Twitter at its best

I’ve been listening to Scott Simon’s distinctive voice on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” for years. After reading this article I know he also has a distinctive, elegant, and loving voice via Twitter. For those of us who haven’t yet found a way to take full advantage of Twitter, read Simon’s tweets about the last days of his mother’s life. After reading them myself, I had to share this article with you.

Here’s the link if you want to read the entire Los Angeles Times article. You can also listen to Simon's words on the NPR site.

latimes.com

NPR's Scott Simon: A vigil for his dying mother, tweeted with love

By Matt Pearce

This post has been updated, as indicated below.

6:18 PM PDT, July 29, 2013

Scott Simon, a radio host for NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” gave his mother, Patricia Simon Newman Gilband, a very public farewell.

Gilband appeared with her son on NPR in 2008, when the pair bantered as she shared stories from her life in Chicago. “Well, I think the thing I have learned from you -- number one, you're a beautiful companion,” Gilband told Simon then. “You've always been a lot of fun. No matter what age, we all got -- we were compatible. We got along beautifully. … You've never lost your childlike sense of enthusiasm.”

For the last few days, Simon, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, has been tweeting odes and observations from his mother’s bedside in an intensive-care unit in a Chicago hospital, where she was dying.

“It is a remarkable and moving moment,” fellow NPR host Peter Sagal of “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” tweeted Saturday. “Pay attention.”

On Monday at 7:17 p.m., Simon tweeted twice:  "The heavens over Chicago have opened and Patricia Lyons Simon Newman has stepped onstage."

"She will make the face of heaven shine so fine that all the world will be in love with night."

A few more of Simon’s tweets:

I just want to say that ICU nurses are remarkable people. Thank you for what you do for our loved ones.

All hospitals should have roll-out chairs in ICU rooms so loved ones can spend night w/ patients & not sleep on floor.

I am getting a life's lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?

Tnx for all but wishes for my mother in ICU. Her anthem, more than ever, is But I'm Still Here. She inspires us all.

Our friend Wen Huang dropped by ICU to read to my mother from his book. She smiles, "Haven't we had a lovely day?"

I consider this a good sign: mother sez when time comes, obit headline should be Three Jewish Husbands, But No Guilt.

My mother drifts to sleep listening to Nat's Unforgettable. I keep things light, but moments like this hard, if sweet.

Thanks for all good wishes. Mother says, "We can get through this, baby. The hardest part we'll be for you when it's over"

I tell my mother, "You'll never stop teaching me." She said, "Well don't blame me for everything."

My mother is breathing, finally sleeping. Docs asked what priority is. I just want to take her to sit in our favorite park.

No real sleep tonight. But songs poems memories laughs. My mother: "Thank you God for giving us this night & each other"

Mother: "I don't know why this is going on so long. I'm late for everything I guess."

I don't know how we'll get through these next few days. And, I don't want them to end.

When my mother woke briefly I sang her My Best Girl. She replied w/ You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Broadway in the ICU.

I just realized: she once had to let me go into the big wide world. Now I have to let her go the same way.

I think she wants me to pass along a couple of pieces of advice, ASAP. One: reach out to someone who seems lonely today.

And: listen to people in their 80's. They have looked across the street at death for a decade. They know what's vital.

Oh, and: Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you. It goes too quickly.

In middle of nights like this, my knees shake as if there's an earthquake. I hold my mother's arm for strength--still.

Her passing might come any moment, or in an hour, or not for a day. Nurses saying hearing is last sense to go so I sing & joke.

I know end might be near as this is only day of my adulthood I've seen my mother and she hasn't asked, "Why that shirt?"

[Updated, 6:17 p.m. July 29: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that Scott Simon's mother died about 7:17 p.m. Chicago time.]

All direct quotes are shown in italics.

My WriteGirl poem

There’s still time to buy a poem for as little as $5.00 and support WriteGirl, a creative writing and mentoring organization for teen girls. With only twenty-three days to go in this first campaign, WriteGirl wants to reach a goal of $30,000 to continue to offer writing mentors and creative writing workshops for more than 300 girls next season (October 2012 and June 2014). So far $6,635 has been raised.

For my $5.00 contribution to the WriteGirl Poetry Drive, I received a short poem written by Guadalupe, a 15-year old WriteGirl teen.

ONE OF MANY
 

A blissful feeling of belonging
A passage of time

Forever captured in my mind
Only a few to witness

Not only the ride,
But the love
All forgot

But I remembered

I think it’s lovely and well worth the $5.00 contribution. Don’t you?

If so, I hope you’ll contribute and receive your own poem. Here’s the link again

http://www.indiegogo.com/WriteGirl-POETRY-Drive

You can also find this campaign on Facebook and Twitter. So you have no more excuses. 

Another rant - this must be my rant week

So I’m frustrated. I am in the running for a prize at the My Gutsy Story contest site. Up until yesterday another contender and I kept taking the lead back and forth, but now I’m seven votes behind.

I’ve sent out two group emails, posted the contest info all over the place on Facebook, tweeted about it, other folks have tweeted about it, and just today created an event to ask people to over there to vote. And out of all that I have forty-five votes. I need seven right now just to tie the first place guy. And I would think that wouldn’t be so hard to do.

Don’t people respond to requests like this anymore? Is this going to make me lose some of my FB friends and make me seem like a pest?

It really isn’t pesty, I don’t think. Just a simple request:

Click on a link, look on the right sidebar, find the Polling place, and click on my name. Should be a piece of cake. I can’t even get my family to do it.

So now I’m at a loss as to how to draw folks in and to click where I’ve asked (practically pleaded with) them to click. And I wonder if this kind of response is typical in everyone’s experience.

