Done List April 3

It's Easter Week. Whatever time I haven't been baking and cleaning, I've been angsting about not being able to write. In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman says sometimes we have to accept we can't do everything.

Next week I will begin again.

Time Management Tuesday: Recalling "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" Brings Back the Good Old Days

Recently--Sunday, in fact--author Ryan T. Pozzi suggested on BlueSky that people read Chapter 13 of Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. I have that book! And it was Sunday, when I feel as if I should be able to go off on deep tangents with my reading. (I often go off on tangents with my reading, they're just not deep as a general rule.) And Chapter 13 isn't that long. So, I did, indeed, read it.

Back in 2021, I did a seven-part arc on Four Thousand Weeks, a blog-while-you-read thing. I found the book to be much more about time philosophy than time management, and Chapter 13 is very representative of that. Burkeman seems more concerned with how we should live than he is with finding ways for us to manage our time so we can live as we want to live. That is not a criticism. We're just talking two different ways of thinking about and talking about time. 

For those of us who are intent on trying to manage our time so we can live as we want to, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals doesn't seem to have a lot to offer. However, rereading Chapter 13 led me to skim my Four Thousand Weeks blog posts. I was reminded of some philosophical points I want to try to keep in mind.

Chapter 13 Cosmic Insignificance Therapy

Chapter 13 deals with the idea that individually we're not all that important in the grand scheme of things. And this is good for us. We can lower the bar and use our time to enjoy the small moments of life, knowing that we are not expected to struggle to use our lives to accomplish something big and profound. Enjoy your time in your pollinator garden, Gail, without worrying that it doesn't attract much in the way of bees, which is what you're supposed to be doing with it. It's okay to admire the spring ephemerals you planted, even though you know they don't do much except please you.

This knowledge can be a relief, as Burkeman says, though, personally, I've known people who would take a we're-not-that-important-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things philosophy to mean that there's no reason for them to make an effort with, say, environmentalism or voting. One person doesn't make a difference, after all. I feel this attitude carries a bit of risk. 

But it's good for me, since it's pollinator garden time!

We Pay for What We Do with Hours of Our Lives

In another portion of the book, Burkeman writes that when we become distracted with something like social media, we pay for the time we spend on the distraction with hours of our lives, the hours we could have been using to do something we value more. He didn't elaborate on this point, but it was meaningful to me, because it was similar to something I'd read about minimalism. When you buy something, you really pay for it with the hours of your life it took to make the money you exchanged for it. 

I'd forgotten about Burkeman's view of social media, though I have been applying something like it, nonetheless, to my on-line reading in general. Do I need to read any more about the man formerly known as Prince Andrew? Do I need to read about this week's best memes? If I could stop doing that, wouldn't I have more time for reading the New Yorker and all the links to journal articles I keep saving? It's a possibility, at least. 

Procrastination is a Solution to a Problem

Time management writers usually deal with procrastination as a problem to be solved. Burkeman has a fascinating spin on it. He sees procrastination as a solution to a problem we may not even know we have. The real problem is that the work we're doing is hard. Or it's boring. Or we know it's going to get us nowhere. We may not even be aware that we're trying to escape it when we rush off to Facebook or BlueSky, where we can find something easy and interesting to do and quickly. We just think we're procrastinating. 

Figuring out what problem we're trying to escape and trying to deal with it might be a better use of time than heading to social media. Maybe it could make some kind of change in our lives.

I Need to Do More with Time Management 

I haven't been reading or writing much about time management the last few years, because I've seen so many people on-line writing about the subject who clearly have no background to be doing so. They've just read a book or even some on-line material about it. Which sounds a lot like me. I'd rather not be that person.

But while I haven't been reading or writing about time management, my ability to manage my own time has been spiraling. Going over my Four Thousand Weeks blog posts brought back the days when I was hungry for ways to get things done and sometimes even finding a few. I'm going to go back to some time management writing because it makes me feel good, which I think Oliver Burkeman would appreciate.

One thing I've done to manage time recently is revise blog posts for essays that I could submit to publications on the Medium platform. As luck would have it, one of the first essays I wrote in this way was We Are All Going to Die, In Case You Weren't Feeling Enough Time Pressure, which was published back in 2022. It's a review of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. 

The Story Behind the Story: Paying Attention to Structure

On Tuesday Books Are Our Superpower published my essay A DEI Story Time Violation: What can we talk about and where can we talk about it? This is a revision of my blog post The Reading History Project: "Pedal Pusher" by Mary Boone. Watch Out for Women on Bikes!

When writing here about revising blog posts for essays to submit elsewhere, I've often said my second drafts end up having a somewhat different focus than the original blog post did. That is definitely the case here. The second draft focuses much more strongly on the DEI violation aspect of this story than on the book Pedal Pusher, itself.

