Links

My older two kids have a quirky schedule in the next week as they start taking final exams in 6th and 11th grades. The 2nd grader gets to have fun with an end of the year party and no finals. But 3rd grade is going to be serious business as it’ll be his first year of taking state tests. It won’t be long before he won’t get to do the fun stuff and not have finals.

Then summer begins. I’m not a fan of summer break because of the inconsistent schedule and work disruptions as camp and activities start later and end earlier than school. Of course, I’ll spend time with the kids — I just can’t spend it the entire summer and I like my quiet time and consistent schedule.

Brain food…

• Why I Don’t Count Followers, Mentions, Google Alerts, or Blog Hits Anymore: I try to ignore stuff like this and Klout scores. But sometimes you can’t help it and you wonder what you’re doing wrong.
• Getting Ready for “The Help”: Storyfix deconstructs “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. I loved the book especially since it changes points-of-view and the main character wants to be a writer. Just a great example for writers even nonfiction ones.
• Why I love writing: my 25 reasons: Did this guy peek into my life? Good reminder especially on rough days.
• 5 Free E-Books Every Writer Needs: A great selection from Jane Friedman.
• Taken to the Cleaners: Clients hire you for your expertise. For example, I’m a writer — but I share expertise beyond general writing advice. It’s up to the client to decide whether to take the advice. Key is to explain the why, don’t just say “I recommend doing this.”

For fun because we’re allowed…

• The Period Table of Storytelling: Wow! If you’re busy — don’t click on this until you have lots of time. You can order this as a print.
• Periodic Table of Swearing: Speaking of periodic table… obviously, NSFW. [Link: Bitrebels]
• 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World: Know a luftmensch? [Link: Michelle Mangen]
• Take the World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test: My brain is tired after studying the first few.

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Whoops. I didn’t publish links last week! Guess what… the sky didn’t fall. Sometimes we can’t blog. It happens. So there are more links than usual because some of them are the ones I saved from last week.

Best quote in ages: “Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.” This comes from Michael Hyatt’s blog post, Avoiding One Great Temptation Every New Dream Faces. It’s easy — especially for writers — to dig a big hole for themselves. A friend publishes a book and announces another on the way. {Green} Another colleague writes for bigshot blog. {Green} Writer has 20,000 Twitter followers. {Green} [Fill in something another writer has accomplished that made you jealous.] {Green}

It happens to me. It’s hard not to compare yourself to someone else who does the same job you do. Writers are kind of like snowflakes. It’s hard to find two with the exact same careers. Sure, Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson have published tons of books in a similar genre. But how they got there is different. They do other things, too.

People may be jealous of you, but they’re not going to admit it.

Green is for recycling, the color of my eyes and the rockin’ Dallas Mavericks’ old uniform. What else is green?

Brain food…

• Lower Your Printing Costs Up to 70% Without Changing Printer: Downloaded and installed. This lightens the ink. It’ll take some time to figure out what works best.
• Using Twitter to Support Your Business Social Media Strategy: Twitter does baseball. OK, I tried to do something different…
• 5 Lies Unpublished Writers Tell Themselves (and the Truths That Can Get Them Published): I’ve mentioned this many times include in my most recent real blog post on writer worthiness… writers are a business and that includes marketing.
• You Have to Suck First: When my kids complain they don’t understand something or they’re not good at it, I tell them they have to practice first and that’s what homework, studying and sports practices are for.
• Because Accidents Happen: Top 10 Doo-Dads to Keep Your Gadgets Safe: Love my BlackBerry Otter Box. Initially, I was afraid to order it because I thought it looked clunky and more for men. Well, I got many compliments and love the thing! I don’t use the clipholder. [Link: Erin Margolin]

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Line draw bike art: If you ever wondered how Superman or George Washington would look riding a bike, wonder no more…
• Star Wars and Disney Mashup: Had to share in honor of my dad’s memory. The kids loved hearing him talk like Donald Duck.
• New York Movie Map: Can you find 91 movies — all taken place in New York — in this poster?
• 10 Funniest Badly-Translated Ads: KFC isn’t finger-lickin’ good. They will eat your fingers off in Beijing.
• How to explain social media to your spouse: Tongue in cheek goodness. [Link: Jeff Hurt]
• 20 Funniest Captcha Art Pics: Some not safe for work / kids.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I always look forward to seeing what the new design will be on the elementary school Field Day shirt every year. Some great, some average and some blah. At first, I thought this year’s “Field Day is good” was bland. I knew it was a play off “Life is good,” but it didn’t captivate me. However, since then, it grew on me. My eight-year-old didn’t get it. Then the next morning, the newspaper had the “life is good” line in the article about Trader Joe’s and I showed it to him. (Yes, Dallas and places around Texas are finally getting Trader Joe’s!!)

