Archive for March 2010

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I enjoyed the two times I went to sxsw interactive in 2002 and 2003. I met a lot of folks and put many names with faces. I’m grateful I went to Break Bread with Brad as Brad L. Graham passed away recently. He was a warm person who welcomed everyone to his delightful event. I also played in Anil Dash’s KICK! in 2002. It’s like kickball where no one is picked last!

I told a story at Fray Cafe both years. (Here’s the story from 2002.) I participated in 20×2, one question in two minutes. The question: “What are you waiting for?” Well, I was proud of my entry because I was not good at creating such a video, but it got messed up when it transferred to the presentation computer. It messed up all the timing and animation. I was embarrassed and disappointed.

Oh, and I was almost eight months pregnant in 2003. I obviously enjoyed many memorable experiences I would never had without sxsw. Why wouldn’t I go and create more this year? And to make it harder, many freelance colleagues and a couple of clients will be there. OK, here’s why — but pprlisa’s list is the best!

1. It’s time to shake Austin. My last trip? Austin. The trip before that. Austin. About four or five trips to Austin and no where else. When you live in the great state of Texas, a lot of events tend to occur in Austin including PTA. I’m starting to think there are only two places in the world: Texas and Washington, DC, the only time I’ve ever lived outside of Texas.
2. I need to catch up on recorded programs before the DVRs explodes. Yes, that’s plural. I record almost everything. As a mom of three, watching TV makes you feel guilty — but not when you’re doing the laundry or exercising while watching it. Since my circadian rhythm will be off-kilter when Daylight Savings Time kicks in on March 14, TV is the best medicine — thereby, guilt-free.
3. I must stop daughter from getting tons of piercings. She’s wanted to add two more ears piercings for a while. No problem. Suddenly, the list grew and she wanted it all done during spring break. Dearie… let’s start with two. Besides that, she’s the kind who doesn’t take kindly to pain. More than two piercings will make her wisdom teeth removal experience look like a basic dental cleaning.
4. I want people to remember me as my photo. The photo that’s my avatar everywhere is from 2005. I don’t know if I can pull off a good hair day the whole time there. Curly hair has a mind of its own.
5. I need to avoid the temptation to buy more books. Oh, count on seeing plenty of authors hawking their books. I bought signed copies of  books by Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow (I also sat next to him at Fray Cafe) and Rebecca Blood. My pocketbook is being too appreciative. Sadly, out of those three that I remember, I’ve only read one.
6. I have my Austin phoon shot. I went back in 2003 despite having the phoon shot from 2002 because I knew that as a very pregnant woman, I’d have no chance of retaining my balance. It was like a free pass.
7. I can’t tell a Fray story. Fray Cafe is no more.
8. I like torturing myself. Anytime I go into Twitter — I see a mention of someone going to sxsw. I love knowing who I am missing out on and torturing my soul so I can write the baddest and saddest poem ever. Either that or it’ll give me a good reason to stay off Twitter for a week and spend spring break time with the kids. Nah…
9. I have a bad case of overwhelmitis. sxsw has grown so big, it’d blow out my expensive cochlear implant batteries too frequently. Plus, it’ll be harder to plug in my laptop with many more folks in attendance all fighting for the few outlets. And sxsw-i has grown more than double. I’m an introvert on Myers-Briggs — it does not mean I’m shy … I’m not. It means being around large crowds drains my energy. Even in 2002 and 2003 when it was a nice sized conference, I collapsed at the end of the day and when I arrived home. I’m an ISTJ in case you were not wondering.
10. I have no chance in foursquare. The folks at sxsw are the type who use the location-based service religiously. I’m a sore loser Why do you think a telecommunications company is having to up its network service at Austin Convention Center? Because 95 percent of attendees connected to the Internet to tweet, blog, check in foursquare, etc.

Other sxsw Articles.

How do you decide what conference to attend?

The regular version of Diner Dash 5: Boom! is now available for $6.99. Here is the review of Diner Dash 5: Boom!

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Exclusive advanced levels for extra gameplay
• An interactive strategy guide
• Behind the scenes concept art
• Animated screensaver and wallpapers
• “Flo Over Time” historical retrospective

Welcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas. We’re honored to be a stop in Linda Joy Myers‘ WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour.

About Linda Joy Myers Ph.D. She’s president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and a practicing psychotherapist. She is the author of The Power of Memoir and Don’t Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother Daughter Abandonment, which won the Gold Medal Award from the Bay Area Independent Publishing Association in 2007.

