Marketing

As expected with the start of a new year, publications flood the market with articles on goal setting, planning, reviewing. As a person who likes to think medium (as opposed to big), I struggle with figuring out what I need to do to ensure a more successful year. Many successful people create loads of products, work long hours affecting family time and taking on a lot of things at once with no end in sight.

Photo credit lpierard

So my mind swims with thoughts of creating products, writing a book, getting a graduate degree, doing this and doing that. As it stands, I have little time to blog here and contribute articles to several publications. How can I think about adding some of these?

If I turn this whole goal setting and planning into a big production based on what the experts advise, I don’t think it’ll happen. At least, not for me. You argue that nothing happens without you. True. However, these suggestions overwhelm and paralyze many folks including me. For most people, they’d do nothing. As a one-person freelance shop, I need to keep it simple. And I’m sure many freelancers find themselves in the same position.

Ignore the Fancy Advice, Make Your Own Rules

The people appearing in these articles had one thing in common: passion. So, I reflected on what I love. This led to my three rules, which I cover in Drowning in Goal Setting? Go Simple along with three steps to come up with your own goals. A quick recap:

1. Keep clients happy.
2. Keep marketing.
3. Keep mind, body and spirit in check.

It’s Never Enough

Sometimes you can’t do everything you want now. It bugs me when I read articles saying to stop putting things off, stop waiting for the “right time” to start like when the kids move out. Excuse me, but if I start grad school now, it’ll sacrifice family time and break all the rules.

No. I’m going to enjoy the time I have with my kids now. They will be adults for a much longer time than they will be kids. In Success Magazine, Zig Ziglar says his success comes from “home field advantage” — meaning he makes sure things go well at home before tackling work. A happy home means a happy person outside of home.

The problem for people like me — when you make the money you want — it won’t be enough. When you accomplish XYZ, it won’t be enough. When your resume lacks an advanced degree, it won’t be enough. Instead of focusing on the destination, I pay attention to my daily journey with an occasional review of the big picture.

Some things require going with the flow and making things happen along the way. I cannot and will not over commit. To do that will negatively affect the three rules. Taking on too much will interfere with my ability to deliver great results for current clients. It also leaves little time for marketing. And an overwhelming load affects body, mind and spirit as it’d force me to sleep fewer hours and sacrifice exercise time. When one or both of these happen, it hurts the spirit.

I exercise daily. I make time for that. But it means sacrificing something else.

Simple Works

I accomplished a big personal goal in 2010. I didn’t start on January 1. I didn’t wait until January 1. Heck, I didn’t even start on the first day of the month or a Monday. I started on a Thursday at the end of March. I made up my mind and started right then. Business is like that. I watch my business and professional lives and make decisions based on what’s happening and a little temperature taking.

Of course, I don’t stand by and let life happen or pray for clients to come to me. I go for it. I ask for it. I look for it. It works without a one-page plan or specific goals such as writing three articles a day. The key is that I need a snapshot of today to decide what I’ll do tomorrow. I adapt and change as needed.

After a quick big picture and small picture review, I figured out what I could do and accomplished two things in the first week of the New Year that I hadn’t in a long time.  And I did it without complex planning. I may not be able to do this again next week because I change course as needed and the snapshot may show something different.

What are your most important rules?

In her Name Tales newsletter, Marcia Yudkin shares a disheartening Las Vegas Sun article about what happens to a company that chooses a name that resembles another company’s name. The story shows that anything can happen with a company’s name that even if the company does nothing wrong. The safest thing to do is not fall in love with one name or brand, but to have a few options and then research to see if anything comes close.

These resources help you with your naming and branding effort with a couple of what not to dos.