The way the essays were structured had a big impact on the change in focus.

Structure Makes a Difference in Focus

Original Content Essay. The original post was laid out with a first paragraph stating that Pedal Pusher was a good subject for a Women's History Month for a couple of reasons. "...a couple of reasons" suggested that there was going to be two things discussed. 

Then I discussed the book, itself, which deals with a woman from the past and why she is significant. A subheading leads into the second reason the book was a good subject, the fact that a story time related to it had been canceled because of a claim that it violated an executive order dealing with DEI. 

The essay then ends with what might be called a "call to action," the suggestion that we can all speak out in support of books and bring attention to them.

This first essay was a gathering of my material--what the book is about, the DEI issue, the call to action.

Books Are Our Superpower Essay. This essay is significantly different. I dropped the call-to-action section at the end altogether. Instead, I "bookended" the Pedal Pusher book material with the story of what happened with the story time being cancelled because of the DEI violation complaint and included a couple more details about it.

Because the essay began and ended with the DEI complaint, it became particularly important. We remember what we read in the beginning of a section of writing and at the end. The ending of the BAOS essay, therefore, connecting back to the beginning, made the DEI complaint memorable.

Learn to Take Advantage of Structure

Structure helps readers comprehend and remember what they read, so it's valuable for us as readers. That makes it valuable for us as writers, as well. It's worthwhile to spend some time studying structure and paying attention to the structure of essays and blog posts you read.

For instance, paragraphs, which might be described as the building blocks of essays, are sections of writing, just as essays are. They're just shorter. That makes the beginning and endings of paragraphs important. The first sentence is usually a topic sentence, and the last sentence is usually a conclusion of some sort. Every paragraph thus gives readers two points--a beginning and an ending--with material they are likely to recall. 

On more than one occasion, I've noticed writing on the Medium platform that doesn't use paragraphs at all. The pieces are lists of sentences. They're not a true listicle, which is an actual format. They're just a list of sentences that appear to be either undeveloped thoughts or connected thoughts that weren't placed in paragraph form.

A list of sentences is difficult for readers to follow, because:

• It's choppy.
• Unless the first sentence in the list is an obvious topic sentence, it's hard for readers to identify one. They have to work out what all these sentences are supposed to be about themselves. 
• Again, readers remember the beginning and ending of a section of writing, including paragraphs. When your format uses multiple paragraphs, your readers have multiple opportunities to recall the important material you have put at the beginning and ending of those multiple paragraphs. In a piece of writing that is just a list of sentences, only the first and last sentence in the list act as that important spot that readers are likely to remember. 

Notice how I used the beginning and ending of this essay. In the first section I introduced the idea that structure can make an impact on the focus of an essay. In the second section, I showed how structure changed the focus of the second essay I wrote about Pedal Pusher. In the third section, I reinforced the importance of paying attention to the beginning and ending sections of writing while structuring essays. I gave readers multiple opportunities to absorb the points I wanted to make.

My hope is that I've structured this essay in such a way as to make readers appreciate the importance of understanding structure and paying attention to it when writing.

Friday Done List March 27

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• An essay was published earlier this week. 
• Received a rejection yesterday. "While we are saying no this time, we want you to know that we particularly enjoyed your work and would love to see more from you in the future." Sure. That's what they say to all the girls. Nonetheless, I've got something in mind to submit to them.
• Nearly finished a short story.  It's been so long since I've finished anything that just nearly finishing something brings tears to my eyes.
• Have finished an essay for Original Content to publish tomorrow.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted everything I needed to promote.

 

Friday Done List March 20

Oh, my gosh. Another week of family stuff. Next week should be better, except I'm going shopping. And walking. And then I think it's Easter.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Rejection! On Sunday! There is no safe place!
• Submission!
• Just wrote my sisters an email that I'm calling a first draft of a humor piece.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I fished BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. Because if there's one thing I can do, it's stick to low-risk, low-labor activity. I did finally break 400 followers because of this challenge. Perhaps I should find another.
• Published my most recent Reading Project post. Promoted it at one place. More next week!

The Reading History Project: "The Westerners: Myth-Making and Belonging on the American Frontier" by Megan Kate Nelson

The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson will be published March 31. I read a digital ARC provided by NetGalley.

This is a book that definitely addresses the "our" in "our shared history," my reading subject for this year.

Nelson begins in her prologue with an account of Frederick Jackson Turner's reading of The Significance of the Frontier in American History at a meeting of the American Historical Association in 1893. Turner argued that "...American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West." Nelson says that before Turner, most historians believed that Europe had the greatest impact on what America became. Turner's contention that America became America because of the "colonization of the Great West" by white people from the East was a shift in thinking for professional historians.

