#when I tell you I have so many drafts of tweet scenarios started it’s not right

[ninyard]

exy fans on Twitter + the hypothetical leaking of Jean’s freshman year

(thank you anon for the idea)

[yukinojou]

I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

[brucesterling]

GPT-3 writing whatever writers write

https://calv.info/gpt-3-real-magic

(...)

Test 2: curing writer’s block

By now, you have likely seen a lot of different text completion threads on twitter. People feed in a blog post, a set of tweets, or a conversation, and GPT-3 begins to generate a bunch of new lines for it.

For fun, I tried plugging in a draft of one of my earlier posts into the API.

Here’s the text I’d written.

When buying a new product, it’s easy to “judge a book by its cover.” Doing a deep evaluation of a service with feature comparisons, build vs buy scenarios and ROI is really hard! It’s much easier to take a quick mental shortcut and assume the well-designed product must be the superior one… That’s the reason why I tell most startup founders (especially engineers) to spend time on design and aesthetics. You literally can’t afford not to. There’s so many options out there, you’ll get zero traction if your app looks like garbage. [1] Upon reflection, I realized that feedback was a bit surface level. How does it account for the Salesforces, Oracles, and Adobes of the world? I wouldn’t consider any of them to be the apex of visual design… yet they continue to grow. Did these behemoths come to power at a different point in time? Or is there something more subtle at play? What’s going on? I think there’s a different, but often overlooked explanation: a product’s UX matches its buyer, not necessarily its user. There are two very distinct sales motions: ones targeted at practitioners, and ones targeting executives. No matter who ends up using your product, you have to satisfy the buyer.

I pasted it in and hit submit. Here’s what the AI produced…

It’s a small nuance, but it explains how a lot of successful companies have flourished. Let’s explore this difference by looking at three very successful companies: Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft. [2] What we are about to embark on is a thorough exploration of the evolution of a feature set. Think of it as a user centered design case study. The twist is that the feature is being driven by two distinct “buyer” segments. I’ll highlight the differences, and then draw some conclusions. Let’s start by comparing a well-known SaaS cloud CRM: Salesforce with its enterprise force-multiplier predecessor, Oracle Siebel. Salesforce was founded in 1999 by an accomplished internet entrepreneur Marc Benioff. The idea was simple: what if an application provided salespeople with the information they needed, right when they needed it? Benioff was the consummate salesman. As he pitched Salesforce, he described the typical CRM user. The message was clear: salespeople are busy, they hate paperwork, and would rather be talking to customers.

It’s one thing to watch text other people have posted. It’s entirely another to see an AI completing your own thoughts right before your eyes; nothing quite prepared me for it.

While the generated text doesn’t exactly follow the rest of the article… it’s not obviously wrong either. The transitions are smooth, and tie back to the original content I’d written. More interestingly, GPT-3 picked up on my convention of using [1] for endnotes, and added its own [2].

As I sat there and watched the autocomplete work, it actually gave me a few new ideas for both the structure and the content of the article!

That’s why I believe one of the killer use cases for GPT-3 is curing writer’s block.

My biggest challenge with writing can be simply starting a paragraph. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll start typing some half-formed string of words just to get in the rhythm of figuring out what should come next.

But with GPT-3 there’s another tool at my disposal. If I’m stuck, I can try a few variations of what “should come next” just to get my mind going. Even if they aren’t the right words, it’s enough of a prompt to get myself out of a rut. From there, I can curate, edit, and ideate.

By adding just a few lines, and then waiting for the result to teach me something, I’m effectively getting new ideas from the entire text GPT-3 was trained upon.

The whole experience has opened me up to the idea that the writing tools of tomorrow will be very different than the writing tools of today.

Instead of being rote recorders and spellcheckers, tomorrow’s editors will actually try to guide unstructured thought. Auto-completion, complex queries, and even the fresh idea generation will all be built into the text editors of the future.

It all means that great writers can spend less time writing and more time thinking.  (((No, that’s never “what it means.”  Nobody displaced by automation ever spent less time working and more time thinking.)))

[rowanthewizard]

Let us take a moment, in these dark times, to laugh at how out of touch JK Rowling is.

This tweet: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269389298664701952?s=20

No one is saying sex isn’t real. Sex is a medical construct, the same as blood type. Your doctor is the only one who really needs to know it. If some rando on the street walked up to you and asked what your blood type was that would be real fucking weird. Same if some rando walked up and demanded to know you’re chromosomes. It’s kinda weird.

Gender is a social construct, which also means it’s real but not intrinsic to humanity. It’s just something society came up with to help organize. Seeing as reproduction isn’t nearly as crucial and surviving is a lot easier now, the construct of having the population that has to carry children and nurse them separate from the part that doesn’t have to do that isn’t really necessary anymore. It’s like an old filing system, still usable, and many people still love it and are attached, but it isn’t wrong for some people to start using the newest model.

Tweet: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269401983095648259?s=20

You... you wrote a series... you wrote a series where you called every woman a witch...

Also I call myself way worse words than bitch. I can’t speak for anyone else but bitch and cunt have lost all effect on me. Like, thanks for the giant red flag Mr uncreative, I’ll be leaving now. Has anyone heard the word ‘feminazi’ used in the last, what, 4 years? It seems to have died with gamergate.

Tweet: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096?s=20

“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades”

Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Tell that to Rita Skeeter! Did you even read the books you wrote??????

Article: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

“accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline“

Stop listening to Twitter! It’s a dumpster fire! Twitter is not real life!

“I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.“

I don’t know if this is a joke or not. But I really hope someone composted them. The image of someone chucking all 7 books onto a compost pile is fucking gold. Can the next brand boycott be a composting one? I want to see angry fanboys fucking composting their nikes! I can’t stop giggling, it’s like 1am.

“because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender”

I don’t have a joke for this one. She never says what she thinks gender is, so I have no concept of why this would be a bad thing seeing as she’s been conflating the two in every post.

“The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.”

ThInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn!!!!!!

“The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it”

People being mean to you on twitter is not an affront to your freedom of speech. Freedom of speech protects you from the government not the internet. Why is this such a hard concept?

“I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition ........ Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

... do you think transphobia is easier than homophobia???? You’re more likely to face a hate crime if you’re not cis than if you’re not straight.(both are high, but non-cis is higher per capita than non-straight)  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/06/28/anti-gay-hate-crimes-rise-fbi-says-and-they-likely-undercount/1582614001/

“Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.”

Now, is this 5 close friends realizing at the same time that they are all binary trans people, because that would be statistically weird. Or, is this a group of children where one of them realized strict gender performances are kind of pointless and a pain, explained it to their friends, and they didn’t have the words to describe it other than ‘trans’. The second scenario sounds much more likely.

“The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves.”

Well that’s simplistic, but even so google the suicide rates. It’s that simple. They are very fucking high. All this takes is one google search. Also, you don’t have to medically transition right away. Puberty blockers won’t hurt you, and buying a teenager a binder or a packer really isn’t that hard. Some trans people never medically transition.

“When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’”

Maybe... that’s cause... you know... you’re human. There’s not much different between male and female. one chromosome, three hormone differences, and like four genes. That’s it. That’s not really enough to make differently functioning brains. The only differences are learned ones.

“As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s”

Yes you did. There were plenty of trans men in the 80s. Trans women were the ones who led Stonewall! A nonbinary person is the hero of a Babylonian(?Sumerian?) myth that’s several thousand years old! This is not a new thing! Pick up a book!

“A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law.”

What country are you living in cause it’s not England! I follow a trans youtuber and he started sobbing when he got the sex on his birth certificate changed to male because it had taken years and he had had to jump through so many hoops. It’s not even legal to change a many documents in several US states.

“We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced.”

Ah yes, gaining the right to vote doesn’t hold a candle to the evil trans women who want to *checks notes* live peacefully. Doctors diagnosing women with hysteria and giving them lobotomies is nothing against people wanting to go about their day!

“Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now.”

I remember the day when my father sold me off to my husband for 20 goats, 5 cattle, and a magnificent draft horse!

“None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people;”

...Sure... they just “don’t agree with the lifestyle” don’t they?

Anyway, I read her entire essay. There’s nothing interesting in it. I dug through the poop to find the gold nuggets for you. That rest of it is just the standard “But predators in the little girls room, think about the children” shit we’ve heard for years. I also recognized a lot of conservative talking points and gotchas which surprised me for a moment, but after thinking about the two positions it made sense.

[spnfanficpond]

September 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with @manawhaat today! Thank you so much for joining us, even though you were busy!!

Today, a bunch of us got together and talked about inspiration and writer’s block! We all had good ideas that were discussed! A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut!

To start us off, Mana shared a link to this ask that was recently presented to the Pond. The question was that a professor said that there was no such thing as a muse or writer’s block. The answers given by some of our Big Fish are terrific! All seem to agree that the ideas of a muse and writer’s block are valid, no matter what you call them. Digging beneath the surface to ask what is causing the writer’s block or the inspiration can help to get you past what’s stopping you and get you writing, again.

@mrswhozeewhatsis (Michelle)shared a link to a tweet by Robbie Thompson. She had asked him for tips on getting inspired or getting past blocks when the words just don’t want to flow. He responded by saying, “write from emotion: what scares you, angers you, etc. and make writing a habit. sit down once a day, same time if you can & just get to work. got nothing? write until it comes. inspiration is great but not always reliable.”

When looking for ideas from other famously prolific writers, this post from Neil Gaiman came up. In it, Mr. Gaiman says that blaming writer’s block gives you something to blame, but it’s usually a combination of laziness, perfectionism and getting stuck. He goes on to encourage writers to not accept writer’s block as a insurmountable thing and figure out the cause so you can get past it.

@mostly-shawn (Maayan): My professor's take on writer's block is that writer's block doesn't exist because there's no such thing as "not knowing". What we call "writer's block" is simply being distracted by other things like shopping lists and to-do lists and everything else, so in order to overcome "writer's block" you just need to sit and write everything that's in your head and clear out your brain space to allow yourself access to the idea. And in terms of muse, she doesn't believe in muse because no work is perfect on the first draft and because it's not perfect, you can't have had a muse.

If anyone wants to read her book it's called "To Tell The Truth" and it's about how to write creative nonfiction. Obviously, that's not what we're all in the business of, but it's a good read for all genres.

Everyone seemed to agree that this professor has a strange view on muse, but she’s got a point about writer’s block. A muse can be anything that inspires you to write, and nothing anyone ever writes is perfect right out of the gate, so her perfection theory makes no sense to us. Mana disagreed with part of her thoughts on writer’s block, though.

Mana: I think she has a point of clearing your head in order to get into your 'writing groove' but insisting that there isn't such a thing as 'not knowing' sounds ridiculous to me, specifically, a person who has not known what she wanted to do with a certain rpf fic for over 4 years.

@katehuntington mentioned that sometimes she feels like she knows exactly what she wants to write, but when she sits down, the words just won’t come. She can’t get them down. Michelle said her Fibromyalgia sometimes causes similar cognitive difficulties. The words just aren’t there. (If anyone has read Rob Benedict’s chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood, the feeling is described there beautifully.) 

Michelle: Physical and mental issues can definitely affect creativity. When you're struggling to do the basic activities of daily living, creativity is not your body's priority.

Q: So, what do you guys do when you hit a block?

Kate: Accept it. LOL. I take a lot of inspiration out of what I've written already, if that makes sense. I revisit stories, go over what made those work. And I read back on the feedback I had from readers too. Those can be super inspiring.

Maayan: Yeah, I basically just say "alrighty then" and continue on with my life and push the work as far out of my head as possible.

Mana: Write some flaming garbage. (Michelle added, “Crap makes good compost.”) I get through as much as I can, plot wise. if I'm stuck between point b and c, but know where I'm going from point d to e then I just put down anything I might want to happen between point b and c and then move on. There is no rule that says writing needs to happen in a linear form so if I get stuck, I move on.

Michelle: I once heard Robbie Thompson talk about writing at a seminar, and he said that if he's really stuck, he'll take a walk, get outside, get some fresh air, clear his head. Just change his scenery, really. Did you know that when you move from one room to another, your brain kind of ties off the thought you had in the first room and opens up another thread in the second room? It's why so many people arrive in a room and then forget why they're there. (This is why carrying something from one room to the next can help you remember why you're in that second room.) Sometimes, that's what you need. Make your brain jump out of the rut it was in. Write in a different room, on a different medium (paper instead of tablet, tablet instead of computer, etc)

Mana: I haven't tried writing on a different medium, unless you count someone else's computer instead of your own, but the change of scenery does help. listening to different music instead of your usual tunes helps. 

Maayan: I think better when I pace so when if I'm trying to figure out a storyline I pace, but when I have the storyline but I can't make my fingers do the word thing on the magical typing box I'm just stuck for good usually. (A suggestion was made that she could try speech-to-text software to help her get past that!) Mana records voice notes to her phone to be transcribed later.

Kate and Michelle both said that having ideas isn’t the problem for them, most of the time. The problem is usually having the focus to sit down and translate them to paper.

Mana: Watching a movie you know well enough to tune in and out of is a big one for me. Literally any time I NEED to do something in my life, I put on Pride and Prejudice bc I know the film so well and love the score, but it's my ultimate focus movie. I can tune out and write or file taxes or whatever the fuck and tune back in for him to hold her hand helping her in the carriage and then tune back out and repeat this process while the movie plays 6 times in a row.

Michelle: I can't have anything else playing. No music, no TV, no nothing. However, I've discovered that a lava lamp does wonders! When we lived in our apartment in Chicago, I had a great view of the planes coming into O'Hare, and it was an east-facing view, so I saw the sunrise after a long night of writing so many times. My creativity dropped way down when we moved and I no longer had a view to stare at. So, I bought a glitter lava lamp. I love staring into that thing. And then I put up twinkling fairy lights over my desk. Something about that got me going, again. 

