Lissa Johnston's Blog, page 20

Self-pubbed, and now self-hosted

Little by little, I am evaluating the Smaug's hoard of self-publishing advice out there in the wide world and cherry-picking the tips that make sense (to me, at least).  I'm finally getting around to transitioning from Blogger to self-hosting. I had no beef with Blogger. It just seems the logical next step in my journey as a self-published author to graduate to self-hosting as well.

Here's the upshot: I watched Jane Friedman's video on how to transition to self-hosting and followed her instructions. Unfortunately, a few things have changed in the process since she posted the video, and I wish I had a take-back on one or two of the steps that caused me some angst before they sorted themselves out. The main thing you might want to consider is to just point your domain to Bluehost instead of transferring it. In hindsight, it seems a little easier. But I wanted to be free and clear of Go Daddy, where my domain had originated many years ago, because the whole elephant hunting thing really rankled and I was looking for an excuse to stop doing business with them. I won't bore you with the tech nerd details, but if you want those details, reach out to me in the comments.

I'm still in the honeymoon phase of learning a new interface. I've always been a DIY fiend and tinkering around with customizing this site is loads of fun for me. But I need to set some boundaries on the tinkering since November is fast approaching and I will be participating in NaNoWriMo again. I expect I will futz around with the theme options indefinitely. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Also if you have any comments about your experience with Bluehost or WordPress, chime in. I look forward to hearing from you.

Summer Daze

I don't know about you, but it's been a whirlwind summer for me.

It started off on a high note. In June, I spent a week in Texas helping my dad celebrate his 80th. While I was there, I was honored to attend my brother's wedding to his partner of 18 years.

Then my husband and I spent two weeks in Florida. His mom was in failing health. She was getting the best of care at her facility, but when his sister took a much-needed vacation, we volunteered to come down and drop in on his mom every day, just to keep her company. I'm glad we had the opportunity to do that. Last month she passed away from complications of Parkinson's at age 90, bless her heart. She will be greatly missed.

I was hoping to get so much writing done while we were in Florida. I envisioned lots of free writing time for myself. I expected we would visit my mother-in-law in the mornings, and my husband would go play golf in the afternoons while I stayed home and wrote. This did not happen. Not once. I was shocked. My husband is an avid golfer. But between our visiting schedule and the heat, golf just did not materialize. I was able to do a little social networking and email control, but that's about it.

Since we've been back from our various travels, I've made some progress. The trailer for The Dala Horse is up and running. It looks great, if I don't say so myself. The audio book is in the works and should be ready by the end of summer. I took the plunge and took the hints from many of you and made The Dala Horse available in a print version through CreateSpace. It should soon be live on Amazon as well. BTW that was a very interesting experience (CreateSpace). I am very pleased with the finished product. 

I'm also back on track with my current project, a YA dystopian trilogy tentatively titled Just Say Yes. But it's not your average angst-laden, teen-love-triangle cliche fest. There's adventure. There's humor. Think Mod Squad meets Super Size Me, with a little Wall-E thrown in for atmosphere. The first book in the series is almost finished. If you're interested in being a beta reader for me, hit me up.

My next newsletter is scheduled to go out this Wednesday, August 8. In it, you can find out more about what I've been up to this summer and see a photo of my current adorable house guest.

If you haven't subscribed to my newsletter yet, now's a great time. I'm offering a free ebook to new subscribers. It's called Keeping Score. It features 20 personal reminiscences on the changes in womens' sports over the last few decades. Here's one excerpt from Elizabeth, who graduated from Adamson High School in Dallas, Texas in 1954:

"While in high school, I envied the boys who ran track and hurdles. Since my legs were long and I was lean and tall, I always felt that I would have been great had there been a girls’ competitive team. There just weren’t any competitive teams of any kind for girls. An aunt told me once that girls had to be very careful with strenuous sports because one may injure one’s reproductive organs!! "

She goes on to describe her personal solution to a lack of organized sporting events for girls.

Reading Elizabeth's story, it's hard to believe how much things have changed for girls' sports in only one lifetime. And there are 19 more essays just like it in the book! But it's only available to you as a new subscriber. Here's how to sign up: visit my Facebook page at Lissa Johnston Author or my website and click on the email signup link.