To give you some idea of how big a deal Turner and his theory of the American frontier became, I recall hearing at least something about it in high school. I've had a copy of The Significance of the Frontier in American History floating around my office for a year now. 

While it was new thinking in 1893 as far as professional history was concerned, Nelson says popular perception of the "Great West" supported Turner. Novels featured Indian fighters saving white families, painters romanticized Western landscapes, and government policies encouraged people in the East to go West. Turner was preaching to a choir that already believed a mythic frontier story involving white Americans moving West and bringing civilization with them.    

Some of Nelson's content moves on to the beginning of the twentieth century, but it is primarily laid out chronologically from the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to that American Historical Association meeting in 1893 at which Frederick Jackson Turner read his paper. Along that timeline are what might be called a collection of microhistories, in this case the stories of people who lived in the West, people who didn't reflect the frontier myth. (Except for the one person who actually promoted it.) All these people are what we would consider today as minor historical figures, the most recognizable being Sacajawea. But they are also people who had some significance at the time they lived or were even well known then. Others wrote about them, or they left writing themselves. In her epilogue, Nelson describes what happened to them after death, a sad afterlife for people who didn't fit the Western myth narrative but were part of the West, nonetheless. 

My first thought while reading The Westerners was that I was ignorant of a great deal that happened in the western part of this country in the nineteenth century. That was probably Nelson's intention, and, if so, she was very successful in educating this reader. I was going to give some examples of the depth of what I didn't know but decided I didn't want to get into that.

My second thought was how different regional history must be for elementary school students in different parts of the country from what I was exposed to growing up in rural New England. At least, it should be different. 

In the very readable The Westerners Megan Kate Nelson replaces the myth of the Great West with a reality that is just as empowering, because it includes so many more people. It's a reality based on our shared history.

You can hear her speaking about the frontier myth at her publisher's website.

Friday Done List March 13

I spent two days this week with family. Then two hours on the phone with family business. Not my best work week. No, I don't know what was my best work week. Perhaps it's still in my future.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Have nearly finished a revision of my Pedal Pusher post for an essay submission. 
• Worked on revising a book chapter into a short story. Definitely an interesting experience. Because a short story is a short story and a book chapter is a book chapter. We're talking two different animals.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Mainly I've just been continuing to take part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. Got a lot of attention for posting an old book by Joyce Carol Oates. No new followers.
• Though I'm also close to being done with a Reading History post for a book publishing next month. I think I worked on that earlier this week. But who knows?

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Get this--an agent who posted her Manuscript Wish List to BlueSky's MSWL event isn't accepting submissions until next month. She's just screwing with us.

The Reading History Project: "Pedal Pusher" by Mary Boone. Watch Out for Women on Bikes!

Pedal Pusher: How One Woman's Bicycle Adventure Helped Change the World  by Mary Boone with illustrations by Lisa Anchin is a great subject for Women's History Month. For a couple of reasons.

Women on Bikes Were a Big Deal in the Late Nineteenth Century

First off, Pedal Pusher is described as a picture book biography, though it only deals with one period in Annie Cohen Kopchovsky's life. Kopchovsky was the first women to ride a bicycle around the world in 1894-95. Nowadays, this seems like a kind of meaningless stunt. And it may have been a stunt then, too. But bicycling was part of a cultural change for women, giving them more ability to get around and leading to changes in how they dressed, which was far more than just fashion. Kopchovsky represents all that.

I wonder, too, if she represents nineteenth century public relations and self-promotion. Kopchovsky seems to have been very adept at raising money for the trip by signing pictures and giving lectures as she traveled. Boone raises the question of whether or not Kopchovsky was one hundred percent accurate/truthful in her talks. Was she creating an Annie Cohen Kopchovsky for public consumption/sale?  

Which leads me to wonder about another aspect of the Annie Cohen Kopchovsky story. She was a Latvian Jewish immigrant at a time "when prejudice against Jewish people was widespread," as Boone tells readers. Soon after she began her trip, she temporarily changed her name to Londonderry in exchange for a donation from the Londonderry Spring Water Company. She appears as Annie Londonderry in the newspaper quotes Boone provides at the end of the book.

Would public interest have been as great in Kopchovsky if she had used her own name?

Pedal Pusher is a great introduction to its subject. But I want more! I want a movie! I want a Netflix limited series! 

Oh, But There is More

I bought a copy of Pedal Pusher, because I'm interested in the era involved and still have young people around who might read it. But what brought the book to my attention last October was an opinion piece author Mary Boone wrote for The Seattle Times. (I may have stumbled upon it on BlueSky.)

