A Post without a Point

The doorway into Tiffany's flagship store
New York City

Here's the situation -- I'm a writer, but writing is not enough. A writer has to promote her work and that, somehow, includes promoting herself. According to them -- that is the them that speak at writing conferences and write books about writing -- writers should be on at least three platforms.

Platform? Platform? Like the platform a politician runs on? Like the one that supports your waterbed? Maybe the one that gives you a place to stand on scaffolding? "What kind of platform?" you may well ask. As do I.

Those How-To folks in the writing business mention Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Goodreads, blogging, ad infinitum. Facebook I use to keep up with my family and the friends I really care about keeping up with. Twitter I'm trying, but I take a really engaging photo with my phone then forget to attach it to the corresponding tweet so the tweet makes no sense at all. I keep getting requests from Linkedin and I always honor them, but I don't have the vaguest what to do with them or what they're doing with me. Pinterest is dangerous. It's like YouTube. If I click on it, pretty soon it's dinner time and I haven't written a word or washed the dishes. Goodreads. Now this one I understand. Well, not how it will help promote my writing, but it adds to my already very long list of books I want to read.

That brings us to blogging. This platform I actually like. It gives me a place I can put my flash fiction out there for people to read. And, yes, like most writers, that's why I write -- for people to read. BUT when you put something on your blog it's considered published so you cannot then submit it to most publications or contests.

And I've been busy writing for submission so I haven't had much time to do my blog. I'm trying some travelogues because of the bloggers I admire who do that sort of thing -- Anabel's Travel Blog and my cousin's wife Debbie's blog about their full-time RV living.

You'd think I wouldn't have to tax my writing brain for these. After all I'm just showing and telling. Right? Wrong! Telling, I can do. It's the showing that takes me way too long. I haven't figured out how to get the pictures on the blog page like I want them. Maybe I'm unreasonable in my aspirations or maybe I'm just inept.

But that's not what I come here to talk about.

I read a book once. Actually I've read lots of books and some of them more than once. Anyway -- this book was a travelogue about bathrooms. I tried to look it up on Amazon, but that was a long time ago and it may not have seen a very large distribution.

The Ladies' in that book that stuck in my mind was the one at Tiffany's in New York. (Hence the photo at the top of this post.) The book described an elegant Ladies' Room complete with comfortable couches, elegant mirrors, and an attendant in an anteroom quite separate from the necessaries. Needless to say that Ladies' is on my bucket list, right along side the Aurora Borealis and the Statue of Liberty. Oh, yes, and the Lions out front of the Metropolitan Library in NYC.

Since reading that book I have made a semi-serious study of public facilities. And today, I visited the best one so far in the Denver area.

I took my daughter Grace to the dentist this morning. Any trip to the dentist triggers an uncontrollable urge for chocolate and coffee. The French Press was the best possible outcome for such a morning. Not only do they have wonderful filled chocolate cupcakes and mocha coffee, but their Ladies' is great. It's actually two largish rooms for either gender. They have a changing table for those little ones and grab bars for us older ones. They are clean and have paper products. Two things you expect, but are too often disappointed by their absence.

All this inspired reflections on bathrooms we have known.

Grace remembered the Ladies' Room at the Masonic Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma. It had an anteroom with comfortable seating, lovely mirrors, and a baby grand piano.

My all-time favorite was the Ladies' at the Magnolia Cafe, a Creole restaurant in Oklahoma City. Unfortunately no longer there. But the memories! The Ladies' Room was a destination in and of itself. There was a huge mural on one wall. A photograph of a bicycle race. Naked men in a bicycle race. Now if that won't make you laugh out loud and bring you back to show your friends, I don't know what will.

Then we both thought of the City Bites burger joints in the Oklahoma City area. Maybe they have them elsewhere. Their Ladies' had one wall that was a one-way window into the restaurant. Those in the dining area couldn't see into the facilities, but those in the facilities had an unobstructed view into the dining area. Talk about a shy bladder! And to be honest. I don't remember noticing if it was clean or not. I only went in there once and I didn't stay.

Hmmmm. I'm not sure this will promote my writing, but I had fun. Now for some lunch and then I'll get back to work. I've got a short story and a book to finish.

U is for Ukraine

I didn’t want to take up blogging. Facebook was traumatic enough for me. When I first started with it, I felt insecure. No. Worse than that. Threatened. I felt like I was giving access to my house, my private safe place, ultimately to me, to people I knew but would never have invited into my home. More than that. And worse. Hundreds of thousands, a world full of people I didn’t even know.

With a little help from my tech savvy daughter I learned enough about Facebook to feel like I have some control over who has access to me.

Then I wrote a book.

