Tag Archives: writing

Jan
18
2013
Not An Announcement About Doping

I have two announcements and luckily neither of them is that I sat down with Oprah to tell her and the world that I won the Tour de France seven times by cheating. Unfortunately, neither announcement is about early retirement either (although I did sign up for a day-long retirement seminar at work in March and I’ve never been so excited about a work-sponsored training in my life).

Oprah hasn’t asked to interview me yet, but my fellow Precipice author, AmyBeth Inverness, has! She publishes an interview every Friday and I was thrilled when she asked if I would participate. You can read the interview here. AmyBeth asked great questions and I really enjoyed answering them (I suppose if I didn’t enjoy talking about myself, I wouldn’t have a blog, eh?). Also, getting to discuss my Precipice piece allowed me to bask in the afterglow of getting something published one last time before turning to the decision of whether or not to push my luck for the second go-round of the literary anthology. Interesting that I just wrote “push my luck,” since the theme for Precipice this year is “luck.” 

The second announcement is that I’ve started a new blog about ice cream. As I wrote more and more about my ice cream hobby here, I started to think it would be nice to have a special place to focus only on that and keep Logy centered on writing and humor and, well, everything else. You can check out the new blog and my first post about ice cream inspired by the buckeyes I “enjoy” making every year for Christmas at Get the Scoop.

Stephen at Company of H helped me out again with the blog design and I’m pleased with how it looks and functions. I think he believes I’m crazy for not building the site on self-hosted WordPress (especially since my Logy host would let me add a second blog for free), since it limited what we could do with the design a lot, but I wanted to have the built-in community of WordPress.com. I’m so happy with the new look of Logy Express, but I miss how easy it was to connect with other WordPress users on the free hosting platform. If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would’ve moved Logy Express, I would’ve just tried to tweak the design to make it prettier.

So there’s a blogging tip in addition to my two announcements. Don’t say I never give you anything.

Oct
31
2012
Published!

Yesterday I made my publishing debut! Well, outside of my high school’s literacy magazine and the (up until now!) anonymous writing I’ve done here.

Earlier this year, I submitted a memoir piece to the lovely people at Write on Edge for the first edition of their literary anthology. As I mentioned here, I spent quite some time mining my memory reserves in service of the writing. I’m thrilled that my piece was accepted and to announce that the anthology, Precipice, is now available for your reading pleasure. I’m honored and, quite frankly, surprised to be in the company of such talented writers.

You can click on the link above or on the picture below (Amazon) to obtain your own copy of Precipice. For a low fee, you can read my teenage angst in print or on your e-reader.

 

I’d like to thank Dave for his patience while I did little but type for several weeks and for being willing to read so many drafts of different stories about my relationship with an ex. That can’t have been fun. I’d also like to thank my friend Erin for the support and encouragement, and for steering me in a more authentic direction.

My piece is titled “Good Enough,” and recounts the circumstances leading to my first kiss. This is fertile writing ground I’ve covered before in a different context. It seems the early college phase of my life is my low hanging writing fruit — suitably dramatic, but not lingeringly painful. The diary I kept religiously during this time preserved the memories while they were still fresh. Unfortunately for everyone involved with me during this time, I have pretty accurate dialogue. 

People have asked me what happened after that first kiss. I’ve written a little about that before, but two things got in the way of expanding this story for Precipice:

1.) the word limit,

2.) an overwhelming urge not to look dumb.

And, oh, how dumb I was. But I learned useful lessons…lessons in the critical art of understanding the inner thoughts of men. In honor of the release of Precipice, I will share these lessons in a future post, so stay tuned. It’s a must read for any of you who have ever been confused by the words of that special dude in your life. A companion piece, perhaps, to He’s Just Not That Into You. Because, believe me, he is into you. Sort of. If only men weren’t so complicated

Jun
25
2012
This Post is About Something

The point of this post is that I need to have a point to my posts.

I didn’t type that as an introduction, I typed that to try to stay on point.

