Category: Life Hacks

How to write with kids under 10 without losing your mind

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Life as I know it, Life Hacks, Writing and Publishing Tips
How to write with kids under 10 without losing your mind
image courtesy of pixabay

Okay, so my headline is somewhat misleading. If you are attempting to write more than the occasional thank you note or note to the teacher about how very disappointed you were to learn of your normally charming daughter, Jenny’s decision to cut friend Mary’s hair in class, or why the teacher shouldn’t be alarmed when your son, Danny demands an extra seat at his desk for his imaginary friend, Mr. Hinklesworth, chances are your mind is already a little. . .well. . .off.

But according to my headline analyzer, “How to write with kids under 10 without losing more of your mind,” was considered too wordy.

1) Set boundaries

Set aside a little place in your world where you can go where you write uninterrupted. It is best if the only way to enter this place is by passing through a mystic portal accessed only by answering a series of three challenging questions administered by increasingly menacing figures, but I suppose any office, bedroom, or garden retreat or closet nook can do too. Just make sure that everyone knows that when mommy or daddy go to write they have effectively traveled to China (unless you already live in China in which case Kansas might do).

2) Actually enforce those boundaries 

Children can sense when adults want to do something that doesn’t involve them and it drives them mad. The little buggers will let loose a type of wall piercing shriek the likes of which the Department of Defense would pay billions to develop. Fight the urge to leave your writing sanctuary with every ounce of willpower you possess. You are supposed to be in China/Kansas, remember. Besides, it can’t be all that bad. As long as they are screaming, at least you know they are still breathing, right?

3) Schedule your writing in realistic chunks that fit your lifestyle

Yeah, who am I kidding in that last tip? No mind can withstand more than a minute or two of that sort of mental assault before caving. But once you leave your sanctuary, it unlikely your little hellions cherubs will allow you go back anytime soon, so you might as well plan accordingly. If you thrive on two to three hours sleep, writing in the early morning or late at night may work for you, but for those of us who require a few more REM cycles, it is easier to break up a day’s writing goal into a few fifteen to thirty minute sessions per day and can be an absolute sanity saver. Another blogger, Sacha Black, introduced me to this tip, referring to these micro sessions as writing sprints. She has written up a helpful piece to help you determine what size sprint is best for you.

4) Cut your cable

Better yet, turn the TV off altogether, but if you are like me and still occasionally need to veg out, do it smart. While the EU limits the length of commercial interruptions to no more than twelve minutes per hour of programming in the US, commercials can make up about 30% or more of air time. As much as it pained me at first, I’ve stopped watching live TV. Thanks to streaming without commercials, I can watch my favorite hour-long show in forty-five minutes. (It’s magic!) I now have an extra fifteen minutes to write if I so choose. Sure, it means putting up with some delayed gratification and extra heavy spoiler evasion, but we all must make sacrifices for our art.

5) Keep your deadlines long and your notes close

Even with the best of intentions, you aren’t going to be able to hit your goal every day, even with micro-sessions. You’ll have summer break or have to deal with yet another round of the bug that’s so fun to share that everyone in the family gets a turn. These things happen. The thing to keep in mind is unless you were offered a contract, the only one who cares about your deadline is you (yes, I know – I have a hard time accepting this too. I am all twitchy just to write it). Sure you might disappoint a few fans by failing to deliver as quickly as they would like (cough. . .cough. . . George R. R. Martin, I am looking at you), but they aren’t exactly lighting up your phone with offers to babysit (for free) so that you can write in peace, now are they?

6) Back-up everything!

Say you do all of the above. The children are blissfully asleep. Even better, they’d gone down with hardly a fight. Your partner is off taking a run (or doing whatever it is he or she does when you go all writerly on them). The house is wonderfully quiet as you revise the third draft of your latest novel. Only a few more chapters to go. You are in the zone. Suddenly the cursor on your screen moves and an ‘a’ you know you didn’t type appears on the page. Then another. And another. Suddenly there is a whole line of ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas’. Panicked, you bang on the ESC key. The cursor blinks at you as if it is not only aware of your fright, it is amused. Then the whole room is blanketed in a bright blue light coming from your screen.

