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Author: lissajohnston@gmail.com

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Published on 2 Comments on War Is Ugly

This post originally appeared in 2013.

Our recent unseasonably warm winter was interrupted by reality, which means a perfect day for hightailing it to the movie theater. The hubs and I went to see Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's infotainment ditty about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

We had recently seen National Geographic's quasi-documentary on this topic (which was pretty good) and were looking forward to the cinematic version. ZD30 didn't disappoint, exactly. As with Argo, I often found myself wondering how much was fact and how much was massaged or fictionalized to enhance the storytelling. I am sure there are loads of websites more than willing to break it all down for you, like this article for example. The movie was basically well made, straightforward with the facts, and remained entertaining even though everyone knows before purchasing the ticket how it is going to end. And that's the tricky part, isn't it? The screenwriter and the director have to make the telling of the tale the thing, rather than relying on cheap pyrotechnics and nonsensical plot twists. I believe they succeeded. The last half hour or so when the mission is finally given the green light is gripping.

I am hedging a little on a ringing endorsement because either due to my middle aged hearing or the sound quality of the film, there were many instances when I could not understand everything that was being said. The film is pretty dialogue-heavy and expects the audience to keep up, so you definitely don't want to miss anything. This is a film I would gladly see again, or, even better, purchase a copy to watch multiple times to enjoy the nuances that I fear I lost the first time through.

Maybe I haven't read enough reviews, but isn't anyone else impressed that a young woman was the motivating factor, against the odds, behind the hunt for more than ten years? If the ratio of women to men in the film is an accurate representation of staffing at the CIA, why isn't the gender issue being talked about more? I would think the feminists would be taking this and running with it (in a good way! Go, Maya!).  When I think of CIA staff, I think either of paunchy, balding bureaucrats or James Bond-like operatives. This fresh faced innocent-looking young woman would look more at home riding herd on a kindergarten class field trip to the zoo than an international man hunt for a terrorist with a $25 million bounty on his head.

Lastly, a counterpoint to this review and others offended by the aspect of torture in this film and elsewhere. I didn't notice who the author was until I double-checked it for this post to see if it was male or female. I was disappointed to find it was Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. I love his work and have been following him off and on for years. We usually agree on everything. But not this. Before I realized Taibbi was the author, I had a feeling it was a liberal female recent college grad (read: young and naive to the ways of the world). Sorry, Matt! But his comments on torture just ring so unrealistic IMO. So USA is supposed to take the high road and lead by example by abandoning our admittedly brutal interrogation techniques and instead treating our enemies with dignity and respect, because, hey, we all know they will be SO impressed they will immediately follow suit, stop torturing their own prisoners, stop attacking us at every opportunity, and invite us over to the campfire for hummus and Kumbaya (insert indignant snort here)?  If only it were so.

But it isn't. There are bad people out there who want to do us harm. Fancy technology can only get us so far. Do I wish we had a more effective way to elicit important information from our enemies? Sure. I even wish we didn't have any enemies. I also wish I was a trust fund baby, and that this blog actually paid me a living wage. But none of those things are likely to happen any time soon, so we must accept reality. It stinks, but it's better than the alternative, which if Mr. Taibbi and others had their way, would leave us as an international door mat, feeling oh so much better about ourselves that we are superior human beings as we become sitting ducks for the next terrorist attack. Thanks, but no thanks. Good manners during war time went out with the Charge of the Light Brigade. Cavalry units in immaculate uniforms have morphed into bearded men with explosives hidden in their shoes or underwear. The rules of engagement went missing long before two planes deliberately crashed into the New York City skyline. So man up, Mr. Taibbi. Bombs, drones, undercover surveillance, and yes, torture, are all part of the game.

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Published on Leave a comment on The End Justifies The Means

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The theme of my current WIP has been on my mind a lot lately. And not just because I'm sunk in the swamp of editing a saggy middle build. Thanks to several great craft articles like this one, I was able to settle on a theme for my trilogy some time ago. My theme is 'the end justifies the means'. Sometimes I use a little more casual shorthand: 'sometimes you gotta do bad to do good'.

You don't have to look very far to find examples of this philosophy in real life. I've been listening to the most excellent podcast Presidential by Washington Post writer Lillian Cunningham. Presidents often make decisions for us that I feel fall into the 'end justifies the means' category.