Maayan: I use my fish and snail as a lava lamp with the same effect.

Q: What do you do when you’re in the flow, and everything is going great, but you suddenly just stop? You know where you want to go, but you’re suddenly just stuck for no clear reason?

Michelle: I've discovered, and this may not be true for anyone else, but I've discovered that it usually means I've screwed up a little ways back. If I go back to where I last felt like everything was going well, and rethink everything I wrote since then, I've usually made a mistake in that section, and it needs to be rewritten. Whether I've made a character do something that's not in their character, or I've added something (or taken something away) that isn't right, whatever it is, it's in that section. If I just delete it and start writing from the previous good spot, I get going again.

Kate: Yeah. I've read somewhere that when you're stuck, you should go back at least 5 lines and start over. Put those lines away, pick it up again.

Mana: I think that's a big difference between us, Michelle. You can pinpoint a spot where things go awry and back up, cut off what isn't working and restart. I am a stubborn bitch so even if I see that something isn't really working, if I like it even the slightest bit, I refuse to get rid of it or change it. And those are the instances where I 'pick fights' with you and resist your input when you're beta reading for me. Am I the only one that does that? And if so, how are you all able to justify letting go of something that doesn't quite work but you've grown attached to?

Michelle: It’s perfectly okay to set bits aside and use them in other fics! Timestamps. Put it in another fic. Make it a one shot! I cut SO MUCH from Non-Trad, but I loved those parts SO MUCH, and that's how the Timestamps were born. They really didn't fit into the story well. They made it bloated. So I published them separately. Now, finding that I've gone off the rails entirely makes it easier for me to go back and get rid of something.

Q: Tips that we haven’t mentioned, yet?

Kate: Ask for help. Have a beta look it over, or whoever is interested and might be able to add to it.

Michelle: When looking for inspiration, always go back to the source material. It's not lazily, obsessively binge-watching the same show over and over, it's RESEARCH.

Mana: Someone asked what I do to get over it and I said: when I experience writer’s block or when the character I’m trying to write isn’t cooperating with me and I can’t get my brain to function I try to distract myself with something else or another character. Try watching an episode with your character in it, get a refreshed feel of how they move, talk, interact with other characters, draw from the episode or scenarios that you can fill in where the ep didn’t. Or, take ques from other characters, write about someone else for a bit so your mind has a break and time to sort itself out, then go back to what you were working on. 

Another way to get past it is to read other’s work. It may inspire you, make you realize that the story you wanted to tell this way can be told a different way, or give you the kick you need. 

My best answer to this: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

When the block hits and you have zero inspiration or motivation, write about anything and everything. Start reading and watching new things to see if it’ll spark something, check out Tumblr and users you don’t follow to get your eyes on some fresh content, write a dramatic scene of you sitting on the couch to hear the doorbell ring and let the suspense grow until you open it to find a pizza man there when you specifically did not order a pizza. Writing through it may spark something, and if not, my best suggestion would be to read. Read your old stuff and that of others, read a new book, read an article on how to beat writer’s block, read through the writer resources tag at the @spnfanficpond…

Mana also gifted us with these lovely links:

Writer’s block app that won’t let you do anything else until you’ve reached your goal.

A lovely gif beautifully encapsulating exactly how writer’s block feels.

General Pond Updates and Reminders

What we’ve got cooking up next: Not much, at the moment, since everyone is busy, so we’re just trying to keep up with the day-to-day at the moment! Our to do list is still long, though, and will not be neglected forever!

Reminders:

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work!  IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Challenge - Even though season 15 is just around the corner, these prompts will still always be open for you to use! Remember, there’s no deadline for submissions! Just tag the Pond and @mrswhozeewhatsis in your post!

Say hi to August’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the Skype chat room/discord general channel and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for October’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!

[overworkedunderwhelmed]

Okay.  I get that Thomas is often abrasive.  I do.

But his recent twitter post that’s now floating around about storyboarding.  Unpopular opinion here: he’s not entirely wrong.

Think about it this way, and pull all of the well-deserved wank about him off the table.

Let’s just pretend it is you in his shoes right now.  Let’s say you are a fanfic writer (or an original fic author), and you’re going to commission an artist to make a cover/promotional piece for you.

It’s for a work that you’ve recently dropped...after hours and hours of drafts and editing and getting done right. And tons of your readers (editors included) basically tells you how much they love it.  

So, you decide to invest the money in a commissioning a popular (fictional!) artist -- and the more popular they are, the more they tend to charge.  

So you plop down a good chunk of change and wait a few weeks or months until the artist is working on your piece.  Maybe even, in your own excitement, you mention that SOMETHING BIG is coming for that fic.  And now your readers start clamoring for more tidbits, too.

Now most artists will show WIP, but for the sake of argument here, let’s say this one bucked that trend and the piece wasn’t sent back to you until the finishing touches were almost applied.

But you know...it’s not the scene that you commissioned them to draw.  It’s maybe their own favorite scene in another of your works.  

It’s cool and all.  But that’s not what you asked for.  Not what you paid for.

Your readers ask what’s up with that thing that you promised, and even now those questions are starting to make you frustrated at the whole situation.  And the artist says they could do that scene, but they’ll have to charge you again for that time and labor.  But can you trust them again to do what you asked?

So, you have a decision to make.  Do you drop more money to appease the fans persistently prodding you about your hype?  Do you pay that artist (or perhaps a new one more inclined to follow the rules) to duplicate the effort that should have been made in the first place?

It’s a no win situation, really.  But in our fictional scenario, it is definitely the  (again, fictional!) artist who mis-stepped.  But there is really no accountability for their decision/error, even if you did get another nice piece out of the deal.

I’ll be the first to admit that I often find Thomas to be abrasive...and know that a marketing team running his twitter account might be a smart thing.

But think about the last time you wanted to complain about your job.  Did you do that on social media?  Even just a simple “man, I’m so tired...I really don’t want to go in today.”

If my very general understanding of the process is correct, these scripts are written and cleaned up by many people before story-boarding would even start.  So, in essence it isn’t just Thomas’s story or ideas at play here.

Time and money went into making that script just right.

Time and money went into the artist’s storyboard creation time and probably for any replacement of effort for not following the instructions.

And it is that same time and money that now can’t go to putting more episodes into the better animation studio, to help keep fans (and the creators) happy.

That’s more time and money lost explaining to content-hungry fans why there are even more delays, especially if people have already putting in long hours to get it all done on time.

Out in the business world, this big of a misstep would easily be grounds for firing.  And while the show itself is often joy and entertainment to us, behind the scenes, it is -- by necessity -- a business.  People’s jobs...and their incomes...are at stake here.  And all of that can potentially be a risk when deadlines are not met.

I’m not saying I condone Thomas’s decision to tweet about it where so many can see.  That certainly could have been kept in house...and probably should have.

I’m simply saying I understand that frustration...and how that awful feeling must be amplified by the hundreds or thousands of people who must tweet at him and the show, demanding updates and answers each day.

[jeonghanniesfool]

Carat Selca Day

Genre: Fluff

If you are on Carat Amino, you might have seen me post this there.

A scenario where Joshua sees your Carat Selca Day selca.

It was a quiet day in Seventeen's studio. After what seemed to be the hundredth hour of practice, they were taking a break; each taking to their respective spots to rest. Some decided to scroll through their phones and others were sprawled on the ground for a power nap. "Hyung, what's a carat selca day?" Dino asked suddenly to no one in particular. Mingyu raised an eyebrow at the maknae. "Isn't it self explanatory?" "Carats upload a selca alongside their bias' selca." Joshua added, scrolling through the hashtag on twitter. 

"Oohhhh." Dino said, staring at his phone intensely. "Wanna play a game?" Hoshi plopped himself on the ground next to Joshua. "Let's go through and count how many Carats put ourselves as their bias. So I would see how many posted me." "What is the point of this game?" Joshua shook his head. "If it's for your curiosity then I guess it's fine but you'd better not make a competition about this." "Nah nah nah." Hoshi reassured his hyung. "Just out of curiosity." "Let's do it!" Dino agreed. Mingyu nodded in agreement as well. "Should we call the others?" Within a few moments, all 13 members were gathered into the studio. They were seated on the ground scrolling through the hashtag on their phones, counting silently to themselves. "...she's cute..." Joshua's comment, barely above a whisper, snatched the attention of the entire group. "Who? Who? Who?" S'Coups asked immediately, clambering over the other members to peer over Joshua's shoulder. The other members immediately huddled around Joshua to see who Joshua had complimented. "Ah it's no one." Joshua said immediately, moving his phone out of the reach of the other members. Mingyu easily snatched the phone from Joshua's grasp and showed the image to the other members. "She's just your type, Shua-hyung." The8 commented. Jeonghan plucked the phone from The8's hands and clicked on the profile of the owner of the post in question. He immediately began to scroll through your feed. "Definitely a girl your type, Shua." Jeonghan smirked. "And she likes you. Her selca day is with you." He frowned at the caption. "Too bad I can't understand what it says though." As if this was his cue, Vernon took the phone from Jeonghan. "It says 'I love you Joshua!! I hope you see this post, but even if you don't I hope you know that I respect you and admire your talents! I hope you, along with the rest of Seventeen, go far and become even more successful!'" Vernon easily translated the post over for the other members to understand. "Her name is.... y/n." Seungkwan read the name slowly, his Korean accent messing up with the pronunciation of the name. "You should compliment her, hyung." DK jumped in. "Go on your fake account and tell her she's pretty." Hoshi added. "Maybe you can start a conversation with her." Seungkwan finished. "Wouldn't this cause a scandal if they were to ever get together?" Woozi spoke, shattering the gag trio's imagination. Turning his attention to Joshua, he asked. "Would you even date her, hyung?" Joshua took a long look at your picture. "Would if I could." Was his response after the long pause. "Just message her!! She'll never even know it's you!" Hoshi urged. "I'm going to come off as creepy." Joshua protested. "You're Seventeen's gentleman, hyung, I don't think you can come off as creepy." Jun reassured him. "Do it do it do it!!" The gag trio urged. With the support of his members, Joshua logged onto his side twitter account and pressed reply on your selca day post. With encouragement and suggestions from Vernon, he began to piece together a compliment to send to you. "Alright... here goes.." Joshua pressed send, sat back, and hoped that you would not find his compliment creepy.

After much encouragement from your friends, you finally decided to post for Carat Selca Day. Of course, you were worried. You weren’t that confident in your own appearance, and putting it next to your bias? Surely all the other Carats on Twitter would think badly of your appearance.

You had to remind yourself that you had a lot of faith in your fellow Carats. Everyone was super nice and supportive, so you were sure that no one would criticize you... hopefully.

And then there was the prospect of the members of Seventeen seeing you. Wouldn’t it be shameful if the idols you admired so much had to see your face?

You then resolved to post the picture but abstain from writing a caption. That way, your post would go unnoticed. No one would see it and you could show your appreciation for Seventeen without being ashamed of yourself.

When you informed your friends of your decision, they denied it immediately.

“You love Seventeen so much, why would you skip out on a chance to show how much you appreciate them and how much you wish for them to be successful and do well?”

Sighing, you stared at your post dedicated to your bias, Joshua. You cringed a bit at the message you had written. If he came across this... he would be able to understand the English, and you weren’t sure you were ready for that level of acknowledgement. Your friend did not hesitate to snatch your phone from you and tweet your draft for you.

“What you have you done??” You protested.

“If I hadn’t done it, you never would have.” Your friend insisted. “Don’t worry, Y/N, you won’t regret this.” You sighed. What’s done is done. You stared at the post with your selca next to Joshua’s and hoped for the best.

Approximately 20 minutes later, you got a notification from Twitter. Fearing for the worst, you picked up your phone and stared at the notification on the screen.

User: j.englishmaster: hi! I’m trying not to come off as creepy here >.< but I just wanted to tell you that you’re really pretty and that your message to Joshua for carat selca day was really sweet

You stared at your screen, then opened up Twitter. Who was this person and why did they decide to message you like this?

Y/N: thank you for the compliment! I take it you’re a fellow carat?

J.englishmaster: i guess i am? ^^

Y/N: that’s cool! if you’re comfortable with it, you should post a selca for carat selca day too! You never know if you’re going to be noticed by Seventeen!

A few months passed and Seventeen was finally doing a fan sign in your city. You had finally been able to save enough money to purchase a ticket and found yourself in the line to the stage, album clutched in hand.

“You’re up.” The security guard said gruffly, gesturing to the steps to the stage. You walk down the line, greeting each member enthusiastically, shaking Mingyu’s hand, being compared with Woozi’s height, arm wrestling Dino, having a brief conversation about your day with Vernon.

Then you finally reached Joshua.

“Hi.” Your greeting was barely above a whisper.

Joshua looked up and stared right into your eyes. He was surprised to see that the girl standing in front of him was the girl whose picture he had seen on Carat Selca Day, the girl that he had been so attracted to. Your quiet voice caused him to gasp, but he stifled it quickly. He smiled warmly.

“Hi! What’s your name?” He asked, taking the album you were holding to sign it.

“Y/N.” you responded, fighting to keep your voice steady. “it’s really nice to meet you.” He looked up at you and smiled again, his smile reaching his eyes.

“It’s great to finally meet you.” He said mysteriously and handed the album back, his hand brushing against yours.

In a daze, you returned to your seat, album in hand, heart still pounding. You flipped through your album, carefully reading all the messages they had left you. You found Joshua’s scrawled on his own image.

