Shorthand phrases

There are a few shorthand phrases that people round here use. I don't know if they're universal in the US, or local usages. I'd be interested to find out - if anyone wants to enlighten me. When you're new and haven't learnt the local lingo, they sound very bizarre.

1) You hear about people 'holding' children. This is short-hand for 'holding back from starting school in the academic year in which they would be entitled to do so'. If you feel your summer-birthday child isn't ready for Kindergarten, you can start them a year later. How many British parents would love that flexibility! Until you understand the short-hand, and unless the context helps you, this does make for some puzzling conversations. You might hear a mother say "We decided to hold Esmerelda because that seemed right for her. We didn't hold Grizelda though. She was a different case. No way would we have held her." It sounds very cruel and cold-blooded doesn't it? Those poor children, denied their parents' physical affection...

2) People talk about 'walking'. This took me a while to figure out. A friend was talking about a teacher at school, and said "she must be about the same age as my sister, because I remember they walked together". I assumed this was an exercise regime. But then I had a conversation a few weeks' later with a student who was telling me "I'm hoping to walk in the summer, but if I can't fit it all in, then I'll have to walk at Christmas". To walk means to graduate - from the graduation ceremony, I assume.

3) The YMCA here is almost always referred to as 'the Y'. You're probably wondering why on earth it comes up in my conversations at all. Well, the Y operates for most people very much as a council leisure or sports centre does in the UK. Everyone uses it for swimming, gym facilities, exercise classes, sports, and children's activities (gymnastics, dance, swimming, team sports). So it is very much a part of daily life, and it's always called 'the Y'. I heard on the radio this summer that the national organisation has decided to change its name officially from the YMCA to The Y. They can't do that! What about the song?

In return, here's an English usage which must sound very odd to American ears, until they get used to it. I've had to stop myself, whenever I've been going to say it. How bizarre it would sound to local people here if I asked them "what date does school break up?" It would be even more bizarre if I asked (as would be perfectly normal in the UK) "when are your kids breaking up?" It conjures a disturbing visual image. Perhaps it's the children who weren't held who break up.

The blog that will never be

Well, the book News to me is going to Shirley, who was number 1 in the comments. Congratulations (if you can be congratulated on an achievement based entirely on random computer selection). I have emailed you, Shirley, to ask for your address, but if it doesn't reach you, then please email me.

I am itching, itching, ITCHING to start a new blog entitled Tales from the Toy Shop (thanks for that suggestion, Plan B), because after two days in my job, I’m telling you, there is blog fodder a-plenty. I’m not going to, though, as you never know who is reading your blog, and I don’t want to be dooced.

First of all, there are the characters who work there. It figures, I suppose. I mean, you’re going to have characters in a toy shop, aren’t you? I wonder why they recruited me. I’m jolly normal and ordinary! I’ll just have to put that down as one of life’s puzzles...

Then there are the intriguing customers, whose stories I would love to know. The woman who came in, put a toy on the counter, didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and said “I’ve got the receipt for this, it isn’t broken or anything, there isn’t anything wrong with it, it’s just that he didn’t play with it at all, he didn’t like it, there’s no problem with it or anything, but he just didn’t like it so I’m going to change it for something else, I have the receipt and it’s in the original packaging”. And it was – in the original packaging. Well, sort of. It was in the original box, but of course you can’t actually get a toy back into its packaging, with all those odd-shaped bits of cardboard and those irritating plastic tags. It was a toy for a 1 year old - a chunky plastic truck - so really, there wasn’t much for a 1 year old to like or dislike. She picked out a very similar toy for the exchange. And then also bought another toy using a Groupon coupon (have you all discovered Groupon yet?)

What about the online order that came in for a Hello Kitty playset to be sent to an American Forces Overseas address in Afghanistan? That’s a story I would dearly love to hear. Is it a joke present for a squaddie? Or does someone want to be reminded of their daughter back home? Perhaps a soldier has befriended a local child. A tale to be told, for sure.

