Typealyze Your Blog or Writing

If you have a blog online, there's a cool analyzer here called the Typelyzer that will tell you the "personality type" of your blog.

I ran my blog through this (it took about two seconds) and it came up with this:

ESFP - The Performers
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

I found this very interesting because it is NOT my personality type, but it is the type of blog I'm trying to achieve - all entertainment, soft fabrics and sweet smells.

My actualy personality type based on Myers-Briggs is INFP. Both types are Feeling and Perceiving, but the blog is more extroverted and fact-based. Makes sense!

SCBWI Conference Time!

Wow, I used this same post title a year ago. That crazy, fabulous, learning-intensive time is upon us again. The big ol' SCBWI LA conference starts this Friday, spread out over four exhausting, exhilarating days in lovely, lonely Century City, aka Los Angeles.

This year I'm doubly excited because my critique partner, sexy, smart-ass, slinky-prose writing Elisa Nader is coming into town for it. It'll be a whirlwind of seminars, schmoozing, and snacking.

How's that for some alliteration, folks?

We're taking famed writer/publisher Arthur Levine's workshop on putting emotion into your writing. Arthur's a legend in the world of writing for children. Check out his list. I know I have much still to learn when it comes to writing and this is an extraordinary opportunity. Thanks, SCBWI!

I'll try to take photos and blog a bit about it, but the final word comes down from the official SCBWI conference blog here. Check it out for all the juiciest dish and greatest insights.

Happy conferencing, fellow attendees!

The Procedural

Yes, I'm busy. Haven't posted, blah blah blah.

But not too busy to read this hilarious, spot-on the beagle's nose post by writer Josh Friedman (yeah, the dude who made that great TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles, RIP) to help you understand the jabberwocky land of television. His blog is called I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing and if you don't recognize the Star Wars reference, do not go to Comic Con or they will eat you alive.

Read it here.

"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Five Things to Try When the Dryer in Your Building Won't Start

...when it’s filled with wet jeans and you’ve given it your last three quarters and the damn quarter tray is stuck half in/half out:

1. Try to hammer the quarter tray back out while chanting, “Piece of shit, piece of shit, piece of shit."

2. Tilt it, as you would a recalcitrant pinball machine. If a gentle nudge doesn’t work, lift one side of the dryer up high, using your legs and not your back to avoid injury. Then drop it hard, secretly hoping it breaks and the building owner will have to buy a new one.

3. Paint a blue dot on your forehead using Tide with bleach alternative.  Raise your right hand and solemnly swear that you’ll switch to an environmentally friendly laundry soap if the thing will just fricking start.

4. Sit on top of it, then hop on your ass, as it were, pounding the dusty white surface with your butt.

5. After you've successfully dislodged the quarter tray, ask your neighbor for more quarters, trying not to think about how you keyed their car when they blocked your parking space that one time.