Articles

1. 5 Obvious Rules for Naming Your Product (That We Wish We’d Followed)
2. 8 Mistakes to Avoid When Naming Your Business
3. 10 Tips for Naming Your Company, Product or Service
4. 11 Ways to Play the Name Game
5. 50 Worst Company Names (Requires registration)
6. The Basics of Branding
7. The Best (and Worst) Business Names
8. Branding Dilemma: When to Use Your Own Name
9. Business Name and Tagline Generator
10. Create a Unique Company Name
11. Day2Day Activities: How they named their companies
12. How 10 Famous Technology Products Got Their Names
13. How they named companies – fact or fiction?
14. How to Create a Great Business Name
15. How to Create Company Names
16. How to Name Your Business
17. How to Select a Company Name
18. Hunt is on for world’s worst rebranding
19. Microsoft’s Zune Raises Ruckus in Hebrew — the reason you should verify your brand name in another language before selling it in other countries. Chevy Nova (no go) wouldn’t go over well in Spanish-speaking countries.
20. The Name Game
21. Naming Your Company, Product or Services [pdf]
22. Put Your Business Name to the Test and more from About.com
23. Tech’s Product Name Guru: Meet the man who coined BlackBerry, Azure and More
24. Think Search Before You Name Your Next Product
25. Wikipedia company name etymologies

Resources

1. Brainstorming domain names.
2. Brand Name Generator
3. Brand Naming
4. Building the Perfect Beast: The Igor Naming Guide to Creating Product and Company Name
5. CatchWord Naming Blog
6. Community Mottos and Nicknames. City names can provide inspiration.
7. The Funny Name Server
8. Latin dictionary
9. Name Tales
10. Naming Online
11. POP! Stand out in Any Crowd book.
12. Free Tools and Sites for Writers: Check the resources section for references.
13. Snark Hunting: The Naming and Branding Blog
14. US Patent and Trademark Office
15. Web 2.0 Name Generator
16. Writer’s Digest Flip Dictionary book

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?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

Today Big Tex starts welcoming everyone to the Texas State Fair in Dallas where fried food reigns. Every year since 2005, the State Fair holds a fried food contest where cooks submit their unique fried creations. Last year’s winner… fried butter. My cholesterol shot up a few points just from typing that. The Fair has presented fried Coke, fried cookie dough, fried PBJ and banana sandwich.

This year’s best taste winner: Texas Fried Fritos Pie (Texas chili with sharp cheddar inside Fritos, then lightly battered and fried.) The most creative winner is fried beer (beer-filled pretzel pocket). I’m not kidding. See the list of Big Texas Choice Awards winners since 2005. How about a healthy food contest to go with it?

I’d like to take my kids to the State Fair just once, but every year it’s just  too expensive even with free tickets for Sundays for the kids. Yes, I know — I’d be making memories. But it’s not easy to just pick up and go there.

Avil Beckford of The Invisible Mentor interviewed me. Here’s the part one of the interview and part two of the interview. I shared life lessons in hopes it will help others learn something from them.

Brain food…

• The Beginner’s Guide to Zen Habits – A Guided Tour: “Take it in small chunks.” A worthy one to bookmark.
• 50 Kick ass new guerrilla marketing examples: Great examples of how to look at things from a different perspective.
• New words, senses and phrases added to New Oxford American Dictionary: A handful of the newbies: BFF, bromance, cloud computing, hashtag, LMAO, social media, social networking, staycation, steampunk, tag cloud and TTYL.
• How to Build a Successful Business by Doing These 10 Things: Lists Sam Walton’s 10 rules for building a business, so you don’t have to read his mixed reviews book.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Lion, the Witch and the Car Seat: Readers get creative with classic book titles re-written for modern times. Example: “Pat the Bunny and Then Slather Your Hands with Purell.” (I love that this post is dated on my special birthday because I love children’s books.)
• 30 Impossible Scenes That Happened: AND caught on camera. Holy photos, Batman! The commentary on each one fascinates.
• Lego Minifig Generator: Create your own Lego character.
• 30 Creative Sport Logo Designs: Some not your usual mascots. One thing I like about minor league baseball — creative team mascots!

Here’s a question from The Invisible Mentor interview that I’d love to hear you answer: How do you nurture your soul?

I debated whether to attend this annual sale after ridding my house of 300+ books. George Angus convinced me. I survived the sale and walked away with just FOUR books! It’s amazing when you find a book that you have on your “to read” list.

My youngest went to see the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. I have yet to get there myself. He also met former Cowboy receiver Michael Irvin. For non-sports fan, Irvin was a former Dancing with the Stars contestant.