  • Perhaps the first example that comes to many minds is Harry Truman's decision to drop the nukes on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II. Numbers vary, but hundreds of thousands died. However, Japan surrendered soon after the second bomb was dropped. Developing and using the atomic bomb achieved Truman's goal of ending the war.
Image of Hiroshima via National WWII Museum
  • Abraham Lincoln chose to prosecute a bloody war to preserve the union. A Union victory also meant the abolition of slavery. The Civil War cost more than 600,000 lives. But I believe/hope most would agree preserving the union and ending slavery was worth it.
  • Dwight Eisenhower was an early supporter of intelligence services. It makes sense. He saw plenty of death and destruction in his military career. In his mind, if there was a way to resolve controversy without going to war, he was all for it. Hard to say what he would've thought of covert operations taken to their extremes - assassinations, coups, torture.
  • Richard Nixon's active role in attempting to cover up illegal activities by his re-election campaign staff, known as the Watergate scandal, eventually resulted in ending his presidency. In their minds, the end (winning the next election) outweighed the means (breaking many laws and compounding that mistake with trying to cover it up). I'm not sure if Nixon and his cronies ever considered the possibility of failure. Hubris is often a huge factor with presidents.
  • Bill Clinton's similar approach to a sex scandal worked out a little better for him. He gambled on splitting hairs, word salad, and other forms of verbal obfuscation rather than come clean about his extramarital relationship with a White House intern. Unlike Nixon, however, Clinton's gambit was successful. Apparently the end (staying in office) justified the means (spewing a bunch of nonsense and looking like fool in the process).

It has been pointed out to me, and I agree, that 'the end justifies the means' is a slippery slope to anarchy. Anarchy is not something I aspire to in real life. But in my fiction, I'm totally fine with a little chaos.

In my story, the main character starts out as a nerdy follower of the rules. By the end, he embraces breaking them. But he also learns that no matter how carefully you evaluate your options and make tough choices, you cannot always accurately predict the outcome. Robert McKee calls this wildcard component the 'gap'. I call it 'life'.

p.s. You may be wondering why I haven't mentioned the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I am choosing to include topics I have heard while listening to the Presidential podcast. Their last episode so far is the one covering our 44th president, Barack Obama. I have no doubt there will be much applicable material on this topic when and if they ever release an episode on 45.

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Published on Leave a comment on Liberate Your Lexicon

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https://amzn.to/35QsNR3

I love to read. I love talking books with people who love to read. They are my tribe.

There is a subset of our tribe: people who enjoy reading the same book more than once. Apparently they return to their favorites every so often just because they enjoy the story or the style or some such.

As you may have surmised, I have never been one of those people. I'm all about the Ooh, Shiny. What's new? What's next? What's a book I've always meant to read but haven't gotten around to yet? When I read a book that I absolutely adore, I usually buy it in hardback and put it in a place of honor on the bookshelf. But I rarely re-read them.

Until now. Until I read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Now, I kinda get it.

I need to take a minute here and give props to my kids for steering me in this direction. It got on their radar. Then, a guy in our local library book club was raving about it. I had read The Road, and had seen the film version of No Country For Old Men, so I was vaguely familiar with McCarthy's work. But I hadn't read this one.

Granted, Blood Meridian is not exactly the type of book you cuddle up with as a bedtime story. The formatting is a little wonky. There is no HEA; at least, not that I could tell. It's brutal. It's violent. It's so dark, I feel a little weird as I'm gushing about it to others, worried I might end up on some kind of a watch list.

What's got me hooked is not so much what happens in the story, even though it's quite a tale. It's McCarthy's style. The dialog. The description. But most of all, how he's absolutely, confidently, fearless about word choice.

I'm pretty sure McCarthy doesn't give a hoot about reading levels, or taking the reader 'out' of the story because they have no idea what a 'thrapple'* is. I looked up more word definitions in the week it took me to read this book than I have in the last year. And that's not even counting any of the Spanish (which btw can I just mention I was able to read most of the Spanish on my own, thanks to it being fairly rudimentary, and thanks to mi maestra Roxanne and the free Spanish classes at our local library).

Some of the words, I gave myself a pass for not knowing. I'm a city girl. I don't know much about livestock. I know there is such a think as hobbling an animal to keep it from running off. But I didn't know the knot and rope style used to hobble an animal is called a spancel. I know what spurs are, and in fact am in possession of a pair that used to belong to my grandfather. But I didn't realize the spinny-pokey-thingie is called a rowel. In both of these examples, a lesser author would've probably just used 'hobble' and 'spur'. Not McCarthy.

I learned that planet Anareta is an ancient astrological reference to a harbinger of doom; and that Tasmania used to be called Van Dieman's Land. I freely admit I needed a refresher on the meaning parricide (I knew something was getting killed; just not sure what), and the lesser-known meaning of filibuster as a profession rather than a political strategy.

