First Huffington Post Piece is Up

There's more in the works soon, but for now, my first post is up at The Huffington Post for "Off The Bus". I was planning to just write an intro to the Personal Democracy Forum conference and then they announced the Twitter debate, so I used that to get into the topic. (And I love the graphic they chose - very cute.) I look forward to covering the convention further next week.

Here's the permanent link for the piece, and any future posts I write for HuffPo or OTB will be at www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-granger.

Books & Blogs

More bloggers are writing books and vice versa - it's a nice combination. And more bloggers are being approached to review the books.

Last night, I attended a launch party with other members of the media and tech companies, sponsored by the Horn Group for Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff's new book, Groundswell. Li and Bernoff are Forrester analysts and Li is a contributing writer for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. I'm really looking forward to reading this book - it shows companies how to utilize social networking tools for their benefit.

The next book I've been given to review via the MOMocrats is Arianna Huffington's Right is Wrong. I love the subtitle: "How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (And What You Need to Know to End the Madness)". Nice way to hone in on your audience... Here's one way I know to end the madness without reading all 331 pages: vote for Obama. Seriously though, she did some hefty research for this book - the source notes alone are impressive. I enjoyed On Becoming Fearless and although this is a totally different kind of book, Huffington's writing is always witty and interesting, whether you agree with her or not.

The other book I look forward to perusing is Writing Motherhood, by Lisa Garrigues. On first glance, it looks like a combination memoir and instruction manual for moms to hold onto a) themselves, b) the precious moments with their (our) little ones, and c) their careers through writing. After just finishing Writer Mama by Christina Katz, this should be an interesting contrast. Writer Mama is a primer for making freelancing work while parenting. As a fairly experienced writer, I already knew most of what was in that book, but it has some fabulous resources that I was able to compile into a comprehensive list.

In other news, I met Kathleen Sebelius on Friday. Here's the full report from that.

Done Lately?

I'm not writing here much right now, but I have been busy on many many collaborative sites so I wanted to share a brief update about that...

I recently joined the MOMocrats. I've been blogging about politics on and off for a while, and doing it on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog gave a few of us the idea of doing it for our respective presidential candidates. I was frankly too busy to start another collaborative blog myself, so I just blogged about Hillary wherever I could (which has other advantages of reaching a broader audience vs. preaching to the choir), but some of my friends started blogging together about John Edwards and their site was great. We talked early on about working together once a nominee was selected and it was sort-of de facto that we would put our efforts together whenever that point came. When Edwards dropped out of the race, most of them began supporting Obama, but they also opened up the blog for everyone to participate and so I joined. I'm in the minority there as a Hillary supporter, but we have a great dialogue and it's a wonderful group of intelligent people. So I haven't written much yet, but stay tuned, especially toward the election.

For Playborhood, I did some research about preschools and wrote an article about the preschool search pertaining to kids and play. I also put that research to use when interviewed for Bay Area Parent magazine. And I wrote a brief article for Bay Area Parent which I believe will be in the May issue. I still write regularly for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, including putting up a post last night about meeting Maria Shriver, First Lady of California, which was a real treat - especially after reading her latest book.

I spent last weekend in Sacramento being trained on legislative advocacy in the State of California since I'm now the Junior Representative from the Junior League of Palo Alto/Mid-Peninsula to the State Public Affairs Committee for the Junior Leagues of California. (I know it's a mouth full. Sorry.) What that means is that I get to review proposed bills, research them, meet with legislators, and vote within a committee over the next two years as to any legislation the Junior Leagues will support. As we focus on women and children, our issue areas are education, health, family support, and domestic violence prevention. It's a great learning opportunity and it's a wonderful feeling to know we're helping change lives.

Early last week, I compiled some materials that USACM had written about our positions on national technology policies into a paper that we submitted to the Yale Technology Law Journal for the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference that supposedly will be submitted to the next presidential administration as recommendations on information technology policy. I like keeping active in the tech policy arena when I can, and as a member now of USACM for over 10 years, I enjoy the people involved immensely. Anyway we'll see if the paper is accepted. I would like to think the next administration could learn from USACM - some incredibly brilliant people are involved.

SFBayStyle is growing strong. With a large group of interesting writers, we're getting some great feedback and we're having a lot of opportunities to cover some fantastic events. What I love about creating our own blog about style and fashion is that we can do whatever we want with it, which to me means emphasizing the nonprofit, philanthropic and community component as often as possible. And we have nearly 300 articles up in under a year.

I recently began blogging for ecofabulous, a great site for finding everything that's beautiful and eco for homes, clothes, dining, travel, etc. I also covered the World Figure Skating Championships for BlogHer (Sports & Fitness) and I look forward to writing more for them in the future.

I'm still writing on occasion for Acceller's Digital Landing site. It's a great place for learning basics about technology - TV, phones, computers, etc. So I know my audience here is above all that, but you can send your parents there.