I still have two of my favorite Field Day shirts. A couple of years ago, I caught a shirt one of the P.E. coaches wore and loved it. Then, I looked at the year on it thinking it was before my kids’ time at the school and couldn’t believe it. I could’ve had that shirt. How did I miss it?

The neat thing about the Field Day shirts is they sell for $5. PTA always sells them for as little as possible making only pennies (rounding to nearest dollar) because they want to make it as affordable as possible — not a profit. Huzzah, PTA!

Brain food…

• How to Minimize Interruptions When You’re Working: One of the reasons I’ve been efficient in my entire professional career is because of my deafness. Because of that, I never get phone calls. I think that’s where many waste time. OK, so I make up for it in obsessively checking email. I’m REALLY trying to cut back.
• 38 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 38 Years and 15 Life Lessons They Don’t Teach You in School: Imagine what a better place the world would be if many of us read these and follow them — bosses, employees, family.
• How Many Times a Day Should You Check Your Email: I’m awful. But I’ve had some days when I force myself to ease up. I close Thunderbird more often and instead just do a quick scan on the BlackBerry for urgent ones. In Gmail, I switch to Contacts so I keep Gmail open along with Chat.
• Using Quora to Boost a Freelancing Career: I tried to use it this week to look up some questions and it felt overwhelming. The best thing to do is have something very specific in mind when searching. It’s too big for generic.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 55 Hysterically Funny Smart Autocorrect Bombs: Warning — Lotsa cuss words and lotsa laughs.
• 10 Rejected Mother’s Day Gift Ideas: Smart move.
• The Anatomy of a Cupcake: Yum.
• 10 Most Amazing Flashmobs: Still looking to join one.
• Geek Zodiac v2.0: Me a samurai? Nahhh… Oh wait. Does this work like the Chinese New Year? You look at the previous year if you were born before the Chinese New Year? That would be astronaut. Eh… [Link: Bitrebels]

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Calm before the storm. Next weekend is kuuuhhraazzyyyy. Not only is it my youngest child’s birthday, but it felt like everyone wanted to schedule something that weekend. I’ll be heading to a family event with my mom and one unhappy son while hubs and son go on a scout camp out. Then, Sunday is the birthday / movie party for my baby. Dang, I can’t believe it’s been eight years since I held him in my arms for the first time.

Photo by sxc.hu user ba1969

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. Here’s an Easter smile: 10 Geekiest Gadgets to Celebrate Easter.

Brain food…

• 40+ free ebook tools for authors: Mah-velous list. [Link: Porter Anderson]
• The Comfort of Bad Reviews (That Aren’t Yours): Even the classics get bashed. [Link: Therese Walsh]
• Spring cleaning (and organization) for your social networks: By Cousin Sarah Evans. OK, She’s not really my cousin, but I wish because she’s awesome and thanks to her, I dumped big files in Gmail with Find Big Mail.
• 4 PR Lessons I Learned from Saved by the Bell: Yes, that show. I loved it and admit having the theme song on my MP3.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Book rug: <3 this rug by Pamela Paulsrud. She has other book sculptures — just click prev/next. My second fave is alphabook. [Link: Bitrebels]
• iPaw’d: I’d get this for my dog, but she doesn’t hear very well anymore. [Link: Bitrebels]
• 8 Snarky Song Charts Cleverly Illustrated: I had seen “Friday I’m In Love” before, but not the others. Delightful collection. Prepare for songs to play in your head.
• World’s Biggest Pac-Man: Holy, Inky, Blinky and Clyde!!
• The 20 All-Time Funniest Twitter Bios (part 2): S P E C T A C U L A R V E R N A C U L A R

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When The Ten Commandments (Affiliate) appears all over the TV listings plus my sister’s and son’s birthdays arrive — it means it’s time for Passover. Indeed, Passover begins at sundown on Monday. It often falls on my sister’s birthday. Sometimes it lasts through my son’s birthday, but not this year.

I need to make this tweet from Rochelle Veturis my mantra: “Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.” ~Turner. My oldest went to college night last night, and of course, looked at out of state schools. The only school in Texas was a small private school. I’m telling myself it will work out. It’s her job and I just need to stay out of it unless she comes to me.

