Sunday afternoon on a long weekend and what am I doing? Well, apart from some (perhaps) deserved rest-time after a grueling morning run followed by a couple hours in the sun planting the rest of my garden, I’m writing the second installment in this new feature I’ve called my “week of lists.” This edition stems out of three things: (1) I’ve been quite verbose on this blog lately, and I’m sure some people wonder where all the inspiration comes from, (2) I needed something for the “writing” category of my meta-list and I know many people are not as into writing fiction as I, and (3) I’m getting pretty bored of all your one-line status updates on various social media platforms and I’m not-so-subtly implying that you need to put more effort into your web presense. C’mon! Blog something… and start by doing these seven things:

1 : Write for Someone Who Isn’t Reading Your Blog Yet

You’re probably thinking I’m going to go all SEO on you here, but I’m not. This isn’t so much about attracting new readers as it is getting in the mindset of writing for a broader audience. When you start to write like you’re having a conversation with a set group of five people — largely by failing to explain yourself and your odd sense of humour often enough — you start to narrow your focus. Yeah, this pushes away the attraction for newer readers, but it also means you’re probably writing stuff you yourself will not really understand in a few months or years. So pick someone who isn’t reading your blog — I write to my daughter, who can’t even read yet — and this gives me ideas about what to write on and hones my style to the story-teller end of the spectrum… I think so, anyhow.

2 : Forget Humility: Brag

There are a lot of haters out there. And what the saying goes: haters gonna hate. Just remember that most of these people are pitiful little useless people who get off on creating nothing and disrespecting those who do create. It’s simple: they are not worth losing posts over. Crank up the moderation level for your comments and jsut write. Brag about what you do. Write with passion and engagement. And if you get angry comments proclaiming how no one wants to read what you wrote… delete ‘em. A blog might be public, and other’s might read it, but no one is tying anyone to an iPad and forcing them to read it. It’s your space. Use it to prove you exist. It’s not all going to be gold, but something good will float to the surface.

3 : Showcase Your Hobbies With Photos and Words

Now that you are writing for someone new and ignoring those who are going to put you down, find your passion and write. What are your hobbies. For the first couple of years there were a lot of blogs that didn’t have a purpose. They were focused on the person writing the blog and — I find — what they quickly become is a bunch of apologetic posts from the authors explaining why they haven’t updated their blog in a while. First, you don’t need to apologize for not writing. Don’t bother. But second… and more importantly… if you are actually using your writing for tracking a hobby or a project, you should easily have something to write about after you’ve been out there dabbling in reality with whatever it is you’re interested in. For example, you might not care about my running, but I do… and so do lots of people who find the various posts on my blog on that subject. (I have analytics numbers to prove it.)

4 : Create a Themed Series of Posts

Building on the “writing what you know” idea is something that has helped me build my content and almost always leaves me with something to write: a themed series. You’ve seen mine, maybe: Daddy Daze, Reloaded Posts, this new series (of course) and a few others I’ve started off and put various levels of effort into. Check them out: they’re in the sidebar, currently under “Starting Points.” A theme is like a kick-off bit of inspiration. Don’t know what to write today? Then write a post for your series _______. If you start a few good series to fill, you’ll never run out of topics.

5 : Respond to Social Media Status Updates in Post Form

I mentioned in the intro that I’m getting slightly ill and deeply discouraged by the overwhelming distraction by a lot of good (former) bloggers posting their once-original content onto Facebook. Sorry guys. But here’s the thing: think of the internet like a metaphorical city and web sites as bits of real estate. You’ve got the big box stores (Amazon, etc), sewer, water, electrical, gas and roads (Google, Microsoft, etc), storage lockers (Dropbox, etc), mom & pops (little online retailers), and the movie theatre (Youtube, etc). But then you have us little guys living there, too. Me? I rent a small metaphorical townhouse in the suburbs where I host my blogs, my gallery, and a variety of little digital toys. Sure, I rent (maybe someday I’ll buy) but at least it’s my own space and I have a good bit of control. Where does social media fit in? In the great big internet city it’s hard to pin it down: Facebook is maybe like the beach — a fun place to hang out with friends — or the mall — in that you feel fairly welcome, but don’t really own it and someone is always trying to sell your something. Whatever. Point is this: break the cycle. Write a real reply to the Facebook drivel — on your own property — and tell people to come there and read it.

