Doing what you love 2012

I'm working my way through the remaining stack of books relating to productivity and happiness which I accumulated during the writing of Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff. Some are new to me, a few are significant works I wanted to re-read, and a good percentage are other books by authors who wrote something I liked a great deal. I flipped through all of them at least a little during the writing process, but now I'm giving them more attention before swapping them away. It's one of these last ones that I'm reading today: Live the Life you Love by Barbara Sher.

In Lesson Five she asks you to think about what you loved doing during your childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. I thought immediately of playing with plastic animals and Fisher-Price Adventure People and the long, involved stories I would make up for them. Turning my mind to adolescence I picture being a dungeonmaster, both running games and, perhaps even more enjoyed, sitting at the desk in my room, listening to music, designing dungeons and the stories behind them. As an undergraduate there was more gaming, but also in theater arts, anthropology, archaeology, and history classes, the process of increasing my understanding of how someone related to their world.

Really, it's a bit surprising it's taken as long as it has for me to start writing novels. :)

Oppose the Protect-IP Act; it's bad for American business and American values. 2011

I've been participating online since before the web and for the past 15 years it has been a vital part of my day-to-day work. If these acts pass, if service providers become liable for the content their users post, it will stifle both economic and creative expression. That's the last thing we need in this economy.

Imagine if Johannes Gutenberg could have been shut down because someone didn't like the content of a book his presses printed.

Contact your elected officials through FightForTheFuture.org or better yet call them directly to register your opposition to this dangerous proposal.

The book is out! 2011

Hooray! It was a good weekend. Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff got approved and now is in the iBookstore, the print version can be bought through my Createspace estore, and it's now listed in both Kindle and print versions on Amazon.

With everything now in place I can move ahead on promoting the book. I'm ramping up gradually, in hopes that my early adopters will write reviews that will be seen by other folks as I start driving more traffic to the various storefronts.

As before when I transitioned from writing to editing and formatting, I feel myself changing hats and switching to a new aspect of the job of indie author.

I need to run the numbers again, but my sense is that I need to sell around 3500 copies to pay back my costs. So far I'm about 2% of the way there with the very small amount of publicity I've done, so that's encouraging.

Onward!

Tying off loose ends before launch 2011

Today I'm proofing the print version of my book Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff in hopes of being able to approve it for sale.

I'm still hoping Apple will come through with activating the ebook for purchase through iTunes/iBookstore, but it's starting to look as though I may have to launch without it there. Bit baffling since I uploaded it over nine days ago, but I've written to support and am hopeful that will shake it loose from wherever its stalled out in the review process. Seems to be a side effect of their quality control for new books and apps and I know I'm far from the first content creator to be impatiently reloading that status screen.

Amazon has obligingly reactivated their Associates program just in time for me to use those links and make a little extra per copy. (MetaGrrrl.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. There. That's that participation requirement covered.)

Hey ho, the glamorous life.

Planning through dependencies: A lesson from self-publishing 2011

I'm in the very last stages before self-publishing my book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff, and the remaining steps are often exceedingly clear.

For example:

I will be publishing in the iBookstore, but I can't submit the book to them until I set all their pricing terms.

I can't set all the iBookstore ebook pricing until I have determined the book's price for its physical version (in trade paperback through Amazon/Createspace).

I can't set that price until I know my costs for author copies and my royalty share in the different sales channels through Createspace.

I can't know those costs until I have a solid estimate of the book's page count.

I won't have that page count until I do the layout in the print template with something very close to the final version of the text.

I won't have something very close to the final version of the text until I've transferred almost all the copy edit changes into the master manuscript in Scrivener.

I can't copy those edits over until I receive them from my editor when she has finished her main copy editing pass on the manuscript.

Fortunately, I'm expecting those from her shortly.

 

To be fair, I also don't want to submit the book to iBookstore until I have the final version with all the copy edits, but I find the dependency between print layout and ebook publication worth noting.

Media I've enjoyed lately 2011

Wow. Lots to catch up on since the last time I posted on podcast episodes I really enjoyed. Not to worry, though, most of them are from 60-Second Science.

