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Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

I'm not much bigger than a breadbox.

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Sharing Less

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 23, 2024

Sharing Less

Did you know that sharing less can help you out in dozens of ways? Because there is something to be said for mystery.

For a fan dancer’s artfully concealing fans, if you will. For a dark corner where the camera does not go, and where we do not allow others to see. Perhaps not even our lovers, our mothers, our children and, most assuredly, not our government.

Origins

This post is a riff on Learning Not to Share, an article by Rich Barlow in my alumni magazine, Bostonia.

Wait a second, oops! I just told you where I went to college. Better cover that up, and sweep it out of the way.

Oh no, wait! I just told you it was undergrad. Good thing I didn’t tell you one of my professors studied under Wittgenstein.

D’oh! I probably just gave away that I majored in Philosophy! Wait, I’ll come in again.

We Keep on Sharing

It is like this, over and over and over again online. We share. And we share again. And then we overshare. While the above few tidbits probably don’t tell you too much about me, there is plenty of additional information out there. There are plenty of minefields. So I might accidentally drop something whereby someone could steal a password, stalk me, take my identity, burgle my house while I’m away, etc.

Digital Nosiness

Stephen Baker, the author of The Numerati, talks about what essentially amounts to digital nosiness – too much information out there, and we’re all inviting it in. And we do so in the name of greater security, or peace of mind. We want to make sure our teenagers are driving safely so we agree to put a black box in the car.

And we want to know that our elderly parents are all right (but we are not committed enough to move them home with us, or move to their homes or cities, even briefly), so we install sensors in their beds to make sure they get out of them every day. So then, as privacy erodes, we accept more and more of these intrusions until they are no longer seen as intrusive. And a privacy (and shame!) tradition that harkens back to biblical times is canned in favor of The Age of TMI.

Stop Volunteering Information

Is it possible to shut the barn door, when the horse has hightailed it for the next county? Sadly, probably not. But this oversharing is nothing new. I well recall, when I was practicing law (uh oh, another identifier!), prepping witnesses for depositions. E. g. if the opposing counsel asks, “Were you driving?”, the answer is yes, no or I don’t remember. It is not, yes, and the car is blue. If the lawyer wants to know the color of the car, she’ll ask. Don’t volunteer anything.

Yet, inevitably, people would do just that – they would volunteer all sorts of stuff. The vast majority of it was completely harmless. However, every now and then, it opened up different things, and drew others into question. Or it got the whole thing onto some wacky tangent and it then became hard to throw a lasso over the proceedings and get them back to the matter at hand.

And a deposition, once, which was going to take maybe 45 minutes took the better part of a week as a witness and opposing counsel kept feeding one another more digressions – even after I repeatedly told the witness to just stick with answering the actual questions and nothing more.

This tactic, by the way, did not, ultimately, harm my client or help the opponent. All it did was make the matter stretch out that much longer. And, I am sure, it nicely increased my opponent’s bill. I was on salary – a deposition could take three years and I would not make any extra money. Dang, there I go again, oversharing!

Wiping Away Shame

Some sharing, particularly in the face of things that have been taboo for too long, seems to be, to me, to be a very good thing. Take, for example, the physical demands and changes that go along with weight loss. In the interests of full disclosure, this is a subject rather near and dear to my heart.

So I put it out there – the fact that stretch marks don’t really go away and what post-weight loss plastic surgery is really like and how sometimes, no matter how much you want to convince yourself otherwise, the oatmeal just does not taste one bit like fried chicken.

I think that this kind of oversharing can have a true benefit. Give hope, or at least some amusement and information. And trample away shame until it’s gone.

But there is plenty more out there where that came from, and it is often all too much, and it can be damaging. Give away too much and you are the naked fan dancer, all out of fans.

How to Strike a Balance by Sharing Less

So my suggestion is: tread lightly, and as wisely as you can, and ask yourself: will this information do more harm than good? Will it hurt me or my family? So even if the answer to both questions is no, my advice is: consider it and weigh it anyway. And decide, one way or the other.

Do this based upon reasoned understanding and not on expediency, or going along to get along, or trying to be cooler than everyone else in school. Above all, do not sleepwalk and step backward into these kinds of giveaways. If you are going to toss aside that last fan, at least look your audience in the eye when you do so.

