"Write now is good."

Mind the grocery store gap

Image: "Empty shelves at a grocery story" by waitscm

In many urban neighborhoods in the United States, supermarket shortages make it difficult for residents of these areas to buy affordable, healthy food. This lack can contribute to a host of health problems, including obesity and diabetes, as people tend to depend on fast food outlets, corner convenience stores, and bodegas for a majority of their meals. If these local venues do sell fresh produce, it's often at a premium, keeping it out of reach of those without extra funds to splurge.

New York City is a metropolis known for its thousands of gourmet restaurants and eclectic, high-end markets. For many local residents, however, eating a meal from these establishments may well be a mirage. Areas called "food deserts" dot all five boroughs, with areas of highest poverty in the Bronx having the fewest number of grocery stores per resident city-wide. To get fairly priced, high-quality food, people must often travel great distances. In NYC, this can easily entail navigating multiple subways and bus lines and walking many blocks while carrying perishables and heavy liquids. (Imagine a grocery store trip that takes hours and is both physically and mentally exhausting.)

To bring more food-access parity to the Big Apple, local groups and city politicians are looking at the complex relationship between factors which keeps grocery stores out of so many's reach. This 2005 Gotham Gazette story explains this situation and possible solutions well. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger website is an online source representing more than “1,200 food programs” which help an estimated 1.4 million hungry New Yorkers. While the issue is complex, many are focusing their attention on it. Awareness about this aspect of hunger seems to be spreading.

Lack of food access is not just a New York City issue. If you look closely enough at any of the U.S.'s urban and rural areas — the places most difficult for grocery stores to exist, for a variety of reasons — you will find food deserts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service has put its “Food Desert Locator” online. It allows viewers to “get a spatial overview of low-income neighborhoods with high concentrations of people who are far from a grocery store” based on U.S. census data.

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year's focus is on food. As a result of participating, I have not only learned more about food deserts, but also found Civil Eats, a well-written blog, with over 100 contributors, about food issues; The Food Trust, a community-based organization in Philadelphia which promotes farmers' markets throughout the city (and much more); and Just Food, another NYC-based food justice initiative which pairs area farmers and their produce to those who most need them.

Thanks to all at BAD2011 who have again brought worldwide attention, through organizing a network of bloggers, to an issue affecting us all.

Searching for tweet-blogging

Image via Hjem

As I microblog (tweeting here) when I have a lot of non-blog writing to do, I've been looking for a way to feature choice tweets (of mine) on my blog. I tend to tweet interesting links I find, and I've been thinking about having a function to incorporate more lengthy discussion around a tweet.

At this point, there is no fluid integration which allows tweeters/bloggers to pick a tweet and have it automatically published on their blog. The tweet/blog conversation space I would like to see — and I think many others would, too — doesn't exist yet. If anyone knows of this functionality, please drop a comment. Based on comments I read at Get Satisfaction, I think TypePad may be working on this.

A tweet of 140 characters or less is a completely different way of communicating from a thousand-word blog post. A tweet, however, can be a conversation starter, but only if a space exists for users to carry on digitally, instantly, and easily. Also, I'd like to archive some tweets and present them later for further discussion, which is a blog's function, not that of a Twitter account.

Yesterday on Twitter, I followed a link from @anildash's tweet on his blog post "If you didn't blog it, it didn't happen." If you tweet or are simply interested in microblogging, I recommend reading it, as it brings up many issues for writers and technologists to consider about digital publishing in any format.

I also learned from Anil's post that Twitter will let users retrieve only their last 3200 tweets. While my tweet amount falls far below that threshold now, it will continue to move towards that limit. What do I do once I reach it? While I don't need to save all my tweeted minutiae, there are some that I'd like kept. Perhaps Twitter should incorporate an archive function within it, much like the "favorite" function, and a warning to users once they are within their limit, much like an email account (i.e., "You are using 80% of your allotted space. Please consider deleting files."). Anil also mentions ThinkUp, a social issue media app that "captures your posts, replies, retweets, friends, followers, and links on social networks like Twitter and Facebook." For archiving our social media lives, this is definitely on the right track.

When tweeting fluff becomes microblogging short-but-important missives, users will want a way to keep them. My homemade solution is to choose tweets I want to feature on my blog and then manually (not automatically and integrated between sites) make a post around them. This will help me extend the conversation my tweets have started while I'm doing lots of non-blog writing but still want to blog.

