Slanting Topics

If the Cheapskate Mom got together with The Ultimate Cheapskate, can you just imagine the frugal children they would have?
I spotted the Mad Boastings of a Cheapskate Mom in the Blogs of Note on my Blogger Dashboard this morning, took a look, and thought about the difference in approach she takes to the same topic from Jeff Yeager's. They both offer information on saving money and the planet. The Mom's is evident in her blog's title and badges and posts with labels "green" and "planet". Jeff has recorded video segments on the cable channel "Planet Green" and made audio appearances on satellite radio programs.

Jeff started with a book, threw up a sadly neglected blog site, and moved right into big media with his publisher's help. He has an upcoming TV program, while Tamara Niewolny hurled herself into the blog scene and utilizes her status as chick/Mom in the New Media.

Jeff likes to persuade you to spend as little money as possible; Tamara teaches how to spend wisely. She reviews products and makes the most of her Internet connection, passing along tips on making money from home. I love her tag line: "Hugging Trees and Taking Names." Both are on Twitter: Tamara and Jeff, whose best tweet IMHO is from July 22: Am I the only one who wants the recession to end so that - most of all - Suze Orman and Jim Kramer will stop yelling at me on the TV?? See his slant toward financial management?

This technique of slanting material is one of the more difficult learning hurdles for new freelancers. It might help to study how different writers carry it out long term and in a broader spectrum than just a few articles. Starting with these two writers would be a good beginning.

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Writers' Tweet Chats

Are you a lonely writer? Try a Tweet Chat for company. The other day in a LinkedIn group discussion I mentioned finding chats on the World's Largest Chat Room (Twitter). They are one of the many ways to use this social networking service to further your writing career or business. You can search a frequently updated Google Docs spreadsheet for information about Twitter Chats. Many pertain to running a small business, but the following ones are of particular interest to writers:

#blogchat -- Bettering your blog 8-9pm CST Sunday
#writechat -- Writing and the writing life. 2-5pm CST Sunday
#journchat -- Journalists, bloggers and PR 7-10pm CST Monday
#litchat -- Readers, books and authors 3-4pm CST Open M-W, guest Friday
#kidlitchat -- Children's literature 9 pm EST Tuesday
#editorchat -- Twitter writers and editors 7:30-10pm CST Wed
#followreader -- Read, publish, author, library, book blog 4-5pm EST Thurs
#poetry -- Poetry readers, writers, and others 8-9pm CST Thurs
#journ2journ -- Reporter help, journalism challenges 7-8:30pm CST Thurs
#booktweet -- Free and eBooks. 12-1pm EST Sat

If you live in a very isolated area and can't get to writing group meetings in person, a Tweet Chat is the next best experience. You'll meet your peers (and sometimes your betters), learn, share, and make connections you can pursue later in email and visits to websites. You'll also find new resources and solutions to problems. Some groups have a blog or web page with transcripts available.

You must have a Twitter Account to see the chat (search for the hash tag name). You can lurk and listen right in Twitter, although many find that using a third-party service like TweetChat.com, FriendFeed.com, or TweetGrid are more useful ways to participate. With them, you also must register, usually easy, and enter the hash tag name for the particular chat room you want to enter. From then on, it's a big friendly party full of talkative writers. Fun!

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Podcast Writing Zine

The British site Hi-Arts has begun The Supplement -- a podcast magazine for writers in the Highlands and Islands. Subscribe to the RSS feed or you can download what I like much better, a PDF version . Besides being in print, it lists the websites links that the subject mentions. The first issue has a

focus on writing in the digital age with author, journalist and games writer Naomi Alderman. This issue has three parts - in part one, Naomi delivers a discursive presentation in which she considers impacts and future scenarios for publishing in the digital age.

Part two deals with scenarios for how writers will find an audience and make a living in the digital future, and part three is about Alderman's own works. That name rang a bell and, sure enough, I found a mini-review I'd posted on her Orange Award-winning novel:

Disobedience, ISBN: 978-0743291569, by Naomi Alderman. Glimpses into very different lives always intrigue me, and none are more different than those of Orthodox Jews. More so, apparently, if the traditional community is set in staid Great Britain, that bastion of blancmange. The spicy religious sect hold secrets within secrets, gradually revealed as the main character, Ronit, visits the place from which she thought she had escaped her heritage. Sad and unsettling.

I have a pristine copy of this hardcover novel for sale. I'll be happy to autograph and inscribe it to the buyer. See details and other reviews of the book in my Collections.

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Fan, Friend or Follow?