Brain food…

• 9 Expert Tips for Better Writing: Love the quotes that accompany each tip.
• A Good Edit Would’ve Fixed That: April Hamilton, judge for self-published book awards, shares common problems she sees in the submissions — not your basic typos. [Link: BubbleCow]
• Best WordPress plugins for writers: Got some of these loaded already… need to check out AP Style Dates and Times. I tend to follow AP Style. However, I prefer am/pm to a.m./p.m., but I understand AP’s thinking behind this.
• A Novel’s Setting Can Be Your Marketing & Promotion Linchpin: How a self-published author sold almost 50,000 books. Inspiring success story!
• Unmask Parasites: I hope we never need this, but might be worth saving. If you think your site has been hacked, run this. [Link: Alan K'necht]
• 18 Things I’ve Learned About Book Marketing: Very detailed tips that includes a script for calling book stores. [Link: Debbie Ohi]
• Social Media Content Worksheet: Although from Jay Baer, I’m sending you to Georganna Hancock’s Posterous as she has great stuff and she’s worth following. [Link: Lori Widmer]

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Lego Movie Posters: I gave my son a cool LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary (affiliate). (Even I liked browsing it.) It’s incredible how Lego spun off a whole new world with its movie versions of the toys. I enjoy building them with my sons, but I don’t like that they fall apart easily.
• Funky and Fun Keyboards to Brighten Your Day: Browsing these cool keyboards will put a smile on your face unless you don’t like Star Trek, Garfield, The Simpsons, etc. etc.
• 80+ Creative Geek T-Shirts: I recognized a bunch (I love looking at geeky things) and discovered a few newbies. Always loved the “There’s no place like 127.0.0.0.” Also love the typographic tees.
• 7 Ridiculous Products Licensed by Major League Baseball: Hey, what’s wrong with Mr. Potato Head? [Link: Blair Semenoff]

Lori Widmer of Words on the Page tells the story of running into a fellow freelancer and playing catch up. The freelancer reported an empty client pot and that “no one’s calling.” I’d love to know how many businesses thrive by sitting back and expecting everyone to come rushing in to hire the business.

Waiting for Clients

If I waited for people to call, I’d be in her situation, too. Marketing isn’t a passive activity or one that we do when we have more time on our hands. Successful freelancers make marketing part of the job. Picturing cold calls? Cold calls work well for many freelancers while others don’t touch that. Networking without Walls or Boundaries lists a few ways to do marketing and they work for me.

Wondering why I have a picture of my son doing archery? Marketing is like archery. If you don’t do it at all, you have no chance of landing anything. If you shoot 10 arrows without aiming, at least one is bound to hit the target. It may not be the bull’s eye, but it’s something. Don’t just sit there, do marketing.

Finding the Right Marketing Activities

Maybe you feel overwhelmed by the many options we have available to us for networking and marketing. Start with one thing. Ignore the rest. Just pick one. Don’t make yourself crazy. Need some ideas? Here are 40+ Easy Marketing Activities for Freelancers.

After you find two or three activities that work for you, then proceed with the next step on How to Manage Your Time with Social Networks.

I’m busier now than two years ago. I used to do book and game reviews all the time. Now, I hardly do them because I have more writing and other work to do. That’s on top of managing my family of five (and doing all the appointments), exercising daily for at least one hour and getting my seven to eight hours of sleep. In spite of this, marketing remains a consistent part of my job.

In writing for several business newsletters, one message keeps repeating itself. When a business needs to cut back on spending, successful ones never cut the budget or time spent on marketing. Those that do eventually lose momentum that by the time things improve, they’re behind their competitors who kept on marketing.

How do you make marketing part of your work? What activities do you do?

4th of July Bits and Pieces…

4th of July in 2007

Shirts. Grandma (my mother) loved to buy Old Navy Independence Day shirts for the grandkids (my kiddos). I don’t know how many we have, but they came in handy two years ago. My second child had a little thing going with a teacher one year where he’d earn points for wearing an American flag shirt. One time, he wore at least three them to have fun with his teacher. This isn’t the kind of kid who likes school — quite the opposite. It warmed my heart to see him having fun with a teacher like that. I also have a daughter — the oldest of the three — but never got a pic of her in a flag shirt. She was usually away at camp.