Thanks in advance, and enjoy the rest of your summer.

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Keeping Score: Free E-Book Available With Email Signup

During the 1990s, I logged many hours in the stands and on the sidelines supporting my children as they played organized, competitive sports. I had plenty of other parents and grandparents for company. Often our conversation revolved around how much things had changed in the relatively brief twenty-plus years since we were our childrens’ age - especially if it was the moms talking about their daughters.

I was in junior high when Title IX was passed into law in 1972.* The women’s rights movement was gearing up again, a perhaps unintentional collateral benefit of the Civil Rights movement. But it would be some time before the trickle-down had much impact - too late for me, I’m afraid. Title IX went into effect as soon as it was signed into law. But effecting change for generations of southern culture and attitudes about the fairer sex would take a little more than the simple stroke of a pen.

In the 1960s in Dallas, Texas, we had gym class throughout my public education career. But if we had organized sports for girls before 1972, I don’t recall them or knowing anyone who participated. We had cheerleading and drill team, which were considered appropriate pursuits for southern young ladies (along with needlepoint, piano lessons, and, yes, there was such a thing as ‘charm school’). Soccer was at least a decade away from becoming the youth sports juggernaut it has become. The only thing I recall about soccer back then was playing it once during gym class on our decrepit tennis courts and scoring a goal - for the other team. Then, as now, baseball, football and basketball ruled the world of youth (read MALE) sports.

Many of my female friends and family had some wonderful anecdotes and observations about how sports participation has changed since they were in school. They were generous to share them with me so that I could share them in my new e-book, Keeping Score. Their stories run the gamut from indignation to inspiration, from humor to humiliation. I found something I could relate to in each of the twenty stories included here. I hope you will as well.

Perhaps more importantly, I hope their stories provide some wow! moments for younger generations who have benefited from increased opportunities in sports for girls. It’s hard to believe things used to be so different. It hasn’t been that long ago - has it?

Keeping Score isn't available anywhere else. You can receive it in .mobi format by clicking here to subscribe to my email list. Don't worry - I won't bombard you. You'll hear from me once a week or so whenever I publish a new history nerd blog post or have other fun news to send your way. If you prefer Keeping Score in PDF format, let me know either in the comments below or by contacting me via email, and I think I can make that happen.

*Title IX is a law that makes it illegal for any entity receiving federal funds to discriminate on the basis of, among other things, gender. 

Travel Is Enlightening (But Not Always Light)

Ellis County Courthouse
Waxahachie, TXBack home now from a recent visit to Texas. The destination was nothing new. But traveling is always instructive if you pay attention. Some things I learned during my latest sojourn:
General travel stuffThe flight you are early for always leaves late.The chances of your flight leaving on time (or even early! yes, it does happen! which is how I ended up spending the night at a Holiday Inn on Delta's dime recently) is directly proportional to how late you are running. Very late = very likely.Getting stranded overnight is fairly painless if the hotel is free and you haven't checked your bag.Checking a bag at the gate is the greatest idea since pop-top beer cans, especially if you don't have to worry about making connections.The people whose airport jobs entail a lot of sitting on stools seem to be the ones most eager to take their breaks.Taking off is fun every time.Airplane wheels thumping back into the undercarriage is scary every time.Handbags are useless for travel unless they can be carried over a shoulder.If your travels take you through the Atlanta airport, wear comfortable shoes.If you have less than a one hour layover through ATL, you will not make your connection.Always let the ladies in heels go ahead of you on the airport escalators, bless their hearts.Stepping onto a Down escalator with a heavy carry-on in one hand and a purse in the other, while wearing bifocals, is the closest I'll ever get to competing on American Ninja Warrior.Having a family of readers who love to pass their books along is great, but makes for a heavy carry-on. Ebooks, people!If I'm going to continue carrying this many real books in my carry-on, I need to get in better shape or get a carry-on size bag with wheels.If you don't think losing 5 pounds will make much difference, try getting from ATL terminal T to D with a 20 lb. carry-on. Now I know why the pioneers dumped their heavy stuff all up and down the Oregon Trail.What is with the creepy billboards at ATL? One was a slightly menacing message from a cyber security outfit. Another advertised software to 'influence' customer decisions. Big Brother, anyone?
Texas Stuff Every time I go to Texas, I discover a new favorite beer.Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much Tex Mex.Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and cream gravy.Dallas has been overrun with donut shops. Add them to the list of taco stands, nail salons, and Walgreen's/CVS - there's one on every corner.There is a heavy price to be paid for eating one's way through Texas (see what I did there?). The only thing that saved me this time: I don't like donuts.Random StuffYou get very little writing done until you put your cell phone away. Sadly, ditto for books.Spanx are always a good idea. Always pack the Spanx just in case.Dreds are the hair version of Hoarders.Possums are way cuter as babies.If NSA is creeping all of us online, how about hacking into Ancestry.com and 23andme family tree DNA data? Possibly solve some cold cases in the process, amirite?When making your own window screens, aluminum window screen is to be avoided at all costs. Go with the fabric screen instead. 2 hours per screen vs 20 minutes. Hey - I said it was random!
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Remembrance of Memorial Days Past