According to Friend or Follow, in my Twitter account:

I am following 8 accounts that aren't following me (only 3 are people)
I have 168 "fans" (those following me that I'm not following)
I have 18 "friends" (mutual followings) of the 28 I follow

Previously I wrote about "unfriending" in social nets, and I found a solution for LinkedIn. Now I'm facing a Twitterquette dilemma. Although the 189 followers I have are "organic" (I have never asked), I'm beginning to suspect that some of them are automated, based on key words. I know some of them pop up right after I participate in, or during, chats; but I like to think those are deliberate actions of people who observed my proffered wisdom.

The dilemma there is feeling guilty because I don't "follow back." I follow only who/what I want. I don't want the need to use yet another third-party application to sort out tweets I want to read from those I would receive only to be polite. If there is an obligation to follow back, I missed the memo. And no one has complained. No one complains about being followed, either. Is this a Web 2.0 faux pas, a poor business practice? Common sense?

I'm contemplating having a different Twitter account for the feed that appears in my signature and on my LinkedIn profile page. Less informal, more businesslike. All Follow. No reading. Make sense? Do you have multiple Twitter streams for different purposes.

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MusicLOL in NYC

I'm so jealous! A "Fringe" festival with a musical based on LOLcats!


According to today's feed from "I Can Has Cheezburger":

Two Cheez Frends, Katherine and Kristyn, have written an original musical called I Can Has Cheezburger: The MusicLOL! which is based on I Can Has Cheezburger.

If you are in the New York area, the musical will be part of the New York International Fringe Festival and will be performed on August 14, August 15, August 18, August 26, and August 28 at the Cherry Lane Theater. Click here for more information about I Can Has Cheezburger: The MusicLOL! and to purchase tickets for the musical!

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Book Income Unlikely

Lit agent Donald Maas, Jon Talton, veteran Seattle journalist, are featured with me in the lead story at Jilted Journalists. Jim Gold's piece rounds up advice for laid-off news persons who might want to write books in their now abundant spare time. I suggest a focus on non-fiction, but Gold quotes successful author Jennifer Weiner from Poynter Online: "...I think the best thing for being a novelist is having been a reporter."

I turn journalists back toward their strengths in a time of need. It seems obvious to me that those who worked as reporters full-time to feed a family, are probably grabbing for an immediate source of income. Writing a novel does not provide a living wage, at least not until they become established authors knocking out best sellers--and that happens to a tiny fraction of all who make the attempt.

Gold estimates 20,000 reporters have lost their jobs in the last 12-18 months. Lookout freelancers, here they come!

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We are not Worthy!

Would you be impressed if you saw this? Just in case the animation does not display: the sun symbol alternates with the text, "San Diego Website Excellence Award."

What if I told you it was not merited, and moreover it is part of a scheme to boost PageRank in the Google system? I discovered this "award" and image through a Twitter "follow". We are not amused. We are not following you! We do not want to be associated with underhanded web practices such as "triangle linking."

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A Wordle's Edge

Wordle - A Writer's Edge Words

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Will Write for Free

Will you write for food? How about for free? Freelancers are more likely to receive the latter offer. It's usually accompanied by visions of glory including great "visibility" to publishers and editors seeking material. Some solicitations cite high visitor rates for websites where they want to place your content, or large press runs for planned high priced volumes to include your chapter or "contribution" (latest jargon for writing for free). It's what freelancer Michelle Goodman calls PIE--Paid In Exposure. She writes in When to Work for Nothing:

It doesn’t matter if you’re a dog walker, a Web designer or a tax preparer. When you agree to work free, you reinforce people’s misguided ideas that the self-employed are independently wealthy hobbyists. Don’t degrade your profession by letting a cheap client take advantage of you.

Gordon explores the various venues notorious for such solicitations (Craigslist, post and bid boards, revenue sharing and working on spec), but also the three times when it might be to your benefit:

* as a charitable contribution
* to build a client list or portfolio
* client offers valuable benefits

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Golden Marmot Award

All I wrote was:

Hot naked editing–join those split infinitives! Slash those adverbs! Add those articles (everyone writes like tweets now!) #copy_editors

And it won


"Golden Marmot Award winners on Twitter are cheeky, wise, witty or profound (sometimes all at the same time), always in 140 characters or less," says sage Debbie Ohi, the original Inky Girl.

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Comic-Con IMAX Adventure

I had the best of Comic-Con yesterday, thanks to IMAX. It was the best because I didn't have to go downtown to the convention center to see a preview of new IMAX technology in an IMAX multiplex theater. Digital 3-D IMAX films rawk! The new projection and audio technology combined with custom-designed theater geometry make for what IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond and tech EVP Brian Bonnick called a new immersion experience for theater-goers. Unavailable for home theaters, of course.

