Why Reading To Kill a Mockingbird Will Help When it Comes Time to Read Conceptual Physics

Part 1

This morning, I came downstairs to spy the husband sitting in our dilapidated rocking chair in front of the television wearing a headset in order to talk to strangers online.

I cannot express how disturbed I am by this development.

Yesterday, John bought a wireless router so we could access Netflix through his Xbox. Unfortunately, this means subscribing to Xbox Live. If you have Xbox Live, you can play arcade games with other people live over the internet- through the television. If he starts playing Warcraft, I am going run off and become a lounge singer on a cruise ship. He wasn’t even excited about all the Gregory Peck movies we could watch right in a row! Or the karaoke features! He just wants to play hockey with 12-year olds who swear at him if he fails to prevent the opposing forwards from screening his goalie.

In my next life, I am going to marry someone whose idea of gaming is playing Scrabble on a Friday night. Good grief.

In other horrible news, we moved the television from the basement up into the playroom, which means we have two TVs on the first floor. The Wii is in the playroom, and the Xbox is in the living room, which means when I came downstairs, everyone in the house was playing video games.

Video games, of course, are not inherently bad in themselves, and I guess have some “benefits,” like in that 80s movie where the boy’s impressive gaming skills get him recruited to battle in an intergalactic war.

Of course, as a mom, I am naturally concerned that TV, video games, and other forms of technology are turning my kids’ brains into the consistency of the gruel served to Oliver Twist in Dickens’ classic.

“What’s gruel?” asks Ben.

“Kind of like porridge.”

“What’s porridge?”

“What the three bears ate.”

“Oh, yeah! That stuff is good!”

(I assume he decided that based on contextual evidence.)

Part 2

While some argue that the reading and writing kids do online “counts,” I am suspicious. And here’s why: reading a friend’s poorly conceived e-mail or participating in online forums or threads on Facebook does not develop the critical reading skills kids need to succeed.

I’m a huge fan of fiction: it’s fun, it allows kids to learn to sit in one place and read for an extended period of time, improves analytical thinking, expands vocabulary, improves memory, and helps kids become better writers. However, other types of literature, including comic books, magazines, and non-fiction books achieve these same goals.

Online reading doesn’t generally improve critical thinking skills. Since most kids aren’t logging on to The Atlantic or online literary journals, they are susceptible to the strategies websites use to get readers on to their website. Strategies include writing short paragraphs that are written around “keywords,” lists, emboldened headings, low-level vocabulary, and water-downed pieces of information people can scan to get the gist of the message. And then, there are the built-in links that drive online users from one page to the next, where eventually they become lost in cyberspace. There is no discernable ending when reading online, and time is literally sucked up into a vacuum as we aimlessly wander through a virtual world of our own creation.

Yes, digital literacy is a valuable asset in today’s technology-driven world, but are kids really gleaning valuable, factual information while web-surfing on their own? Outside of the classroom, kids troll YouTube, Facebook, celebrity sites, and personal blogs. Sure, you can find an answer to a question a lot faster on the internet than by visiting the library, but how do kids know if that source is reliable? I love this quote from a NY Times article:

Web readers are persistently weak at judging whether information is trustworthy. In one study, Donald J. Leu, who researches literacy and technology at the University of Connecticut, asked 48 students to look at a spoof Web site (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) about a mythical species known as the “Pacific Northwest tree octopus.” Nearly 90 percent of them missed the joke and deemed the site a reliable source.

Extensive web-surfing fosters extremely short attention spans. The average time a person spends on a web page? 27 seconds. In a rush, we search for the answer to our question, then click on an advertisement that proclaims to have pictures of Ashton Kutcher’s latest tryst. (The pictures were questionable, by the way.)

If kids don’t grow up reading books, they miss out on developing critical thinking skills. When they get to college and a professor gives them a reading assignment, a lot of freshman can’t do it. They don’t know how. If they can’t sit still and read the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird, how are they going to read two pages of Conceptual Physics? How are they going to be able to dissect and respond to case studies, poetry, historical documents, and political science articles?