Perhaps the problem is just A.D.D., but it’s not (usually) like I want to say random shit such as “I like eggs” in the middle of a post about something else. Although it is A.D.D. that made me stop writing to go search for a way to share how I meant “I like eggs” to sound (it’s at the 2:26 mark)

No, most of my veering is at least tangentially related to the original topic. I always thought I was a very analytic person, but apparently in my writing I’m a synthetic (wait, what?) person. I have a compulsion to cover topics from every angle. I spend hours drafting lengthy posts once a week or less when I could write two or even three shorter posts that people might actually read. Seriously, it usually takes me at least three hours to write a post and that is just counting ass in the desk chair time, not all the time I spend thinking or jotting little notes down here and there.

This is bad. It’s bad because it makes something I enjoy doing into a struggle. It’s bad because blogging “experts” say one of the keys to writing a good blog post is to keep it to a single point.

Since I need help deciding when I’ve entered the realm of “this should really be a separate post,” I’ve been disappointed with the specific guidance provided by blogging “experts,” which is not helpful.

They conflate topics with points. Like don’t write a post about your maple bacon cupcake recipe along with a review of the new Katy Perry movie (which Dave said he’d go see if it were in 3-D, by the way). No shit, those are two different topics? Although I could see Katy Perry wearing a bra with cups made of maple bacon cupcakes…maybe this could be one post.

Jesus, I just found out the Katy Perry cupcake bra is actually a thing. I knew she wore weird crap on her buzooms but I’m 38 years old, I haven’t seen an actual Katy Perry video. I thought I just invented the cupcake bra. Oh well.

I swear to all that is holy I didn’t know about this before writing the line about Katy Perry wearing a maple bacon cupcake bra.

Anyway, the Katy Perry maple bacon cupcake bra post is not my problem. My problem is isolating a single point within a topic area. I have no trouble selecting a single topic to write about, but my brain then wants to synthesize every possible point I could make about it. I am thorough, y’all.

Here’s a recent example:

I wanted to write a post about my backlog of post ideas. The idea was to solicit feedback from you to help me prioritize the list and see who was still with me (I hate the unintended but real consequence of losing subscribers with the move to self-hosting.).

This led to writing about wanting to figure out how to write posts that will resonate with people. This led to writing about the mystery of finding kindred spirits out there in the internet ether, when you are as weird as I am.

I wrote 1,300 words before realizing I hadn’t really made my original point and now had at least three posts going in one. I still haven’t finished writing any of them because I’ve exhausted myself.

Blogging isn’t going to last much longer as one of my hobbies unless I become more efficient. Solution #1: having a point!

I’ve decided to start every writing session by typing “the point of this post is….(insert point here).” If I don’t know what the point is, I will stop and figure it out. I will touch base with this topic sentence periodically to make sure I’m not writing a new post. Lather, rinse, repeat until I have a shiny new post without giving myself a migraine.

So how did I do on this post? I’m 1 hour and 40 minutes in and I’m about done. Even on a post focused on having a point, I still also wrote several nebulous strands that should be separate blog posts. I don’t think I can make my brain stop doing that, but I did manage to pretty quickly identify them as not on point and successfully table them. But I do seem to have given myself a migraine.

Do you have trouble staying on point? Do you have any tips for staying on point? How do you feel about eggs?

 read to be read at yeahwrite.me

Apr
20
2012
My Life’s Just Not That Interesting

This is one of those posts no one gives a shit about. I’ve been away from here long enough that I had to log in. The past few weeks, I’ve been trapped in a nostalgia sinkhole and it’s been harder to climb out than usual, because I’m deliberately trying to immerse myself in memories for something I want to submit to a literacy review.

This latest bout of nostalgia started when Dave and I went to see the Wedding Present play Seamonsters to celebrate its 21st anniversary (like that isn’t enough to make a person feel old). Dave loves the music so much and it reminds me of when we met, but it’s weird that these songs about relationship angst have somehow become “our songs.” I think Dave just doesn’t pay much attention to lyrics. But good lord, those lyrics. I obsess over them. I desperately wish I could write half as well as David Gedge. In 200 words, he can convey a feeling that needs no additional explanation. Of course, I’m guessing his life has actually been interesting. Having to go back twenty years to find some drama to write about, as I’ve done, means it’s time to admit your life just isn’t that interesting.

My writing, like my thinking, is heavy with detail, explanation, and analysis, not to mention an introspection that I believe blocks people from finding it resonant themselves. Part of me wants to delete every word I’ve written for the literary review and copy and paste the lyrics to Seamonsters into the submission box instead. Think they’d notice?