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How Social Media Can Ruin Your Life

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 18, 2024

Do You Know How Social Media Can Ruin Your Life?

Woo doggy, social media can really do it to you.

Oh. My. God.

You did WHAT???!?!?!?

Quick, lemme tweet it!

No, I’ll take a picture and upload it to Instagram.

And I can’t forget to blog it!

This kind of gaffe deserves a Facebook post, too!

Really?

So you know what’s it like. You post a selfie taken at the ballgame. Except you told your boss that you were home sick, with the flu. You were supposed to be with your significant other. But, oops, you checked into Foursquare. With your friend. You know, the one with benefits. Or maybe you rant against your kid’s soccer coach on Twitter. And he calls you out on it.

Hence in May of 2014, The Boston Globe presented a half a dozen ways that social media can ruin your life.

And the article presents some boneheaded moves, including a poor choice of a Halloween costume (because evidently the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing are a laugh riot to someone out there), a Candy Crush addiction, and some poorly thought out tweets.

You Did What?

I’m sure that the following will, eventually, be the kinds of behaviors that could be added to a successor article (Note: some of these are real, some are speculative. I won’t name names. So you decide whether any of these have really happened, or are still in the ‘maybe’ column):

  1. How about claiming a permanent injury for your lawsuit and then checking in from a dance contest
  2. What about a court-ordered Gamblers’ Anonymous meeting blown off for a trip to the track – and a selfie with the dogs or horses running their hearts out in the background.
  3. Or dissing your ex, big time, on Facebook or Twitter, and your child growing up to read your sunshiny status updates.
  4. And then maybe a job interview, as you tout your fine record of academic achievement, with old Instagram photos of you showing off your barely passing C-average transcript.
  5. Finally, politicians caught with underage drinking photos, sexting, pictures of their junk, and a panoply of other nuggets of oversharing.

I love social media but man oh man, people! Have a little self-control and some common sense.

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The Cyber Legacy

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 16, 2024

The Cyber Legacy

What’s your cyber legacy?

Introductions

So you find a new site. You look around. And you think – this looks like a place I might like. Therefore, you take the plunge and you register.

And it doesn’t really matter if it’s Twitter, or Facebook or Able2know. If it’s big enough, it scrolls and leaps by so fast that you can barely get your arms around it. And in the beginning, that can be incredibly exciting.

However, after a while, it’s a bit too much. So if you want to hang around and have a more meaningful interactive experience than complaining about the weather, you end up finding yourself some sort of an enclave. I’ve covered this before, actually.

Life Online

You find your niche, whatever it is. And you start spending time with people. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, be it playing fantasy sports, or comparing notes as new mothers, or trading rumors about the next season of Doctor Who. What matters is, you’ve found your peeps.

And that’s when it can get kind of complicated.

Transitioning to the In-Person Experience

My husband and I once met a fellow we had know for a few years from online. He was passing through Boston on his way home from Maine. And one thing he mentioned was – my online friends and my offline friends are pretty well-integrated. I like that.

After all, consider some of my closest friends who I didn’t meet online. Most of them either attended school with me at some stage or another, or they worked with me. In some fashion or another, we hit it off. However, the same is true of the cyber world, is it not? You meet someone, and you hit it off with them, and you thereby become friends.

No great mystery there. The only remarkable thing is that the lines are being forever blurred between people we met physically first, and people we physically met later, if at all. And we care less and less about how we met our friends, these days.

Cyber Mourning

With cyber friendships – as with all friendships – there can be loss. And we all know that it is going to happen sooner or later. A voice will be stilled, a timeline no longer updated. We may or may not know the correct or full name. We may never have heard that person so much as speak on a video or on the telephone. Yet we feel a sense of loss just the same.

I have found that, as this has happened on Able2know (and it has happened several times now, a function of both the size of the site and its skew in the direction of more elder demographics), people have wanted to rally around. It is not necessarily a formal obituary type of posting or topic.

Instead, it can be a topic that’s more like a wake in its layout, verbiage and intent. There is no real template for this. You just go with what works. And recognize that there are people who grieve in their own ways. There may even be hostility (“You were never kind to him until it was too late!”) or one-upmanship (“I got to meet her in person!”).

