About Elizabeth Calimente

I am a writer, aspiring to be an author. I've been seduced by the siren song of technology which wars with my paranoid and Luddite tendencies. I live and breathe words and operating systems. I love understanding thought and inspiration from their biochemical bases in the brain, to their very real expression in the outward world.

Goal Setting Experiment Update #1: Success!

SAMSUNG

february results

Lookie! Xs mark the spots!

Ooo, accountability works– so far!

You can see the results here– five red X marks for five successive journaling days.  So, it would appear, at least initially, that being accountable seems to work… for a week.  We’ll see what happens next week.  I’m already not wanting to write today’s ten minutes of blather.

I have to say, journaling isn’t cracking up to be everything it’s reputed to be.  Maybe it’s just me, but I find that writing things down doesn’t exactly get them out of my mind.  In fact, I find myself ruminating over the things I write about all the more.  My journal jar is full of all kinds of prompts about past mistakes, past regrets, and past annoyances.  So, I write about them, hoping for a final cleansing purge, only to find myself reliving them over and over again in all their horrid detail.  One of these days, I’ll probably spend far too long talking about the perils of my exotic personality type, but for now, let’s just say that my long-term memory is far too vivid.

I’ve also had to do a switcheroo of journaling programs.  Daily Diary was far too annoying and anal for my taste.  It protested every time I flubbed up my “password” (literally) and wouldn’t work snapped with my Metro timer app.  So, I’m now using the far less irritating 7Days.  It’s still not helping me want to journal, but at least it’s not actively discouraging me.

Keeping it quiet works too!

You see the four blue X marks.  They’re right where they’re supposed to be, on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.   I like them.  They’re so pretty!  They’re a nice tangible reminder of the fact that this goal is on track to becoming a habit too.  Blue’s also my favorite color, which is another little incentive.

I’m kind of liking that I’m keeping this particular goal quiet.  I’ve failed too many times at setting this as a habit, so aside from experiment results, I’m glad I’m not feeling any external pressure to keep with it.  The lack of stress, honestly, is making it far easier to keep on track than with journaling, even if this habit is a lot more time consuming.

Conclusions?

None yet; I think it’s a little too early.  We’ll see what happens next week.

Experiment: State Goals Publicly or Keep them Quiet for Optimal Success?

Well, let it be said early and often that I’m an individual in need of improvement.  A lot of it.  I’d like to think I’m no different than the rest of us, but, really, who knows?  Either way, I have a few habit-establishment goals I’m trying to accomplish, and I’ve failed at a few of them more than once.  So, what’s the best way to ensure success?  Heck if I know.

There are two separate schools of thought: one that you should hold yourself accountable to the universe so you can keep on track with your new habits, and another that suggests keeping quiet might actually be the true secret to success.

Which one actually works?  Let’s see.  But first, a little background:

State your intention!  Be accountable!

About.com has one of the best quick sum-ups I’ve read on setting intentions.  Essentially, the process is boiled down to four steps:

1. Get clear about something you want and write it down.

2. Share your intention with someone in a way that will supportively hold you accountable to taking action.

3. Do something today to demonstrate your commitment to your intention.

4. Acknowledge that you did what you said you would and then, take the next step.

-Marcia Weider, The Power of Intention – Four Steps For Setting An Intention

If you read a lot of the personal development blogs out there, you’ll find that setting intentions to achieve goals or establish new habits is very popular advice.  I’ve honestly never tried it; as an introvert, one of my least favorite things to do when socializing is to talk about myself and my accomplishments.  I also like to think I can pride myself on my self-sufficiency.  So, suffice to say, this isn’t an approach I’ve ever used, or I’ve ever seen myself using.

Until now.

Keep quiet if you actually want to succeed!

Lifehacker, needless to say, advises the opposite.

A more detailed examination of the whys of keeping goals to yourself actually seems a bit counter-intuitive, and the exact opposite of why I’d think you’d want to stay silent.  Personally, this is my more favored approach, mostly because I hate looking like an idiot when I don’t succeed.  And I really, really, really hate admitting weakness to the external world, even to my friends.

But that’s not the problem.  This is:

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.

In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a “social reality”, even if the solution hadn’t actually been achieved.

So, your mind thinks you’re already through, that you’re already successful.  You’ve already completed the action or established the habit, even if you’ve just primed yourself to take action in your mind.  Your social reality is your true external reality.

