Mindbloom: When self-help and video games collide

For a while, I was an enthusiastic gamer. I  blogged and reviewed video games on a gaming site and for a (very) short while, freelanced for 1up.com. But then I gave up gaming in favor of getting my life back (I tend to fall into video games like bad guys in Star Wars fall into sarlac pits) and lately, the only games I’ve been playing are Facebook’s Scrabble and Bejeweled. Then, last week, a friend of mine mentioned  this game on Facebook and, since it was free, I thought I’d give it a try. But only for a week. That was last Wednesday.

It’s called Mindbloom, and it’s a cross between the casual games of the Internet (think Bejeweled or Farmville) and the self-help movement (think vision boards and movies like The Secret.)

It’s really not so much a game as it is is a fancy to-do list, visualized as a tree. You start with three branches, each of which represents an area of your life important to you: Finances, Relationships, Career, whatever. In each of those areas, you create small, scheduled to-do lists. Mine are “write 500 words every day,” “yoga every other day,” “share a smile with a stranger every day” and “one to two hours of project every day.”

I check them off if I did them, and I get points for doing that. Sounds dull, right? That’s because it is.

Until earlier this week, I was ready to quit, actually. But then I realized something: It’s working. It’s seriously, honestly working. I’m getting much more work done. I’m working out regularly. I’m trying to be nice to be people, and I’m more or less succeeding.

Why does it work for me? I’m a list-maker. I make to-do lists all the time, in my head, on the backs of envelopes, on my computer’s Stickies program. But I rarely get through the lists, because I lose them, and there’s no accountability. Now here’s this game that awards me points for checking off my to-do list.

Thus far, the rewards are really unexciting – new backgrounds, new music – but the game does offer motivation:  If you don’t do something on your list for a while, your tree starts to die.  That happened to me a few days ago, when I skipped yoga two days in a row and didn’t make my 500 words over the weekend. My tree started to turn brown. Do you know how alarming it is to watch a tree labeled “My Life” begin to wither?

I don’t have any friends on Mindbloom yet, so I don’t know anything about the social networking/support aspect of the game, but for me, so far, Mindbloom offers more stick and less carrot as encouragement for ticking off my goals. Yet, completion of the goals is – and should be – encouragement enough.

After nursing my tree back from the brink of death to full greenness – and after checking off a lot of the items on my to-do list – I’m hooked. I do feel a little odd about using the Internet to complete my life’s small goals – I feel like Big Brother somehow is reading my list of things to do – but I can’t complain, because hey, I’m completing my tasks.

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Writer Wednesday: E Annie Proulx

I just can't quit E. Annie Proulx.

I fell shamefully in love with The Shipping News this spring. My husband watched the movie when I was at the winter MFA residency and then we watched it together when I came back. Then I found it at a used book sale and found a reason to add the book to my reading list for the spring semester. It is a beautiful novel, and I can’t wait to get my hands on Proulx’s other  work: Postcards, and Close Range: Wyoming Stories. That last title contains the short story which was the basis for Brokeback Mountain.

Below the break is the craft essay I wrote about The Shipping News for grad school.

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Just a quick procrastinatory post

I’m sitting here, trying to work on my third semester project and I’m amazed at how – even with a stack of index cards, even with an outline, even with a pile of relevant overdue library cards – it is so hard to write one coherent thought.

That’s all I got. Back to work.

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In which the bad Catholic prays.

I don’t usually pray. Not more than the standard, “God, please don’t let me get into an accident,” or “Thank you, God for the insert-whatever-it-is-that-I-am-grateful-for.” I’ll admit to having conversations with a wide array of entities, ghosts and other figments, but certainly I don’t say any formal prayers – not when I’m not in a church, surrounded by a crowd of limply chanting parishioners. Not since whenever it was during childhood that I stopped saying prayers while kneeling beside my bed.

Recently, I volunteered to say a rosary for someone. I’m not really sure why; I just sort of said I’d do it, and then I was surprised at myself. Read more

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The usual third-semester complaint.

After last week, I am so pumped up about my work.

In the last seven days, I made several positive steps on my novel.  I’ve been working on two novels and in the last several days, I made a difficult decision about which of the two novels I’m working on to pursue. I made some contacts who will help me with that novel. I Netflixed material to help me research the novel and I wrote like a madwoman.

I am so excited about the novel that anyone within earshot has been assaulted with my plot. I haven’t been this excited about a piece of fiction since high school.

So of course, it’s worked out that this is the week when I have to put the novel aside to write the first draft of my third semester project. This is annoying, because a few weeks ago I was so excited about my thesis that I would have gladly tossed the novel by the wayside to work on the project.

Ah well. I have no choice. I have a deadline, and I’ll be able to write both my novel and my project, but I’m irritated that I have to split my time between the two.

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Auto-tune the News and my conscience

Recently, I’ve been feeling a little guilty about my YouTube subscription to The Gregory Brothers’ Auto-Tune the News. You know them. They’re behind this song, featuring Antoine Dodson, whose sister was nearly raped by an intruder in the family’s home:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsVSBhSwJg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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Silence or death for Mexico’s media

Yahoo’s front page story this morning is about Mexico’s largest newspaper, El Diario. The paper, which is based in Ciudad Juarez, is dropping its coverage of Mexico’s drug wars after burying its second journalist killed by gangs.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is lobbying the government on behalf of Mexico's media.

