March Madness and the Healthy Food Challenge

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It’s the perfect time of year for a healthy food challenge! March is National Nutrition Month and it’s also March Madness. So on a run, a time when I often get my best ideas, I decided it would be really cool to combine these two great activities into a Healthy Food Challenge!

healthy food

Healthy Food Challenge Bracket

Luckily our elementary school has a principal who supports healthy eating, I have a great working relationship with our PTO and the new Kids of STEEL club is a hit, and our new Food Services Director is setting a tone of cooperation with parents. So many factors came together just right for this activity.

Healthy Food Challenge:

I worked with food services to determine which eight fruits and vegetables would be available every day in the cafeteria. Then I created the match-ups, randomly setting up eight fruit opponents on one side and eight veggie opponents on the other.

vegetables for kids

The Veggie Conference

fruit for kids

The Fruit Conference

We sent the brackets home in advance so kids could fill them out and turn them in. I entered all the picks into a spreadsheet to track the winners. This took a lot of time! Over 200 kids turned in brackets, that’s about 1/3 of our school population.

The first round happened today. I walked around the cafeteria for each of our three lunch periods and asked kids what fruit or veggie they wanted to vote for. They could only vote for fruits or veggies they had tasted that day at lunch.

I must admit, I was surprised how many kids claimed they had not eaten any fruits or veggies for lunch that day. Some tried to claim fruit snacks were a fruit. Not a chance. One kid tried to tell me pistachios were a fruit. As much as I love pistachios and prefer them to fruit snacks, I still had to tell her no. But I told her to keep eating pistachios.

That’s why the title Healthy Food Challenge is perfect. We are challenging the kids to get more healthy foods into their daily diets.

Winners will be chosen from the most accurate brackets. We’re also pulling a few brackets from all the entries to give away some small random prizes.

My motivation to try some fun, healthy activities at school came from listening to a webinar hosted for parents by Action for Healthy Kids. I was really excited to learn tips and techniques for working with schools to increase nutritious foods and more physical activity in the school day, especially after some unfortunately negative experiences with a “wellness committee” that didn’t do much in our district when my oldest son was in kindergarten and first grade.

We have a great district and a great school. I think there’s a lot of potential here. And our principal really supports our Kids of STEEL running program. Unfortunately I’ve also received an automated call from him asking families to support a school fundraiser where teachers work behind the counter at a local McDonald’s. That activity drives me nuts.

I still have a lot to learn about increasing wellness at our school. Luckily there are more webinars from Action for Healthy Kids coming up. I have a dream of the school having a community garden before my youngest, who isn’t even in kindergarten yet, graduates sixth grade. I’m excited to learn more about why taking away recess time as punishment is bad for academic achievement.

 

 

Writing Process Blog Tour

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Last week I was invited to participate in a writing process blog tour by my friend Vanessa Bernard. Please check out her exciting writing!

As part of the blog tour I need to answer four questions about my writing process. Here we go:

1) What am I working on? For clients, I’m doing an annual report, a monthly newsletter, and a year-long marketing campaign. For myself I’m finishing a flash fiction story for a contest and trying to get my young adult novel whipped into shape (still) to submit to agents.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? My work for clients might include a little more humor than they would think to add. My fiction work usually includes strong mothers and characters who enjoy running.

3) Why do I write what I do? I write for clients to strengthen my professional skills and to make money to fund my fiction writing activities. I write fiction for the 14 year girl I once was.

4) How does my writing process work? An idea about a unique character in an awkward situation hits me while I am running. Or showering. Or sleeping. I jot it down on scrap paper or into a voice memo on my iPhone. I return to my laptop and capture it furiously while trying to tell my kids to “just wait a minute, Mom’s almost done. We’ll have dinner soon!”

There you have it. Next week you should visit my writing friends Melissa Firman at writer.reader.mom and Ceil K. at That’s All She Wrote for their perspectives on the writing process.

And now I’m heading out for a run!