Just to be clear, I didn't learn these terms because the author explained them in the book. Oh, no. He disperses them as daintily as pumpkin spice on a latte. I appreciate him respecting his reader like that. But I still had to look them up.

And the cool thing is, I didn't mind taking the ten extra seconds to Google. The more I read, the more comfortable I became with the occasional rabbit holes. McCarthy could've used 'handle' instead of 'helve'. But once you see, and say, 'helve', it's undoubtedly the better word. If he had used 'moccasins' or 'slippers' instead of 'pampooties', where would be the fun in that?

There were a few head-scratchers. He rarely missed an opportunity to indulge in obscure geological jargon during one of his lengthy paeans to the otherworldly landscape of the desert southwest. I am still not sure what he was trying to accomplish with his use of 'manciple', even after I looked up the definition.

Reading Blood Meridian was a challenge. But it was a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm already looking forward to re-reading this literary nonpareil to see what I've overlooked. And we didn't even talk about the sentence structure yet!

* thrapple is the neck and throat area

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Published on Leave a comment on Eating Is Such Sweet Sorrow

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In a previous post I mentioned several of the books that inspired me to write my current YA trilogy. One of them was Michael Moss' Salt Sugar Fat. It was in SSF that I learned about the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

This sculpture by artist Arlene Love greets visitors to the Monell Center. The piece's official name is 'Face Fragment', but everyone calls it 'Eddy'.

(In case you haven't noticed, my favorite part of the writing process is the research. Hands-down. No question. In my next life, I'm coming back as a professional researcher.)

But I digress.

At Monell, scientists focus on the mechanisms by which humans (and a few other species) process and interpret sensory input. Specifically, how we smell and taste things, and how that input affects us. Research done at Monell is why we know all sorts of interesting stuff, like:

  • cats are unable to taste sweets
  • olive oil contains anti-inflammatories
  • why smoking pot gives some people the munchies

They're also responsible for more serious discoveries, like the mechanics of detecting the taste of sugar (it's complicated). Monell researchers identified the specific receptor for sweet/sugar. It's also very complicated, but basically when this receptor encounters something sweet, it sends a signal to the brain, and the brain does its thing. Also complicated.

In a perfect world, we would be very appreciative that we have produced so many smart humans and they are doing such good work for us at Monell. But, alas. That dreamy scenario is complicated by a couple of important facts:

  • only about half of Monell's operating budget is provided by more or less neutral taxpayer dollars.
  • the other half is supplied by far-from-neutral corporate donations.

Corporate funding means sometimes the donors get an early look at test results. It also buys the donors access by asking the Monell staff to create bespoke experiments specifically designed for an existing or proposed product of said donor.

This is not to say the staff at Monell is on the take. There is no indication anyone has ever skewed test results to please the Krafts and Nestlés of the world. But that doesn't stop Big Food from spinning test results to suit their needs. For example, when test results indicated the preference for things that taste sweet could be identified in newborns, Big Food spun that result to say liking sugar was 'natural', to offset negative publicity about the risks of eating sugar to excess.

Or that time in the 1970s when a Monell study discovered that children and African Americans had a higher preference for salty or sweet foods than other segments of the population. Some corporations (like Frito Lay, for example) interpreted this as a green flag to crank out as many salty-crunchies as those markets would bear.

Sometimes the Monell staff are appalled at the perversion of the data they have worked so hard to produce. One look at the public health crisis, not just in our country, but world-wide, tells you who is currently winning that PR battle.

The spooky face fragment sculpture at the entrance of Monell is supposed to represent the awesome power of the human senses. But I see its ravaged visage more as a cry for help. If the scientists at Monell can come up with a method for resisting the siren call of the salty-crunchy aisle at the grocery store, then I'll be really impressed.

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Published on Leave a comment on We Are All Clueless

True wisdom is knowing what you don't know. - Confucius

The call to action to buy this candle: "Tired of feeling like a bone-dry hack?" Not kidding.

Once upon a time, I was stumped for a blog topic. (I'm sure I'm probably the only blogger that happens to.) Falling back on the last refuge of the blogger who can't decide what to write about, I checked to see what was trending on Twitter. It changes constantly, of course, but here's what was listed when I checked.

#HappyBirthdayBeliebers
#LiamWeStandByYou
#AquariusComeBack
#NionerAndRemaja
#Balqis
#BuZulumArsiTitretir
#GustavvoLimaNoDomingoLegal
The Bat Cave
TheApprenticeAsia
AngkaYangkamu
Eriksen
Three Musketeers

Talk about a lesson in humility. Of the twelve topics listed, how many did I know with certainty what they were about? Exactly one. I could hazard a guess or at least give the definition of the words on a few. After Googling all of them, I discovered that just because I knew the definition of a few words, certainly did not equate to knowing what the heck the hashtags or trends were about. Before you continue reading this post, take a moment and see if you can predict what each one is about.