In short, if the future of mankind places extreme value in virtual hockey playing, intergalactic starfighting, finding songs on YouTube in less than 10 seconds, and cyber-bullying, by all means, let’s allow our kids to spend unprecedented amounts of time gaming, web-surfing, and texting. However, if the future still calls for doctors, physicists, engineers, novelists, poets, teachers, and lawyers, we should temper gaming and surfing with reading. (Maybe not the lawyers.  Unless they are like Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird.)

Part 3

The best way to foster a love of books in your kids is to:

1. Read to them.
2. Read in front of them.
3. Provide them with interesting reading materials.

(In the husband’s defense, his nose is in a book as often as or perhaps more often than he’s in front of the Xbox.)

I’ve been reading the boys A Christmas Carol, because of the holiday season and also because of a possibly premature and over-zealous desire to introduce them to Dickens. We stop a lot because they want to know what words mean.

“What does frigid mean?” asks Ben.

“Let’s see if you can figure it out. I’m so frigid! Brrrr!”

(A snicker comes from a corner of the room.)

“NO COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY!”

The boys are really enjoying the book, even though it’s a bit beyond a first and third-grade reading level.

“It’s like that movie, Monster House!” says Ben.

“I would never wear tights. Even if I lived back then,” says Caleb.

The other night, we unwittingly allowed Caleb to stay up past 11:00 on a school night. He was reading Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen.

I’ve never been so proud.



Fun articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/07/children-who-dont-read-grow-up-bad.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/23/survey-children-reading-habits

The Neti Pot: Friend or Foe?

Neti pot-using looney bird. 

There is a self-torture device sold in drugstores made popular by masochists and people who support masochism- namely Oprah- called the “neti pot.” The neti pot looks charming, like a tiny tea kettle, but don’t let its unassuming appearance fool you. The neti pot is actually a very convenient and socially-accepted way to waterboard a person. Unlike traditional waterboarding methods, however, the victim will come out of the experience with remarkably clear sinuses.

I have a sinus infection that seems determined to linger on until the end of time. A friend recommended relief through the neti pot. She offered to let me borrow hers, and although her nose is lovely, and I’m sure her pot is clean and sanitized, I felt fiscally confident enough to run off to Rite Aid and buy their plastic version. It was on sale for 8.99 and came with 50 saline packets.

The kids were immediately taken with it. Ella wanted to use it to serve tea to her dolls. I told them it was actually the lamp of a “less fortunate” genie. I went on to explain that while 1% of genies get to live in gorgeous, golden lamps, the rest live in plastic lamps mortgaged out the ying-yang, or government-subsidized ones that get stuck up people’s noses. I then explained the positive and negative aspects of capitalism. It was a “teachable” moment.

But I digress.

Using the neti pot is akin to giving your nasal passages an enema, and is probably an equally enjoyable process. To administer: first, fill the pot to the brim with lukewarm water. The instructions emphasize the importance of lukewarm. Too hot, and you’ll lose all sense of smell forever; too cold, and you will experience immeasurable amounts of pain. After you’ve filled the pot, you dissolve the saline solution into the water. Then, you stick the nozzle into one side of your nose, lean your head over the sink, turn it slowly so that gravity pulls the water into your nose, and wait.

The water is supposed to flush out mucus and then drain out of the other nostril into the sink. However, everything in that region of the head is interconnected: the throat, the nose, the ears, etc. The instructions say to “continue breathing through your mouth as you administer the solution.” It is hard to breathe when you are drowning.

I experimented by tilting my head in various ways and finally succeeded in flushing out the right side of my nose. Encouraged, I repeated on the left.

Though the left side of my nose looks exactly the same as my right side, apparently it’s a whole different ballgame inside. Within five seconds of administering the procedure, my nose started burning, water spilled into my throat and out my mouth, my eye started watering, and I swear I heard dolphins singing. There was a lot of choking and sputtering. I ceased and desisted immediately, regrouped, and tried again. I forced the remainder of the solution through my nasal passageways, bravely enduring the burning sensation. Masochist.