Looking back at this list, it seems like I'm doing a lot, and I am, but I like participating in a lot of different venues because it means I can write about all sorts of topics that I find interesting while working in the community as well. For anyone who wants to keep tabs on my current endeavors for whatever reason, see grangers.com. Otherwise, please be patient and I'll write more of my own thoughts here soon.

Six Degrees of Tom Perkins

I hosted a book club meeting for the first time last night and the book I chose was a little different than the novels we've read in the past. The book club is for my (relatively new, as of a little over a year ago) neighborhood and the group is largely social, but also highly intelligent, well-read, well-traveled, and full of interesting people. I'd read some good reviews about Valley Boy, Tom Perkins's autobiographical book, and had made it through a few chapters when I made the selection. Some of the neighbors who came to my home liked it; others didn't, no big surprise, but nearly everyone had some kind of connection to the book either through people they knew, places they had traveled or worked.

Perkins, founder of Kleiner Perkins (later to become Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers), the most well-known venture capital firm in the world, wrote about everything from sailing to IPOs, and he wrote it well. Various people had their opinions of Perkins and his opinions after reading the book, of course, but everyone thought his take on the HP-Compaq merger was interesting as well as his philanthropic endeavors and what he wrote of his love life. (For those who don't know, he was involved with the San Francisco Ballet board, he lost his wife of many years to cancer, and he was briefly wed to Danielle Steel.) He also helped build Tandem Computers and Genentech. He's now on the board of News Corp.

Here is a bit of a bio and a recent photo of Perkins, here is the publisher's info, and here is his Wikipedia entry. Even if you're not a fan but you find these topics of interest, check the book out at the library - it's an interesting read.

RIP Arthur Clarke, One of Sci-Fi's Greatest

He turned Jupiter into a second sun and now he's gone. At age 90, one of science fiction's greatest, Arthur C. Clarke, has died. He passed his last years in Sri Lanka, this Brit served in the Royal Air Force in WWII, survived polio, designed preliminary modern satellites, and wrote classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's quite a life.

The Washington Post has a nice write-up, and Space.com wrote about the industry response. USA Today covers his body of work in impressive detail.

I recall vividly the first time I read 2001: A Space Odyssey the realism of his ideas and how they affected me. He was a visionary. Arthur C. Clarke will be missed, but not forgotten, with 80 books and 500 essays.

Me, A Sports Writer?

Those who know me wouldn't consider me a sports enthusiast. I'm one of those people who comes up with excuses why not to attend most popular sporting events. I look forward to the Superbowl commercials, I pretend not to know the difference between soccer and lacrosse, and I refuse to watch any basketball except the Kansas Jayhawks (who somehow revived their football team this year in surprise to many). This is simply because it's more of a religion than a sport when you grow up in Kansas.

Well, now I'm going to be reporting about the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships next week for BlogHer in their Sports and Fitness area, and I realized that technically makes me a sports writer. Who would've thought? As a freelance writer, I've written about skating before for newsletters and here (see skating category; see also my post about last year's nationals), but this will be my first professional project and I can't be more thrilled.

I've been skating since I was five, I competed some as a kid and then more as an adult including winning medals at national and international events in my age and test category, and one of the most major accomplishments of my life was passing my Adult Gold Figure Skating Test. That took a lot of time and dedication. I've worked behind the scenes on countless figure skating events, I've done a little judging, and now my two year-old is taking to skating so I'm moving into the role of skating parent. I understand most of the angles and pressures involved in the sport as well as the physical mechanics involved and the number system as to why some things are ranked with more difficulty than others. So I'm looking forward to infusing some of my knowledge into what I write about the event.

For the Nationals TV schedule, current news and an online skating challenge, check out the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) site. And to get more coverage of the event for figure skating fans, it's inexpensive to join icenetwork.com and see the events from the whole 2007-2008 season online.

Bloggers and Writers - Use Creative Commons Licenses - Here's Why

I had the pleasure of getting to know Cory Doctorow while I was volunteering for theEFF one summer. He is an extraordinary writer and networker, and his work is brilliant. So rather than trying to paraphrase his writing, I'll just quote it directly. It is, after all, under Creative Commons license:

"My writing career and Creative Commons are inextricably bound together. My first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published by Tor, the largest science fiction publisher in the world, on January 9, 2003, just a few days after CC launched its first licenses. I was the first author to use the licenses, applying them to my book and releasing it for free online on the same day it appeared in stores. Today, the book has been through more printings than I can keep track of, been translated into more languages than I know, and has been downloaded more than 750,000 times from my site alone (I don’t know the total number of downloads, because, of course, anyone is free to redistribute it)."

More...

"CC turns my books from nouns into verbs. My books *do stuff*, get passed around and recut and remade to suit the needs of each reader, turned to their hand the way that humans always have adapted their tools and stories to fit their circumstances. As Tim O’Reilly says, my problem is not piracy, it’s obscurity, and CC licenses turn my books into dandelion seeds, able to blow in the wind and find every crack in every sidewalk, sprouting up in unexpected places. Each seed is a possibility, an opportunity for someone out there to buy a physical copy of the book, to commission work from me, to bring me in for a speech. I once sold a reprint of an article of mine to an editor who saw it in a spam message — the spammer had pasted it into the “word salad” at the bottom of his boner-pill pitch to get past the filters. The editor read the piece, liked it, googled me, and sent me a check."

