Sunday Surf: Take control of your to-do list & inbox, plus the truth about blogging conferences & safe FB sharing

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

BlogHer Tells WSJ the Rest of the Story About Blogging Business Trips - Elisa Camahort Page - Voices - AllThingsD

The answer is that the Journal has published the umpteenth article dismissing women who blog — even as we are using our expertise across social media not just to develop our own brands and businesses, but to symbiotically develop some of the hottest new companies in the startup economy (Pinterest, anyone?). MilitaryMoneyChica nails it in her post, “If Mom Bloggers Lean In Any More, They’ll Just Walk All Over Us. Thanks a Lot WSJ.”:

Let’s be honest. Do I have fun when I go to a blogging conference? Uh, yes. But I had fun when I went to conferences and professional development opportunities when I guess, according to this article, I had a “real job”…. Thanks for portraying my profession as a bunch of opportunistic, burnt-out moms who have to dress a vacation in business casual to get out of doing the laundry.

1 MONTH AGO

blogging blogging conferences conferences blogher women writers feminism sexism parenting

Brilliant article on 

How to Make Your To-Do List Doable:

When you’re wearing your Boss hat, it’s up to you to write down the instructions in such a way that your Assistant self can just do them without having to think - or stress. Taking the thinking out of the acting is one of the best ways to make your to-do list a cinch to finish off.

1 MONTH AGO -  1

to-do list time management 1 note

Sunday Surf: Tracking submissions, mass PayPal, and traditional vs. self-publishing

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

Tracking Your Submissions - Triple Tracking Method -- Writers Write(R)

To collect better data, create 3 submission tracking spreadsheets: general, individual manuscript, and individual publication.

3 MONTHS AGO

Submissions novel submissions manuscripts agents publishing

QueryTracker | Free Database of Literary Agents and Publishers

Free database for tracking your manuscript queries

3 MONTHS AGO

Submissions novel submissions manuscripts query agents publishing

Explore your parenting through poetry

What I love about poetry is how it allows us to view our lives through a different prism: one that breaks apart the pieces of our experience into rainbow colors and then focuses them with clarity that can be blinding in its insight.

When I became a parent, it was natural — even necessary — to examine my new adventures (and misadventures) through the lens of poetry.

Did we dream you into existence,
or was it more mundane?

When you open yourself up to writing poetry, you open yourself to exploring and memorializing what was meaningful to you, even the hard moments.

Feeling you leave in a gush of pain and red,
in the blackest and loneliest part of the night …

Why were we led all that way, and never to see your face?

Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop: WINNERS!

In the month of April and into May, a group of intrepid poets and I explored parenting through poetry. It was a glorious, inspirational time, and I was so pleased to share the journey with these writers:

• Karen at MomAgain@40 — weekly poet!
• Julia at A Little Bit of All of It — daily poet!
• siren of the plains
• Teresa of Spirit Grooves — daily poet!
• Kelly of KellyNaturally.com — weekly poet!
• Jennifer of True Confessions of a Real Mommy

Put your children in danger: A guide for authors

At the same time as I am reading Virals, a young adult novel by Kathy Reichs, I have happened upon this YouTube video from Feminist Frequency (thank you to Our Feminist Playschool for the direct) reviewing the book The Hunger Games:


The whole video's very interesting, as are Anita Sarkeesian's other works, but I just want to pull out one teensy tidbit that relates to the novel Virals as well as the whole oeuvre of children's literature.

Anita says that she finds it unbelievable that the parents in The Hunger Games wouldn't stand up and refuse to let their children be sacrificed.

Oh, yes. Totally. But that's viewing it as an adult and being all reasonable and stuff. Young adult and children's fiction depends on adults — and parents in particular — being ineffectual, powerless, cruel, or entirely absent.

In celebration of a good novel: Kathy Reichs vs. Bones

Actor Emily Deschanel and author Kathy Reichs on the set of Bones (image courtesy Fox)

I just checked out Bones Are Forever, by Kathy Reichs, from the library and realized it had been a long time since I felt that pull of a well-written novel. I found myself seeking out excuses to slip away to read, and I carried the book around with me in hopes odd respites would present themselves and need to be filled with a good book.

The TV show Bones, based on Reichs' work, is so goofily overwritten that it's astonishing it came out of the Temperance Brennan novels. I even like Bones, but it's so cringe-inducing for how two-dimensional the characters are and how painfully obvious each emotional revelation becomes.

It was refreshing to dive back into the original world of Tempe and enjoy Kathy Reichs' dry, exhaustively detailed, but fascinating peeks into the world of forensic anthropology — with some shootouts and kidnappings along for the thrills, of course.

Poems for Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop — Week 5: Enjoy

We're sharing our final poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:

Week 5:

Enjoy

This week — I can't believe it's our last! — we're embracing the camaraderie of parenthood and reveling in our children's joy and creativity.

If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog, link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!