Afterwards, you’re supposed to gently blow your nose. Gently is stressed. I ignored that completely, and as I blew my nose, my ears basically imploded into my brain. This morning, I am fairly certain I am developing a double ear infection. Also, there is a chirping sound- like a little parakeet- when I breathe through my nose. I do not think this is normal. The instructions say some people’s ear passageways are wider than others, and if discomfort persists, to discontinue use of the neti pot. Now, of course, I am concerned about the ramifications of having shockingly wide ear passageways that invite the sloshing of random fluids and provide a spot for hamsters to do agility training.

The good news: I slept through the night for the first time in over a month, though I can’t be sure whether that was the work of the neti pot or the hydrocordone I’ve been saving for a rainy day. And yesterday, it rained salt water in my nose. So there you go.

In conclusion, here is what I’ve decided about the neti pot: While the instructions insist you should continue breathing through your mouth during the process, I submit this is horse crap. Hold your breath and block the passageway to your throat. This could save your life. Second, unless you enjoy the sensation of breathing in water taken straight from the Dead Sea, use half a saline packet at first. Your nose will thank you. Third, blow your nose gently afterward unless you want to block off ambient sound. (I suppose this could be a benefit for some.) Finally, for getting a good night sleep while suffering from a sinus infection, narcotics always trump homeopathic remedies. Always.

The jury’s still out on whether to continue use of the neti pot, donate it to Ella’s tea party play, or ship it off to Guantanamo Bay. We’ll see if my hearing returns before I make any final decisions.

Why Poetry is Good for Kids

I wrote this several years ago for another site, but I like it, and since it's National Poetry Month, I thought I'd post it here. 

How are you all, anyway?  My backyard is mud soup and I was on suicide watch for a while after it snowed, but am faring well now. 

It's National Poetry Month!

And I just feel like throwing a party because I LOVE POETRY. Rhyming poems, free-verse, found poems, lyric poems, haikus, sonnets, odes, elegies, narratives, blank verse, ballads, and of course the end-all-be-all of the poetic form: The ABC poem; you name it, I enjoy it.

You may balk. Perhaps you never grew to appreciate a verse written in solid iambic pentameter. Maybe it bugged you that e.e.cummings never used capital letters. I submit that even if a verse of Tennyson doesn't tickle your fancy, you probably love children's poetry.

Think back to the first stanzas you sang to your tiny infant, who lay still (well, all those non-colicky infants anyway) and nuzzled in your arms, relaxing to the rhythm and cadence of your voice. "Hush little baby don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird" perhaps? A round of "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine?" Or maybe, like me, you enjoy a good nautical poem and couldn't help but soothe your child by singing a couple verses of "Baby Beluga" by Raffi.

All infants were at one time lulled to sleep by the beating of their mother's heart. It only makes sense that the repetition of a rhyming poem would be soothing and comforting to their tiny ears. You will find that your baby is more responsive to rhymes than he is to normal speech. The steady pace and predictable repetition reminds him of the womb. Lullaby's almost always rhyme. Those board books that are ridiculously overpriced generally rhyme.

We are all born pre-conditioned to love poetry.

Of course, as we grow, our definition of poetry grows. The world changes, the way we view the world changes, and the way we use words changes. At first, words are foreign and their sounds are what captivate us. Soon, those sounds become meaning. Later, words become not to only a way to express out basic needs, but a way to express our emotions, our greater desires, our fears, our hurts, and our experiences. Poetry is about words, the sounds they make, their connotations, the way they feel when they slip off the tongue, the way they look written in our own handwriting on a smooth piece of paper ... Poetry grows and expands and changes as we become more complex peoples. Poetry becomes what we need it to become.