 

Science and Technology

Science Talk - The Poisoner's Handbook : The Sinister Side of Chemistry

Astronaut Love: An Interview with Spacewalker Stanley Love

TEDTalks - Mike deGruy: Hooked by an octopus - Mike deGruy (2010)

Hans Rosling on global population growth - Hans Rosling (2010)

Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine - Hans Rosling (2010)

60-Second Science: Trusting Souls Excel at Spotting Liars

Low-Level Moral Transgressions Make Us Laugh

Solar Panels Dust Themselves Off

Dinner Party Discovered 12,000 Years Later

Organic Strawberries Beat Conventionally Grown In Test Plots

Pirates Need Science, Too

Butterflies Choose Plants for Medicinal Qualities

Mice Prefer Treats They Worked Harder to Get

Neandertal Brains Retained Infantile Shape

Daydreaming Diminishes Happiness

Follow the Money to See Real Communities

CSIs Could Estimate Victim's Age with Just Blood

It's Even More Full Of Stars

Saturn's Rings May Be Remnants of a Moon

Database Tries to Track Culture Quantitatively

Young Female Chimps Cradle Stick-Toys like Dolls

 

Creativity and Learning

TEDTalks - Cameron Herold: Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs - Cameron Herold (2010)

Aditi Shankardass: A second opinion on learning disorders  - Aditi Shankardass (2009)

John Hunter on the World Peace Game - John Hunter (2011)

Jok Church: A circle of caring - Jok Church (2007)

60-Second Science: Reach Kitchen Staff with Safety Stories

 

Health

TEDTalks - Ananda Shankar Jayant fights cancer with dance  - Ananda Shankar Jayant (2009)

Stephen Palumbi: Following the mercury trail - Stephen Palumbi (2010)

Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work - Nigel Marsh (2010)

60-Second Science - Ancient Brewmasters Made Medicinal Beer

A Few Drug-Resistant Bacteria May Keep the Whole Colony Alive

Salmonella Take Advantage of Our Battle Plan

City Living Promoted Resistance to Infectious Disease

Love Lessens Pain

Clenched Muscles Assist Self-Control

New Crop of Elderly Outsmart Their Predecessors

Receptors for Taste Found in the Lungs

Text Message Outreach Improves HIV Patients' Outcomes

Exercising to Music Keeps Elderly Upright

Ultramarathoners Reveal "Safe" Injuries

Think More to Eat Less

Trained Rats Sniff Out TB

Placebos Work Even When You Know

98.6 Trades Metabolic Cost for Fungal Protection

 

Simplicity

TEDTalks - Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new - Jessi Arrington (2011)

 

Brad is happy in our hearts 2011

I dreamed this morning of leaving a conference and hurrying around just once more to a comfortable lobby area to say goodbye until next time to Brad Graham. I found him, as expected, calm and cheerful, hosting a small group of men, listening, advising, laughing, dropping in the perfect witty remark as needed.

He looks great, with new glasses – bifocals, which we referred to as his "bi's" – and a short beard, which tickles you slightly as he kisses you with open eyes, no strings attached.

A letter to my city supervisor 2011

Dear Supervisor Mirkarimi,

    As Archbishop Niederauer said during the funeral of Lt. Vincent Perez and firefighter/paramedic Anthony Valerio, a major earthquake will come to San Francisco. Like them, we will give our best to help do the most good we can. Like them, we will rely on our training, the equipment we have prepared, and luck to pull through. Sadly, the latter is not under our control. As this event reminds us, even some of our best can be laid low. But they were not alone; in the wake of the tragedy, we should recall that the rest of their team did succeed in extinguishing that fire before it could claim more lives. By staffing the incident appropriately the danger could be successfully addressed, even in the face of such a loss.
    We cannot staff our city for the kind of earthquake we expect purely with full-time, professional first responders. With thousands of people per square mile and an expectation of many major fires, our few fire, police, and paramedics on duty will be busy with the most significant incidents, leaving thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of smaller incidents to be handled by citizens.
    The San Francisco Fire Department’s NERT program can allow citizens to respond effectively, within our training, using the equipment we as volunteers have been taught how to prepare in advance, and help pull our city through the next big quake. For that to happen, the program must remain fully funded and tightly integrated with all other city preparedness efforts.
    I will do what I can as one citizen, but no matter how much training I take, alone I cannot resolve the incidents we expect in Hayes Valley. I need more NERTs working alongside me and that means I need more opportunities for my neighbors to be trained and more awareness of the program throughout the city.
    I thank you for your support for the NERT program to date and hope that you will continue to see the great return on investment which it provides.
   