I can buy this, completely.  I have a nasty tendency to think through all angles of any problem I’ve approached, and by assessing all of the possible actions I can take, or by establishing a mental plan, I think I’ve completed all of the necessary external work to solve it.  Besides, doing the actual work is boooring.  Anything that assists my brain in deceiving itself that the work is already done is a bad, bad, bad thing.  Horrible.  Terrible.  You get the picture.

So, which actually works?

We’re about to find out.  Beginning today, I’m launching a personal experiment to see which approach is best with two habits I’m hoping to establish.

  • Writing journal entries five times a week.
  • Another goal I’ve failed at each time I’ve tried: I’m looking to repeat this activity four times a week.

To track this, I’ll be using the ultra-simple “Don’t Break the Chain” method.  The journal entries will be indicated with a red X, and the other habit with a blue X in my lovely calendar.

Pretty, isn't it?

Pretty, isn’t it?

Why, “Don’t Break the Chain?”  I stink at actual documentation.  This appeals to my utter loathing of writing things down about as much as can reasonably be accommodated if I’m going to actually track anything.  Seriously, just using typical recording methods most people use to track anything requires a whole new habit to form.  Ugh.

Ideally, you’ll see nine X marks, four red and five blue at the end of a successful week.

Setting my journaling intention

I intend to write for ten minutes, five times a week using my journaling program.  I’ll be using Digital Diary, a Windows 8 app.  My subjects will come from my journal jar: a plastic reach-in tub that holds about 200+ prompts I printed out from various websites.

journal jar

Just reach on in and get a handful of insight!

The advantages to this habit are supposedly to gain inner insight, to introspect (as if I don’t do enough of that already!), and to gain a greater grasp of what makes you tick.  Supposedly, miracles can happen if you write enough, or your life gels, and all of a sudden the universe makes sense or something.  Either way, you’re supposed to get something beyond your usual ordinary perspective by writing about yourself regularly.  Should be amusing, methinks.  If any insight arises from this habit, I’ll be sure to share it.

And in a few minutes, I’ll make my first entry into my new journal.  I’ll report my success (or not) on Monday, February 4.  If I fail, yell at me virtually in the comments section below.

…and here we go!

For further reading: Shhh! Keeping Quiet May Help You Achieve Your Goals by Derek and The Power of Intention: Four Steps For Setting An Intention by Marcia Weider

 

 

 

The Weapons Mentality

gun on the mind

Ever since the Sandy Hook shootings a little over a month ago, gun control advocates and their opponents have been spotlighted in our national political dialog.  I’ve found personally that I identify more with one side of the debate than the other, though my formerly firm position supporting gun control has eroded a little over the years.  All the same, I’m willing to wager that whether you favor gun regulation or no, it’s difficult to understand some of the motivations and arguments of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Frankly, I’m skeptical about the Constitutional arguments on both sides of the debate.  While the pragmatic value of gun control is clear, the rights-based concerns also hold a reasonable amount of merit.  The sad thing is, I understand the secondary motives of the NRA all too well, having experienced them myself.

Bearing weapons changes you in a fundamental way, and alters your very perception of reality. 

Crime!  And weapons!

And now it’s story-time…

Eleven years ago, I was living in a half-gentrified area of Oakland, CA, just a few blocks away from Lake Merritt.  Like most of Oakland, this area was beset with high levels of property crime: during the winter, I’d frequently find the condensation rubbed away from my passenger windows by some curious burglar who never seemed to find anything of interest in my stock radio or in the piles of pointless paper in my backseat.  Still, even though I’d sometimes hear the prostitutes calling or drug addicts might beg me for money on my way back to my apartment building, I’d never felt like I was in any real danger of being shot or mugged or any of a million other violent crimes.

That changed one January night that was no more remarkable than any other, aside from the fact that I’d actually bothered to attend a candle party.  I had a candle-filled bag in one hand, and my purse in the other.  When the man approached me, I was calm; I figured he was just on his way to his car.

“Don’t panic!” he said.

What?  It was only then that I registered he was holding something vaguely pointed in the direction of my chest.

“Just hand me the purse quietly.”  It was a pistol, I think.  A small, evil, black thing.

All of a sudden, everything froze.  I froze, and maybe I looked panicked, maybe I didn’t.  I wasn’t, though.  I’d gone cold, solid, logical.  I scanned the buildings while hopefully pretending to look shocked.  Maybe I actually was shocked.  I still don’t know.  Lights were on in all the buildings, and my mind flashed to what I should do next.  Don’t scream for help, I’d read, because no one pays attention.  Yell “Fire!” instead.  I’d also read that you’re supposed to give up your money, your purse, your wallet, except, as my mind systematically categorized everything I’d need to survive a night outside.