What do you know? I woke up to this message from Seth Godin about college debt. Agreed. Do you care where I went to college? I think the only people (outside of family) who cared were the ones who received my resume for my first after college job. Beyond that, no one cared. I know some companies post in their job listings that candidates should have degrees from top schools. They also know they need to look at the whole person, not just what’s on the diploma.

Despite this, I take pride in having attended TCU (one year — yes, the school that won the Rose Bowl this year!) and American U (graduate). Actually, having spent about 10 years in the school’s speech and hearing clinic when I was a kid, I went to TCU longer than most. AND my mom took classes there while pregnant with me

Brain food…

• It May Be Your Fault If Your Client Doesn’t Appreciate All That You Do: You do such a great job delivering what clients need. And because of this, they don’t realize what happens behind the scenes. Isn’t that the reason they hired you?
• 10 Home Office Time Savers: Wow. I do most of these, so these tips work!
• Top Five Mistakes Writers Make at Conferences: Here’s a past post on what to do after the conference and why I shy from conferences.
• Authors Sign eBooks Electronically: I had wondered what could replace autographed books. Here’s your answer, but it takes more time than the pen.
• A Scroll to the Editor: We Love to Read: Birch Lane Elementary School took issue with NY Times’ article on the downturn of picture books. I’m a grown up and I bought picture books before I became a mom. When my almost 8-year-old cleaned his bookshelf, I gave away most of the books — but kept some. Just had our school bookfair. Managed to walk away spending less than $100. Whew.
• 20 Must have Android apps for every user: Have some of these on my Android tablet, but disappointed it doesn’t have a vibrate feature. Turns out, this isn’t a common tablet feature. iPad 1 and 2 don’t have it. Samsung Galaxy has it.
• 25 Must Have Firefox 4 Compatible Add-ons: I still prefer Firefox to Google Chrome and the others. But I try to limit add-ons to must haves because Firefox has one big weakness: memory hog.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 Amazing Transparent Sculptures: Last set of links had a yarn car. This one has an cool car — literally.
• Bitter Borders Compilation: Sad and funny. At least, the staff has a sense of humor to get through this. [Link: Victoria Strauss]
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate). Yes, I posted this last week. Worth posting again!

P.S. Of course, I want you to have fun. Since I had so much brain food this week, I figured I’ll limit the fun links to avoid overwhelming you.

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My older sister aka Aunt E celebrated her birthday this week. Here’s to many more happy and healthy ones.

This week is the third year in a row that my sons will attend the Dallas Auto Show. My older son loves, loves cars. The younger one likes cars, but nothing like big brother. Part of it probably comes from his wanting to be like big brother. Older son loves Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches. Uh oh. I can’t resist this upcoming cliché. You’ve been warned… “Oh, my.”

Bet we’ll have a couple of more model cars coming home to join the collection.

Struggling to make Springpad or Evernote seamlessly work with my process so I can stop relying on Gmail drafts and contacts for notes. Now that I have a tablet, I’ve been looking into this. Springpad requires having the web site open to edit or read notes. Evernote isn’t free. I have Gmail open all the time, so it’s easy to access drafts and contacts (I have notes in contacts). Downside is that you can’t view drafts on other devices. How do you organize your notes?

Brain food…

• What do newspapers pay? WordCount talks newspaper pay rates and shares resources.
• Emotionally intelligent signage on a box: Talk about thinking outside of the box. Brilliant.
• QR Code Generator: Other than the obvious, who’d use this? How?
• Top 100 Social Media Colleges: I love reading about colleges and checking out their programs… that is, until now. Oldest starting the college search thing. That takes the fun out of it. [Link: Mazi]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Yarn Ferrari: Patience in action.
• Cover Letters from Hell: Love the side comments from the editor, too. [Link: Deb Ng]
• Star Wars If Dr. Seuss Had Created It: Guess who would say, “This body is old, but it’s all I’ve got. When 900 you, reach, look so good, you will not!”
• 8 Actors Who Look Exactly the Same on Every Movie Poster: Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Jet Li, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise.
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate).

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

One thing about working for myself — no worries about April Fool’s pranks. But I do have kids and one in particular likes to pull stuff. Full alert! Here are some great April Fool’s office pranks [Link: Marc Harty] — fun ‘n safe. #37 cracked me up. What’s your favorite April Fool’s prank?

Legoland Discovery Center rocked. It blew away this adult who has seen many incredible creations. See a taste of MINILAND in the below Dallas skyline picture. That’s only part of it. It also had famous buildings from Fort Worth, my hometown.

