Chris Baty's Blog, page 263

Tea Bag Tag Writing Contest

I love discovering messages in unexpected places. One of OLL's illustrators, Jesse Reklaw, includes a tiny update on his life in the fine print of every invoice he sends us. A note on a recent invoice said "I read Stephen King's On Writing in the bath tonight. My bookmark fell into the tub."

It seems like a lot of people and companies are really coming to embrace the joys of mini-messages, from drink companies sneaking factoids onto the underside of bottle caps to Taylor Swift dropping capital-letter hints about her song's subjects in her liner notes.

Yogi brand teas, which we drink a lot of here in the office, have inspirational messages printed on every tea bag tag. It's one of their great charms. We've had 900 days of rain in Berkeley, and I've been relying on Yogi's St. John's Wort "Blues Away" tea to bring some sunshine to my brain despite the cloudiness overhead.

This week, on my "Blues Away" tag, I discovered what may be the most poorly chosen message in the history of anti-depressant tea-bag branding. The tag read: "Don't let yourself down, anyone else down, or participate in a letdown."

Ouch. Yogi Teas! Come on, now. Life is hard enough without getting yelled at by your tea bag. They might as well have printed tags that said: "Sad person: Stop being such a drag" or "The key to happiness is trying to please everyone around you at all times."

To help cheer me up after my encounter with my tea bag, I would like to organize a Tea Bag Tag Message writing contest.

To participate, all you have to do is write a 13-word (or shorter) message that would make someone feel happier after they've read it, and post it in the comments below. At 2:00 PM, PST, on Thursday, June 16th, I will take the list of entries next door to Sweet Adeline Bakeshop, and let one of their tea vendors choose the winner, based on a scientific assessment of which slogan made him or her happiest.

The winner of the contest will receive eternal fame as the first-ever winner of the Tea Bag Tag Writing Contest, along with an actual tea bag* with a tag bearing your slogan!

Let the sloganing commence!

– Chris

*Tea bag will be in unused condition, I promise.

Photos of tea bags in a row courtesy of Flickr user Kathera.

Greetings from the Newbie

Hi, OLL community! My name is Jenelle and I'll be interning here for the summer, which is awesome because I get to work alongside the amazing staff and help gear up for NaNoWriMo.

A little bit about me… I moved here from Massachusetts last August to start my MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College. My specific genre is poetry, but I love learning about every genre. I've had a great first year reading reading lots and lots of books and getting back into a writing routine, which I'm horrible at keeping on my own. (Can anyone relate?)

Before moving to CA, I taught middle school language arts for three years. I also designed and taught a creative writing course one year, and visited schools as a guest teacher in the greater Boston area to spread a love for poetry and creative writing. My favorite lessons use visual art to inspire story. In fact, when I'm in the dungeons of writer's block it is my go-to activity. I rummage through my folder of collected images and pick one to describe, create a story from, or play with what the objects or people in the image might have to say. Do you have any paintings, sculptures, photographs, etc. that have inspired a story for you?

I'm super-excited to be here at the Office of Letters and Light for the summer and am hoping to learn more about writing, editing, and how community writing initiatives can be used to benefit people everywhere—especially students!

Right now I'm working on my thesis, which will be a collection of poetry, but I'm experimenting with craft components of fiction in my work. I'm also gathering ideas for November, when I hope to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time!

– Jenelle

For the Love of the Game

I mentioned in a previous post that I watch a lot of soccer, tennis, and baseball. I really love these sports and get very invested my teams and favorite players. Watching my Giants win against the Cardinals and watching Nadal, Li, and Schiavone progress to the finals at the French Open last week was pretty much heaven for me.

For all my enthusiastic observance of the games, though, I am not very good at sports myself. Many of you may not know that I am quite a tall lady—just a quarter inch shy of 6 feet. You'd think this would be great for basketball, or volleyball, or tennis, or long jump, or any number of other sports. And it isn't that I am uncoordinated either! I am just… a little afraid.

Afraid of getting hit in the head by a ball (or my own racquet or bat, which I've done). Afraid of doing the wrong thing (catching the soccer ball, for example—which I've also done). And apparently afraid of hurting the feelings—or shins—of my opponents. (My mom loves to tell stories about watching me play soccer when I was younger, and how she could hear me from the stands apologizing as I took the ball from the other team and ran it down the field.)

It's really a shame that I am so non-competitive and altogether timid, because I would love nothing more than being good at a sport. Or even good at throwing a Frisbee! Sure, I can read fast and I know big words and I'll edit the heck out of pretty much anything. But I want to kick, swing, and hit!

If you could be good at anything, what would it be and why?

Photo by Flickr user keithminer

Give Yourself a Time-Out!