How Writing Helps to Heal by Linda Joy Myers

Most of us intuitively know that writing our thoughts and feelings helps us to feel better, but now research shows that writing helps to heal both the mind and the body. In 1999, the first studies came out about studies done by Dr. James Pennebaker and other that writing helps to heal such physical ailments as arthritis and asthma. Since then other studies have shown immune system improvements when a person writes about traumatic or upsetting events for only a few minutes. Traumas can include events such as war, natural disasters but many of us have suffered traumas from within the home through some kind of abuse or abandonment, or betrayal by a loved one.

Whether a trauma occurs at home or out in the world, it remains part of body memory and could even return in a flashback. During the last few years, a lot of new research has been done on the chemistry of the brain in regards to trauma and strong negative emotions such as rage and fear. Traumatic memories are stored differently than regular memories, which means that it’s harder to put them to rest and move forward. You might have recurring dreams or get stuck in a memory that repeats over and over again like a stuck record.

Writing your stories helps to put the past to rest, but some people are afraid of what they might encounter. I’ve learned that you can come at your writing indirectly, not confronting all the memories head on, by writing the light and positive stories as well. Pennebaker told his subjects that if a topic was too painful, they should write about something else, and the research shows that writing positive stories is about as healing as writing darker stories. You need to decide what path is better for you, and it’s important to take good care of yourself.

One way that writing heals is the weaving between being the narrator and the main character in a memoir story. This dual consciousness is part of the healing process, as the narrator helps us to develop a perspective on what happened, and the character “I” gets inside who we were then. When we write scenes using full sensual details, we take a small hypnotic trip to the past and live in our own skin for a while, then return to “now.” The process of writing and telling stories, especially if they are shared helps to heal and to change our perceptions of who we were and who we are now.

Interweaving Dark and Light Stories

It helps to weave back and forth between your dark and light memories to explore your healing stories and keep your emotional balance. Choose either the lighter or the darker topics. You may need to write a story several times to get through all the layers of your feelings.

The darker topics

Freewrite about one of the topics for 15-30 minutes. See if your feelings, thoughts, and reflections shift after writing.  Journal about your observations. It always helps to keep an ongoing writing journal about your work.

Choose a memory that includes a positive quality and write that story.

Qualities of light

Further Reflections

• What happened during the writing, and afterward?
• Write a story where the beginning is darkness and the end is light, or the reverse.
• Balance your memoir writing sessions between dark and light stories to keep an emotional balance.

The path of emotional healing is often like cleaning out an old wound: it hurts while we are cleaning it out, but we feel so much better afterward. It helps to have an ongoing practice that keeps the healing progressing. Here are some suggestions for your regular writing sessions.

• Make a list of the darker memories that trouble you from time to time.
• Write down the age you were when these difficult times happened.
• Write down what you did to cope with the event at the time.
• How do you feel now about the incident?
• What would you have liked to happen differently?

Honor yourself during the process. Because the goal of this kind of writing is healing, give yourself permission to listen to the stories that arise naturally from within, stories that have an emotional punch for you. If you get stuck writing the same story, consider therapy or other emotional support.

Write about yourself at different ages and in new voices, you will be writing and witnessing from multiple perspectives, weaving a larger, more integrated story of your life.

Dark memories or trauma are resolved if you are no longer troubled by them. Resolution means that your life is not governed by your fears and you’re not disturbed when you remember the event. In other words, you remember it, but no longer have the emotional reaction that you had before. It’s become an event that happened, part of your life story, among many others.

Writing Tips

1. Protect your vulnerable self by distancing in the writing. First, write about what happened in the third person: “she” or “he” instead of “I.” Write as if you are watching the event in a movie.
2. Write a scene about a difficult incident, but make it turn out the way you would have wanted it to. Change the incident so it ends more pleasantly and positively.
3. Tell what happened before and after a difficult incident. Write around it, but not about the event itself.
4. Make a bare-bones list of what happened in the difficult incident and put it aside. Notice your feelings as you make the list.
5. Make a list of the dark topics or stories that you aren’t ready to write. List them by title or theme.
6. Make a list of the light stories, stories that bring you a feeling of well being, happiness, contentment, and safety. They may include memories about love, spiritual experiences, and miracles.
7. When you are ready, choose from the “light” list to write a story.
8. When you feel ready, write one of the dark stories.
9. Alternate as needed so you write your memoir in a way that feels balanced and safe.
10. Be brave — write your healing stories.

If you’re interested in writing to heal, check out Linda’s book, The Power of Memoir.

How does writing help you?

Ah, I got nothing today — no stories, nada. Just lots and lots of work since I had a few appointments not related to business. At least, it’s been beautiful and sunny all week.