 

Recipe for Success: Working Mom Tips

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As a contributor to 30SecondMom, I have connected with interesting, motivated and funny moms across the country. These moms also offer some really excellent working mom tips, and as a working mom myself, I often find my balance shifts day to day, hour to hour.

That’s why I’m proud to share this interview with fellow 30Second Mom and author Marci Fair as she launches her book TILT – 7 Solutions To Be A Guilt-Free Working Mom as a part of my Recipe for Success feature. Marci is a wife, mom of four & friend who has worked in real estate for over twenty years. She founded kares4kids.com, which has served over 15,000 children since 2005.

working mom balance

TILT by Marci Fair

What is TILT?

TILT-7 Solutions To Be A Guilt-Free Working Mom is a practical parenting guide brimming with real life suggestions, tips, and advice for working mothers. It encourages them, as they help their children reach for their goals and dreams, to continue to reach for their own. It is filled with over 70 quotes from the author’s children, over 100 practical guilt-free tips and the wisdom of over 80 other amazing working mothers.

Was writing TILT self-motivated? 

As a working mom of four, I had to find my own meaning and peace within the chaos I had created. And balance was not an option. So, I TILTed instead.

I wrote TILT to cut through the commotion of my day-to-day life and find solutions that worked for our family. As I learned how to incorporate these ideas into our life, I found the answers I wanted to enjoy my mom-journey.

With so many of my mom friends also struggling with mom guilt, I wanted to share my best ideas with them on how to overcome that painful problem.

What are your favorite parts of TILT? 

I have many parts that I really like about TILT – the funny Mom Quizzes, the silly children’s quotes (70+!), and the Guilt-free Tips at the end of each chapter. I also really appreciate the 86 ideas from other moms included in TILT.

As I have matured, I have also realized how much I still need to learn. So I asked other women to share their own hard-earned mom wisdom in TILT as well, to make it an even richer book for the reader.

What was your favorite part of the process?

I have been working on this “heart-project” to write TILT for many years now. It was very challenging for me to put all the parts and pieces together. I had it edited over, and over, and over again to make it the best that I could.

As it’s “construction” was challenging, I would say the most rewarding part for me has been after its publication, to hear and see how amazingly well-received it has been. I am so thankful that it has only “5” Star reviews on Amazon so far (40) and delighted when a mom tells me how much it has helped her in her life. The strength of the feedback and the conversations with the moms are my favorite parts!

Get your copy of TILT!

 

Writing Contests

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I am a sucker for a writing contest. I have a writing friend who thinks they can be a real waste of time and money, and I acknowledge that she is very right most of the time. But after a recent meeting of my SCBWI critique group, and after the experience I gained from one contest, I have identified some intangible benefits.

But to be fair, I will outline some of the negative aspects of writing contests, too. This is hard because I’m not good at seeing the downside of things.

Cons of Writing Contests

  • There is usually a fee.
  • The word count may not lend itself to the best telling of your story.
  • Winning an award doesn’t always mean publication of your writing.
  • It could be a scam.

Pros of Writing Contests

  • The fees for some are very small.
  • Some offer prize money.
  • Word count limits can force you to revise.
  • Winning could mean publication.
  • It’s good practice to have to meet a deadline.
  • Some contests promise feedback that you don’t get on regular submissions.

I’ve been writing for a long time, all the way back to when I started my elementary school’s first literary journal. Yes, as editor several of my more painful pieces of poetry were chosen for the first issue. But since then my fiction success has been pretty low. In college and as an adult I wrote for several newspapers. But my short stories only earned rejections. It hurt but I kept writing.

Then last year, as I continued my habit of entering writing contests, something changed. I earned an honorable mention for a poem, a finalist position for a flash fiction piece, and an honorable mention for another flash fiction story.

These were my first writing awards, ever. And that last honorable mention includes publication in a respected sci-fi/fantasy magazine! My first fiction publication. Ever.

Of course I think it couldn’t be better. But to be fair I’ll list some cons:

  • There is no prize money.