A lot of GREAT stuff this week… so go explore.

Brain food…

• On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft:  Love Ian Rankin’s response to writer routines. “I have days when I do*bleep* all. I sit down at a computer, nothing’s coming, I’m having to tear each word out, it’s like digging for coal, and I’ll go: ‘No, this isn’t working,’ and I’ll just walk away.”  [Link: Kristin Bair O'Keeffe]
• The last freelance resource article that you will EVER have to read: Nice round up of apps and programs ranging from invoicing and legal to client management and project management.
• Champing at the bit: That’s not a typo. It’s champing, not chomping. [Link: Amber Naslund]
• Work Life Balance in the Home Office: I wear the same thing daily, so the clue to my kids that I’m at work is sitting in my office. It works so well that on a Saturday, my son asked, “Why are you working?” [Link: Alan K'necht]
• Freelance writing jobs: Top 10 places to find quality work: So many awful sites out there — good list to have as starting point.
• The secret to freelance work/life balance isn’t so secret: I’ve created a schedule and that makes a big difference to sticking with things. Need to grow “cheer team” to include writers.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Last Supper: 17 of the Best Parody Illustrations: Love the iPod / iPhone picture.
• 10 Real Cars Inspired by Cartoons: Donald Duck car = thinking of my dad. (He talked Donald Duckish to kids and his family spoiled him with a ton of Donald Duck stuff.)
• Cover Tune Grab Bag – “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”: This Beatles song is one of the few I can follow. This simple yet powerful video made me smile all over. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• Noma Bar’s Negative Space Illustrations: You’ve probably seen the young woman / vase picture. Here’s more. Neat, but my eyes have readjusting to do. [Link: Fred Schlegel]
• 3eanuts, Cinema Nutrition and WikiBomb: Three of the websites featured in 7 Sites You Should Be Wasting Time on Right Now. Who knew Peanuts could fall deeper into despair? Just cut the last panel in 3eanuts and it does. You’ll never look at movies the same way again after studying up on your cinema nutrition. Wikibomb captures Wikipedia pages before they’re taken down. In other words, Wikipedia vandalism vandalism.
• The Writing Process: Graph depicting the process of writing a feature. Just needs a ::headbang:: in there somewhere. What? You haven’t noticed a lot of writers walk around with dents on their foreheads? At least, I do [Link: Mridu Khullar]

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

You know March roars in like lion and goes out like a lamb? Not this time. It feels like the month whizzed by unless you’re in Japan. I’m sure it’s been a long couple of weeks. I’m thinking of the folks there every day.

The second Legoland Discovery Center in the US comes to Dallas. My family heads there tomorrow as part of a special preview for Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. I can’t believe Lego built the second one here. Here’s hoping it’s a memorable experience for the boys. I’m sure they’ll be asking for this ‘n that as Lego wouldn’t have this place and no Lego for sale.

The youngest got his braces on this week. He got tired of everyone asking, “Why do you need braces?” Severe overbite in his case. That will be three braces for all three kids.

I hope the younger two won’t need them again in the future. The older brother’s permanent teeth haven’t all come in yet and the latest round tried to mess with his teeth. Poor guy had to have three teeth pulled to prevent damage. Orthodontia has changed since I’ve sported railroad tracks. They put braces on kids sooner because they’re waiting until they’re older and baby teeth fall out can do more harm than good.

Brain food…

• 6 Strategic Approaches for Using Twitter: What I like about this infographic is that it covers customer relations, crisis management, corporate reputation management, event coverage, product promotion and sales and issue advocacy. Applicable to almost everyone. Key: Don’t wait until you need it to use Twitter. Start now.
• America’s 100 Best Small Companies: If you’d like to learn about how small companies succeed, these are a good place to start. Some known and some not known.
• 7 Different Types of Writing Gigs for Freelance Copywriters: When I spoke to second graders, first thing I asked was what kind of writers do they know about? Answers: book authors, newspaper writers, magazines. The usual. You know we can do much more and here are some ideas.
• Is a public post a quotable source? Due diligence in sharing information: Depends on the quote selected and where content posted. Newspaper, blog, testimonial, company website, Twitter etc. [Link: Arik Hanson]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 20 creative guerrilla marketing campaigns: I must live in a dull place or don’t get out much. Never see creative campaigns like these around town.
• 14 Funny Warning Signs: Thank you for noticing this notice. Your noticing this notice is noted.
• Angry Birds Papercraft: Made my own! No, I didn’t suddenly find myself with free time on my hands. Need to make ‘em so I could throw ‘em around when I get angry at the game instead of breaking my iPod.
• Magazine grammar fail: Eat, Ray, Love — that works, but they forgot the rest of the commas.
• Star Ways John Williams Tribute: Even Wookie captions! (Thank you, Corey, for captioning the video.) [Link: Lori Widmer]

