My birthday party is a social media HIT!

Carol's Save a Life Birthday Party is a TOP FINALIST for a SoMe Award. (Pacific Northwest Social Media Award).

Every two minutes someone in Western Washington needs a blood transfusion. Sean Debutts, Social Media Coordinator at Puget Sound Blood Center, sent a direct message via Twitter to @TheFirstCarol to ask if she would spearhead a blood drive and help meet that need. The First Carol looked at her watch, realized no new adventure lay on the horizon and quickly said, "Sure!"

She dove into a complete social media campaign and results are in, the party was a hit and it's a top finalist for the Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards in The Scrappy & Engaged Award category.

The judges were, "A crew of social media enthusiasts in Texas and beyond," reports Sean Lowery, Executive Director of the InnoTech Conference which is spotlighting the awards.

"Social media is very personal and this campaign struck a chord for me," says The First Carol. "I have an innate curiosity to see if I can drive people out from behind their computers to share a cup of coffee and many will, but this project asked them to extend past surface conversation and participate in a needle-in-the-arm way."

The Puget Sound Blood Center maintains eleven donation centers in Washington and continues to benefit from her efforts. "For an hour the SlideShare I created to help explain the campaign to the judges was Hot on Twitter," notes Carol. "It's all these little wins that makes diving into social media fun." The slide share, Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party, continues to be featured on SlideShare's Health and Medicine category.

Sean Debutts, the initiator of the direct message that launched Carols's party says, "Carol deserves the honor after all the hard work she put into her drive and all the visibility she gave the concept."

What's next on the adventure agenda for The First Carol? "The hardest part now," she muses, "Is explaining what a social media award is to my parents."

Social media is an all encompassing term for the mixing of technology and social interaction to add value to the community. The SoMe Awards honor the best social media projects, programs and campaigns in the Pacific Northwest. Winners will be announced after the InnoTech Conference in Portland, Oregon, a business and technology conference sponsored by top brands IBM, Microsoft, Integra Telecom, and others.

Registration is $20 and includes two drinks and dessert at the prestigious Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 SW Salmon Street, Portland, Oregon 97205 on Thursday, May 7, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Event registrations are accepted online: http://ow.ly/1FZ1s.

"If you missed the birthday party, it's a great excuse to attend the awards party," says The First Carol. "It's a chance to meet me and you might get included in a future blog post."

Are you coming?

More information about the awards can be found on the SoMe website: http://www.someawards.com/

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She pulled out the needle, I pushed it away

The gal who greeted me pulled out the needle and thrust it my way. I pushed it aside. I insisted on a gun and a bucket. I was ready to bleed.

The receptionist at the SW Washington Blood Center chuckled and explained she was the person who collected information not blood. She held out a clipboard along with that... pesky needle.

I examined it more closely. I noted it was a pen. I might have been nervous.

I reviewed the educational materials and worked my way through the official blood donation questionnaire. The receptionist and I had a brief exchange over the baby aspirin I'd taken two days prior. It fell within the 48 hour range and needed to be noted. I colored in the round circle over the grayed out 'Y' and hoped it didn't disqualify me from participating in my own birthday blood drive.

The receptionist handed me off to the phlebotomist who hauled me into an interview room. She scrutinized my answers. She asked three more questions and noted my responses on the form. Satisfied, she pulled out her gear and I felt the first prick. I don't remember much after that... until I started to breathe again.

When I lifted my head off the table she grinned and presented me with my first birthday present. Nothing fancy, not really expensive, but something I could really, really use: a band-aid.

Custom. Flesh colored. Nice.

She continued to smile and escorted me to the donation area. I seemed to be sort of a celebrity (my reputation had preceded me), they had decked out the center with balloons and general party paraphernalia including a lovely cake, and the big bosses shifted out of their offices to get a good glimpse of me. They cheered me on as I approached my donor destiny.

I slipped into the thick, cushioned recliner and rolled my neck and shoulders trying to get comfortable. Something clicked and a voice buzzed in my left ear. The pheblotomist handed me a remote control and waved at the television hanging from the ceiling, noting I had my very own set and could watch whatever I wanted.

I never watch TV anymore (I write) and had no idea what to do except flip through channel after channel. When the screen flickered to black and white I knew I'd landed at the right spot. Perry Mason entered the frame and the courtcase began.

My white-coated escort settled at my side and scrubbed at my inner elbow. I turned away. I steeled myself. I stifled a cry. When I turned back I realized she hadn't stuck me with anything and praised myself on my wonderful imagination.

At that point, I had to keep a close eye on her handiwork if only to save myself from embarrassment. The last thing I wanted was for them to call the birthday girl 'the big baby' before anything was accomplished. I barely flinched when things got set in place. Seriously.