I’m sorry, I can’t think of any more cons for entering this writing contest! I tried. But I’m just too much of an optimist. Here are some pros:

  • The editors asked me to revise my story slightly. That was good practice.
  • The editors asked me to review and sign a contract. I was excited to learn what was in the contract and research the meaning of the rights.
  • The editors asked me to review their copyedits. This was good learning, too.
  • I’m following the magazine on Facebook and learning about how they tagline the stories in each issue.
  • My ego is boosted.
  • This story was originally written before I had children, and I had pulled it out and re-worked it. I have lots more of those and feel like I am a better writer than I was then. I can make them, better, faster, stronger.

If you want to enter a writing contest, I would say go for it. But go for it in a smart way.

  • Do your research. I picked journals that printed things I loved to read. So find a literary magazine or journal that you respect. I have two favorites that have contests on right now and I saved up some of my best work for their contests!
  • Do not just enter any old contest. I often look for contests with unique angles like ‘Best Starts’ or with themes and prompts.
  • Pick the right writing. Chose stories or poems you have written that you think they would love.
  • Don’t enter contests with excessive fees. I consider anything above $20 excessive.
  • Think small. Lots of really big magazines like Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers offer contests. But smaller journals and magazines host them, too. Sign up for alerts from places like WOW! Women on Writing, Writer Advice, FreelanceWriting and AllIndieWriters.

 

The Secret of Social Media

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The Secret of Social Media

Right now, I’m working with the U.S. part of a major corporation to plan their social media strategy for the next twelve months. We’ve identified buckets of topics to discuss, like insider info on their brand, fun contests, debatable questions and lots, and lots, and lots of photos. We’ve selected people from the various departments in the company to contribute content so it’s not all one person. But after developing all that social media content, I told the client we were only half done.

“Half?!”

My client was a bit upset.

“What more do we need??”

“You need someone that you trust to listen and reply to every comment, every retweet, every mention, every question. Social media is a party. Sometimes it’s a business party, sometimes it’s a cocktail party, sometimes it’s a Sunday afternoon football watching party. When you go to a party you don’t stand there and shout out all your thoughts. If you did that, you’d be called a jerk and never invited back. You need, as a brand, to have conversations. And that’s the secret of social media.”

“What? What is the secret?”

“Listen, and then let your customers know you heard them.”

social media secret

Good listening is hard.

Why brands and businesses are like little children

This client conversation was especially important to me right now because I am having the exact same conversation with my children. I am trying to train my children on the art of conversation and building relationships with people, including their family members. And that means when someone (like Mom) speaks to you, you acknowledge that you heard (‘Yes, Mom”) and answer the question (“Yes, Mom I was the one who unrolled all of the toilet paper. I was trying to see how much was left.”).

The secret to social media is simple. Talk to your customers the way you would -hopefully- talk to people in real life. You would listen to what they say and reply.

Many brands are not practicing good listening on social media. A recent study by Simply Measured showed that 98 of the top 100 brands on Twitter tweeting daily, but only 54% replied to messages. Like my little children, this makes it seem like they are simply not listening.

Good listening is hard. Really, really good listening is a learned technique. It involves certain body postures and skills like repeating back what you have heard someone say to validate their comments. It can also involve asking more questions instead of jumping to the conclusion that you already know the real issue. Lots of adults are not good listeners.

I’m not saying parents are the best listeners. But I am saying when you’re looking for someone to manage your social media, it’s not really about whether they understand ‘the technology.’ The secret to social media is to find a skilled listener.

Help Kids Write Essays

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Kid writing essay

Some kids are more eager than others.

Looking to help kids write essays?

I remember an essay I wrote in eighth grade about a specific chapter in Gulliver’s Travels. My English composition teacher adored it and praised it through the roof. I also remember another one I wrote as a senior about Jane Austen for a contest. It received an Honorable Mention, but only because there were four entries and mine didn’t nearly come close to the quality of the other entries.

Writing essays is a learned skill. Some of us feel more confident right from the start, but we can all learn helpful steps to take when writing essays.