6 : Ignore What’s Been Done: Do It Again

I know I’ve been personally distracted and occasionally dissuaded from writing something because I’ll Google it first and see someone else wrote it already. Like, maybe someone has already done a photo-a-day project. And like, maybe no one wants to see my crappy photos. And then like, maybe I’ll just curl up in the corner and feel unworthy. Point of order, folks: do it again. Do it better. Do it whatever. Just do it again. Heck, most art is derivative anyhow so who are you kidding that any of this is one hundred percent original? Ignore the rest of the web and build your own version.

7 : Make a List

And if all else fails — or maybe building off the other six points of this list — make your own. A list, that is. You be surprised how many great little ideas fall out of building a list from scratch… and then trying to explain your points to your readers.

This is the first list in a new feature I’m calling my “week of lists” and I’m pegging it right into the parenting category. That’s right; My first list is Seven Stupidly Simple Parenting Habits to Make You a Better Dad. It’s not, of course, any way scientific or based in evidence. There is no research that proves these points. There is no literature-supported bibliography to follow. And just so we’re clear: There is no measurable “result” or “effect” falling out of these — neither is there a solution hidden between the lines. These are just fun things to do with your kid — fun things I do with my kid — that bring us closer together as father and daughter. Like’em or leave’em. It just is what it is.

1 : Never Under-Estimate the Value of Shadows

There is a lot of mythology and weirdness with shadows. I just finished reading a book — a real grown-up book — where one of the subplots involved a man getting separated from his shadow and this having all sorts of philosophy-of-mind implications. It was fiction, obviously. But it being summer here and our days filled with bright sunshine, we sometimes take the idea of a shadow for granted. Don’t do that. Shadows are awesome toys. Shadows are the basis of games and races. Shadows spur excitement and competition, bend the imagination, and prompt millions of questions. Go for a walk for the exercise, sure, but don’t forget some shadow play.

2 : Learn a Simple Magic Trick (I mean: Illuuuuuuuuuusion!)

Bathtime is a nightly ritual around our house, and there being two parents we (generally) alternate shifts. Now, I’ll admit: bathtime is really boring. A nearly-five-year-old is something like ninety-percent self-sufficient in the tub. I need to be there for making sure she doesn’t overflow the tub, that she gets out eventually, and to make sure she rinses out ALL the shampoo, but otherwise I’m just a glorified lifeguard. But that said I’ve started filling the time, entertaining myself and her, but constructing an increasingly elaborate magic trick. It’s not complex. It’s not even very special. It’s just a simple distract-and-disappear trick, where one of her little toys is stuffed into a washcloth and — presto — it’s gone. I’m getting better each time — though a stage show is still years off — and she not only requests repeated encores, she’s now trying her own. It’s our little thing.

3 : Invent a Silly Character and Plot to Go With It

Maybe you’re not an epic storyteller. Maybe you can’t write your way out of a paperbag — or however that expression goes. But I’ll bet you can invent some kind of simple character that does silly things. And just the fact that this character comes from your brain, and its adventures can continue a little bit each week in those drawn out otherwise boring moments (see: alternatives to bathtime magic tricks) or during car rides or at bedtime — just that fact — will make that silly character an evolving part of your family narrative. You might even get inspired to write some of it down someday.