You feel like Darth Vader just told you he was your father. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sounds horrible? Yes. It. Was. I was able to recover my file. That time. But thanks to the school system exposing the young to computer skills at a young age, I can no longer trust that my children won’t download a virus or click on a ransomware link. Heck, I can barely trust myself not to do that.

7) Remember why you started in the first place

Were you doing it for the money? The fame? The accolades? (If so, I’d love to see your marketing plan. Really – I would! Please contact me). Occasionally take a step back so that you can see how far you’ve already come. You can do this.

How to create a dinner of champions

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Life as I know it, Life Hacks

I may have actually stumbled upon the secret to get my toddler to willingly eat more than mac n’ cheese and applesauce at dinner time!

My eldest son spoiled me rotten. As a baby he loved sweet peas, and as a kindergartener one of his favorite meals is chicken nuggets with a strawberries and a side salad. Yes. A side salad. And not just lettuce smeared with ranch dressing. No, he prefers a drizzle of balsamic glaze. I was therefore fully unprepared for the challenge that is my youngest son at meal times.

So sayeth the toddler

Greens need not touch his plate. In fact, go ahead and extend that to most other food groups. If the food on his plate wasn’t a complex carb – well he just wasn’t interested. We tried plane sounds. We tried rewards and other bribery such as promising deserts. He sealed his lips tighter than Fort Knox. We tried trickery. He returned the favor by hiding it all in his cheeks and spitting it out later. We told him that if he didn’t eat his dinner he would be sent to time out or even to bed. He chose time out. And I don’t just mean by continuing with attitude. I mean my toddler actually said, in clear English, with a smile on his face, “I wan time out.”

My toddler is now two and a half, which means I only have to live with the terrible twos for another few months. [Then I get the joy of the trying threes! Yippee!!!] As a result, you may believe that he will naturally become more willing to try new things as maturing. Perhaps. But perhaps he requires more incentive to change his behavior. Perhaps we all do.

Vision without execution is hallucinationI recently read a post suggesting that everyone should find themselves an accountability partner. I loved the idea and brought it up with my hubby. He and I are both idea people, and idea people tend to make terrible executors if left to their own devices. Not because they don’t want to execute on their original idea, just because there is always a nicer, shinier, new idea just waiting to be developed. I asked him if he’d be willing to start setting a personal goal each week which we’d discuss over Sunday dinner. He agreed to try.

Sunday rolled around and we started discussing what we wanted to accomplish this week. Our kindergartener caught on and wanted to come up with his own goal for the week. Excellent! We agreed that we would all take on one small bite sized goal for the week. If we were all successful at the end of the week as a family, we’d award ourselves with a single star. If we could all earn twenty stars then we’d go on a vacation. Kiddo was sold. He loves winning, no matter what the rules of the game are. Then he asked what his brother’s goal should be. We thought about and agreed that he had to try his food every night this week.

Sunday dinner went smoothly. Monday’s too. Then Tuesday night, toddler stubbornness was back in full effect. I sighed and said, well I guess we aren’t getting a star this week as I tried to figure out my next strategy. Suddenly Kiddo was by his brother’s side cheering his brother along. My toddler may enjoy tests of will against me, but adores his brother above all things and wants to be just like him. His mouth opened and in went the food. The star was saved for another day and there was much rejoicing.

Execution is made easiest when you allow your team to take ownership of the method, and the best incentives are the ones the team comes up with themselves. All the leader is supposed to do is provide a clear vision of where they want to go and then get out of the way while his or her team does what they do best in order to get there. It would seem this is just as true in the house as it is the office.

It has only been a few days, but I am optimistic that my family will be healthier and stronger, or at least better fed, as a result of this experiment. With a little determination and a lot of accountability, the seats around out dinner table on Sundays will soon be filled with champions.