Keys.  In the purse.

Cell phone to call for help.  In the purse.

Keys to my parents’ house.  In the purse.

Address to my parents’ house.  In the purse.

My odds weren’t looking so good, nor were my parents’ either, if this guy was more than just a mugger.  I was damned if I was going to endanger them by giving anything up.  I didn’t care if the man was holding dynamite; I’d fare better at his hands than spending the night outside in the cold in the middle of Oakland, hoping someone from my apartment building would find me alive and intact in the morning.

“Fire!” I screamed, turning back to him.  “Fire!  Fire!”

It was a chant in my head.

“Don’t scream!” He shook the gun at me.  “Stop screaming!  Give me the bag!”

He yanked one purse strap with his free hand, the gun still aimed loosely at me.  I held the body of the purse, and he’d missed the second strap.  I clutched it, still screaming, still chanting about a mythical fire.  He tugged harder, and I gripped its bulk against my body until I could feel my fingers strain.  He yanked, I pulled.  I kept up the chant, feeling the fire burn me.

“Give it to me!”  He ripped at the strap, and it finally gave way in his hand.

I collapsed against my neighbor’s fence, still screaming, as the man dropped the strap and ran toward the Lake.  He’d had the strap, but I still had everything.  Just as fast as he’d run away, I realized I was okay.  I was safe.  I could go home and relax.  I took a deep breath which left me just as the neighbor’s useless old Chow barked and snapped at me through the fence after it had remained silent all through the fight.  Stupid dog!

Arming myself.

I’d made it just fine through the police report, but I still ended up driving an hour and a half to Petaluma to spend the night with my then-boyfriend and now-husband.  I drove another hour and a half to work the next morning.  I was shaky, but more or less all right.  Get some pepper spray, one of the cops had told me the night before, but I hadn’t seriously considered it.

Really, I’m a klutz.  I’m also not very good at remaining paranoid about doing basic things like walking to my car at night.  Mostly because I’m not good at remembering to be paranoid.  I’d heard all the “safety tips” about putting your car keys in between your fingers so you can stab a night-time assailant with an impromptu weapon, but I only remembered to do that the first week after I’d learned the technique.  Frankly, I’d never been bothered, so I figured such things were pointless.  If I carried pepper spray, I’d either shoot myself in the eye or I’d forget to hold it at the ready.

That changed when I got the phone call.

It was another policeman, following up with some details.  At the end of the questioning, I was a little shaky, but all right until the lecture.

“Next time someone holds you up, give them what they ask for!”

My gut had told me otherwise, and my mind had assessed the risk accurately.

“But I–”

“Just do it!  Your life is more valuable than a purse.”

But the officer last night told me I’d done the right thing, and he’d said, “The dispatcher is in awe of you.  She said, ‘But this one fought, and won!”  I wish I’d had the words then.  Instead, the reality came crashing down around my head, and what had felt like a major victory against fear instead turned into the paranoia I’d so dreaded.  I went home from work early and in tears.  A couple of hours later, I exchanged cash for a key-chain pepper spray canister.

I hadn’t won.  I’d lost.  And carrying a weapon was all I had to hold myself together.  I’d thought I’d vanquished fear and ensured my own safety unarmed, but I wasn’t safe at all.  The spray was my safety.  My real safety.  I couldn’t count on myself, not if what I’d done was wrong.  I clutched the canister in hand and felt powerful again, because next time I’d be the injurer, not the injured.

Look!  Over there!  It’s a mugger!  No, it’s a bush.

I had a new routine every time I headed for the car, and every time I left the car until I made it to “safety.”  I’ve never been one for routines.  The everyday and mundane usually puts me to sleep: I’m the only one I know of who gets bored getting dressed every day.  You know, put the pants on the same way, one leg at a time, pull the shirt over your head…  Booooring!  This routine, though, was a weird solace.

  • Put spray in hand deliberately before leaving the car.
  • Check to make sure the nozzle’s pointed the right direction.
  • Make sure the nozzle clears the fingers so residue doesn’t end up blinding me later if I do have to spray.
  • Put one finger loosely enough on the trigger that it won’t fire by accident, but firmly enough that someone can’t wrestle it away.
  • Lock the car door with the free hand, while aiming the spray away from the door and close it firmly behind.
  • Carry spray informally at my side, so that it doesn’t look threatening to others.
  • Keep hackles raised just enough that I’m ready to spray if any danger actually presents itself.
  • At the door to apartment building or place of safety, drop the spray long enough to pull open or unlock said door.
  • Sigh in relief that nothing happened.