4th of July in 2004

Living in DC. Living in Washington, DC had one cool benefit — July 4th. Husband and I didn’t fight the traffic or try to go to the Independence Day celebration on the capitol lawn. Instead, we went to a special spot next to the Anacostia River and caught the fireworks there. No traffic. I lived in DC the year that Patti LuPone did the show — man, I would’ve loved to see her in person. Me + crowd = disaster.

Traditions. On 4th of Julys while growing up, my family went to a good friend’s house with a huge backyard, swimming pool and gazebo. Sadly, my family doesn’t have any Independence Day traditions. Our town has a parade every year, but kids don’t care to go. We went once and that was that. At least, we experienced it.

To celebrate our country’s 234th, we’ll probably grill some food, swim and go to a parking lot that has a good view of the fireworks without the traffic.

Cool Mental Floss factoids:

• “AEGILOPS is the longest English word spelled in alphabetical order. In a sentence: ‘Wow, the letters in Aegilops are in ABC order!’” It’s a genus of plants.
• “In a 2003 Deloitte survey on business speak, ‘leverage’ was voted the most hated word, followed by ‘bandwidth’ & ‘touch base.’ I always try to find other words to use besides “leverage” and those aren’t great options either — “maximize” and “make the most of.” Ick.

LOTS of links this week since many folks are taking a long weekend.

Brain food…

• Ask Not What Your Novel Can Do For You: Fabulous tips for authors on blog tours. [Link: Elizabeth Craig]
• Features and Benefits Are So 2009. Sell To Driving Emotion: I love the hole / drill analogy. This tells me I need to finish reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion [Amazon affiliate link]. Keep getting busy with book club books.
• Memoir Tip: Lose the Play-by-Play: Superb advice. It is hard to avoid I did this, then this even if you tell it like a story. [Link: Jane Friedman]
• Summer Reading Picks from various authors: Not your usual or expected reading list from Harvard Business Review. I read Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning [Amazon affiliate link] in college. Maybe it’d have more meaning today as I’m older and not facing a thousand pages of required reading per week. Of course, I have Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write [Amazon affiliate link], but haven’t read it yet. And of course, a newly revised edition came out in May after I got my copy.
• 50 Things You Can Control Right Now: We experience days when something throws a wrench in our plans that we think our lives are spiraling out of our control. This is a great list to review whenever you feel this way. [Link: Susan Fletcher] And 50 Things to Love About Life That Are Free.
• 57 Power Words for Writing Brilliant Headlines: Organized by theme, too.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 of the Weirdest Soccer Goals of All Times: In honor of World Cup even though USA lost.
• Passion and Imagination in African Football: Incredible and moving pictures. [Link: Nieman Story]
• Imperial Tea Time: Just an awe-struck photo of two Darth Vaders during tea time. Or perhaps, you prefer Star Wars Lego Foosball Table?
• 15 Hilarious Dogs in Costume: Oh my gosh… some creative ones there.
• Gorgeous Red Color Inspired Photography: I love red.
• How 7 Summer Barbecue Staples Got Their Names: Hamburgers were not originally made with ham.
• Name All the States That End with “A” in four minutes. Dang it. I missed six <pout>.
• 8 Countries with Fascinating Baby Naming Laws: ‘Cuz I love anything names.
• 10 Hilarious Amazon Reviews: Gotta applaud these folks for creativity.

What country holiday traditions do you have?

Doreen Cronin with my youngest

What’s with the noisy title in this edition? Thank you for asking. I bet that those of you with young kids may have figured it out. We met Doreen Cronin, author of Click, Clack, Moo; Thump, Quack, Moo; Duck for President and Diary of a Worm (Amazon affiliate links) — to name a handful. I think a parents enjoyment of reading a book is a good way to measure the quality of a children’s book. You can bet I laugh lots when we read Cronin’s books especially the ones with the cows and duck.

I asked her what she was working on. She said it was the sequel of a chapter book that comes out in the spring. I looked up the chapter book to see if details were available — not yet. I think it’s a great move on her part because the kids — like my youngest – who know her duck and cows book best now read chapter books and beyond. My older son could have discovered her books when he was in the picture book stage — but we didn’t meet them until later.