His message read:

You’re super pretty, Y/N, and just as sweet as I thought you would be. HOpe to see you again soon!

-j.englishmaster 

[writingguide003-blog]

Forget Dystopias, These Sci-Fi Writers Opt For Optimism Instead

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/forget-dystopias-these-sci-fi-writers-opt-for-optimism-instead/

Forget Dystopias, These Sci-Fi Writers Opt For Optimism Instead

Its hot, and youre walking. Shuffling, actually. Youve spanned a seemingly endless chalk-dry plane, and youre thirsty, run-down, exhausted. You think about your flaking, parched lips and aching muscles, and about how your arduous journey will be worth it if you ever reach your destination. An immigrant, youre searching for a new place to live, because the place you call home has become barely livable. Youre thinking about the hot dirt sweat-caked on your skin when youre interrupted by an even greater pain — your tooth, recently implanted with a geo-location chip, is practically vibrating. This means youre close.

So begins Madeleine Ashbys short story, By the Time We Get to Arizona, published last year in Hieroglyph, a collection of science-fiction stories meant to inspire readers about the possibilities the future holds, rather than invoke fear about impending societal doom. Solutions to climate change catastrophes abound in the series; so do suggestions for jumping forward in our approach to space exploration technologies. Ashbys story — a spinoff of her Masters thesis on making border security more humane — explores a world where guns and guards are replaced by sensors and facial recognition technology.

Conceived of by Neal Stephenson — a celebrated writer whose most recent novel ventures a guess at what post-Earth diplomacy might look like — Hieroglyph showcases a growing crew of writers who, by commission or by choice, present sunnier alternatives to the now-prevalent, Hunger Games-fueled dystopia trend. These arent the stifling factions of Divergent or the heart-pounding twists and turns of The Maze Runner; they arent the bleak worlds crafted by Margaret Atwood or even the fable-like, anti-technology morals embedded in movies like Wall-E. Although many of the stories in Hieroglyph highlight societal problems, they have technological solutions to those problems embedded within them.

The anthology, along with the few others like it, was divisive in the science-fiction community. One camp, headed up by Stephenson, holds the belief that scientists and engineers could use a positive push from the writers whose job it is to imagine what the future will look like. Writers, Stephenson asserts, have a responsibility not only to confront social problems, but to provide potential solutions, too. So, a socially disheveled community like The Hunger Games Panem might feature a technology that allows citizens to communicate with each other, and fight back. Because these writers are using their fiction to provide solutions to contemporary problems, many necessarily couch their stories in grim scenarios the characters must escape from. Sexism, racism and classism are addressed, if subtly.

This doesnt sit well with the other school of readers and writers, who lament the days when an interstellar story was a joyride, whizzing quickly past social justice issues towards thrilling plot twists. One particularly rabid breed of decriers are the writers who make up a group called the Sad Puppies, who banded together during The Hugo Awards to stack the vote against minority and women writers. The problem, they claim, is that the science-fiction community has prioritized social justice and diversity, ignoring superior prose and more inventive stories as a result. Science-fiction, they say, is about fun. Its about escaping the problems of the real world through otherworldly scenarios — including dystopias — in which a central hero implausibly conquers evil alone, rather than with the aid of collective thinking and the useful technologies that arise from it.

The future of science-fiction — which, if George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxleys Brave New World are indicators, runs parallel with the future of science and technology on our own planet — probably lies somewhere on the vast, auroral spectrum between these two approaches. So, its worth examining both, and the groups of writers propelling them.

***

Now is not a time for realism, Margaret Atwood said in a recent interview with NPR, succinctly summarizing why so many literary writers flock to fantasy, to dystopia, to amplifying the threat of impending problems — environmental and political — that arent yet a reality.

Though the genre has seen a spike in popularity within teen-centric reading communities, its seeped into the realm of grown-up storytelling more than ever. Which isnt to say its unfamiliar territory for writers of adult literary fiction. In fact, dystopian stories began, arguably, with a weird, little book written by Mary Shelley in 1826 thats since become a beloved classic: The Last Man. The story centers on a plague-addled Europe, where a man named Lionel struggles to survive alongside various extant communities. Theres a false messiah, political turmoil, and all the other makings of a present-day dystopia. Though Shelleys book wasnt recognized until the 1960s, others like it by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells surfaced shortly thereafter, spawning a sub-genre of writing that asks timeless questions about human nature, and how it responds to dire, life-threatening scenarios.

But today, with a few notable exceptions (Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins), popular dystopian stories have lost a bit of their original complexity. They tend to be thinly cloistered morality lessons, better suited for young readers. Rather than highlighting the nuances of human interactions, they tend to generalize, and draw hard lines between good and evil.

Why are more and more adult literary writers, and adult literary fiction readers, opting into the rather nihilistic and juvenile genre? Its a quandary posed again and again by columnists, providing more questions than answers — perhaps because the answer is hazy. It could be that the genre distracts readers from present realities, or provides a puzzle-like, limited scenario for a protagonist to work through, so different from the more fractured plot of real life. Or, it could be that our present realities seem increasingly fantastical, due to the quick proliferation of disastrous events filling our Twitter feeds alongside our friends quotidian musings.

Madeline Ashby believes its the latter.

There are elements of dystopia in everybodys lives, she said in an interview with The Huffington Post. Remember the Christmas protests in Ferguson? Theres this image of riot police under this big electrified, Seasons Greetings banner. If you search for Ferguson plus Seasons plus Greetings, youll find the picture. I found it, and I tweeted in all caps, WHY DO SO MANY KIDS LOVE DYSTOPIA? HM, I WONDER.

Ashby cites her own dystopia-like governmental interactions as inspiration for many of her sci-fi stories, including By the Time We Got to Arizona. In 2006, she immigrated to Canada, and says the process, for her, was dehumanizing.

My immigration took over a year, she said, adding that she feels fortunate — for other people immigrating to Canada, two years is the average wait-time.

During that process youre essentially a number and a sheet of paper. You feel it every time they ask you progressively more invasive questions, Ashby added, sharing an anecdote about how immigration questions reduce complex romantic relationships to statistics-based judgement calls. [Theyd ask] things like, Can you describe to us the number and monetary value of gifts exchanged between the two of you. And then you start to think, oh, OK, the quality of my relationship is already interpreted through capital. I have a monetary value.

In her short story, Ashby acknowledges these issues, but also offers solutions to the problem. She notes that by working change-inspiring technologies into her plots, she’s at the very least offering readers a sense of hope. 

Dystopia is very useful in grappling with the world as it exists, Ashby said. Its a really stylized, formalized way of talking about things that are already happening in practice. But utopia, or more optimistic stories, can also be useful, because you can imagine a future that you actually want.

Ashbys fiction is informed by her other, more technical approach to writing. After studying Strategic Foresight and Innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, she started getting gigs drafting potential future scenarios for organizations such as Intel Labs and Nesta. Envisioning the future on behalf of corporations and research labs isnt exactly an established career path — actually, it sounds a little like something out of a sci-fi novel. But Ashby isnt the only writer who moonlights as a narrative scenario practitioner. Theres a host of organizations dedicated to allowing sci-fi writers to draft potential outcomes for specific companies or entire industries. Sci Futures, a sort of think tank dedicated to providing these services to clients such as Crayola, Ford, and Lowes, has a pithy tagline encapsulating their mission: “Where sci-fi gets real. A comparable organization, 2020 Media Futures, describes its mission as, an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020.

So, the research interests are vast. Of her work with Intel Labs and beyond, Ashby said, They often tell me, we want the future of intelligent systems, or the future of warfare in smart cities, the future of a world without antibiotics, the future of programmable matter, or the Internet of things.

Because Ashby spends considerable time dreaming up innovative solutions to social problems, she cant help but imbue her stories with similar gizmos and features. Her stories dont always involve positive situations for her characters, but they do often incorporate technologies that could solve said characters problems.

This is the central tenet of techno-optimism, the breed of science-fiction writing thats working to counter the rough terrain of dystopia, barren and desolate as it is; thirsty, it sometimes seems, for a solution thats bigger than a big-hearted narrator.

Writer and anthology editor Kathryn Cramer was a reluctant adopter of the genre. When aforementioned writer Stephenson, author of Seveneves, approached her to edit a collection of stories united under the banner of positive change, she worried the stories themselves would suffer from lack of plot, and lack of diversity. But, as she commissioned works of techno-optimism, she realized the genre promotes diverse voices rather than suppressing them. Her fears were quelled.

When we contemplate dark scenarios or disasters for the future, it is perhaps an ethically and morally good thing to do to figure out what the solutions might be, especially technological solutions, Cramer said in an interview with HuffPost. If we look at the 20th century, there are a whole lot of things that changed our lives in good ways, and solved a lot of problems, ranging from vaccines and refrigerated food transportation to frozen food. Some of them are sexy, like space travel, but a lot of them are things that improved everybodys lives in ways we might notve expected. Preservatives, things like that.

Cramers altruistic outlook hints at her thoughts on what a book can, and should, accomplish. While she believes writers have a responsibility to push innovation in a positive direction, some readers and writers think that mindset interferes with the quality of a story. So addressing societal problems, be it via extended, post-apocalyptic metaphors, or via similarly bleak settings peppered with hope, doesnt sit well with all sci-fi readers. Most notably, there are those — cue the Sad Puppies — who are nostalgic for the days of so-called Golden Age sci-fi: Star Trek-like space-travel adventures that offer a means of briefly escaping the restrictions of the real world. Nimble writing and world-building is supposedly the aim for such stories; political opinions, solutions-oriented and otherwise, are actively eschewed.

But the Puppies agenda — which resulted in No Award being given at the Hugo Awards this year in categories for which only white men were nominated — extends beyond particular tastes in writing styles. Claiming science-fiction has opted for affirmative action-guided decisions rather than supporting story-centric writing, they lobbied to place white, male writers — including themselves — on the award ballots.

Ashby spoke passionately against the Puppies movement: Thats part of their battle cry: Why do we have to think about social issues in our science fiction? Why do we have to think about other genders, or sexualities, or economic circumstances? Why cant it just be fun like it used to be? Well, yeah, Im sure it was really fun when you werent thinking about it. Everythings a lot more fun when youre not thinking about it.

Thinking about it, according to Ashby, involves confronting the dire state of life for some social groups. It involves constructing a narrative that encourages the reader to consider the lives of others, rather than just getting lost in his own fantasy world, in which he alone is the hero and the solution. It involves hope not in the form of a triumphant narrator, but in the technologies we can create when we do something really miraculous: work together.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

[garkomedia1]

How the U.S. and U.K. are partners in chaos

Editor’s Note: This edition of Free Morning Money is published weekdays at 8 a.m. POLITICO Pro Financial Services subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 5:15 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Money will not publish on Thursday Nov. 22 and Friday Nov. 23. Our next Morning Money newsletter will publish on Monday Nov. 26.

Story Continued Below

HOW THE U.K. AND THE U.S. ARE PARTNERS IN CHAOS — A little thought bubble as we head into the weekend and the short Thanksgiving week. MM spent some time over the last several days in Washington and New York with a variety of executives who are sifting through the 2018 midterm election results and trying to make some sense of the path of U.S. politics.

Many are trying to figure out where America is headed with a growing schism between a metro-area dominated, more highly educated electorate trending toward the Democrats and smaller town and rural voters sticking with President Donald Trump and the GOP and embracing the president’s hardline trade and immigration policies and his culture war appeals.

Consensus among these executives (and frankly among anyone else) is that American politics is a directionless wreck with no path forward on anything from health care to education to retirement savings to climate change and gun violence and long-term fiscal deficits. One British banker mused about how he’s never seen the U.S. so screwed up or derelict on the world stage.

Then he stopped himself almost immediately to say how the U.K. was really wasn’t any better with no consensus on how to deal with Brexit, a potential end to Prime Minister Theresa May’s tenure, a civil war inside the Conservative party and a plunging pound. It remains largely unclear in the U.K. whether May’s softer Brexit plan will somehow survive or no deal will emerge leading to a hard Brexit or a new referendum will take place to reverse Brexit entirely.

Tensions in the U.S. and U.K. are different in many ways but they share commonalities of fractured politics and deep divisions on fundamental identities as either insular and nationalistic or more globally integrated and diverse. We got no revelatory insight in these conversations beyond a morbid sense that only grave and immediate crisis that cannot be ignored will jolt either nation into clarity. And maybe not even then. Happy thoughts for your Friday!

SPEAKING OF THE TWO AMERICAS… CNBC’s John Harwood writes on data compiled by Brookings’ Mark Munro that show that “districts won by Democrats account for 61 percent of America’s gross domestic product, districts won by Republicans 38 percent. That economic separation underpins cultural divisions that usually command more attention. … Residents of districts won by Democrats generate 22% more output per worker, and have a 15% higher median household income.” Read more.

** A message from The National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Proxy advisory firms—secretive companies most Americans have never heard of—are putting Americans’ retirement savings at risk. These firms can give inaccurate, conflict-ridden and sometimes politically motivated recommendations that jeopardize Americans’ retirement savings. Learn More: https://proxyreforms.com/ **

MORE WILBUR ROSS DRAMA — POLITICO’s Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia with the details: “To hear Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his allies tell it, rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated. Administration officials and close White House advisers say the 80-year-old Ross could be out of a job in a broader Cabinet shakeup as soon as January or as late as mid-2019. Ross, long said to be on thin ice with President Donald Trump, denies either scenario. ‘I’ll serve as long as the president wants and I have no indication to the contrary,’ he told an audience at a Yahoo! Finance event on Nov. 13.