Why should we hope to instill a love of poetry into our children? In the introduction to the book Read my Mind: Young Children, Poetry and Learning by Fred Sedgwick, the author writes that "because poetry exists on the frontier between the known world and the world of imagination, it reaches out to both."

Use poetry to teach history, science, and religion. Teach poetry to help your child express herself through words. Read poetry in order to laugh out loud. Whisper poetry to lull your child to sleep. Help your child embrace poetry for no other reason than that it is a stepping stone between the concrete world and that dreamy otherworld that is our imagination.

Down with Disney

There are a lot of bad things being taught to our children, especially our daughters, and these bad things are coming to us straight from the Disney Vault, which mysteriously opens and closes at random times. I’d like to see this vault one day. I bet it’s all gold and shiny.

I have listed just a few of the incredibly horrific aspects of certain films that we have subjected our kids to. Please take the time to read this. After all, our children are the future.

Beauty and the Beast: This is what we should be teaching our daughters: Sweetheart, if you’re living with a guy and he won’t let you leave the castle, throws things in anger, and growls at you- if you tremble when he walks in the room out of fear- this is not a good relationship. He is probably not going to soften up and turn into a strapping young man who cherishes you.

Beauty and the Beast goes against everything the feminist movement taught us. It is a very, very bad messed up message to send to our daughters.

The Little Mermaid: This movie stereotypes Jamaicans. Note Sebastian the Jamaican Crab’s little ditty:

Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea!

Jamaicans are not listless, free-loading beach bums! At least, I don’t think they are! I’ve never actually been to Jamaica, but I’ve heard good things. The bob-sled team won the Olympic gold medal one year! Remember? They made a movie out of it. The Jamaicans seem like a hardworking lot. Bob Marley worked hard and look at all he accomplished! I like that song, “One Love.”

Also, The Little Mermaid promotes witchcraft and bestiality. I don’t think, as parents, we should promote mermaid/ human relations. I’m also banning Splash from my household and you probably should too.

Snow White: My greatest beef with this movie is its wrongful stereotyping of the apple. The idea that apples are “bad” or “poisonous” began in the biblical book of Genesis. The myth that apples are intrinsically evil has been perpetuated over the years. Thanks to Disney, apples continue to get a bad rep. In fact, apples are full of antioxidants, clean teeth and gums, are full of fiber, and they also lower cholesterol. Children should not be taught to be afraid of apples. We should shove those suckers down their throats every day.

Don’t even get me started on the seven dwarves.

Sleeping Beauty: This film promotes slothfulness. We should teach our daughters to be proactive. Sleeping the day away waiting for your prince to come is just not the American way. Women will never get ahead with this kind of attitude.

Also, I don't condone frolicking with strange boys in the woods. It's not smart. Do you know how many rapes occur in the woods each year? Alarmingly, quite a few. Prince Philip, my eye. Men will say ANYTHING to have their way with you.

Cinderella: No matter what this movie suggests, large feet are not indicative of nasty people. Think of how many little girls with gigantic feet felt horrible after witnessing Cinderella stick her tiny foot into the glass slipper.

Also, I’m in favor of cats chasing and killing mice in the house. The villainization of cats is a common, disturbing theme in Disney films like Lady and the Tramp, Tom and Jerry, and the Fievel movies. Okay, so the last two examples aren’t Disney, but you get the picture, and it isn’t pretty.

Pooh’s Heffalump Movie: This is a great movie. You should probably get it.

This post is entirely the opinion of the writer of this blog. It is also completely facetious. It is a response to the continued objection of a certain husband to this blogger’s wish to join the Disney Movie Club, which offers four movies at only 1.99 a pop- even Lindsay Lohan films- plus two bonus films at discounted prices. Then, you have to buy like 50 more for 30.00 a dvd, but it’s probably still a good deal and I feel I am being unfairly treated. After all, I am a princess who deserves anything I want. At least, that’s what Disney taught me.