Okay. Let's see how you did. No pressure.

  • The Apprentice Asia is obviously about the reality show. My confidence is so high on that assumption I didn't even fact-check it.
  • The Beliebers one wasn't too difficult to guess - it had something to do with the Canadian pop singer. But if you guessed it was his birthday, you would be wrong. I think the fans were celebrating his 7 year anniversary on Twitter?? Still not sure about that one.
  • Speaking of heartthrobs, Gusttavo Lima is one in Brazil. And 'Liam' is someone from American Idol. 
  • Indonesian topics dominated the list of 12. I know what Three Musketeers are - book/film or candy bar. But I could not have guessed why that was trending. Apparently one of the movie versions was broadcast on telly in the Phillipines recently. This was a big deal because it was broadcast without being 'tagalized' (translated into Tagalog). The Angka appears to be something about lucky numbers.
  • The Aquarius thing is an analysis of the traits of men with birthdays around this time of year.
  • BuZulumArsiTitretir is Turkish and looks like something that if I click on through, I will land on a terrorist watch list. Not kidding.
  • It is a shame The Bat Cave was a broken link. Apparently it was a cool home theater setup.
  • Eriksen is soccer (football) related.
  • Balqis may possibly be a musical group/artist.
  • And the Nioner-and-Remaja I could not figure out, even with the aid of Google's translating tool.

Being in the dark about some topics was understandable in the Dark Ages, when our ancestors had fewer options for staying informed.  For example:

  • The Chinese invented gunpowder about the same time Leif Ericson discovered America (1000 A.D.). But it was hundreds of years before gunpowder became commonplace in the West. 
  • Christopher Columbus' Spanish sponsors had to wait eight months to hear whether or not his gamble on sailing west amounted to anything. 
  • The last battle of the American Civil War was fought a month after Confederates surrendered at Appomattox in April of 1865 because Texas troops hadn't gotten word it was over. 

Today we have the technology to stay informed. But so many people are overly preoccupied with their own little worlds, they don't bother. Even when we are interested in the world around us, parsing the torrent of information available is a tall order. 

I'm not arguing for even more screen time so we can all know what lottery numbers are trending in Indonesia today. But just realizing how much there is out there that we don't know serves as a healthy reality check. 

Image from Gaping Void

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1

Published on 1 Comment on Said is Dead, Baby

Conventional writing wisdom dictates we stick with 'said' for attributions. I don't know about you, but I get a little sick of 'said'.

Props to The Writer's Beat for a useful page which I stumbled upon recently, entitled '200 Words Instead of 'Said''.   I borrowed the idea, rearranged them alphabetically, pruned a few that made no sense and replaced them with a few of my own so that we stick to the 200 number.

The highlights are mine - these are words I would definitely consider using instead of 'said'. Some of these may not be perfect as attributions, but work great as a set-up. For example, I probably wouldn't ever use 'yawned' as an attribution like this:

"What time is it?" Shelby yawned.

but I would consider this:

Shelby yawned. "What time is it?"

So here they are. Any additions?

200 Words To Use Instead of 'Said'

abnegatedaddedadvisedagreedallowed
announcedansweredapologizedarguedasked
assentedassessedassured
bandiedbarkedbawledbeganbegged
bellowedbitblastedblatheredbleated
blurtedblusteredboastedbreathedburbled
cackledcalledcarpedcaterwauledchallenged
chantedchattedchewedchirpedchirruped
chucklescoaxedcommunicatedcommandedcomplained
concludedconfessedcontinuedcounteredcountermanded
coweredcriedcursedcussed
decideddeclareddeliberateddelivereddemanded
denieddisagreeddrawleddribbleddripped
egged onelocutedencouragedexaggeratedexclaimed
faultedfinishedflirtedfretted
gaspedgiggledgloatedgoggledgrimaced
gripedgrizzledgroanedgrumbledgrunted
gurgled
harpedhesitatedhintedhissedhowled
holleredhoundedhuffed
impliedimploredinformedinquiredinsisted
interruptedinsinuatedintoned
joked
lamentedlaughedlecturedlied
mewedmimickedmoanedmournedmumbled
murmuredmuttered
naggednatterednegated
objectedobservedofferedogledoozed
ordered
persistedpesteredpleadedponderedprattled
prayedproclaimedproddedpromisedpronounced
proposedprotested
queriedquestioned
raspedrattled onrecalledreflectedrelated
remarkedrememberedreminiscedrepeatedreplied
respondedripostedroaredroastedrumbled
sangscoldedscreamedshoutedshrieked
simperedslurredsnappedsnarledsneered
sobbedspelled outsplutteredspokesputtered
squeakedsquealedstammeredstartedstuttered
sulkedswore
teasedtemptedthreatenedthoughttittered
toastedtoldtormentedtwittered
urgeduttered
wailedwarbledwarnedwent onwept
wheezedwishedwhimperedwhinedwhispered
wonderedwooed
yawnedyelled