    Best wishes,
    Dinah Sanders, Hayes Valley NERT co-coordinator

Swimming against the current 2011

Today Discardia hit 500 "likes" on Facebook, which may not sound like a lot, but for a community that actively pares away distractions and which pays attention to hidden costs like having to keep close track of privacy policy changes, it's kind of amazing.

Weeding through old bits of paper... 2011

One of my Discardian goals is to have nothing which I have not consciously looked at in the past two years and said "Yes. I still want this." Every possession's 'service contract' is up for renewal or I'm canceling it.

Now this is a big undertaking. I have not suffered a big loss of stuff. There has been no fire or tornado or other disaster to destroy any home I've ever lived in. I have stuff that dates back through my entire life, and I've got some things from my parents, grandparents, and ancestors further back. I have made big moves – to college, to a year abroad, to Hawaii for six months – but all of those took place when my childhood home was still owned by my folks. That big old Victorian house had plenty of room for me to tuck things away while I was gone. It was not until they sold that house in the late 1990s that I really had to start winnowing down. Even so, I lived in big enough places (or had kindly friends with basement storage to spare) that I was able to keep a lot of stuff.

The first really stern paring down of my belongings happened in 2002, when I moved to San Francisco, with all the self-focus and self-reinvention that that move usually implies. This is a city which encourages you to be true to yourself and shed your old snakeskins. It was at the end of that year that I invented Discardia. Since then, I've been very consciously evaluating what I have and letting go of what isn't bringing me utility and pleasure.

There are still boxes to go through, however. Not many, but some. Today I sorted through a box of papers and put them into the recycling bin or one of a very small number of piles: shred, scan and toss the original, file (almost entirely health and taxes stuff, all of which I plan to re-evaluate and pare down in a subsequent project), and "capture into blog or contacts or something else digital" (the scan stuff actually is destined for that category after it's digitized as a picture).

So what are these bits and bobs that I am not ready to just toss? Ideas, memories, contact information, and personal history data that tells when I was where doing what. Here are the bits that don't fit in somewhere else, put into my blog where I can easily search for them.

- books I'm glad I read a long time ago (that helped shape my thinking): Kevin A. Lynch's Good City Form (which I think was assigned in a class as an undergrad at UCSC).

- on my first visit to New York City I planned a walk for myself with these notes: "St. Pat's -> Park Ave downtown to maybe duck in at Waldorf Astoria at E 49th, continue on Park, Grand Central Terminal, west exit, 42nd, Madison, "Library Way", 5th, downtown, pass Empire State Building". On that first trip Joe and I went to the Campbell Apartments, WD-50 (appetizers, Rye & Quince cocktail, and a happy introduction to Amaro Montenegro), and Pegu Club.

- The Rye & Quince led us to seek out quince syrup which we found at Kalamala.com, "The Online Iranian Grocery Store". Along with that essential ingredient for a very tasty cocktail, we got a bunch of wacky stuff from them including willow water which is basically a refreshing-ish aspirin beverage. They currently only have quince lemon syrup which looks different from what we bought before, so I'm going to keep questing. Been craving a Rye & Quince again.

- Why the hell isn't Bill Irwin's brilliant show The Regard of Flight available on DVD? Grrr. Use the device, people!

 

It has just occurred to me that I can make my contact lists a lot easier to work with if I put zzz in front of the names of those I no longer am in regular contact with but for whom I want to keep the last known contact info. (I know, I know, I should use tagging or something, but this method will sync between any system I've got. Sometimes crude is more compatible.)