"CC lets me be financially successful, but it also lets me attain artistic and ethical success. Ethical in the sense that CC licenses give my readers a legal framework to do what readers have always done in meatspace: pass the works they love back and forth, telling each other stories the way humans do. Artistic because we live in the era of copying, the era when restricting copying is a fool’s errand, and by CC gives me an artistic framework to embrace copying rather than damning it."

"Writers all over the world are adopting CC licenses, creating an artistic movement that treats copying as a feature, not a bug. As a science fiction writer, this is enormously satisfying: here we have artists who are acting as though they live in the future, not the past. CC is changing the world, making it safe for copying, and just in time, too."

Make it so. See Cory's post and select your license here.

If You Want to Write a Novel, There's No Time Like November

National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, begins again this Thursday, November 1st. It's a month-long journey into the experience of speed fiction, and tens of thousands (perhaps more?) have participated to date. "The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30." Loads of people do it, and they love it. The idea is to focus on quantity, not quality, and to come to the end and say: "hey, I wrote a novel."

NaNoWriMo was founded by Chris Baty, who also came up with my nickname, Sairy. He's a friend from high school and he now runs the nonprofit, the Office of Letters and Light, which manages NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, and more based in Oakland. Chris also authored No Plot? No Problem! the handbook and kit for writing novels quickly. Chris is a brilliant writer, and NaNoWriMo has enjoyed significant success to date.

In any case, if you've ever wanted to write a novel, this is a great environment - supportive, fun, and low key. Best wishes to everyone who participates in NaNoWriMo this year!

Philanthropy & SFBayStyle

I have a lot to post on this blog, but it may be a few days... I'm working on getting a couple of collaborative sites rolling. I've mentioned SFBayStyle.com before - it's really growing now. We're adding writers and events. We have a whole lot of nonprofit philanthropic events we'll be covering in the next few months. And we're working the eco angle as well, so environmentalists, stay tuned for that.

I've moved my art, music, fashion and philanthropic posts that are unrelated to tech over to SFBayStyle because it seemed to be a better fit, so Sairy.com will continue to house the old posts, but it's now really going to focus on what the tagline says - tech, politics (candidates & policy), philanthropy (nonprofits & causes) and culture that relates to those things... the original plan for this blog. That way since many people are only interested in one vs. the other & not both, they won't have to weed through whichever doesn't interest them in order to find what does.

I'll post later this week or next about the other launch I'm working on...

Water Tables, Wasps, Web & Warfare

I can't keep track of everything going on, but amidst trying to order a water play table for my daughter, keep wasps (actually yellow jackets, I guess) away from her swingset, and follow news about how the Chinese are planning to attack us online (wtf?) along with all of the SVMoms' political activity after a week in the North Woods, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.

It's all thrilling, but I get off the plane going through email on my iPhone just trying to keep up on the most urgent. Honestly I feel like I'm in the middle of a Presidential campaign again. (Yeah, I know we are, but I'm not working 100 hours a week just on that this time around... at least not right now.)

Watching how the campaigns are doing, it's all good - Hillary is rocking in the print magazines, Edwards' online campaign is on fire, Barack is getting the newspapers going, and I'm hearing more about Thompson and Giuliani every day (although I might add that the Elle magazine article I read on the plane about Rudy's ways with women wasn't all that positive.) Keep up with the tech news about the campaigns at TechPresident or Politics Online. And in terms of national security, Gary Hart has launched a new organization - the American Security Project. I'm very excited about this. I'll blog more about it soon.

Back in the parenting world, plastics are everywhere and although the sky isn't falling, the oceans may be. My dad gave me this frightening chapter from Alan Weisman's book to read while I was in Minnesota. Our oceans are literally drowning in these toxic plastics everybody's ranting about being dangerous to children and fertility, affecting our planetary water table.

Two New Articles at DigitalLanding.com

One of my writing clients is Acceller, recently ranked as one of Inc. magazine's top 500 fastest growing private companies (#54). They just launched their new Digital Landing site, where two of my articles have been published. (More to come.)

My first article, Tips for Installing a Cable Modem, covers the basics of setting up a cable modem in your home. The second article of mine they've published is called Digital Lifestyle Changes and Challenges - Adapting to a New Baby - something I know a little about. ;) It's been fun writing for them and I hope to continue to do so.

William Gibson's Latest Novel

Spook Country, I read in a recent Wired interview that William Gibson's latest is more of a spy novel than sci-fi, so I decided to pick it up one day at the Stanford Bookstore and start reading... it had been a few years since my last foray of Gibson's work - Idoru, I think it was - and I thought it was about time to pick up another. I've always been a fan, since Neuromancer first came out, but this book seemed to come from a different genre all together. Until I began reading.