I turned the TV volume down low and focused on pumping the hard rubber ball and fulfilling my birthday mission to save a life.

Squeeze, relax, squeeze, relax.

Seven minutes later I had filled my quota and we admired the nice pint my efforts provided.

This is when the party started.

We ripped the plastic cover off the Safeway cake, sliced up polite-sized pieces, and bit into chocolate cake embedded with chocolate pudding. The receptionist fired up the espresso machine and plunked a steaming, hot cup of coffee in front of me and waited for me to pass out.

I stayed upright.

After all, one doesn't have just one piece of cake on the birthday you donate blood.

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PLEASE JOIN US.
Should you find yourself in the position to be a donor I highly recommend it. Although my fiction account would have you believe otherwise, the pain is nominal. The results of your gift, however, are phenomenal.

People often think that blood transfusions are only used for trauma and accident victims. In fact, blood transfusions are frequently used for cancer patients, blood & immune system diseases, organ transplantation, surgery, burn patients, and heart & blood vessel diseases. There is no substitute for blood and no artificial blood product. There is no substitute for you.

EACH DAY our community needs 900 people to donate blood. Thank you everyone who participated. Your gift means a family stays intact, a baby breathes, a mom smiles, a dad gets to hug his kid.

And we get to eat chocolate cake.

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Writers mix it up, and just like kids we feed them snacks so they'll sit still

The Vancouver Writers’ Mixer was intended as a one time event hosted by Clark College Community Education Teacher, Carolyn J. Rose. She sought to encourage students from her novel writing boot camps to connect with each other and form critique groups. The first mixer was a hit and Rose believed her job was done.

Apparently, she was mistaken.

Badgered by students who couldn’t break the tie to their favorite teacher, she kowtowed to the pressure and planned more gatherings. She recruited Mel Sanders, owner of Cover to Cover Books, who agreed to keep her shop open 5-6:30 PM first Saturdays to support the blatant scheme to encourage local authors.

It should be disclosed that at each event a contingent of ringers fill the seats who merely desire to revere authors for the 30-40 minutes they speak, lob questions at them for 10-15 minutes, stampede to purchase their books, and publicly beg for autographs.

Presenters are expected to play along.

Both Rose and Sanders are task masters who have kept the guest slate booked with well spoken presenters. They are also experienced in the art of delegation and have passed the baton to a committee who seeks to continue the high caliber of education and entertainment the mixers have provided. These rabid volunteers insure events are entertaining, fast paced—beginning with a fantastic and very entertaining emcee—and of course, the event offers snacks.

People in the Pacific Northwest will go anywhere if someone waves a cookie under their nose.

Now, why in the world would I tout such an awesome event on my blog? Why, because I am the emcee of course. Yes, meet The First Carol, alive and in person the first Saturday of every month, at Cover to Cover Books, 1817 Main St, Vancouver, WA 98660, except in the summer when it's just too nice to play inside.

And why am 'I' the emcee? Easy, the biggest mouth gets to light the fire and get the event rolling. Uh, that would be me.

The monthly events consistently draw 20-30 locals who desire to improve their craft, gain insight into the publishing industry, and garner tips on securing publishing contracts. The tickets to the event are FREE. You can grab your free ticket here: 
http://vancouverwritersmixer.eventbrite.com/

And if you are published or work in the publishing industry and would like to to volunteer for this speaking gig, you are officially invited to contact the Vancouver Writers Mixer's. Simply, email Will Glessner for more info. Please put 'Writers Mixer' in subject line.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm on the committee, and I have excellent influence, just in case you want to butter me up. I like the cookies that come with chocolate :-)

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Luck is finding at least one friend who can cook

Good luck is getting to eat what they cook.

Our critique group hostess, Pam, tasked our members to dig deep into our artistic talent and create a food that represented our novels for an end of the year potluck. I knew it would be a good event, tasty even. I also knew I'd bring something that wouldn't be tasty, whether I baked it or not.

The night of the event, Ginger flounced a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—the lunch served at summer camp—on the buffet table and launched into a story of how she had to convince her two-year old they were not meant for her. Two-year olds are not easy to dissuade when they are intent on a goal. I can say in complete admiration, Ginger succeeded in keeping teeth marks out of most of the sandwich squares.

Peggy entered with a shy giggle and waited for us to notice her blond locks had been sheared into a cute bob. Peggy's holiday dishes magically appeared out of her Nordic themed, fantasy YA novel. I checked carefully to see what delicious magic might be lurking inside her serving dish and was not disappointed—Swedish meatballs with a jar of pickled herring thrown in on the side.

Melanie proclaimed she'd brought the essence of good taste: rat turds (formally known as rum balls that require a breathalyzer before carting yourself home). She'd shipped them directly from the brigantine that sails the Atlantic Ocean in her adventure novel. I will include a picture, but you must sign an affidavit that any damage this does to your chocolate-loving-psyche will not be blamed on Pearl of Carol.