I had to put Pekoe on a time-out this morning because she was behaving inappropriately, keenly expressing her belief that her needs (something about "belly!" and I think I heard, "rub it! rub it! rub it!") were more important than mine (something about "getting ready" and "work"). While there are differing views about the time-out as a means of discipline, especially considering that the 15-minute hourglass runs to 105 minutes in cat years, it is preferable to Pekoe and I screaming at each other while the toast burns.

I'm a big fan of the time-out for myself too, especially when I'm writing. To fully out myself as a Type A personality by admitting that I've read a number of time-management books: The Power of Full Engagement is the best of that bunch, and its authors share that 90-120 minutes of focus is the natural limit before we humans require rejuvenation (well, what they say is that "shifts of energy" are tied to "ultradian rhythms," but you get the idea). It makes sense, right? Think about how long we can sit in a movie theater before we get fussy: 90-120 minutes! I keep their advice in mind especially when there is much to write and little time (and isn't that why we're all here? To write much in little time?!).

In addition to this hourglass, I have four other timers (and am saving up for the coveted Enso!). My favorite approach is to set one for 90 minutes of writing and then set another for 10 minutes of Something Else, especially if I'm feeling flummoxed or insistent about belly rubs. When I follow this schedule, I can write for more hours in the day, even though my individual sessions are relatively short, and I'm in a much better mood! My favorite time-out activities (dancing, dishes, cats! cats! cats!) reset my brain so I'm ready to sit and write and play well with the others in my brain and on my pages again.

What are your favorite time-out activities? Do you track your writing time? With what? Did you give anyone a time-out today?

How the Internet Found My Mitten

Bloggy friends, I am going to tell you a story. It is a dramatic story, full of thrills and suspense. This is the story of my mitten.

In October of 2009, I suffered one of the greatest tragedies that can happen to a knitter.

I lost a mitten. (Insert "naughty kitten!" joke here.)

It was one of those days when you need your mittens in the morning, but by mid-afternoon it had warmed up enough that I even took off my coat, slinging it over the side of my messenger bag. Failing to notice that the pockets of that coat were wide and slippery. Giving my poor mitten no hope at all.

Even though most days, I took the same route, from school to the train to my house, this just happened to be the day when I walked half of downtown. My mitten could have been in any one of dozens of places. I called the lost-and-found departments of all the places I'd been, but I'd also walked all over, enjoying the warm weather. I wasn't too optimistic that traditional search methods were going to work.

My friend picked me up for choir that night and I told her the tragic tale of my lost mitten. And then, I spoke the fateful words: "The internet will find my mitten."

My friend scoffed at me. (Nicely, as she was sympathetic about the lost mitten, but it was still a scoff.) How on earth would the internet find my mitten?

Luckily, since I am an anal-retentive type, I catalogue all my knitting on my Ravelry notebook, so I had a photo of the missing mitten in question. I updated the text on my Flickr page to explain where the mitten might be found. I linked to it on Facebook and Twitter and the regional NaNo forum and the Edmonton Knitters group on Ravelry. I begged people to repost it, to show the power of social media to spread the word.

My mitten began to pop up on other people's Facebook pages. The link was retweeted. The page views on my Flickr page began to rise. Friends in far-flung places reposted the picture, asking their friends in Edmonton to keep an eye out. My friend Christine, a former Edmowrimo who'd moved to Vancouver, told me that she initially figured it was no help if she reposted it since she'd moved away, but she figured she still had a fair number of friends in Edmonton, and it wasn't like it could hurt.

The next morning, her sister Deborah glanced at Facebook. It was out of the ordinary—she didn't usually have time for Facebook before work. But for whatever reason—fate, the gods of knitting, pure dumb luck—she saw my poor mitten's picture on Christine's Facebook wall. She set out to walk to the train, resolved to keep an eye open for a lonely red mitten on a cold grey morning. She didn't know me, even though we lived only a few blocks apart, but she liked the idea of an internet search party. All over Edmonton that morning, people were looking for my mitten.

And then, a note from Deborah popped up on Christine's post. "Does this mitten look different on the other side? Because if it does, I think I found it by the school this morning."

I was checking Facebook from class (tsk), refreshing my notifications to see if anyone had news. (You may be thinking that perhaps I am overly attached to inanimate objects. You are correct. Sometimes I get choked up about my car.) I posted a quick reply and gave Deborah my email address, and before long, we'd connected and made a plan to meet up at her office.

Two hours later, my mittens were reunited.

People might tell you that the internet is a waste of time. They might say that social networks are pointless, only for posting about what you had for lunch and complaining about your boss.

But every time I put on my mittens, I think about how they made their way back together. Christine and I only met because of the internet, brought together by the madness of NaNoWriMo. Even though her sister lived literally down the street from me, we'd never met, and if it weren't for Facebook, we never would have. Dozens, maybe hundreds of strangers looked for my mitten that day, just because somebody asked them to.