Separating Business from Hobby

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Life Hacks
Hirst's Shark Tank by the Little Artists
Hirst’s Shark Tank by the Little Artists (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What separates a business from a hobby? My husband and I watch a fair bit of the show, Shark Tank, and often one of the investors will explain the difference to wannabe entrepreneurs. It is one thing to have an idea, and I am in no way diminishing the importance of that crucial element, but there is more to building a business than just having something to sell.

In order to transform a hobby into a business yes, you need a product or service. But you also need a path to market, a sales strategy, a plan for what to do with revenue once it is received, a plan for what to do when the money doesn’t flow as it should, and a plan for what to do when faced with an outright threat. There is so much to do that having the actual innovative spark is almost more window dressing than requirement. That is a minimum of five parts plan to one part innovation!

While at my day job, I usually deal with established companies releasing their next big product offering, but occasionally I get the opportunity to meet with the independent idea person. Typically these are people fresh from one of the nearby university technology incubators. These people a fun to meet with because they are so incredibly passionate about their product, but really have no idea how much they don’t know about the challenges of bringing an invention out of their garage.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the biggest mistakes they make in their plan is forgetting that though they might have a great rapport with the person at the other side of the table, at the end of the day, “its nothing personal, just business.” I have to watch as they are forced to question their own faith in their product and their existing partners. For example, patents are only as good as they are enforceable and established companies usually have much deeper pockets along with capable supply chains and effective sales channels.

The reaction varies. Sometimes the innovator’s ego doesn’t allow him or her to accept these questions. They get angry and defensive. Of course their product will sell itself and they will become overnight millionaires. They are such geniuses that no one could possibly find a way to build it cheaper, quicker, or in a way that gets around their patent. The public will never accept a lower quality solution at a cheaper price – they will demand the real thing. All of their suppliers will deliver and all their customers will pay on time just because they have put some words together on a piece of paper and called it a contract.

Some throw their hands up in despair. They give up on their dream the moment they are asked to answer tough questions. Others listen with open minds. They are humble enough to realize that they don’t know all the answers and that their product may not be ready for the mass market. Perhaps it is not in their best interest today to accept that large purchase order with all its many zeros. These are the people who will buckle down and return to pitch their idea another day. They leave even more committed, but with their eyes wide open.

English: Figure 10: SWOT-Analysis of the organ...
English: Figure 10: SWOT-Analysis of the organic business idea. Belongs to The Organic Business Guide. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As much as my novels are the children of my imagination, I have to treat my writing as a business, and books as its product. While so far I have found there to be quite a bit of cross over, I recognize that I am new to this industry. I recognize that I can’t rely entirely on instinct alone. What I believe is my best strategy may well be wrong.

In fact as I near the final weeks of writing the first draft, there are a number of things that I intend to do differently this second time around. I enjoyed the speed to market that self publishing offered, but I do think that this time I am going to at least query a few other channels. Yes, I will likely get rejected, as that seems to be a recurring pattern in the industry, but I’ll never know for sure that I picked the course best suited for my own business needs and personal style if I don’t at least ask for other opinions from time to time.

 

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How to win friends and influence people

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Life as I know it, Life Hacks, Personal Favorites

As dictated by my recently turned two year old

where the wild things are tribute
where the wild things are tribute (Photo credit: Tojosan)

Taking command of any situation has always come naturally to me, but now that I track my age in terms of years rather than months, I’ve come to recognize that the path to success and world dominance may be more mysterious to others. I commanded one of my servants to write down my observations so that those that follow behind them may benefit from my years of experience.

Each of us are born with a set of tools, that when properly deployed, can ensure successful command of the servant set known as Mom and Dad. These tools are the piercing cry, the appearance of helplessness, and natural cuteness.