Brain food…

• Bite-Size Edits: “Bite-Size Edits takes a text, chops it into pieces, and serves those pieces randomly to editors. Players get points for editing text, for providing useful comments, for helping to get a text completely edited.”
• Using Web Tools For Creating and Managing Contracts: Important topic. I had one client (I had worked with him before without problems) who failed to live up to his part of agreement and I had no contract for it. (I know. Shame on me.)
• How to Make Better Decisions: “Accepting ownership of consequences and balancing responsibility with your own personal goals lets you overcome stress, enabling you to making empowering decisions.”
• I wish I would have known: Answers from 11 top freelancers: Focus on designers, but applies to others including writers. I wish I would have known that my inability to use the phone like everyone else would be a big barrier to getting clients. But reflecting on my life and career — the path that got me here was the best route.
• The Five Best Mispronunciations I’ve Ever Heard: I love malapropisms every since I learned about them reading The Rivals
  . They’re fun. They inject humor in a conversation. Just heard one on NCIS this week: A character from another country said in reference to Kennedy shooting, “…shot from the book suppository.” More discussions over at Nathan Branford’s blog.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Cool and Unusual Business Card Designs: I love these round ups. Such creativity! And 10 free orange business card templates.
• 15 Entertaining Toilet Paper Designs: Notebook paper for writers. That’s productive!
• 15 photos that are real, not Photoshopped: My heart fell into my stomach looking at Dean Potter on tightrope walk in Yosemite.
• Cool Cupcake Creations: Tasty! Glad I haven’t seen these locally… they’d be tough to resist!
• Another 12 Unfortunate Logos: Aw, c’mon. How do you end up with these logos? Logo work isn’t something that’s done in five minutes and usually involves at least two people. Someone HAS to catch these!

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:

Mon. March 8th: 50% off on House Racers

Tue. March 9th: 50% off on New Star Tennis

Wed. March 10th: 100% off on Space Spy – Free Game

Thu. March 11th: 45% off on Azada: Ancient Magic

Fri. March 12th: 65% off on Youda Legend: The Golden Bird of Paradise

Sat. March 13th: 60% off on Shaman Odyssey: Tropic Adventure

Sun. March 14th: 50% off on Hidden Identity – Chicago Blackout

Joel Capparella asked a great question in Twitter. “After you’ve read a book, do you purge it or keep it?”

My reply, “Purge fiction. Keep nonfiction.” Of course, if I hated the book, out it goes.

@RobertHruzek: I keep it if I like it. I’ve still got books from forever ago!

@Vanessa_LW: I’ve been purging a lot more lately. Or better yet, getting from the library.

@elisapr: Keep!

@stenoknight: I keep it; books are my favorite element of home decor. Also, if book is worth reading once, it’s often worth rereading.

I like what @stenoknight said because it’s true in my home. My small home office squeezes in one tall bookshelf. The newish add-on loft is more of a library (and dumping ground for kid toys). AND we still have bookshelves in each kid’s room and one in the game room. I also organize the books. (You’ll see two bookshelves in the picture, but that’s not how it’s set up anymore.)

I rarely buy fiction books. Most of my fiction books from library book sales, or borrowed from the library. Besides, I read little fiction with the work I do with non-fiction books. I don’t like to read a book twice as I have too many waiting for me. Instead, I refer to a non-fiction book again as needed.

For book club reads, I buy them cheap as I don’t want to worry about library due dates. Besides, I prefer the feel of a retail paperback and hard cover over the library covers. This may sound weird, but I love how a book feels in my hands especially those with the soft paperback covers.

I’ve been making an effort to use the library more often. My son brought home the Scholastic Book Club catalog (I managed to not go crazy buying too many as it had a lot of goodies this time), and he circled a book I would love for him to read. The book was hardcover and more than I wanted to spend (almost as much as I spent for the entire order). So I’ve put in a request through the library’s online system.

When I came across a book title about applying to college (I have a 10th grader), I reserved that through the library and read it quickly. The college application process changes so much in a short time, so it’ll probably be outdated before kid #2 (5th grader) starts the college hunt.

Now that I have a Kindle, I pondered this question further. Do you keep all your Kindle (Nook or whatever) books loaded and then purge if you run out of space? How do you manage them?

I also wonder how people decide what ebooks to buy, if they still read pbooks (print). I browsed the Kindle catalog and can’t decide how to handle this. It’s a shame you can’t send your print books to Amazon in exchange for the ebooks that you want to make notes on, or some way to receive an electronic copy of the pbooks you own. This would not work fairly for the other way around as paper, ink and printing process cost much more than creating ebooks.