In it, Boone describes how during last year's Women's History Month, the Tacoma Children's Museum invited her to lead two story times about Pedal Pusher. She ran the first program at its downtown location, but the second was going to be held at the museum's site on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. A Federal site. And that one was cancelled four days before the event.

Boone was told "it violated the administration's executive order restricting so-called "radical" Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across federal institutions." 

Hmm. Could that be Executive Order 14253 Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History she's talking about, since that specifically includes federal sites? The one covered here at Original Content back at the beginning of February? 

I have questions.

• If the story hour was cancelled because of Executive Order 14253 Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, is there a claim here that the book isn't true? Annie Cohen Kopchovsky wasn't the first woman to ride a bicycle around the world? I'm not touching the sanity issue. I don't even know what it means in the context of the executive order.
• Otherwise, what was "radical" about the book? It was about a woman? It was about a Jew? It was about a Jewish woman who did something successfully? 
• Or I could phrase that a different way: It wasn't about a man? It wasn't about a Christian? It wasn't about a Christian man who did something successfully?

The Power of One Voice

I have a long history of obsessing on the wrong point in a story, and I am probably about to do that right now. In her article about the cancellation of her appearance Boone writes, "Someone complained when they saw my story time being promoted."  "... museum staff later suggested the event might have gone forward if it hadn't been advertised." 

This program was cancelled because one person heard about it and complained? Now, on the one hand, that's a very positive thing, isn't it? It suggests that any one of us can complain and have an impact. We can get the ball rolling to take attention away from books we object to.

But doesn't it also suggest that any one of us can have an impact by speaking out in support of and bringing attention to books we appreciate? Which is what I'm trying to do here.

One voice can make a difference. Imagine the kind of difference many voices could make.

Pardon me while I leave to spread the word about Pedal Pusher on Facebook, BlueSky, and Goodreads. 

Friday Done List March 6

Life got ahead of work this week, meaning I was tied up most of Monday and today and feeling a certain amount of frustration about that. And that, folks, is why a done list has such value. When I collect my thoughts about what I actually did this week, I see that I accomplished more than I felt I had. 

Not that much actual writing, though.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• Started something totally new and flash-like in my journal. 
• Have nearly finished a blog post that will then become an essay submission.
• Made a short story submission. Interesting story here: I saw on BlueSky yesterday that a journal I'd heard of and been following had opened for a brief period, which it does at the beginning of every month. Hmm, I thought. I must check this out. So I checked it out...at my marketing spreadsheet where I keep track of publications I like and want to submit to. I had done some reading of this particular journal, liked what I'd seen, and even had identified a short story I wanted to submit to it. The marketing spreadsheet is working! May not result in publications, but, otherwise, it's working. 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published a blog post last weekend. It was about an ADHD book, a subject that interests me, written by a long-time Facebook friend, giving me an opportunity to support another writer. 
• Promoted that blog post on Facebook, BlueSky, and Goodreads.
• Continued taking part in BlueSky's 30-Day Women Writer Challenge in which you post a book you've read by a woman writer, no particular order, no commentary. 
• Attended a Zoom author presentation. The author involved is Dana Stabenow. It was an excellent conversation between Stabenow and a librarian very knowledgeable about mysteries, which is what Stabenow writes. It left me discouraged, not because Stabenow is far more successful than I am. That kind of thing truly doesn't bother. I write for the sake of the writing, grabbing what publication I can. What bothered me is that Stabenow is able to do so much more than I can, successful or not. Oh, well. Move on.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Made one of the three book submissions I planned to make this week. One of the submissions I decided not to do. The third one I'll get to next week. This submission, along with the short story submission I made, means I've already met my goal of two submissions a month for March. On average, I've done more than two a month so far this year.

A Lesson On Finding Lost Things That We Can All Use

I dabble in reading fiction that includes ADHD characters, so I got a copy of D.L. Green's CJ Baker Mover and Shaker: The Mystery of the Missing Book. (Debra is a Facebook friend from way back.) This is an early reader from Capstone Publishing, an educational publisher, so it is instructive fiction, so to speak.

The book includes a four-step process for finding lost things, and IT WORKS! I used it last night to find my box of straight pins. I only had to go to the second step. Sadly, I didn't think to do this until the pins were lost for two hours, and by then, it was time to go to bed.

I was pretty amazed, nonetheless.

Capstone published four CJ Baker books last year, all written by Debra, all coming out at the same time. They may each have some kind of coping lesson.

Because I don't read a great deal of fiction that's written to overtly teach something, I can't address how well that is done here. But the basic, very short story is complete, and the program for finding lost objects being taught makes sense in the context of the story.

And the program works. Assuming I can remember to use it.