Cisco CLUE

…on the status of teaching. You might find it interesting. If you can’t get over there, no worries. I’ll post it on my Ask a Tech Teacher blog in a few weeks.

Umm, I don’t see it yet… I’ll go over and check on it. I’ll get back to you.

OK–it’ll be out Monday. That’s the latest. I’ll let you know if anything else changes.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sci Fi meets historic fiction in Lincoln Child’s newest novel, The Third Gate (Doubleday 2012) as world-renowned treasurer hunter Porter Stone sets his sites on what is considered the Holy Grail of Egyptology–a pharaoh’s grave. This one is the resting place of none other than Narmer, the pharaoh who united Lower and Upper Egypt thousands of years ago. When odd–read that ‘unnatural’–events begin to pepper the dig site, he calls in self-proclaimed enigmatologist (a specialist in enigmas) Jeremy Logan. What adds to the drama is that the site is located in the Sudd, a god-foresaken bogland south of the Egyptian border that the dig organizer calls Hell on Earth. Logan not only has made a career of studying oddities, but is an empath–a person who feels a person’s emotional history by simply touching them. It doesn’t take Logan long to realize the excavation is cursed and only withdrawing–which Stone refuses to do–can they end their problems.

This is an interesting tale with enough historic details to make readers of that genre deliriously happy. Despite what has become in action novels an ubiquitous reference to Occam’s Razor–that sometimes the simplest explanation is the best–this tale is smart and challenging with lots of detail on ancient Egypt, the treacherous Sudd setting, and enough discussion on near-death experiences to get me interested in that topic. The plot–pitting a committed treasurer hunter against a deadly curse that seems more alive every day–is riveting, but not well told through the eyes of the main character, Jeremy Logan. He spends the first three-fourths of the book observing the action around him rather than being involved in it. True, he was hired to observe, but it puts the reader at arms length from the crises that pepper the plot–the mystical figures that appear on the treacherous Sudd landscape, the unexplained injuries to workers, the fact that the expedition’s wife seems possessed by the dead pharaoh. Where these should strike fear in our heart and keep us turning pages, I found myself unaffected, because Logan was unaffected. This slowed the pace and stripped the terror that would otherwise imbue the plot.

Overall, a good read, challenging to those who enjoy an intellectual romp.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Q: What’s the easiest way to create Excel charts from data?

A: Writing is your love, but if you earn money doing it, you collect data, and if you have data, you likely need to turn it into easily-read charts every now and then.

Excel makes that easy. Collect all of your data onto an Excel spreadsheet, categories labeled as columns and rows.  Highlight the labels and data and push F11.

That’s it–a simple chart.

For more detail, here’s a link to a lesson plan I use with grades 3-5 on creating quick charts from data.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMStech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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by Ben Coes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Ben Coes–you get better every time.

If you read either of the first two Dewey Andreas novels–or both of them–don’t miss the next in the series, The Last Refuge (St. Martin’s Press 2012). Coes has always been a good-to-great writer, but here, he’s on a par with the best (I won’t name names). Dewey is vintage Good Guy with the loyalty, strength, common man characteristics we Andreas fans have come to expect from our hero. There are lots of Great Dewey moments like this one:

Dewey sprinted through the terrace door, onto shattered glass, then jumped, right foot first, to the railing, then out into the open air. As he leapt, he turned, rotating, and fired back up at the terrace.

Can you see him running full-tilt, leaping into thin air while maintaining the presence of mind to pivot and fire at his enemy? God, I love Dewey.

The supporting characters are fully fleshed and likeable. The plot is non-stop action that tingles with twists and tricks. Coes uses the questionable device of multiple point of views to bury the reader in the action. In the hands of Coes, it works brilliantly, infusing the story with rich, full emotion and drama. From the beginning, Coes leaves us wondering how Andreas can accomplish his assigned task. Over and over, we see no way, yet Dewey has a plan and works it, built on nothing but his cleverness and belief in success.

I found it surprising that Coes characterized Andreas as NOT a planner. Dewey is always a step ahead of me in his problem-solving. I spent much of the book trying to figure out why he did some of the creative stuff he did, only to see it all wrapped up nicely in the end.

What a great read. Don’t–really, I mean it–don’t miss this.

Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Tech tips

Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.

Q: I’m teaching my students to create a book report with a cover page. what’s the easiest way to get the cover on the first page and the report on the second?

A: Students as young as 2nd grade can learn to force a new page with Ctrl+enter. I have them create the cover page during one class and add the Ctrl+enter for the new page. That way, students can type the book report without me to help–even on the classroom computers.

For writers, it’s a quick way to move to a new chapter–faster than the menu commands. Umm, please tell me you don’t push ‘enter-enter…’ to reach a new page.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Limit yourself to two adjectives per noun. If you need more:

• pick a stronger noun
• break up the description into several sentences. People can’t keep track of that much detail.

I know, it’s tempting to tell us everything about the colorful, flower-filled, meandering nature path, but don’t give in. If it’s that important, tell me more about the flowers that fill the path, more about what it meanders through–you get the idea.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean”. Adjectives are excuses for missing the words that describe what you mean.

Please add comments with your favorite editing fixes.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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How do you write humor?

