March back into Facebook!

Well, my February FaceBreak ends the day after tomorrow. Final data tallies are a little alarming – First off, the Chrome browser has a “most visited” list of 8 of the websites you visit most. I’ve used Chrome for about a year and a half, and Facebook has been consistently the top ranked site in that time. Like I said before, I logged onto Facebook 20+ times before ten a.m.! What was very surprising was that Facebook was finally overtaken as my most popular site on the 23^rd of February (by my email, which is logged 10+ times per day itself!) I’ll say that again: It took 23 days of NO ACCESS AT ALL to Facebook to level it out with my email that gets checked 10 times a day. I was astonished. Facebook never fell below 2nd.

As expected, Twitter climbed the “most” chart, all the way to #6 or so within a month, but I don’t get as much out of it for some reason. Side note: For some reason when I signed up to Twitter, I started following Paris Hilton, and over the month February I learned that I fucking hate her. Every post is like this: “Belief will get you down roads that stop the non-believers – by so and so” or “success comes to those that work when the others give up – by whomever” or some other spew like that. Paris apparently has forgotten that without her Grandpa’s money, even her family-money-teat-sucking father could not have gotten Paris to the point of being able to show her tits and get a reality show; she simply would have been the #227,345 nearly ignored slut on the internet. If I whipped out my junk and flashed it around I’d be ticketed or worse, but if I had a rich grandpa and thus dad, I’d get a TV show, more money, and apparently a new perfume line. But I’ve digressed...back to data now.

My writing production, the thing that prompted me to begin the FaceBreak in the first place to see if I could increase my pages per day, increased 228% over the month. I’m not attributing this purely to the absence of Facebook; I set new goals for myself as well, and I tried to develop a more solid daily writing routine. Whatever the antecedent was, I’ll take it.

Communication was a plus and a minus; I received more phone calls than I have in years, however, I abhor phone conversations so that was good and bad, and what I did learn was that people were reading my FB posts online and getting updates on my life, but they were not responding or posting online, emailing or calling me. My absence online made them call.

I feel that I learned less during my FaceBreak. Without all of the links to things that caught my attention on Facebook, and thus ate all of my time, wasting time on the web consisted mainly of Reddit and dumb videos on YouTube with the occasional link from the BBC or something.

My Spotify use increased, probably as a result of my writing. I did not keep data on this, but I know it rose because my ears are ringing.

Lastly, I read three books this month (Looking for Alaska deserves to be on the NYT bestseller list; it is a young adult book that is very readable by adults, and I cannot say enough about the quality of writing or the story line – well beyond my skills!). Two ebooks and a genuine book book that had paper and everything! That number is up from less than one book a month on average. I don’t have hard data because I always have two or three books that I am reading as well as a few I’m writing at any one time.

So, that is the summary. While I did miss it, I believe in data and decisions based on it, so on March 1, I’m sure I’ll go online to catch up, but I’m also sure that I don’t need it, and I am certainly not an “addict” because by the second week I had forgotten it existed (except when everything else on the planet links to it for some reason...then I caught glimpses of what is in store for me in a couple of days. See you there! (but, not as much...)

Casey's And The Meek project

There is a large population of middle-school aged kids that read lower than their peers, and as a result of the material available to them, many give up on reading between the ages of 11-15 and never fully catch up to their peers. Given the critical social development during these ages, and the peer pressure that is a rite of passage to endure (or for many, succumb) it is not acceptable for an almost-teen to carry around a "See Spot Run" book - so they carry none, and read none, because of that social pressure. Their older, more perceptibly "mature" peers will carry teen novels or even -gasp!- adult age novels (It is easy to imagine that many teachers have confiscated ragged copies of the Shades of Grey series lately, especially in Texas).

   

My And the Meek project has been a long time in the making, but the first rewritten installment is nearing rough completion. Much of it has undergone a large re-write to address the low-ability high interest pre-teen factor. The sample paragraphs below have existed largely unchanged since 1998. Its aim, and the challenge, were to create a shorter series that interest both boys and girls, develops characters that pre-teens can find things in common with, demonstrate a few issues for commonality and mostly entertain readers. The entire series will be written at or below a 5th grade reading level, (which is three grade levels below the level that most things (newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc..) are written, with directed areas that peak above that for a very short period of time in an effort to get struggling readers to reach a little for understanding key critical areas.