The character who Gibson first introduces the reader to is a woman journalist who is technically astute and a risk-taker. I like her already. She finds herself in unpredictable circumstances, as do many of Gibson's characters, and although it's a book set now rather than in the near future cyberpunk timeframe, the world he creates around these characters still has a similarly gritty feel because of the way he crafts the language as well as the story. It fascinates me.

Gibson has an essence in his writing that I always loved. Somehow through the depth of his character creation and his ability to craft stories through a mellifluous cornucopia of language, he develops novels of a deeper quality than most modern authors. I've noticed two types of successful authors - type a) churning out 1-2 books a year, following a formula, providing wonderful stories that entertain a broad audience and type b) developing through great detail in research and/or language more complex chronicles. Gibson falls into the b category. Neither, in my opinion, is better than the other; they are different styles that work for different writers. Isaac Asimov was type a. He wasn't trying to be James Joyce. Nor, I'm guessing, is Gibson, but he seems to fit more into type b. I like both.

Anyway, I digress. I haven't finished Spook Country yet, but I shall report back when I do. So far, it doesn't disappoint.

Temporarily Overloaded

Sorry for not posting in nearly a week for anyone who actually comes more often than that to check what I write... I'm a little overextended at the moment with family visiting in town, my daughter starting preschool next week, my husband on sabbatical (and some related family travel), publisher negotiations, work client projects, political advising, and a couple of potential startup opportunities.

On top of all of this, my Treo suffered a major stroke and although I'd backed it up fine, it's been a real pain to use and cost a lot of extra time in trying to a) fix it and b) decide whether to just replace it with an iPhone. (My daughter keeps saying "iCat" so she must know about some new product that's coming out soon that we don't... or maybe she just wants to turn on iChat and can't pronounce it right.)

In any case, I have about 20 posts planned to write soon so I will do what I can soon. There are some great events coming up in nonprofit, arts and political realms as well so I'll try to get those up when I get a chance.

Thanks to everyone who comes back to visit this site. I really appreciate your interest in what I write here and in my writing in general.

Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo for Screenwriters & Playwrights

I can't believe I had to hear about this from a newspaper clipping sent via snailmail from my mother instead of via broadband or word of mouth. Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, aka November), the man who coined my nickname, 'Sairy', when we were in high school together, has now launched Script Frenzy, a month-long scriptwriting 'contest' where writers hash out scripts for full length screenplays or stage plays. Looks like fun.

I was one of the first people to participate in NaNoWriMo but I bailed because of my carpal tunnel syndrome... it was pretty fierce at the time. But back in college, I recall writing a one-act play in 2 weeks while studying British Film & Theatre over the summer in London, so I figure if I could do that then, certainly I could do it again now. I've written a hand full of other plays and screenplays and directed/co-produced one of them, but that was all in college and they weren't particularly good. I probably write over 2000 words a day professionally now not to mention email, so if their requirement is 20,000 words in a month, no sweat. (Famous last words.) For point of reference, this post is 375 words. The 4 posts I've written today add up to 2400 words. Dialogue is easy. Just talk to yourself for several hours and voila!

Looking at the Script Frenzy site, they have tips for script writing, an insightful blog, a forum for participants, and of course a call for action. One of my favorite parts is the donation package incentives. As someone who's worked with a lot of nonprofits, these perks are some of the most amusing I've seen. For $5000, their team will make a 5 minute movie about you and enact it with anything from finger puppets to A-List actors. And these guys are smart - it would probably be damn good and definitely it would be funny. In any case, they need money to keep the contest going and to launch it again in future years. They also support young writers in a variety of ways.

They operate NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy both through their nonprofit, The Office of Letters and Light.

Recent Posts on SVMoms Blog & SFBayStyle

FWIW, I've been writing a lot of posts other places in the past couple of weeks. Here's a sampling:

On SFBayStyle...



• Closet Obsession - My husband may be one of the few metrosexual males who groked this post but it covers why I find closets fascinating.


• Fall/Winter 2007 Fashion Trends List - Published each season, my list covers all that I've read and viewed in magazines and online about the coming season's fashion trends.


• Wilkes Bashford & SF Symphony Present Fashion Show - I attended a fashion show last week for the SF Symphony and a local high-end retailer that was a lot of fun. Includes photos.



On the Silicon Valley Moms Blog...



• The Dreaded Daycare Dilemma - For those of you not from the Bay Area, you may not understand how hard it is to get kids into pre-school here but I had to get my daughter on a list when I was pregnant to get a spot just now for the coming fall; however, the decision wasn't so easy so I enlisted the help of my fellow mommybloggers while making the decision.


• Four Inspirational Moms on Perserverence - About a book co-written by 4 women, including former California Senator Jackie Speier, this tells a little about my experience with Jackie and what her book covers.


• Confessions of a Sugarholic... - A new shop opened in Menlo Park, the "Sugar Shack" and this post chronicles my own battles with sugar (it always wins) and how I feel about this exciting new business.


• Great Summer Reading - A book review of Momzillas, new well-written, hilarious chick lit.