Recently I was down the glorious Library of Congress digital collection rabbit hole, looking for something to post relevant to the Memorial Day holiday. Look what I found:


It's an illustration from Puck Magazine from Memorial Day 1899. In case you can't read the small print, its caption says 'Three Veterans Under One Flag'. History nerd that I am, naturally I wondered which three wars. Just from looking at the uniform of the Colonel Sanders character on the left and doing the math, I figured he was from the Civil War. But the other two had me stumped. Mexican-American War, maybe? Guy on the right, no clue (fail!). Had to research it. And here's the scoop:

Colonel Sanders is indeed from the Confederate Army of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Interesting that they were generous enough to consider him as 'under one flag'.

Cowboy Bob in the middle is from the Spanish-American War (1898). This is the war infamous for its slogan 'Remember the Maine', which referred to the sinking of a U.S. naval ship in Havana harbor. It's the one some historians theorize was instigated by decidedly biased coverage in the Hearst newspaper empire. The one featuring Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders? The one where we helped Cuba gain independence from Spain? I wouldn't blame you for forgetting. It only lasted ten weeks.

The third guy on the right is a Union veteran, also from the Civil War. That's where they got me - I was thinking it needed to be three different wars.

By Memorial Day 1899 there were three other wars fought by American soldiers that could have supplied images of veterans for this illustration: the American Revolution (1765-1783); the War of 1812 (1812-1815); and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

BTW The Library of Congress has loads more entertaining illustrations from Puck Magazine. Puck was published from 1871-1918. It was a combination of humor and political satire - think BuzzFeed meets The Daily Show. This particular illustration is by artist Udo J. Keppler.

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Ellen Ochoa: Still Leading The Way

Like many who grew up in the 1960s, I'm a huge space nerd and as a by-product also a big sci-fi fan.
I'll shell out for just about any sci-fi movie. Watching The Martian last fall, which BTW was fantastic (but as great as the movie was, of course the book by Andy Weir was even better), and more recently a re-run of Gravity on TV (great special effects; sappy internal conflict aka pity party), I was reminded of why we don't send stupid people into space. NASA's astronaut training program is highly selective and highly rigorous, as well it should be.

I had the privilege of writing a children's biography of one of these space geniuses several years ago. Ellen Ochoa was the first female Hispanic astronaut in space. I felt some kinship with her when I discovered
we share a birth yearwe're also both female, natchwe love to readwe had a hard time deciding on a major in collegeand that's where our paths digress. Dr. Ochoa finally settled on physics for her bachelor's. Let's just say, I didn't. She got that 'Dr.' in front of her name studying electrical engineering at Stanford. She has some patents in optics. And of course there's the whole astronaut thing.

Although she was a bright kid, Ochoa never considered becoming an astronaut because there was no such thing as a female astronaut. Imagine that! Oh, the irony of growing up in the 1960s. But when she was in grad school at Stanford, guess what happened? Or should I say, guess WHO? Yep, Sally Ride broke the glass ceiling in space in 1983, and Ellen started getting ideas. It took her a couple of tries and a year of training, but she made history as part of space shuttle Discover's crew in April 1993. She was also a crew member for the first time the space shuttle docked with the International Space Station in 1999. Ochoa completed a total of four space flights and has logged more than a thousand hours in space.