“But in a sign of Ross’s perceived weakness, at least one influential Trump ally has begun speaking openly about his desire for the Commerce job if and when it becomes vacant: Office of Management and Budget chief Mick Mulvaney. …

“Other names circulating for the top Commerce slot include Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon; Ray Washburne, a major Republican donor and the President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and Karen Dunn Kelly, undersecretary for economic affairs at Commerce, who is jockeying for the job internally at the department.” Read more.

Restuccia (@AndrewRestuccia) also tweeted that McMahon would meet with Trump in the Oval on Friday.

GOP INVESTORS MORE BULLISH POST MIDTERMS — Somewhat counter-intuitive findings in this E-Trade survey of investors after midterm elections in which Democrats took back the House: “Republicans skew more bullish … with 38% saying they are more bullish toward the market than they were before the election. Democrats are slightly less optimistic, with 33% expressing more bullishness.

“Yet Republicans are also less positive about the personal impact of the results: Republicans are significantly more pessimistic across every measure tested, including how the new Congress will impact their investing portfolio, taxes, savings and bond yields, inflation, debt interest, and cost of goods and services.” Read more.

FIRST LOOK: ABA ON THE CRA — The ABA has a new comment letter out this morning to the OCC in response to its request for ideas to change the Community Reinvestment Act. From the comment: “Regulators should revise the CRA framework to incorporate fully the electronic channels through which many consumers prefer to conduct financial transactions. In addition, amendments to the CRA regulations must reflect that banks of all sizes are no longer restricted to conducting business in a limited geographic location.

WARNINGS SIGNS IN RETAIL SALES? — Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson: “The headline retail sales numbers for October looked good, but the details were less comforting. Gains in auto sales, building materials—due to the hurricanes, likely— and higher gasoline prices cannot be the foundation of solid broad growth, and the core numbers were rather weaker.

“The key message from the recent data, in our view, is that the impact of the tax cuts, which pushed sales up sharply in the spring, is fading rapidly. Our measure of core retail sales, which excludes autos, gasoline and food, rose at a mere 2.7% annualized rate in the three months to October, slowing from the 9.9% peak in the three months to July.”

TRANSITIONS— Jacqueline Corba, a POLITICO alum, has joined CNBC’s Squawk Box team as anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin’s producer. She was previously Senior Producer of special programming at Cheddar. Good get!

DEMS FLOAT POTENTIALLY BIG RULE CHANGES — Washington Examiner’s Colin Wilhelm and Laura Barrón-López on new proposed rules changes drafted by Democrats in the House: “One change would require a three-fifths majority to raise taxes on individuals outside the top 20 percent of income earners.

“The draft rules would also eliminate dynamic budgetary scoring, which takes economic growth under consideration when determining the cost of legislation in federal spending. … If agreed upon by a majority of members in the House, the new rules would also effectively do away with standalone debt ceiling votes in the chamber, reinstating a rule that deems the debt ceiling raised if a budget is passed.” Read more.

MUELLER ANXIETY GRIPS THE WHITE HOUSE — Good read from POLITICO’s Darren Samuelsohn: “Lawyers for President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. insist they aren’t worried about special counsel Robert Mueller. But half a dozen people in contact with the White House and other Trump officials say a deep anxiety has started to set in that Mueller is about to pounce after his self-imposed quiet period, and that any number of Trump’s allies and family members may soon be staring down the barrel of an indictment.

“Then there are the president’s own tweets, which have turned back to attacking Mueller after a near two-month break. … ‘You can see it in Trump’s body language all week long. There’s something troubling him. It’s not just a couple staff screw ups with Melania,’ said a senior Republican official in touch with the White House. ‘It led me to believe the walls are closing in and they’ve been notified by counsel of some actions about to happen. Folks are preparing for the worst.’” Read more.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING — Happy weekend everyone! Next week is Thanksgiving. Thank God. Email me at bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver at aweaver@politico.com and follow her on Twitter @AubreeEWeaver..

DRIVING THE DAY — President Trump at 1:00 p.m. awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to several recipients including Miriam Edelson, wife of billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson … Industrial production at 9:15 a.m. expected to rise 0.2 percent with manufacturing up 0.3 percent …

BOWMAN CONFIRMED; WHAT ABOUT NELLIE LIANG? — POLITICO’s Victoria Guida: “The Senate in a 64-34 vote … confirmed Kansas State Banking Commissioner Michelle Bowman as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, the culmination of a yearslong push by community bankers to guarantee that someone who shares their experience sits at the central bank.

“Bowman, nominated in April, is the first person confirmed to the Fed seat reserved for a community banker, a position created in 2015. The seven-member Fed board now has five members, after dwindling to as low as three over the past year. The Fed’s newest governor has served as Kansas’ top bank regulator since Jan. 31, 2017.” Read more.

Trump now has two more Fed nominees awaiting Senate votes, Marvin Goodfriend and Nellie Liang, a long-time Fed staff member who played a critical role during the financial crisis. The White House continues to telegraph confidence that they can get Liang through the Senate Banking Committee and to the floor for a vote.

But banking groups and some Senate Banking members including Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have expressed significant opposition and suggested Liang could interfere with efforts to reduce regulatory burdens on large financial institutions. So far, GOP Senate leadership has mostly stayed out of it, waiting to see what happens at the committee level.

FED UNVEILS COMMUNICATION REFORM PLAN — POLITICO’s Zachary Warmbrodt: “The Federal Reserve … unveiled plans for a review of the way it conducts monetary policy. The review the Fed has mapped out for next year will include outreach to the public, including a June 4-5 research conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the central bank said. Federal Reserve Banks will host a series of public events around the country to get input, the Fed said.

“Beginning around the middle of next year, Fed policymakers will discuss the feedback received from the events. ‘With labor market conditions close to maximum employment and inflation near our 2 percent objective, now is a good time to take stock of how we formulate, conduct, and communicate monetary policy,’ Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a statement.” Read more.

QUARLES, TAKE TWO — Cap Alpha’s Ian Katz: “Fed regulatory czar Randy Quarles put in his second consecutive day of congressional testimony on Thursday. This one before the Senate Banking Committee was barely an hour … Overall, the message was again broadly positive for banks.

“He tried to convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that the Fed is carefully monitoring leveraged lending, and contested assertions from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) that he’s making the stress tests too easy.”

TECH, BANKS LEAD STOCK REBOUND — AP’s Alex Veiga: “A rebound in technology companies and banks helped reverse an early slide for U.S. stocks Thursday, breaking a five-day losing streak for the market.

“Health care and industrial stocks also rose, offsetting losses in retailers, homebuilders, utilities and other sectors. Energy stocks also helped lift the market as the price of U.S. crude oil rose for the second straight day. … The late-afternoon market rebound marked the latest episode of volatile trading for the market this week.” Read more.

POUND SLIDES AMID BREXIT TURMOIL — NYT’s Peter Eavis: “Big declines in Britain’s currency, the pound, often have signaled wrenching changes for the country. Could this be the case again as … May struggles to win support for her plan to take Britain out of the European Union?

“The British pound on Thursday fell 2 percent against the dollar. That’s a large decline for a currency belonging to a developed economy and is the biggest one-day drop since the weeks after Britain’s vote in June 2016 to leave the European Union … Though the pound is down 15 percent since that vote, it remains well above the lows it hit in January 2017, when it was becoming clear that Mrs. May’s government favored a more drastic separation from important economic arrangements with the European Union.” Read more.

ECONOMISTS SPLIT ON MIDTERMS OUTCOME — WSJ’s Harriet Torry: “Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal were roughly split on whether the outcome of the recent midterm elections would dispel or increase uncertainty for the economy and financial markets in the coming months. The vote means that come January, Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives, while Republicans will retain control of the U.S. Senate.

“Nearly half of respondents in the economists’ survey, 46 percent, said economic uncertainty would increase somewhat following the midterms, while 40 percent of respondents expected it would decline somewhat after the vote.” Read more.

HOUSE PANEL TO LOOK AT FINANCE SECTOR DIVERSITY — Reuters’ Pete Schroeder: “Democrats are planning to dramatically step up their focus on improving financial services for underserved communities when they take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, according to several people briefed on the matter.

“Representative Maxine Waters, who is poised to take over the chair of the Financial Services Committee after Democrats won a majority in the House in Nov. 6 elections, is considering creating a subcommittee dedicated to financial inclusion and diversity in the sector, as well as a taskforce to focus on financial technology innovation, the people said. Waters had previously said the issue would be a priority.” Read more.

GOLDMAN CEO ‘PERSONALLY OUTRAGED’ BY 1MDB SCANDAL — Bloomberg’s Keith Campbell and Jennifer Surane: “David Solomon had a message for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employees shaken by the firm’s involvement in a multibillion fraud scandal: This isn’t us.

“‘I am personally outraged that any employee of the firm would undertake the actions spelled out in the government’s pleadings,’ the firm’s chief executive officer said in a voicemail left with employees on Wednesday. ‘The behavior of those individuals is reprehensible and inconsistent with the good work and integrity that defines work that 40,000 of you do every day.’” Read more.

CREDIT UNIONS HAVE MORE WOMEN CEOs — Per new research from economists at the Credit Union National Association (CUNA): “In the financial sector where females are significantly underrepresented in management positions, credit unions create and sustain opportunities for female leaders to serve their communities.

“We measured credit union success in three key categories, and here’s what we found: Female executives are significantly more common at credit unions compared to other financial institutions: A majority (52%) of credit union CEOs are female. Accounting for differences in asset size, there is no evidence for a gender pay gap at credit unions” Read more.

ANOTHER DEM PICKUP IN THE HOUSE — POLITICO’s Elena Schneider: “Democrat Jared Golden has defeated GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin in Maine’s 2nd District, bringing Democrats’ net gain in the House to 36 seats with five GOP seats still uncalled — and with Poliquin still embroiled in a lawsuit against Maine’s secretary of state over the vote.

“Golden had 50.5 percent of the vote to Poliquin’s 49.5 percent, according to the Maine secretary of state’s office. Golden’s victory — the first House race ever decided by a ranked-choice voting system — also marked the 20th district that Democrats won that had been carried by … Trump in 2016.” Read more.

AND ONE MORE… POLITICO’s Brent D. Griffiths: “Southern California Rep. Mimi Walters was ousted Thursday night, the latest House Republican to lose their seat in the formerly deep-red Orange County. The Associated Press called the 45th congressional district race with Democrat Katie Porter leading Walters, a two-term incumbent who previously served in the California senate, by just over 6,000 votes as ballots continue to be counted.” Read more.

** A message from The National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Proxy advisory firms have no obligation to look out for investors’ best interests, and the recommendations of these secretive companies can put Americans’ personal investments and retirement savings at risk. Put simply, these firms give advice that is often at odds with the best interests of Main Street investors.

That leads to bad decisions that can undermine company performance and drag down retirement account balances for American workers. Thankfully, the Securities and Exchange Commission is exploring ways to provide much-needed oversight. And Main Street investors can take action by telling Washington to look out for working Americans and their savings. Learn more: https://proxyreforms.com/ **

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[yseferebel-blog]

Capstone Proposal Final Draft

1.0  Project Scope

1.1  Project Title: Little Bits

1.2  Project Goals  

Organizational – Simplify and filter information for busy parents

Instructional Design – Create a curated guide on parenting 101 for busy parents relevant for expecting parents to parents with toddlers under 5.

1.3  Learning Goals

My learning goal is to test the wireframe made in EDU 113 by creating a basic app that users can test/interact with. I plan to create the prototype app using Xcode for Mac IOS. After user testing I will readjust my scope using the methods learned in EDU 113 (Instructional Design Studio).

1.4  Target Audience

Expecting and current parents

1.5  Elevator Pitch

Parents are busy, and sometimes it’s not coffee in that coffee cup. My design challenge is to create a product that encompasses a growth mindset for the parent, that centers a design around time and ease, and personalizes content around the age of the child that is pushed out three times a week via notification/text style. Curated content will include experts like Dr. John Medina (brain rules for baby author and developmental molecular biologist), podcasts, and many well regarded experts and parenting sites that tackle parenting challenges and outside the box thinking.

1.6  Metrics (Measurement of project success)

Basic functionality such as sending notification works.

The app is easy to use, convenient in regards to time, and relevant to the parent.

Overall: The concept of the app addresses the basic information for parenting that is curated specifically for their child. The idea is to filter opinions from fact, and have an interactive “conversation” with parents. These conversations are pushed out with a headliner, and the parents can choose whether or not they will look into the headline. There will be three notifications sent each week with Mondays – being myth busters, Wednesdays –media, and Fridays – information from an expert or a well-regarded parenting blog related to their child and the milestone ahead. This will be successful after user testing confirms whether or not parents would use the app with two key areas in mind, simple and fast.

1.7  Life beyond capstone

With much of the work to start this project done in EDU 113, this capstone will create a working version of EDU 113’s project. Once feedback and testing are received, the project may go beta. I think this would be something parents would use, it’s different and simple. After the basic app, I would like to create one to launch on the app store (for free). I would also like to collaborate, using DGMD skills to work with parents and professionals to create more unique content for the app.

2.    Competitor Review

EveryParent app - localized to a certain area that offers trusted tips, expert advice, personalized parenting info, milestones, and notifications pushed to the phone.

           - website: www.everyparentpbc.org

- It has 36 reviews in apple app store and is a localized app to Palm Beach FL so the market share is small.

- The tone is personable, insightful, and informative. This can appeal to all generation types, and parents with children of all ages.  

- They are targeting local Palm Beach parents. Possibly current parents regardless of the child’s age. My target audience are expecting and parents with children ages up to 5.

- After reading the reviews, many parents enjoy the app. They believe the app is educational and informative regarding children of all ages. They have a Facebook page which the reviews for the actual physical place is good. They have an estimated 2000 followers.

