Archive for October 2010

Ah, I love Halloween. Costumes, pumpkins, candy corn, the annual neighborhood Halloween party. My youngest carved this pumpkin (of course, with Dad’s help) at his scout camp out. Goes to show you how he and my older son are different. The older son — camp out and all around the same age — did skull and crossbones.

The pumpkin I am most proud of is Snoopy. OK, I cheated and used a template. Still, I was amazed how well it worked and how accurate it looked. I do love Snoopy and the Peanuts gang. In fact, my lawn has the Great Pumpkin decoration along with two signs, one with Charlie Brown and the other with Snoopy. Got my Snoopy Halloween sweatshirt on and my Peanuts Halloween shirt underneath. (First chilly morning.)

Brain food…

• 10 Tips and Tricks for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page: Excellent article that even shows you how to hide a page from non-fans to encourage them to “Like” to reveal what’s behind the curtain. [Link: Cathy Larkin]
• Facebook Marketing: The Busy Person’s Cheat Sheet: Demographics! How to reveal a tab AFTER people “Like” your page.
• The 1 Degree Difference: Powerful post that uses great examples to show how one little degree makes a difference. [Link: Joshua Johnson]
• Libel threat a good reason to moderate comments: It’s not that bloggers are afraid you’ll say something negative about their posts — they have to protect themselves especially when people say something about someone else.
• 15 Killer Google Chrome Features You Might Not Know About: I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know about most of them.
• Why It’s Time to Say Good-Bye to Free Wi-Fi: Scary stuff. Scarier than the most haunted house on Halloween.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• 26 Sexy Halloween Costumes That Shouldn’t Exist: Seriously right… (No nudity or anything, but probably best not to view in an office or around young’uns.) [Link: Diana Adams]
• Pumpkin Wrecks from Cake Wrecks: This is the kind of site I wish I had thought of. I love cakes, but I am not a baker. Best of both worlds.
• 200 Pumpkin Carvings:  Simpsons, video games, Star Wars and much more.
• The Many Variety of Beers: Not a fan of ale, lagers or any of that. But a fan of this chart.

Share a favorite Halloween or Jack O’Lantern memory.

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Welcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas. We’re honored to be a stop in Candace Coulombe’s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour for the Coffee House Fiction Anthology 2010 and The Fifteenth Dame Lisbet Throckmorton Contest. We’re giving away a copy of her book, Second Grace: stories of fresh starts, second chances, and also running away. Read on to see how you can win.

About Candace Leigh Coulombe: Candace Leigh Coulombe is the author of Second Grace: stories of fresh starts, second chances, and also running away and Mercy Seat: a novella of love, loss, redemption, and hagiography. Second Grace won the Compilations/Anthologies category of the 2010 Beach Book Festival and an Honorable Mention in the 2010 San Francisco Book Festival, and an included story entitled “ScentEasy” won the 2009 Environmental Futures Writing Prize.

Candace works in Northern California full-time as a marketing communications specialist and part-time as a writer of short fiction, essays, and poetry. Her work has been recognized by the Sacramento and Elk Grove Public Libraries, NYC Midnight, the American River Review, and PEN Women. Listen to an in-depth interview or read her stories.

The Truth That Allows You to Lie: Using Historical Facts to Enrich Your Fiction by Candace Leigh Coulombe

Gentle readers and writers~

Like many literary women, I feel I was born in the wrong era. It’s through the escape of fiction that I enjoy other times. And, as a writer of flash fiction, I can afford to be capricious. I experience disparate eras, genres, and points of view that would be difficult to commit to, for a reader or writer, in longer forms.

Writing historical fiction isn’t just writing a period piece. You can take a known event or age and craft new characters, or take persons of note and craft new situations. Then, add elements of non-fiction, memoir, or fantasy.

We all need external influences for our work, or we’ll write about the same boy who broke our heart over and over again. My stories have three elements vying for the same little space: practical matters (word count, genre, location, object); inspiration (poem, painting, etc.); and theme. I don’t hold fast to “write what you know,” only to “write what you want to know more about.” So, some of my favorite stories were inspired by news articles. The glimpse of the true story -– the exoticism of a foreign land or time gone by -– makes me want to learn more. Inevitably, in the research, I encounter new ideas that enrich the story. The language should reflect a precise era, location, and social class.