4 : Make Friends with Your Kid’s Imaginary Friend

My daughter has an imaginary friend. Some days’ George is her big brother. Sometimes he’s just this kid that lives at our house and eats our food. We can’t see him, of course, and while I’ll be the first to admit I know very little about the pyschology of imaginary friends in toddlers, I seem to recall that there is something fairly natural about the whole process. Thus, it should come as no big shocker that George and I are buds. We hang. We have heart-to-heart conversations (while Claire is in the room, obviously — I’m not totally nuts.) And if I was so inclined as to inventory the number of openings to deep and meaningful conversations this has instigated– oh so positively — between dad and daughter, I’d probably shock even myself. At least more than my meandering bit of anecdotal remembering does.

5 : Pancake Day (or some other weekly food ritual…)

Being that I’m writing this on a Saturday morning and I’m right now contentedly stuffed with grilled bready breakfast products, I have no qualms about recommending a weekly food ritual. Sure, maybe you want to steer your budding chef towards something more healthy than pancakes drizzled with maple syrup each weekend morning, but that’s where the customization of these little tips is up to you. Each week — assuming we’re not away from home — we spend about an hour on Saturday morning measuring ingredients, prepping our tools, sneaking a few chocolate chips, setting the table, and readying for a breakfast feast. It’s just the two of us, and for the first few weeks I recall that Claire would hint, vocally, that “maybe we should wake mom to help.” But, we’d let her sleep and then wake her just as the first few cakes were hitting the plates. We get to spend a morning together, and now she wakes me each Saturday — earlier and earlier — to start on cooking.

6 : “Write-Off” Something (Sort-Of) Valuable

For regular readers of this blog, it might be recalled that a few months ago I bought a new point-and-click camera to take on vacation. It cost me a couple hundred bucks and it comes in very useful for making videos and shoving in my pocket for more casual picture-taking opportunities when I don’t feel like lugging around the dSLR. So, it might come as a bit of a surprise to learn I’ve essentially written it off as lost or broken. Why? Well, the girl like to take pictures. She’s been getting little creative ideas about stop-motion animation (really) and perspective from this CBC kids show called Artzooka, and she always asking to mess around with the camera. And while I’m certain I could fret over the camera, worry about it getting scratched or broken, I get the sense that I’m doing both her and myself a little favour — and maybe being a slightly better parent — by just relaxing the don’t-touch-dad’s-stuff rule with this particular toy. You don’t need to give up on a camera, of course, but bend the rules for something. C’mon. Be cool, now.

7 : Create a Secret Handshake

Or a signal. Or a password. Or something secret. At first I thought an almost-five-year-old wouldn’t get it, but was I ever wrong. She figured it out right away. I’d tell you the details, describe in more elaborate ways the nuances of our just-between-the-two-of-us acknoweldgement and greeting, but then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?

Apparently, people like lists. Who am I to argue? I spend my lunch breaks either writing on this blog or reading articles from Cracked.com, that latter of which involves a lot of list-reading. And then when I sort back through the posts that get enduring search-based traffic on this site I quickly discover it is those articles that are essentially quick-to-read-lists. Thus, a new feature: the “Week of Lists” wherein each day you’ll get a new list, one for each of my six (plus one) feature topic categories, parenting, writing, runiing, photography, gaming, and informology (plus a bonus on the essentially meta topic of blogging.) This weeks lists, with a bit of an overarching “blogging” theme will run Saturday through next Friday and are “the Sevens” titled:

• 7 Ways You Can Turn Into a (Good) Parent Without Even Trying Very Hard
• 7 Tricks to Help You Write More Posts for Your Blog
• 7 Photography Habits You Need To Pick Up Right Now
• 7 Contradictory Bits of Running Advice I’ve Noticed
• 7 Games (Video, Board, and Other) to Play with Your Preschooler
• 7 Great Rules for Sorting Your Blog’s Written Content
• 7 Kinds of Autobiographical Blog Posts

(Links to follow…)

Something reminded me, and then it sunk in: I’m doing that blog-a-day thing again in June this year. That’s only a couple weeks away.