Make Money Writing 101

It’s hard to gauge how well I am doing as a freelance writer. The thing is, I’m not a pushy person. It is not in my nature. I have a hard time “selling” myself. (Not because I don’t think I’m great- clearly I’m awesome- but because I’m petrified of “annoying people.” I am SHY, world. The world does not accommodate shy people, but that’s a topic for another blog post.)

Just the same, I’ve been freelancing now for almost a year and I’m generally pleased with how far I’ve come. I have enough regular clients that I don’t have to search out new work, unless I really want it. I have gained one excellent client through a referral and am really actually enjoying the research and writing (for the most part) I am assigned.

I’ve slowly upped my pay-rate and have turned down many, many potential clients whose pay-rates were too low (too low even for illegal immigrant laborers!) No, I will not write you a 500 word article for $1.00. One guy came back and said… okay, okay. $1.50. I took it. (No, not really.)

Several people have contacted me wondering how they might break into the freelance writing biz. It’s actually not that difficult. As with any home business, it just takes time to set up. For those looking into getting started, either as a career possibility or just for fun, here is Holly’s Make Money Writing 101 course for the interested.

First you have to KNOW what you want to write about. Being a housewife/mother with a degree in English, I felt like my potential writing topics were limited. However, there is a market out there for parenting/ family-life related articles. I’ve also found a niche in health-related and fitness topics, arts-and-crafts topics (which is kind of a stretch for me) and literary topics. (My favorite current job is writing short blurbs for the backs of classic books-on-tape.)

The good news: there is a market for nearly any kind of writer. The bad news is that it’s easy to get distracted and try and create too many “niches” for yourself. Freelance writers who specialize in a particular niche are more desirable than the jack-of-all-trades writer. Professional resume writers, academic writers, and lyricists who have experience and success in their fields can expect to be paid well. Figure out what you want to write about, find out where your market is, and take the time to get really good at what you do. It will take a good year to establish your “business” and longer to make decent money.

People will pay you for:
• Blog writing
• Magazine articles (print and online)
• Book reviews
• Newsletters
• Sales letters
• Song lyrics
• Press releases
• Web copy
• Brochures
• Manuals
• Resumes
• Greeting Cards
• Academic papers
• Ghostwriting
• Grants
• Scripts
• Fliers
• Technical writing
• Interviews
• Biographies

People will also pay you to proofread, edit, and will pay for consulting services.

If you are talented, dedicated, and headstrong, you can make money writing e-books, your own relevant blog (NOT A FAMILY LIFE, PERSONAL BLOG LIKE MINE!!!), or one of those antiquated dusty things with bindings that people used to peruse through before the internet. Regular books, I think they’re called.

E-books are taking off. Lots of non-fiction, informational books are being published as e-books and can be viewed on the computer or on ebook readers like the Kindle, the SONY Reader, or Apple’s brand new iPad.

Making a LIVING as a freelance writer requires intense marketing skills, which I greatly lack and hope to improve upon this coming year.

Where do you find your first writing gig? They don’t just fall on your lap, unfortunately. You have to be proactive.

I have found most all of my work online. Proactive people seek out jobs. They send query letters to various magazines or they send informational letters about themselves to local businesses advertising their services. A lot of writers find business by advertising themselves on Craig’s List. I have a “professional” website now that will probably never land me a new client, but it is useful: I use it as a reference when I apply for a job.

Here’s a list of online resources where you can find websites that pay, job markets, and writing contests and informational articles. This has been a work in progress and I may add more later.

Sites where you can bid on jobs: There are a number of sites where you can sign up as a freelancer (writing, graphic design, etc.) and bid on writing jobs. The lowest bid, of course, doesn’t necessarily win. Buyers look to get cheap, high-quality writing. You are competing against people from all over the globe, some perfectly happy to write for $2.00 an hour. However, sometimes, there’s a great job on these sites that pays well. It just takes time to sort through the slave-labor jobs.

