Squidoo's Rocket Moms

Session 3 of Squidoo’s Rocket Moms ended yesterday and, as far as I know, everybody managed to do the eight lenses to graduate and earn their Rocket Moms graduation badge.

The session lasted for eight weeks and the requirement for graduation was to make eight lenses that fitted the weekly assignment. The assignment was only disclosed on Sunday of each week so that gave us seven days to complete it. Of course, Squidoo is a part time activity for most people and things happen in their lives which sometimes mean they don’t have the time to finish a lens in a week but a member can still graduate as long as she has completed eight lenses by the end of the session.

I found most of the assignments challenging because they took me out of my comfort zone.  The very first assignment, to write about a favourite toy, nearly made me give up immediately. I couldn’t imagine writing about a toy. It took me several days to come up with an idea and the lens, Meccano – One of my Favourite Toys. I really did love playing with my brother’s Meccano set but it was a long time ago so I found it difficult to write.  I must have done OK, though, because it was given a Purple Star.

Crazy Quilts with a Difference

Another assignment that took me a while to decide upon a topic was Your Favourite Decade. The good news was it didn’t have to be a decade we had lived through so I did the 1940s concentrating on Make Do and Mend. That got a Purple Star too as did Crazy Quilts with a Difference in response to the Arts and Crafts assignment.

The funny thing is that these were all the assignments I found most difficult and least wanted to write. Perhaps the fact that I had to work harder on them is what made the difference. I also spent more time thinking about them before I wrote anything at all.

The Rocket Moms experience has been totally positive in spite of my occasional panics each time a new assignment was put in the RM forum. The tutorials put in the forum each week have been enormously helpful too by introducing me to ideas and ways of working I’d never come across before.

I would heartily recommend Rocket Moms to anybody who qualifies – the basic requirements are that you are a Mom (or Mum if you’re English like me) and you’re a member of Squidoo. If you want to learn more about building lenses (web pages) in a supportive environment with a great community, I’d suggest you check it out.

September 30th saw the final deadline to make Squidoo Giant or a Giant 100 Clubber. The Wiwon Team did well and I think many of its members will qualify with either 50 or 100 lenses. They’ll know later this week. In the meantime, I know from experience, it’s quite worrying wondering if your lenses are good enough even though you hit the target number.

The members of my small coaching group have improved a lot over the course of the last 8 to 10 weeks. Some people’s work has changed enormously and for the better. Even though I was coaching them, I learned from them too. It’s always a learning experience to look at other people’s lenses or web pages. Sometimes you learn a new technique or an unusual way of using modules that you’ll find useful, sometimes you see what people do wrong and that teaches you something too.

Squidoo won’t be using the different challenge groups like Wiwon for the next round of people going for Giant or the 100 Club. Instead, it’s one big group run through the Ning Forum network.

It will be interesting to see how this will work. It appears to me as if there will be a lower ratio of mentors to prospective Giants or 100 Clubbers. I think many people benefited from the small groups last time because they got almost individual attention and help. I had just eight people in my coaching group, for example, so it was relatively easy for me to take a detailed look at every lens each person made and I had the time to give a detailed critique when necessary.

A lot of the Squids from Wiwon and other Challenge teams have said the think this kind of attention helped them enormously.

Well, we’ll see in January whether the new system works as well or maybe it will work even better.

Sylvestermouse's Avatar on Squidoo

No, I’m not suggesting you shake the tentacle of a denizen of the deep blue sea but rather learn about one of the great people who write on Squidoo. The first in this series is Sylvestermouse, AKA Cynthia.

I became aware of her when she posted a critique request for her first lens (web page) in Squidoo’s forum – Sewing in the House of Sylvestermouse.  I took a look at it and, although there were things that needed to be done, it was obvious to me that Cynthia could write in a good and interesting way. I made some suggestions, as did other people, and she actually implemented them – not something that always happens. After that, I’ve taken an interest in her progress and she has done very well, having made many interesting lenses. I now think of her as my ‘baby Squid’ who is growing up fast.

Read what she has to say about why she joined Squidoo and her thoughts on different aspects of the network.

Why did you join Squidoo?

Originally I joined Squidoo to promote my ebay store.

If it was to promote your business, what made you go on to build so many different lenses which don’t do that?

I found that I enjoyed reading and writing lenses so much, that my store has become secondary. I have met some really great people on Squidoo and I truly enjoy the community.

Would you call yourself a Squidoo addict?

The Original Sylvester Mouse

Absolutely! Sometimes I am so busy reading and writing that I forget to eat or sleep. Once I have locked on to an idea, I simply can’t stop until it is finished.

In addition to working on my own lenses, I try to read every new lens of my fellow teammates on Team One as well as the challenge lenses of the Rocket Moms. When reading lenses, I find the educational element of some lensmasters so intriguing and the personal element of others so captivating, that I simply cannot stop. It’s like a good book you can’t put down.

How are you finding the journey to become a giant? Is it stressful or are you enjoying it?

Surprisingly, I am loving every minute of it.

Have you found your Giant Challenge group a great help and support?

Now I could write for days on this subject! I have the creme de la creme supporting me and helping me. I have been amazed by their tenacious attention. I barely get my lenses published before one or two of them has already commented and they are so sweet in the way they gently correct and guide. We are a small group, but if I had searched the internet over, I could not have found a more devoted alliance.

How are you enjoying Rocket Moms? Are you learning new skills?

Rocket Moms

Rocket Moms has given me a separate challenge altogether.

It has taken me longer to adjust to the larger group, but again, I have made several wonderful friends.

Around my home, I even refer to these lensmasters by name when I am relating their stories to my family. Literally hours of conversation and dinnertime entertainment have resulted from my Rocket Mom’s association.

This week’s travel assignment has been wonderful for us. We love to travel and I have shown several of the lenses to them as suggestions for planning our next adventure. I have a whole “collection” to choose from now.

Since all Squidoo skills are new to me, there is no question that I am learning new ways to improve my lenses.

Do you think these small groups are helpful and give a greater feeling of community?

Ha, ha, ha! Well, clearly I didn’t read the questions in advance before I started answering the first ones. I guess I shall let this be a lesson to me! Yes, I believe it would be extremely easy to be lost in the sea of squids and never reach one’s individual potential without the “family” or “school” of fellow lensmasters. If I had not had encouragement from my mentor (Cynthia says she considers me to be her mentor)  and my team, I probably would not have written any lenses after the first two. I felt so dejected when my second lens received less than a 5* rating. I remember thinking “what do they want?” I found it isn’t easy to write instructional lenses for crochet even though I tried very hard to think from a beginners perspective.

What do you like best about Squidoo?

I like the opportunity to learn and expand my personal horizons. I enjoy the challenge of presenting a thought and evoking a response because, again, I am learning something about the subject of the lens or about people. My favorite example of this so far, was my lens “Hangin’ with Vampire Bats.” I could almost feel the cringes of the readers when I read their comments.

What annoys or irritates you about it?

When members give lower ratings without explanation or critiques. I really do believe if you think a lens is lacking, you should contact the lensmaster and ask questions. Usually if you ask a question, the lensmaster will add content to their lens that supplies the answer. Thus, the results are a better lens.

Hangin' With Kangeroo Rats

You must love animals, you’ve written many lenses about them…

Yes, I do indeed love all animals even the ones that are commonly unlovable. Um…perhaps I like the unlovable ones even better. I suppose that is the “protect the underdog” inclination that is the drive behind some of my lenses. I have even found that I have a certain affinity for squids.

Are you going to expand on your needlework or handicrafts series of lenses?
I definitely have plans to write additional craft lenses. As you can tell by the two I have already published, they are extremely time-consuming endeavors and I want to make sure I am using a helpful and easy to follow format before I write another one.

What do you enjoy outside of Squidoo?

Is there an “outside of Squidoo?” Okay, all joking aside: I enjoy many activities from traveling to sewing at home. I love nature, planting seeds and watching them grow, watching the birds and animals that temporarily brighten my life, occasionally swimming or riding horses. I used to even water ski and fish. I would still enjoy water-skiing if there was a lake that would permit it close by. People could just laugh at the “old poo” on the water-skis. I love to read. When I am not “doing” something, I like to read about someone else’s adventures. I like to cook what my family likes to eat. There really is a difference in liking to cook and liking to please someone else with your cooking. I have had a full life of many kinds of adventures but my focus remains on my religious beliefs and my family.

Cynthia is a lovely person as well as being a good lensmaster. She is very generous with her praise of other people’s work and takes time to look at many Squidoo lenses. See a full list of her lenses on her Sylvestermouse page.

For this week’s Squidoo Rocket Moms lens we have to write about a place we’ve visited.

This is so hard. My thoughts are whirling. Should I write about St Maartens, a Caribbean island I visited briefly but loved?

Maybe I should write something about Paris, France, a city I’ve often visited and one of my favourite places. I could write about the small French fishing town of Honfleur in Normandy, another place I’ve visited several times because it’s a favourite.

Instead of writing about somewhere in another country, I could write about the county where I live, Wiltshire, or somewhere in London where I lived for about 20 years. I’ve already written about Wiltshire’s Stonehenge and associated sites so that’s out. I’ve also written about the county’s best known city – Salisbury and its cathedral.

I’ve written extensively about London too and many other places in England. I feel as if I’ve exhausted my interest in writing about places now. I want to get on with this lens but just can’t make up my mind what topic to choose. Sometimes having a wide choice of subject is much worse than having a very specific topic set for the challenge. At least I’d know what I had to do and I’d just apply my nose to the grindstone, do my research and get on with it.

EDITED on Thursday, September 17th

I made up my mind a couple of hours after I wrote this post. I finally chose to write about Kew Gardens, UK – World Heritage Site.  I really love Kew Gardens so it was quite easy once I started.