Internet Afterlife and a Cyber Legacy

The If I Die app allows for a final status update once three people (you choose them) confirm to the service that you’ve shuffled the mortal coil off to Buffalo. It almost seems like a video will, where the rich uncle leaves everything to his parakeet and, while the cameras are rolling, also tells the assembled family that they’re all wastrels.

But it’s not just that. It’s also – look at the data that’s out there. What sort of a legacy are we leaving for future generations?

A tour through Facebook reveals an awful lot of appreciation for cute cats who can’t spell, George Takei and political soundbite memes.

And if future generations only look at that (which might happen, as it could very well be the only thing that survives long enough and is complete enough), they might just that cyber legacy and feel we are rather shallow people indeed.

Forums Tell a Different Story

However, if they dig into communities, I think they’ll see a rather different picture. A picture of real caring. Of reasoned and impassioned debate.

Or of rabid fandom. Of people who help each other by answering questions or offering advice on things like repairing a fan belt on a ’68 Buick or ridding a computer of spyware. And of some fall on the floor humor as well.

So, what footprints and fingerprints will you leave behind for your cyber legacy? And what digital fossils will await future archaeologists’ discovery?

What will the people of 3024 think of us? What’s your cyber legacy going to be?

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Why Use a Screen Name?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 11, 2024

Is There Any Good Reason to Use a Screen Name?

So, a screen name – good idea, or no? Particularly in the age of Facebook and the real names requirement.

I was inspired by this post in Angela Connor‘s blog. If you don’t know Angela Connor, I urge you to check her out; her blog is extremely insightful and is still one of my favorites.

Her ideas make a great deal of sense, and I think some of this is why the Blizzard forum experiment in real names for users was such an immediate and egregious flop.

Masks

The ’net, like it or not, is for many people a place of masks. You pretend to be younger and thinner than you are. Or you pretend to be unmarried. You pretend to be a Klingon. Or you’re a teenager and pretend to be an adult. Or you pretend to be another gender or richer or lovelier or more conservative or whatever.

And the masks can be freeing to many. Perhaps they were freeing when the ancient Greeks donned them while performing Oedipus Rex for the first time. I think there is more of a place for them than perhaps we’d all care to admit. Because there seems to be a value to being able to spread war paint (or lamp black) on one’s face, or wear a Halloween costume.

Screen Name Unreality

And this is not the same as our reality. It is related but not identical. Maybe the librarian who goes out for Halloween dressed as a dance hall girl wants to be known as someone who takes risks (and maybe foolish ones, at that). But when the morning after rolls around, she’s back in the library helping others do research.

A Screen Name Allows for (Somewhat) Anonymous Commenting

This kind of anonymous commenting allows for something like this. Because the sympathetic guy who’s really seething inside gets to call people out. He gets to be a bully and be an all-around racist jerk (I have worse names, but don’t wish to besmirch my blog) behind one screen name.

But then he surfs to a different site where he can chat up the ladies with his sensitive New Age guy demeanor, all behind another screen name. And then when the time to log off comes, he goes home and kisses his wife and plays with his children. And this is all one guy.

Facebook and Screen Names

To comment openly through a full, correct name (usually) medium like Facebook would be to cut off the dance hall girl. And it would stifle the racist jerk, the ladies’ man, and any number of other secret selves in favor of a drab and ordinary world. Even on a news site, which is pretty much the definition of drab unless there’s some sort of a hot story, the jerk, the dancer and the Romeo all want to be free.

Still, Facebook has been a runaway success. But some of that is still screen names. A person with Au at the end of their name is identifying to all and sundry that they are on the autism spectrum. I have seen last names like Lionchaser and Orange and Juneberry. The chances are extremely good that none or most of these are real.

But does that actually matter, in the grand scheme of things?

Who’s Real?

But we shouldn’t take their opinions as seriously as the real people. Because, even though those personae live in real people’s skins, it’s the real people who vote, marry, pay taxes, work, make the news and are members of our real society.

The trouble is telling them apart and knowing which one is real.

Can you always tell? I bet you can’t. Not always.

ChatGPT Adds to the Confusion on Screen Names and More

Beyond whether the name is real, are the posts real these days? A friend who runs a writing contest just had to jettison a few entries because they were written by AI.

AI is only going to get better and better—and more unnerving—as time marches on.