Yep, paranoid.  Every time I left the car, I followed the same routine until it became a ritual of a sort.  I eyed everything and everyone suspiciously on my path, even during the day.  Even if I slept without nightmares, the incident still gripped me by the throat every time I had to go somewhere.

The worst part was, I expected something else to happen.  Statistically, the odds of being a victim of a violent crime are virtually nil– in California, currently, 1 in 243, and in crime-ridden Oakland, the chances of being a victim of a robbery are 9 in 1,000.  Again, not particularly likely.  But I knew I would be again, I could feel it.  I clutched my crutch with all my heart and will.  And next time, I’d do some damage, all in the guise of protecting myself.

Except nothing happened.  Six months later, after watching Bowling for Columbine, I finally decided to put my weapon aside.  When I did, the world almost seemed to shift.

Deep breaths of relief.

Finally, my chest loosened when I put the spray away in a drawer.  I could park and walk without fear, and even though I did the key through the fingers trick a few times after, I suddenly remembered what it was to feel secure.  I could finally bask in my victory, just a little, and as the days went uneventfully by, I felt my world return.

I was safe, just as most of us are, almost every day.

More than that, that belligerence within me died as well.  Once I let go of the weapon, my desire for revenge seemed to dissolve as well, like a toxic vapor.  I could go about life, unarmed, and unencumbered.  And, more than that, I could finally recognize that I actually had done the right thing at the time when I’d fought my mugger.  He’d been more afraid than I had as I remembered the way his voice had trembled.  The way the gun had quaked in his hands.  The way the likely toy gun had wavered up and down as he’d threatened me.

I’d built my world and my perception around the presence of my weapon.  I’d allowed it to narrow my perspective until all I could see around me was threat and flight and fear.

Debates, debates.

I’m guessing something similar happens in the minds of those who do a concealed or open carry.  They’ve got weapons, armed against a dangerous and unpredictable world, and they’ll use them.

It doesn’t matter how statistically unlikely it is that they’ll ever suffer any crime, because the world is dangerous, and they’re ready.  And they want us all to be just as ready.  They’ll risk accidents and theft of said firearms because it’s better to be prepared, even if there’s really nothing to prepare for.  It doesn’t matter that they’re just making the world more dangerous for the rest of us.  Who knows how much danger I put innocents in carrying around something far less lethal?  To think about accidentally pressing that trigger, just because I was ready still sends chills down my spine.

I get where they’re coming from, I really do, even if it frightens me.

What this means for the whole gun control debate, I’m not sure.  But I do get both sides, even if I don’t want to.

Grokking the Author Platform

stage

All the world’s a platform!

Publishing these days, from everything I’ve been reading, involves massive amounts of marketing on the part of the author.  You need media savvy, business acumen, and a vast array of skills that don’t actually seem to be related to writing.  I’m of two opposing positions on this new change, but here I’m going to pretend that I’m not feeling personally violated in the slightest.  Nope, not at all.  Nunh unh.  Instead, I’m going to try to convince myself that the process of developing a personal platform is sparkling with the fairy dust of inspiration, and glittering with pure potential.  Because it is, and in an odd way, it’s exhilarating.

So, what is this platform thing I’ve been ambling on about?  Glad you asked.

At its most fundamental level, your author platform is you.

Building from that base, your platform is how you present yourself, your personal strengths, and your writerly arts to the external world.  Your expertise, if you don’t mind me slipping into the marketing jargon I’ve been reading too much of lately.

Disclaimer: I’m just at the ground level (ridiculously grandiose exaggeration) of platform building myself, and I’m still trying to get my brain around how it’s done.  But I can point you to the books that have really helped me understand the process.

1. The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen

If you’re even thinking of trying to become published or working in any capacity as a professional writer, I highly recommend this book.  It also should have been the book I began with first when I was trying to understand author marketing and the platform-building process.  Sage Cohen’s writing walks an elegant line between the practical and inspirational, and for that alone I’d recommend this book even without her excellent overview of what platform building actually is.

In short, start here.  You’ll receive a solid basis and context for understanding a lot of the more concrete advice in Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, and Get Known Before the Book Deal.  Likely, you might be inspired enough to want to build a platform.  As it was, I’d already read the latter book, and had developed a thick crust of cynicism and annoyance.  This book washed it away in a tide of new ideas, and helped me to understand that a platform could actually serve well as both a professional and life guide.