-This competitor relates to my organizational goal in a sense that in centralizes a place for parents to get personalized information for their child. As far as user goals go, I am more concerned with user testing, making it the most simplistic, least time consuming app to use for the parent. While looking through the app, it seems that the app has much to offer with a lot of reading and so forth. I am concentrating on quick headlines and summaries that parents can quickly grasp and look into later if they want to while keeping it engaging and fun. The product goal does seem like it is similar, and that is to assist parents with providing a central place to gather information pertaining to their child from a trusted source.

Parenting Hero app - A really neat app, and a different take on parenting. It’s an interactive story app that helps parents understand scenarios to better communicate with their children ages 2-7. It costs $2.99.

           -website: www.mythicowl.com

-Created with authors of “How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7″

           -20 reviews on the apple app store, small market share

-The tone is fun, different, and engaging. It differs from other apps because it is engaging. It gives you scenarios on what the child does in a comic book style layout and allows you to choose your answer.

-The difference is that it gives a scenario and you pick a reply to that scenario in a fun, learning based environment to deal with a road block with your child. My offerings fit with the given scenario and reply. My product will push a text style notification out to the parent asking a question they can either answer “yes” or “no”, or depending on the content to let them “know more” or “next”. This will engage the parents if they want to be engaged, or they can pass if they don’t have the time, or if they already know what the content is.  

-I think they are targeting parents who are struggling with toddlers and young children that need help with learning how to correct or talk to them. This is more closer to my target audience, but I am aiming for expecting parents and children ages infant to 5 years old.

-They have about 300 likes on Facebook, 200 twitter followers. People like the apps they develop. This app in particular can use help, people are not fond of the price for the content.

-This competitor relates to my goals because they have an engaging, fun and unique tone to the app. The unique engagement of scenario and response is similar to my product and user goal.

Dr. John Medina’s Brain Rules: for Baby (book) - This was my motivation on building a product that was a centralized place where parents can get personalized information about their child. This book goes through the myths, growth/fixed mindsets, how to nurture a growing mind and so much more. This really is a great way to understand how the child’s brain is wired, and how we can do our best to nurture and grow it.

           -website: http://www.brainrules.net/brain-rules-for-baby

-I believe he has a large share of the market; he is a New York Times best seller and is an expert in this field.

-The tone is very informative. He can tell scientific stories that actually make sense, and he uses very good examples to back each theory. His tone is science; if it is theory, it has been tested and must pass his “grump” factor.

-The difference is he is a developmental molecular biologist and father who can tell a great story about the child’s brain and how it works. He is also an expert on the brain while the other app developers are not. My offerings will use his methodologies when appropriate and referenced to engage the parents. This will also give the parents great summaries of important points of brain development and myths.

-He is targeting expecting, new and parents up to 5 years old. It is the same as my target audience.

-He has 4100 Twitter followers, many likes, and many tweets. He has a Facebook page just for the Brain Rules for Baby as well, not as popular as his twitter page but it has many likes.

-His content was the spark, that lead me to create my product. I realized that many parents follow misconceptions, get frustrated filtering through all the blogs not knowing what was really true or false, and just spending too much time looking for solutions and ending up with more problems. I think after reading this book, I have aligned my organizational, user, and product goal to reflect a product that encompasses a growth mindset for the parent, that centers a design around time and ease, and personalizes content around the age of the child through experts like Dr. Medina, out-of-the box thinking, and how-to for parents.

3.    Technology Requirements

The wireframe was created with Balsamiq. The app for user testing will be an interactive wireframe using Invision. The basic app will be created with Xcode for Mac IOS. I might create a short video and simple website to create a face behind the app time permitting.

4.    Design workflow

The app design and flow is very similar to a messaging app, just like Quartz. Quartz is a news app that sends headlines in their app, the user then picks from the pre listed answers. Apple’s Xcode uses a Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern in an IOS app. The flow goes from user input, view, controller, and model. Each has a specific component to run the app. Xcode will allow me to design and build the app in one location and comes with a built in framework to guide the process of designing the app as well as the workflow of the app. The intended flow is the app sends a headline and a one sentence summary of the subject to the user in a text within the app. The user will then have two predetermined messages to reply back to the app using Chatbox. Based on user input, the app will either send more information on the subject, or stop for the day. The user will also be able to touch the message to open the entire article, site, video if they want to read the entire page.

5.    Work plan and milestones

August 2018 – Capstone Proposal Due

August 15, 2018 – User testing complete

August 20, 2018 – Design app logo, intractable wireframe using invision

August 15 to November 15 – Framework complete (Using Interface Builder in Xcode- build model layer, view layer, and controller layer)

     -One Example of Myth Buster Monday – NLT 30 AUG

                 -Model layer – create data using swift.

-View layer – Ensure the view aligns are compatible with each iphone size, buttons/text are visible

-Controller layer – Ensure that the buttons grab data from model layer and give data to user.

           -One Example of Media Wednesday – NLT 07 NOV

           -One Example of Expert Friday – NLT 15 NOV

November 15 – Run simulator, test, refine, user test

December 01, 2018 – Refine app

December 08, 2018 – Capstone presentation

December 17, 2018 – Capstone Deliverables Due

6.    References

Content Deliverables:

John J. Medina (2014). Brain Rules for Baby (2nded).Tracy Cutchlow (Ed.).Seattle, WA: Pear Press

Cutchlow, Tracy. (2018) Zero to Five. Retrieved from http://www.zerotofive.net

Slate Magazine & Panoply. (2017). Mom and Dad are Fighting[Audio podcast] Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mom-and-dad-are-fighting-slates-parenting-show/id774383607?mt=2

Making the app:

Christian Keur & Aaron Hillegass (2016). IOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. Atlanta, GA: Big Nerd Ranch, LLC

Matt Mathias & John Gallagher(2016). Swift Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. Atlanta, GA: Big Nerd Ranch, LLC

(“https://swift.org,” 2018)

Functionality Design:

(“https://qz.com,” 2018)

[rebeccahpedersen]

Quick Hits!

TorontoRealtyBlog

“Little bit ‘a lotta things” today, as they say.

They who?  I don’t know.  But it sounded good when I wrote it.

I’m going to cover five or six topics today, all noteworthy & newsworthy, all free for your commentary.  Although I think I already know which one will get solicit the most opinion…

    How Can You Put A Price On Emotion?

If you didn’t read about this story a couple of weeks ago, then I’m so happy to be the one bringing it to your attention.

Sellers of a Beaches home have decided that they will not sell their property to the highest bidder, but rather, “a deserving young family who will benefit from the neighbourhood and preserve and enrich the community,” as the MLS listing states.

Here’s a Toronto Star article from May 15th:

“For sellers of this semi-detached home, a deserving family trumps price”

“This is about putting a nice young family in there. We’re not interested in a bidding war or anything like that,” the deceased seller’s daughter said.

As soon as this article came out, however, the reaction was just oh-so-perfect for the confusing times in 2018, in that the peanut gallery took a positive, and turned it into a negative.

That’s right; the peanut gallery started to call discrimination.

It is, I suppose.

Accepting the highest offer is an easy way to pick a winner.  But when you start examining people, their personalities, their lives, their values, and start putting a value on their self-worth, then surely that does become, by very definition of the word, “discriminatory.”

We’ll never know how the sellers decided to pick the winner, and for many, that’s the problem.

Personally, I think it’s the sellers’ right to sell to whoever they want, for whatever reasons.

But what if behind closed doors, they never intended to sell the house to a person of a particular race, age, demographic, sexual orientation, etc?

Wow.  Do you see what we’ve done as a society?  Our glass is half empty.  We create “what-if” scenarios, and then debate them.  I miss the 1980’s…

In any event, the clamouring died down a little bit, and the sale went forward.

Low and behold, the house sold for the asking price, and no more.

I wonder what it’ll be like for that new family, with everybody in the neighbourhood asking, “What did they do, or who are they, to ‘win’ that house?”

–

Who Doesn’t Love A New Tax?

Wasn’t this simply a matter of time?

“York Region demands power to bring in new taxes”

To the surprise of just about nobody, one of the taxes at the top of the list is a land transfer tax.

For those youngin’s out there, I do recall a time when the sale of properties in Toronto only had one land transfer tax!

Ah, the good old days!  When buying a $900,000 home only came with a $14,475 raping of the wallet, for absolutely no reason.

Then along came David Miller, who didn’t realize that “2 x 1 = 2,” and the tax doubled overnight.

Now it’s almost $30,000 to simply move.

Tell me I’m biased because I’m in real estate, but this tax, in my opinion, is the most bizarre tax I’ve ever seen.  The tax isn’t tied to anything!  Garbage pickup, hydro, sewer and water – all the services associated with a home are paid for via property taxes!  What is the land transfer tax tied to?  It’s a nothing tax.

In any event, York Region councillors are demanding that the government of Ontario give them power to increase, and create new taxes.  They’re facing a $220 Million budget shortfall, and while a fiscal conservative like myself might suggest reducing spending, the obvious answer for anybody in government is simply to increase taxes.

I think it’s prudent to keep in mind just how hard York Region has been hit with the decline in real estate prices in the last 12 months.

May I remind you of the chart from a blog post earlier this month:

(yes I know that chart is prettier than my usual screenshots from Excel, but I gussied it up for the Toronto Life presentation last night…)

York Region prices are down 20.6%, April YTD.

Adding another land transfer tax isn’t exactly going to help stabilize real estate prices, but perhaps the government doesn’t care?

–

F*** The Rich!

This is old news, but it was recently brought up again via an interaction I had with a buyer client.

This client is looking to purchase for $4,500,000, and was last active in November of 2016.

He’s been away for 18 months, and when calculating the expenses associated with his purchase, he was using his old spreadsheet – from 2016.

Little did he know, the government’s rebate on land transfer tax for first-time home buyers in 2017 was offset by an increase in land transfer tax for luxury homes.

Do you guys even remember this?  It’s like it almost didn’t make headlines.

Land transfer tax was increased from 2.0% to 2.5% on the portion of purchase price over $2,000,000.

That means an additional $12,500 in land transfer tax payable.

$12,500?

Really?  Am I making a fuss about this?

$12,500 in the context of a $4,500,000 house is a rounding error!

But what if I told you that the total amount of land transfer tax payable on this purchase was $197,950?  What then?

It’s tough to define the word “fair” in today’s world, especially in the context of politics and governance.

But I’d love to know what you all think.  As I alluded to in the previous point, people don’t really “get anything” for their payment of land transfer tax.  Is shelling out nearly $200,000, fair?  And would any of you subscribe to the simple theory that “These people can afford to pay it?”

–

Have You Seen My Agent?  I Can’t Find Her…

This is a great story.

And by “great,” I mean it’s entertaining.  But in reality, it’s sad, and pathetic.

I was set to receive offers on a listing last week, and I got a call around 5:30pm from a young lady who asked, “What time are offers?”

I told her we were going to review offers at 7:00pm.

I asked, “Are you an agent?” since I assumed she was.  But she said, “No, I’m not, but I’d like to submit an offer.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant through me, or not.  So I simply asked, and she said, “Maybe, I’m not sure yet.”

I dragged the situation out of her – it seems that she had a buyer agent working for her, who works out of Oakville, but she couldn’t get ahold of the agent.  She said she had been trying “all day,” and she knew “something was wrong” when her agent didn’t email her on the morning of offers (let alone, the night before…) to tell her that offers would be reviewed at 7pm, remind her she needs a deposit cheque, etc.

Imagine that.

You hire somebody to represent you, and they do anything but.

“What about somebody at the brokerage?” I asked her.  “If your agent is away on vacation, surely she has somebody to look after her business, right?”

“I don’t know,” she told me.  “I’m not sure how she runs her business; she’s often hard to reach.  What can I do here?  What are my options?” she asked me.

“If you want to make an offer, that can happen,” I explained.  “You can do so through any agent, any brokerage, whoever you want.”  I told her.

She asked if she could make the offer through me, and I explained that I was representing the seller, and while it’s technically possible, I don’t like multiple representation, and I’d rather her work with somebody from my brokerage.  Or another brokerage.  It was totally up to her.

I further explained the buyer representation rules and regulations, and explained the difference between a Buyer Representation Agreement and a Customer Service Agreement and that’s when she said something amazing: “I’ve already signed a buyer representation agreement with my agent.”

Well, crap.

“For me to speak to you about this property, a potential offer, and your options, technically, is interfering with a buyer under contract,” I explained.  “The B.R.A. is signed with the brokerage, not the agent,” I told her.  “So you can make the offer through anybody at the brokerage.”

Then I asked her, “Which brokerage is it?”

Even more amazingly, she said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I asked.  “Re/Max, Royal Lepage, Homelife, Century 21, Chestnut Park, Keller Williams,” I went on, and on, and on.

“Nothing rings a bell,” she told me.

So I told her quite honestly, “You’re under contract with a brokerage, working with an agent that you can’t get in touch with.  I honestly don’t think I can help you.”

And this isn’t about commission, in case you’re wondering.  The truth is, I’m not sure if I could have even drafted the offer for her to sign, and submitted it on her behalf – with the full understanding that she was working with another brokerage, and they would receive the commission.  I just can’t interfere with somebody else’s client.  It’s very simple.

I felt bad for the girl.  I told her to call the brokerage, and ask for the manager or the broker of record, to see if they could help.

Then she reminded me that she didn’t know which brokerage it was, and I essentially gave up.

I don’t know that there’s a moral of the story, a conclusion, or any takeaway her.  It’s just really unfortunate.

–

“What Goes Up Must Come Down……Most Of The Time”

We see a lot of real estate “fluff” columns in the newspapers, so I love seeing something new and interesting; something I haven’t read about before.

