Category: Uncategorized

  • TGIF!

    We survived to Friday!  What a relief, eh? I\’m ready for the weekend.  So ready, in fact, I forgot I wanted to do a post today.  So, instead of babbling about nothing, YOU tell ME – what are your weekend plans?

  • BLARG! THURSDAY!

    How did it get to be Thursday, AUGUST 2nd??

  • Announcing… A Noonorial!

    I\’m having so much fun with learning to use different multi-media presentation tools that I came up with a tutorial that I\’m calling a Noonorial.  (Don\’t laugh, this stuff is infectious and fun.  I mean, imagine what you could share with others, what cool screen tips you could share, just by playing around?  Don\’t believe me?  Check it out:  Screenr.)

    Today is Writer Wednesday and I\’m at the Writer\’s Retreat Blog with the debut episode of the Noonorial – How to Get a Permalink in Blogger.  Stop on by!

  • Tue Cent Twosday – Copyright

    Many of you will have noticed the recent kerfuffle on the internet about use of images on blogs.  Many bloggers have used images that do not belong to them, and for which they do not have license or permission, and one author got in trouble for doing so.  It kicked off a long discussion and many expressed surprise that using such images would be wrong.

    Since my husband is a professional photographer, this topic is near and dear to our hearts.  I asked him his opinion and he explained Creative Commons licensing to me.  For a longer discussion on the issues, I\’d like to refer you to the blog by Vacuous Minx, in which she points the reader to an excellent article on Dear Author on the subject:  \”How To Do a Google Image Search and Why You Might Want To\”. I wanted to add a link to the Creative Commons license itself, here.  I suggest reading it, it is enlightening.

    Also, for the record, the images on Lolcats and Loldogs are okay to use on our blogs, and are available under that license.  If you use other images, just check to make sure you are allowed to, first.  And, of course, use your own images as you wish.

  • Monday! Monday! It\’s Monday!

    It\’s the fifth Monday of the month!  I don\’t have any posts anywhere, so I can\’t use that as a topic, and it\’s Monday… which just isn\’t very exciting, right?

    But let\’s take a step back.  We have a lot to be grateful for.  So here\’s a quick list to kick-start your week and so we can remember all the abundance in our lives.

    1.  The internet.  It\’s a wonderful tool for communication!

    2.  Computers in general.  Again, wonderful tools that allow us to type, (so much so that my friends complain when I assign handwritten prompts!).

    3.  Good friends.  Both online and in-person, I am grateful for the connections I\’ve made.

    4.  Our pets.  If you\’re a pet person, you understand.  If you\’re not, you probably don\’t.  And that\’s okay.

    5.  Food in our bellies, roofs over our heads, and money in our pockets.  Abraham Maslow had it right – when the basics are taken care of, we can turn our minds to other tasks.

    For what are you grateful this week?  Tell me in the comments, I\’d love to know.

    I took this picture last October at the Skokie Lagoons in Illinois, USA.
    (Copyright 2011 A. Catherine Noon)

  • Sunday Box Talk

    On the Subject of Naps
    I\’m sitting here, exhausted after my first week of work after vacation, my second week of work ever at my new job that I love, and realized something.
    The reason I can\’t think of a good post is because I\’M TIRED!
    Duh.
    Then it hit me.  Sunday\’s Box Talk this week will be about – you guessed it – naps!
    When\’s the last time you took a nap?  When\’s the last time to got a good night\’s sleep?  If you have to think about it for a moment, it\’s been too long.  Do what you have to.  Take a sick day (only if you haven\’t just started a new job ~grin~), a personal day, a vacation day, hell, even a weekend day.  Declare it \”Nap Day.\”  If you have kids, outfit the living room with blankets, sheets, and build a fort out of the couch.  Lounge around in your pajamas and refuse to go outside.
    Rest.
    Most global traditions hold that the Creator rested at some point, be it the seventh day, or after weaving the world, or holding it up, or creating it out of dust.  Regardless of your religious traditions, or even in the absence of any, it just makes good sense.  Babies, cats, and dogs know it.  Horses know it.  Birds know it.  Naps are good for you.
    Excuse me, my couch is calling me.  It\’s time to nap.
    Happy napping!

  • The Noonhour – On Discourse

    Welcome to The Noonhour, a Podcast featuring essays, children\’s stories, and other items I find interesting.  It\’s an experiment that I\’m enjoying, so sit back, relax, and listen to
    The Noonhour


  • Friday Flash – Fishtank

    At our prompt group the other night, one of our prompts involved writing a snippet with sentences of only seven words. It came from Ursula LeGuin\’s amazing book, Steering the Craft.  I highly recommend it.

    The fish swam around in their tank.  red, green, orange, blue, even pink flickered.  How many times Jack watched them?  How many fish had he raised?

    Over the years, he counted hundreds.  He named them all, but forgot them.  His ledger kept track for him.  Silent, leather-bound, it held names in trust.  It did not judge.  It did not accuse him of forgetting.

