Remember a couple weeks ago, when I told you about a duplicate order I had received in the mail? And used it as a springboard to discuss manners and the benefits of doing the Right Thing?

Remember how I emailed them to let them know, and was irritated that they wanted me to call them instead of dealing with it via email? And that they sent me a UPS label so I could return the duplicate items? And never said thank you for being honest enough to point out the problem?

Well, you’ve got to admit I tried.

But, guess what … I got my Visa bill today. Guess who got a CREDIT for her return from B&BW?

Yep. They refunded me for returning items I hadn’t actually bought in the first place.

Corporate America at its best, folks.

The next question–would you think less of me if I just let this go at this point, instead of butting my head up against the B&BW brick wall again? Have I met my moral obligations by trying to fix this once already? Or should I contact them and try to explain?

Discuss!

Writing is like bread baking.

No, really! Let me explain.

You start with the basics.

• Yeast: The initial idea. The spark that’s going to make your writing grow into a loaf of bread. (Well, you know what I mean.)
• Flour: This is the substance, the main argument. Really, without the flour, what’s the point of baking? Or writing?
• Water: Flour may be the building blocks, the structure, but without the water, it’s going to fall apart. This helps tie it together, blend together
• Salt: The extra zing that makes it come alive, that adds savor to keep it interesting.

Once You’ve Mixed Your Ingredients, You Need to Work It

Just mixing flour, water, salt, and yeast in a bowl is not going to automatically give you bread. You need to turn it out on the counter and knead it. Work with it, play with it. Stretch it, push it, tug it. The original ingredients just give you the potential. You’re the one who has to put it all together. It’s YOUR effort that builds the structure. Flour and water don’t automatically generate gluten–to get the right crumb, the right texture, it’s up to you.

You Need to Let it Rest

After you’ve worked and prodded your writing for a while, you both need to take a break. This gives a chance for the structure to strengthen and the flavors to meld. You’ll end up with something if you bake it right away, but if you want the real flavor and texture of good bread … you need to let it sit.

Likewise, with your writing, there’s a certain point where you need to walk away. After you’ve got your first draft on paper, and certainly before you hit “Publish” or send it to a client. This is your chance to check not only for typos and grammatical errors, but for flaws in the overall structure. How can you make it better? Is your argument faulty? Are you missing a key point? Taking a break is important … at least, if you want this to be as good as it needs to be.

Give it its Final Shape, and Then Let it Rest Again

Yep. After you’ve walked away, come back and reworded your draft … do the same thing again. Walk away. At this point, it should be perfect and ready to go, but this is your last chance to get a fresh look.

Bake it Hot and Fast

A hot oven, some steam … Does this sound like the publication pressure cooker? You have to do it. It’s not officially writing until it comes out the other end. Whether that just means posting your new blog entry or sending the job off to a client, it’s not done until it’s DONE.

It’s true, there can be some problems at this stage. Your perfect dough can get scorched by a cranky client, it could be dropped on the floor by a careless one. They might decide that, instead of bread, they now want cinnamon rolls, and can you do that?

The Reward is Hot, Crispy Goodness

This is the best part. After all the work, all the waiting, all the careful additions … at the end, if everything went well, you have a feast for the senses.

How satisfying is that?

Do you burn your bridges?

James over at Men with Pens asked an interesting question today. He described a situation where he was exchanging emails with a potential client, discussing possible permutations of what they needed, how much work was involved, the amount of time it would take. All the responsible things you ask before you provide a quote on how much the job is likely to take.

Then he sent his estimate and … crickets. The prospect might as well have been hit by a bus, it was so silent at her end.

He followed-up and was told bluntly, briefly, that it was outside their budget. End of conversation.

How much can a simple “No, thank you” cost?

Now, we’ve all gotten those “drive-by” quote requests. Somebody sends you an email asking for a quote, you write back to ask for more information, and that’s it. Nothing else. They dropped from the grid. I liken that to those telemarketers that ring more than one number at a time and then respond to the first call answered … leaving the other households answering a phone with nobody at the other end. It’s a minor annoyance, but the only effort involved was answering the phone.

But, when you’ve had an actual conversation (whether via email or not), it’s just downright rude to drop it without at least some kind of response.

James goes on to talk about the possibilities of negotiating a mutually-acceptible fee (and I recommend you read the post AND all the comments, because they’re interesting).

I want to talk about the simple rudeness.

Don’t Leave People Hanging!

We live in a busy, busy world. Time is money. Everybody is busy. Idle chit-chat comes as we whiz past each other on the highway of our lives.