You’ll enjoy this one. There was a customer who was looking for a present for a 10 year old, who’s just had a bedroom makeover. I asked what the colours were, and it was black and white. So I showed her, helpfully, a big round cushiony zebra, which I thought would be cool for a trendy 10 year old's bed. It was half soft toy, half snuggly pillow. I was just looking at it more closely (which was a bit awkward as it was hanging high up), wondering if it was a clever rolled-up sleeping bag, or perhaps something to put your pyjamas in, when the toy shop owner kindly intervened and stopped me selling the customer a baby play mat. This is it.

I’ve learnt to spot the homeschoolers. You know how? I work from 10.00 to 3.00, so if someone comes in with children of school age, they’re homeschoolers. But I think I could spot them on a Saturday too. They spend AGES in the shop. I think they’re probably trying to fill in time, (which the rest of us do by sending our children to school... Hello? That's what school is for...).

See? It’s potentially a blog post a minute in the toy shop, and I haven’t even started on what's for sale. There’s:

an inflatable turkey (think dining table, not farmyard),

whacky hand puppets (including a flying tree squirrel, a frog in a space-ship, a sinister crow, a leathery turtle, a very weird leggy alien grasshopper, a pig with wings, and yay! a buffalo!),

fabulous books (I couldn’t resist buying Mom and Dad are palindromes), and

fake dog poo in a spray can (it’s called Instapoop, if you ever need to ask for some).

Ah alas, for the toy shop blog that will never be.

Book give-away: "News to Me"

(Sorry, the click to look inside doesn't work here.)

If you would like a free copy of News to Me, please leave a comment. I will randomly select one on Saturday evening (using a computerized random selector, ooh get me). This offer is open world-wide. I’m happy to pay international postage. I’m nice like that.




Questions and Answers with Laurie Hertzel, author of News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist (and if you're interested in blog-to-book publishing, you'll be interested in her opinions).

How did you find a publisher, or were you approached?

Like everything else in my life, the book was an accident. I had been doing manuscript critiques for the University of Minnesota Press for about 10 years, so I knew one of the editors. I had a manuscript I wanted to show him—the half-completed memoir written by Ernie, an American Finn who grew up in Soviet Russia.

Ernie had died before he was able to finish his book, but his widow was trying to get the fragment published. At the last minute, I printed out my blog postings about my years as a journalist and brought them along when I met with the editor. And in the end, they turned Ernie’s book down, but took mine.

I had not really planned on writing a book at all.

At Cyber Mummy this summer (UK conference for Mummy Bloggers), I went to a seminar on "blog to book" publishing. The publisher spoke about how these days, what they're interested in (as well as the content) is the coverage the author has, ie facebook followers, twitter followers, blog followers. He spoke in terms of thousands, not hundreds. Did your publisher expect you to have these kinds of networks before taking you on as a project?

They asked me none of those questions. Now that we’re in the marketing end of things, Facebook and Twitter are proving quite useful. But they never factored into whether or not my book would get published. My blog certainly doesn’t have followers in the thousands. I get about 100-150 hits a day. Two hundred very rarely.

The publisher also talked about how these days, many writers are opting to cut the publisher out, keep the 15%, and self-promote on Amazon. Did you ever consider doing that?

Never. Never. From where I sit, in my day job as books editor for a major metropolitan newspaper, I would never recommend self-publishing. Sure, it sounds good—you get to control everything, you get to keep all the proceeds. But in reality, you will almost certainly lose money and very few people will ever see your book.

A good, reputable publisher—such as mine—does a lot of things. They edit the book. They copy-edit it. They design it, beautifully. They commission a stunning cover. And then they have an excellent marketing department that does things like plan launch parties (I’m getting two!) and book events in libraries and at book clubs and book stores.

Also, they have book distributors that get books into all the bookstores—small independents, as well as Barnes & Noble and Borders and the other biggies—and to the trade shows. You can’t get self-published books into those stores, and you certainly can’t get your book to the very important trade shows.