Her last space flight was in 2002, but Ochoa was hardly put out to pasture. She continued a career at NASA. Dr. Ochoa is currently the director of the Johnson Space Center (second woman director; first Hispanic director). Something tells me if she ever found herself in a pickle like Sandra Bullock's character in Gravity, there would have been a lot less pity party, and a lot more git 'er done.



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Texas + Norway = A Love Connection

Texas and Norway: A Love Connection
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The Liebster Award

Apparently the 2016 A to Z Blog Challenge is doing what it is designed to do: help bloggers by encouraging them to develop good work habits, and getting lots of blogs seen by new eyeballs. I'm thrilled the owner of one pair of these new eyeballs, Laura Roberts, has been so kind to nominate me for a Liebster Award. Laura is a writer who is participating in challenges like a madwoman - in addition to the blog challenge, she's also doing the 365K challenge by 10 Minute Novelists and the A Story A Day in May challenge. Lawd.


Laura's theme for this year's A to Z Challenge was places to see in Chicago. Check out her Buttontapper blog for some great travel tips and photos from The Windy City.

Back to the award - it's time to pay it forward! Here are the guidelines when you decide to participate and accept the award:

1. Display an image of the award and write about your nomination.
2. Thank and link the person who nominated you for the award.
3. Answer the 11 questions prepared by the person who nominated you.
4. Nominate 5-11 awesome bloggers who you think deserve this award, and create 11 questions of your own for your nominees to answer.

Here are my answers to Laura's questions:

1. What most inspires you to write? Practical matters. I'd love to make a reasonable living from writing.
2. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received about writing? The next one. I learn something new every day and almost all of it is very helpful. Most recently, maybe making productive use of good quality writing podcasts, like The Creative Penn, Story Grid, Writing Excuses. Great for commutes, walks, etc.
3. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be, and why? Someplace warm with an amazing view, blazing fast wifi, and cold adult beverages.
4. What's your favorite book, and why? I like big books and I cannot lie. Epics with great plots, great characters, maybe requiring a tissue at some point. Besides being a wonderful story, I really admired the technical skill that went into writing The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Would love to see the storyboard for that.
5. What kinds of things do you do for fun, when you're not writing? We live on Lake Murray in South Carolina, so we do a lot of #lakelife stuff. Also enjoy baseball (Texas Rangers) and football (Dallas Cowboys). Looking forward to doing extensive traveling in the near future.
6. If you had to pick one song that best represents your life, what would it be? Sheryl Crow's A Change Would Do You Good. 
7. Do you have any good luck charms, and if so, what are they? Not really. I believe in making my own luck. As Mark Twain once said, 'the harder I work, the luckier I get'.
8. Which fictional character best represents you? True confessions: I couldn't come up with anything for this one, so I resorted to Googling. Pretty sad state of affairs when most of the hits on 'strong female characters in literature' aren't even old enough to get a driver's license, much less vote or buy a beer. I guess I'll go with Ripley from the Alien movie franchise. Smart, taller than most of her peers, and surprisingly bad-ass when push comes to shove.
9. What's the craziest thing you've ever done? Once when my daughter was young, she talked me into accompanying her on a spontaneous tour of the Sandia Man Cave near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Pitch black, narrow crawl space, a claustrophobe's worst nightmare. The things we do for our kids.
10. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life so far? It may be a cliche, but it's really true that I am so thankful to have both children reach adulthood happy and healthy.
11. And of course, the all-important question: Pirates or Ninjas? If you mean in a literal sense, unrelated to a video game or some other pop culture phenomenon of which I am sadly clueless, pirates.

Here are my nominees.  I discovered them during the A to Z Challenge.