I aim for accuracy, even when the narrative veers toward the fantastical. For example, I was given the task of writing a bus stop horror story. I’d read a news item about German convalescent homes that erected fake bus shelters as a bit of therapy. Around the same time, I’d read accounts of the Lindbergh kidnapping. I pursued a historical fiction-fantasy approach to the perpetrator’s fate in “Buses and Planes.” The characters and details of the Lindbergh affair are true; I’ve just imagined a different fate. There are very small things, some the reader may never know, like the smoke rings one of the characters blows that echo the rings on the real ransom envelope.

For “The Gulf of Aden,” I’d read an article about the precautions some cruise lines were taking when sailing through the eponymous passage, and I wondered what would happen if they didn’t take any. It’s a contemporary story about division of wealth in which the social-climber gets what she thought she wanted and finds it’s not really wonderful at all. But, the story wouldn’t be the same having read up on pirates or Cunard itineraries.

My two best resources are The Complete New Yorker and The New York Times archives. I love having access to a century of news, reviews, and advertising. I wrote “Phoning Arcadia” after reading a “Talk of the Town” column from 1927.

But, for any work, the truth in the details allows you to buy the lie that is the story.

Whether it’s romance, suspense, political satire -– anything, actually — stories aren’t derived from nothing. It’s an interesting obituary, lip print on a shirt or aching piece of music. Then, instead of placing that object in the story, you weave in a thousand details. Lipstick on a collar is almost never from a wife –- a universal story there. But what about laundry marks, collar stays, the faint scent of sizing?

Try to capture a little piece of history in each story. There’s so much beauty in the world. Let your curiosity make your stories replete with truth and beauty and readers will gladly join your adventures.

So, tell me, if you could take any historical event and craft a new ending, what would it be?

Win: For a chance to win a copy of Second Grace: stories of fresh starts, second chances, and also running away., please leave a comment at least 50 words long that answers Candace’s question. You have until 11:59pm on November 1, 2010 to qualify for the drawing. The unbiased and robotic Random.org has the honor of picking the winner.

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PC and Macs have different catches this week… but they both begin with … “Mys.”

PC Catch of the Week: Mystery Age: The Imperial Staff: After a powerful storm threatens your village, your father has decided to venture out in search of its cause. This Hidden Object Adventure game will have you tracking down the pieces of the ancient Imperial Staff to stop the mysterious black rain and save your father from an evil spirit! Explore the wilderness and solve perplexing puzzles as you search for this mythical weapon in Mystery Age – The Imperial Staff.

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Mac Catch of the Week: Mystic Diary: Lost Brother: In href=”http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/5604/mystic-diary-lost-brother/index.html?channel=affiliates&identifier=af53c1a96f67&cid=tgz”>Mystic Diary: Lost Brother, you take on the role of a Victorian-era magician on a noble quest to find his lost brother. Travel throughout the world using the magical pages of the Mystic Diary to unlock the mystery behind your brother’s sudden disappearance. Find hidden objects and solve fun mini puzzles in this Adventure game. Save your brother and become a master of the Mystic Diary!

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, October 31 at 11:59pm.

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day.

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Despite the $$$ of going to the State Fair, I’m glad my family went to the State Fair. (Minus our daughter who had a high school class. Ironically, she went to the fair that night.) Some of you may know about Texas Star, the giant ferris wheel. Well, it cost $24 for four of us to ride it! And that was the average cost for most rides. The cheapest — a fun house — cost $4 per person.

We couldn’t ask for better weather. It turns out this year’s fair made it into the record books with $37 million spent on food and rides. Well, yeah, price probably goes up every year. The previous record was $29 million. Attendance went up thanks to the perfect weather and the tribute to legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Laundry exhibit. Paul and I wanted to go check out the exhibit, but the line was long and it was right before we left the fair with tired boys. (It turns out we picked the right time to leave. By the time I got off public transportation to walk to our car, my legs turned into lead.

Quick review of what we did: Watched diving show, rode rides (I did the Texas Star and a small, jerky roller coaster with my older son), checked out the cars in the auto show (The Dallas Auto Show is better) and walked for miles. Of course, we got a pic with Big Tex.

Oh, fried food? The only fried food we bought were French fries for the boys’ lunch. This year’s lineup just didn’t appeal. They also had the more appealing ones from previous years, but I opted to save the cash and my arteries. We also saw fried beds. OK, this was one company’s poke at fried food with its ad.

