In transition

I tried out Prezi for my workshop on Saturday.

Lots of fun stuff, I’ll be tweaking it a little more to smooth out the transitions, but overall I think it is very cool.

A friend of mine video-ed the recording he made of my appearance on Lowcountry Live. I thought I’d share it here so extended family could get a giggle.

• I made the deadline with the book. I’m a 1/3rd of the way through and just shy of half of the expected word count. This was a huge one, if I hadn’t met it, I would have been in violation of my contract.
• My editor is a joy to work with.
• The final manuscript deadline is in four months. There is an end in sight.
• There were no major mishaps during yesterday’s segment on Lowcountry Live. If you don’t know Jennet Alterman, the Executive Director of the Center for Women, you should.
• The kids are all healthy.
• I have today to pull the house back into order. I wonder what that says about me.

Since I have seen snow like this in Charleston.

I assure you, Ellie was only mad because we made her stop rolling around long enough to take a pic.

Of course we left all of the snow gear in Minnesota. Figures.

Dan Barber

• Don’t wing it, know what you want to say.
• Message points are carefully prepared, concise and memorable
• Aligned with your brand and objectives.
• Define your agenda & focus
• Tell your story,  memorably
• Your message serves as a life raft
• Keeps your message consistent.
• Your messages are your brand.
• Concise, simple and specific.
• Memorable, genuine and personal.
• Strategic – what do you want the audience to do with the message.
• Be ready for well-prepared reporters
• No such thing as off-the-record
• Don’t speculate and never lie.
• Is there anything else:
  I just want to emphasize my points 1,2, 3 – referred to as a bookending an interview
• Don’t answer questions on behalf of someone else.
• Flagging phrase
  verbal cue such as:
  What’s really important
  The real news is

Jessica Smith

• Relationships matter
• Media is not the enemy
• Interviews can be unpredictable
• Make sure your cause / agenda / focus is apparent / easy to find.

Truly excellent session; I could have used this a couple of years ago. Many thanks to both Jessica and Dan.

I’ve read a lot of advice to parents and most of it has been utter crap, with the boys.

With Ellie the little magic tricks all seem to work. Want her to lower her voice, I simply have to whisper. If I say she needs to be gentle because something hurts, she gets very concerned and wants to give me a kiss.

The boys? It’s always been a matter of enforcing boundaries to keep them from running pell mell over everything, destroying themselves, the house, and people’s opinions in the process.

I was recently recognized in the grocery store as the lady from church with three kids. She was very kind, but I had to wonder how hard she had to work to not say the crazy lady from church with three kids.

Yes, I am procrastinating.

Somehow, there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything I should be doing, but somehow I still find time to procrastinate. It’s a habit I have to break.

The first deadline is hanging over my head, so of course Tim is having to pick up shifts. I’m hiring a sitter one day a week to help ensure I have at least some uninterrupted time, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough and I don’t know what else to do.

I’m still excited beyond my wildest dreams, but the actuality of the obligation is now looming. I feel like the ridiculous girl in any number of movies, the one that just stands there and stares -or worse screams- instead of doing anything.

I don’t regret any of this, but I’m fairly certain that the cracks in my demeanor are starting show. For that, I apologize.

My stepdaughter went to her first formal, she had no idea her dad would be in town to see her before she left. Oh yeah, he knows it all starts now.

A month ago I was contacted by an editor at a traditional publisher. She wanted to know if I would be interested in having a conversation about turning Home-Ec 101 into a book.

Immediately I turned to Google and Facebook, looking to see if it was a legit company.

Yes.

I returned the email and a few days later we had a conversation that outlined the whole process.  The biggest hurdle is the pitch. She sent me a sample proposal and from that I began piecing together one for Home-Ec 101. After stressing about it and pestering people into giving their opinions, I finally turned it in -before the deadline, thank you very much.

Since then, it’s been a waiting game. Well, until yesterday that is. Around 1pm I got an email from the editor saying they really liked the idea and that it seems marketable. In fact, they wanted to hear it pitched in a larger size. (The original specs were for a paperback, slightly taller than your average novel, but not as thick (about 240 pgs ). Apparently they want to see it priced out in a larger book, I don’t know if that has anything to do with the number of words, adding content, or if it’s to allow for more whitespace.  I’ll negotiate my contract when the final size & cost of production are figured out.

Regardless, I’m beyond excited, if nothing else, this is flattering and validating. I plug away at HE101 hoping I’m not wasting my time.  Insecure much?  Always.

Publishing projects take a while, so it will be some time before I make the big announcement on Home-Ec 101. It’s not a secret, but I’m going to try to not make a big deal out of it until closer to the release.

I’m still on cloud nine.

As per usual there was some great discussion, but there were moments that tickled me to no end.

Someone described being a fan of a brand on Facebook as it being “A friend with benefits.”

Viagra, it’s bigger than the brand.

The highlight of the evening was Andra Watkins impromptu illustration of  inappropriate IRL networking behavior. “Hi! Me. Me. Me, me, me, me me me. ME!” I wish we had been able to get video.

Next time.