Neala Luna's blog Moon, Light and Shadow. Neala is a photographer as well as a writer. Her challenge theme was clever and well-executed. She selected quotes that related to that day's alphabet letter and did a super job pairing them with photos that served to enhance the meaning of both. Mark Kelly is an artist who blogs at The Open Hearth. I loved what he did with the A to Z Challenge badge and other related artwork.The Mortal Bath blog by Mark Woff is a quirky bit of business. His tagline is, 'words, music, chickens'. Tres amusant, and the post about the candy scotch eggs didn't hurt. Martha Reynolds focused on 'Paris Between The Wars'. It may have been her blog that helped me figure out how important having a good theme can be for crafting quality blog posts.S.V. Cambria is a blog written by a couple who lives on a 43 foot sailboat. Suffice to say there are some unique posts and amazing photos.Beth Camp's blog resonated with me as she is clearly a fellow history nerd who delights in ferreting out the little info nuggets that make you go 'hmmmmm'. 
And here are my questions for them:

1. Where are you in your blogging journey?
2. If you could pick one book to be made into a Netflix series, what would it be?
3. Something most people would be surprised to find out about you?
4. What's you're favorite mistake in life so far (the one you learned the most from)?
5. Which animal best represents your blogging/writing style, and why?
6. What do your friends say is your best quality?
7. What is your top grammatical pet peeve?
8. Favorite conspiracy theory?
9. Tomorrow you wake up fluent in a second language. What would you like it to be?
10. Name a television program, past or present, you'd love to be a fly on the wall in the writer's room.
11. Twitter or Facebook?

Thanks again, Laura, for nominating me. I appreciate everyone who took the time to visit my blog and leave a comment. I hope you will do the same for these nominees. I look forward to following their posts and seeing what they come up with next.

2016 A to Z Blog Challenge: 7 Lessons Learned

If you know people who seem unusually giddy with the advent of May, they probably just completed the 2016 A to Z Blog Challenge in April. Like many marathon-ish activities, as they say in Texas: "it's like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer - it feels so good when it stops".  This is my first A to Z Challenge, but not my first blog challenge. I did one a few Januaries ago. But I think I was doing that one wrong - this one seemed like way more work. In the interest of working smarter, not harder, next time, here are a few things I learned.

Writing the posts is only half the time commitment battle. And this is probably why the last challenge I did seemed like a comparative breeze - I don't recall doing diddly squat about interacting with other bloggers during that challenge. I published my posts and sat back and waited for the comments to flow in. Which of course sounded vaguely cricket-like. I achieved my goal of writing a post each day, which is obviously the main point of the exercise. But this time I had an aha! moment, now knowing more about Google rankings and engagement and all that stuff. I easily spent as much time per day viewing other blogs and commenting on most. So if you're thinking of doing a blog challenge in future, estimate the time it will require to write the posts, and double that to allow for engagement.I am so thankful for blog designs that make it obvious where and how to leave a comment. If I haven't been able to figure it out within ten seconds or so after I've finished reading your post, I've probably forgotten what I was going to say anyway.Ditto on those of you who make it easy for me to follow you on other social media like Facebook, Twitter, and so forth. I really want to support and follow as many as I can, but I just don't have time to go sifting through the site looking for it - if it's there at all.Opting in to a challenge last-minute just makes more work for me. Kudos to those who had done this particular challenge before and had the foresight to plan a cohesive theme and even prepare some posts ahead of time. Maybe that will be me next year.A great post does not necessarily mean a long post. Save your magnum opus for non-challenge posts. This helps the writer as well as the readers. If they're doing the challenge right, your deathless prose is probably not the only post they'll be reading today.If the words 'random' and 'thoughts' appear together in the blog title or description, my expectations regarding quality of content are very low. I really appreciate the bloggers who have a clearly envisioned niche and stick to it. I know from personal experience how tempting is to work without a theme or niche and just write about whatever pops into your head. Having a niche or narrow focus may seem limiting. But sometimes the niche can help you find a path, rather than obstruct it. The A to Z Challenge list of participants page really helps me visit as many blogs as possible in a brief amount of time. Before I figured this out, I was bouncing around reciprocating with those who visited my blog or who posted links on various Facebook groups related to the challenge. This worked okay, but in retrospect seems a little haphazard. Plus, I have a feeling those bloggers who cross-post are just the tip of the iceberg of participants. At last count there were over 1300 participants listed at the A to Z site. I estimate about one tenth that number posted links in the FB groups I follow. Thanks to all the organizers and congrats to all the participants of the A to Z Challenge. I enjoyed discovering so many new blogs, including a few that appear to be of my tribe. I made great progress, not only on engagement, but in defining my blog niche and developing some best practices to keep it a productive part of my platform.