Simple courtesy, though … and this is important … Simple courtesy doesn’t cost you anything.

If you’ve been corresponding, no matter how briefly, let the other person know it’s over. You don’t have to get wordy or emotionally involved. Just be civil. After idly chatting with someone at a party do you just walk away? No. There’s usually at least a “Catch you later,” or even just a nod of the head before you head off to talk to someone else. If you just abruptly turn on your heel and march away without a word, you’re going to leave a dumbstruck, confused person behind … and this person knows lots of other people that you know (which is why you’re at the same party).

Don’t Burn your Bridges … Unless You’re in the Loot and Plunder Business.

Global or not, the business community may be smaller than you think. If you stick it to one company, they’re going to spread the word, and you never know how far that bad reputation is going to spread.

Manners are cheap. All it takes is one sentence in an email (“Thanks anyway, but that’s outside our budget.”). Two, if you want to be really nice and say, “Thank you for your time,” also.

What? You don’t want to confess your shoestring budget to the world? Be generic and say something like, “Thanks, I’ll let you know.” Most people know that the “I’ll get back to you” statement pretty much means that they’re unlikely to hear from you again … yet, it still keeps it civil. A curt “Bye” on the phone is still better than hanging up on someone.

I’m not saying to get all gushy, or that you need to go dig out your “Miss Manners” encyclopedia to find out how you say no to a business prospect. We all know you’re too busy for that. I’m just saying that it doesn’t hurt to say “So long” before you slam the phone down on someone’s ear.

Anything Less is Just Burning your Bridges

You can only really afford to burn your bridges if you’re in the Loot and Plunder business. If you actually plan to just hit one business after another, and never retrace your footsteps on your path to world domination, then, hey, saying please and thank you probably isn’t necessary.Who’s going to stop you?

But, if you’re responsible business person (and I know you are), you need to act responsibly.

And that, no matter how busy you are, means just a little, basic courtesy.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make the most difference.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was sitting in my office, shivering in the draft coming from the door. I was wearing warm pants, wool socks, and a handknit sweater (made by yours truly) … but I was still cold. The frigid air outside was giving the heating system a run for its money.

So, I added a lace shawl and a pair of pulse warmers to the mix. Pulse warmers, or wristlets, are basically knitted tubes that fit over your wrists. Some are longer than others. Some are fingerless gloves, covering most of the arm from elbow to fingertips. But mine are short–about 3″ wide–and look almost like bracelets.

But, poof, in about 5 minutes, I felt warm. That little extra bit of lace around my neck, and a snug warmth over my wrists, and I wasn’t cold any longer.

The theory is that keeping your pulse points warm will trick your body into thinking all of it is warm. Something about your system then thinks that the extremities are warm, or that it encourages blood flow. I don’t entirely understand the science about it.

I just know that this simple thing can help me feel warm when it’s cold.

This, in turn, made me think about writing … the little things that can help the process along, even though they seem so small as to be inconsequential.

• A sharp pencil point or a well-inked, non-blotting pen that fits comfortably in your hand.
• A computer with a responsive keyboard. A monitor that is without glare and of sufficient size.
• A comfortable chair that’s supportive without being so relaxing that you fall asleep.
• A desk that’s just the right height.
• A room or office with just the right amount of light, just the right temperature, just the right amount of background noise.

Keeping the pulse points warm is like providing a warm and cozy place for your Muse to ease the writing along its way.

What pulse warmers work for you?

You also know, of course, that as of tomorrow, we’ve got a new President here in the U.S. of A. (You may have heard?) I’m planning on taking an early, long lunch tomorrow so that I can actually watch the swearing in at noon … and see the Inaugural Address right afterward. Barack Obama gives such good speeches, and Inaugurals are traditionally HUGE and moving and historic. The speech of a lifetime (if you’re Abraham Lincoln, anyway.) I really, truly don’t want to  miss it and, darn it, the office can manage without me for a little bit.

You realize, of course, that–barring any terrible, unforeseen accidents–this means that the Curse of Tippecanoe truly is broken? You know, the one that meant that every U.S. President elected in a year ending with zero since 1840 has died in office. William Henry Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James Garfield (1880), William McKinley (1900), Warren Harding (1920), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1940), John F. Kennedy (1960).

It had been said, of course, that the curse had been broken by Ronald Reagan’s having survived his assassination attempt in 1981, but … how could you know? You couldn’t really say one way or another until or unless the President elected in 2000 survived his full term. And since we’re into the last hours of George W. Bush’s presidency … I’m willing to say that it looks pretty promising.