Back in the Metaphorical Saddle

When I began this blog, I vowed to keep it up as much as possible but not to sweat it if I got behind on occasion. The past few weeks have been that occasion. As a relatively new mom who works part-time, writes part-time, volunteers part-time and recently bought a new house, I'm totally over-committed, so for a few weeks, blogging had to take a back seat. We took a family trip, then I came home and looked at the piles of boxes cluttering our floors and I'd had enough. So I spent last week unpacking the rest of the house.

My friend, Sherri, tagged me over the weekend and I haven't blogged about what's up with me for a while anyway, so for friends and family who visit this site, here's the latest update: we're now mostly moved in, thankfully. We still have a few more things to purchase - rugs, deck furniture, lighting, curtains - but it's looking like a home now. Our daughter is growing fast, but of course we're behind on putting photos up on her site so one of these days that will happen (that's the self-appointed job of el spouse). We've been spending a lot of time researching and visiting preschools since she'll be there the next time we blink.

On the writing side, I have a couple of projects in the works. One is a site about home networks that will launch soon - I'm writing articles for that - and the book proposal I've been working on and off on this past year is going through one more revision for a publisher that's very interested. Yeah, you can say I'm excited about this, but I won't disclose any more until there's a signed contract. I have another potential paid blogging project I'm considering as well.

I'm still consulting - doing work for nonprofits and political organizations helping them with their networks, web sites, online marketing, email processes and content management. I'm taking on fewer clients right now until J is in school - our time together is precious so writing gives me more flexibility to be with her. And then I'm still involved with the Jr. League of Palo Alto/Mid-Peninsula and the Ballet San Jose. We always attend other fundraisers for community organizations but we're slowing down on that for a while. My recovery from J's birth is still moving slowly (nerve damage - supposedly nerves take the longest to heal) so I'm trying to focus on that as much as possible. Next year, we bought Theatreworks season tickets so we're looking forward to trying that out.

That's the news from the personal side of things. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Silicon Valley Moms No Longer In Infancy

In addition to blogging here and a couple of other places, I contribute to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. The founders of the blog, Jill Asher, Pamela Hornik, Beth Blecherman & Tekla Nee started the blog April 4th, 2006, so yesterday they celebrated their anniversary with a plethora of posts. I wrote one as did many other contributors. (I've been writing for them since early last fall.)

Continuing on with the Silicon Valley theme, I posted another today about The Official Silicon Valley Guy Handbook that I read way back when... very funny book. Anyway, if you haven't yet checked out the Silicon Valley Moms Blog - even if you're not a parent but if you're curious about Silicon Valley life at all, check it out.

Eco-Fads in Magazines & Atherton Green Event

Green is the new black, gray, white, and everything in-between this month. With Earth Day around the corner, everyone is jumpimg on the eco-bandwagon. San Francisco led the publication frenzy, with Town & Country and 7x7 not far behind. Oddly enough, Town & Country was the only one to include a section printed on recycled paper. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of research put together by each of these magazines on sustainable and environmental design and lifestyle options. Definitely a step in the right direction.

I'm helping with Atherton's Earth Week celebration on April 21st, putting together some eco fashion for the event. If you live in the Bay Area, come join the event - it's open to everyone, not just members of the Atherton community. If you don't live here, check out the site anyway because it is a fabulous model of how to educate people about how to make an environmental impact locally. (More news to come as we complete the planning.)

Arthur Miller Theatre Finally Opening Thursday

Arthur Miller is one of those names that always comes up when American Playwrights are discussed. He first wrote plays at my alma mater, the University of Michigan. I don't know if any were ever produced there when he was a student, but I certainly have fond memories of my playwriting classes and the play I wrote/directed/co-produced. Miller was lucky to live a long life and knew a theatre was being built at UofM in his name but was unable to see its completion.

According to a Detroit Free Press article, the Walgreen Drama Center, a building named after its primary donor, Charles Walgreen Jr, (former UofM grad in pharmacy school, founder of Walgreens) houses the Arthur Miller Theatre and the first production will be performed this Thursday. It is, fittingly, "Playing for Time" by Arthur Miller. Sadly, Mr. Walgreen also passed away during the construction, but he made it to 100 years old! (Kinda makes me want to shop at Walgreens more, although I'm already a frequent customer.)

I spent half of my time at UofM on North Campus where engineering classes were held, and half my time on Central Campus where drama, literature and general courses were held. It seems odd to me that the arts and engineering are now all in one place. So much has changed since I was there - campus looks so different now. I'm actually sad they will be replacing the Frieze Building with a dormitory, although I'm sure it's a smart move. I have fond memories of many classes in the Frieze Building - Russian and Writing for TV being two that come to mind.

I'm glad to see that Michigan is making a stronger commitment to the arts. They always had good programs, but I felt they haven't been known for their arts as much as for business, engineering, sports and other areas. Maybe the time has come for the alma mater of Lawrence Kasdan, Judith Guest and James Earl Jones to take its place as a wellspring of great performing artists. (Not that I'm biased.)

What's Next?