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Published on Leave a comment on All Rejection Letters Are Not Created Equal

As I was cleaning out my writing files, I came upon a folder containing an article I submitted to Highlights For Children magazine. Back in the day when I was first breaking into writing for children, getting an article accepted by Highlights was the Holy Grail of submission success. 

Highlights didn't accept my article. But they sent me a wonderful rejection letter. Not one of the form 'It is not suited to our present needs' things. Oh, no. This rejection letter is a beauty.  It's full of very specific details on what exactly was discussed by the reviewers, and how it could possibly, someday, with a little more work, actually suit their present needs. I'm posting a copy of it at the end to give props to their reviewers. They obviously spent valuable time reading my sub and giving me very valuable feedback. When's the last time you got this level of feedback on a rejection letter? Yeah, I thought so.

I'm also posting it to share their input with any of you who are submitting to children's magazines. Hope it helps.

My hat's off to Highlights. I appreciate the time and the info, even though you didn't publish my article.  

To wit: here's the article I submitted:

All About Apples

On many fall afternoons you can find Nancy Jacobson leading a group of school children on a tour of her family’s apple orchard. She tells them all about apples and how they grow.  The children usually have many questions, but Nancy has the answers. Nancy knows all about apples. She should – her family has owned the orchard for more than forty years.

The orchard sits on more than three hundred acres of gently rolling hills in eastern Minnesota. The Jacobson family home is still on the site. It is part of a building complex that includes a large apple storage and processing facility, bakery, and gift shop. Elsewhere on the property are strawberry fields, a pumpkin patch, and a corn maze.

Nancy’s parents and five siblings still work at the orchard. Nancy does the hiring and gives tours. Each of her brothers and sisters work at things they enjoy. One brother takes care of the apple trees. Another runs the wagon rides, gift shop and corn maze. Nancy’s mother oversees some of the baking, and her father fills in where needed. There are even some Jacobson grandchildren involved in the orchard operation.

Enjoying a beautiful fall day at Aamodt's Apple Orchard

The orchard is busiest during the fall. They harvest apples from August through October. Seven days a week, people come to buy fresh apples, pies, and donuts. Families choose the perfect pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns in the pumpkin patch. They take turns finding their way through the rustling paths of the corn maze.

“A lot of children think if you have an apple orchard, you’re busy in the fall,” says Nancy. “But we work all year round.” During the winter each of the 8,000 apple trees are pruned. Dead and crowded limbs are cut away to let in more air and light. Pruning helps the trees live longer and produce better apples.

Spring is a critical time for the orchard. Fragrant flowers appear on the apple trees. In order for apples to grow, the flowers must be pollinated by bees. “We can’t just rely on the bees that are roaming around in nature, because it is such a critical time of year for us. We bring in colonies.” They use about one colony of bees per acres, and they have 80 acres of apple trees.

“Bees are fussy creatures,” Nancy says. “If it’s wet, windy or cold, they won’t come out and work. The bees are furry. They’re after the nectar inside the base of the stem. They dive into the blossom to get the nectar and get that yellow pollen on their furry backs. They fly to another blossom and get that pollen all over their furry backs.” The pollen collects on the bees’ furry bodies and is deposited on other trees each time they land someplace new. “It’s all by accident,” Nancy says.

The orchard grows about twenty different types of apples. “A lot of the varieties we grow were developed by the University of Minnesota, so they are good cultivars for our climate,” says Nancy. “Haralson is a  great apple. It is a real workhorse. It grows well here and people can use it for lots of different things.” The orchard also grows some old-fashioned varieties. “Duchess is a really old-fashioned green pie apple. The day we opened up we had people waiting in line for Duchess. They remember that’s the apple their grandmother used to make pies.”

Nancy’s parents bought the orchard when she was a little girl. She enjoyed growing up on an apple orchard. “I had my own apple tree. It was right outside the back door of the house so I could hear my mom call.” It was the perfect tree for climbing, and had some branches perfect for sitting. “I knew that tree like I knew my own bedroom,” Nancy says. “When I had a rough day at school, I could go out and climb the tree and everything was fine.”