Elance.com
Guru.com
Odesk.com
Freelancewriting.com
Getafreelancer.com
Ifreelance.com
Scriptlance.com

You can join some of these sites for free while others require a monthly fee. The sites usually take a percentage of the buyer-provider transaction, something to take in mind when you are bidding! I found my first regular client on Odesk.com. I’ve found that Elance.com seems to have the best paying buyers.

Content providers: There are a number of sites that pay for and then distribute content on the web. I’ve already written about my experience with Examiner.com. The problem with these sites is that the quality of writing can be low because there are few to no editorial guidelines, and the pay is weak. However, a lot of people use the sites to network or just to write about something they actually care about. Here are the most common content sites:

Associatedpress.com
Suite101.com
Examiner.com
http://www.helium.com/
DemandStudios.com
eHow.com
Triond.com
Life123.com
Orato.com
HubPages.com
Xomba.com
Livestrong.com
Firehow.com
Constant-content.com
Textbroker.com
Aci-plus.com: (Pays for academic papers.)

A lot of these sites are pay-per-click sites, meaning that you get paid according to how many people actually take a look, no matter how long, at your article. Some provide revenue-sharing, which means that you could make decent money on an article over a long period of time. Demand Studios pays a flat fee of $7.50 or $15.00 for an article and it also offers a revenue-sharing option. (For a content site, that’s not too bad, actually.)

Constant-Content has fairly stringent editorial guidelines and reviews each individual article. You can get paid up to $75.00 for selling full-rights to your article. I wrote a 600 word article on adult acne (something I happened to be researching for personal reasons at the time-sigh) and sold it within two days for $30.00. I’ve only bothered with Demand Studios, Constant-Content, and Textbroker. You have to really comb through Textbroker to find good-paying jobs. I like that I can make $30.00 in an hour at Demand Studios if I really put my mind to it. (Typing super fast helps.)

Making money on content sites requires some SEO (search engine optimization) skills, marketing knowledge, and choosing topics that sell. For instance, the #1 Examiner on Examiner.com is the Twilight Examiner. Twilight as in Edward and Bella. A parenting blog marketed to a local audience just wasn’t gonna make me a lot of money, even if I spent hours promoting it. However, these sites are great for someone who wants to write about something they care about while making some grocery money.

(Read this article for an interesting look at content-mill websites: “I Was Sucked into Content Mill Writing by Anonymous.”)

Writing Markets: There are a ton of free writing markets on the web. Good jobs get taken fast, so I subscribe to various ezines make sure I’m on top of the job market. Here's a small sample of the best markets out there:


Worldwide Freelance Writer: Sign up for their newsletter and receive an e-book with 25 writing markets that pay at least .25/word.
Writer Gazette: Krista Barrett’s freelance writing site is a Writer’s Digest top writing site. Krista is just a normal girl who shares a lot of information for free. Sign up for her weekly newsletter and check out her job board and contest listings.
Mediabistro.com: Their job site lists freelance opportunities and full-time job listings for writers/ journalists/ editors. It also has links that tell you how to pitch ideas to specific magazines like Self, Redbook, and Sports Illustrated.
Writer’s Market: 5.99/month will get you a listing to pretty much every writer’s market out there. Or buy the book; it comes out once a year. The “paid services” section online has hundreds of free listings of contests, conferences, and other useful stuff.


Fiction and poetry writers:

Duotrope’s Digest: Has over 2800 poetry and fiction markets.
Poets and Writers Magazine: Literary markets, contests, grants, job listings
Writer’s Digest: Writer’s markets, competitions, and tons of useful articles for writers.
Funds For Writers: Exactly what it sounds like.

Old fashioned methods are still really great ways to find freelance writing gigs. Again, it takes some persistence and personal drive.