As I tweeted, Harry Potter did seem close enough to touch, and I ducked the cow-catcher on the Polar Express when it halted just inches from my nose. Whew! I skipped the Terminator battle (not a total nerd) but bawled through the birth scene in the latest Star Trek. And I think Greg Foster implied--JUST IMPLIED!--that more Star Trek movies may be in the offing. Can you tell I'm a trekkie yet?

Unlike most of the rest of the select group, I did not spend the presentation thumbing a cell phone or madly keyboarding a laptop. I watched, listened, felt and noticed my reactions. I removed and replaced the 3-D glasses, looked through one eye, then the other to appreciate fully that immersion. When viewing a portion of "Under the Sea", I melted. I love skin diving in tropical waters. If it weren't for the chill of the theater, I would have felt I was back off the Great Barrier Reef again. Oh, I did take notes with an antique pen on a pad of paper.

I can't imagine a better way for writers to receive most of the auditory and visual stimulations of the real experience without the expense and fuss of travel.

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Scribner Rewrites Hemingway

A bowdlerized version of Hemingway's last novel A Moveable Feast hits bookstores. Hotchner complains in this NYTimes Op-Ed piece: Don’t Touch ‘A Moveable Feast’. I'm complaining, too, as a Hemingway legatee and aficionado, a writer, an editor and a book buyer. This makes me ill!

This is on a par, and perhaps a deeper pain, than the "wife destroyed my poems" post. It affects so many people--past, present and in the future, if it is allowed to continue in existence.

In a nutshell: one of Hemingway's grandchildren objected to his depiction of the child's grandmother (Hemingway's second wife). Need I point out that said child was not extent when the events happened? The greater gaffe here is that, as Hotchner points out:

All publishers, Scribner included, are guardians of the books that authors entrust to them. Someone who inherits an author’s copyright is not entitled to amend his work. There is always the possibility that the inheritor could write his own book offering his own corrections.

A. E. Hotchner is the author of the memoirs Papa Hemingway, a fond remembrance I strongly recommend.

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Zemanta Betters Blogs?

Any of you bloggers using Zemanta? According to Blogger Buzz:

Here's how it works: while you write your blog post in Blogger, Zemanta opens up a sidebar next to the Blogger post editor. After you've written a few sentences, Zemanta analyzes the words in your post and suggests images and video that are relevant to your post; with one click, it inserts them into your post.

It is a downloadable plugin, extension or bookmarklet for most browsers and the top blogging softwares either as clientsides or serversides. It can also jazz up your email messages. All with no registration, the site's info page for bloggers says. The section on reblogging interested me:

Your readers love your content - but do they link to your posts? Make it easy for them to quote you with a single click of the ReBlog button. You'll get full attribution and a backlink.

Zemanta recommended tags are SEO optimized, helping you boost your search engine ranking while easily organizing your content.

This helps you get more links, more readers, and boosts your Technorati rank.

And where would we be without the mandatory video:

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Wired World Links

I think I'm getting tired of being wired! Last week Google alerted me to certain new listings with geofollow.com, webshotspro.com and SaysHer.com (how did they know I am female?) Because the GeoFollow came about right after I'd signed up at WeFollow (yet another useless Twitter app), I suspect some kind of linkage there.

Everybody and his dog is taking advantage of the Twitter API to mash up a little service he can monetize with advertising streams. Past visions of the Web becoming one big mart are being realized, though not on a pay per view scheme.

Sign up for someone's newsletter and right away you're being badgered to join a different website or service--or is it separate? Dig a little and you'll probably find it run by the same person/people. Put your words out on the 'net, and you'll find them minced up and part of someone else's soup, next to adverts that might embarrass.

I kept my commitment to join WebFace or BookSpace or whatever. I really did, and as I explored its features, advertising began to appear on my pages. Unexpected and disappointing. Then the site found and duplicated dozens of this blog's posts. Unnecessary. I could find no way to integrate Twitter (which I wanted). I couldn't remove the blog or the account information, and now can't delete the account. When I try to access it, I get a message that the account is "scheduled for deletion" sometime next month. In the meantime, people are "finding" it and pestering me to become their "friend." By pestering, I mean I can't access account settings to stop receiving its email and can't contact the would-be "friends" through the site, either. Sheesh!