My publisher is investing a *lot* of time, energy and money in my book, and I do not begrudge them at all making a profit from it. I hope they do!

I have interviewed people who self-publish, and it can cost as much as $10,000 or even more to make a book. And then the author is left to market the book entirely on his or her own. Good luck with that. Most newspapers will not review self-published books—partly because there are no standards and no quality control (anyone with money can publish anything), and partly because the books are not readily available, except online.

People who have written books talk about the arduous process of getting it to publication. They often look back and say that writing it was the easy bit. Is it really as bad as people make out? Re-writing sections, checking the proofs, endless promotional activities... It sounds such a turn-off.

I would not say that the writing of it is easy. But it’s true that the writing and the marketing are very different things. My editor did not ask for much rewrite at all—he noted that my sentences were pretty short, and my paragraphs were terse, and he urged me to write more fully, which is something I wasn’t used to. In newspapers we try to truncate and cram; I had to get used to a more leisurely pace. Even now, reading it in its final version, I can see where I should have drawn things out a bit more.

Checking the proofs was nerve-racking because by then I had read the book so many times I could barely stand to look at it again, and yet it was my responsibility to make sure that corrections had been made where needed and that all the rest of it was perfect.

The promotional activities are just beginning. I’ve been urged to mention the book on my blog, start a web page, start a facebook page, and get more involved in Twitter. I’ve done all those things, and I try very hard to walk a line—I can’t be overly self-effacing, but I also don’t want to promote myself so much that I get obnoxious and seem vain. It’s tricky.

Next up, beginning now, are radio and TV appearances, and a lot of book talks and signings. I am a shy person, and this will be *very* hard for me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As a journalist, do you feel positive about the future of newspapers? In the UK, The Times online, which used to be open to all, has now started charging a subscription of a pound. I've heard it said that news is free, but you have to pay for good comment. Is that true these days?

I wish that newspapers, all newspapers, had started charging from the very beginning—we’d be in a lot stronger situation than we are now. Yes, the news is free. But the reported, edited, written, thought-about stories and photographs about the news should not be free. Journalists don’t work for free. The stuff that people read free online every day was quite expensive to uncover and produce. I do feel positive about the future of newspapers—I have to. I believe newspapers are necessary to a democracy. I believe that people will continue to subscribe to newspapers because they need to understand what’s going on in the world, and they need a measured, objective voice to tell them.

You've been a journalist; you're a blogger; you've now published a memoir. Have a wild guess about the future of your own writing career.

Oh dear. Will I write another book? I might. I enjoyed writing this one. But right now my plan is to concentrate on giving this book a good start in the world, and then getting back to my day job and trying to get caught up!

Thank you, Laurie!

You can read Laurie Hertzel's blog at Three Dog Blog.
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Book review: "News to Me"

In my early days of blogging, every now and again there would be a little flurry of excitement, as someone would announce, out of the blue, “I’ve got a book deal!” That was a moment, for the rest of us, of smugness and hope. Smugness because we’d think “I’ve known all along that x is a good writer – I wouldn’t be following her blog otherwise”. And hope, because we’d think “Book deal? Aaah, so they do exist”.

The blogging book deals are fewer and farther between now, but here’s one that’s come to fruition. I’d like to tell you about News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist, by Laurie Hertzel, writer of Three Dog Blog.

(Sorry, you can't click to look inside, but this was the only image I could find of a reasonable size).

To quote from the blurb, “News to Me is the adventurous story of Hertzel’s journey into the bustling world of print journalism in the mid-1970’s, a time when copy was still banged out on typewriters by chain-smoking men in fedoras and everybody read the paper… Hertzel’s eighteen-year career at the Duluth News-Tribune began when journalism was a predominantly male profession. And while the newspaper trade was booming, Duluth had fallen on difficult times… Hertzel describes her climb up the ranks of the paper against the backdrop of a Midwestern city during a time of extraordinary change.”