So if someone tries to tell you that Facebook is stupid, tell them the story of my mitten. Or tell them your own story of the power of the internet. Tell me that one, too, here in the comments!

Young Authors Astonish at Black Pine Circle!

This past November, Chris Baty and I visited the fourth- and fifth-grade students of Black Pine Circle School as they neared the end of their novel-writing adventure. Black Pine Circle is the only NaNo school in our home city of Berkeley, and we loved getting updates from them throughout the month. It was also such an inspiration to know that so many excited young novelists were hard at work only a few miles from our office.

Lindsey and I decided to make a return trip in March, this time to talk more with some of the fourth graders who completed their novels (and a couple who have already started new ones). The result is this compelling, funny podcast, which we recorded at the school's small audio studio. Marina helped by announcing us, and then Alma, Daniel, George, and Haley asked us some good questions about our work at OLL. And we got to ask them about their experiences during November.

We're excited to spend more time at Black Pine Circle this November, and maybe to challenge these guys in some word wars at our local write-ins. (Listen to the podcast for the story of how they won the triumphant viking helmet!)

Help Write Blobby's Bio!

Blobby just had his portrait taken for the Camp NaNoWriMo staff page. So the easy part's done (what a photogenic gent he is!) and now it's time to write the bio for this important member of our team. Here's what we've come up with so far:

Blobby has been with OLL since he arrived on our doorstep in a cardboard box at the end of 2010. Since then, he has embodied all of the characteristics that we as a staff strive for. He is always great for a pep talk, a hug, or sharing a snack. When he's not boosting the morale of everyone in the office, you'll probably find him taking a sunset walk on the beach, sipping a cup of tea (he loves Irish Breakfast), or perfecting his latest break-dance moves.

We've asked Blobby for input, but he's so humble that he just shifts from foot to foot and roars "Gumpo!"

What key information about Blobby is still missing? And what kind of activities might a short, round, green dinosaur enjoy at camp? We'll incorporate your suggestions into the final staff page. We want to make this the best bio yet! (After all, it's not everyday that we get to add such an esteemed dinosaur to our roster.)

Writer Fuel: Good Old-Fashioned Soup

When I have a cold (as I do now) or the weather's not so great (as it's been lately), there's nothing more comforting than a bowl of steaming hot soup. I have been sampling plenty of soup this past week, and realized that it also makes great writer fuel. Unlike a burrito or sandwich, soup is actually ideal for eating while seated at the computer. It only requires one hand, little-to-no napkin interaction, and can be consumed at whatever rate is most conducive to your writing. (Bite, type, ponder, bite, type type type, ponder, bite bite bite. Or some combination thereof.)

The other wondrous feature of soup—and my subject today—is how very diverse it can be. I've had soup every day this week, which may sound dreadfully boring. But one was a spicy coconut, one was a classic chicken and vegetable, and today was a delightful barley and mushroom (see picture). Oh, the many flavors!

In honor of soup and all it's comforting, sustaining, and delicious variations, I wanted to share with you my top five favorite homemade soups. (In addition to making me happy, soup also makes me nostalgic.)

My dad's chili. Heavy on the meat and kidney beans, and the secret? Red wine! Yum.
My godmother's post-Thanksgiving leftover turkey, wild rice, and wild mushroom soup (emphasis on wild! Get crazy with it! Just no poisonous caps, please). Cooking the mushrooms and leeks down in sherry before adding the other ingredients makes it extra flavorful. Also, using whole milk instead of cream keeps it from being too heavy.
My mom's three-bean chicken soup. She uses black beans, cannellinis, and kidneys. The secret ingredient here is dry ranch dressing mix. It gives it a nice kick. If you're into spice like me, I suggest adding the kind of canned tomatoes with chilis, and a hot sausage like andouille.
My own kale, white bean, and sausage soup. I didn't invent it, but boy do I make it tasty! Trader Joe's Hot Italian Sausage gives it some heartiness and heat.
Crock Pot split pea and ham. I loved our little Crock Pot! It was the original kind with real crockery inside, and always produced the most miraculous meals. This split pea soup was extra special because the ham hock cooked down with the peas until the meat was flaky and tender. After a day of doing its thing in the pot, we'd take out the bone and tuck in. Excellent with cornbread!

I'd love to hear about your favorite soup, recipe variation, or food-related memory. As for me, I'd like a second helping of soup. But which kind???

From the Desk of Dan Duvall, Tech Manager

This week I was snooping around Dan's desk looking for something delicious to eat when I came across a document entitled "Ditching Drupal and Moving to Rails," stamped "Urgent" and "Highly Sensitive!"

 Unable to resist the lure of anything that has been stamped (keep me away from post offices and consulates, people!) I got reading, and realized that this was a document of grave importance.