Children’s books are another story. I move books from oldest to youngest as they outgrow them or grow into them. I’ve moved books that the youngest has outgrown to another shelf in another room. I’ll sort through them later to decide what to keep. I bought children’s books long before I had children, so they won’t all disappear.

P.S. I just returned from the library where we checked out books for my son’s book club

Can you guess what happens in Diner Dash 5: Boom!? Diner Dash Flo indeed sees her diner go ka-boom! in Flo decides to provide a health conscious menu, so she posts a sign that says, “Fat-Free Breakfast.” Someone removes the “Fat-” on the the sign to show “Free Breakfast.” Naturally, when her diner opens, the whole town rushes in and destroys the diner. The nasty Mr. Big comes in and announces he has a standing contract with the city that any lot that goes unused for a week becomes his.

Hal, a contractor and huge Flo diner fan, offers to help her rebuild her diner within one week. While he gets to work, Flo goes from neighborhood to neighborhood running outdoor diners to help Hal with the rebuilding. As he progresses, he’ll ask you what design and color you want for the diner. The diner you customize will appear near the end of the game.

The game play remains the same in that you fill in as Flo. You’ll take orders, deliver the dishes, clean up, fulfill customer requests for special snacks and fix problems that pop up. You’ll met new customer types as well as some from past Diner Dashes. As usual, customer personalities can drive your strategy. Lawyers and working women have little patience, so you probably want to serve them first in a chain. One customer type takes his time. Librarians and bookworms like the quiet while the working men make a lot of noise talking on their cell phones.

Gain bonus points by matching customers’ colors with the seats and doing a bunch of the same activity in a row (chaining). For example, deliver the check to as many customers as possible ready to check out. The more you chain the same task, the higher your bonus.

For each level, you need to earn a minimum amount to advance. Those who like to challenge themselves can work toward the expert scores. After all, the more money you earn, the more you have for shopping for power ups before starting the next level. Power ups let you speed up activities whether it’s Flo getting around or Cookie cooking faster. But there’s one new type of power up — the kind that’s only good for one level, if you can afford it. You can hire Quinn of Wedding Dash to fill up the salad bar, get another set of hands for carrying things or a hostess to keep the people in line happy.

Oh, that’s right, we have the salad bar element. Sometimes diners choose to go to the salad bar instead of ordering from the menu. You need to drag the salad folks to the salad bar while ensuring the salad bar remains full. If one column of food is empty, the diners can’t move on.

Another new feature is Facebook. Diner Dash 5 can send your game updates to your Facebook page. You don’t have to use the Facebook feature. You can also win virtual gifts that you can give to a Facebook friend. While a cool feature, I didn’t know anyone who is a Diner Dash fan. If you send it to someone who doesn’t have Diner Dash 5, it’s useless.

One big improvement in Diner Dash 5 is that it’s easier. I could never get far in past games because they were very (yes, I am using this modifier) hard. This one, I did. Diner Dash pros — don’t fret… believe me, there are challenges in the game. This game does a great job of easing the challenge while retaining it for advanced players.

I still have problems with chaining at times. I’d be running all over, click, click, click only to find something failed and that failure can mean the difference between standard score and expert score. Plus, snacks break the chain. I don’t think that’s fair.

You get a lot of game value for the time. Once you play through the game, you can replay levels to reach expert scores. As of this time, only the Collector’s Edition is available and it requires a Big Fish Games Club Membership. The regular one — read: cheaper and no extras — will be available later. Extras include:

• Advanced levels: Extra game play for those who love a good challenge.
• Strategy guide: Walkthroughs to help you conquer levels and reach Expert scores.
• Story comics: Review the story, which is divided into scenes. I wish it came with fast forward, previous and pause. The game plays the whole scene and repeats.
• Wallpapers: Six screens for your background.
• Screensaver: One animated screensaver, but it doesn’t let you preview how it looks.
• “Flo Over Time”: Looks back to the history of Diner Dash.

The extras may or may not be worth it. You can get walkthroughs from forums around the web. You can review the story by going back to previous levels. I rarely change screensavers and wallpapers, so these had no value to me.

Download Diner Dash 5.

FTC disclosure: Review based on expired review copy received from publisher.

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:

Mon. March 1st: 50% off on Imperial City: The Crown of the King

Tue. March 2nd: 50% off on New Star Soccer 2010

Wed. March 3rd: 60% off on Knight of Dulcinea

Thu. March 4th: 60% off on Be Rich

Fri. March 5th: 45% off on Treasure Seekers: The Enchanted Canvases

Sat. March 6th: 65% off on Magic Maze

Sun. March 7th: 65% off on Escape From Lost Island