Maybe I don't mind so much the autodiscoveries after all. Although I feel slightly violated when I first find a listing, those sites are usually simple and offer an easy deletion method. Most of the time I decide they are innocuous enough. I suspect this last social media experiment gone awry may linger in the cybersphere forever.

Lost in FaceSpace!

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Regime vs. Regimen

Is it regimen or regime? Is it spelling or ignorance. You can't blame auditory confusion. These words are not homonyms. [ed. note: for a fun look at homonyms and homophones, see Alan Cooper's list.] One word has three syllables and the other, two. They both can start with a "reh" sound, but there any spoken similarity ends.

Perhaps the problem comes about because in a distant way both words can be associated with governance. However, regimen is most often used to refer to a schedule or fixed process, especially in health matters. A regime is a form of government, often one out of favor.

Writers who are French speakers and/or have a somewhat classical education may recall:

The ancient régime, or Ancien régime [F.] the former political and social system, as distinguished from the modern; especially, the political and social system existing in France before the Revolution of 1789.

Thanks to the Webster 1913 Dictionary edited by Patrick J. Cassidy, via Answers.com. And Google, of course. Everything comes from Google.

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Dangers of Journaling

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Writers,Technology, Web 2.0

Etiquette in this new wired world hit a nerve. Look at all the comments, wouldja, on yesterday's blog post. All that's out of my system, however. This one is about live contacts, in which people practice courtesy. We're moving on to an update on my social/networking life. At the beginning of the month, I listed everything on my social calendar. The month is half over, and most of the events have taken place:

Read The Reader in a few hours
Went to book club to discuss it
Attended both live events last night

Joining Facebook is still facing me, and the writer's guild meets Monday. In the midst of this madness, I'm working almost full time, editing a client's book and producing two newsletters, a news release, daily blog posts and Twittering. Oh, and monkeying around with the front page of A Writer's Edge, hoping to curry favor with Technorati. Then there were the boring appointments with doctors and the dentist--but you know how those things go.

The peak of this whirl was last night (I hope! Anymore and I'll explode.) Spending real life time with still print-oriented editors and then bloggers who can't talk without thumbing their mobile devices was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Editors were amazed when I described using Web 2.0 for the editing business. One didn't understand how I could tweet without a cell phone. I was astounded at how un-techy most are, even the technical editors. But I made a new friend to help me with a troublesome MS Word document.

Zip down the street to a cafe/bar awash with San Diego bloggers. My Twitter starter, Steve, and I had a nice chat, and I learned he's also an Internet marketer. Ran into a fellow I was in a critique group with several years ago, and we caught up. Met more girl geeks, including one who freelances for the local rag and one who immediately followed me on Twitter. She writes about women entrepreneurs and has two businesses. Need to follow up on that name! Reconnected with another writer from a different writing group to learn of potential markets with a growing local online publication.

Writers and technology. Heaven.

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Writing Etiquette

Business communications etiquette is not unfashionable. I risk sounding like a whiny old lady, but when did common courtesy leave the scene? Just because we have technological communication possibilities, doesn't preclude business messages including formal salutations, last names, and explanations for the contact.

It's not my fault you are trying to do accomplish too much simultaneously (like Twitter, blog, write and query). If the communication is related to work, slow down to shape the message into clarity and coherence. Are you serious about your writing or not?

Yes, I am once again on a tear, complaining about people whom I have never heard of telling LinkedIn that I am their "friend" and wanting me to include them in my network of connections; strangers greeting me in a first contact email message as "Hi Georganna," and asking for a favor. Worst was a message from a professional woman who, I feel certain, knows better considering her high placement in the communications department of a major institution. She emailed no message at all, just forwarded a copy of a release. I wrote back, "Am I guessing correctly that you would like me to review your book, or what?" "Where did you find my email address?" (It was not one that included my name.) "Do we have any sort of connection?"

People, people, put yourself in the place of the receiver.

If someone you don't know asks a favor (in real life or a snail mail letter), don't they explain who they are, why they are contacting you and what is your advantage in accommodating them (if any)?

Why should email or Web 2.0 contacts differ?

Other annoyances are people who want help with writing or publishing, send material for review, require an exchange of several emails and then offer only silence when they receive an estimate of cost. I would appreciate knowing if they are taking time to make up their minds, preparing whole manuscripts to send, or turning down my services. I am using energy to keep them in my attention, keep an active file for their work on my desktop and an email folder in prominence in Outlook Express. When/if they call, I can refer to our messages and work right away. At this point, I've invested quite a bit of time in this process. At least have the consideration to let me know it's been wasted (from my point of view) and I can close the files.