As this site and blog have largely been an experiment to date, I'm now working on a new plan to take it to the next level.

I have two very diverse types of traffic on this site, so it will be undergoing a transition in the next few weeks to months, depending on what I decide in terms of design and development. Also, since my posting goes in waves in terms of whether I'm blogging about politics, technology, arts or something else that particular day or hour, I've decided to offload some of the content so it's better suited to encouraging return visitors and community participation.

My current thoughts are to put my consulting and writing business off onto its own site (something that is much overdue considering I help other people with their sites all the time - although I've discovered this is a common phenomenon that the people who know the most about the web have the least amount of time to put into their own sites). The business site will host my blog about technology, politics, startups, security and the like.

I'm going to start a new fun fashion & style blog with my friend, Beth B, so the audience that comes here to read about that (a very popular topic) can move to that site. I also still plan to contribute to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog for culture, parenting, and local posts.

sairy.com will likely remain as it is, only acting as a mini-hub to direct people to wherever they want to find the writing that most interests them (Security Focus, SV Moms Blog, my new technology blog or upcoming fashion blog). I may give it a design face lift in any case. I'll keep you posted... some people have already expressed great ideas to me via email of how to proceed. I welcome other thoughts as well.

Treading Carefully Online & "Good Morning America"/ABC News How-Tos

Internet defamation is hardly new, but the way it can happen to younger people in situations where they are hurt before even entering the workplace is a serious issue. "Good Morning America" put up a segment on this today and I was shown as an Internet privacy expert.

The ABC News video lasts 5 minutes and 22 seconds, of which I'm on for about 6 seconds (1:38-1:44). What's interesting is actually the advice delivered by Tory Johnson slightly later in the segment, also repeated in an article on the ABC News site. The article is entitled "How to Avoid Cyberspace" but that's not really a practical or realistic piece of advice in itself - I'm not sure why they called it that. She's not advocating avoiding the Internet and we all realize that's impossible. She does provide some good tips on fighting and preventing defamatory remarks.

Also, as noted by Kurt Opsahl in yesterday's Washington Post piece, you can sue and you can fight the negative information by posting positive information. I would add to that it's almost easier to post it in other locations on the web rather than getting into direct confrontations on the site in question. The Internet, unlike tabloids, is a 2-way street so you can control the information out there about you to some extent.

Other things I explained to the interviewer:
1) I advise my clients - even those who are not political - to think of themselves as candidates when they go online and only put up limited information about themselves that shows them in the most positive light.
2) Treat the people who are causing the trouble like hackers or school bullies - you can't completely avoid them, but you can ignore them - what they really crave is attention.
3) Remember that this type of damage fades over time and whatever's most popular and current out there on the web is going to be what comes up first in search engines.
4) Don't attack the search companies like Google and don't blame the Internet - they are merely vehicles for information and do not have any malicious intent.
5) You can make a difference with what companies do when they are pre-screening potential employees by contacting them and asking them to avoid certain sites.
6) The market drives this activity to a certain extent - if sites get a bad reputation for hosting misinformation, they will lose traffic and other sites will take over the dominant spot in the social networking sphere.
7) Utilize anonymity if necessary, but sparingly - it can still sometimes be traced.

Lessons in Internet Culture on Tomorrow's "Good Morning America"

I was interviewed today as an expert on Internet culture for a segment on "Good Morning America" tomorrow morning about Internet defamation. The piece is related to the Washington Post article, "Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web" that broke today about law students who believe that derogatory misinformation online hurt their chances for jobs after law school. I'll blog more about this issue later after seeing the segment - there's a lot to be said about the dangers involved, especially for young people. I was told the video would most likely be online later in the day.

Technolinguists

I thought I was being creative coming up with the term, 'technolinguist', but then I discovered it's already being used in a variety of locations - the word nerds and Languate Technologies Research Centre in Canada as two of them. Several individuals use the term as an alias on various blogs as well. In any case, I think the word should be used more frequently in the context of explaining technology to the masses.

Vogue Letter & Linking Pain With Depression

According to a number of research studies, there's a link between depression and pain. Essentially they get into a vicious cycle and as a result of the trauma to the nervous system in both cases, they effect each other. I'm no expert on this topic, but I thought it was impressive that Vogue magazine covered it in a riveting personal anecdote. So I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in this month's (March) issue thanking them for shedding light on the subject. As a popular womens' magazine, it's important they feature issues like these in addition to fashion and lifestyle pieces.

While recovering from nerve trauma resulting from my daughter's birth-delivery and previously with repetitive strain injuries, I suffered from depression. It's no surprise that it can cause a person to be blue when s/he can't get out and do normal activities for whatever reason, but when I learned from doctors after my recent bout about the relationship between pain and depression, it made more sense as to why it's difficult to heal and break that cycle for many people - particularly those with chronic problems like back pain. For anyone who suffers from either chronic pain and/or depression, I recommend they learn more about the relationship between the two.