I enjoyed this book. You can tell it’s written by a journalist. The stories are brought alive by carefully chosen details. Laurie’s writing is intelligent and disciplined, as you would expect from a newspaper reporter. Her style is easy to read; her sentences are crisp and to the point. She has a fondness for the semi-colon.

I’ve never been to Duluth, Minnesota, but we have friends there, and our first summer in the US, we considered making it our holiday destination. I did quite a bit of research, reading about the town and the area, and looking at photos. So I was interested to read about a life lived there. Her fondness for the place and its people is very evident.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Laurie’s trip to Soviet Russia in 1986. A group in Duluth were trying to establish a twin town relationship with Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border. Their persistent letters and telexes received no clear answer, and so, although the Soviet Union had not approved a twinning for 13 years, they decided to send a delegation to present the request in person. They made plans to fly from Duluth to Moscow, via Chicago and Belgrade, then take the train to Leningrad, and finally an overnight train to Petrozavodsk. For me, the description of the trip provided a reminder of an era that’s easy to forget, when Russia was a very closed book, and a visit such as this was a brave undertaking, full of uncertainty and difficulty.

The other highlights for me were Laurie’s reflections on writing, and what journalism is all about. For example:

“I was interested in tales, and I began to think of myself more broadly – not just as a journalist but as a story-teller… I was drawn to stories about people who would not normally be in the newspaper. Some would call these feature stories, but in my mind there was a distinction between features (which I considered to be fluffy, “nice” stories) and what I was trying to do. I wanted to tell tales about real life – how real people handled change and obstacles and tragedies and successes…

...You cannot approach journalism with the idea that you have everything figured out; you have to approach stories, and people, with a very open mind, lest you run the risk of not hearing what it is they have to say.”

Now, I would NOT make a good journalist. This article is already over 600 words, and I have a Q and A session with Laurie that I want to add. I would NOT be popular in the newsroom. I think what I will have to do is stop here, and save Laurie’s words for tomorrow’s edition. Blog post, I mean.

Meanwhile, I will summarize by saying that I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it as a fast-paced insight into a fast-paced world. It's fascinating to learn about the logistics of how a newspaper used to be put together. If I have a criticism, it's that the writing reflects its journalistic origins, and the material is pared down a bit too much for my taste. Characters from the newspaper are introduced, and I was frustrated that we don’t learn more about them. Stories are told with minimal detail, when I wanted a fuller picture. I read Laurie on another blog saying that this was a criticism her editor made along the way, so I feel a little smug at this point. Always nice to have your own opinion chime in with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Of course the upside of this is that the book is quick to read, and covers a lot of ground in a short space. It's not a book you'll get bogged down in.

Please return tomorrow, to read Laurie’s Q and A session. For those of you who do so, there’ll be an opportunity to win a copy of the book.

Disclaimer: I received two copies of the book, but no other incentive to write this review. (I was sent an advance copy, and when I lost that, a frustrating few pages before the end, Laurie kindly arranged for me to receive another copy, this time a proper hardback jobbie – which is the one I’m happy to give away tomorrow, because I know that other copy will turn up somewhere, sooner or later.)

300 not out

“I think you’d be a great addition to the team”, the Toy Shop Owner said.

Yay! I’m starting a week tomorrow, doing probably a couple of days a week, 10.00am to 3.00pm, in September, and building up as necessary through October, November, and the busiest period of the year in December. I love the fact that this has all fallen into place so easily. One phone call. That’s all it took. Sometimes you get a lucky break, and this has been one of mine. All I need now is a social security number. And there I was, thinking that getting the green card marked the end of the bureaucracy…

The children are so excited. I’ve just picked up 9-yo from school, and he’s already told his whole class, two teachers and the principal. Not bad going in one afternoon.

This is my 300th blog post. I still haven’t decided on a new name (I thought I might launch the new name at the 300th post, but it’s snuck up on me.) I’m thinking I might just call the blog “Iota”. Is that a bit pretentious? I really wish we lived in Iowa, because then I could be “Iota in Iowa”. Then we should move to an island off the coast of Scotland, and I could be “Iota: from Iowa to Iona”.