    Its job was to remember.  Like a happy puppy, it did so.  No questions or argument, it recalled.  Recollections intrigued Jack.  Since the accident, he had few.

    Little more than flickers, his memories died.  Like his brain, broken now.  The accident, they said with somber voices.  He didn\’t need their pity.  He didn\’t remember the accident anyway.

    Ebinezer!  The pretty purple one was Ebinezer.

    You want to try?  Set your timer for 15 minutes and write a paragraph, but using sentence of no more than seven words – it can be fewer, but no more.  Feel free to share with me in the comments!

  • Survivor, Not \”Victim\”

    I have been gratified by the strong focus on the survivors of the tragedy in Colorado, first on Anderson Cooper\’s show on CNN day-off and today on Facebook with a photo circulating of actor Christian Bale with one of the men involved in the shooting.

    My only frustration with this coverage is the word, \”victim.\”  These folks aren\’t \”victims,\” they are survivors.  A victim is someone at someone else\’s mercy, the recipient of the action, the powerless.  A survivor is someone who lives, triumphs, and is empowered.

    We are survivors of awful things, not the victims.  What doesn\’t kill us makes us stronger and we, together, can remember that we survive many horrible things.  We don\’t have to own the word \”victim,\” and we don\’t have to surrender our power to some sad, sick, nameless, mentally-ill individual with a gun.  Survive.  Triumph.

  • Walking In This World – Communication

    It\’s easy to forget that we are communicative animals, especially when Mercury is retrograde.
    Just remember to check your chair for cats before you sit down, and you\’ll be fine.
    And the laundry will still be there tomorrow.

  • Tue Cent Twosday – Why “Guerrilla” Marketing?

    Why \”guerrilla\” marketing?  It lies in the definition of the concept of guerrilla warfare. First coined to describe the rebels in South America fighting better funded government adversaries, it means a small force, well-coordinated, using every tool at its disposal for maximum effectiveness at minimum cost – of life, time, resources, and money.

    Guerrilla Marketing is a term coined by author Jay Conrad Levinson in the 80’s and is a way of thinking about marketing for small businesses, as they compete against bigger, better funded corporate adversaries in the market. His books are wildly popular and I highly recommend them. The one I have in my own library and love is Guerrilla Marketing Excellence: The Fifty Golden Rules for Small-Business Success, by Jay Conrad Levinson, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1993. It’s probably been updated since then, but the concepts are the same.

    In short, it’s figuring out how to market what you’re trying to market in the most effective and targeted way possible, without spending a lot of money and time that you don’t have. How does that affect us?

    What are our priorities as writers?

    Writing books. Duh. You can’t market what ain’t writ.

    What’s the next priority?

    Work/Life balance. Why do this if we become frazzled, unpleasant to be around, and bitchy? That’s not the way to happiness – nor is it the way to continued writing, unless perhaps you’re Hemingway. And we all knew how HE turned out.

    So. Here, in 5 steps, is Aunt Noony’s Guide to Guerrilla Marketing for Us Writers:

    1. Figure out what time you do have. When are your working hours? An hour before you go to the office for your day job? While the kids are napping or after they’re in bed? Figure out what time you have available to you.

    TIP: I recommend literally writing a list, like this:

    Sunday:
    Monday:
    Tuesday:
    Wednesday:
    Thursday:
    Friday:
    Saturday:

    Then fill in what you have as standing commitments and what time you have available for writing.

    2. Realize there are two parts of being an author: part 1 is being a writer, and all the creative stuff associated with it; part 2 is being an author, which is a business and all the left-brained stuff that implies. How much of the time available to you, do you want to spend on each? 50/50? 60/40? 100/0? Then parcel out the time you’ve found in Step 1 accordingly. If you have an hour a day, that’s 7 hours a week. 50/50 is 3.5 hours on writing, or 30 minutes a day, and 3.5 hours on marketing/business/accounting stuff, or 30 minutes a day.

    3. Figure out what marketing stuff you want/like to do. If you aren’t currently doing any, then pick ONE. Yes, I said ONE. Not ten. Not fifty-gabillion. Not message boards, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Pinterest, and Google+ and the other zillion “this is totally required for writerly success” social media whizbangs that come down the pike tomorrow. One.

    If you’re already doing marketing stuff, like a website, blog, FB, or Twitter, then figure out which ones you want to focus on when. For example, in our 30 minutes a day model: Sundays and Tuesdays, blog posts; Mondays and Wednesdays, FB posts (learn TweetDeck or HootSuite, they’ll save you lots of time and energy); Thursdays and Saturdays, Twitter posts and responses; and Fridays, respond to comments (or join a social board like Coffee Time and interact with folks).

    4. Once you know what outlets you’re focusing on, figure out what you’re saying. Sloan mentioned she doesn’t know what to blog about. Start with what stuff interests you. Me, it’s this: writing, editing, publishing business, marketing, character development, creativity, journaling, knitting, cats, coffee, and dark chocolate. THAT is my platform. My readers know what they’ll find when they come to a Noony post – something informative, sometimes funny, focused on writing, knitting, coffee or chocolate. (If you don’t believe me, check out my “essays” section on my website, and that’s pretty much how I’ve organized them.)