My family doesn’t have ancestors from Ireland, yet Dad and I always wore green on March 17. Dad went to the extreme and wore a striped green suit to work. He also had a button that said, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” and a couple of others. (He wouldn’t get away with that kiss me button today with sexual harassment policies.)

My ancestry is tricky to trace as many of them came over from Europe and Russia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, Facebook connected me with some relatives on my mother’s father’s side. In ONE day, my family tree tripled. The top of this image shows the family tree before I found my cousins on Facebook and the bottom is what I added based on our conversations in Facebook.

Amazing, eh? Despite all of its flaws, Facebook is an incredible resource as so many friends and family members who aren’t social networkers actually use Facebook.

Brain food…

• Be Authentic: Why the World Needs You to Be You: I wish I could remember where I read a conversation between two people and one person convinced the other to stop ignoring a difficult part of her life. Face it head on. It made a difference in her writing.
• The Bare Bones Guide to Twitter: Get what you need to know and not a drop more. [Link: Lydia Ondrusek]
• Browser Evolution – The History of Web Browsers [Infographic]: Wow! I started using the Internet around 1993 with Internet in a Box and Mosaic. This chart begins in 1994.
• Prithee, Inform Me: The Rules of Writing: Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for fiction writing. A keeper.
• 100 Exquisite Adjectives: Need to study these. Not familiar with some, but I like ‘em! Can’t use words like these in writing because they’re not well known.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Another 12 Modern Bookcases: I love the US map bookcase. Don’t think I could handle such a bookcase as I like my books in a neat row. Here’s the original 15 coolest bookshelves.
• 12 Most Creative Objects Inspired by the Rubik’s Cube: That puzzling puzzle from the ’80s has a new lease on life… as a bunch of other things.
• Celebrate Pi at piZone: If you enter your email address, you’ll add another digit to Pi. I did this and my position is my birthday (month and day) with the #7.
• Stop-motion chess game: Builds up… give it time… [Link: Guy Kawasaki]

Where are you from?

Two ways you can easily help others and make a big impact: Donate blood and join the bone marrow registry. Donating blood takes little time and helps many. You have a few options for donating blood and some depends on your physical attributes. My tall husband can donate double red, I can’t.

Another great option is donating platelets, which you can do every three days. With platelets, you have very little — if any — physical reaction. Some people say that donating whole blood makes them lightheaded or too tired. Platelets don’t do that since the machine returns some of the blood properties back to you. I used to donate platelets, but I had a lot of problems with it. Because I couldn’t always hear the the beeping sound that lets you know when it’s downloading or uploading blood, the alarm kept going off due to low pressure. I tried watching the monitor, but it didn’t work either.

So I donate whole blood. I do it quickly and with no side effects. The blood center is grateful for anything you can do. Whole blood requires waiting 56 days between donations. Double red requires 112 days between donations. If you can do double red, it’s an amazing way to contribute and it’s only a few times a year.

Brain food…

• 7 Don’t-Miss Sites for Online Marketing: Focuses on authors.
• Finding Case Studies for Your Articles: Facebook is also great.
• 50 Rhetorical Devices for Rational Writing: I just learned the word “tricolon” before reading this. Oh, I’ve used tricolon. I just didn’t know it had a name. “A series of three parallel words, phrases, clauses, or statements: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” “Veni, Vidi, Vici.”  [Link: Elizabeth S Craig]
• Why Selling Similar Work to Multiple Clients is Risky Business: And don’t do it when you do a guest post. At least, be honest about it and post a second version months later.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Demotivational Posters for Freelancers: Demotivational posters aren’t new, but this is a great collection.
• Paper vs. Rock: Yeah, paper magically wraps itself around rock. If it could do that, it’d attack us when we write all over it.
• Scrabble a la Typography: Love this! [Link: Esther Schindler]
• Admiral Grammar letter to Colonel Burn: I salute you, Admiral!

We used to call it a chart. Now it’s “information visualization.” 1 syllable to 10. George Carlin would have a field day. – @markhurst (Yikes! I’d never thought I’d be guilty of such a thing!)