Shane Dingman from the Globe & Mail wrote an interesting, albeit depressing piece last week:

“Elevators a let-down for Toronto condo dwellers”

According to the article, condominiums have the lowest rate of elevator “availability” at 93%, which translates to 25 out-of-service days per year.

But the really interesting part of the article was about one specific building in Toronto: 59 East Liberty Street.

Apparently none of the elevators were in service at one point, and residents were without options – other than the stairs.

One of the three elevators has been out of service for a year!

And what of the board of directors?

They told residents not to voice any displeasure; not to “tweet, talk to the media, or make waves.”

What a mess.

The article is a solid read – click the link above.

The post Quick Hits! appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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[airoasis]

Baker Mayfield's Motivation: Anger Versus Slights

Part 10 of our draft season series on Baker Mayfield, the 2018 draft’s most fascinating prospect on and off the field

LOS ANGELES — It’s been a common theme during his five years in the spotlight: One of Baker Mayfield’s chief motivators—if not the biggest of them all—is criticism. Ask him now, though, at the precipice of his NFL career, and he’ll say he’s only selectively listening to the voices on social media telling him he’s too short, or that his offense at the University of Oklahoma won’t translate, or that his best NFL comparison is a certain first-round burnout from his part of the country.

“I can ignore it,” Mayfield says. “Although some things really tick me off and I want to prove them wrong.” His coach at Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley, once said the chip on Mayfield’s shoulder was as big as the 1,800-square-foot office the coach was sitting in. His former teammate and close friend Mark Andrews says Mayfield takes high-profile criticisms very seriously: “It could be the smallest thing in the world, but in his head it’s the world ending.”

All of which made Mayfield’s day on the campus of UCLA all the more fascinating. Before Mayfield embarks on a cross-country tour of visits—which will include Cleveland, Buffalo, both the Giants and Jets in New Jersey, Miami, Denver and Arizona—he spent a day on an ESPN set in UCLA’s football building with Russell Wilson. The Seahawks quarterback is debuting a four-part television feature this month, QB2QB, in which he interviews four different NFL draft prospects and shares his perspective into the mental side of the game.

Wilson is the picture of poise on and off the field, his squeaky-clean image and self-imposed insulation from the noise doing much to partition him from a core of outspoken stars in Seattle’s locker room (a handful of whom were jettisoned this offseason). It stands in stark contrast with Mayfield, who has made almost as many headlines with snappy Twitter clapbacks and blunt commentary as he has with an arm and a brain that won him the Heisman in 2017.

At one point during the Wednesday filming attended by The MMQB, Wilson delved into his theory on the media. “I don’t turn the TV on during the season,” Wilson told Mayfield. “I watch my shows and that’s about it. I just try to stay focused and clearheaded, because I know who I am, and I know who I’m destined to be.”

Wilson referenced Oklahoma’s November game vs. Kansas, in which the Jayhawks’ team captains refused to shake hands with OU’s captains in pregame, and Mayfield responded by grabbing his crotch in the direction of the Kansas sideline while OU cruised to victory. Wilson warned Mayfield that NFL defenses would try to goad him, knowing he has a short fuse. “There are certain things like the Kansas game,” Mayfield admitted, “I have to polish that up.”

Trevor Moawad, a mental coach who has worked with the Universities of Alabama, Georgia and numerous other clients including Wilson, described a component of Wilson’s mental edge to Mayfield: “The outside influence is one tenth as powerful as the inside influence,” Moab said during the taping. “What you say to yourself is ten times more powerful than what other people say about you. We’re motivated by fear, incentive, or the desire to be great. But the most powerful one is, I want to do it to prove myself right.

“With Russell, all the talk around the draft was what he wasn’t, who he wasn’t. It never bothered him. I remember him saying at 22 years old, ‘I have enough, and I’m going to use what I have to the best of my ability.’”

To date, Mayfield’s personal philosophy has been something different. He led OU to a 34-6 record in his three years as a leader who latched onto any portrayal of him or his program as something less than. Andrews, the Mackey-award winning OU tight end, remembers Mayfield walking around the football facility with a large sign reading “Pretenders”—a reference to ESPN analyst Lee Corso’s take on the Sooners’ national title prospects. Today, Mayfield is keeping a list of the media members who have crossed a line, he says, and he stores screenshots of offending tweets in his phone. All of it serves as motivation when he’s working out alone, he told Wilson.

“At the same time it really doesn’t bother me that much,” Mayfield said of the criticism, “because I know the people that say some of these things have never actually taken a snap behind center, never had a 300-pound lineman about to hit them while they have to read the defense downfield.

“If I was worried too much about it, I’d be worried about the wrong things. But I do use some of it as motivation. I can listen to all the people patting me on the back, or I can listen to the people saying I need to get better. I know I need to get better, or else there would be nobody saying that.”

The problem, says one well-informed member of the media, is that the criticism never stops. Former Cleveland Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas, newly-retired and now a co-host on the popular ThomaHawk Show podcast with former NFL wide receiver Andrew Hawkins as well as an occasional columnist for The MMQB, had Mayfield on the show during Super Bowl week in Minneapolis, before Thomas had decided to retire after 11 seasons (10 of them losing seasons). Cleveland, in its annual search for a franchise quarterback, is considered a possible landing spot for Mayfield.

“Even if you do have success, people are going to say negative things about you, and you have to handle that,” Thomas says. “Look how much negativity is around Tom Brady. I think in college you get sort of insulated, because most of the beat writers are kinda homers, and if you’re a really successful player like Baker, you probably haven’t been exposed to a lot of critics, but in the NFL that changes no matter who you are.”

In his time in Cleveland, Thomas says, he saw dozens of successful and productive teammates who were motivated in different ways, be it wealth, fear of failure, a desire to prove people wrong, or love of the game.

“The thing that scares me about someone who is motivated by criticism,” Thomas says, “is that he could become overwhelmed with the amount of negative. You wonder with Baker, is there a critical mass where there’s so much criticism, and there are so many people saying he can’t do it, he just gives up? When your confidence has been shattered, you lose love for the game, because what people were saying about me was so important.

“I think I’ve seen that in Cleveland and also with a lot of young quarterbacks all over the league, because most of them have a lot of success their whole lives, and all of a sudden the NFL is a different game, and everything they thought they knew about themselves—that they were great leaders, and they could throw the ball and read defenses, and that their will would always overcome—they start to question those things and lose their confidence, and some never regain it.”

Thomas’s concern echoed that of one former quarterback who attributes his own fall from grace to that very scenario. Of the many NFL player comparisons to Mayfield, one of the most noteworthy came from the mouth of one of the biggest busts in NFL history, who compared Mayfield to himself.

“The highly competitive, borderline arrogant, angry individual,” says Ryan Leaf, the No. 2 overall pick of the 1998 NFL draft (who has not met Mayfield). “The biggest thing for me will be how he deals with failure. That’s where my downfall was, when things began to fall apart, how I was able to deal with that. When the media is on you, you play a bad game, your whole city is on you, that’s where we’ll see where Baker Mayfield is at. Right now there’s no evidence to back up that when things get tough, he won’t break.”

Mayfield points to his transfer year at OU as a defining experience and evidence of his resolve. Upon leaving Texas Tech, he sat for a year waiting for a chance to prove himself to a coaching staff that hadn’t recruited him and had no intention of seeing him start over the incumbent Trevor Knight. He told Wilson that year was “the best thing that ever happened to me.”

And the worst thing that’s happened in his career? It’s his arrest in 2017 for public intoxication and fleeing police, who were questioning him about an altercation near a food truck. The GIF of Mayfield turning tail has become Twitter ammo for his detractors; not a day goes by he doesn’t see it on his timeline. At least one general manager is using his visits with Mayfield this spring to turn his critics’ ammunition into something less potent, something like a running joke.

Sitting at the Red Rock restaurant in Norman, Okla., during a meal with Mayfield earlier this month, Browns general manager John Dorsey looked upon the landscape outside and quipped, “Here’s what we’re gonna do: Open up restaurants right here, all lined up, and they’re all gonna be food trucks.”

Mayfield had to laugh at that one.

• Question or comment? Email us at .

[junker-town]

The worst commercials of the 2017 MLB postseason

Which commercials have driven you mad this postseason? We ranked the worst five.

It’s month 38 of the MLB postseason, and you’re running out of potable water again. You always do this. You always forget that the postseason is basically an extended, eternal version of the Joe Buck tweet. You’ve watched ... how many hours of baseball this month?

During those games, there are commercials. You have watched these commercials several times, and you want to stab all of them in the ear. It’s time to rank these commercials in order of how angry you are at them.

Before we get started, I would like to point out that this postseason marked the first year where we were not bombarded with boner commercials. Scientists have been concerned for years that commercial over-farming of sultry 40-year-old vixens with British accents would have devastating consequences, and the fallout is all around us. Rest in peace, boner commercials. You were good material for me. I have a feeling they will be back next year, though. Oh, yes, they will ... rise again.

Anyway, these are in reverse order, but know that I have a lot of regrets about the ones I missed. It seems like it was just never that I was in a Taco Bell and thinking about how that place needed to start screwing around with eggs, and then we were treated to the “what the” commercial 47 times per day. It makes me want an update of this Onion piece about George W. Bush’s paintings, but with Stephen A. Smith and someone retching up slimy Taco Bell eggtillas the morning after a wild night. There were too many horrible commercials to list.

These were the very worst, however. Please, just read the words. Don’t watch them again. You have so much to live for.

5. Bryce Harper’s T-Mobile ads

I have T-Mobile, mostly because when I’m in the woods or on the coast or in the mountains, I don’t want to have reception. It’s great not to have reception, actually. It’s totally great. So great. Anyway, my point is that I’m a rabid baseball consumer with T-Mobile, and I’m still not sure what’s in it for me. Do I get to go on the field during the games? I probably get to go on the field during the games. Gonna swipe me a rosin bag.

The reason I hate these commercials so much isn’t necessarily the content. They’re only mildly obnoxious, and there’s an Only Mildly Obnoxious category at the Clio Awards every year. No, I hate them because they’re a living reminder that the Nationals fall into an open elevator shaft every postseason, and Bryce Harper plummets down with them.

Check out this unfortunate spot:

Hitting a walk-off is unexpected ... but not for Bryce Harper!

It’s not his fault the Nationals didn’t advance! I’m not trying to pick on him. And I suppose, technically, the commercial did reference a walk-off homer, and Harper didn’t have a chance to hit one of those. But every time I see the commercials, I’m reminded that Bryce Harper dominates in the postseason, just not in the way he wants.

It’s depressing, really. Stop making me sad that we’ll won’t see Bryce Harper in the World Series until he’s on the Dodgers.

4. Frog Tape

This commercial, man.

FROG TAPE EXEC: So what we’re looking for is a commercial to run during baseball games, and we want it to have a baseball theme.

COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Oui.

FROG TAPE EXEC: Is that something you can riff on?

COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Je ne connais pas grand-chose de votre “base-ball,” mais je vais honorer vos souhaits.

Have you paid attention to the play-by-play? It’s brutal.

In comes the All-Star, with the game on the line.

So far, so good.

Let’s see if Smith can protect his home turf.

Nobody really says that, but okay. They’re syncing the audio with the action on the screen, which is painting, so they’re trying to pun-associate here. Also, I wonder if the first draft had “Jones,” but they were worried it would be too exotic.

He’s really painting the corners tonight.

At this point, it’s pretty clear that Smith is a closer. He’s protecting his home turf. There’s an emphasis on the quality pitching.

And here’s the 3-2 pitch ... Smith pulls one to right ... a walk-off homer to win the game. What an amazing finish.

Wait ... Smith was the batter? Why would the batter protect his home turf? Who was the dingus who wrote play-by-play for a baseball game without listening to a baseball game on the radio and then didn’t run it by someone who had listened to a baseball game on the radio?

Also, there are no exclamation points in that blockquote because it doesn’t deserve them. The announcer’s call is like something from the SNES, where there just wasn’t enough memory on the cartridge to include actual excitement. That’s the voice I use when the vending machine spits out two Nutrageous bars instead of one, and if a real announcer did that, I would hope that he’d be fired the next day.

The only good news is that I learned that FrogTape is for painting. My little guys are going to be so happy and free in their tank now, and I feel awful about the misunderstanding.

3. GEICO referee

As usual, GEICO has a dumb ad, and as usual, they pay for 4,399 hours of run time and a man to break into your home and whisper the copy into your ear while you sleep. I took notes all postseason for this column, and I had four GEICO commercials listed. The worst part is that I didn’t realize that two of them were actually GEICO commercials. There was the Gary on a motorcycle (which engages in tasteless, regressive dork-shaming), repurposed He-Man footage (NOT CANON), and the triangle solo at the symphony (a professional triangler would have better chops than that, come on), and only the last one actually stuck as a GEICO commercial in my brain.

I’ve watched some of those commercials 57 times, probably. No idea they were GEICO. And they don’t care. They just hope to have one of their six dozen commercials to stick in the brain of every living American.

The worst problem problem with GEICO is that they use the flimsiest damned tag lines to shoehorn in their crappy jokes.

If you’re a ref, you way over-explain things. It’s what you do.

They are one step away from a dog-humping-the-leg-of-a-Paul-Bunyan-statue commercial. It’s what you do. And the triangle solo is worse:

A triangle solo? Surprising.

This is what people do. This is surprising. It’s the laziest crap imaginable.

A tree trying to parallel park? That���s a mess. What’s not a mess is ...

Hey, GEICO, hire me. Pay me six figures. I have cracked your code.

No one expects a magician to conduct a choo-choo train. That’s silly. What’s not silly is how much you’ll save ...