Note: Turn off your inner editor when flipping through this book at a local bookstore.  For some reason, the horse’s “reins” are consistently spelled like a king’s “reign.”  I almost didn’t buy the book for that reason, and I’d have probably regretted that forever.

2. Sell Your Book Like Wildfire by Rob Eagar

I’m kind of torn in recommending this book over Get Known Before the Book Deal.  To be perfectly honest, the information within both books is quite similar, though Eagar’s book is more comprehensive.  Both rely on a fair amount of marketing jargon, but Eagar’s is probably a little more impenetrable; understandable considering this is fundamentally a business book first and a writing book second.  If you read this book, you probably won’t need Get Known, and I highly recommend you do.  I’m hugely biased though: this book reads like a professional effort, and not like a “chatty” self-help book the way Get Known does.

Eagar covers every aspect of platform building for both fiction (yay!) and nonfiction writers, from media interviews to newsletters, to guerrilla marketing tactics.  And he does it in concrete steps that are reasonably easy to follow.  The one drawback is his emphasis on shelling out huge amounts of money for professional web design, videotaping of speaking engagements, etc.  You’d have to be wealthy to afford everyone he suggests hiring.  That said, he’s clear that you don’t have to do everything in the book to build a respectable platform.

If you want to know everything there is to know about creating a platform, this is your book.

Note:  The term “leader” is used a lot in this book before Eager finally defines what he means in the second-to-last chapter.  He’s referring to the decision-makers in any group setting: managers, executives, church pastors and the like.

3. (tentative) Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz

I’m going to admit right off the bat that this book royally ticked me off.  It’s probably unfair, but there’s something in the author’s style that really, really annoys me.  The “chattiness” I referred to earlier isn’t the chatting of a friend to another friend, but that of a parent to a child, with that same hint of condescension and lecturing.  That put me right off the book, even if I did read it cover to cover.  The personality is thick in this book, while Eagar tends to back away and usually lets the facts do the talking.

If either of the examples below doesn’t bother you, or actually helps you somehow, you might want to choose Katz’ book over Eagar’s.  Otherwise, go with Sell Your Book Like Wildfire.  There’s enough overlap in material that you won’t miss out if you only read one of the two.

  • “The problem for writers who want a leg up today isn’t the state of the world, the unstable economy, or even the climate in the publishing industry… The problem isn’t (if you have one of these) your editor, your agent, your publisher or even your publisher’s publicist…  The problem just might be, my dear fellow writer, you…  Specifically your attitude.”
  • Exercise for establishing your platform: “Have you ever imagined yourself as an action figure?  Want to imagine yourself as an action figure?  Go to [website] and browse the action figures, and then describe yours.  What props does your action figure have?”

Katz makes a huge deal of the concept of “authenticity” in this book, and if that resonates with you, you’ll probably connect to it better than I did.  Despite the constant reminder to always be genuine when interacting with the outer world through your platform, I found the book to feel very inauthentic, in that Katz seems to have a clear platform-defined persona which she keeps under tight restraint.

That said, there’s a lot of valuable information in this book, and if you can read past the platform spin better than I can, you’ll get a lot out of it.

Note: If you really do want to see platform in action, read this book.  This book is clearly a product of Christina Katz’ platform, a real-life case study in what something engineered specifically for platform-expanding purposes might look like.

If you’ve been wondering what to read to get your brain around marketing and platform-building, I hope I’ve helped cut down your potential list just a little.

Beware! Blurry fonts on Firefox 18

I like to pretend I’m a responsible computer owner.  I update everything the moment it’s available, even if I should know better.  If you’re the same, you’re probably seeing the same font nastiness I am on Firefox 18.  And it’s not just me.

A few hours ago, Blogger sites hurt my eyes, but it looks like Google has made a few tweaks to fix issues in Firefox.  Still, the bug fixed in Firefox 17.01 seems to have re-asserted itself in Firefox 18.

Fortunately, it is fixable, at least on Windows 8.  Full details are here in this ghacks article. I’ve done my own experimentation; the solution mostly works, though a few sites still seem to render strangely (including the “text” tab of WordPress’ own blogging editor).  Toggling gfx.font_rendering.cleartype.always_use_for_content to “true” just makes the problem worse on most sites, even if sites like Reddit look a little better, so my advice is, “Don’t touch!”

Update:

After downgrading to Firefox 17.0.1 for a couple of days, I upgraded to Firefox 18.0.1.  By turning on hardware acceleration (Options > Advanced > General > check “Use hardware acceleration when available“), most sites looked a lot better, even if they’re still not perfect.