The rewrite was mainly to convert a single longer adult novel into easily digested (for frustrated readers) 100 or less page pieces, but it was apparent that the antagonist would also need to be re-engineered because the original simply caused too much raw violence. The biggest challenge in the last six months has been to shorten sentences and paragraphs and to reduce larger vocabulary words for understanding. The sample below is at or around a grade 5 level. To compare, the blog post you just read was at about a "grade 16". 

Here are the first few paragraphs of  the first installment of  "And the Meek":

Abby’s olive skin had a pale look like the skin of a pear. She first saw her arm and she didn’t recognize it as her own at first – until it moved when she willed it to. Her head hurt and her belly was swollen and on fire. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she was unable to make enough spit to free it. She pulled it off, making the only sound in the day – a quiet ripping noise. Old tears crusted her cheeks and her pants were stiff and a little wet, either something from down there, or heavy sweat. She couldn’t smell anything as her nose was caked closed with snot. Abby found it hard to move at all. She was weak like when her mother told her she had the flu, only it felt like she had the flu forever without knowing it. For half an hour she lay on her bed, almost lifeless but gaining what strength she had from the consumption of muscles that had been drawn of energy for nearly two weeks.

She remembered being sick. Her whole family was sick. They knew it was coming because the TV told them it was. They all had the flu at the same time. Everyone was itchy at first, and then they got the flu. There was nobody to take care of the sick ones, they just yelled down the hallway for each other and it was hard to tell if they were yelling at each other or just yelling in their dreams. Abby was one of the first to get it– her Mother thought she had caught it at school. Her mother cared for her for the first two days, feeding her and giving her glasses of water in the red cups. Those were Abby’s favorites, the red plastic cups like they had in the restaurant downtown. Abby’s sister was really sick the next day, so sick that even though her dad was starting to feel yucky, he needed to take her to the hospital but there were so many people there, they had to wait. He stayed with her there, calling the house and telling their mother how Lisa was doing. The day after that, Dad was in the hospital too. He was throwing up blood like Lisa. That was all Abby remembered about being sick. Her mom was starting to feel bad, but Abby was too tired to take care of her and drifted in and out of sleep.

She had slept so long, all her arms and legs were asleep and her eyes hurt too, from lack of liquids. She tried to shake out her arms, like she did when she fell asleep on her arm downstairs in front of the TV and they got tingly. After a while the buzzing lessened and she could move both arms in her bed enough to pull her small body up to sit with her head against the headboard. The wetness down below was easy to see under the covers then. It was brown like a dried scab and the color scared her.

“Mom!” she called. Her own voice startled her in the quiet and made her ears jump. Her mom didn’t answer. She looked around the room; saw the bowl of soup she remembered was left for her when she was feeling too sick to eat. A goldfish bowl rested where it had always been, her dolly sitting beside it staring at her.

Comments? Suggestions? Send 'em my way!

- Casey

Thug by Richard Gerry continues to do well and is increasing sales the most, strangely, in French-speaking Canada. Paper book (yes, they are still made!) sales have risen 18% in the last month and the book has several great reviews. Thank you, readers! 

Thug is available on all E-reader platforms through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, SmashWords and Kobo. Paper versions are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and most anywhere they sell books. 

Casey's Big FaceBreak February!

So, I'm into day 11 of my Facebook Free February (note - chose the shortest month...) and while day one and two were difficult and I had to fight the habit of pushing that Favorite on the task bar, I no longer notice that I even had it. I'm fine, really, please do not send any more "Get Well" cards.

