Pay It Forward Blogfest

Today is the official announcement of Alex and my Pay It Forward Blogfest. I know we've been hinting at it for a while, and we know how excited you've all been (hopefully), so we're happy to announce that it's finally here.

Well, that is, the announcement is finally here. The actual blogfest isn't until Friday, October 14th, but that gives you plenty of time to sign up on Alex's linky list. Please sign up, and then be ready for the madness to ensue two weeks from now.

Here is how the blogfest will actually work: The idea is to introduce everyone to everyone else. We want this to be an easy post that allows you to meet and follow as many other bloggers as you can. In your post, we would like you to please list, describe, and link to three blogs that you enjoy reading, but that you suspect may fly under the radar of a lot of other bloggers. Or they can be famous blogs, as long as they're awesome.

But don't stop there! Certainly visit and follow all the blogs that are featured in people's posts the day of the blogfest, but those don't have to be the only blogs you visit. You can visit everyone who enters in on the fun, and signs up on the linky list. In the interest of time you don't even have to leave comment. You can just follow, and come back another time. After all, we all know we don't have time to visit every blog we enjoy every single day.

So that's it. Please sign up in the linky list, and we will see you in two weeks!

Let's Take it Back to the Old School

I'm not even going to discuss the Atlanta Braves, the (current) Boston Red Sox, or mention the fact that they both just broke records for the worst end of season collapse in the history of baseball.

Er, wait - I just did mention it, didn't I? Well I'm not going to discuss it any further, because I'm disgusted. Instead, I'm going to discuss something else that disgusts me, because I feel like it.

You probably weren't aware of this, but there was a close race in the National League this season, between Jose Reyes, of the New York Mets, and Ryan Braun, of the Milwaukee Brewers, for the batting title. Before yesterday, Reyes was in the lead with an average of .347. What he did to secure his lead in yesterday's game was lame, as far as I'm concerned.

Jose Reyes bunted on his first at-bat, which with his speed almost guaranteed a hit. That in itself is not a big deal, but what he did next is a sign, to me, of what's wrong with our culture these days. He asked his manager to take him out of the game. He did. This preserved his average, meaning he did not have any strikeouts, groundouts, or outs of any kind that day, which could have lowered his average.

He should have played the rest of the game, because Ryan Braun ended up going 0 for 4 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Reyes would have won no matter what.

Anyway, you're probably wondering why Ted Williams is up there, assuming you knew that was Ted Williams. Ted is up there because I want to use him to illustrate how things should be done.

70 years ago, Ted Williams was in the same position as Jose Reyes - poised to take the title, and with a decision to make. His situation was a bit more historic though. He had a .3996 batting average, something which is essentially unheard of. The last day of the season was a double header. He could have sat out, which his manager suggested, and MLB would have rounded his average up to .400.

What did Ted do? He did what any self-respecting hero and role model would. He played both games, went 6 for 8, and ended up with a legitimate .406 batting average. No one has ever had an average of over .400 since.

Not one single player.

Kids, don't be like Jose Reyes. Be like Ted Williams.

He played for the Boston Red Sox. I bet they wish they had him back.

iPad and the Young Mind

So I went and bought an iPad on Monday night. We'd been saving for it for a few weeks, and I decided I needed one when I finalized my plans to visit WFC in San Diego next month, and meet up with wonderful writers and author friends like Simon C. Larter, Shannon Whitney Messenger, Carolina Valdez Miller, Sara Ann McClung, and Andrew Smith.

I won't get into the things that are cool about it, or the things that it ought to be able to do, but can't, because those would be long posts all on their own. I will, hopefully briefly, discuss how cool this thing is for kids.

My daughter Madison and I played a game of scrabble on it against each other last night. She has an iPod touch she's had for a while, that she paid for by saving up her allowance, and that allowed us each to play our tiles from our own device, so that we weren't too obviously revealing our letters to each other.

Now, I have to say, in some ways I'm a bit of a Luddite. I don't believe in kids walking around with headphones constantly in their ears, shutting out the world around them, eyes glued to the screen of some device like little LCD versions of The Mirror of Erised, but the potential for interesting educational opportunities with a device like the iPad is off the charts.