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Blogger Block Tips

Find five tips to fix Blogger's Block in this blog post written by Ted Demopoulos: Blog : Blogger Talk. You all probably know that blank, bleak feeling when you stare at your blog and can't think of a thing to write about. I had it this morning, glancing down my list of saved drafts. They are mostly links; seldom half-written posts. So, I click on a link to remind myself why I thought it would be post-worthy. It turned out to be this one from Blogger Talk, dated but still dependable.

In summary, Demopoulos suggests:

1. Read old posts
2. Read other blogs
3. Blog from a different location
4. Play with Google
5. Just write

And for over 100 tips on successful blogging, download the free ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging by Ted Demopoulos, also author of Blogging for Business and What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting.

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Being Yourself Everywhere

About 15 years of Web design is under our belts. Although I'm the same girl geek, I cringe when I see my first crude attempt. I created it from an MS Word document and a third-party program from England. It was basically a three-row table: header with title, center body and footer with a copyright notice. In color. The page also had a background color and the text was centered. Eventually graphics appeared. I upgraded the version the image above links to around 2001.

Back then, three pages linked together with the same menu (a basic navigation strategy that beginners still often miss). The best pages have a continuity of design that helps the users know they are still in the same site. This might mean the same colors and graphical style for all navigation buttons or bars on the various pages, as well as the same page design, a practice I heartily endorse.

This is one advantage of using templates provided by "free" hosting services. You can't screw them up much, but you must also put up with their limitations. Some don't allow any HTML tweaking, so text butts right up against photos, and you can't get the title and subtitle to line up right. When you want what you want the way that you want, it's time to turn to a professional designer.

Yes, everyone needs a "presence on the web", but it must project the quality you want to be known for. Sloppy copy? Misaligned text? Fuzzy photos? Is that who you are? Some turn to a Web 2.0 or social media services as a surrogate site. They are an improvement over the free hosting, but still limit your ability to make the most of Web pages devoted to your writing career. Use them to your advantage in conjunction with your main website.

One word of warning: don't be a different person in each of the web sites or services you participate. Be who you are at all times, in all places. It's called authenticity and transparency when applied to the Internet. As I wrote in a LinkedIn discussion, "Everywhere I go, there I am. Everywhere you go, there I am, too, if I'm doing it right."

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Agents and Editors

I'm not an agent, nor do I play one on TV. That would be such a boring program! New York Agent: open mail, scan contents and drop it all in the trash. Or, click on email, squint at screen and hit "Delete". Repeat as quickly as possible for 37 minutes. Every 15th episode, the agent jumps up and shouts, "Wow!"

No, I'm not an agent. I'm one of the hidden army who tries to help Aspiring Authors make agents say wow. Way behind the scenes we polish prose, craft queries and snip the synopses into coherency. We are the Freelance Editors, so hidden that the Cision databases don't even have a category for us.

Just as agents do much more than sell books, publishing consultants (the term I prefer) perform many tasks in addition to editing manuscripts. By the time we finish word surgeries, authors are exhausted by their books. If they don't already know about the major efforts involved in interesting agents, reality smacks them upside the head pretty quickly. And some (many?) would give up at that point.

Agents haven't the market on hand-holding and encouragement. We do that, too, and more. It's a tossup as to which is more difficult to create: an engaging synopsis or an eye-catching query--or a list of appropriate agents to send them to. Many authors feel that all these tasks are more difficult than writing the book. Many are right because they are so bound up and emotionally invested in their works, that they can't look at them objectively or write about them clearly. No energy is left to perform the sometimes complicated research necessary to find likely agents for a particular book.

When authors succeed and, especially, win awards for their works, none are more proud than those who gave them boosts at the beginning. We are clapping and cheering in the shadows at the back of the auditorium. (I'm the well-aged one with the quirky sense of humor.)

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Renewed Fiction Market

The revamped Saturday Evening Post returns to "a quiet read," according to an AP story by Charles Wilson. He quoted Post Publisher, Joan SerVaas: "There is a void of magazines now that do emphasize art and creative writing and fiction." Not only have fiction markets dried up, magazines themselves, like newspapers, are shrinking, shrinking ... gone in many cases.

I thought the news Twitter-worthy and jumped on a friend's laptop to blurt it out to all 155 of my "followers" and anyone else who happens onto my page. The friend and I were at Starbucks discussing how to handle the weights in multiple regressions and correlations used for a meta-analysis. Yes. You can be creative with math and stats, too.