Brain food…

• Let’s try that again: It’s OK to fail. Better to attempt something and fail, than to never do it at all. [Link: Debbie Ohi]
• Getting Paid: 6 Standards to Set for Your Freelance Business: I’m against writing on spec.
• 1 Simple Way to Boost Productivity by 50%: This doesn’t surprise me. Revisit all the meetings you attend and see if they still have value.
• Stop asking for advice: Oh, no, no… you can still get help. Change the perspective…
• Do You Keep Your Work Computer on After You Leave? How to Put Your PC to Good Use While You’re Sleeping.
• Manifesto for a Freelancer with Family:  I believe in and apply a lot of this. I need to work on some things, too.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• House of paper still standing after 90 years and The Ultimate Papercraft Project: Now you know what to do with all those newspapers…
• 50 Sandwiches to Eat before You Die: Types of sandwiches, not specific places. So it’s doable. I’ve been interested in the bahn mi since I first caught The Great Food Truck Race. The Nom Nom truck — the banh mi pros — dominated every single episode except the most important one.
• Timeline: Fabulous clock. It knows your time zone.

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I smiled when I read Daphne Gray-Grant’s October 5 issue of Power Writing. (I recommend the newsletter especially for writers.) She wrote, “Finally, one important P.S. I’m no longer a member of a book club because I dislike being told what to read — especially when there’s a deadline. If a book club works for you, well, make that item #8. If not, don’t feel guilty about it! Reading should be about enjoyment, not guilt.”

In this issue, she gave seven ways to make sure your reading helps you writing. I suppose I should share the seven tips to avoid torturing you while reading this. The tips are hers and the comments that follow are mine.

1. Be sure to read only those books you enjoy. It took a couple of books for me to learn to just cut the book loose if it stinks. Well, unless, my college class required it.
2. Read only a limited amount of crap. How do people get an accent where they live? Because they hear it so much, they sound like it. Same thing with reading bad writing.
3. Read the kind of writing you aspire to produce yourself. This doesn’t mean reading Jane Austens. It means if you write white papers, read the white papers from the best writers and books about white papers from reputable white paper writers.
4. Never feel obligated to finish material you don’t like. Before I pick up a book or agree to do a book review, I research it to see if it’s worth my time. Sure, I’ve posted a few reviews of books I didn’t like. In these cases, I was doing a job as a reviewer not reading a book I chose.
5. Keep a record of what you have read. Books read PDF file. ’nuff said.
6. Have a good system for tracking the names of books you want to read. I keep a file with this info that I can access on my mobile device. You never know if you find a deal while out and about.
7. Give books away when you’re finished. The only books I keep are references that I can refer to again, autographed books and special books such as those where I contributed.

I agree with her that reading should be about enjoyment and not guilt. My book club has given me the opportunity to read books that I would otherwise never get to read especially fiction. Because I do non-fiction book reviews and other book-related work, I don’t get to read fiction.

Thanks to the book club, I’m currently reading The Help and read Time Traveler’s Wife. If I don’t like a selection, I don’t read it. Other members have admitted to not reading or finishing a book and we respect that. I also discovered books I would not have considered like The Secret Life of Bees and The Freedom Writer’s Diary. I’m sure every book club operates differently. I appreciate mine for their flexibility, insightful discussions and delightful company.

Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing and editing coach and the author of the popular book 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. She offers a brief and free weekly newsletter on her website. Subscribe by going to the Publication Coach.

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The fourth Wedding Dash game opens with Quinn’s Mom coming home to help her wedding business and preparing for Quinn’s wedding to Joe. Uh oh. Mom doesn’t know that Quinn and Joe called off the wedding. Talk about a twist as most people probably expected this one to cover their wedding. Aside from a couple of tweaks — one of which affects strategy — the fun series remains entertaining albeit a couple of disappointments.

The premise remains the same. As Quinn and Flo, you seat the guests, serve them and prevent disasters earning enough points to beat the goal score to go on to the next level. For those who like the extra challenge, they can aim to beat the expert goal score. It doesn’t lead to bonuses or anything. Just motivates those who want to go the distance.

Another way to further challenge yourself is to change the game setting from Normal to Firecracker. You may play through the entire game in Normal and then switch to Firecracker. This ups the game’s replayability, but there’s no second game mode to be had. That’s neither a good nor bad thing. Other game modes don’t always attract players.

You replay a level when you miss the goal score or you don’t find all of the hidden items. If you don’t get all the hidden items, you don’t get a gift to play Quinn’s Big Day. You must collect all 50 gifts from 50 levels to play the Big Day, which turns out to be a disappointment.