We may very well look back on questions about screen names as being a quaint little hiccup. You know, right before the Apocalypse.

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Social Media Balance

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 4, 2024

Social Media Balance

Social media balance is sometimes elusive. Yet much like everything else, social media needs to be balanced. Too much, and you’ll alienate your readers. And too little, and they’ll wonder if you’re still alive.

I’ll confine my comments to just blogging, Facebook and Twitter. Of course there are other outlets, but let’s just look at those three.

Too Much

During the 2012 Christmas season here in Boston, the oldies station began broadcasting all-day Christmas music early. How early?

So it was, if I am recalling correctly, before Veterans’ Day. Egad, it was awful. And then of course other radio stations also began their regular broadcast of holiday music. So it was very hard to get away from it all.

Now, lots of these songs are lovely. This is not me slamming religion – don’t misunderstand me. Rather, it was just … c’mon already! Because it was way too much!

It was not festive. Instead, it annoyed people (not just me!). And the same can be said of social media. If you’re a small outlet, a tiny company, a Mom and Pop operation, here’s a little secret. You don’t need to constantly tweet and update Facebook.

Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Overdo It

  • You’ll oversaturate the people you’re trying to endear, and they’ll turn off to your message.
  • And you’ll burn out.
  • Also, you’ll run out of things to say.

Not Enough

It continually amuses me when people say something like, “I have a blog.” And they’ll post their link. However, the last time they updated was 13 months ago, or more, or they’ve never updated. Or it’s a Twitter stream with three tweets, and the account is over a year old. Maybe they have a Facebook page with nearly nothing on it.

Given the number of abandoned accounts, and the number of deceased persons’ accounts on Facebook and the like, followers might be wondering. Have you gone to the great computer room in the sky?

Per my SEO pal Garit Boothe, best practices is to keep everything fresh to the tune of nothing being over 3 months old (so, posts are updated and re-released at later dates).

Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Underdo It

  • Your readers will leave you, big time. They may be loyal but today’s audiences are also pretty fickle. You’re no longer shiny and new. So they leave.
  • Google still indexes abandoned accounts, although the information is out of date. And it can sometimes end up making you look worse than not having a social media presence at all.
  • You show, essentially, that you no longer care about your subject matter. So why should anyone read what you write at all, if even you don’t believe in it?
  • The algorithms will smash your site into smithereens.

While the exact, perfect information on any algorithm is proprietary and kept secret from us hoi polloi, one thing is certain. Newness counts. No posting means you’ve got nothing new going on. And it will push your site down in rankings on Google and YouTube. Facebook also values recency. And as for Twitter? No one will be able to find your stuff.

Seeking Social Media Balance

It’s rather Zen, I suppose, to seek a balance here.

But how do you get it?

The easiest way is to consider the people who you follow where you just love their updates. They don’t seem forced or rushed, and they seem to come in, just at the right time.

Don’t think of really big wigs in social media, like George Takei, Shama Hyder Kabani, Wil Wheaton, Guy Kawasaki, or Ashton Kutcher, etc. Instead, consider your friends, colleagues, and neighbors, even if it’s people who aren’t making (or trying to make) a career out of social media.

Look at their Facebook walls and their Twitter streams and their blogs. What is it about how they handle those outlets that grabs you?

By the way, recognize that a person might be really good at one form of balance, but not at another. That’s not unexpected, as these are all rather different forms of media.

Your friend who crushes it on Twitter might be just plain awful on Facebook.

2 Reasons Why You Should Strike a Social Media Balance

  1. Posting too much at the beginning can lead directly to posting pretty much nothing later on, so spread things out over time, and you can avoid both issues simultaneously.
  2. Giving yourself a degree of posting responsibility can help you take it all more seriously. Of course you can (and probably should) be playful. But even the silliest of accounts have some form of a schedule, particularly if they’ve gotten large. They can’t just “forget” to post.

Schedule Those Suckers

  • If you’re really inspired and have a lot to say, that’s great! But unless it’s time-sensitive, use the scheduling features of programs like HootSuite. Or try Facebook’s own post scheduling feature. WordPress and Blogger both allow you to save drafts and schedule them to publish when you want them to. These functions are your friend.
  • Spreading the wealth over time will assure your readers that you’re not just some flash in the pan. It will also assure them that you’re still among the living.
  • Too many posts means that many of them will get lost in the shuffle. Too few means that they can loom large, and maybe seem more important than you think they should be. Spread the wealth, and you can avoid both problems.