3..2..1.. Quick peek. You okay?

Sharon, our newest member, was a bit overwhelmed, she had not met a couple of our members who have been on hiatus due to family responsibilities. She nobly placed her black-eyed pea corn bread at the end of the table with a large serving spoon, which was an excellent idea (the big spoon), because the dish was GOOD. Her cornbread was a staple during the Civil War which her female protagonist is currently fighting.

Of course, I went back for seconds of everything, and if I'd thought ahead I would have brought take-out containers, especially for Pam's stew. Pam delved into Lillian Parsley's cookbooks, one of her characters who operates a restaurant in a fictional town along the Columbia River.

Pam is an unbelievably generous friend who actually hosts our group in her home every week. Anyone who has tried to organize a diverse group of women will know that consistency is the key to success, i.e., meet consistently at the same time and the same place. If we have to stop and think, where are we this week, the plan will fail.

Pam is the only member able to keep her house clean each week. We like to think that is because she is RETIRED, but she may possess other organizational skills that I don't. (I swear, as soon as I finish writing this manuscript I'll clean again. Really. Well, I want to believe that will be occur, so let's pretend).

Pam's generosity knows no bounds. She has offered to leave her door unlocked for us when she goes out of town, which we appropriately decline. Her neighbors keep a close eye on the condo grounds (which means they report on me if I drive through too fast), and they would surely chase us all us out should we appear while Pam is away. In fact, one would delight in calling the police in revenge for a broken Japanese maple branch that we were blamed for, but honestly, heavy rain, wind, snow are way more powerful than women who write. Okay, that's debatable, but we didn't do it.

At the party, while everyone was busy chatting, I slunk over to the stove and peeked in Pam's pot. I was comforted by fragrant aroma of Stred Soup, a stew of beets and sausage.

Precisely because I don't cook I was required to purchase my dish. I wasn't sure if one offering would be enough for the potluck so I did bring something completely edible, cheese and crackers arranged just the way my character does in The Inbetween Pearl, "triangle ends pointed to the edge of the plate."

The other dish I brought was the event of the evening. You don't find this food everywhere, or anywhere for that matter. You have to know someone Korean to procure it (both of my novels follow a University of Washington sophomore who marries a Korean-born California real estate developer). Second, you have to insure the product will be available. I visited Oriental Fast Bowl on Monday to confirm my order for the Thursday event.

The nice Korean proprietor smiled and nodded her head when I posed the question, "Will it be available?" Someday, when I am brave, I will tell her she is the person I describe when I created my protaganist's mother-in-law, but it will have to be when her English speaking son is helping in the restaurant so he can translate, and it will have to sound like a compliment, because in A Single Pearl, it is not a compliment.

The proprietor and I agreed on a pick-up time, and I didn't worry the rest of the week about the dish...just the reaction to the dish.

Although it was in protective plastic container I smelled it during the entire drive to Pam's house. Garlic. Fire Colored. Pickled Vegetables. I wanted to have enough for everyone, and although I'd asked for a large portion, Mrs. Korean-Restaurant-Owner shook her head no and refused to sell me anything except the smallest portion, asking, "You like?"

I assured her that I did, "Every once in awhile." She raised an eyebrow in disbelief but took my money.

Kimchi. It's not bad. It's different.

Leave a comment if you would like me to post recipes!

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After the coffee comes the concussion

“Do you think anyone will show up who we know?” I asked Melanie as I jumped into her compact forest green convertible.

“Good Lord,” she replied, “I hope not.” She threw the car into reverse and sped out of the parking lot at a robust three miles an hour. Melanie is a safe driver.

We crossed the interstate bridge and left Washington State and the quiet life I lead and the exciting one Melanie leads—as an award winning writer—and within twenty minutes stood outside a big wooden 1930’s building in SE Portland. We glanced nervously at each other and I laughed like I’d done this a million times. “Come on, this will be fun,” I promised.

The door clanged open and the heady smell of ground coffee wafted our direction. We’d made it this far. We could surely cross the threshold. I tugged Melanie inside and we glanced around trying to locate a familiar landmark to shore up our quaking knees. There. We greeted Ed, our third friend, who was getting his head in the game by listening to his IPOD. He waved. Melanie and I drifted around the open tables and settled onto facing couches in front of the stage.

We fired up our laptops, clamped our jaws tight and flitted our eyes nervously around the room. Three of us, three of them—we had an audience—almost a full house. I took a picture to prove that point, but Teresa who tweets as Pdxsays made me take it down. I was ‘messing with her brand.’ (Note to self: ask before posting, not everyone likes their picture plastered around the internet, especially that one of me where I look like I’m a man, pretending to be not a man, or maybe pretending to be one, I don’t know it's kind of confusing. And don’t you all go looking for it. It sucks. Sheesh).