• Cold call local businesses, organizations, educational institutions and see if they are in need of someone to write marketing materials/ brochures, etc.
• Check out the no-name pamphlets and/or magazines in your doctor’s office. Someone writes those inspirational stories of people who live with rheumatoid arthritis or those informational articles about what vitamins will make your hair look shiny.
• Contact your local newspaper with story ideas. (Small-town newspapers, too!) Write articles for local magazines; those free circulations you grab at the supermarket are always looking for quality freelancers.
• Know someone famous? Are you tenacious enough to try and get in contact with someone famous? Interviews are ALWAYS marketable. In fact, you can probably shop a good interview around and get a great price.
• I was audacious enough to contact a business owner and point out the many spelling and grammatical flaws in their promising website. I offered to revamp the whole thing. Surprisingly, he agreed! We are working out a contract.
• There’s a market out there for book reviewers. You can always get a free book in the deal, but if you are confident enough, you can get paid well to review an author’s book. Often, they require that you post a review on several different sites. Of course, it takes time to actually read the book. With the rise of e-books, more and more authors are desperate to find third-parties to market their material.

Other interesting places to visit:

The Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing

6 Sites that Pay You for Writing Book Reviews

The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model

5 Tips for Marketing Your Freelance Writing Business

This past year, I have done a lot of technical writing, a lot of fitness writing, some reviews, a lot of website copy, and I just found out a short essay was accepted to be published in an anthology. I recently submitted a short story to a literary magazine. I hope to have time to write more fiction this year, but have also promised the official husband of Holly Goes Lightly that I will write my thesis proposal and get the damn thing done with. Argh. It just feels like such a waste of time and money… but I could use the actual degree.

This year, I would also like to try and submit to actual publications instead of doing so much ghostwriting. Again, this takes me being proactive, and that just seems so… exhausting. I am also trying to network with an online community of writers to garner support and to share ideas. Which brings me to to my question, dost thou haveth ideas to shareth?

To fellow writers: please use comments to suggest other great ways for freelancers to make money writing and to share your writing goals for the year. Holly especially needs marketing advice!

Tips for Combatting Seasonal Affective Disorder

The husband and I went out to a movie last night. My favorite part of any movie-going experience is definitely the previews. I get so excited about previews. By the end of the previews, I generally have forgotten what I paid 9.00 to see.

Anyway, last night they showed a preview for the film “The Road,” a post-apocalyptic tale based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, a man whose novels I avoid on principle. (I feel like I’ve said that before.)

John just finished the book and has spent the last couple of days in a bit of a funk. The story is about a man and his son trying to survive in a nuclear winter. There is cannibalism in this novel. Nothing like a story about nuclear holocaust and cannibalism.

The previews for the film are dark and bleak. There is no sun in a nuclear winter. Just grey skies, dead wildlife, a dreary cold earth. Kind of like Rochester six months out of the year.

This is the hardest time of year for me. December isn’t so bad… the Christmas lights that come out after dark help to quell the feeling of emptiness caused by cloudy, grey days. By the time mid-January hits, I am ready to call it quits and move to California. I don’t even care that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor there.

I totally suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as (how clever is this?) S.A.D. I also suffer from clinical depression. The depression is definitely exacerbated by the S.A.D. If during the darker months you get the gloomy gloomies, it is possible you aren’t getting enough sunlight.

Here is my winter list of things to do to try and combat S.A.D.:

Take Vitamin D in horse-pill form. Also Vitamin C. Go outside even though it hurts my ears and my nose and makes my feet cold all day. Think happy thoughts about things like waterfalls, rainbows, and how fun it would be to host a HSN show. Smell my babies’ heads. Exercise. Snuggle. Enjoy the woodstove. Read things that are unintentionally funny, like Sarah Palin’s autobiography. Smash up my Zoloft and put it in brownies. Read the bible, but not Job, Ecclesiastes, or Lamentations. Barter sex for vague promises of trips to the Caribbean. Enjoy the fluorescent lights of Target. Buy clothes to wear on vague future trip to the Caribbean. Take naps with Daniel. Post picture Caleb draws of the sun on the wall and pretend it is real. Avoid films about the holocaust, the apocalypse, or space. (Because space is dark.)

Curl up in a ball and say buh buh buh buh buh until May.

What to you do to combat S.A.D.?