One more thing about social media balance. While Tweeting, Facebooking, etc. should be mindful, it should also be kinda fun. Overdoing it means that you’re probably spending too much time online. While underdoing it probably means that it no longer interests you that much. Or, at least, what you’re posting and sending out to the universe has lost its luster.

Consider what either of those scenarios means to you. Because social media balance matters.

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Snowflake Novel Outlining Method Revisited

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 2, 2024

A Look at the Snowflake Novel Outlining Method, Revisited

Snowflake is but one method for outlining a novel. It’s not the only kind, and your methodology is probably best for you. But this is what I do. And it does not truly matter which genre I am writing in!

See, I do a variation on snowflake. Do this on paper. I’ve never been able to do it on a screen and I think paper gives some semi-permanent feelings. But if you can do it on a screen, then have at it. As always, you do you.

The First Snowflake Falls: Getting Started

1) Start with a concept. Let’s say the concept is that the world has run out of pumpkin spice.

2) Name a main-ish character (this can always be changed). So let’s go with a sapient chipmunk.

3) Write the main character’s name in the center of a page and circle it.

4) Write the concept down as well, maybe at the top of the page and circle it.

The Next Snowflake Will Fall: Making Connections

5) Draw 3 lines between them, but fewer if it’s a short story, more if it’s meant to be a series.

6) Along those lines, write possible connections. But don’t worry about them sounding stupid. Your sapient chipmunk might be hoarding it (and thereby is the villain). Another option is they might be searching for it as some sort of chipmunk holy quest. Or they might stumble upon it by accident.

It could be that they might have to pay it as ransom to the mean squirrel which kidnapped their baby chipmunks, whatever.

7) So now you’ve got more characters and more scene concepts.

Look, Another Snowflake: Supporting Characters

8) It’s time to grab a new page of paper. Same name in the center, circled. Now surround it with the names or at least descriptions of the other characters you came up with. In this case, the mean squirrel, whoever sent the chipmunk on the quest, whoever hid the pumpkin spice treasure our heroine stumbles over, the kidnapper, etc.

9) Draw connecting lines to the main character and, as before, write along those lines what the connections are. And do this even if you already have them written elsewhere. Otherwise, you’re going back and forth between pages, which is a pain.

Flurries: Supporting Scenes

10) Third sheet of paper: do the same with the concept and possible scenes. So these are scenes like the dramatic kidnapping, receiving the ransom note, a news story about the spice theft, the stumbling, etc.

More Flurries: Create Order (for the Scenes)

11) Fourth sheet of paper: take your scenes and put them in as coherent an order as you can and number them accordingly. Plus this can be changed. You’re just getting a rough idea here. So #1 kidnapper makes plans. And #2 spice is stolen; #3 meet the chipmunks, etc. Maybe you need to go back earlier to when the kidnapper first thought of the idea of kidnapping – that’s scene #0.

Hence maybe you want the news story between #2 and #3 – then rename it #2a and move on.

Snow Showers: Moving Onto Your Computer

12) Transcribe the scenes into a word processing document. I use Word; some people like Scrivener or Google docs, etc. In addition, continue to reorder the scenes and see where the filler and the exposition go.

13) Transcribe the character types and any names you’ve got. First of all, you’ve got to get across that the chipmunk heroine is sapient. So does she have an amazing backstory? Sketch it out, but do not feel married to it. Because it may or may not end up in the book.

Sometimes a backstory doesn’t need to be explicitly stated, but if you know your chipmunk was an escapee from a science lab, that might inform how you write her.

Just because you researched or thought of something, does not mean it absolutely must end up on the page.

I cannot stress that enough.

The Blizzard: Assign Tasks

14) Time to figure out who does what. Hence maybe the crow delivers the ransom note, or the wolf acts as the squirrel’s henchman and does the actual dirty work of kidnapping.

15) Keep refining and go back to the paper if you need to.