I'm sure you've read every single one of my 26 challenge posts, but on the off chance that you missed one or two, they're listed in the left column under Blog Archives for May. Or you can Search using the A to Z Challenge label. Thanks for stopping by!

From Zero To Hero

As a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, I was once watching them play the Detroit Lions. A win meant advancement to the playoffs. A loss meant the end of the season. In case you missed it, it was a sloppy mess of a game for Da Boys. In the closing minutes, the Cowboys were ahead 24-20, but the Lions were driving. Defender DeMarcus Lawrence recovered a fumble.

If he had simply fallen on the ball, end of game - the Cowboys would have taken possession, taken a few knees to run out the clock, and headed to the post season. But Lawrence didn't fall on the ball. In his excitement, he tried to run the ball into the end zone a mere 20 yards away and seal the deal with six more points. Unfortunately, he was stripped of the ball and the Lions recovered.

Let's take a moment and consider this carefully. A rookie defender has the game literally in his hands, and fumbles it away with a rookie mistake. I suppose that's why they call it that.

No doubt Lions fans across the nation roared with glee at this moronic mistake. They had the ball back with plenty of time to score. They had a quarterback with a strong arm and perhaps a stronger will to win. By some miracle, they dodged the fumble bullet and had another chance.

But something crazy happened. DeMarcus Lawrence also got another chance. DeMarcus Lawrence also roared. Eight plays later, he stormed across the scrimmage line, sacked the quarterback, forced AND recovered a fumble. This time, he fell on it like all good little defenders should. Game. Over.

I couldn't believe it. True confession: I screamed like a girl. It was the talk of sports radio for days afterward, and good reason. It got me thinking: how often does a chance at redemption happen, with a positive outcome? I mean, every time any of us makes a mistake, our fondest wish is for a do-over. But do-overs are so rare. So I Googled. Nothing beats a great redemption story.

Browns def. Jets 23-20 1987 Division Semifinals
It took them two overtimes to do it, but the Browns cashed in all their redemption cards in this one. Quarterback Bernie Kosar had two interceptions to make up for. The offense wasted a chance at a game-winning touchdown due to excessive celebration after a pass reception that had put them within field goal range, and had to settle for said field goal. Kicker Mark Mosely won the game with a field goal in the second overtime, but he had missed three of five earlier attempts, including an easy 23-yarder in the first overtime period. The Browns had no redemption in the conference championship the following week, losing to the Denver Broncos in overtime 23-20.

Giants def. Cardinals 5-4 Game 3 of 2014 National League Championship Series
Outfielder Juan Perez tried twice and failed twice to sacrifice bunt off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Randy Choate with one man on base in the 10th inning. Giants management basically said, 'forget the bunt - he's struggling' and dropped the bunt signal. Perez must have been very thankful. A few pitches later, Perez singled to advance the runner and of course get himself on base. The batter following Perez was able to bunt successfully, resulting in the game winning run. The Giants went on to win the NLCS 4-1 and the World Series 4-3 over the Kansas City Royals.

2012 Adventure Racing World Championships
That's Mr. Fa'avae on the far rightOkay, I admit I had to Google and Wiki on this one - never heard of 'adventure racing'. Teams of four compete in multiple stages of biking, climbing, kayaking and other somewhat extreme sports. New Zealand's Team Seagate won in 2012. The win was sweet redemption for team member Nathan Fa'avae. The previous year, the team earned a four hour time penalty when Fa'avae had failed to keep track of - oh, the irony! - a tracking device, leaving it behind at one of the locations early in the competition. That four hours made the difference between a world championship and a third place finish. Needless to say, the fellow made no such oversights the following year.

David Ragan, 2011 NASCAR Coke Zero 400 Winner
Ragan won this event at Daytona International Speedway just months after a rules penalty robbed him of a victory at the more well-known Daytona 500 race. He changed lanes improperly after a re-start. In NASCAR, that's all she wrote.

This post represents my participation in the 2016 A to Z Blog Challenge. We're working our way through the alphabet with posts relating to a different letter most days throughout April. Would love to hear from you in the comments section below. Thanks for dropping by!