On one hand, it’s a good thing it’s just one game as some people may struggle to find all the hidden items or prefer not to play that part of the game. On the other, when the game is called Level 6-1, you’re thinking you have 10 levels of game play left. You don’t. It just ends. I’m not the only one thinking this because I searched the Internet thinking something broke in my game. It didn’t.

One improvement is that you no longer have to read about the couple and their preferences, and then answer questions to get points. Instead, you look for items on the scene such as silverware, rings, tickets. When you find all the items, the newlyweds thank you with a gift of something to use in Quinn’s called-off wedding. It could be flowers, seating, decorations.

Another cool twist — and the one that changes strategy — is the bride and groom will ask to sit at a certain table or next to a guest. Once you seat them and feed them, you can send them back to the altar and ta-da! Room again for guests. It doesn’t sound like much, but it affects how you handle the game play.

Plus, when they ask to be seated again a second and third time, you’ll need to feed them the entree and cake. So it could mess with your chaining bonus. (A chaining bonus comes in when you do the same thing in a row and points increase. For example, feeding guests appetizers.)

New in Wedding Dash 4-Ever is guest requests for photos with the wedding couple. The request comes after the guest finishes eating cake and prior to going out on the dance floor.

Also new are two mini-games. (See both in last two screen shots.) One mini-game involves seating guests at the wedding ceremony based on their preferences. The other is trying to get all the guests to join in the conga line. In leading the conga line, the next guest must be in a straight line from the current one and you must figure out the direction to go that gets you through all the guests to the newlyweds.

Upgrades to speed Flo and Quinn, have more servings of food available and more are also present. You earn the money in playing previous levels and mini-games. Quinn also has to deal with disasters such as the aunt who cries when she loses her dog, giving the microphone to a guest who wants to make a speech and so on. They keep you hopping.

Much of the game play remains the same save for a couple of twists. You also may not feel the need to read much about the couple since there’s no questions being asked. The story was average, but an unexpected one. Wedding Dash 4-Ever reeled me in like the previous ones, but did become tedious at times especially in the later levels when my hand was cramping from doing so much at once.

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No, not in St. Louis! Texas State Fair in Big D! Late with the links because of Blog Action Day and being exhausted from the fair. More deets in the next edition of links. On with the show!

OK, so you can barely see us... but gotta have the traditional photo with Big Tex

Brain food…

• Web Pages Are from Mars, Blog Posts Are from Venus: Short, powerful blog post on the difference between blogs and static pages. I never considered that web pages were men and blog posts were women
• Nine Quick Tips to Identify Clutter: I’m finally gonna get rid of that cookie decorator kit. I have never used it. I remember buying it at a big sale. Well, jolly good it did. Never used it. I hate wasting money, but it’s taking up space and will pay off more with a begone.
• How “Fun” Can Be Your Best Discipline Technique: So simple, yet tired parents may struggle to remember these things when they need it. (Goodness knows, I have selective memory… when I am in a situation, I can’t recall any of the tips.)
• 7 Ways to Keep the Sales Rolling in Your Small Business: Melinda Emerson, author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months, gives you seven ways to evaluate your marketing strategy’s effectiveness.
• 7 Tips for Work-Life Balance: Good reminders of what’s important. I’m lucky to have a the best partner in life in Paul, my husband. It does make a difference.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Quotation Marks Fail: Grammar cops… get ready to wince.
• Exploding Dog Inbox Cartoon: Inbox zero… not the ideal way.
• Weird and Wacky Travel Signs: Sure fire way to laughter no matter how deep the doldrums. Seen any hitchhiking butterflies? Better warn ‘em it’s not a good idea. [Link: Paul Steele]
• License Plate Win! I love discovering and deciphering personalized plates.
• Do you have a flow chart? [Link: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez] Does your brand need a new logo? Use this chart to find out.

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A good catch this week! See the Avenue Flo review to learn more about the adventure game.

PC and Mac Catch of the Week: Avenue Flo: Due to a series of mysterious events, the biggest wedding in DinerTown history is on the brink of disaster! As Flo, you will have to explore the whole town, interacting with your neighbors and enlisting their help as you solve puzzles, collect missing items, and complete challenging activities that will put everything back in its place, in this exciting Adventure game. Deliver all of the items Quinn needs in time to save the wedding in Avenue Flo!