I recently tackled an essay contest for kids with all three of my boys. If you’re a regular reader of my site, you know I already believe there is a strong connection between physical activity and creativity. That’s why I encourage my children to get involved in sports and games and this winter we are doing Kids of STEEL for the first time. It’s a non-competitive running club for kids organized by the team at Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon.

help kids write essays

Help kids write essays and gain lifelong skills!

The essay contest was optional but I felt it was important for my boys to write their 100 word essays on their favorite healthy snacks. But they needed a little help writing their essays.

A good way to help kids write essays is to coach them on how to write, but not what to write. That’s one of the hardest things to manage when you need to help kids write essays. The idea is to coach kids through some useful exercises that will lead to the essay without telling them exactly what to write.

It can feel a bit painful, and it’s certainly easier to write it for them. Some kids will take longer than others and need more coaching than others. But think long term here! The idea is not to just finish the essay, the goal is to help them learn how to do this for themselves…unless you are really eager to continue doing their school assignments for them all the way through college.

Here are some ideas that I shared with my boys and that I learned from other parents.

Brainstorm your essay topic

  • Make a list of your favorite snacks
  • Imagine how your favorite snack smells
  • Describe the colors of your favorite snack
  • Start with a photo or draw a picture of your favorite snack

Writing the essay

  • Start with a joke
  • Make an acrostic or a fun rhyming poem
  • Describe instructions on how to make the snack
  • Convince another kid to try the snack

As one of the moms organizing the essay submissions from our school, I was really excited to see the wonderful variety of snacks and writing styles. Most of the essays were typed but it was obvious the words were straight out the kids’ mouths. There are prizes for this contest, but the real prize in my opinion is giving my children more practice in picking a topic, brainstorming an opinion and then expressing their opinion in writing. That’s a skill that will always be needed.

There are more ideas on my Pinterest board Writers’ Resources for kids and adults.

Did you write essays as a kid? Do you remember one that went particularly well or just plain awful?

Writers Can Learn from Composting

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Composting

Composting can teach writers a lot.

 

compost for writers

Trust the process

I am an avid composter and have trained my three sons to compost as well. In addition to being good for the environment, I have recently discovered how useful composting is for writers.

I’ve often sat and thought about the magical process that transforms fairly gross old food scraps into rich, black soil that goes into the garden to create more delicious food that leaves us with more unappealing leftover scraps.

This mysterious cycle made a great topic for a fiction story for a kids’ science magazine, Odyssey. I’m submitting my story this month, so wish me luck. If they decide to publish you can be sure I’ll let you know!

I realized composting can be more than just a topic of a story, though. It can also be a metaphor for the writing process. So I asked on my Facebook page, “What can writers learn from composting?”  I got some great answers! (These will make some excellent tweets for writers, too.)

Composting For Writers

writers learn

Good for the earth, Good for your writing.

Here are the four replies to my post:

Ron said, “They can learn that a portion can be beneficial, but most is just a load of crap.”

Allison said “Something that’s leftover or tossed aside can transform into something you never envisioned.”

Rebecca said “Sometimes good things take awhile to develop.”

Giggi repled, “There’s value in letting things ‘stew.'”

Which is your favorite?

Resources for Freelance Writers

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freelance writers

Key information for freelance writers

Writer’s Weekly Helps Freelance Writers

Writer’s Weekly recently published my success story. This online newsletter offers terrific resources for freelancer writers and I invite you to check it out here.

Writer’s Weekly editors are looking for more success stories and feature articles. In addition, the newsletter lists jobs for freelance writers and information on self-publishing.

Consider what has helped you as a freelance writer.  Was it something as simple as changing where you worked or how you organized your tasks? Did you adopt new technology or change your website?

This past month I downloaded the free trial for InDesign and used it to lay out and design a monthly newsletter for one of my clients. It was a challenge and I made mistakes. But I know I won’t make the same mistakes next month and by learning this software I now have more hourly work for this client.

What are you doing to challenge yourself as a freelance writer, keep your skills fresh and remain valuable to clients?