This news about the Post is worth more than a tweet. See the Post's submission guidelines which say:

We also welcome new fiction. A light, humorous touch is appreciated. We are also always in need of straight humor articles. Make us laugh, and we’ll buy it.

Lest you wonder why the hoopla, or worse yet never heard of the magazine, Wilson explained:

America's love affair with the Post and its predecessor date to 1728, when Benjamin Franklin founded the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia. New owners changed the publication's name to The Saturday Evening Post in 1821, but it remained a newspaper for decades.

So, all you beginners and funny writers, pull up your shorts and try out this new/old market.

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Cat Writer's Block

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Twitter Glitter

CarolBMTbooks: Thanks for the
excellent review and interview! You rock, Georganna!

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Compliment vs. Complement

Only time for a quickie this morning. Here's another word pair so commonly confused that I'm beginning to lose (not loose) my grip. We won't go to the dictionary this time. Unless you're just learning English, you already know how to use compliment correctly. We all love to receive compliments, even if they are flattery.

The problem arises when the word require is complement. Can you see in its spelling, that the word may relate to complete? That one little letter, an e instead of an i makes all the difference. A full set is a complement. The missing item complements the others. Think of being "one bottle shy of a six pack."

The gracious dinner guest brings a fine French wine to complement the excellent food. Then (not than) the host or hostess compliments the guest on his or her good taste, as well as saying, "Merci."

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Put on Your Pants Day

July 10th is the First Annual “Freelancers Put On Your Pants” Day « ASSME: American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites

I cribbed this one from KOKEdit's tweet. Couldn't resist posting it here to give my compadres an early warning. Vis a vis my comment, I'm rummaging around in my drawers to find the ones marked "Friday."

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Snarking at Critics

I missed all the fun, but caught up with The Cajun Boy's article on Gawker - Look Who's Snarking Now: Novelist Uses Twitter to Trash Critic - Roberta Silman.

Guess I got off easy with Leslie Miller's mild reaction to my review of Let Me Eat Cake, but then she could have encountered the NYT critic who trashed three cooking books in one Sunday review and minced no words doing it. Related articles are in Boston.com, LA Times, and MediaBistro. Meeow!

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Web 2.0 Experiment

My latest social networking experiment is quite easy to follow. MrTweet is a service for making and receiving Twitter recommendations: Georganna Hancock (GLHancock)'s Profile on Mr. Tweet. I've sent one MrTweet-generated request to followers (now 156 All Organic!):

Hi folks! Mind dropping me a recommendation at http://mrtweet.com/recommend?rec&user=GLHancock ? Much appreciated! #MrTweet

The only question I have is this: Why does Mr. Tweet's "5 Reasons to do so" page only list three reasons? Really only one:

1. Why do so? Because your recommendations has a real impact

Perhaps Mr. Tweet needs a content editor? At least a proofreader!

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Writers Reading Writers

Continuing the crime writing theme from yesterday at The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers: in Kudos for the Pros by Michael Dymmoch, he muses on great windy city writers he's learned from (what, no Studs Terkel?) and reminds us of peers with a question:

Blogging seems to have taken over as the medium for getting ideas across, and those of us with a life or occupation now have too many talented writers to keep up with. But all of them, wherever their work appears, continue to remind us that we belong to a community of people who value ideas and appreciate those ideas skillfully presented.

With so many terrific writers to choose from, how do you decide with whom to spend your time?

I admit to being torn: if I spend time reading the paper(s) at Starbucks, or one I buy on Sunday, I feel guilty taking time away from the computer. If I spend all day at the keyboard, as I did yesterday, I wonder what I missed in the paper, pauper that it has become. An article ripped out, literally, from the news is so much better a reminder of an idea on which to riff, expand, follow up, than one held as a bookmark, social or otherwise, or as a draft in my Blogger account.

And another way to choose with whom to spend writerly time is in the real life community of writers I am blessed to have around, as I wrote the other day in Socializing for Success. sai4jtqpnr

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Crime Reports by Tweets

This just in from the editors of thecrimereport.org:

Police Departments across the nation are using twitter to inform their communities about the latest homicides, robberies and accidents. Is it the Next Big Thing in fighting crime? Reporter Dena Levitz explores the unfolding Twitter universe of law enforcement for The Crime Report. Read the exclusive story at http://thecrimereport.org/2009/07/06/twitter-this/ The Crime Report focuses on the best reporting, commentary and analysis, and latest cutting-edge research taking place in the criminal justice system. It is a collaborative effort by two national organizations that focus on encouraging quality criminal justice reporting: The Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the nation's leading practice-oriented think tank on crime and justice reporting at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Criminal Justice Journalists, the nation's only membership organization of crime-beat journalists. Read breaking news daily at TheCrimeReport.org, on Facebook and Twitter.

