Monday Moans: It’s About Time!

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

How annoying is it to wake up on Monday morning and find your whole world has been turned upside down?

I forgot to change all my clocks.

Over the whole weekend!

In the kitchen my oven and my microwave always disagree. And they change their minds: the oven is two minutes faster than the microwave; then the microwave catches up over a few days’ time and is three minutes faster than the oven.

In my bedroom, the TV doesn’t agree with the dead land‑ line clock/ radio, which I use only as a clock. The “land‑ line” is purposefully set about 3 minutes fast. The TV changes, I think, with the weather.

In the garage, the Cooper doesn’t agree with the Subaru . . . and both of them are wrong anyway. And I can’t remember how to change the one in the Subaru. You know, “my” car. And I’ve NEVER known how to change the Cooper, “his” car.

Neither bathroom has a clock. But there’s my phone. Well, “there’s” my phone, when I can find it. When I can’t, I have to find “his” phone and get him to “call” my phone‑‑‑because he’s got a smart phone and I’ve got a dumb (and lost) phone.

From “time” to “time,” I rush‑‑‑ in desperation‑‑‑ for the sun room. My FAVORITE room in the house. My “new” office, since I remarried and gave up the “extra” bedroom to be “his” office.

At LAST, I know what time it is: this is an ATOMIC clock. Whatever that means. I keep hoping I don’t get some dread skin‑ disease from it, or have one of my limbs fall off.

OK. It says 6:05. But . . . does it change automatically when we lose or gain the hour in spring and fall? I’ll have to check one of the other clocks that changes automatically. But which one (or ones???) do that?

I can’t remember.

And it did no good to check my computer which DOES change automatically: it died last night.

I forgot to plug it in.

And the battery’s totally dead.

See you day‑after‑tomorrow for Tuesday’s Tutor!

Friday Friends: Talk About Twittering!

EASY AS A, B, C . . . from BB

Taffy Earl Lovell writes a fun blog called “Taffy’s Writing”—check her out— and recently shared some information about Jaime Theler’s LDStorymakers Conference presentation on Twittering.

Really?  Twittering???

I was thinking: I already blog.

I have a web page.  (OK, we haven’t done much with it so far, but that’s about to change.)

What I want is SOME TIME TO WRITE.  You know, like NOVELS.  Like SHORT STORIES.  OK, maybe even some POEMS.  I want to do more of my own, possibly even saleable, writing.  I don’t want to “waste my time” twittering, tweeting, pinteresting, blogging, webbing!  (Well, as an author, you’ve got to do SOME of it, I guess.  But, really—twittering???)

Part of Jaime’s presentation, apparently, was convincing authors they could find people with similar interests, form good relationships with whole groups of people (like other authors?), and so on.  OK, I guess I could go for that.

Her idea about keeping up with people/events in “real” time didn’t appeal to me quite as much, but I get it.  Sort of.  Though there are few people I need to keep in touch with in “real” time, as far as I can tell.  She pointed out that Twitter was not Facebook—and there’s ANOTHER one that costs me lots of time.  And it’s not “private.”  OK.  That’s even an improvement.

However I LOVED the idea that it was NOT a place for “advertising”!  How much of my time gets swallowed up by unwanted “ads” on Facebook, on Yahoo, on Google . . . etc., etc., etc.?

My gripe?

END OF MESSAGE: YOUR 140 CHARACTERS ARE ALL USED UP

But if you’re determined to make a go of it anyway (and, yes, I’m getting more and more accustomed to the idea), give yourself a good “handle”.  I think “benschwensch” works well enough for everything else, why not this too?

Also, you can apparently include links.  That seems helpful.  You need to learn the lingo, like tweet, retweet, direct message and hashtag—things like what they are, how they’re abbreviated, and why they’re needed.

And—who knew?—you can also join twitter chats.  Seems there are some pretty good ones, aimed at more than just telling your friends you’ve got to go make the bed now, or you just left to drive over to their house.  The ones she listed look like . . . they’re all about writers and writing—cool!

Double check the times, but you might want to check out

#litchat – Mondays, MST: 2-3 p.m.
#kidlitchat – Tuesdays, MST: 7 p.m.
#ThrillerChat, Wednesdays, MST: 6 p.m.
#YALitChat, Wednesdays, MST: 7 p.m.
#bookmarket, Thursdays, MST: 12-1 p.m.
#scifichat, Fridays, MST: 12-2 p.m.

r u gonna try it?  I’m going 2 buy a smart phone now—L8R!  LOL!

See you day-after-tomorrow for “Sunday’s Snippets”