Nancy and her brother John also enjoyed riding on the picking trailer during the harvest. “When the pickers were picking the apples, the trailer would follow along and pick up the bushel boxes. There was always an empty box in the middle for my brother and I. We’d each have our own little box we’d sit in, and they’d pick the boxes up and fill them in around us. The trailer would start out empty, then it would have a few more boxes, and a few more boxes, and then you were in the middle of a big trailer that full of boxes filled with apples. Then they would unload it, and we would go back out and do another run with it.”

Some activities weren’t so fun. One job Nancy didn’t like was hand-thinning the apples. When the apples grew to the size of golf balls, they had to be thinned by hand.  Using a small set of shears, she and her siblings worked their way through the orchard, cutting away excess apples. “We left one apple for every 6 inches of tree limb,” Nancy says. This was a hot and tedious job. But it was necessary. Thinning is one way to produce the best quality apples and help keep the trees healthy.

One afternoon as Nancy finished a tour for some school children, one of the students  raised his hand. When called on, he said, “Nancy, this place is all about apples!” Nancy thinks he is absolutely right. Even though there is hard work to be done year round, Nancy and her family love working at the orchard. “Growing up in this environment, it gets under your skin. You learn that work can be fun.”

Now that you've read the article, here's the rejection letter, as promised. Isn't it great?

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Published on 2 Comments on The Goodreads Revelation

Like many writers, the lion's share of my marketing efforts is directed at Facebook and Twitter. But the focal point of my recent engagement efforts has added a third leg to the marketing stool: Goodreads. It's not as if I've mastered the other two - I certainly haven't. But when another writer friend mentioned I hadn't set up an author presence on GR (thanks, Matt!), I did some checking and realized I was overlooking an important piece of the marketing puzzle.

As an avid reader, I've been enjoying Goodreads for years. It's a great way to organize reading lists and find book recommendations. Turns out it's also a great way to network with other readers. More readers mean more reviews. More reviews (even if they're not five stars) are better than no reviews.

In the process of setting up my author presence there, I discovered I had never invited my Facebook and Twitter friends to befriend me on Goodreads as well. This was a simple click that grew my GR friends from 60 or so to 350+ and counting. Investigating some of these new GR friends' profiles, reaching out via GR's email function, and joining special interest groups has already led me to some wonderfully generous authors who have shared some great tips with me, like Susan May. Thanks to her cogent explanation of how and why to use Goodreads, I am committed to making GR an equal partner in my social networking efforts.

By now I hope I've convinced you to include Goodreads in your engagement strategy. How much time, you may be wondering? On a recent day, this is how I spent the time I apportioned to marketing/platform:

  • I selected a page of Goodreads friends, around 30 names or so.
  • I clicked on each name to view their profile. 
  • I reached out via GR and introduced myself. 
  • If they had written any books, I selected at least one as Want To Read. 
  • I noted their Twitter handle and made sure I was following them. 
  • Ditto their Facebook page. 
  • If they had a website, I visited it. 
  • If they had a blog, I read a few posts and commented if I had something relevant to say. 
  • I subscribed to their website. 
  • I shared any posts I thought fit into my platform. 

This cost me nothing in actual dollars and cents, and took about one hour of my time. With over 300 friends on Goodreads, working through one page of friends per day, I estimate it will take about two weeks to complete this project. Once I'm caught up, I hope to stay current as I add friends, rather than doing them in batches.

If there are any programs or apps out there that will show me the social media info of people I already follow on Goodreads or Facebook or Twitter, please let me know what they are. I know you can invite FB and Twitter friends to GR, but I don't know of any way to do the reverse other than manually.

Let me digress (and it just wouldn't be one of my blog posts if I didn't digress, now would it?) and thank all of you who place your social networking gadgets in a prominent place near the top of your website. Hunting and gathering for links is the number one time waster in this whole platform/engagement endeavor. I can't tell you how many times I had to go searching manually for authors' Facebook pages because there was no indication on their website they the had ever heard of FB, much less set up a page there. But when I clicked over to Facebook on my own, just to double check, and typed in the author's name in the FB search bar, lo and behold! There was a perfectly nice FB page, all up to date with current posts and lots of likes and everything, just waiting to be discovered. People, for the love of all that is holy, please keep your websites updated with live links. If I hadn't been in OCD mode, bound and determined to track them down, I would have done the BOTH and zoomed on to the next author's site. That is all.