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Writing Nostalgia

Nothing productive happens here until this homage emerges:

Today is the 92nd anniversary of Mama's birth. She arrived in a little house on River Street in Franklin, Ohio, and lived in a succession of those houses along the Great Miami until the Great Depression and her parents' divorce kicked her out into the work world. At the age of 12, she had to leave her mother and school to keep house for her father and two brothers.

Ten years later, George swaggered into the lunchroom where she worked, hoping for a 7-Up to ease his hangover. He liked her cooking, and she liked taking care of him, so they got married and knocked up, all in the same day.

WWII took them to Sandusky, where he made bombs, and their baby girl died in Mama's arms. Against doctor's advice, she conceived and carried me while working at an NCR plant in Dayton, where I was born. The doctor was late, and the nursing sisters held Mama's knees together to prevent the birth.

I was nothing like the beloved baby I replaced. I was exactly like George, who kept on drinking and 17 years later wound up dead as a direct or indirect result. All that was left for Mama to do was to send me through college and, she prayed, into marriage.

Mama spent most of the rest of her life riding herd on another drunk and taking care of her little house. That was about all she cared for, staying in her home, the last one my father had built in the 1950s. She accomplished her goal. In late May 2006 on Thursday afternoon, feeling faint, she lay down on the floor and pressed her emergency call button. She died in the hospital on the following Sunday morning.

Happy Birthday, Mama. I miss you so terribly.

Thus we continue, along the lines of the Nostalgia is in Fashion post I wrote a couple of days ago. In it I failed to mention that it appears that Garrison Keillor and I also wear the same style Sacony running shoes, red with a silver stripe.

I'd been thinking about the Baby Boomer generation sliding into the time of life when we treasure nostalgia like Van Tassel's memoir, and how the sense of smell stirs memories so well. In the last month I've noticed at least two creative endeavors that take advantage of olfactory stimuli: an opera staged in New York City, I believe, and an installation in an art gallery in Oceanside, CA.

Here's my proposal: a scratch 'n' sniff book of Boomers' remembrances, reminders of fragrances along with the events and places of the past. There was a certain "little old ladies' hanky drawer" smell that I would love to experience just one last time--it was a combination of orris root, lavender, and ... what? The stink of Armco's rolling mill on a stagnant, humid summer morning. Apple Blossom toilet water for little girls (Hello Kitty® of the 1950s).

Words and photographs can recreate many details of those memories, but nothing stirs up how we feel about them like the smells. That is where we live, in our emotions. Yes, I saw and heard, touched, kissed and smelled my mother as she lay dying, but that memory is meaningless. When I catch a whiff of Coppertone® and the tang of ocean air, I am right back on a certain Florida beach with Mama, enjoying a Christmas vacation. Happy.

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Socializing for Success

“Success is not an automatic function of individual talent,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers: The Story of Success. “It’s bound up in so many other broader circumstantial, environmental, historical, and cultural factors.” In other words, as I've said for years, it is blind, dumb, random luck, too. That aspect of the writing life, especially for a freelancer, may be the most frightening part. Success depends not only on your hard work, discipline and goal-setting, but also on circumstances, lifestyles and culture. The publishing industries (book, magazine, digital) are in turmoil, in a difficult state of transitions. Many prognosticate, but no one knows what the future holds for publishers, writers, and the final products.

To guarantee failure, insulate yourself against contemporary trends and innovations. Avoid social media and ignore what younger writers are up to. Pay no attention to predictions and new gadgets. Hide in your closet and plunk away on your Olivetti.

I admit I've dragged my heels about adopting some changes (other times I'm on the cutting edge, the often-irritated but enthusiastic beta tester). Every time I jump into something I resisted, however, I am sorry I waited so long. One goal this month is to accept Deb Sistrunk's invitation to join Facebook, now that I feel I have some control of my Twittering. (Is there a 12-Step group for Twitterdicts?) For Twitter, I have Lori Widmer to thank for luring me there and Steve Eisenberg for kicking me into the pool.

Later this month, I'll see Steve at a Meetup of the SDBloggers, mostly "kids", billed as a "Know Your Roots" event sponsored by Pathway Genomics (get it--roots-genomics?) That gathering is on the same evening the the SDPEN group of editors meet to rack up recipes for success, but before the SDWriters/Editors Guild meets to plan a 30th anniversary party. Oh, I almost forgot the other end of this writing cycle--I still need to read The Reader for my book club meeting this week!