Melanie and I concentrated on our laptops, as if it were a life’s mission. We waited for software to load, for wi-fi to connect, whatever would help pass the time between now and the appointed hour. Tonight, the magic would begin. Ed would play microtonal music composed by his computer via algorithmic patterns, and we would read from our unpublished manuscripts. This was Monday, and this was Three Friends Coffee House and we were the entertainment.

By eight o’clock it’d be over.

Hopefully, I'd still have two friends. Teresa was already a goner.

Luke, the organizer, strode in and his deep, vibrant radio voice steadied our rattling nerves. He shook our hands, confirmed pronunciations of last names, and I noted, “Ed’s going first.”

Ed gazed at me, his kind eyes full of piss and vinegar, and said, “You should go first, you’re The First Carol.”

I was almost relieved and agreed way more faster than I would have suspected, thinking, that might be a good idea, I’ll get it over sooner...but I’ll be left on stage, better make a plan. I scribbled some ‘next guest’ introductory notes. Proving again that last minute planning is microcosmically successful in any venue.

I met Ed by stalking him on Twitter. During the day he’s all geek. Late at night he’d share what he was listening to: allclassical.org. As a music major and geek wannabe I found the whole Ed package fascinating. I tried to lure an invitation out of him to meet a couple of times, he didn’t bite. Then all of sudden we were talking Linux and now I have Linux on my laptop and I have Ed as a friend.

Then it was 7 PM.

Luke welcomed the audience and welcomed me:

Hot pursuit of a career in advertising landed The First Carol a job in one of the largest newspapers in Southwest Washington. After numerous years of hacking out ad copy for the print ads she sold and making friends with everyone in her path, she can now claim connections in the highest echelons of covert government, Hollywood, and the janitorial staff (she works late). Welcome The First Carol!

I crawled on stage.

Took me awhile to stand up.

Took a little longer to find my voice, but I did manager to squeak out, “Take a good look around, pick a man, ask him to dance.”

Fifteen minutes later, three people clapped, (I suspicion they were Melanie and Ed and maybe Teresa). I nodded approvingly, although some people thought it was an avalanche of nervous shakes. Before I could actually decipher it myself, I launched into my Ed intro.

Ed explained the origin of his composition and we listened to the wild warblings of : "When Harry Met Iannis." When the tune ended I jumped back up dodging wires and Roland speakers and the chatter of the happy patrons waiting for this to end so they could get to open mic part of the event. I smiled benignly at Melanie who sat contentedly on the couch refusing with the utmost grace to come up on stage. I just as graciously introduced her from the stage. Maybe I had my hands on my hips and glared at her...maybe not:

Melanie is not sure why she is here, except she is my friend and I told her doing this type of stuff would save us from being boring. I convinced her being out in public was practice for Oprah, and we can use the experience for a blog post. If we’re a bust, we can make up that we were brilliant, in other words lie…because after all we write fiction.

Melanie adjusted the mic Luke had provided for her couch delivery, and we heard chapter three of Melanie's historical fiction work which plunked us on a brigantine in the Atlantic Ocean.

I listened and I'm sorry to say my mind wandered as I tallied the evening and my friends. Ed lives an exciting life of research, computer programming, music and social media. Ed has about 3 gadzillion followers on Twitter, znmeb is popular! Melanie is an award winning writer, with adventures to her credit from one coast of the US to the other (she recently moved her parents out west, which I deftly captured in the post: After the Rum, Comes the Reality). Her manuscript won second place in the 2009 Pacific Northwest Writers Assoction contest.

I am me and thus driven to compete amongst all this talent and seek attention.

And what am I telling my periphery friends who did not attend? Well, I'm saying, “I was absolutely brilliant.” (I don't mention I'm brilliant at convincing my friends down the rabbit hole). Then I try to divert attention away from my performance and dwell on how difficult Melanie was...a true complicated artist type, and I mention as often as possible, “Melanie's like all, ‘I'm not standing in front of these caffeinated hot heads, I'm staying on the couch. They can stand up to see me.’ Then when she finished, everyone started clapping and because they were standing she’s running around telling everyone she got a standing ovation! Can you even believe it.” Then I heave a huge sigh, like it’s such a problem dragging her anywhere.

And this is the truth, a guy chased Melanie out of the coffee house to shake her hand and thank her for coming and told her over and over again how much he liked it. I said, "Wow, you have a fan!"

Melanie said, "Yeah, but did you see him?"

I said, "Yes, and I smelled him, too." <-- I made that up just to be funny.

So, now the big question. Which two of your friends would go on stage with you?