I require eight weeks of paid vacation, during which time I will meditate on the pain and suffering I have caused others.

If you sleep in the supply room at your office, you might wake up with a stapler lodged in your colon, and that hurts. What won’t hurt are your low rates at ...

Call me. I hate you. Call me.

2. Woman stressed out about her friend who lost her debit card

This ad is unrealistic because this woman cannot possibly have friends. She has never survived a single ride with another person without getting thrown out of the moving car, as if mobsters were trying to send her a message. Her panic grows and grows and grows, and if the commercial were 10 seconds longer, she would start shrieking like a locust person and physically trying to alter her friend’s behavior by attempting to crawl into her body through her mouth.

The real problem is the actress is too good in this role. I can’t imagine the character in scenarios that actually matter.

That mole looks weird to me. Shouldn’t you be worried about that mole? It seems like it’s an odd shape. Such an odd shape. Do you know the ABCDEs of melanoma? That’s asymmetry, border, color, diameter, and evolution, and that one has asymmetry, at least, and I’m starting to think the color is off. Don’t you think the color is off? You should get that checked out. I’m going to drive you to the dermatologist. I’m going to get you there right now. Actually, I’m just going to pull over and bite the mole off your arm with my filed, pointy teeth, and then I will bathe in your incurious blood. Because you should get that checked out.

The sneaky worst part is the friend, who doesn’t care that she lost her debit card. Do you know how annoying it is to lose a debit card? Oh, man, it’s the worst. It upends your life for at least three or four days. You have to start carrying way more cash around than you’re used to. You have to use checks like you’re a steampunk version of yourself. And even after your card arrives, you’re punched in the groin two months later when you realize that you used the old card to autopay your water bill, and now you can’t shower before your date.

This woman is like, “Oh, ha ha, I’ll just turn the card off and sit on hold for a half-hour to get a new card later. Good thing I’m on vacation, where it’s super convenient to be carrying around $800 in cash at all times. Maybe I can have them get that to me in nickels,” and I don’t like her obliviousness.

But at least she’s not her friend.

1. Sweet Caroline

This could be spots one through five, and no one would blink. Everyone hates this commercial. Neil Diamond wants to throw a sequined flip-flop through the screen whenever he sees it. Even people from Boston think they’ve gone too far. It’s a godless commercial of the damned, and no one will be spared.

The only thing I can think of is that Hyundai has a very specific demographic, but they didn’t know how to reach it.

AD EXEC 1: “Hyundai: A car for assholes, by assholes.”

AD EXEC 2: I keep telling you, we can’t say that.

AD EXEC 1: “You’re an asshole. Drive the car that’s made for assholes.”

AD EXEC 2: We can’t even bleep it out! Move on!

AD EXEC 1: “If you’re an asshole, you don’t need to spend extra money for a BMW. Hyundai has you covered, asshole.”

AD EXEC 2: Stop it! This isn’t helping!

AD EXEC 1: WELL I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.

Then, after long, sleepless nights, an epiphany. They’ll just show assholes doing an unbelievably asshole thing and let the viewer decode it.

Imagine the kind of asshole who would sing that loud with the window down. Any song. I’m partial to “Runnin’ with the Devil” because I have my David Lee Roth yowls down, but, dammit, I don’t share that with the world. My window is up, and when I’m at a stoplight, I quiet the hell down. It’s only polite.

Now imagine the asshole who still isn’t sick of “Sweet Caroline.” It’s a great song. It’s also ruined. Move on to “Cracklin’ Rosie” with the rest of us, and keep Jimmy Fallon away from it. There is something fundamentally broken with someone who says, “Oooh! ‘Sweet Caroline’!” in 2017, and you should run away from them.

Now imagine the asshole who would sing “Sweet Caroline” that loudly in traffic with the window down.

Now imagine two of them at the same time.

That isn’t a traffic jam. That’s a terrorist cell. But I guess I shouldn’t be upset at Hyundai. They looked around, and they realized that there are more assholes in 2017 than at any point in history, and assholes buy cars, too. It’s just good business.

This asshole, however, will avoid Hyundai for the rest of his life on general principle. Even in a sea of bad ads, this one is the absolute worst. Bad ads never seemed so bad.

(SO BAD! SO BAD!).

help

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Another Man's Poison

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Great Escapes Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Another Man’s Poison by Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa

Cup of Tea Books, a PageSpring Publishing Imprint Cozy Mystery 3rd in Series Release Date – August 29, 2017 236 pages Will be up on GoodReads and Amazon Soon

• No explicit language and the only scene with any lack of clothing contains no actual sex.

Crime reporter Colleen Caruso has an appetite for romance…and trouble. When someone tries to poison Ken Rhodes (her handsome boss and boyfriend), Colleen vows to hunt down the culprit and serve them up to the police. She’s whisked away into the scrumptious world of restaurants and gourmet food as she tangles with four culinary divas from Ken’s past.

Trouble is, Colleen doesn’t know when to turn down the heat.

Is this Jersey Girl’s investigation a recipe for disaster?

Or will the poisoner get their just desserts?

Interview with the Author

What initially got you interested in writing? I honestly don’t remember back that far. I started writing short stories in the fourth grade and wrote periodically after that. Writing has always felt normal to me.

  What genres do you write in? I write mostly mysteries, but have published in both sci-fi and horror. Presently I’m working on something far more literary – and it’s certainly a challenge after concentrating on cozy mysteries for the past five years.

  What drew you to writing these specific genres? I love a good murder! Who doesn’t? As for horror, I also love being scared out of my wits and I like trying to scare other people out of theirs.

  How did you break into the field? I broke in by sending out an endless stream of short stories to magazine editors. When a writer constantly sends out submissions, eventually she’ll get a lovely acceptance letter from some publication. I also joined several writing groups. Writers are generous with their contacts and happily share advice with other writers.

  What do you want readers to take away from reading your works? There’s certainly nothing brilliant or earth-shattering in my published fiction so far! I’d rather create characters that readers can relate to and identify with. It does my heart good when someone reads one of my books and says, “the main character reminds me of my mother” or better still, “she’s just like me!”

  What do you find most rewarding about writing? When someone reads my book and tells me she couldn’t put the book down until she finished the very last page. Then I know for sure I’ve done a good job.

  What do you find most challenging about writing? White screen terror is the most challenging aspect for me! Facing a blank page and trying to start a new story is a scary proposition. I don’t have a real feel for the characters yet when I begin, and the storyline is just a vague notion until I’m at least twenty pages into the book.

  What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field? Read as much as you can in your chosen genre. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from other authors’ fiction. Be consistent, persistent, and don’t self-edit while you’re writing a first draft. Chug along and bang it out. You can always go back and dress up the manuscript later on in the process.

  What type of books do you enjoy reading? I enjoy bios and memoires, true crime, self-help books, mysteries, horror, and anything to do with American history.

  Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you? Sure. I am an avid skydiver and I’m wanted in fifteen states for poisoning a string of husbands – no, not really! Actually, I’m pretty boring.  I’ve worked in a lot of different areas – appellate printing, the government, college admissions, a newspaper stringer (though that is writing, too), an arcade game manufacturer, and a PR office. I don’t know if anyone finds this interesting, but it’s certainly eclectic.

  What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work? Visit my website at joannlamonreccoppa.com or shoot me an email at joannreccoppaauthor at gmail.com

  About The Author

About The Author

Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa is the creator of the Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery series, which includes New Math is Murder; Hide nor Hair, and the latest installment, Another Man’s Poison. Her short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. Reccoppa worked as a stringer for Greater Media Newspapers for many years and wrote hundreds of articles, covering everything from serious medical stories to restaurant reviews. She draws on her past newspaper experience to create quirky characters and outlandish scenarios for the Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery series.

Webpage: https://joannlamonreccoppa.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Jo-Ann+Lamon+Reccoppa&search_type=books

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Another-Mans-Poison-Jersey-Mystery-ebook/dp/B074XG62GP/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503800504&sr=1-2&keywords=another+man%27s+poison

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/another-mans-poison-jo-ann-lamon-reccoppa/1127008297?ean=2940158561641

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October 3 – Valerie’s Musings – INTERVIEW

October 3 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – SPOTLIGHT

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October 5 – StoreyBook Reviews – GUEST POST

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BLOG TOUR – Another Man’s Poison was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

[powerranks]

Power Ranks: Week 1

A really shitty week in the NFL coincided with what was one of the least entertaining and low scoring weekends in fantasy, ever. Yes, I know there four of you that scored over 100, but the fact that we had THREE players score in the 50′s and a winner with 64 should tell you everything about this weekend. Other than Chris, who’s team went nuts, nobody that was at Anthony’s this weekend enjoyed watching their own fantasy team. If you think your team is bad, it probably isn’t, and if you think your team is good, it also probably isn’t. It was such a statistical outlier of a week. Only two (TWO, HOLY FUCK think about that for a second) quarterbacks that we actually started this week had more than one passing touchdown. Exactly ONE (!!!) running back in the entire fucking NFL scored more than one rushing touchdown, and it was Gilislee, who Dylan rightfully benched given how little we knew about the Belitricks situation. Only five receivers any of us actually started scored, and only one of them had more than 80 yards on top of the touchdown. Literally all the good tight ends sucked ass. DeMarco Murray played two snaps at Tight End (that’s not bullshit, I sent Dylan and Anthony a tweet about it) and blocked Khalil Mack on both plays. How many more of those until Dyl can start him at TE? I’m ready to move on from this weekend as fast as possible. 

Side note: all the Scott themed teams won this week! All of the corny player related pun team names lost. 

Reminder: the number I give you doesn’t matter as much as the tier I put you in, I don’t see a big difference between teams in a tier other than small details.

The Little To No Chance of Any Good Waivers tier

1. Rick and Jordy (Chris “David drafted my team” Gatzow) (1-0) (LW:1)

So, as I thought, your team is good. You’re not going to get two pick sixes out of your defense every week, but your team should’ve scored more. Cooper dropped multiple touchdowns, and Howard dropped what might’ve been a touchdown. Nobody on your team really disappointed though, and that shows the 90 point floor you’ll have every week. I’d be worried about Cohen stealing all of the points from Howard, but either way your team is fine.

2. Aegon Targaryen M’FVCKA (Alex “typing out your team name is a bitch pls change it” Ahn) (1-0) (LW: 3)

I’m gonna beat the Matt Ryan Regression drum till I die this season. Take away the super fluky 88 yard Hooper touchdown, and he had less than ten fantasy points. Carr, however, looked good. He should’ve had more touchdowns as I said in Chris’s section. Elliott playing all year gives you a big boost, I really almost put you #1 but Jeffery looked bad amidst a good Carson Wentz day, and I’m worried about Jimmy Graham, not because he’s bad but because Seattle’s offense looks bad. You have a bunch of intriguing boom or bust yearlong guys (Decker, Williams, Bennett, Carson) and I think at least one of them turns into a viable flex. 

The “my team is good but also fucking terrible” tier

3. Scott’s Balls (Anthony “lutz wasnt good enough to win you 20 dollars bitch” Mendola) (1-0) (LW: 7)

I’m moving you up a bit just because I think while you had the best case Hunt scenario, you also had the worst case Bell and Gronk situation. Your lack of a receiver still really pisses me off for some reason, way more than I think it should. I’m not a Cam believer this season, but your runningbacks and Gronk might make any other position irrelevant. I feel the same way about your team’s floor as I do about mine and Chris’s teams, but the lack of receiver puts you down here. You even dropped Mahvin JONES.

4. Scott’s Penis (David “three and 0 against alec week one baby) Chinchilla) (1-0) (LW: 4)

I feel really dirty putting myself amongst these teams because I really didn’t play well. Here’s the only reason I think I deserve to be up here: I got tremendously unlucky to not score more, my players have clear defined floors, and I didn’t have Ajayi. Game script took Carlos Hyde out of the game early, and he still got 8 points on like 15 total touches. The Bills somehow didn’t give McCoy the ball one time inside the five yard line, where all three of their scores came. Reed had 8 targets, Allen and Garcon had 10. I just think my floor is high because of opportunities. If I can go 2-3 while Andrew Luck heals up, watch the fuck out because I’d finally have a quarterback.

5. Fournette About It (Jack “lost by how much Derek Fisher had on the clock against the spurs that one time” Cleek) (0-1) (LW:10)

You lost, but your team impressed me a lot! I still need to see a few more weeks of consistency from your rookie runningbacks, but so far so good. Hopkins still worries me, especially now that Watson is the QB. It’s a strange, weird fact, but the success rate of wide receivers with rookie quarterbacks is staggeringly low. Beshoy pointed out to me that the last good one was Steve Smith during Cam’s rookie year. Luckily, you have Diggs to plug in, but he’s another guy I need to see do it over an extended period of time before I believe it after last year’s late season collapse. I probably should’ve ranked you higher this week, but let’s make this week a prove it week for you.

6.  Beshoy and Some Backups (Beshoy “the earth is crumbling beneath your feet” Halim) (0-1) (LW: 2)

The nickname was a bit much, but I don’t feel nearly as good about your team as I did when I originally wrote rankings, since back then we still didn’t know Zeke was gonna play week 1. You had the worst possible scenario happen with your team last week. Rodgers had an awful match up, Abdullah wasn’t thrown to, Pryor was both a victim of his own bitchassness and Cousins playing bad, and the Henngod let you down (Which upset me, I’m his biggest fan). I still think this is one of the better teams, Rodgers - Gordon - Evans will always keep you competitive, but until someone else emerges I’m skeptical. You were really dependent on McFadden, but Adam Thielen might save the season. You always lose week 1 anyways, this meant nothing.