** Note: a lot of people who don’t like outlines feel they have to show every single little thing planned out. But this does not have to be true. Because all you really need is a general idea for a scene, like someone kidnaps the chipmunk babies kidnapped, pumpkin spice shortage reported in the news, etc. Just know what your scenes’ purposes are.

Post-Storm Clean-Up: Do You Really Need That Scene or Character?

A scene should have one of two purposes (it can have both):

1) Develop characters (particularly the main character) or

2) Advance the plot.

So any scenes which do neither should get scuttled or altered.

Lather, rinse, repeat. This is my version of the snowflake method. But it’s not the only way to write a snowflake novel.

And once again, for the cheap seats – you do you. Everyone else is taken.

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Writing Progress Report – First Quarter 2024

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 28, 2024

Progress Report – First Quarter 2024

How was first quarter 2024 for writing? So I spent first quarter 2024 writing short stories. So there was that…

First Quarter 2024 Posted Works

First of all, I worked on a number of new short stories. These were all drafted on paper and so I spent some time writing and editing them.

Then on Wattpad I posted nowhere, as I have quit the ambassador program there. It was just plain too much for me to handle. I could not do anything else, and I don’t honestly foresee that getting better any time soon.

Milestones

Also, I have written over 3.5 million words (fan fiction and wholly original fiction combined). So right now my stats on Wattpad for wholly original works are as follows:

  • Dinosaurs – 42 reads, 11+ comments
  • How to NaNoWriMo – 26,183 reads, 340 comments (pulled from Wattpad due to their severed association with NaNo)
  • My Favorite Things (like kibble) – 992 reads, 133 comments
  • Revved Up – 59,486 reads, 531 comments
  • Side By Side – 21 reads, 2 comments
  • Social Media Guide for Wattpad – 16,862 reads, 592 comments
  • The Canadian Caper – 510 reads, 37 comments
  • The Dish – 251 reads, 24 comments
  • There is a Road – 189 reads, 28 comments

Published Works as of First Quarter 2024

Also, I am amassing quite the collection of published works! So, here’s everything that has found a home so far.

Untrustworthy, which is my first published novel. So yay!

A True Believer in Skepticism, published in Mythic Magazine.

Almost Shipwrecked, a story in the January 2019 edition of Empyreome.

Canaries, a short story in the March 29, 2019, edition of Theme of Absence.

Complications, a story in the Queer Sci Fi Discovery anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds went to supporting the QSF website.

Cynthia and Wilder Bloom, stories in the Longest Night Watch II anthology.

Props, a story in the Longest Night Watch I anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to Alzheimer’s research.

Surprises, a story in Book One of the 42 and Beyond Anthology set.

The Boy in the Band, a story in the Pride Park anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to the Trevor Project.

The Interview, the featured story in the December 14, 2018 edition of Theme of Absence. So they even interviewed me!

The Last Patient, a story in the Stardust, Always anthology. This was an anthology where the proceeds go to cancer research.

The Resurrection of Ditte, a story in the Unrealpolitik anthology.

This is My Child, a short story published in the April 8, 2019 edition of Asymmetry Fiction.

Three Minutes Back in Time, a short story published in Mythic Magazine.

Killing Us Softly, a short story published in Corner Bar Magazine.

Darkness into Light, a short story published in Corner Bar Magazine.

WIP Corner

So my current WIPs are as follows:

The Obolonk Murders Trilogy – so this one is all about a tripartite society. But who’s killing the aliens?

The Enigman Cave – can we find life on another planet and not screw it up? You know, like we do everything else?

The Real Hub of the Universe Trilogy – so the aliens who live among us in the 1870s and 1880s are at war. But why is that?

Mettle – so it’s all about how society goes to hell in a hand basket when the metals of the periodic table start to disappear. But then what?

Time Addicts – No One is Safe – so this one is all about what happens in the future when time travel becomes possible via narcotic.

Time Addicts – Nothing is Permanent – this is the second in this trilogy. What happens when time is tampered with and manipulated in all sorts of ways? It’s the ultimate in gaslighting, for one thing.

Time Addicts – Everything is Up For Grabs – as the timelines smack together and continue to diverge, it gets harder to tell the “real” timeline from all the newer fake ones. And what if some of the changes are for the better?