Best Oscar Montage

I love Nancy Meyers films. If I ever write a screenplay that's remotely as good as hers, I'll be happy. She wrote some of my favorite films - "Something's Gotta Give", "Irreconcilable Differences" and "Private Benjamin". And she directed "The Parent Trap", "The Holiday" and "What Women Want" (as well as "Something's Gotta Give").

Nancy Meyers put together a marvelous montage in the Academy Awards tonight shown just before the Best Adapted Screenplay award. It showed clips from some of the best films about writers - "Shakespeare in Love", "His Girl Friday" and many others. It was wonderfully compiled and really gave a sense of the screenwriting process, along with fabulous quotes and fun music.

Anti-Semitic Terrorist Skinhead Musical Getting Rave Reviews

Only in East L.A. could someone pull this off... "The Beastly Bombing (or a Terrible Tale of Terrorists Tamed by Tangles of True Love)" is a new musical, given high marks by a New York Times reviewer this past week, supposedly takes the farce operetta to a new level.

The Steve Allen Theatre, part of the Center for Inuiry-West, founded by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, took on the project, which started running the production in late September. Written by Roger Neill and Julien Nitzberg, it's reportedly Mel Brooks meets Gilbert & Sullivan. The Huffington Post loved it, with Michael Simmons writing "Laughter is close to love and heroin in the painkilling department." And several celebs have been spotted at the show, including Liev Shreiber, Diane Von Furstenberg and Paul Reiser on the night mentioned in the NY Times.

Here I thought that "Evil Dead, The Musical" was as looney as it was going to get, this one has songs entitled "Song of the Sensitive White Supremacist" and "I Hate Jews". Running for the next four months, the show has already achieved cult status and they are in negotiations with production companies in New York for a run there.

New Blogger Beta

If this is anything like Google's other products, it'll stay in Beta for about four years before the 'Beta' is removed, but I'm testing out the new version of Blogger so we'll see what I think of it. I was annoyed they didn't have categories available before so I've been manually creating topic files. I don't know if I can go back and edit previous posts or not but that's a project for another day.

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

Sports Metaphors

Most people who read this blog probably don't give a hoot about hoops and I'm not a big sports fan in the way most Americans (especially men) who watch baseball, football and basketball (or hockey) are. But most of my family watches Jayhawk basketball like a religion, so I watch when I spend time with my family (like this past week) and I usually get sucked-in, particularly when there's a good game. Jayhawk basketball is like a cult on top of the sport and it includes a great deal of ritual as well as thrills.

Last night, the Kansas Jayhawks upset the #1 team in NCAA basketball, Florida. Most of the game, Kansas was ahead of Florida except at the very beginning and the very end. Then the teams tied and the game went into overtime during which the Jayhawks squeaked by and barely won. It was nail-biting and suspenseful, like a really good film.

I didn't watch the whole game because I was back home unpacking from our Thanksgiving trip to Kansas, but I found myself glued to the TV for the last part of the game and it reminded me why sports metaphors are useful - it's a universal subject most people understand and can associate with on some level, even if they're not sports fans. We've all been to a game once upon a time and we've seen that the underdog always has a chance, hard work and teamwork pays off, perseverance is important, and it's never until the bitter end. These are good lessons for everyone to see in action now and then.

Blog Party Online

CNN's got a blog party going - see it at cnn.com/blogparty - for election results.

A Meeting With Elizabeth Edwards

Through the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, I had a unique opportunity to sit down on Tuesday and meet with Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Edwards (Attorney, Senator, Presidential Candidate, VP Nominee), mom, attorney and breast cancer survivor.

Fifteen of us met with her for an hour and here were our observations: a) she really is as down-to-earth as she seems on TV and in her new book, Saving Graces, b) she is very smart and educated on public policy (no surprise, but comforting), c) she is a genuinely considerate woman and d) she has exquisite penmanship.

A few things she said stuck in my mind. "The Internet is the last real democratic institution." This was in reference to the media and how more often than not, members of the press just take whatever sound bites they can get from quick phone calls to insert into articles already written. She feels that online we can truly say what we want when we want. She said she was glad "citizen journalists" exist. And she really grokked blogging. She says she posts anonymously sometimes, and in other places as herself.

On political topics, she said that her husband is considering running again. He seems (this is my thought here) to be one of those people who is truly compelled to do something to help the world and Mrs. Edwards said that his campaign and his work now at the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity is all under the same feeling that regular people need a voice. He'll probably run again, but at the same time, he is really happy where he is now.

For my part, I just enjoyed meeting another woman who seems to juggle a lot of things and come out ahead. She has weathered enormous storms only to come out stronger, and for that she deserves a great deal of respect. Whatever your politics, it's easy to admire this woman for her courage, her honesty and her openness. I hope I have the opportunity to meet her again someday.