7. Don’t Trust a Youngerhoe (Dylan “younghoe was your fault” Jessop) (0-1) (LW:6)

Obviously it’s one week, and you only scored like three less than I did, but the Cousins regression tour seems to be happening already. He’s the only guy I really don’t believe in on the team, as pretty much everyone had an average game, including your tight end, DeMarco Murray. You were another one of the teams that was unlucky to not score more, and I think you’re gonna be just fine. Is it weird that I love your team’s floor but don’t think it has much upside?

The sleeping giant tier

8. Hammer (Tony “shockingly quiet this weekend” Mendola) (0-1) (LW: 5)

Tony lost twice this weekend, once to Chris and once to Beshoy for the #1 waiver. We should see bounce backs from pretty much your entire team, but there were some things I saw that really concerned me. Brady looked old as hell. Freeman may be a victim of the Falcons offense not being nearly as good as last season. Ted Ginn is your WR2. TY Hilton looks awful without Luck, and Fitzgerald is your only viable flex option right now. Morris is useless because Elliott is back, Murray got dunked on by Dalvin Cook, and Jamaal Charles fumbled. It was the worst case scenario, I know, but for the first time in my life, I’m not 100% sure tony’s fantasy magic touch can fix this.

The  “thank you for being wrong about my ranking :)” tier

9. Mixon It Up (Alec “thank you for being wrong about my ranking :)” Bernstein) (0-1) (LW: 8)

sup lil BITCH (PS: DYLAN IS THE ORACLE)

10. Scott’s Jizz (Scott “cursed” Felgenhauer) (1-0) (LW: 10)

Scott I really don’t know what to tell you my guy. Every single fucking year, this shit happens to you. The worst part about it is that you somehow won, which means no good waiver, and aside from David Johnson I really didn’t like your team to begin with. You now NEED Dak to Dez to be the best fantasy pairing this year, Thomas to replicate last year, and Kelce to be the number one tight end again, and then have ZERO points from running backs. I’m not sure what you do here, you may need to make a trade. 

PICKS

*your power rank doesn’t determine who I choose to win, matchups do

Fournette About it (Jack)(0-1) over Scott’s Penis (David) (1-0)

Scott’s Balls (Anthony) (1-0) over Hammer (Tony) (0-1)

Aegon Targaryen M’FVCKA (Alex) (1-0) over don’t trust a younghoe (Dylan) (0-1)

 - Both of your matchups are wild, but Alex’s are wilder

Rick and Jordy (Chris) (1-0) over Beshoy and some backups and Tarik Cohen (0-1)

Mixon It Up (Alec) (0-1) over Scott’s Jizz (1-0)

LAST WEEK: 2-3

GOOD LUCK BOYS

[lucyariablog]

Nonprofit Marketing in 2017: Challenges, Strategies, and Examples

Nonprofits start with a critical ingredient that many B2B and B2C marketers don’t have: a mission, a reason for existing that doesn’t boil down to “sell something.”

Having a purpose provides the necessary foundation for great storytelling – a strong seed to grow an effective content marketing program.

Yet, many nonprofits lack a couple things most B2B and B2C marketers do have to make content marketing a success: staffing and budget.

But even with these challenges, nonprofit content marketing success – even on a smaller scale – is possible. By taking just a few deliberate steps, nonprofits can create and nurture a content marketing plan that will live vibrantly for years, furthering the nonprofit’s purpose and working to grow a stronger community.

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Nonprofit landscape

“When it comes to content marketing, many nonprofits have truly meaningful stories to tell,” says Russell Sparkman of FusionSpark Media. “Since nonprofits cover the range of social, health, and environmental issues facing society, their core missions are conducive to meaningful, inspirational storytelling.”

Nonprofits’ missions are conducive to meaningful, inspirational storytelling, says @FusionSpark via @anngynn. Click To Tweet

According to Russell, the combination of structured purpose plus meaningful stories enables nonprofit marketers to create content that matters to people’s lives, which might be educational and inspirational, and is definitely shareable.

While nonprofits are primed for content marketing, not quite four-fifths (79%) say their organization uses it. But less than one-fourth (24%) of those marketers describe their organization’s overall approach to content marketing as “extremely” or “very” successful, according to CMI’s annual content marketing survey conducted in summer 2016.

While nonprofits are primed for #contentmarketing, nearly 79% say their organization uses it via @cmicontent. Click To Tweet

It’s easy to understand why nonprofits don’t find content marketing effective. As Russell explains, the challenges for nonprofits are great as well – financial, human resources, and governance problems must be overcome to leverage the true value of content marketing.

In my own work with nonprofits, I have heard and seen those challenges play out.

To solve a staffing challenge, a nonprofit board member pushes for the organization to launch an Instagram account and says the nonprofit should bring in a high-school-age intern to help because teens are on social media all the time.

To address financial challenges, another board member says the organization should focus on e-newsletters, blog posts, and social media because they’re “free.”

To find a desire to address governance issues, the nonprofit often must confront a problem first. For example, that teen intern publishes a blog post using language that doesn’t match the nonprofit’s voice, or worse, doesn’t pass muster with the nonprofit’s board.

Do any of those scenarios sound familiar? Those making the recommendations in these nonprofits usually are well-meaning, but they don’t grasp the effective meaning of content marketing or appreciate why a comprehensive program, rather than one-off activities, will make better use of human and financial resources.

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Overcome the challenges

You can take on those obstacles by focusing on these three things – documenting your strategy, re-evaluating your budget, and staffing your team. Here are some ideas on how to do that.

Document your strategy

Nonprofits usually operate in a shoestring budget environment. “While there are both small and large nonprofits that are very well funded, these tend to be the exception rather than the rule,” Russell says. “It’s very hard to find nonprofits with the financial wherewithal to properly implement a content strategy and content marketing initiative.”

So instead of waiting for the financial wherewithal, figure out how to operate a manageable content marketing program based on the resources you do have.

Nonprofits: Don’t envy big budgets. Design a #contentmarketing program based on resources you do have. @AnnGynn Click To Tweet

That starts, Russell says, with a written content marketing strategy. Having a documented plan will help you get on the same page with your board and staff – laying the groundwork for your content marketing program based on the resources available and setting up an evaluation process with measurable goals that everybody agrees to. In his firm’s experience, nonprofits investing in a content marketing strategy document also are able to raise significant money to fund their organization’s initiatives.

A documented marketing strategy can sound like a Herculean task when you have 10 other things to get done in a day, and marketing is only part of your job. But taking even a few hours to create a strategy will pay dividends – preventing wasted efforts (financial and staffing).

HOW TO DO IT: I often share with nonprofits this post from George Stenitzer that spells out how to craft a one-page content marketing strategy. He takes you through a simple step-by-step process, and in the end you’ll have written down your strategy. You can do this with your board or its marketing committee. Share the draft with all, ask for input (set a deadline), and then implement it.

Want to boil down your strategy to make it even simpler? Follow Russell’s model on a strategic content statement.

TIP: A one-page content marketing strategy is easy to understand and more likely to be used by volunteers and staff implementing it.

TIP: If your organization’s board has a marketing committee, get those members involved in the process early on, and ultimately have its chair present the recommended strategy to the full board for review and/or approval. Or if there isn’t a separate marketing committee, invite a couple board members into the process from the outset. That buy-in of your governing team is essential.

Get board members involved in the #contentmarketing strategy process, says @FusionSpark & @AnnGynn. Click To Tweet

Then, as suggestions arise (as they always do) on how to handle your organization’s content marketing, you can reference the board-approved strategy and say you’ll note their ideas for the next strategy review.

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Re-evaluate your budget

According to the most recent CMI research, marketers report that only 20 cents of every marketing dollar goes to content marketing.

“Nonprofits have to make budgeting for content a priority when creating their budgets,” Russell says. “The reality of the world we live in today is that content for advancing nonprofit goals is as essential as oxygen is to breathing. It can’t be an afterthought or a task relegated to the when-we-can-afford-it shelf.

Content for advancing #nonprofit goals is as essential as oxygen is to breathing. @FusionSpark Click To Tweet

TIP: Some nonprofits are having funding success by selling brand sponsorship of their content, according to Russell.

Don’t look at content marketing separately from your other marketing initiatives. If you’re challenged with what content marketing is, go back to the definition of content marketing:

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

HOW TO DO IT: Stop taking an ad-hoc approach as a specific content need or budget issue arises. Investigate how every organizational dollar is being spent against your overall content marketing strategy. To find more financial resources for content marketing (or to show how your content marketing strategy can save the organization money), identify possible efficiencies and collaborative improvements. Hint: They may not all be related to marketing.

Investigate how every organizational dollar is being spent against overall #contentmarketing strategy. @AnnGynn Click To Tweet

For example, the marketing team cuts its printed newsletter budget in favor of a much less expensive e-newsletter program. It subscribes to a cloud-based newsletter program, which hosts the email database, assists in the creation of e-newsletters, and emails the content to the database. The savings are significant and everybody is thrilled.

But what if that team investigated the nonprofit’s budget and found that the development team has its own database service to communicate with and track donors, and the admin team has an Excel document with contacts for board members and the annual holiday card list. With that knowledge, the marketing team can work to find a singular solution to prevent redundancies, centralize communication, reduce expenses, and improve overall effectiveness.

TIP: Start building a bridge with your fundraising or development team through this budget evaluation process. Too many nonprofits conduct marketing and development separately when the two should go hand in hand.

Staff your team

Three-fourths of marketers are in the first steps, young, or adolescent phase of content marketing, according to CMI research. “The reality is that the nonprofit sector’s workforce is very inexperienced when it comes to true content marketing,” Russell says.

¾ of marketers are in the first steps, young, or adolescent phase of #contentmarketing via @cmicontent. Click To Tweet

Nonprofit board members also tend to lack sufficient depth and breadth of content marketing experience to be a significant value to the organization’s staff in the successful implementation of the content marketing program.

HOW TO DO IT: Russell advises nonprofits to work with a full-service content marketing agency to maximize their efforts. Unlike someone who specializes in website development and another who is focused on email marketing, he says, an agency deeply understands how to integrate all aspects of marketing, advertising, and public relations. Though an agency may seem more expensive in the beginning, it could cost less in the end because it’s familiar with every marketing dollar being spent.

TIP: I have worked with nonprofits which have in-house teams and/or worked with multiple agencies and freelancers for many reasons (geographic, board member loyalty, cost, etc.) If you can’t break free from an ad-hoc approach, make sure they’re all operating from a single strategy and know what each is doing. (I once created a content marketing strategy for an organization that didn’t know to share with me that it had hired another agency to handle SEO. The final products from each of us weren’t aligned and the program didn’t succeed.)

That’s why – single agency or not – every nonprofit still needs an internal champion, a go-to, accountability person for its content marketing program. Even if this person isn’t the expert, she or he should understand (or learn) the basics, the nonprofit’s purpose and strategy, and can stay on top of what is being done by the agency or internal staff.

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Be inspired

Russell offers these three examples of organizations taking typical nonprofit tactics – annual reports, consumer education, and public awareness that they already do – and transforming them into modern-day content marketing successes.

Bread for the World’s Hunger Reports: An annual research report, it now is the basis of a video series, infographics, blog posts, created and distributed based upon an editorial calendar. The goal is to get the Hunger Report known by a greater range of organizations with influencer development playing an important role in the initiative. For example, U.S. environmentalist and author Bill McKibben participated in the video series. As he shares his role in the video, the Hunger Report’s audience could expand to Bill’s 250,000-plus Twitter followers and the 330,000 followers of his organization, 350.org.

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Move to End Violence’s 21 Day Self-Care Challenge: FusionSpark Media’s client uses marketing automation to operate this ongoing content initiative, which sends one self-care tip a day for 21 days to subscribers. This project has seen the email database grow from 400 to 11,000 subscribers in a little bit more than a year.

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SaveTheSource.org: This is a public awareness and public education campaign of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. A core content feature of the initiative is a yearlong series of videos explaining New Jersey’s freshwater aquifer and the need to protect it.

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Here are a couple more examples, including one that mixes digital and print content, and another that curates content – all with the goal to grow the nonprofit’s reach and impact:

American Society of Civil Engineers Bridges Photo Contest: ASCE took a social and print content approach in its annual photo competition around images of bridges as part of its ongoing content marketing to promote the civil engineering profession around the world. It used images from the social media campaign to put together its annual calendar of bridges. According to Connectivity by CQ Roll Call, one year of its special Facebook app elicited 900 images from 50 countries, a Facebook reach (including highlighting the winners) of 197,000 people, and nearly 15,000 print calendars sold.

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The City Club of Cleveland Free Speech in the News: The 105-year-old nonprofit is the longest continually operating free speech forum in the United States. It has long been known for its weekly public forums – including a 30-minute unscripted public Q&A – with regional, U.S., or global leaders from the public, corporate, or nonprofit sectors. More recently, it’s expanded its reach by, among other things, curating content around its mission for a weekly blog post: #FreeSpeech in the News. Using the hashtag also enables the organization to tie itself into the topical conversation on social media.

Conclusion

As a nonprofit marketer, you are well-positioned to tell stories that have impact. Just make sure you don’t let obstacles get in your way. By creating a comprehensive content marketing strategy, realigning your marketing dollars, and ensuring that you have the necessary talent to implement your strategy, your great stories will go further, attracting and motivating your audiences to do more even if your budget is small.

Ready to carve out five hours to focus on nonprofit content marketing with FusionSpark Media’s Russell Sparkman? Register for the Content Marketing World 2017 Non-Profit Lab on Sept. 8. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 on registration.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Nonprofit Marketing in 2017: Challenges, Strategies, and Examples appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/06/nonprofit-marketing-2017/