Then friends offered us free tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra. When I found out what we’d be seeing (Mendelssohn’s Elijah), I thought it sounded familiar. I looked it up and found the video below and recognized it. In fact, it contains a line that gets lodged in my head all the time and not remembering where the hell it came from has driven me nuts for years (“And a mighty wind rent the mountains around, brake in pieces the rocks, brake them before the Lord. But yet the Lord was not in the tempest.”).

My friends asked me if I’d sung the whole thing or just excerpts and I couldn’t remember. Of course, when I finally dug up the program, (like I would’ve thrown it out) it was during college–the same time I’m currently grinding over. My chorus sang it in its entirety–twice. Plus two excerpts at another concert. I can’t believe how much better I feel having figured this out. I can’t stand forgetting. Just try to imagine having to look for a choral program from 1992 and you can start to understand how exhausting it is to be me.

Then, this week there was something else, something maybe I shouldn’t even mention. But it’s contributed to why I’m spending so much of my time thinking about the past rather than functioning at all well in the present (I said fuck in one form or another at work today at least 20 times, loudly, because I am professional). I don’t even fully understand what the hell went on and it’s none of my damn business, but someone in my childhood best friend’s life was just murdered. There have been all kinds of murders on the side of town where I grew up and I can’t help but wonder what the hell made me so lucky.

So I’m busy writing, just not stuff for here (unless it’s not selected, in which case I might dump those 1,500 words–cause you know I won’t be under the word limit–here). And I’m busy thinking about my past as if it were a “Choose Your Own Adventure Book” rather than the prologue to my present. And I’m working with a designer to make this shit hole look more attractive and hopefully speak more accurately to what I’m trying to do here (which is actually to be funny, which you’d never know from this post).  

Nov
11
2011
Logy’s First Anniversary

Would you have preferred a clock?


Becoming a Writer

I attended a blogging workshop before starting Logy Express. First thing, the instructor asked for a show of hands, “How many of you are writers?” She might as well have asked me to explain quantum mechanics, I was so stymied by this question.

I envy children, who answer these types of questions with an enthusiastic “Yes!” because they haven’t developed self-consciousness about talent yet. Most everyone immediately raised their hands while I considered my response options. If I raised my hand, did that indicate writing was my profession (it isn’t), or that I claimed to have writing talent? I decided I was not a “writer.” Which was good, because by the time I’d finished thinking about it, I had missed the opportunity to say yes.

The instructor looked perplexed, “OK, how many of you aren’t writers?”

I raised my hand along with one other guy. She sighed tiredly.

The guy planned to start a visual arts blog, so he would share pictures rather than text. Sharing text was apparently all the instructor had meant by “writing.”

Oops.

She clarified that I planned on typing words into a computer and then clicking “publish.” Voila! I was a writer (and a moron).

Year One of Logy Express

I had trouble articulating my goals when I started writing. The workshop instructor suggested we have goals and offered several examples:

  • Reach a million followers
  • Land a book deal
  • Get paid to write about cupcake tasting (OK, so I made that one up).

Since I’d only been informed I was a writer a few minutes earlier, the calibration of these goals seemed a touch off. I had a vague sense of wanting to find my voice and connect with people. Not necessarily a million people, but definitely more than my husband and my Mom.  

The internet is vast and it is challenging and time-consuming to carve out space in it, so much that I’ve asked myself several times this year if it’s worth the energy. I’d read tips like: “be patient,” “be yourself,” “don’t publish posts with typos.” So it was easy for me to get frustrated when I read posts elsewhere with mistakes and only fair to middlin’ (as my Dad would say) content that got  dozens of comments like: “Brilliant,” “You’re so funny,” “You should write a book!”

I would feel like I could write a post that’s the equivalent of juggling knives while defeating a fire-breathing dragon and discovering the cure for cancer, while simultaneously fellating Dave and riding a unicycle backwards and still only get a few hits. And at most one or two comments from people who would never visit again saying “Great post, stopped by from the unicycling fellatio group.”