I’m on a constant search for humor to spice up my writing, add that spark that makes it human. I’ve written two posts on books I bought hoping to nurture whatever latent funny bone I might have:

• How to be Funny if You’re Not–Part I

• How to be Funny if You’re Not–II

I also keep a list of what I found funny and original in other people’s writing, thinking they might inspire my writing. It rarely works, but they still bring a smile to my face when I read through them. I wish there was a class I could take in how to write humor. I love reading it. I’m sure if I could seamlessly add it to my story, my potential readers would see my genius.

Here’s a list, some are from books I’ve read, some are my own home-grown lines. Are you chuckling? Can you tell which is which? Or have they lost their humor out of context?

• They’re going to look for you until Harvard wins the Super Bowl
• Thing about the law is one size fits all
• So many big words. Such a small dictionary
• Could turn more heads than a chiropractor
• Like arguing with a forest fire
• Wit as dry as the best martini
• If the boy were any dumber he’d have to be watered twice a week
• It sort of fell on me and like mold, grew over the top
• Who do you like (between two)? Answer: I’m pulling for a meteor strike.
• I don’t have a breaking point

• Keep your hands on the table top. Don’t even let your hair grow.
• Never lose money underestimating your intelligence.
• Is DC Douglas a moron? Is Too Tall Jones, too tall?
• Fluent in scribble
• Given last night I’m insufficiently hung over
• Put your big boy pants on and stop squealing
• Tell the truth; it’s easier to remember
• Pyramids are better at changing than you
• “in another life, you would have made a good criminal.”
• “As you would have made a good policemen.”
• The (NBC) peacock commit suicide
• Life’s a bitch. so am I
• If handguns cause crime, mine’s defective
• God gave me the brown hair and my kids gave me the gray
• sour look, like his girlfriend turned out to be his cousin
• Coincidences are like skydiving without a parachute. Things don’t happen twice.”
• I called her just to let her know I was OK; she wasn’t home
• Not unlike a long walk in tight shoes
• like trying to get a cat out of a tree
• That’s like the difference between being thrown from the 15th and 16th floor–they both kill you
• that’s a stretch like a fat lady in ski/yoga pants
• Yeah. That was funny.
• What’s your point?
• Surely you can be as bold as the French?
• Say what you like about the French, but when they found a name they liked, they stuck with it
• It’s not the size of your (words) that matters
• Reality is just a word
• As important as the fact that the average American has one testicle and one ovary
• Statisticians selected their profession because they couldn’t stand the excitement of accounting
• the less the merrier
• That’s Fritz. Ain’t it sad when cousins marry
• You forget Zipper about as easy as face warts your first love
• 85′s the new 60
• As bright as an overhead fan with four lights and two out
• Those days I only knew six words if you count muther fucker as two.
• The union would be on him like ugly on a warthog
• the idea is to manipulate her into a corner, not illuminate the corner so she knows to avoid it
• The truth is out there; it just hasn’t been indexed well
• A town so small it fit between two Burma Shave signs
• My head’s like a bad neighborhood I shouldn’t go into by myself
• Finally some one eloquent enough to speak for me
• She gets lost in a phone booth
• carried no more weight than an anorexic twelve year old
• After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
• Under rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity and other variables the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
• If you can’t understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
• As deaf as a bat,
• It’s like tinkering with the Titanic
• In other news, The Titanic will not be making it to port
• Put her on a milk carton–where’s she been
• Don’t follow a rule off the edge of a cliff
• The judgment of our leader is arbitrary, capricious–and final
• One of the headstones reads ‘I knew this was going to happen, but not so soon
• He hurt my feelings… You don’t have feelings… or feeling–singular
• Couldn’t see the novel for the trees
• More subtle than the plumed serpent
• Alexander the Average
• You make Alexander the Great look average
• the mediocre outdoors

Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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And now Paul wants me to legitimize it with a conversation. OK. I’ll try.

What would ruin my day Photo credit: MustEatBirds

But it’s going to be a list:

• That I’ll get a bad review on Amazon. You can’t unring that bell. It ruins your averages. I have to round up my very best friends and beg them to write a review to counter it.
• That I’ll over-think what I’m writing. That I’ll take myself too seriously and then everyone will mentally throw up over my drama. I have to shake it out and start over.
• That my characters come across as shallow–people I wouldn’t want to know given the opportunity and my readers will abandon
• Anton Chekov remonstrated, Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. What if I miss that? What if I miss it twice?
• That I’ll use ‘was’ six times on one page and drain the energy out of my story like a leaky boat
• That I’ll spell ‘siesta’ with an ‘f’–or ‘Freud’ with an ‘a’. How about ‘luck’ with an ‘f’? So much to worry about
• That my story will reach a climax in the middle of nowhere and I won’t notice
• That I’ll think triumphalistic  is a perfectly good word to use

• That I’ll forget the lesson learned from my first rejection: I may be entitled to my own opinion, but I might want to use that right judiciously.
• That I’ll start to believe statistics like 83% of new writers don’t get published, or the average American has one testicle and one ovary
• That I will not follow the right rules and follow the wrong ones and my voice will be buried in my effort to ‘follow rules’
• That under my verbal talents, the Great Outdoors will become mediocre
• That publishers and agents will say, ‘There’s a gal who didn’t live up to her baby pictures’.
• That my creative juices will disappear as though sucked up by a Hoover
• That my muse will abandon me
• That even now, the fat lady is singing
• That my lips will get tired before I finish all the writer’s how-to books I need to read

Here’s the #1 fear and it’s a bit of a conundrum: If you write from your heart and no one reads it, have you really written anything?

How about you? What’s your worst fear?

Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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