Press from the meeting...
"Elizabeth Edwards meets with San Francisco area MomBloggers", on Blogging Baby (by Jennifer Scharpen)

Some other bloggers' perspectives...
- "from giggles and mud to loving your home the best - a recap of our meeting with Elizabeth Edwards" on SVMoms, including links to posts by other moms present (by Jill Asher)
- "Mommybloggers in conversation with Elizabeth Edwards" on MomWrites (by Mary Tsao)
- "Silicon Valley Mommybloggers Spend an Inspirational Hour with Elizabeth Edwards" on SVMoms (by Beth Blecherman)

Photos from the meeting can be found here. (The one where she and I have big smiles and are looking at my phone is of me showing her a great video of my daughter, Julia.)

Woody Allen Never Ceases to Amuse

The New Yorker is one of my favorite magazines and most definitely it's one of a kind. Each time I open it, I'm surprised by something new and the October 2nd edition was no exception. We had just renewed our lapsed subscription so I had forgotten how much I enjoy the short fiction presented and that week's held a priceless piece by Woody Allen, entitled "Pinchuck's Law".

Not knowing exactly what to expect, I dove into the piece like a hungry wolf as it had been years since I'd actually read anything by Allen, although I'd certainly viewed his films. In a story that begins like a classic murder mystery, he took me down twists and turns of comedic surprise and creative excellence. It was just what I needed after an unusually difficult week to have some unpredictable laughs and soak in a true master's way with words. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

Vacuum Packed Books From Blogs, Isaac Asimov & NaNoWriMo

Vacuum, an e-mail list I'm on, has all sorts of interesting discussions and today's topic initiated by Ed Vielmetti, was on turning blogs into books and whether it's possible. Several people commented on the concept noting that the two are very different animals, but it got me thinking so I decided not only to respond to the thread but also to post what I wrote here:

I'm curently in the process of writing a nonfiction book (well, a few chapters - just beginning the agent & publisher search) and posting to a couple of blogs. I'm also a new mom so I find myself with smaller chunks of time to work with than I previously had. I was one of those people who could stay up all night and write a chapter or two, or a few scenes of a play, at a time. But now I don't have that kind of time.

I have discovered that I can actually write for my book the same way I write for my blog in terms of organizing a thought, knowing how much space I need to fill, writing that copy, rewriting and posting. Therefore, I think turning a blog into a book would be theoretically possible, but it would require a great deal more effort and planning before beginning.

Basically you would be writing one page at a time - maybe two - instead of a chapter at a time (15-25 pages). It wouldn't be as well-done as a book because it wouldn't have the same editorial process including the opportunity to go back and rearrange things that might be ordered differently. For example, the chapter I'm working on currently I had organized one way and I decided it would logically flow better with a different layout of sections. If I were writing it in a blog, it would have already been too late because I would've published the first section before I realized it should be reordered.

What I think is interesting that I discovered while editing a few books is that sometimes chapters are presented to the editors out of order and never revisited by the author before printing, so nonfiction books can be pieced together rather haphazardly not unlike blogs. That actually bothered me because I like to look at each work I produce as a whole. Writing this kind of book requires a detailed outline from the beginning, but that doesn't necessarily mean the author will stay true to it 100%. If you built a book from a blog, there would be no room for deviation.

The other concern is style. Most bloggers are more casual in their writing style on a blog; whereas most books are a bit more formal. I think that's both a result of the different audiences targeted and the forum. However, if I wrote what I'm writing for my book in my blog, I think it would have less interest as a sum of its parts than it would as a whole. But that wouldn't necessarily be the case in a diary-type book.

I think the metaphor of serial vs. parallel processing also applies. The traditional book development process is more like parallel whereas the blog style (also as in serialized articles, just with smaller parts) is more linear. However, I recall reading once that Isaac Asimov typed every single book he wrote on a typewriter, never correcting, as he wrote. Maybe he developed that style as a result of his medium. I suppose with fiction it could be easier also to just let the characters take you wherever they want to go, but I can't imagine remembering all of the little details about them without some additional character guide not unlike an outline. In any case, it's still an impressive feat.

One last note - a friend of mine from high school, Chris Baty, started the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) phenomenon a few years back and it's done annually - coming up again in November. If you want to try your hand at writing a novel, the goal is volume/quantity over quality. They figure you can always polish the final product after it's done. The goal is total number of words (over 50,000 constitutes a "novel"), presented at the author's leisure so some people do it a chapter at a time and others wait until the end.

Studio 60, Bloggers & What Makes Good Writing

This week's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" episode (it's getting better, by the way, like we all knew it would) had a joke about a woman blogger who was bashing their fictional show where the director thumbed his nose at the blogger saying she was probably (I'm paraphrasing) "in her pajamas with her 5 cats". Well, I'm here to say nothing could be further from the truth. I'm blogging in my nightshirt with my five cats (actually four - one is at the vet overnight.)

Seriously though, as someone who has worked hard to get articles published in paper publications and is currently going through the arduous process of looking for a publisher for a book, knowing how easy it is to get "published" online via a blog does make it an easy target for people in older media to tear down bloggers. Also, bloggers don't necessarily always blog in a traditionally journalistic way meaning some are more news-oriented, others are editorialists and many just want to write about their navel lint like in a diary.

The Palo Alto Weekly yesterday published