See? We’re seeing all SORTS of new history tomorrow!! And, frankly, seeing this 160-year old tradition die is much better than seeing more Presidents die. (Because, no, even though I have not been fond of George Bush, there’s no way I ever wished him to fall victim to this curse. I wouldn’t have wanted Al Gore to die, either.)

(So, what did this have to do with writing and manners? Nothing whatsoever. But, gosh, it’s HISTORY. But if you insist, would you send good luck my way? I’ve got an interesting prospect for my freelancing business … as in, really interesting, fun, and I WANT this job! So … if you wanted to send along some good luck, um….)

When I was little, my sister and I had a children’s book that had a picture of two men bowing to each other and saying, “After you.” “No, after you.” “No, after you.”

While, all the time, in the margins, their beards were getting longer and longer. Because, of course, they were so painfully polite, they were willing to stand there forever, bowing and being gracious, that neither of them would ever move at all.

I don’t know what put that into my mind this weekend, but there’s something about it that just tickles me to this day.

And I wanted to share.

There’s something delicious about the thought of people being so polite that they never get anything done … and that it was considered an important enough lesson to put in a children’s book.

These days, when expediency above all seems to be the rule, and when people casually cut in line at grocery stores, isn’t it nice to think about people being so achingly polite that their beards grow right off the page?

Ah, Social Media. It’s everybody’s favorite, new buzzword.

Really, though, it’s not exactly new. People have been interacting on the internet almost since its conception. (In fact, for all I know, the first transmitted item may well have been a message as simple as “Hi, How are you? LOL,” although that doesn’t have quite the same wistfullness as Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you,” when he invented the telephone. I get all misty when men get emotional, don’t you? But, I digress.)

For as long as I have been using the internet, though, I’ve used it for the social interaction almost as much as the ease of emailing and researching. Back in what we Americans call College and some of the rest of you call University,  my Liberal Arts school was right on the cutting edge of computer technology, and started handing out PCs to every incoming Freshman. I still remember my first computer–an Epson with two 5 1/4″ floppy disks, a 2-color monitor, and no hard drive at all. It had to be booted up fresh with an MS-DOS disk every time the computer was turned on.

It wasn’t until my Senior year that my computer could talk to other computers. That year, Drew provided a modem to every dorm room and started sending announcements (and phone bills) via email, to start getting all of us ready for the exciting new World of Computers waiting outside the campus gates. (After which, it was quite a shock that my first job outside of college didn’t even have an email system.) I was the first of my high school friends to have my own computer, and it often felt, well, lonely….

…Until I discovered my first taste of personal interaction on the internet. BITNET. The “Because It’s Time Network” that my university hooked us all into my Senior year. Suddenly, I could sit in my dorm room with my feet up and chat with fellow college students all around the world. Canada. Germany. Indiana. I made friends. I chatted. I told stories … And I made many of my new friends jealous because I was sitting in my cozy dorm room rather than in some cold computer lab somewhere far away from a cup of tea.

The point, though, is that even in 1988 I was socializing via the computer.

It didn’t stop there, either. After college, I signed up for AOL and eventually found my way to a reader’s group called the Book Nook which not only provided great conversation about books, but convinced me to actually MEET people in real life. A group got together at the Strand bookstore in New York and–since I didn’t want to go by myself, and she’s one of my best friends–I dragged my mother along. (Which, incidentally, is what got HER hooked on the internet, because after the great time we had, she wanted to be able to chat with all those nice people, too.)

Then there was knitting. Around 2004 I discovered knitting blogs and, well, my world hasn’t been the same since. I have a group of real-world friends now that I met solely because I read their blogs and they read mine. (Not to mention that my yarn stash is about 4 times bigger than it was and it’s because of those folks that I now spin my own yarn, too. But that’s another story.)

What’s the point of all this? Simply this: As much as people rave about “social media” and all its nifty new applications, my contention is that the internet has always been a social media. We don’t refer to the World Wide Web for nothing–because it’s all about tying us all together in many intricate ways.

There’s a certain amount of caution necessary, since there are criminals and predators out there as well as all the nice, friendly, wonderful people that you WANT to know, but really … all the internet advances that I’ve seen in my adult lifetime … BITNET to Compuserve to AOL to Blogs to Twitter … Dial-up modems to cable to Wi-fi … To me, the miracle here is not the technology (though the leaps and bounds rightly blow my mind), but that they are all new ways of pulling us all together. “Flattening” the world as Thomas L. Friedman would say.