The coolest thing about it is how it excites my child. When she came into my room last night (I didn't have time to set it up after buying it on Monday) and saw me installing some apps on it, her eyes lit up, and she bounded onto the bed with me.

My kid never hangs out with me in my room. She's 10. I had the horrible Braves game on the TV, which she would normally never suffer through. But she spent the next few hours hanging out with me, talking to me about the iPad, and showing me cool things like how to organize my apps into folders so I don't have 5 pages of apps. Then we played some games. Like Scrabble, pictured above.

I'm not going to go on about this any longer, but I see a very high cool factor when it comes to technology and young minds. I think if we leverage these devices properly to our children, we can help them focus on the benefits, without turning them into backlit LCD zombies.

What do you guys think? Do your kids have e-readers? Smart Phones? Other tech?

Boozy

I'm taking a blogging hiatus today, because I've got some writing related obligations, so here's something for you, my lovelies:



I don't know why he's drinking beer when he's singing about wine (in the music video version, which for some reason doesn't have the great dub verse), but at far as I'm concerned, as long as it gets you drunk, it's all good.

Have a wonderful day, friends.

Blog Chain - Keeping the Faith

It's Blog Chain time again. Okay, technically yesterday was blog chain time again, but I didn't realize we did this thing on weekends, too. I don't blog on weekends. Hell, if it doesn't involve my daughter's soccer game or getting drunk and watching football, I don't do much on weekends.

Anyway, back to the business at hand. This chain topic was selected by Shaun, whose first post you can find: here.

Here is how he introduced it:

In writing, we talk a lot about grabbing the reader from page 1. From the first paragraph, the first sentence. I spend a lot of time working on my first paragraphs because I know that agents and editors are pretty much going to decide whether they want to keep reading based on that. It's the first impression. A crappy first page is like walking into an interview in your underwear. So it's important to grab your reader right away.

But what about those books that don't?

What are three books you would tell people that they need to keep reading even if they aren't immediately sucked in by the first page?

Before I share my three, I just want to point out that I'm a very patient reader. I don't have a problem with books whose stories take time to build. I've only ever given up on two books in my life, and it was never within the first five pages. Do people really do that? Give up on a book that quickly? Or is that only when industry professionals are considering work?

Right. So here's my three:

1) The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm listing this one, because it's basically famous for starting slow. Now that I'm a (somewhat) professional writer, I can see the point people are making when they make this argument, because the plot does take some time to get going, but in my opinion, it starts out just right. It's a vast world Tolkien was building, and it took time to get a feel for it. Personally I love every minute of it.

2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling. This is one I'm a bit ashamed to admit. But it's an interesting story. I first bought this book for my daughter when she was about 6. I had seen Good Morning America talking about the lines outside of bookstores when The Chamber of Secrets was released, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. So I bought her the book. I read the first two or three chapters myself, and being the fool I was at the time, I scoffed. "This is a children's book!" I said to myself. "Clearly it's beneath me," was my second sentiment. So I'm sad to say that I gave her the book and it took another 4 years or more before she finally convinced me to give them another chance. I think she was on Goblet of Fire at the time. Well, this is going to sound cliche, and it probably is, but reading those books changed my life. I realized that great writing could be meant for any audience, and I've been reading, and loving, and writing, and toiling over, "YA" and "MG" books ever since.

3) The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. This one I was reminded of by the blog chain member who came before me, Sandra. I'll link to her post at the end. This is a perfect example of this topic for me, because honestly? I still don't fully understand this book. I've read it three times. The whole stream of consciousness style is one I always struggle with. The first time I read this book it made no sense to me. But I came back a few years later, and read it again. Okay, admittedly, there are still parts that don't make sense, but it also contains some of the most powerful writing I've seen, and I've come to love it in spite of my ignorance.

So there you go. A day late and a few dollars short, that's my take on the topic. Be sure to visit Sandra's post, that came before me, and Kate's post, which will probably go up today (sorry, Kate)!