I like my profile picture, of the notice nailed to the tree trunk, and I was wondering about tying the name in with that. How about “Iota stakes her claim”? Kind of assertive. Or perhaps a reference to the American writing style: “Iota: discursive in cursive”. I’ve wondered about:

Iota, actually
Iota, Stateside
Iota’s Quota, which would abbreviate rather pleasingly to IQ.
Iota, Wife in the West
Iota on the Great Plains… She’s Great, but she isn’t Plain. Trouble with that, is that one slip of the keyboard, and you’re into “She’s Great, but she isn’t Palin”, and then I’d attract all kinds of unwanted political traffic.

Of course there’s still “Among the Bison with my Dyson”. I can’t rule that one out yet. It has so much potential for a fantastic visual image on the header.

What about tornadoes? They’re the other well-known feature of life in the Midwest. How about “Torn ado about nothing”? No? Thought not.

Sorry to be wittering on so much about names, but they are important things. Colgate, for example, is (I’m told) ‘hang yourself’ in Spanish. Persil is ‘parsley’ in French (and I believe it is marketed in France under that name). And who, who on earth, thought that Pepto-Bismol was a good name for a medicine for indigestion? It just sounds like 'Pept-Abysmal'. Mind you, I do wonder if the Pepto-Bismol marketing department operates on some kind of reverse psychology, because no-one in their right mind would consider buying medicine for indigestion that lurid pink colour. No-one except Barbie, and clearly she never gets indigestion because she never eats anything except Slim-fast.

Barbie… toys… toyshop… job… All witterings come full circle if you let them run their course.

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Job

Well, congrats to those of you (If I could escape, Aly and Heather) who said toy shop, because you are right! (Florida, Wiltshire, Lapland - you've got to love the diversity of blogging.) And an honorable mention to Speccy, who did mention toys - but had me in a travelling van, instead of a fixed retail outlet. It's one of those toy shops where you can't buy a Barbie or Nintendo game, but you can buy wooden fruit. I love it, because it's the antithesis to Toys R Crap, which I hate, and which is pretty much the only alternative here.

The shop is very English in feel, actually, because it's small - though big enough to have room for kids to try out a selection of ride-on and bounce-on toys. Whenever I've been in there with my children, they get on one of those wobbly ride-on things that you operate by wiggling the steering wheel quickly from left to right, and I find it hard to persuade them to leave. I've always been impressed by a shop that lets children wiggle and bounce around, especially as the aisles are pretty small (it really is very untypical), so it would be easy for an errant wiggle to knock down a whole display of boxes of Lego.

Incidentally, did you know that in America, they pronounce Lego 'Laygo', as if it were French and had an acute accent over the e. And they always refer to it in the plural. English children play with Leggo. American kids play with Laygos. Just a little cultural detail of the kind which I know you have come to expect from this blog.

Any old way, I'm not going to say too much about the job at this point, because I'm going in on Wednesday morning, and I don't want to have to post on Wednesday afternoon, about how it didn't all work out, having got you all very excited on my behalf. So act casual for now, ok?

I imagine the interview will go something like this:

Toy shop owner: What experience do you have in the retail sector?

Me: None.

TSO: Can you operate a cash till, and credit card swiping equipment?

Me: No.

TSO: How would you help someone who was looking for an educational toy?

Me: I'd tell them not to bother. School will educate your child. Focus your home life on having fun. How about this camera that squirts water, or this whoopee cushion?

TSO: Will you enjoy engaging with children, leaving their parents free to browse undisturbed?

Me: Up to a point. Here's a sign I've seen in another shop, which I'll display when I'm on duty: "Unattended children will be given an espresso, and a puppy to take home".

TSO: Will you promise to talk in your lovely English accent?

Me: Yes. I know no other way.