About this time last year I was just re-vamping and re-amping this blog back up to full functionality again. I’d been writing for about ten days, resurrecting all this old content after a year of non-writing sabatical time. I wanted to get back into the writing habit, and was feeling inspired, maybe even longingly-so, by my annual New Years Posts despite — and maybe because of — their half-year time-span away. So I came up with “Those Thirty Posts in June.”

It is a fairly monumental, yet thankless, task. I write a whole crap-load of posts, each post triggered off a quasi-question on the state of my life and presuming to capture a bit of the personal zeitgeist as I see it from wherever I happen to be sitting each day. There is a bit of framing. A bit of theming. There is the sense of past, present and future. There is a whiff of introspection. There is a whole gamut on the spectrum of seriousness. And in the end, hopefully, I’ll have a few more pages of content.

There is no word maximum or minimum. I just write. Some of the posts from last year are complete garbage, me filling space and time with my requisite daily post. But then others have bubbled to the top of the pile over the last eleven or twelve months and become high-ranking search targets, up and down, down and up like a kind of content-ranked lava lamp. I just write.

In about two weeks the second installment begins. And on top of all the other obligations and commitments — running training, photos every day, life, work, et cetera — and the fact that all this writing won’t disuade me from keeping up some my regular features — reloaded, daddy daze, running updates, and whatever other pieces I’ve added since the last round — I’ll be providing you, my scattered readers, with at least one item for your a daily dose of content. Be kind.

This is another post from my “Daddy Daze” series, an anecdotal exploration of my odd little adventures in parenting in bite-sized chunks (for your reading enjoyment) and because the last thing this world needs is yet another doting parent blog.

No Attention Required

I’ve noticed that Claire is an interesting kid when it comes to watching television. Sure, I have a sample size of exactly one, here, so this isn’t exactly a scientific investigation. Maybe all kids watch television like this in 2012, and I’m just finally cluing in. Maybe all kids have that hunt and seek mentality, the random-access viewing habit that comes when television is no longer an uncontrollable analog signal stream and instead is a record-able, select-able, rewind-able, fast-forward-able and repeat-able digital stream of television packets. In other words — and when she is solely in control of her viewing, such as the case with ‘Netflix for Kids’ etc — Claire will watch her television in oft-repeated segments, re-watching bits-and-pieces four or five times, and then navigating through the program to r-ewatch a completely different and different segments, sometimes playing through a scene in the middle, occasionally watching the end of a program three or four times. It’s a weird phenomenon, and one I could only relate to because I acted the same way with music when I first got my own CD player.

We tried chess in 2008, but didn't get too far...

… and speaking of television… a few months back there was this Gilette razor advertisement on the television. It was a typical, flashy advert for their latest and greatest five-bladed-monstrosity. The ad went something like this: a guy gets out of bed, goes to shave, and (through some rotating room and camera SFX) his world is flipped upside-down and he’s walking on the ceiling. Huzzah: Buy a razor! Fast forward a few weeks and four-and-a-half year old Claire, who apparently fell hook, line and sinker for a men’s razor blade commercial, spotted these razors in the grocery store. “Dad!” She exclaimed. “You should get these! They make you fly!” Uh. Yeah. Wherein we had a long and distracted chat about marketing and television special effect on the car ride home. Solved, you ask? Not so much. Fast forward to last week when I mysteriously recieve a “To Resident” package from the aforementioned company with a free sample razor, the aforementioned product. I peel open the box and Claire gasps in astonishment: “Dad. Can I watch you shave? You’re going to walk on the ceiling!” (I’ve deliberately included exclamation marks, because she really was THAT excited.) I think the concrete reality of my two feet planted firmly on the bathroom floor during a — what was, admittedly, a very smooth — shave, was roughly as cruel as I expect it will be when I ultimately tell her Santa isn’t real.