If anyone has any other ideas, please drop a comment. Meanwhile, my first tweet-post is in the works.

Could universal health care eliminate poverty?

Over the past week, I've received quite an education on the connection between poverty and lack of health insurance. I was co-host of a “news hunt” at NewsTrust, a vibrant media literacy project online. The NT community looked for the best journalism on health care, and read and reviewed a wide range of health care stories. Those that stayed with me most explained how the lives of the working poor have been destroyed when they lose health insurance.

Solving poverty is a complex issue, but one within our control if we act widely and directly on it. One solution to poverty in the United States is to provide universal health coverage. The working poor, who amount to roughly 80% of the 45 million uninsured in the U.S., will benefit most from this.

During the news hunt, I read and reviewed 36 health care stories (including a podcast and a documentary) from many sources. Based on what I've read, I know now that there is a consistent, tragic pattern that occurs when the working poor lose health insurance. The basic steps are:

1. working adult gets sick and loses job
2. after losing job, they lose their health insurance
3. they can no longer afford medications, so they get sicker
4. since they have no insurance, they receive either no care at all or substandard health care which they have to pay for themselves
5. the bills pile up
6. still sick, they cannot work, so they lose their home and belongings because any money they have goes to basic subsistence and paying medical bills
7. very few rebound, and many die

Providing health insurance, available no matter their employment status, would solve this horrible situation. It would help the working poor in multiple ways. It would give them access to any needed medical care for themselves and their dependents. They would stay healthy and be able to look for and get additional work. If sick workers could no longer work, they would still get care, which is the right and compassionate thing to provide.

When people are healthy, they can still contribute meaningfully to their communities; when many in one community are unemployed and sick, their community suffers along with them. With health insurance, adults can take care of the children who depend on them; without it, their children may lose, either temporarily or permanently, their mother's or father's care.

During this economic downturn, prospects for the working poor will absolutely become more dire. Adding guaranteed, universal health insurance to the poverty equation would directly improve the quality of their lives. To read some of the top rated stories from NewsTrust's health care news hunt and decide on this issue for yourself, click here.

THANK YOU to those who left comments here that they too would join Blog Action Day:

- Crafty Green Poet writes on "Poverty and the Environment".
- Lily Hydrangea penned "Blogging for Poverty".
- Nipun at 50 Word Fiction has an "uber short" take on the theme.
- Rachel's post is titled "My skin or my soul" over at The Slow-Cooked Sentence.

Busy writing

Hello, Readers! I have been writing much lately, but not for my dear blog.

As I wrap up a big project tomorrow, I'll be blogging again by this weekend.

Autumn is an industrious time for me. The back-to-school, cooler-air, leaves-about-to-change shift always propels my to-do list to seriously industrious proportions. (Plus, I have consistent deadlines every fall, so they add to this.)

Hope this post finds you all creative and inspired.

Image above: Time-saving "What do you mean I'm always too busy?" stamp found at SwissMiss.

Be an AWESOME writer

Last month, I wrote a post about a very insightful and funny YouTube video called "Book Launch 2.0". It features Dennis Cass, an accomplished writer and the author of Head Case, conversing with a phone-friend about the pros and cons of using new and social media to launch books.

For those of you who enjoyed Cass's video also, I've got good news: he has created an online community. Its goal: to make creative people more effective and successful at their creative lives and careers. It is called, appropriately, "Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome."

DCWYTBMA is a site full of "advice, jokes and tough love for people who want to make a living making culture." Dennis regularly answers members' questions, providing sound advice on a variety of relevant topics. The community is active, full of creatives commenting with additional viewpoints and examples. Plus, he features an "Awesomizer" to help improve creative endeavors; it has made me look at some pop culture mainstays with a fresh perspective.

I strongly believe that participating in writing/creative groups (even online!) can help their participants grow in their work, get unstuck when creative blocks arise, and provide camaraderie and support when the creative road is nothing but potholes and speed traps. (If you have done anything creative ever in your life, then you know the ride can get bumpy...)

While reading Cass's articles and answers, I have laughed out loud many times. Knowledgeable creative-career guidance + original insights + active community + humor = WIN! And if you sign up, I'll see you there.

Searching for blogs

Photo: "an i" by Magitisa

Yes, I'm on the hunt.

I'm looking for good blogs on writing, creativity, media and inspiration.

Please leave a comment with any you'd like to share. Thanks!