On Sunday, according to this article by the Associated Press, the paper ran a page one editorial asking the drug cartels “to say what they want from the newspaper, so it can continue its work without further death, injury or intimidation of its staff.”

And so the cartels have bought themselves a media blackout with the blood of two reporters. They will now be able to conduct their business without being harassed and exposed by the press. And as an added bonus for those criminals, El Diario has, with a front page editorial, recognized the cartels as “the city’s de facto authorities,” and has opened negotiations with them.  That’s a problem.

But on the other hand, the Mexican government has completely failed to shield those journalists from harm. The Committee to Protect Journalists has prepared a special report on the subject, to be presented to President Felipe Calderon Wednesday.

The full report is here, but here are some of the highlights:

– More than 30 journalists are dead or have gone missing since the end of 2006.

– Mexico ranks ninth on the committee’s list of nations that fail to protect journalists. Iraq is number one.

– When Bladimir Antuna García, Durango’s top crime reporter, was tortured and killed last November after receiving and reporting death threats, the incident was not even investigated by the state. Since then, that region’s journalists have stopped reporting on crime and corruption.

– The Committee to Protect Journalists is asking the federal government to step in.

It’s scary stuff.

As Americans, we hear about our own journalists killed as they cover conflicts in other countries. But the Mexican journalists are threatened at home. Atuna was shot at as he left his home last April. When he got to work, someone called his cell phone, told him, “We’ve found your home. It’s over for you now.” That sort of threat might make me quit my job. That sort of threat might make any newspaper back down on a story. Thank god no paper I’ve ever worked for has faced that sort of a threat.

Given the choice between silence and death, we might all well choose silence, but allowing criminals to control the media is not a viable option. Someone must step in and protect Mexico’s journalists so that they can do their jobs. Mexico is our neighbor. Maybe there is something we can do to help.

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My project has turned my brain into a giant fictional newsroom.

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I am so sick of reporters. Not real, live, actual reporters; I’m talking about this guy:

Jay, I'm sick of your whining, and FYI, so is she.

And this guy:

Settle down, Raoul. No one cares if this is bat country.

I’m talking about fictional reporters and all their ilk. My third semester project is about authors who were once reporters and, since most of those authors write about what they know, I’ve read a lot about newsrooms and reporters in the last two months.

I  feel like I’ve been working in a big, make-believe newsroom with Kipling, Dickens, Hemingway, Thompson, and a bunch of contemporary authors. That can be cool, because in their non-fiction about journalism, each personality becomes pretty clear.

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Writer Wednesday: On T.C. Boyle and Disney. (Kind of.)

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There are lots of reasons to like T.C. Boyle. He’s a prolific writer. He produces novels and short stories and succeeds at both. His prose is crisp. His worldview is unapologetic. His humor is dark. His observations on human behavior are visceral. He uses his initials instead of his first name. He looks like a lost member of the Pogues. All redeeming qualities, I know.

The missing Pogue?

But I like T.C. Boyle for a very basic reason; I recognize his world.

Boyle writes about people I know, or have known. He writes about a time period in which I have lived. He writes about places I know, about Connecticut’s Georgetown area, and about Peekskill, New York and the sorts of people who live there.

In the past year I’ve read many books. Most were written before I was born. Some were set in Connecticut. Most were set elsewhere. Some explored different racial groups, different geographies, other times and other countries.

Boyle writes about the ’90s, my country, and the people I see every day. And he writes beautifully. To be honest, until this year, I never thought my own ethnic/economic group was interesting enough to merit such polished prose. I’m a white, middle-class, third-generation Irish American living in Connecticut at the turn of this century. What is duller than me? Maybe a box of rocks. No, maybe concrete. But Boyle takes that, and elevates it a little, so that I feel that I’m looking at a museum exhibit of myself and the people I know. Below the jump is the essay I wrote last semester about his collection Tooth and Claw.

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Trekkie’s gripe: Stardate 9/14/10

I finally saw the new Star Trek film.

Actually, what I should say is this: I finally saw the 2009 Star Trek film. (Few movies are truly new by the time I clap eyes on them.) So the vitriol I’m about to spew here is outdated, but still, I can’t contain myself. Because that film was NOT Star Trek.

Yes, it had Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, and the rest of the gang. Yes, it had the Starship Enterprise, primary-hued uniforms and phasers set to stun. And it had bad guys and lots and lots of lovely explosions, but that’s where the similarities end, people. It was not Star Trek. It was more like being on a Star Trek-themed ride at Universal Studios.

And the thing was, I actually let down my guard for this film. And for a while, I enjoyed it.

This was me at the start of the film:

This was me after 30 minutes of Starfleet Academy, Planet Vulcan, Captain Pike and other assorted fan service:

And this was me maybe 20 minutes after that:

Why? Well, since there are spoilers in this rant, I will tell you why after the jump.

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