A First Lesson in Chess

I don’t recall what started it exactly, but yesterday morning I found myself digging through our games closet and hauling out one of our chess sets… at Claire’s prompting. She was interested. We set up the board, she playing the white and I the black pieces. I explained what each piece was called, gave her a very simple overview of how each moved on the board, and distilled the rules down to very fundamentally: “you need to keep your king safe.” And then we played. Sort of. It kept her attention for a remarkable long half of an hour — no, really; that’s insanely long for a four year old. We each made about a dozen plays, I taking some her pieces and letting her take some of mine before I could tell she was starting to drift. And that was that: no point other than someday, certainly someday, she’ll be an ace at chess and wiping the board with the strangled remains of my pieces, I’ll recall that that was the place — sitting on the living room floor on a warm spring Mother’s day morning — where it all started. Or, a dad can hope. (Note: the attached picture is about 3 and a half years old, and I think shortly after she grabbed that king it was inserted directly into her mouth. She was a little less tactile this time round.)

I made note of an odd confluence in my numbers yesterday as I was inputting my data. Since starting this training I have logged exactly fifty runs. And the sum total for distance on all those runs is nearly-exactly two hundred kilometers… well, 200.2 KM to be precise. So, for those not mathematically challenged, its interesting to note that my run distance average is exactly 4.0 KM per run.

This, of course, was generously nudged up Sunday morning by that schmozz of a running adventure. Albeit, it should be noted that a quick headcount of those attending — those starting out from the store at eight-thirty yesterday morning — was certainly a community-record topping out at thirty-one runners. It might have had something to do with that.

I was informed we were doing a 9 KM run.

The thing is, with 31 runners, you get a big mix of goals and abilities. I’m getting faster and I’ve been running with some of the folks who have bolder aspirations of time and distance. One of the guys who I’ve been teaming up with lately has not only gone from being my counterpart penquin (when I first met him a couple years ago) to Speed Racer, but he has also gone from being roughly my physical build to dropping 45 pounds and improving his overall health by levels of awesomeness I cannot yet imagine. We have similar pace. And we’ve got that whole thing happening where we egg each other on, push each other a bit harder, and get that extra few steps out of the other. It’s the right type of running buddy to have.

We got ahead of our own group and ended up pacing the faster, Full Marathon folks. Then we missed a turn and followed them on THEIR Sunday distance. They were doing a thirteen kilometer jaunt, and fast. With hills. And summer decided to arrive about forty-five minutes into this little adventure.

Top this epic trial off with the fact one of the gals from our group had made the same — perhaps worse — poorly choosen assumption of her distance abilities as we did, and followed us on the full marathoners route. Running bud and I were looping back and forth to keep her connected with the group and then suddenly — her irrational exhausted mind surely to blame — she bailed on the run, opting for a shortcut: Without telling us!

So there we are, about ten klicks into this run, a bunch more to go, the sun beating down full on, and neither of us had a drop of water to our names anymore. We’re jogging in circles looking for this girl, hoping she didn’t collapse into the trees in the river valley, before finally getting a clue from a passing elderly couple out for a stroll that they thought they’d seen someone matching her description walking off down a side street.

Of course, by this point we’d lost the rest of our quasi-group, and were doing our best to figure out where we could head them off and meet up again, and we’re trucking along at a stupid-fast (for us) clip trying to zig and zag through the neighborhoods to find a slightly shorter route back.

We re-connected with the group at about the same time my watch hit 13.2 KM. I was starting to really feel it at this point. And we still were not quite in sight of the store. It was all I could muster to climb that last little rise up to the parking lot where I could justifiably walk it in. When I finally stopped the timer on my watch I’d clocked a painful 13.76 KM (unknowingly nudging my total just over the 200 KM mark, apparently) and proceeded to find a new friend in the water fountain at the store.

It also turns out it was my fastest paced run of that distance. Ever. So, yeah …the training continues.

Those following the “mega-goal” progress will note that 200 KM (on the included map) brings me from near my house, down the QE2 highway, nearly all the way to Olds, Alberta. There’s still time to give me some virtual destination ideas for after I reach Calgary. Comment below.