    TIP: You know how to write, and you know what to write about, or you wouldn’t have started writing books in the first place. Essays aren’t any different than fiction, really, in the sense that you’re telling a story about something. That “something” just happens to be in this real world around us, as opposed to our fictional worlds in our novels and short stories.

    EXAMPLE: Here is the schedule for my own blog, that I came up with myself (meaning, you can come up with one that fits for yourself):

    1. Sunday Box Talk (the 3 Boxes of Life)
    2. Monday – I have guest posts on other blogs on this day; stories and novels and stuff – NWO, Rachel Carmichael, IPO.  So keep this day for that.
    3. Tuesday – Two Cents day?  Talk about publishing and writing, and my work with it? Remember to keep it focused on the readers.
    4. Wednesday – Walking In This World.  How are things going today?
    5. Thursday – Thursday 13
    6. Friday – Flash fiction.  Use prompts?  Maybe on Twitter?
    7. Saturday – The Noonhour podcast.

    5. Do what’s fun. If you like talking with others, and talking about writing or your hobbies, then do that. Don’t wait for others to tell you what’s interesting, and for the love of Pete don’t listen to those who say that no one wants to hear what you have to say (and if you’re the one saying it, tell your Inner Critic to fuck off). It’s like writing books – trust yourself, and trust your voice.

    TIP: Come up with a list of five or six topics you can write about at the drop of a hat. These are the topics from which you’ll pull when you do guest posts. I might be writing M/M from a woman’s perspective, or character development, or any of a bunch of things that you’d talk about with other writers at a conference. When in doubt, here’s a list:

    • Why I write what I write 
    • How to develop a sympathetic character 
    • My four favorite writing tools 
    • Coffee and tea – which is more important for your writing? (This gets surprisingly many comments, since people are passionate on both sides of the fence) 
    • Common mistakes writers make and how to avoid them – even better if you include your own booboos and how you fixed them 
    • Research techniques you find useful 
    • Your favorite websites – no, really, the ones you go to when you’re supposed to be writing, and why 
    • Anything else you like to talk about or write about or argue about
    Let me know about your own ideas on guerrilla marketing or social media in the comments!
  • Having a ball with Japanese Temari

    Having a ball with Japanese Temari

    I’ve been in love with the idea of making ornaments for as long as I can remember, so when I came across a book about the Japanese art of temari, I knew I had to try it.
    Traditionally given as gifts, these often intricately decorated balls of thread can have designs as simple or as complex as you wish. Getting started is easy – the hard part, I found, is tearing yourself away from the thousands of designs that can be found in books and on the internet.
    To start a simple temari, you’ll need a ball of leftover yarn [not a problem for all of you knitters and crocheters], a small or medium sized Styrofoam ball, an industrial sized spool of thread in any color [dark colors are best to start with IMO], an embroidery needle [or one with a large eye], pins and craft thread or embroidery floss.
    Preparing a thread ball to start your design is easy. You can start with the Styrofoam ball and wrap your leftover yarn tightly around it until the ball is completely covered. [You can also skip the Styrofoam and just use yarn to start the ball, just keep the base shape as round as possible].

    When you’ve completely covered the form, tuck in the end of the yarn so it doesn’t unravel and then begin wrapping thread around the yarn covered ball until you can’t see the yarn anymore. [Best to use thread in a different color from the yarn.] This part takes the longest and can use up quite a bit of thread. Turn the ball often to keep as round a shape as possible. Use the needle to tuck in the end of your thread so the ball doesn’t unravel. The thread layer allows you to ‘sew’ on the ball in any direction and gives you a place to anchor your stitches.

    Next you need to divide the thread ball into sections by wrapping a thin strip of paper or a contrasting color of craft thread around the equators of the ball. You can divide the ball into any number of sections – 4 or 8 is easiest, using the needle to secure the craft thread at the poles of the ball or pinning the paper to the ball. The paper will be removed later, but the thread will become part of the design you create.
    In this picture you can just about see the divisions I made with gold thread.

    The simplest temari patterns involve wrapping your craft thread or floss around the ball and anchoring each pass at the guidelines you created when you divided the ball into sections.  By wrapping the ball in different directions and anchoring the thread around the guide lines, you can make stripes, triangles, stars, net-like effects, layers and even spirals.
    Here’s an excellent set of instructions for basic stitches:
    After browsing through a few of the on-line tutorials, I was making dozens of different designs in no time. I’m always looking for books to add to my craft library, though, so I also invested in The Simple Art of Japanese Temari by Dominique Herve and Alban Negaret.
    One of the things I love about temari is it utilized supplies I already had on hand – beware though, temari tend to multiply and once you master a few simple stitches you may find yourself with more temari than you know what to do with.