Your tech life — unplugged

Photo: electric! outlet! by kandyjaxx

Organizational guru and blogger extraordinaire Sharon Sarmiento is featured in a Reuters article titled "Texting while driving? Time to unplug." An excerpt:

Sharon Sarmiento knew it was time to unplug when she realized she was blogging in her dreams and hearing imaginary instant messages.    

For Ariel Meadow Stallings, it was the hours lost while surfing the Internet that left her feeling like she had been in a drunken blackout.

Both women are part of a new grass-roots movement in which tech geeks, Internet addicts, BlackBerry thumbers and compulsive IMers are deciding to wrest back control of their lives by daring to switch off -- if only for a day...

The entire article is well worth the read. Even if not working directly in the tech industry, we are all influenced by technology. Use it wisely and in balance, or suffer ill consequences.

The article's title is helpful advice in itself. Texting while driving?!? Time to unplug, indeed.

How do you make your book "social"?

Photo: Writer's block by A river runs through 

Writers love to write, though it's often hard work. Even when intense writer's block pays a dastardly visit, a reward waits on the other side: the sublime satisfaction of having blasted through the block and continuing on with the story.

Tangled plot lines and misbehaving characters keep authors awake at night, as can their own children, pets and other family members. (I know a cat who insists on getting brushed at 4AM...do you?)

Many aspiring writers, active in their quest for novelling greatness, have day jobs. These necessary vocations, often clocking in at 40-plus hours per week, unabashedly devour "free" time designated for writing.

Despite endless obstacles, writers press on.

When it comes to marketing one's own work, however, writers often dig in heels, faint or flee. That's why it is so valuable when a marketing guru turns a daunting process into something accessible, worthwhile, and perhaps fun.

Interested in learning how to market your writing, either right now or in the future? Then read the post "Social Books" by Sean Howard. Howard, who is Director of Strategy and Innovation at Lift Communications, has outlined the necessary basic steps for writers to use social networking tools in developing an online marketing program for their books. Thanks, Sean!

These days, if writers don't work hard to tell a compelling story about their writing, and get their books public attention, then their books won't get bought and read — no matter how great their stories are. Consider marketing as a necessary part of the authorship process; doing so will help insure that your books make it to your readers' hands, minds and hearts. 

Introducing "The Writer's Technology Companion"

The Writer's Technology Companion features practical advice for writers from a technology angle.

If you write in this day and age, you must be very tech literate. From having a blog to knowing how to use the track changes feature in Microsoft Word, tech know-how keeps a writer's skills sharp and helps any writer grow professionally and personally. It also helps in making connections with present work, future job opportunities and other writers.

Here are two recent posts from WTC; both are prime examples of its most useful fare:

° What Should I Write About in My Writer’s Blog?
° Should You Blog on Your Writer’s Website?

Another post worth checking out is 22 Blogs Every Writer Should Read. I'm proud to say that "Write now is good." is listed at #17 on the list. Many thanks for the recognition, WTC, and it's great to make your acquaintance!

For Patry Francis

My blog friend Patry Francis is one of the most giving, generous, warm-hearted people I've never met.

Yes, that's right. I've never met her.

Patry blogs and writes about her life and what she sees at Simply Wait. She comments on my blog and on countless other's blogs, too. She seems to be everywhere at once, thinking and writing and giving and sharing. Her words say so much about her.

That's why I feel I know her so well. She is a brilliant writer and inspires on a regular basis. I've linked to her touching stories full of humanity and compassion before, and today I post again for Patry, but for a different reason.

Patry was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and is fighting it with all her might, her strength, her humor and her grace. We, her blog friends, have been eagerly awaiting every post from her, every mark of progress, as she battles this. And now, an amazing group at the blog Lit Park has done something truly extraordinary. Hundreds of bloggers all over the world are blogging for Patry and for her first book, The Liar's Diary, which was just released in paperback yesterday.

The miracle is, as word is making its way around Blogville, Patry's book is soaring up the sales charts. People are buying it, and this fabulous book from this spectacular author is getting the truly amazing debut it deserves. (Enough superlatives for you in that last sentence?)

So I encourage you to purchase a copy of The Liar's Diary at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's. You can also buy directly from Penguin to save 15% (after you add the book to your cart, just enter the word PATRY in the coupon code field and click "update cart"€™ to activate the discount).

Below is a short promo about The Liar's Diary. Thank you, everyone, for your support.

Keep healing, Patry, and keep writing!