Dallas Children’s Theater is performing a musical version of Giggle, Giggle, Quack. We hope to catch that one.

Brain food…

• Six Ways Authors Can Promote Books on Facebook: Authors need to take marketing into their own hands and here’s one way to do it.
• 15 Inspiring Home Offices: Kind of makes me appreciate mine more. These setups rock — I like not being against the wall.
• 101 Blogs That Accept Guest Posts: Love this list because it lists the more popular sites as well as the pagerank — but remember pageranking changes and plenty of lower pagerank sites are worth the guest blog post. I also accept guest posts as long as they meet my guidelines. [Link: @txwriter]
• The Cognitive Itch — From Earworms to Déjà Vu: Dealing with can’t get song out of my head, déjà vu moments and tip-of-tongue problems. [Link: Lydia Dishman]
• Become a Book Review Ninja: 10 Steps to Mastery: I’ve been sitting on an how to article for doing book reviews for months. It need spiffying and more storytelling. Well, this is exactly what I was looking for — don’t know that I would’ve used the ninja theme, but I knew a theme would work.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 16 Eye Popping Pixel Sculptures You Have to See: Ah, I remember the days of 8-bit graphics. Who knew it could be taken to another dimension?
• 25 Cool USB Drives: I use a boring basic one. What I need isn’t a cool one but a very short one because the one I have keeps getting hit because of the way it sticks out. Wax seal one brings back memories. Yes, I had one. [Link: Jessica Strawser]
• Beautiful and Funny Illustrations by Tokyo Go Go: Something different, colorful and fun to look at. [Link: @bkkmacdaddy]
• 10 Hilarious Yet Ingenious Solutions to Everyday Problems: I could probably use the t-shirt … but it’d help to make plans to travel to another country first.
• Dream Chronicles: The Book of Air: (Big Fish Games affiliate link) I love this PC game series because of its gorgeous screens, absorbing puzzles and captivating storytelling. Right now, it’s only available as a Collector’s Edition, but this gives you time to try the original, Eternal Maze and the Chosen Child.

Tell us about a time when you met an author in person or a celebrity.

Meryl's Dad with his parents

My dad wasn’t an outdoorsy beyond playing sports. Yet, he once took me fishing at a nearby lake. I don’t recall the lake or the actual time spent fishing. The picture that comes to mind is us leaving our home and getting in the car. We also had a great conversation because he taught me a new vocabulary word. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the word — just the experience of being with him and learning something.

I asked my mom about it. She said he took me to Lake Weatherford to swim and maybe Benbrook Lake to fish. (Both in Fort Worth, TX, area.) I learned something new about my dad. He liked fishing and used to go deep-sea fishing with his Uncle Abe and David in Atlantic City (Dad was from Brooklyn).

Brain food…

• What It Takes to Be an Agent: Love books, but don’t want to be an author? Learn about agentdom (or agenthood?).
• 4 Detective Tricks to Find Your Customers in Social Media: One of the key things businesses need to do before diving in social media is know where their target market hangs out online. Of course, you can jump into something and be an early adopter, but you still need to know this information before you plan.
• Pros and Cons of an MFA: Cute cartoon. I’d love to get an MFA or MLA in the future. I hope by the time I’m ready that there’s a local program or an online program (without video lectures) that fits. Why do I want to do it? Practice, feedback, challenge and education. [Link: Elizabeth Craig]
• How to Stand out on LinkedIn: Authored by LinkedIn VP, Steve Patrizi. Meryl’s LinkedIn here.
• A Writer’s Serenity Prayer: Rough day? Read this inspirational post.
• 5 Lies Unpublished Writers Tell Themselves (and the Truths That Can Get Them Published): #3 is my favorite.
• 12 Ways to Market Your Book by Giving Away Free Stuff. It can work… when done right and the article gives great examples. I don’t fall for those $300 worth of freebies, which includes a bunch of ebooks, articles and other stuff I never get around to reading.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Rubikcubism: Space invaders, Pac-man, Mona Lisa… who knew the befuddling Rubik’s Cube could do so many things. Beware that some of the pictures may not be safe for work. [Link: Bit Rebels]
• 65+ Incredible Soccer Action Shots and Portraits and World Cup Stop Motion Made with Lego – USA vs England: In honor of the World Cup action. [First link: bkmacdaddy]
• Super Mario Sticky Note Stop Motion: Wow, that’s patience.
• Hello Kitty Now in Star Wars and Star Trek: Amazing what adding a little ribbon does for Darthy’s personality. Too cute. My husband — father of our three children — loves Star Wars and Star Trek. So here’s 18 Astonishing Star Wars Sand Sculptures from BitRebels (obviously, I love this site) in his honor.
• A Geeky Stop Motion Animation Created With Fire: Cool. Just cool.

