humor column).

Along the way she found herself a husband (the sports writer, of course–they are the cutest guys at the paper!), a beautiful baby daughter and a gig as a stay-at-home mom. After her 3,000th diaper change, Celia starting writing a humor column for the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, SC. After all, what’s funnier than 3000 dirty diapers? Laugh along with Celia on her WOW Blog Tour–dates are listed at www.wow-womenonwriting.com/blog.html. Visit Celia at www.celiarivenbark.com.

This gal is funny. Put down your drink unless you don’t mind that liquid in the nose thing. Here she talks about the green-eyed monster. Oh my goodness. I’ve met that thing a few times myself and it ain’t purty, but I shush it and play nice. I do, too! Anyhoo… All yours, Celia… No, please leave the server there and start typin’.

Fighting the Green-Eyed Monster…Or Not by Celia Rivenbark

I’ve always wanted to be one of those classy people who heaps genuine praise on my published friends. I want to gush and purely ooze heartfelt wishes that their Amazon ranking never rises above 1,000. Low is good in Amazonland, you know.

I want to be that person but I’m not very good at it. Because, the horrible truth is that I am painfully, shockingly, horrifically jealous when a writer-friend does better than me.

Which happens a lot since you ask.

Sometimes, though, I try to do the right thing. Listen up.

A couple of years ago, I was attending the Southern Independent Booksellers Association convention in Orlando. About 15 of us author types were doing what amounted to speed-dating. We’d already speed-eaten a couple of tiny ham and cheese on yeast roll thingies before being told to work the crowd, spending 10 minutes at each table, charming bookstore owners from across the Southeast.

All the other authors were familiar to me. We’d traveled in the same circles more than once. It was not, to use a cliché that I just love for no real reason, our first rodeo.

But there was a shy, quiet fellow at our authors’ table. As we wolfed our mini-subs and got ready to rumble, I decided it was my Christian duty to drag him into the conversation. He barely made eye contact. Poor lil fella, I thought. He’s overwhelmed by all of us big-shot authors. Clearly he was a convention virgin.

Is it enough to say that I talked the poor man’s ears off, sharing my sorta-vast knowledge of all things regional book tour? Is it enough to say that he listened quietly and politely even, at one point, smiling a bit?

Is it enough to say that all of a sudden the convention chair walked up and began to talk to the poor soul, earnestly complimenting him on his Pulitzer AND his National Book Award?

Oh. Let me just take my impossibly dumb ass and lumber across the room to charm the book-buyers. Who by now were all atwitter about having such a distinguished guest in their midst.

I’m not being small when I say I can’t remember his name. They say the mind forgets truly intense pain.

Since then, I’ve chatted up David Sedaris and John Updike. And, no, I didn’t ask Updike to detail my car or mistake Sedaris for a hungry drifter and offer to buy him a Hardees Thickburger, which, let’s be honest, he really looks like he could use. Bless his heart.

Three years ago, my book made it to the final five in a national humor contest. Sedaris won. Funny, skinny bastard.

Ditto another book a couple of years later. Oh? What’s this? You really think Jon Stewart and gazillion-member “staff” is more deserving? Okie-freakin’-dokie.

This summer, my most recent book made it to the final three for the best nonfiction book of the year in the South. But what’s this? Another Pulitzer winner beat the snot out of me to take that one. I HATE HIM.

Oh, just joshing. I’m sure he’s a delightful fellow and there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that he is covered entirely in scales below the neck.

Yes, I want to be magnanimous, gracious and giving but, as you can see, it’s not working out too well. If they gave out Pulitzers for simply being a foul-mouthed, small-minded egotist, I’d win. Nah, who am I kidding? Kanye would beat me on that one.

Meryl here again. Good stuff, eh? You can get more goodies like this from You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning. Ah, good thing I always have a cuppa Joe first thing in the morning… oh wait, that’s not the kind of drinking she’s talking about, is she? Back to bidness, you wanna win my copy of this book, dontcha? Yes, the things I do for you. Oh, it’s a great book (here’s the book review for all to see) not some lousy one I’m willing to dump on someone else.

Leave a 50+ word comment in this post by 11:59pm on October 13. That’s all ya gotta do to be entered to win this book. Share a story or whatever strikes ya. The objective and robotic Random.org will pick the winner.

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 4th: 50% off on Hospital Hustle

Mon. October 5th: 60% off on Party Down

Tue. October 6th: 60% off on Mary Celeste

Wed. October 7th: 60% off on Mystic Emporium

Thu. October 8th: 60% off on Plan it Green

Fri. October 9th: 60% off on Righteous Kill 2

Sat. October 10th: 50% off on Aveyond: Gates of Night