Prep Work

So currently, my intention, for 2025’s NaNoWriMo, is to write the third trilogy in the Time Addicts/Obolonks universe. But I need to iron out the plot! So a lot of this year has been spent on that. I have no name for this one yet.

For 2022 – 2023 NaNoWriMo, I have decided to create a prequel for each of the 5 main universes: Real Hub of the Universe, Obolonks, Time Addicts (while the Obolonks and Time Addicts are in the same universe, I just plain want to write two separate prequels!), Untrustworthy, The Enigman Cave, and Mettle.

In 2022, I wrote the prequels for Time Addicts and The Real Hub of the Universe. For 2023, it was the Untrustworthy prequel and Obolonk prequels. And for 2024, it is the Enigman Cave and Mettle prequels.

So, I anticipate a lot of fun and perhaps a little confusion. But it’s all good!

First Quarter 2024 Queries and Submissions

The older ones have moved. You can find them on my Publishing Stats page.

It’s been quiet. But that has been by design. Right now, I just plain don’t feel like putting myself out there these days. There, I said it.

In Progress

As of first Quarter 2024, the following are still technically in the running for publishing:

This list is the name of the story and then the name of the potential publisher.

  • I Used to Be Happy – Gemini Magazine
  • Justice – Adbusters
  • Mettle – RAB
  • Soul Rentals ‘R’ Us – A Thousand One Stories
  • Who Do We Blame for This? – Sonder Review

First Quarter 2024 – Productivity Killers

So it’s looking for work, what else? I am working part-time and also searching for full-time work. It’s a pain, and definitely cramps my writing style. Unfortunately, first Quarter 2024 will not be the end of that….

If my works resonate with you, check out my other articles about my progress:

Querying and Publishing Stats
Previous Progress Report Post
Next Progress Report Post

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Getting Inspiration from Politics

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 26, 2024

Can you get inspiration from politics?

Well, of course you can. Politics comes with built-in drama. Because competitions for high and low offices can be truly thrilling. And long-term friendships can sometimes end over this often forbidden topic.

Right (American definition)

So consider the conservative point of view, and what it truly entails. Go beyond the basics of voting. What is a basic, core conservative philosophy? It is generally one of caution. And another aspect concerns keeping government small.

Notwithstanding how the 45th president tried to redefine everything. For over two centuries, caution has defined the conservative movement. So this is true for whatever it was called, at whatever time.

Left (American politics definition)

And on the other hand, for liberal, the point of view centers around moving ahead and trying new things. Hence these are essentially first adopters in a lot of ways. In addition, an American leftist viewpoint connotes larger government. But often more personal freedom.

Up

What happens at the top of the ticket? And that doesn’t have to just be in America. What about in other countries? How are leaders chosen—and who do they end up beholden to when elected?

Top candidacies get a lot of press, and national leaders have nearly no time to themselves.

Even bad leaders can be inundated with work. These are undoubtedly extremely stressful jobs, no matter the size of the country or the type of government.

Down

And what happens in the lower tiers of the ticket? Races for alderman and county clerk and even dog catcher might have some drama. Maybe they showcase rising political stars and foreshadow things to come.

Furthermore, races for district attorney and for judge can have their own drama. That is, in jurisdictions where either or both of these roles are not appointments. Does the law and order candidate win? Not every time.

Takeaways for Politics and Your Writing

When putting together your own stories, think about how we (and other nations) choose our leaders. Democracy isn’t the only choice out there. Maybe your characters do something different.

This could be from voting to terms to how they treat incumbency to any of a host of other possibilities. And who knows? Your invented way may turn out to be better.

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Do You Have Enough Spoons? Do I?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 21, 2024

How Many Are Enough Spoons, Anyway?

Relatively recently, I wrote about not having enough spoons to query my work, get it to beta readers, and so on. But what the heck does that all mean?

The concept of spoons, and having enough of them, is a shorthand way of referring to mental energy. That is, does a person (you, perhaps) have the emotional strength do perform certain tasks, or any tasks at all?

And while I am not considered to be a disabled person, so I don’t want to misappropriate this term, I think the term applies well to the query trenches.

Trenches. Now, there’s an excellent word for it.

What Does Not Having Enough Spoons Mean in the Context of Querying?

The biggest problem and the biggest triumph of querying are the same thing. It’s that you put yourself out there. And, as a result, this means you will be judged. More often than not, we indie writers are found wanting. But why?