After all, the guts half of this NaNoWriMo Camp and Guts Drive deals directly with this issue: new innards for NaNoWriMo.org in the form of Ruby on Rails!

Despite my anxiety over getting caught, I read on and came upon this:

Almost everything in Drupal is database bound. It uses the database for storing more than just the state of our application, it also stores its structure and logic. Upon every page request, this structure must be retrieved and reassembled before the request can be served. This is the crux of the matter as it leads to a level of database load that grows at a geometric rate with every major enhancement. Queries don't just grow in numbers, which would be manageable through horizontal scaling, they grow in complexity, which leads to contention within a single database server that is not scalable.

Boom! My mind was blown by the words "crux," "queries," and "scalable." These were all things I could get on board with, but still… I needed to know more.

I wiped the sweat from my eyes, and then this happened:

Nothing is inherently database bound with Rails because Rails makes no assumption that you are using a database at all. What this effectively means is that we will have control over how much and what kind of load we put on our database servers. We can plan from the ground up how our application will function and in what ways it will scale.

In rapid succession, I gasped, took a bit of the half-eaten sandwich on Dan's desk, and then broke into a happy dance that I call "The Squattie," and is not remotely food-related like most of Dan's trademark dances.

Knowing that I was stealing company secrets with every paragraph I read, I couldn't help but memorize this last bit:

To summarize with an analogy: If you wanted to enter a race but registered a little late and had only one part-timer in your pit crew, you might be best off going with the DERBY*GOKIT® . You can assemble it with a 5mm hex wrench, it requires only a simple paint job, and will give you an exhilarating downhill ride, albeit a rickety one. But next year or maybe the year after, when you've finally found your pavement legs, a larger pit crew, and amassed a slew of corporate sponsorships, you're better off picking up some high-grade aluminum, carbon fiber sheeting, a plasma cutter, a good acetylene torch, and building that dingo-kicking gravity racer of your dreams.

So there it is. A fragment of the whole, but still a compelling argument for moving from Drupal to Rails.

In closing, I'm sorry I snooped and ate some of Dan's lunch.

But I am not sorry I shared this information with you. I'll never be sorry for that. Judge me as you must. We're moving to Rails, baby!

(And yes, I am doing the Squattie again.)

Photo by Flickr user Malakh Kelevra

What's your animal writing totem?

I was going to post some pictures of bears to go with our Camp and Guts Drive and the new Camp NaNoWriMo poster, but this morning on my way into the office I saw this Giant Flying Snail and barely had time to snap a photo before running for cover! I somehow made it to work alive and, miraculously, only five minutes late!

Okay, so you can probably tell by the clacker… this is actually just a snail-shaped bell. And fine, the reason I was late for work is because I couldn't get the jam open. The snail hangs outside the window of my writing cubby and it is exactly the size you'd expect—though I'm sure, to some teeny tiny creatures way, way down on the ground, it looks like a Giant Flying Snail. To those creatures, this is the Snailpocalypse!

Next to the reasonably sized snail is a picture of a journal with various definitions of "snail" on the cover. The journal was made for me by my friend Sarah Ciston. When not busy attending to her future bridesmaid duties, Sarah is a writer and editor of We Still Like and stands bravely at the crossroads of writers, feelings, and snails. Sarah gave me these snail-related gifts when I was lost in the darkness of the revision tunnel.

They are meant to reinforce her belief that the pace at which I was revising my novel, girlchild, was, in fact, the perfect one. What pace was that? You've got it: a snail's pace! I was very hard on myself then, positive I must be doing it wrong since I wasn't doing it fast, and Sarah's gifts were a nudge toward sanity, a suggestion that I make a little date with reality. She was and is right. I don't look at snails and think: Would you get a move on?! I never see a snail on my front walk and scream: What is your problem? Go!

When I see snails, I think the same three things every time:

Don't step there.
of Thom Gunn's beautiful poem, "Considering the Snail."
and to the snail, whom I address in second-person: You must be going somewhere very, very important.

I had a phone call with my editor, C-Love, this week, our last one before girlchild leaves our hands and makes her way to the copy editors (gulp). I thanked C-Love for everything she's done and I'd like to share her gracious response: I didn't do anything heroic. I just waited. I realize now that C-Love is savvy to the wisdom of the snail. She has never screamed at me, not once, and she has never rushed me. Instead, she's made sure to avoid crushing me and known all the while that we must be going somewhere very, very important.

Sarah's snails have helped me be kinder to myself, my work, and my process, and to remember, as Gunn says: I cannot tell / what power is at work. I accept the snail as my animal writing totem. And you, dear Writer? What creature guides your way? Furry, gilled, or feathered? Is it nimble? Does it purr? What symbols of it do you have in your writing space and what lessons do they teach?

If you'd like to share the snail with me, there's plenty of room in his shell and it isn't as goopy in here as you might think. Come in!