Step 1: Neutralize Potential Rivals with Speed and Extreme Prejudice

It is true that you cannot choose your family. For those of you who are placed in homes with two servants, you must exert your dominance. They may have the false belief that because they outnumber you they get to control the schedule. You must clear up this misconception immediately.

I found the easiest way to do this is through the process of divide and conquering. In my case I selected one of the two to ‘favor.’ For several months, I would allow none but the chosen one (Mom) to carry me around the house or feed me through effective use of a combination of the aforementioned piercing cry and sleep deprivation. While wearing down the resistance level of Mom, this tactic also causes the second servant (Dad) to be filled with feelings of inadequacy and/or guilt. Once conditioned, all I had to do is favor Dad with the smallest attention and he was volunteering to do my bidding.

It is important not to maintain the illusion of favor for too long of a period otherwise it will lose its effectiveness. I recommend that after no more than a year, you suddenly switch preference for no apparent reason. This will leave both servants wondering what they did to change your favor.

Secondly, do whatever you can to drastically alter the frequency and consistency of your bowel movements. This will cause the occasional discomfort, but it is worth it in the long run. Your servants will become obsessed with tracking your changes. This will become a frequent conversational topic even when you grant them a night out insuring that by granting them some alone time you do not inadvertently open the door for a younger, cuter housemate.

Step 2: Allow for the Appearance of Hope

Next, I found that many children make the mistake of walking very early on. I understand the temptation. It can be hard to properly train your servants and you may grow frustrated if they do not immediately jump to execute your commands, but do not give in. Once you begin to move about on your own, they will begin to question their continued belief in your helplessness. It is much, much better that you continue to demand that they carry you around everywhere. They will learn to love the additional time you spend together in doctors’ offices talking about you.

However you do not want them to become discouraged with your progress. It is important that you occasionally look like you are making an effort. Attempt to pull up on furniture, but fall immediately. Let them know you are healthy – as this will prevent shots, but just not ‘ready.’

Another good tactic is to point towards your hind end and say the word ‘potty’. This will cause the servants to start to dream about the day they no longer have to buy diapers. They will place you on a potty seat. Crush this dream by never, ever doing your business when and where they want. Laugh at their pleas as if you don’t understand.

As long as your servants believe there is hope for a change from the status quo, they will be less likely to rebel and or force you to do something not of your choosing.

Step 3: Dominate the Room. Any Room.

Eventually though, the temptation will grow too strong and you’ll mess up. They’ll catch you taking steps. They will start to question their belief in your helplessness. Once that occurs you will need to make them regret ever worrying about your development by getting into everything. They will think that it is now time to challenge your authority. Show them who is boss by breaking something they treasure. This will also help them to devalue material possessions. They will thank you in the long run.

Exert your personal style everywhere. Walls will be made better by your art. If those papers your older servants left out were so important they would have already been attended to. The servant called Mom doesn’t need to be distracted by magazines. Tear them up. They take attention away from you.

Step 4: Exude Irresistibility

After you conduct the required level of destruction, you will need to act quickly to stop the vein from pulsing in their forehead. Grab a stuffed animal, cock your head, and bat your eyelashes. No toys nearby? Placing leftover food in your hair also seems to work. Parrot their words while changing one or two syllables will win them back over to your side in a heartbeat. You will know you have achieved success when the camera comes out.

Step 5: Continuously Cultivate Allies

If you find yourself in a home with an older child, attempt to mimic a handful of things he or she does. He or she will then believe you want to be just like them. When the older servants attempt to challenge your authority, a well trained older sibling can be relied upon to sneak you toys and treats, and serve as a convenient scapegoat.

Finally, the greatest secret is to never, ever show any signs of disobedience in front of the servants’ parents (grandparents). This will ensure that the grandparents, who are more naturally prone to cave in and give you anything you want with minimal manipulation, will not believe your servants’ complaints about your behavior. Lacking allies, your Mom and Dad will be further forced to do your bidding.

By following these easy tips, you have a household running to your satisfaction in no time.

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