Blame it on Volume

Does everyone have a book in them? Maybe. Does everyone have a good book in them? Heh, probably not. But what does “good” mean in this context? Often, it means less that you have a page turner, and more that you have a book which can be marketed well and will hit popular taste at just the right time.

A book about the life and times of a blacksmith would, right now, have an uphill climb when it comes to querying. Many readers would not find that person to be relatable. But they can be made so. It’s not impossible. But change that blacksmith to a mommy blogger and you’ve just crossed the first hurdle.

Now, you may not cross any other hurdles. If the book’s not relatable for other reasons, then you’re probably out of luck.

Blame it on Changing Tastes

We’ve all got the attention spans of gnats these days. As a result, what was in two years ago is out now. Hell, what was in two weeks ago may very well be out. Yes, already.

Case in point. Consider stock photos. The images of people masking up were all over the internet in 2020 and 2021. You saw them in blogs, brochures, and online advertising.

Now? They just look dated. This doesn’t mean the pandemic is over (it’s not). It doesn’t mean there are no good reasons to mask up anymore. Of course there are. But what it does mean is to ditch the masking in stock images unless you’re writing about something like medical care, nursing homes, or sick kids.

When Ambition Meets Fatigue, Busyness, and Anxiety, it Crushes Your Spoons

I had wanted to start to put out a newsletter, and I had wanted to start it today. Yes, on the vernal equinox. It feels like a momentous day!

But alas, I did not have enough spoons. Because the ramp-up is somewhat steep. There’s a lot riding on it, because it’s a marketing tool.

But as I think more and more about this, I feel I was putting the cart before the horse. After all, a marketing tool isn’t really necessary if, right now, I have very little to really market.

It would be better for me to get my act in gear on beta readers, an ARC team, a street team (maybe). Understanding how to format for self-publishing, or at least who to hire to do so, would also be good. Maybe I just need to let querying go completely, and strike out more or less on my own.

I don’t know.

But one thing may very well be true.

I may have had enough spoons all along. I was just spending them on the wrong stuff.

Thanks for listening.

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Getting Inspiration from Life Events

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 19, 2024

Can You Get Writing Inspiration From Life Events

Life events can be extremely inspiring for writers.

A Look at Life Events

They can range from baby showers to quinceañeras. Or they might be religious commitment ceremonies like confirmations. But weddings and marriages are a special case. I’ll cover weddings and marriages at a later date. They are going to generally entail much greater pageantry.

Intimacy versus Spectacle in Life Events

First off, it makes sense to notice how big the event is. Is it a small one-year-old’s birthday party for just the immediate family? Or is it a Bat Mitzvah for a few hundred guests, where the parents satisfy several social obligations at once?

Because a very large event can be overwhelming, just try to concentrate on smaller conversations. Check out the little moments. What happens when the cake is cut, or the music starts? Of course you don’t ignore a crying baby. And you don’t interrupt important family moments. But we all know that there can be delays and quiet times during these sorts of events.

Organization

There is usually an organization behind very large events. Sometimes a professional handles everything. Or instead there might be a sequence of operations. The family is introduced first. Or first the hosts mingle with the guests. Maybe a song or a dance is next.

The hosts might serve food. The food might be required or expected. We often expect to eat turkey during Thanksgiving in America. But not always. Some families serve ham or lasagna.

If a life event comes with a religious aspect baked right in, then there may be ritualistic foods. For Chanukah, for example, you’d expect to see fried foods on the menu. And a Bar or Bat Mitzvah near Chanukah may end up coopting some of that holiday’s foods.

Uniqueness

Plus what’s unique about the occasion? Is it the favors? Or the music? Maybe it’s the decoration. Or the venue. And the guest list could be unique. Since families change, it could be the last time some people are together. Because we all age, the family won’t look the same ever again.

In addition, consider the wealth (or lack thereof) which is on display. Does it feel as if every need and desire are under consideration? Or does it feel as if the hosts have just maxed out their credit cards? Can you see where the hosts saved money? Does it feel as if they were cutting corners?

Takeaway

Finally, consider this: what did you see and hear? These events can be a window into human interactions. In addition, you can overhear great dialogue. Finally, don’t take notes at funerals.

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