TSO: You've scored 1 out of 5, and on that basis, I'm happy to offer you the job.

You think I exaggerate the whole accent thing. I should tell you that I found out about the job, because the TSO was trying to recruit a friend of mine - an English friend of mine - who turned it down. (Actually, she's my only English friend here, and the reason she turned the opportunity down is because she is moving back to England. Today. Sob.)

I should have titled this post Job and sob, shouldn't I? That would have been neat.

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Competition

I don't think any of you thought the two blog idea was a good one. That gave me pause for thought (is that the right expression? should it be "cause for thought"?). And I've decided I agree. So what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to stick with one blog, but hide the more personal posts, by an intricate technological procedure which I'll happily tell you more about if you're interested.

I'm definitely going to revamp this blog, and I might - gasp - change the title. One of the reasons this blog is losing its way a little is because now I've lived in the US for 3.5 years, it's hard to maintain the "not wrong, just different" schtick. If it's a schtick. I'm not really ever sure what a schtick is, and I certainly don't know if that's how you spell it. Where was I? Yes... the "not wrong, just different" thing depends on a certain wide-eyed "gosh, look, isn't my fridge BIG?" approach to living in America, and now I just don't have that any more. In fact, during my visit to Britain, I have to confess to crossing a few lines. More about those in another blog post, but suffice to say, you'll be hearing the Americans-in-Britain bloggers cheering "I told you so" in the background. I am guilty of the occasional trespass over to the other side. It's what they call, in diplomatic circles, "going native". So, for example, when I now look at my fridge, I don't think "oh it's huge", I think "how do those British people manage with their tiny fridges? what a pain to have to unpack and pack the whole thing every time you want half a carrot". Going native with a fridge, see?

More than that, though. Thing is, I don't actually think that at all about my fridge. I just open the door and get out the carrot while listening to Diane Rehm on NPR, batting away a troublesome child with my left hand, my right shoulder glued to my right ear with the phone in between, fobbing off a telesales person, wondering what to have for dinner and whether I like Endellion as a middle name. So perhaps "not wrong, just different" should become "just normal life now". Good stuff, but kind of a bit sad too. I liked my "not wrong, just different" cutting edge take on cultural divergence. I don't want to have to admit it's a bit blunted now. I don't think I do like Endellion, by the way. Sounds like Dandelion.

What do you think of "Midwest Midlife" as a new title? I kind of like it. Catchy, easy to remember, easy to abbreviate (MM). Might be confused as an aged fan club for Westlife though. Or possibly some kind of midwife service. And I'm not sure I really want to be known for being mid-life. It's not my USP.

How about "From Gruffalo to Buffalo"? They don't know the Gruffalo over here, so he's a singularly British icon, and the buffalo (or bison, as we're meant to call him these days) is a symbol of the Great Plains where I am. I could do a great header, with the Gruffalo holding the Union Jack on one side and a buffalo holding the Stars and Stripes on the other. Bit obscure, perhaps. Ooh, how about some title that encompasses my location (Plains) with my role (housewife) by cleverly rhyming Bison with Dyson? "Among the Bison with my Dyson". Something like that.

Anyway, you can see that my mind is working overtime on the subject. I will ponder further. "Further Ponderings Over the Pond", perhaps.

You thought I was going to run a competition to choose a new blog name, didn't you? Ha. Wrong! I'm running a competition to see if you can guess my new job! Yes. Job. Very exciting. Never let it be said I let the grass grow under my feet. Not even prairie tallgrass. Green card arrives one week; I get job the next week. Details are yet to be finalised, so I hope my next post isn't full of "it didn't work out". Meanwhile, here's a clue. If you ask your children what would be the coolest, coolest job in the world for a mom to have, that is my job. (Unless your child is a 3 year old boy, because I'm telling you now, it's not tractor-driver, train-driver, fat controller, or fire-fighter.)

Go on. Guess. (And let me know about the "cause for thought" thing too, please. I often trip up on that one.)

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