All of which is by way of saying that now I have a NEW group of helpful, knowledgeable, supportive internet friends–you! And Liz is trying to get me to go to SOBCon in May to make it official. Which would be yet another new first for me … TRAVELLING to meet a bunch of new, internet friends? (Or, does driving to a yarn festival count?) And, anyway, Liz did add me to her list of SOBs.

(This isn’t to say that I’m GOING, mind you, but it’s nice to be wanted!)

I made it onto Robert Hruzek’s Blogapalooza, and you can, too!

He has a self-imposed goal of 100 bloggers, and he only made it up to 92 and he wants more … and is asking everyone on the list to send him at least one more person.

So, here’s your chance!

Help the man out AND spread the word on some of your best posts from 2008. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

So, hurry over! Because time is running out! (grin)

(And, did I mention that I’m on the list?)

These boxes look remarkably alike, don’t they?

That’s because they ARE!

I went to Bath and Body Works on Saturday so that I could get some of my favorite body wash, but … I wandered all over the store, and they didn’t have it. Grr. Particularly frustrating, you know, because as a rule, I buy everything online these days, so the fact that I made a point of GOING there only for them not to have it in stock? Frustrating! But, well, these things happen. I came home and sucked up the fact that I was going to have to pay postage, and I ordered it online.

B&BW must have been feeling generous because they sent me the whole order TWICE!

Well, mostly. One of them, in fact, is incorrect, but still … they printed my packing slip twice by mistake and then sent me two boxes worth of stuff.

Now, I admit I was tempted to just keep the extra box of stuff, but my parents raised me to be an honest person, so, I sent them an email explaining the problem and asking if they wanted me to send the extras back, or could I keep them?

I got an email back saying, “Due to the complex nature of your inquiry, please contact us directly at 1-800-756-5005 regarding this matter.”

Um, maybe it’s just me, but this didn’t seem particularly complex to me, and I found it pretty annoying that the burden was on me to call them and then wait for an available operator … so I wrote them back and said so.

The email I got back? Well, they nicely credited my credit card for the shipping charges on my original order, which I thought was pretty nice of them, but they still wanted me to call them back to resolve the problem. (Sigh.) So I did. Ultimately, they do want the duplicate products back and said they would send me a UPS shipping label via email to cover the cost … though I haven’t gotten it yet.

Now, I mentioned this to a coworker this afternoon, and she thought I was crazy for calling them. “After all,” she said,” It was their mistake.” She would have just kept it. She even said that she never says anything if a cashier at a store gives her incorrect change (which really surprised me).

But I wouldn’t have felt right about that. One extra item in my box? Well, yeah, I suppose I wouldn’t have bothered to tell them about one extra bottle of bodywash–the shipping to send it back would have cost more than the item, what would be the point? But, an entire order?

How about you? What would you have done? Hypothetically, of course!

While you’re thinking about that, here are a couple links:

• My guest post/entry over at Joyful Jubilant Learning!
• Did you see Julie’s call for submissions for an eBook about love, raising money for charity?

Now, go forth and be fruitful and do whatever it is you do … just don’t forget to answer my deep, moral question before you go!

Before I forget, I need to point you in the direction of a few very good posts with links to even more excellent reading.

• Joanna at Confident Writing: Simply the Best Posts of 2008

• Melissa at Writing Forward: Creative Writing Tips from around the Blogosphere

• John at Pro Writing Tips: 17 No 1. Writing Tips

So, now that the year is all new and shiny, what are you doing?

This isn’t going to be one of those “New Year’s Resolutions” lists. I figure you pretty much know the things you should be doing–exercising more, eating better, following up on leads, spending more time with the kids. All that, you know already.

But what might you have forgotten?

Copyright.
Do you have a copyright date on your blog/website? (If not, you should.) But now, don’t forget to update it to include 2009.

Organize.
Okay, maybe this one is obvious, but it doesn’t hurt to take a few minutes to clear out some of the dreck and get the decks clear and ready for action.

Update.
Don’t forget your marketing pieces and documentation. Make sure any dates stated are this year, not last year. And while you’re looking at them, take a moment to punch them up.

Stock Up.
It couldn’t hurt to take a trip to an office-supply store and make sure you’ve got all the envelopes, pens, paper clips, post-its, scotch tape, and so on that you need. The kinds of things that you run out of before you realize you’re running low.

Back Up!
If you haven’t backed up your computer, your website, your emails, your favorite places, your photos, your MP3 library, and every, last thing you’ve got on your computer, do it NOW. (Really, though, this is something you should be doing at least once a week, and if you’re not, why aren’t you?)

What other things should you do at the start of the year?