My reason for taking a break -which coincided nicely with two recent studies that show most people 1) Do take a break from it occasionally, and 2) That Facebook makes you sad (or sadder...). I did not see these before I had decided to take a break, but they were actually noticed BECAUSE I was taking a break and was surfing other waves of the InterWeb. Ironic, I know. But I digress, as I was saying, my reason was to find out what I would do if I were not logging onto Facebook some 40+ times per day (I took data before the break, data of 40+ led to decision to take a break :) Like the two studies show: Facebook is a lifestyle choice, like wearing Crocs or raping sheep; it is nice to have contact with people that I consider family, old friends from high school, undergrad and grad school and the neighborhoods that I/We have lived in. It is cool to see what people are up to - but then the sadness part; I've done a lot of things in my life;  I've run retail stores, cleaned floors and picked up mail for Post Offices, Owned a business, been a property manager, a district teaching coach, a warehouse manager, a tea buyer, a writer, as well as other jobs. I've had a pretty full social life, had all the material things I've ever wanted and traveled most of the US and some of the rest of the world. I have a perfect home life with a terrific wife and wonderful kid. I've never wanted for much and never truly suffered. What I'm saying is, that Wow, do I ever have it good!

But then Facebook: I have a High School friend that has accomplished so much since high school that his professional life is so astoundingly adventurous that it would make most anybody feel inadequate and ineffective at this thing called life. He lives a civilized life in the UK, works all over the world  for NATO and fights crime at all levels for a living. I think he may really be a "spy". He is muscular and fit, has a beautiful, exotic wife and good looking kids and travels the world knocking out the bad guys and doing the wet work. Really, he does! He has a PhD. He is an executive officer in the armed forces - sometimes - and he has pictures of himself with Congressmen, Presidents and foreign diplomats. He has photo proof that he is changing the world and being appreciated for it. He is like Jason Bourne of the Roy High Class of 1989. And I... am not.

I have another friend that in the last 5 years kind of cast off everything in her life and became a nomad of sorts, she travels the world surfing, skiing and studying the sustainability of food sources all over the world. Winters skiing in Alaska, Summers in Fiji or Mexico. No home, no cell phone, and updates her Facebook page from Internet cafes in third world countries. The inner seeker. Wanderer and experiencer of all walks of life both inside and out.
And I...am not.

I pick these two for a reason- I have about 250 "friends" on Facebook, but I think that these twp represent my overall point; I think that is where the truth in the "Facebook makes you sad" study is- Before Facebook, a person only had to compare themselves to their friends and past friends at occasional get togethers and class reunions. Now, with social networking, every day is a class reunion, in my case, more than 40 times a day!
It is not only difficult to measure our lives to our friends and almost-friends, it is impossible to measure to all of them in every aspect. I bet that my international man of mystery Facebook friend has friends that make him conscious of the fact that he is not a wanderer and anonymous hippie sometimes going where life takes him, and I bet that my wayfaring female Facebook friend has an occasional daydream where she wants to climb another rung on the career ladder and make more of an impact on the world.
It is human nature, and we are all doing okay, as long as we recognize that.  Taking a FaceBreak was one way to remind myself of that fact.    
  

The results by Day 11: First, that I've probably logged on to the Book of Faces 5 or more times. This is not because I missed it so, It is because there are a dozenteen sites that just take it upon themselves to just whisk you off and there you are - Facebooking! I never noticed this before. And I didn't even hit the "like" button on any of them, I just suddenly found myself on Facebook. Odd. The first time it happened, I just started absently scrolling through posts like I never tried to quit until my conscious kicked in.

Next, I do miss the FB as a springboard - all of those posts, pics and memes that come from places that I used to jump to in order to amuse myself all day; while I learned a lot, it was a tremendous waste of time. Now when I have extra time - I have nothing to do so I miss those humorous/political/amusing places you all used to direct me to. At least I still have Reddit.

Finally for now, productivity; While I am trying out this writing career thing, as expected, I find that my creative output have increased a lot as far as pages written per day. I think that the quality is better, too. I have no idea what is going on in the world beyond what CNN.com tells me, but that, too seemed to be interference to what a bored and unoccupied brain can come up with.

I like it here, but stay tuned if I think that my brain wants to live in this state, or not.