Share a memory of your father or a male role model.

Paul & Meryl in Hawaii, July 1998

Blackjack years ago today, my husband and I said our I dos. We still very much do. He still makes me laugh and laughs at the right time when I try to say something funny. Does being married for 21 years make us officially legal as a couple? Yes, that was an oxymoron.  Wow, in 10 years of running this blog (as of June 1), I never shared the story of how Paul and I met. Would you believe I was embarrassed to tell the story until about ten years ago? I’ll let Paul tell you the story as he recently wrote this.

“The advent of home computer opened the world up for Meryl. In fact, you could call Meryl and I the original online daters. Back in the early days of home computing (pre-Internet), people joined bulletin board systems (BBSes). Meryl and I belonged to several of the same BBSes and we traded many messages back and forth.

“We finally met in person at a picnic that the SysOp (system operator who ran a BBS) held for his users. After meeting, we went back to posting back and forth and it wasn’t until months later that we actually started dating. (Two days before her 18th birthday… yes, I robbed the cradle.) Our first date was watching Tootsie in her room. It was one of the few movies at the time that were closed-captioned.”

For a long time, I told people we met at a picnic. (True! Since it was our first in-person meeting.) At the time, BBSes weren’t cool and I didn’t want to look nerdier than I already did.

The photo comes from our 10th anniversary celebration and one of the most amazing vacations we’ve ever taken together. Technically, it was our 9th anniversary. I was three months pregnant and we knew that we would prefer to stay home with the baby the following year. (That baby would be our recent 5th grade graduate.)

Brain food…

• One Week Down, A Bit of Hindsight: Allison Winn Scotch shares her experience one week after her book’s launch. Just received my copy of her latest, The One That I Want: A Novel. Now to find time to read it between club reading and business reading.
• Freelancing During an Illness: Who wants to think about such things and curse ourselves? Better to be prepared. Sometimes you can prepare when you know you’re having surgery like I did and provided 10 tasks to prepare for time off.
• 50 Fancy Words That Stump NY Times Readers: Here’s the list in PDF. Surprised to see “overhaul” and “hubris.”
• One-sentence Summary Critiques and Tips: You may think you wouldn’t do this — but sometimes we’re too close to the work.
• Sleep and Your Productivity: Count on me being asleep between 10 and 10:30pm CST every night. It’s a habit I’ve had since the first job. Oh, sure, I’ve stayed up past that and learn fast why I don’t do it often. Going to bed one hour later than normal can throw the whole next day upside down. I feel fatigued with strained eyes before I even look at the monitor. I take longer to finish tasks. The only downside is attending special nighttime events. As much fun as I’m having, it can be tough to make it past 11pm. When I threw a big family celebration in 2007, I could not function after everyone left. Thank goodness I had some wonderful family members used to staying up late who helped with cleanup while I played zombie.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 5 Unusual Stickers for Your iPad: Pac-man is my fave. [Link: Aaron Lee]
• 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling: Love this from the Oatmeal. Almost enough to buy the poster, but hey I got young’uns in the house. Oatmeal’s How to Use an Apostrophe and What Your Email Address Says about Your Computer Skills also rock. [Link: Josh Hanagarne]
• Another 10 Far-Out Father’s Day Gifts: Father’s Day is next week… some ideas.
• The Most Magical Paper Craft Castle in the World: Breathtaking especially with the lighting.
• The 25 Most Unfortunate City and Town Names in the World: Gotta be a fascinating story behind most of ‘em. I’ve been to Hell in Grand Cayman and did the tourist thing sending a postcard home from Hell through its post office.