I’ve questioned before about the reasoning behind Facebook fan pages and getting lots of Likes, all the tweets, the LinkedIn messages, the Facebook friends and posts. Sure I’ve made a lot of friends, but most don’t chime in. I’ve also had a few books sell as a result, but not that many for how much work I do

That’s why I’m frustrated. It doesn’t look like all my work and all my contacts are making any difference what-so-ever. It’s really too bad. What does it take for a thought or a piece of writing to go viral? Plus, what does that mean anyway? Is that just in terms of sharing something around or does it also mean sharing and taking some kind of action?

Well, folks, please take some action here:

Click on this Link

Read the story

Look on the right sidebar

Find the Polling place

And click on my name

Thanks for reading, forgive the rant, and please vote before July 11.

OOH, I take some of this back. A couple of votes just came in as a result of the FB event. Yay, something is working. Thanks so much.

Birthday post mortem or how I'm moving forward

Just about a year ago – on Mother’s Day and near my last birthday  – I achieved a huge goal. My memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, A Mother’s Memoir of Living with her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide, was published. In it I tell the steps I took in living with the loss of my son. First and foremost I chose to live and take care of myself as a woman, wife, mother, writer.

In hopes that my story will inspire others to find ways to survive their own tragic experiences, I’ve devoted most of this last year marketing my book. I have become increasingly more engaged in social networking, through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, I had a blog tour through Women on Writing (WOW), radio interviews, and many speaking and book signing engagements.

I’ve also embarked on a whole new writing career – writing for the Huffington Post That’s Fit and Healthy Living columns, the Naturally Savvy website as its over sixty expert, PsychAlive, a website that focuses on suicide prevention, and just recently contributing to Open to Hope, a wonderful site near and dear to me that looks to finding hope after loss.  

Since my publisher, Lucky Press, decided to cease doing business this past April 30, marketing my book has become more of a priority for me. But, what has been so encouraging is all the help and suggestions I’ve received from the relations I’ve made through my social networks. I never would have believed how close some of us have become.

Though I suspect that I’ll be involved in making next-step decisions for another couple of months at least – about going the self publishing route or continuing to try to find a traditional publisher to reissue my book – I know I will continue with the mission that has slowing and surely evolved through the years since my son died: erasing the stigma of mental illness and suicide in the hopes of saving lives.

I’ve also had a huge surprise this year. Little did I know that I’d become a published author, poet, and web journalist at this stage in my life. I’ve found that I’m definite proof at age 72 that it is never too late for opportunities to reinvent our lives.

The Independent Author Network

I recently joined The Independent Authors Network and I think it is paying off already in turns of book sales and reach. I recommend it to my author friends out there who have stagnating sales rankings, and who don’t get a lot of marketing coverage. Now I think tweeting about my IAN involvement is a necessary part of my marketing work.

Here are few bits of information about the network. But I suggest you click here to find out more and to determine whether it’s something you’d like to do. And if you decide to join, click here. 

In the words of The Independent Author Network:

Q. What is The Independent Author Network?

A. The Independent Author Network is a group of like minded authors who are self published or published by a small indie press. The group is open to authors who are active social networkers at sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. The group works together to support and promote each other online.

Q. How does I.A.N. work? 

A. Members are asked to Tweet and Facebook their IAN Member page and the pages of the other authors. If a member has a new book releasing, a book signing, a blog tour or any event the info would be posted to our blog and the others Tweet, blog, Facebook etc. the event as their time allows. 

Q. What is the cost to join?

A. Yearly Basic membership is free at IAN, however to help cover rising site costs we require new members to please pay a one time set up fee If you have 1-6 books to promote the Membership setup fee is $24.95.Please contact us if you have more than six books to promote.

Q. Will I need to pay this fee yearly?

A. No this is a one time fee and will not be charged again!

Q. What else do I need to join?

A. All new members must have a book that is published or near publishing at a small mainstream independent press or is self-published. We ask that all members have a twitter. Other useful accounts include: Facebook, LinkedIn, GoodReads, Shelfari as well as a blog and website.

Challenges and writing work update

Yesterday and today’s assignments for the April platform challenge were to accomplish things I had already done – build a Facebook profile and give myself a Twitter name. I also have a Facebook author page. So I was ahead of the game there. 

However, Robert Lee Brewer is always very generous with his helpful hints. I’ll give you the links to Day 3 and Day 4 here and you can visit both sites if you’re interested in learning more. I feel that I know very little about how to use Twitter so I can use all the help I can get. I have, however, heard that Re-Tweets are golden. I had two yesterday that got to thousands of followers. I guess I’m doing something right.

I’m also keeping up with my goal of writing 1000 words on my novel a week, and I'm now writing a poem a day for Robert Lee Brewer’s other April challenge. The prompts are always interesting. Today’s was: take the phrase 100% (blank), replace the blank with a word, make that the title of your poem, and then write a poem. So far my poems are very drafty. They will need a lot a work before the end of the month. But at least I’ve written something to work with.

And in case you’re interested, here’s an update on the hummingbird.

The hummingbird is gone. I went out to check yesterday morning and it was nowhere in sight. The day before he was quite active. He was talking, turning his head every which way, and sticking his beak into the hole in the squeeze bottle spout to drink.  Every time I came by he opened his mouth. I was told to try putting him on a tree branch, so I did. But he was back on the path within twenty minutes. Maybe that showed him he could fly and he just finally got up the nerve to fly away. I hope so. I’ve left a hummingbird feeder out for him in case he comes back to his old neighborhood. After all he lived outside our front door for almost a week.