The purpose of posting my social media business meeting calendar is to demonstrate a way of creating a cultural and environmental history, a lifestyle if you wish, to increase chances of stumbling into those circumstances in which hard work and discipline pay off by helping you succeed in reaching writing goals. So, come out of the closet and participate in the writing life around you.

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Happy Independence Day

Happy Birthday U.S.A. "...the land of the free, and the home of the brave"

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Cat Book Reviewer Dilemma

HALP! get me down I is ten stories up

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Nostalgia is in Fashion

Garrison Keillor has a bookstore in Saint Paul, MN where Carlsbad, CA resident, Daniel Van Tassel (below) last month signed his book about boyhood in Minnesota.

Last night I watched a PBS special on Keillor. He mused about his early ambition to become a New Yorker (magazine and city) writer, his chosen geographic relocations and settling back in Minnesota, where he began. I felt such kinship, we are the same age, raised as Midwestern Lutherans, and longed for similar writing careers. We even both began in our respective universities' radio stations, him at the UM reading continuity that I went to NU to learn to write. What is more uncanny, I never made it to the microphones at WNUR, and the UM's transmitter was off the air (but they didn't know it). Our early voices went unheard.

I moved more times than Keillor, but he achieved his New York dream, briefly. Mine was just to have a normal life, but possibly that's an illusion. Now I've embraced living in California, while he has managed to go home again (take that Thomas Wolfe!) Keillor accepts, as he calls it, an ordinary life and he says he finds it good enough. He has the extended family to support him in that choice. I could not determine if he sounded wistful and resigned or at peace with himself at last.

And here in Cali, doncha know, I met someone originally from Minnesota, embarking on a nostalgia tour back there to promote a memoir of "Life in the Heartland at Mid-Century". Back to Barron, by Daniel Van Tassel, delights the Boomer generation no end with true tales of farm life, town trips to Lake Wobegones as well as the big city and all the trouble little boys can get into.

If you're over 60 and still living in the Midwest, you'll chuckle at the memories. If you're over 60 and living somewhere else, you'll chuckle at the memories and perhaps heave a little sigh of sad fondness or relief--your choice, or your luck.

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Social Profile Advice

To join a social site first you fill out a Profile. Before you see how the site works, how personal information is displayed, entering it is mandatory. It's scary, especially without a reassurance that you can change it later or delete the account at the worst. (I have a few empty profiles floating about in cyberspace, and one very frustrating important one I can't get changed, grr!)

Gloria Hess, writing in the Northwestern Alumni Association blog, offers tips for using a LinkedIn profile for job hunting. She says, "Professional networking sites work two ways: they make it easier to connect with new contacts and colleagues, and they increase your visibility to everyone online—including recruiters and hiring managers. With this in mind, you should polish your profile to ensure that your online image is the most professional and effective in promoting your 'brand.'"

You can read the details at Career Coach Offers Expert “LinkedIn” Profile Advice | Northwestern Alumni Association. Hess' suggestions include:

Have another set of eyes review it.
Be sure you are accurately representing yourself.
Double-check your spelling and grammar.
Make sure your branding is clear and targeted.
Be selective in what you choose to showcase and how you showcase it.

There's that word again, "branding". I hope I can coax Hess into contributing a piece on how to apply the "brand" concept to freelance work.

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Freelance in Troubled Times

Economic Downturn. Recession. Mini-depression. Bonanza! How can the self-employed be overworked? I haven't time to figure that out. I'm too busy juggling projects and fielding queries from new clients. Apparently I'm not alone. According to a poll at FreelanceSwitch that asked, "How Has Economic Downturn Affected Your Business?" visitors responded (as of this writing):

Business is slow, but I'm managing 35% (56 votes)

My freelance business has failed 10% (16 votes)

I'm doing as well as I was before 28% (45 votes)

Business is booming! 26% (42 votes)

Joel Falconer notes:

While it’s true that recent events have made making a living harder for many people who put themselves in the self-employed or freelance category, many freelancers are finding that business is as good as ever.

If you land in the first two categories, however, you might want to register with that site's directory and/or search through the job listings board.

A few musings on why some writers may be finding more work: as other people lose jobs, many turn to writing a book or have time to finish one (and need editing help or publishing guidance); companies that laid off writers must now outsource jobs to freelancers; former employees decide to strike out on their own with new businesses, new resumes and online businesses--all of which need copy written and edited; and already-established authors are anxious to expand or establish new websites to draw more customers.

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