And people who knew what they were talking about said I would have to use ‘platforms’ to sell my book. To my horror, they meant Blogging and Twitter and Instagram and goodness knows what other invasive technology. All I wanted to do was write a book.

And have people read the book and enjoy it. To do that a writer has to sell the book.

I used to be a reporter for a small town daily newspaper so the concept of having strangers read what I write felt familiar to me. And I wouldn’t have to talk about me like posting my status on Facebook. I could maintain some sense of privacy.

I could write about writing and reading and other people’s books and movies and current events and . . . . Well you see. And it would feel quite normal that strangers would read my blog. It goes right along with people reading my book. I don’t need to know them either.

So . . . .

I chose Google’s blogspot to blog. Not because I knew what I was doing when I made the choice. I didn’t weigh my options because I didn’t know what options were available. I was using Google as my browser, my default research librarian, my street navigator. You get the picture.

Blogspot displays a curious set of information. (Actually a whole bunch of enigmatic sets of information that I have not yet had the courage to explore.) It’s “Stats.”

Stats includes something identified as Pageviews by Countries. I’m still not sure exactly what constitutes a pageview, but I understand the concept of countries. And one of the countries that began to show up on a somewhat regular basis was the Ukraine.

Of course I can’t tell if the person or persons are Ukrainian who are interested in practicing their English by reading a basically anonymous American’s writings. He, she, or they could be Americans currently in the Ukraine and missing home. They could be terrorist spies redirecting their internet connections through the UK to Germany to Japan to Indonesia and finally through the Ukraine.

But somehow, he or she or they felt like real people to me. I know nothing about the geography of the Ukraine, so it wouldn’t mean anything to know which city they live in. But I do know that the Ukraine is a battle ground where competing governments are putting people in harm’s way. And when those ‘stats’ from the Ukraine stopped showing up I worried.

I worried that they were ill and unable to surf the internet. Or that they were without power and I knew it could be cold there in winter. Or that the war had come to them.

I tried to remind myself that they could be on vacation in some nice warm country with good wine and rich food. Or that their own writing was going so well that they hadn’t time to bother with mine. Or worse scenario for me, that they’d gotten bored with what I was writing.

The good news is that they’re back.

Hello Ukraine. I’m so glad to see you.

Reviews and Ratings

When are the Ratings Stars Over-Rated?

 

     Mysteries and Science Fiction are the two fiction genres I read most often. And that is true of movies I watch, too. I have not standardly rated books I've read or movies I've watched. Doing so has always seemed a little too close to being a critic. Generally speaking, I hold critics in the same high disregard as Emergency Room docs.

 

    Having recently been exposed to some excellent ER docs, and preparing to publish my first novel, I guess it's time to mend my pretentious ways and join the ranks of the amateur critics. All the experts say I need to get my name before the public. Those experts ask me what platforms I'm on. Pinterest? Twitter? Facebook? And I say that most of the time my platform of choice is Earth. They are not amused.

   

    So now -- Netflix, I will rate the shows I see, and I will review them so my name and opinions will be out there. (I'm not sure Netflix is what they mean by 'platform.' But the opportunity pops up every time I watch a show and I watch quite a few shows. Where else would I get my fix of British crime mysteries?)

 

    And Goodreads, if I can figure out how or get my daughter to show me, I'll rate and review the books I read.

 

    Twitter and Pinterest? I don't think so. (You should read that last sentence in the familiar sing-song of disdain.) Who knows, maybe someday I'll see the error of my ways and join those 'platforms,' too.

 

    That brings us to the Ratings Stars. How to do this. How? Easy -- right? Right, if I didn't like or hated the book or show, it's one or two stars. Then things get sticky.

 

    The African Queen, Downton Abbey, and  Prime Suspect are five stars. A Prayer for Owen Meany and the Wheel of Time series are five stars. I will watch and read them again and again. And there are many titles out there that I would rate five stars.

 

    But the vast majority of books I read and shows I watch are three stars. When you hover over the

3 Stars rating it says "I liked it." So why do I feel as though I'm dissing the work by rating it only three stars? Maybe it's from my public school days when a C was not good enough. B's were a little more acceptable, but anything less than an A was suspect.

 

     I thoroughly enjoy Diana Mott Davidson's mysteries and those by Nevada Barr. Michael Connelly and John Lescroart get good solid 3 Stars from me and I will always come back to them. With this in mind, when you see I've rated something three stars, that means I liked it. And I will seek out more work by that writer or actor or director.

    If I give something four stars that means there is something outstanding about it, but I doubt I will watch or read it again -- maybe like Boston Legal or Dan Brown's  Da Vinci Code it's well-done and incorporates surprise or maybe even shock, but by virtue of having watched or read it that surprise is lost. As great as they are, my 4 Stars will not bring me back with the same degree of passion and wonder as those magnificent 5 Stars.