The Brushing Of The Hands (BOTH)

Being engaged is a good feeling. Human interaction can be a lot of work, but also very gratifying. I'm enjoying working with Goodreads. It's a nice change of pace from FB and Twitter, which, let's face it, can be something of a cricket echo chamber. And here's the requisite CTA: I hope you will take a minute and follow me on Goodreads. I follow back.

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Published on Leave a comment on Rare, or Ripoff?
Cabeza de Vaca is Spanish for "looks good in hats"

So I get an email from Amazon the other day, saying someone bought a copy of my biography of Cabeza de Vaca and I was to ship it to them forthwith. Cool, right? Honestly, I hadn't sold one in so long, I had forgotten I even had them listed for sale.

When the book was published, I purchased extra copies, intending to include them as incentives on school visits. Having some left over, I listed them on Amazon and moved on to other projects. The book is OOP now (Out of Print), so I guess I have cornered the market. It was originally listed at $9.95 from the publisher. Mine are a great value at $4.99 plus shipping.

Imagine my surprise to discover a few other random Amazon book sellers are offering my book, the very same book, for $70 and higher! Each! I guess because it is now OOP, they feel justified in charging a king's ransom for this little paperback. Really curious if they actually have any in inventory as listed, but I don't want to pay $70 to find out. Doubly curious if they have sold any!

If you're like me and spent your entire K-12 public education never hearing of this guy, let me take a minute and fill you in. When I finally learned of him (thank you, UTA Special Collections!), it blew my mind that someone so cool was so, well, undiscovered. That's what inspired me to write about him.

Some fun facts about Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (actually, he may not have considered them 'fun'):

  • He was one of only four survivors of the Narvaez expedition, which set out from Spain headed for Florida in 1527 with more than 300 (mostly) men.
  • He was the first European to cross the North American continent, from Florida in the east to Mexico in the west.
  • Most of those nearly 3000 miles he traveled on foot, naked and starving.
  • He earned a reputation as a healer among the natives by improvising some techniques patched together from his Catholic upbringing. He freely confessed he thought it was nonsense, but the natives insisted.
  • We can add 'writer' to his long list of achievements. One of the first things he did when he returned to Spain is write a journal detailing his experience. He is considered one of the first ethnologists of the New World, thanks to the meticulous documentation of some of the natives he encountered.
  • My favorite 'fun' fact about Alvar is that after eight years of wandering the desert southwest, surviving many near-death experiences from cannibals, starvation, slavery, hurricanes, and pirates, and finally making it back home to Spain, he didn't curl up next to a fire with a decent plate of tapas and live out the rest of his days. Oh, no. He demanded reassignment for another expedition to the New World. He wanted to go back! And he did!

So far I've been able to resist the urge to double, triple, or even quadruple my sales price, so spread the word, folks - you can get a great deal on my book, directly from the author, and save a whopping 88%! Hurry, before I succumb and can no longer resist those greedy impulses.

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Published on Leave a comment on DIY: Doing It to Yourself

My current favorite tool

It's official: the Do It Yourself craze is out of control. It's the biggest scam perpetrated on the American public since Valentine's Day. As you probably suspected, it is a vast middle class conspiracy designed to generate billions for the big box hardware stores and the niche cable channels. The infuriating part is HOW it generates the billions. It's not by inspiring you to try the latest fads in 'updating' your home. Oh, no. it's more insidious than that. The DIY trend is designed to make you THINK you can do things yourself. But of course this is a damnable lie on par with the Prince Charming myth disseminated by the Feb 14 people.

Listen to me carefully here: You Cannot Do Any Of That Stuff Yourself. You don't have the expensive precision tools. You don't have the hot studs/studettes and their two dozen lackeys, each of whom have won the renovation equivalent of the Oscar in their respective fields (Woodworking, Tilework, Plumbing, Electrical, and the big kahuna, Home Staging). Most importantly, you don't have a CLUE how to do any of this stuff. If the extent of your experience before tackling a project is watching an HGTV show on said project, that 22 minutes per episode means bupkus. You need to accept this and be at peace with it.

So here's how they get us - they convince us we can do this stuff. We head to the big box store, happily lay out the cash for tools and materials because we know we are saving tons of money on labor by doing it ourselves. But when we fail miserably (and we will), they know we will head back to the big box at least one more time to try and fix the big mess we just made. Cha Ching! And yes, sadly, most of us end up calling the professionals anyway, once we realize the ugly truth and cannot in fact get the water supply shut off after the toilet is already ripped out of the master bath. Double Cha Ching!

