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Forced to slow down
Posted on January 23, 2006 by Sarah Eaton.
There's nothing like a good respiratory flu to completely knock you on your a** for a week and make you reflect.
These are my stages of illness:
Denial--I can't be sick. I have far too much to do. I will try to get up and do these things anyway, only to feel worse.
Acceptance, mixed with denial--Okay, I'm sick today, but I will be fully recovered tomorrow. Move all of my appointments. Rail against disease.
Acceptance, mixed with fear--I'm still sick? How could I still be sick? What's wrong with me? Am I dying? Probably I'll be better tomorrow, so move all of my appointments.
Now, this is the farthest I've gone in the stages of sickness in a good long while (because I'm generally not sick for any longer than two or three days), but apparently I had something to learn over the last week, so I made it to the fourth stage, which is simply:
Acceptance--I've been to the doctor. I know I'm not going to be well for at least three more days. There's no point in fighting it. Let it wash over me and start to care about Days of our Lives and Starting Over because this is all I can care about, seeing as how my brain doesn't work right when you think about work, so there's no point in thinking about it. Just be sick.
Recovery is stage five, of course.
It's strange how today, even though my body is still physically not up to par, my brain feels far more nimble and clear than it did before I succumbed to illness. It was like an extremely unpleasant retreat.
So while I'm not going to recommend the flu to anyone (and I hope I didn't inadvertently do so to anyone in my office), in hindsight (once the muscle aches and incessant coughing are under control), it might have been good for me.
tags: flu season | What's a tag?
January 23, 2006 in award winning blog, award winning design, award winning magazine, Award winning publications, Blog Outsourcing, build credibility, Business Marketing, Business newsletter, Business publications, CMO, company newsletter, Corporate Blogging, create a newsletter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pants On Fire
Posted on January 11, 2006 by Sarah Eaton.
I know, I know, everybody else is already talking about this, and you're probably sick of it, but I just cannot stop myself from commenting.
James Frey, of A Million Little Pieces-authoring fame, has been accused of exaggerating many of the exploits that he details in his memoir. (See The Smoking Gun for a really long article about it.)
I haven't read it because two things prevent me from doing so: 1. I believe books about drug/alcohol-fueled stupidity tend to be boring. 2. I won't read an Oprah-book-club book. (That's just plain book-snobbery, I know. Go ahead and yell at me.)
The issue at hand for me is this (and I feel like it can be applied to all kinds of writing, including marketing writing, writing for your newsletter, blogging, etc.): When you say something is true, it had just better be true. That doesn't mean mostly true. It has to be completely true for it to be true.
A while ago, I read The Fabulist by Stephen Glass (the disgraced journalist who was fired for making up articles), and discovered afterward that many of the scenes in the book turned out to be scenes that actually occurred in his life. But this book was filed in the fiction section. Stephen Glass (or one of his advisers, perhaps) had learned his lesson.
But, here's the thing that makes me feel kinda ashamed: Now I want to read A Million Little Pieces. Books about someone else's drunken stumblings might be boring, but books about liars? Fascinating.
I wonder how many other people will feel the same way about this and rush to their nearest book store to see what all the fuss is about? And, I wonder if this stage in Frey's life will be fodder for memoir number three.
tags: James Frey | A Million Little Pieces | Stephen Glass | The Fabulist
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January 11, 2006 in award winning blog, award winning magazine, award winning newsletter, Award winning publications, Blogging Tools, Brand enhancement, Building B2B Relationships, Building Customer Intuition, bulk email marketing, business credibility, Business publications, CMO, company blog, company magazine, company newsletter, company newsletter sample, corporate magazine, Corporate newsletter, create a newsletter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pulling Pertinent Posts
Posted on January 05, 2006 by Sarah Eaton.
Feed me! Feed yourself! Feed the world!
I'm hungry--for information (and also food; my mid-afternoon healthy snack of a pear didn't quite hit the spot today)--and, like any good lazy person, I like it to come to me.
I dig this article from Technology Review. It's comprehensive, the voice is human rather than technical, and it will tell you what's up-and-coming: Read it.
tags: Technology Review | RSS feeds | hunger
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January 5, 2006 in audio publication, award winning design, award winning magazine, Award winning publications, blog publish, Blogs, build credibility, Building B2B Relationships, Building Customer Community, Building Customer Intuition, business magazine, Business Marketing, Business relationships, company blog, company newsletter sample, Company publication, Corporate Blogging, corporate magazine, create a newsletter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack