Angel? I'm Not An Angel! I'm Your Faerie Squid Mother

First off, I'd like to say:

I'M A SQUID ANGEL! YAAAAAAY!

Okay, now that that's out of my system, let's move on . . .

On April 1st, 2009, just 16 days short of my 2nd anniversary on Squidoo, I received an email telling me that I had been picked to be in the next round of Squid Angels.

Timing is everything, or so SEO marketing experts like to tell you, and well, I got a lot of emails on April 1st 2009. I got an email informing me Squidoo had been bought out. One telling me the Giant Squids were going to be on Dave Letterman's show. One informing me that Burger King had stopped selling the Whopper. Several informing me that I's won a million dollars. WordPress informed me my blog (which I hadn't posted on in almost a year now) was the best blog ever and being featured on their home page as such. Yeah . . . it's April Fool's Day, my inbox is full of fake awards, news stories, hoaxes, and other not so real announcements. You could imagine my surprise when I found amid the assortment of pranks, that there was also a very official email which was not a prank, and was informing me of my new Squid Angel status. Wow! My first response was "Yeah, right!" Hey, timing is everything, and you don't tell someone they've been chosen for something on April Fool's Day if you want them to believe you are for real!

So, thinking it was a prank I just replied and thanked them for telling me about it. Huh. Turns out it was just a coincidence that it came on April Fool's Day and I really did get picked to be a Squid Angel. Even bigger WOW!

Okay, let's see . . . So, I'm a Squid Angel, now what? Wait. OMG! I'm a Squid Angel! Wow! How did that happen? Me, the demonic demon lover, forum sniper of 666 posts, affectionately known across the net as "The Beast" or "666OED" (old evil devil) or "The Bride of Sesshomaru" (the dog demon lord of all demons ---> see picture at right). Me? An angel? LOL!

XP always likes to say that not all angels wear white, calling herself Squidoo's Dark Angel. I guess I'll have to be Squidoo's first official Demon. Yeah, that sounds better: I'm not a Squid Angel, I'm a Squid Demon! A Krakon maybe? Krakons: Evil Giant Squids. That's it, I must be a Krakon.

Let's see. I'll be an angel for only a short while, I think the job only lasts 4 months, or was it 6 months? Something like that, at least that's what I hear other angels say. So, what is it that an Angel does? The way I see it, a Squid Angel seeks out new lenses and tries to help get the word out that those lenses are out there, by giving them a boost (known as a "blessing"). Likewise, the Angel also seeks out spam and tries to see to it that the spam doesn't take over on Squidoo.

I think of the job of a Squid Angel as being like a flower gardener. You want to head out to your flower garden each day and see lots of bright colored flowers dancing in the breeze, but you get out there, and you notice that there are weeds crowding out your flowers, so your first order of business is to pull out the weeds and feed them to the chickens. Next, you want to showcase your best flowers, so you look around your garden and decide which flowers are the best, and you fix the garden so that you notice these flowers first when entering the garden. That's what being a Squid Angel is like. Squidoo is the garden, the lenses are the flowers, the spam is the weeds, and the angel is the gardener who has to sort the flowers from the weeds and than find the best flowers to showcase.

. . .

Only . . . angels don't prance around in gardens helping flowers grow, faeries do that. Okay. Problem: I don't want to be a Squid Angel, I want to be a Squid Faerie. Solution: I'm not going to be a Squid Angel, I'm going to be a Squid Faerie! Cool! From now on I'm going to be your Squid Faerie Godmother, like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother granting wishes only I'll be granting blessings instead (and Fairies are good while Faeries are evil, notice how I use the dark faerie spelling rather than the light fairy spelling!)

According to Squidster there are 4 common types of Squid Angels:

Secret Agent - You might never know if and when this Angel was there
Ambassador - Rewards consistent quality and spreads goodwill
Talent Scout - Always on the lookout for fresh talent
Mentor/Adviser - Likes to offer encouragement and advice

Where do I stand? Hard to say. If I had to pick, I'd say somewhere between Ambassador and Talent Scout, with just a touch of Secret Agent.

Why? Because if I like a lens, I'll find some way to feature it and promote it on one of my lenses, and if I don't have an on-topic lens to feature it on, I may just build one. I love to promote other people's lenses, making me an Ambassador Angel.

I remember how hard it was to get started on Squidoo and how I had no idea what I was doing my first few months. Now 2 years later, I find myself actively seeking out new lensmasters each with just a handful of lenses in need of someone to lead others to them. I'm quick to seek out new Squids, making me a Talent Scout Angel.

But sometimes you may never know I've been there, because I don't always leave a comment, in fact, of the 4,000+ lenses I've rated in the past couple of years, less than half I've favorited, and only about half of those have ever seen a comment from me. Commenting is like talking, something I don't do very often, and so I'm often the silent Secret Agent who blessed you quietly as I was passing through.

I don't consider myself to fall into the Mentor/Adviser category, because well, I have Asperger's Syndrome (a type of Autism) which makes it very difficult for me to have one on one interaction with people. I don't talk, I don't make eye contact, I can't understand your jokes so don't laugh at them, and trying to hug me (or even get with in 2 feet of me) could result in my responding with a completely freaked out panic attack. I often do not understand what people say, because I take their words at face value and than later find out that they meant something totally different than what they had said, which results in a very broad gap in my communication abilities, esp when I say something and people assume I must have meant something other than what I said due to the fact that they would have meant something different.

A typical face to face conversation with me would sound like this:

They say: "When pigs fly!"

I'll say: "But it's scientifically impossible for pigs to fly and we were not talking about pigs, why are you talking about pigs, what do pigs have to do with it?"

They say: "No, that means I won't do it."

I say: "Than why didn't you just say you wouldn't do it, why did you start talking about farming and start talking about it in such a silly and illogical manner, when you know for a fact that pigs can't fly, and what does you not wanting to do something have to do with pig farming anyways. I don't understand why you changed the subject to pig farming."

That will usually, end the conversation as I walk off talking to myself trying to figure out if it is possible to create flying pigs, and will not hear another word you or any one else says, until I have solved this problem of flying pigs. I will probably than spend the rest of the week searching the library and Google for books and web sites on pig farming and try to find out if there have been any studies made in attempt to create flying pigs. I'll probably end up on Squidoo reading lenses about pigs and flying and make a lens about each if unable to find one already made.

For those who are not familiar with Asperger's Syndrome, think of it as taking Autism, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Agrophobia, and Schizophrenia and than mixing them all together. Or just think Albert Einstein, he had Asperger's Syndrome, as did most every other famous scientist and many authors. We over analyze every thing, can not rest until we find out the reason why things happen, than are compelled to write down our findings in very long winded manners, and usually will spend weeks on end with out any contact with a single living being because we become so obsessed with finding the answer, that we lose all track of time and somehow our brains shut out the fact that there are other people in the world whom we, while in the obsessed state, can neither see nor hear and are completely unaware of their existence.

The end result is that it is not really possible for me to be a Mentor/Advisor Angel because my ability to communicate with others is limited to actual fact of the matter and most people seem to only understand things if you say something other than what you meant to say and I can't understand why they do it or how it is done.

Actually, I think I would more likely to fall into a category not on Squidster's List: Analytical Angel. Why? Because I analyze the hell out of everything. I have to look at everything from all angles inside out and upside down, before I can form an opinion about it and before I can tell some one else I liked it. I have to know what makes it tick. (As I'm sure you can tell just by the way I'm dissecting the types of Angel category I fall under.) Don't take my analyzing your lens before blessing it, personally, because I do this with everything. It's what Aspies do. I do this with Squidoo all the time.

What does this all mean to you and your lens? This means that if I've blessed your lens, than you can be sure that I've read every inch of it, than went to your profile and looked to see what other lenses you made, checked out a few (or all) of those, and probably blessed more than one lens while I was there. It also means that I didn't stop there, and if you added your FaceBook, Twitter, Zazzle, CafePress, Lulu, and MySpace accounts it your profile, that I most likely went to each of those and read everything on them too, and if I found other links from there to other sites you manage, that I probably checked out all of those too. If you have a blog, I probably read several posts from it (if not the entire blog), and I very likely started following it. Why would I take blessing a single lens and evolve it into a scientific study of every site you made? Because that is just what someone with Asperger's Syndrome does: analyze every aspect of everything they come into contact with.

And there you have it, the type of Squid Angel I am: I'm the Analytical Type.

Squidoo has 32 categories.
There are 32 Squid Angels.
Each category has 5 Angels assigned to it.
Each Angel gets assigned to 5 categories.

I'm not sure exactly how that all adds up in the end, but, that's the figures Squidoo gives about it.

The Squidoo Categories Are:

> # About Me
> # Animals & Nature
> # Arts
> # Cars & Trucks
> # Books
> # Business
> # Computers, Gadgets & Tech
> # DIY & Hobbies
> # Duels!
> # How-To & Education
> # Entertainment
> # Food & Cooking
> # Green Living
> # Health & Medicine
> # Home & Garden
> # Humor
> # Local
> # Movies & TV
> # Music
> # News & Politics
> # Parenting & Kids
> # People
> # Nonprofits & Volunteering
> # Pop Culture & Celebs
> # Religion & Spirituality
> # SEO & Affiliate Marketing
> # Shopping
> # Sports & Recreation
> # Squidoo Tips
> # Travel
> # Video Games
> # Work At Home

Of those, the 5 which I have been assigned to are:

> # Arts
> # Cars & Trucks
> # Movies & TV
> # Music
> # Work At Home

So, what does this mean for you? What it means is, that while I can bless any lens I happen to come across, I have been assigned to certain areas of Squidoo, and am supposed to be focusing most of my attention to those areas, and seeing to it that they don't get over run with Spamand Squid Don'ts, while helping the good stuff float to the top for every one to see.

OMG! No! How hypocritical it would be of me, if I was to do that! sheesh, I have LinkShare, Commision Junction, Share-a-Sale, All-Posters, Art.com, and PepperJam affiliate banners all over every single one of my lenses! Just take a look around this lens you are on right now. Did you know that every single picture on this lens is a clickable banner, selling the product shown in the picture? But, notice how I used only angel banners for a lens about angel blessings?


Staying on-topic with your affiliate banners is important. Sure, you want to make money with your lenses. Who doesn't? But you got to think about your readers. Your readers came to your lens looking for something. What is it? What were they looking for? Were they looking for lots of banners to click? Not likely. More likely they were looking for some information: a review of a new movie they are not yet certain if they want to buy perhaps, or maybe their kid was just diagnosed with Autism and they are looking for other parents who wrote about their experience. Maybe they want to buy a new pet but are not sure if they should get a cat, a dog, or a goldfish, so they are looking to see what other pet owners have to say about each one.

Still confused? How about this one: Why are you personally here right now reading this lens? While there are several reasons why you could have come here, the most likely reason is that you are looking for information about Squid Angels and getting your lens considered for a blessing. Okay. Let's consider this: What would you think, if you came here, seeking some helpful info about how to get your lens blessed, but the only thing on this lens was a bunch of links to angels for you to buy? Would that help you answer your questions about wither your less is ready or not for a blessing? No! Would you stay here? No! Why? Because you were not here looking to buy angels, your were here looking for pertinent information. If I had not provided you with any information, you would have closed the page and gone looking for another lens about Squid Angels and how to get your lens blessed. Do you see what I'm getting at now? You have to do the same thing on your own lenses, regardless of the topic.

In answer to your question: No, as long as the banners are on topic to the subject of which your lens is about, I don't care how many banners you add, and you won't get dinged for adding them. But make sure you have more than just banners on your lens. Give your readers, well, something to read. After all, they are called readers for a reason!

I will point out that if you are just adding banners for the sake of adding banners, than banners could prevent you from getting a blessing. Make certain that the banners you add to your lens are relevant and on-topic or don't add them!

Ouch. Can we change the topic? Spelling. What a terrible, awful, horrible, no good subject. Wait . . . no, I shouldn't say that should I? Spelling is a wonderful, beautiful subject!

Does spelling effect wither or not I will give your lens a blessing? Well, yes, and no. If the spelling is really bad, I won't be able to bless it. Than again, if it's bad enough for me to notice it's bad, than it's pretty bad, because I can't spell, and thus do not notice spelling errors when I see them. I guess I'll have to explain myself here.

Spelling. ick.

Spelling is my curse. I can't spell. My spelling problem is two-fold. For one thing I never learned how to spell properly in the first place, (most likely caused by my having Asperger's Syndrome) which results in me spelling phonetically the words I can't memorize from reading them in books.

Secondly, I have dyslexia, (the reason I was never able to learn to spell properly) and tend to spell about half the words I write in complete reverse, example, if I want to say cat, usually I write tac.

In my case even the best spell checker is unable to correct my spelling, because of the front to back spelling reversal. Spell checkers look at the first 2 letters and than guess at what you should have spelt. But when what should be the first 2 letters are now the last 2 letters, the spell checker totally has no idea what word you were saying.
It took me nearly three years to self program my MSWorks spell checker, but eventually I did get it programed to catch my odd misspellings and set them right, so today, most folks see what I type on my lenses and forum posts and they just assume I'm a pretty good speller, when in fact, all of my posts are first typed using FireFox (the browser auto spell checks) and than run through my customized MSWorks. A process that takes a bit of time, and results in me not answering as quickly as I might had I typed the forum post right into the reply box.

Even doing all this, a lot of misspelling still slip by, but at least you can actually read what I wrote. If my words had not been spell checked, you would be hard pressed to make heads or tails of them at all.

What does all this mean for my Squidoo lenses? It means that lenses that should take me 2 or 3 days to build, actually take me as long as 3 to 4 weeks to build, because once I have built the lens, I have to run it through a massive series of checks and rechecks, often 4 or 5 times, before I finally am able to catch all of the spelling errors. It's a long and tedious process, but it can be done, and as you can see, even with many mistakes still on about half of my lenses, I did become a Giant Squid, during their first round in September of 2007. (Spelling is one of the criteria of becoming a Giant Squid.) And am now a Squid Angel (spelling being a requirement for that as well.) I am living proof that if you work hard enough, you can succeed at the impossible and overcome anything life throws at you. I still can't spell, and I'm probably the only Giant Squid or Squid Angel, suffering from an extreme lack of spelling ability, but I didn't let that stop me and I found a way to get around it and become a Giant Squid and a Squid Angel anyways.

There was a time when I was constantly fretting over my spelling, and I tied like hell to learn to spell properly, but after years of trying every spelling program under the sun, and wasting money and stressing myself out over it, finally, I just said to hell with it, this is just the way my mind is going to spell words wither I like it or not, andI'm going to have to learn to live with it and deal with it. The fact is, I'm an author, and an author who has to constantly rely on an editor to help you with little basics like spelling, really becomes a burden all around. I knew I had to make an effort to change this, and if I couldn't change how I spelt things, than I was just going to have to find a way to correct the miss spellings after I'd written them. Once I had accepted the fact that this was a disability that I could not change, I was able to move past it and find ways to work around it and not let it get in the way of my life anymore. This wasn't something I overcame over night though, it took many many years and a whole lot of patience. Now, there are few people who look at my words who could guess that I had dyslexia, most just assume that the few misspellings they see are minor typos, caused by typing too fast and missing a few keys!

For other lensmasters with similar spelling difficulties, I suggest you change your browser to FireFox, as that'll catch most all of your mistakes, as you type. And if you have a lot of words that the normal spell checker misses, than use MSWorks and add those custom words into the spell checker, so that it does catch them.

Well, long story short, I am going to have to leave it up to the rest of Squidoo's Angel troupe, to judge your lens based on spelling. Sorry. Spelling will effect your getting blessed, though if spelling is all that is wrong with your lens, it won't get dinged, at least not by me, seeing how I know from personal experience the agony of trying to spell properly and still getting words messed up.

A "Big Lens" officially is any lens with 20 or more modules on it (not including intro and guest book). A "Huge Lens" has more than 50 modules, and a "Mega-Big Lens" has over 100 modules on it.

Yes, I like big, huge, and mega-big lenses. No, you don't have to use 300 modules on a single lens like I do (and yes, I do have 7 lenses each with more than 300 modules on them, though most of my lenses only have 75 or 80 modules each.) I was the creator of the so-called "Big Lens" and nearly every "Big Lens" out there was built by me, so, yeah, the bigger the lens the better I'll like, but no, that's not going to effect wither or not your lens gets a blessing.

As long as it has good, well thought out, and relevant content, the size of your lens will not effect it's chances of getting blessed.

Think of me and your lens, like Mr. Owl and Tootsie-Pops: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie-Roll Toostie-Pop?

The World May Never Know!

Now what? Now you just go on with your life. I'm probably not going to tell you if I blessed your lens or not. The only time I would tell you, is if I was leaving a comment anyways, I may (though may not) add a note to the bottom saying I had Blessed your lens while I was there.

But, what actually happens while I'm there at your lens? Oh, a lot of things. I'm not your average fly by sight-seer. Heck, I'm not your average anything, why should my Squidoo habits be any different?

The first thing I notice is your picture, and wither or not you've loaded one. If there is no picture in your profile (all I see is an orange squid), that's the end of it right there. I close the page and head off to find another lens to bless.

You've uploaded a picture. Good. Now I'm reading your bio, and it better not still say: "Hello world, this is my profile, I can edit it later!". It doesn't have to be fancy, but it should at least tell me in a few sentences who you are and why you are here.

So you've got a picture and bio, now I'm looking at the sidebar. Where is your lensography? Why haven't you made one yet? If you did make one, why isn't it in the slot Squidoo provide for you to put it in? While a lensography isn't required for me to bless your lenses, not having one, will reduce your chances of me moving on to check out other lenses by you, as I prefer to browse lenses off your lensography, rather than off your lensmaster profile list. Your lensography shows me wither or not you have added a into picture and introduction to your lens, the lensmaster list does not. I don't like randomly clicking a lens based on the title, and than open it only to find that you didn't bother to add a picture or intro to it.

A note here: ALL lenses lacking a intro picture and/or introduction are automatically regarded, by me, as a WIP (Work In Progress) lens. Because WIPs are unfinished lenses which are still under construction, I can not bless them (and no, I won't ding a lens viewed as a WIP.)

Once I've finished sending friend requests, now I head to all those lens links I clicked on from your sidebar, and if you filled them all in, I should now have about a dozen tabs open in FireFox.

My first step is to do a once over scan of the lens from top to bottom to see if it has eye-appeal.

I'm trained as a fashion designer, so when I look at anything, I look at is to see how it looks from all angles. Is it balanced? Is it color coordinated? Is there a prime color, a secondary color and an accent color? Do the colors match across the scale? Are they in season? Do the lines flow smoothly from top to bottom? Are there any harsh object that look out of place? Is it fashionable? Would it sell in France? Oh my yes, those are the questions I'm asking as I look at your lens, because those are the questions fashion designers ask about everything they look at. We can't help it. We are trained to ask questions like that, and it becomes a habit after a while.

Don't worry, this doesn't mean that I'm looking so much for fancy html tricks, as much as it means I'm looking for stuff that is out of place: I'm looking for default titles still on modules, items that stick out like a sore thumb because they are not on topic to your subject, and a lack of images in text and intro modules.

Okay, now it's time for me to actually read what you wrote. You did write something didn't you? I prefer lenses where the lensmaster wrote something.

I'm an author. Offline I write fiction, mostly in the fantasy-sci-fi-horror realms. Online I write non-fiction articles, mostly to do with how to write fiction, how to sew, how to create costumes, how to read comic books (yes there is a right way and a wrong way to read comic books!) or reviews of my fave movies/actors/etc. For my fiction and my non-fiction writing I get paid, however, my writing does not stop there.

I write, because I love to write. I love the act of creating words. A large majority of the things I write, I don't get paid to write. I am what is known as a "renegade writer", I'm most famous for starting a movement which eventually reached global proportions and would become known as "The P&G Boycott". I was 12 years old when I wrote my first angry letter to mega giant cooperation Proctor and Gamble, and in the 20+ years since, I've written thousands of letters of protests to hundreds of others like them.

And I actually write too, not type. All of those long (12 or 13 pages, double sided) letters, were all hand written. I go through about 20 pens per month, and buy paper by the case. Writing is very important to me. It is very important that you realize, just how very important writing is in my life.

Long story short: I write A LOT! Every spare second of my life is devoted to writing. So, when I found Squidoo, my first thought was: "Hey, a place where I can do even more writing! Cool!".

What this means for you, is that now, FINALLY, after everything else is out of the way, I've gotten to the point where I am actually reading your lens. Note the word "READING". That one little word is going to have the biggest impact on my decision to bless a lens. I don't care what your topic is. I don't care if you are for or against. I don't car if it's a topic I like or a topic I hate. What I do care about is that you took the time to think about your subject and than sat down and wrote about it and shared your views about it with the world.

That is the #1 thing I look for when I look at any lens. It is what determines wither I give it 3 stars, 4 stars, or 5 stars. (Note that I never use the 1 star and 2 star options). And now, it is this same criteria that I'll being using to Bless lenses as well. I want to know what you have to say.

Pretty good, actually. I know, maybe this lens I'm writing makes it sound like I'm pretty strict about giving out blessings, but actually, I'm not.

I've already started blessing lenses, and I'd say I'm blessing about 3 out of every 10 that crosses my path, more or less, so, yeah, your chances of getting a blessing are pretty good.

And don't worry. If I didn't bless you lens this time, just keep updating it, and who knows, I may bless it tomorrow! I'm a repeat visitor at most lenses I visit, so once I've found it, I'll probably be back in a week or so. I like looking for changes and updates.

I can't write a lens about angels, without including a few pictures of my favorite angel: Angel the Vampire! (See I told ya, I like demons better than angels!)