Do I sound bitter? Oh, yes, I am one of the millions who have drunk the DIY Kool-Aid. But they make it look so easy, dang it! Even the packagers are in on the deal. How many times have you read on the side of a package, "No Tools Required!" or "Easy Installation"? Even the ones that have the little rating system, "Easy, Medium, Difficult" are a scam - never attempt anything above Easy and if you do, be sure to have your handyman's cell phone number at the ready.

Can you tell we have owned a few homes that were a bit of a fixer? Some were move-in ready and didn't need much work other than a coat of paint here and there. Easy! At least that is something I know I can do (except for the time I cheaped out on paint and it took me four coats and four hours before I gave up and bought the good paint to get decent coverage - lesson learned).

Other homes we've owned, on the other hand, have had oodles of projects. Most were maddeningly, temptingly DIY-type tasks. But nothing is ever that easy, is it?

In one place we lived, I'm guessing the previous owners were avid DIYers, judging from the variety of can light styles throughout. Could we not get more than two of a kind that match each other, people? Can Light Project #1: the can was missing its trim. The light worked fine, except for the 1/2 inch gap all the way around. Classy! So I'm thinking, no big deal, just go buy a piece of trim and plop it up there. Problem solved, right? Picked up some trim, got it home no problem. Where/how to attach trim to existing can? Big Problem. Took the can out of the ceiling to see if there was some sort of attachment further up the can, and found it was the wrong kind of can for that slot. Specifically, it was a can designed for a space with no insulation and of course there was nothing but loads of pink cotton candy insulation in the space. Ruh Roh! Back to the big box store for the correct type of can that Won't Burn Down My House.


The Root of All Evil

As if that wasn't enough - right as you walk in the door, there were three recessed light fixtures, or at least there are supposed to be. There are two fixtures and a third hole but no fixture, just wires dangling out of the ceiling, which brings us to Can Light Project #2. WTF?? How hard is it to just buy the other can and put it in? Funny you should ask. Turns out the hole is one that has very little clearance between ceiling and roofline, so not just any can will work there. On the third try, managed to find a fixture that not only would fit in the space, but would sort of match the other two that were already up there. We're talking within 2 feet or so, so it would be nice if they matched.

By this time, the big box store people have my picture on a poster in their break room due to the number of return/exchange items I am racking up.

So anyway, I am ecstatic about finally finding a fixture that appears to be the solution. All that is left to do is white to white, black to black, ground to ground and we are in business, right? Of course the house wiring is stiff as a board and does not want to bend into the correct shape to fit into the little j-box of the fixture, so we have the usual drama and cursing to get the wires joined. Finally get everything copacetic, fool around with the stupid little metal clamps that keep the fixture more or less in place in the hole, shove it in there, and it's Go Time - screw in bulb, turn on switch, mission accomplished. The excitement is building. Turn on switch. And . . . nothing happens.

Of course it doesn't.

Remove bulb, pull fixture out, assuming stupid wires have become detached somehow in the process, possibly in the shoving portion of our show. But all is well with the wires . . . (head scratching here) . . . is bulb faulty? Go find other smallish bulb that definitely works in other fixture . . . still nothing . . . then realization dawns.

Did I mention this house was lousy with light switches, the purpose of which approximately 25% of which have not been identified? So I'm giving the stink-eye to the single switch that operates the other two lights that are in proximity with the one I am working on, and I start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this one light is on a different switch?

Yup.

Why in the name of all that is holy, I don't know, but two of the three lights are on a single switch, and the third one is on a three switch fixture around the corner. Of course it is. So I throw one of the three switches while the can is still dangling from wires out of the ceiling and Eureka, the light comes on. Do a little celebration dance, get the correct bulb in there, shove it back in place, turn it on, Nada (insert cursing here). Take can out of hole, disassemble, re-attach stupid white wire that became mysteriously disconnected (see 'shoving' above), reconnect, shove can back in hole, put correct bulb in, throw switch, and a frickin' hour later stupid hole has stupid fixture in it, like it was supposed to be when they cut the stupid hole in the stupid ceiling in the first place.

Lord I don't want to be that girl, the one that leaves a bunch of unfinished projects for the next homeowner. That's just wrong.


My future favorite tool. It's a Dremel MaxSaw.

I don't know about you, but I am exhausted. I have decided rather than try to save a bunch of money doing all these future projects myself, I am going to work extra hard on generating some income to hire the pros to come in and do this stuff. The DIY Kool-Aid has worn off and I don't want to do anything around here more complicated than flushing a toilet. Did I mention we bought a new toilet? It's sitting out in the entryway, still in its box, pretty as you please. Can't wait to see how that project turns out.

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