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.

Why do we “get a feeling or craving” for something at a certain time of year? It’s Pavlov at work. These become habits and with habits come expectations.

Not everyone can succeed in working in a home office. The temptation to procrastinate and do non-work stuff is too great. Lone workers don’t have to worry about people watching over their shoulders or Alt-Tab to switch away from the improper web site.

Turn “forcing yourself” to get things done into “habits that make it easy” to get things done in six steps:

1. Create a general schedule: This depends on what you do for work. As a writer, my activities are: communications (emails), writing, editing, research, administrative, and interactions. Assign blocks of time for the activities for the day.
2. Stick to schedule: I’ve made it a habit to start the day with an email, followed by a blog post (when I do one), and then article writing for the morning. The afternoon is for the tedious, less creative work and social networking (reading blogs, tweets, etc.). I know I don’t function as well in the afternoon as in the morning. I also exercise mid-day.
3. Give it time: You won’t have that “feeling it’s time to do something” overnight. It takes 21 days to form a new habit. It works, I promise. When I got into habit of not working due to hand surgery, I thought I’d never get back into work. I did. Just had to push myself to do #2 and it fell into place.
4. Work from the same place: If possible, set aside a space for work. I have two places: my little home office and my bed with a laptop (I had back problems plus that’s where I play games for reviewing).
5. Handle guilt: You might feel guilty about household chores and other personal activities that we must do, but don’t want to do. Set aside 30 to 60 minutes a day for such activities and do them then. That gets rid of the feelings of guilt and carries you through the day.
6. Take a break: Don’t let yourself get carried away with working at your computer all day and eating lunch at your desk. You may feel like you’re on a roll and not tired, but a break revives you. Make this personal chores time, if need be. The physical break gets you moving and your eyes away from the screen. I have a dog, so unless I want her to do her business in my house — I must take a break to walk her. We don’t have a backyard and she refuses to go before walking at least half a block.

Think about the different times of the year. Do you find you crave something or expect something? For example, my family can’t help but crave cake in January with three of us having birthdays this month and one in early February.

I used to play tennis on Saturday and Sunday before I got hurt. It’s going to take time to get back in the mood for it after a long time off plus the cold weather. So I’ll start with one of those days and build back up.

If my routines don’t convince you, maybe these people in Daily Routines will.

Habits can work on an hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly basis. It’s what you make of it. Steps 1 through 4 work for most habits. Pick one thing to turn into a habit and try it.