Luckily writing a blog means reading blogs and I’ve found many bloggers who amuse and inspire me. I’ve gained more clarity about what I want and had the excitement of having a post featured by WordPress that resonated with some people. I am so grateful for everyone who has stopped by this year and offered their thoughts and experiences. I’m not always quick to respond to comments but I voraciously read and value each one (well, maybe not the token unicycling fellatio group comments).

I hope you all stick around for a while. I’ll keep the fridge stocked with cold beverages for you. I also plan on sprucing up the place very soon. I think Logy Express deserves to look prettier.

As one of my new favorite bloggers said about what I’m writing here: “I’m just getting going and I’d like to be going faster.”

If anyone has suggestions for things you would like me to write about, please let me know. And I would consider it a great anniversary present if you’d stop by on Facebook and Twitter as well as hanging out here.

Jul
7
2011
She Was The One

The Saturday morning beach traffic they’d so carefully avoided by driving down on Friday trapped Emily as she drove back from the grocery store. She had promised the kids frozen waffles  but then forgot them at the store. Going back for the waffles took considerably longer than she wanted it to, but she sighed and tried to stay in vacation mode.

The beach house was still quiet when she got back. If the kids wanted to sleep in, she wasn’t going to stop them. It would give her a chance to be alone with Todd.

But she couldn’t find him anywhere inside. Emily walked out to the patio overlooking the beach and saw Todd sitting on top of the picnic table. He sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his face in his hands just watching the ocean. Her mood lifted at the sight of him. The swish of the waves coming in masked the noise of her return and unnoticed, she felt compelled to watch him.

Emily’s eyes followed Todd’s gaze as he watched a woman running on the beach. She smiled and rolled her eyes. It wasn’t unusual for Todd’s head to get turned by a beautiful woman.  Emily wasn’t the jealous type. Todd had opportunities to be with other women, they’d even had a brief period while dating when their relationship was open. But he chose her.

Still, after fifteen years of marriage and two children, Emily kept a mental list of desired self improvements. Maybe someday she’d even have time to work on some of them. The kids kept Emily plenty busy. While Emily was fulfilled by caring for the family they’d created, she understood why Todd might sometimes enjoy a little eye candy. Emily was “Mom” now. Hell, most of the time Todd referred to her as “Mom” too.

She was about to make her presence known to Todd, when she noticed him sit up as the runner on the beach got closer. Emily studied her and couldn’t see anything particularly striking about her, nothing that would grab Todd’s attention. She wasn’t in any physical distress. In fact, Emily thought, they looked sort of similar. They had the same hair color, some of the same features. The runner was obviously more fit, maybe a touch younger. She just looked fresher somehow. Emily doubted this woman’s significant other called her “Mom.” The thought made Emily’s hand involuntarily try to smooth the flyaway hair she forgot to comb before shopping.

Emily’s next breath caught in her throat when she heard Todd call out,

“Kelly?”

The sound of Todd’s voice startled both Emily and she who might be Kelly.

It took Kelly, for certainly this was Kelly, a second to register Todd before the slightest smile of recognition passed across her face and she said, “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”

“No, it’s Todd,” he said in his signature smart ass way, which would have made Emily laugh, but simply made Kelly tease, “I know who you are, dumbass.”

The bantering continued and Emily really wanted to hear what they were saying. She strained to hear them, but nothing could drown out the thought overwhelming her.

That’s her. She was the one.

——————————-

Red Writing Hood is a writing meme from the Red Dress Club. This week’s writing prompt was: “The most frequent advice I come across for amateur writers is, “Write what you know.” “What you know” doesn’t necessarily always mean “your comfort zone.” For this week, take what you know out of your comfort zone. Try a new genre, a new time period, a geography you’ve only dreamed of, fantasy or historical instead of contemporary fiction, try the male POV if you usually write women. Or vice versa. Switch it up. See where it takes you.” Word count limit= 600.

This post is a work of fiction and it was the most difficult post I’ve written to this point. I’m always so impressed at TDRC writers’ fiction posts, but I have steadfastly avoided fiction and clung to memoir. So when I saw this week’s prompt to do something different, I took it as a personal challenge. Out of my comfort zone, indeed!

Constructive criticism is welcome, but I implore you to break it to me gently as I am a delicate flower and fiction virgin.