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, October 24 at 11:59pm.

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

This post joins Blog Action Day 2010: Water.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “water”?

Maybe you think… Scarce. Critical. Dirty.

Me: Wasteful.

Since reading an article on water in the early 1990s, I’ve been drinking at least 64 ounces of water daily. For years (still does), a big drinking cup with a lid has accompanied me at home and at work. When I go places, I always figure out how to have water with me. The how depends on where and how much I can carry.

One thing stays the same. The water content. It’s always store-bought water.

It’s about taste. Not about thinking bottled water is better than tap water.

Because we need water, I’m trashing the planet. It pains me to say this especially when you have African women walking over 40 billion hours every year to gather water, and it’s often not safe drinking water. And to make matters worse…

“17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled,” writes Tara Lohan in change.org. Well, at least, I recycle every single bottle. But I still feel bad.

I’d love to save money and avoid piling up on the trash by drinking tap water. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the last time I lived in a place where I can stand the taste of tap water. In the early ’90s, we had a water cooler. In the late ’90s, we tried the filtered pitcher route. My fridge has a built-in filter, but it fails to filter the taste.

People challenged my taste buds, and the bottled water brands I like won every time. However, some bottled water brands lost. Evian did.

I feel bad about buying water instead of using tap water. Goodness knows, I’ve tried to drinking from the tap. Whenever I did, I didn’t drink enough water. You know humans need water just like we need to breathe.

Maybe it’s time our cities figure out how to improve taste and some of us may finally stop buying bottled water, or at least cut down.

A side note: Washing our hands is one of the best things we can do to fight illness. Yet, it takes 20 seconds of hand washing to ensure we have clean hands. I recently read somewhere that antibacterial hand cleaners don’t do as good a job as soap and water.

Clearly, we need solutions to help us stay healthy without using up a lot of water.

How do you conserve water?

OK, whomever thought of the term “small talk” must be one of those master communicators. For many of us, small talk is a big and stressful undertaking.

I admit it. I have a few boring, overused questions (Where are you from? What do you do?) in my small talk arsenal. I do have a couple of creative responses to common questions. Where am I from? “Plano, Texas, not to be confused with Pluto.” Or when I don’t feel daring, “Plano, Texas, a dash north of Dallas.”

First, it’s hard for me to even approach folks because I fear I won’t understand other person. When I struggle to read lips, I go in robot mode and do a lot of the talking. Believe me, I believe in the whole the G-d gave us two ears and one mouth, so we should do more listening and less talking.

Would you believe I learned this from a third grader when I was a student teacher? She wrote a story about a deaf person who talked a lot. The genius of a student made me realize that I start dominating a conversation (not on purpose) when I get lost as a way of staying in the loop of a conversation.

Anyway, Bob Burg’s short post on Getting Comfortable with Small Talk gives one simple suggestion on how to get a conversation rolling by expanding on your “Where are you from” answer. My Plano / Pluto comment is a good start, but a planet reference may not lead to a fascinating astronomical discussion because few people have an interest in planets. At least, compared to Burt Reynolds. (Refers to Bob’s example: “I’m from Jupiter, Florida, hometown of Burt Reynolds.”)

In the past, I have mentioned Plano as the home of Deion Sanders and that prompted conversation. Often, people would say, “Oh, Neon Deion.”

“Actually, he hates that. He prefers ‘Prime Time’ as I’ve driven by his home where he had that inscribed on his front gate.” Since Sanders left the Dallas Cowboys, he also left me without an interesting Plano reference. (I’ve been a Cowboys fan from the moment I knew what football was. Thanks, Dad.) I’m out of Cowboy references because they’ve either retired or moved. It’s just as well. The team stinks this year, but I keep on rooting.

I could say that Plano is the hometown of Frito Lay, JCPenney and Dr. Pepper Snapple. Then maybe the conversation will lead to food, fashion or drinks. We also have an annual Balloon Festival that my family has only attended once because the timing is bad for us every single year. Ugly Betty‘s Michael Urie is also from Plano. But the show is no longer on the air, so people don’t always know who he is. Gymnast Carly Patterson and my kids went to the same orthodontist. Nastia Lukin is also from the area.

Or we skip the whole location thing and go right into the what you do. Sometimes instead of taking the easy way out and say, “I’m a writer and editor,” I respond with “I’m a content maven” and the conversation sometimes grows from there.

Where are you from?

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