Rachel of Rach Writes is doing a mini-version of her popular Writer’s Campaign, and having met a critique partner and found lots of interesting bloggers in the 3rd campaign, I’m joining again. Check it out here!
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Milestones
So, it’s official. I’ve gotten my first rejection letter – or rather, rejection email. I submitted an essay to a quarterly literary magazine six or eight weeks ago, and recently got back a form reply from the editors, saying “Sorry – not a fit for us at this time…” It feels like a milestone! I finally submitted something, and having gotten over that hurdle, it seems much less like a hurdle at all. Now I can start that collection of rejection letters all those other published authors talk about.
Then, not long after the rejection, I got an email from someone asking me for a 2-3 sentence bio. A few months ago, I submitted a short two paragraph piece to a website about a book I had recently read. The email didn’t explicitly say they were going to publish my blurb – but I can’t think why else they’d want 2-3 sentences about me. Now, though I’m thrilled to have anything published, this really is just a couple paragraphs I wrote about someone else’s book, so nothing to go bonkers over. Still, it feels like another milestone, and positive feedback is always a good thing, right?
Thanks, Amy
Amy at Tilden Bar None Ranch sent me two blogger awards a few days ago! 
I was pleasantly surprised to be recognized by her, and am more appreciative than you know that even one person finds my writing interesting. The awards she bestowed on my humble attempts at writing are ‘The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award,’ and the ‘Versatile Blogger.’ What I appreciated most, though, was her description of my blog:
If you like to read about real life, follow this link to a down to earth, well rounded blog. It’s well written and one of my favorites.
Wow, who could ask for a better sound bite than that? I certainly aim to be down to earth, and I’m glad that’s coming through in my writing. Now, for the obligatory seven random facts about myself…
1 – No one that knows me would ever choose the phrase “irresistibly sweet” to describe me (though I’m grateful for the shout-out from Amy!). People tend to see me as nice, fairly generous, supportive – plenty of positive things – but I’m more introvert than extrovert, more serious than playful, more straight-faced than expressive, thus sweet is generally left off of the list of adjectives used to describe me.
2 – I won a women’s state championship in high school for trap shooting. Have I mentioned I grew up in the Midwest? Also in high school, I entered a competition with my mother called the ‘Annual Father/Son Trap Shoot,’ and they graciously changed the name of the event to the ‘Annual Parent/Child Trap Shoot.’ We won. Not just the name change, but the event.
3 – I am fairly obsessive about a number of things, like keeping my house really clean, multi-tasking to the degree that I stop and think what I might be able to carry with me if I move from one room to another so I can make that walk more productive, writing lists multiple times because I need all like items to be grouped together and that almost never works out perfectly the first time I make a list. Speaking of categories, I’ve been thinking of using my own post categories as writing prompts because I keep creating new ones and the list grows and grows, but too many categories have only one entry in them. It’s just a little OCD, not a lot.
4 – I get bored very easily, which is maybe why I’m more of a generalist than a specialist at anything. You’ll have noticed if you visit my blog directly that I’ve changed the design twice in the past six weeks. I’m just glad there are more themes created all the time, so I have choices when I do get bored.
5 – My favorite place to hang out, when I bother to get out of the house, is a ridiculous dive karaoke bar called “Mel-O-Dee,” which is located in a strip mall. They have red velvet wallpaper, cheap and strong drinks, and even lasers and a fog machine on the dance floor. You hear everything from truly horrific singing to some singing that is quite good – but the place is friendly to those horrid singers and everyone always seems to be having a lot of fun. In keeping with my introvert nature, I’m one of those annoying people who will only sing after plenty of drinks, and I am told that even then, no one can actually hear my voice.
6 – Sometimes when I decide to try a new hobby, I convince myself that if I spend a lot of money on it, I will be more likely to stick with it. It rarely works. For instance, I decided 5 or 6 years ago to take guitar lessons. I bought two guitars (couldn’t decide between electric and acoustic, so I got one of each), much more expensive guitars than made sense for a beginner, and some fancy electronic equipment that would have allowed me to play the electric guitar as though it were plugged into one of a million different amps. I think I tried it out once. I bought the complete original scores to all Beatles music – it’s a huge book that looks beautiful, but I never used it. Luckily, I have a friend who plays guitar, so after I gave up the charade, I have been able to give some of these things to someone who loves them and actually uses them.
7 – I am dying for DirecTV and Tivo to get their act together and release a new Satellite Tivo HD DVR. It broke my heart when they stopped working together and I was forced to buy a DirecTV branded HD DVR. I live with it because I have to, but I long for the Tivo interface. They announced a new partnership 3 years ago, and still have yet to release the product!
Next, here are some blogs I thing are very worthy of recognition, awards, highlights, shout-outs – whatever you feel like calling them…
Flight Platform Living – A mother’s journey with precious souls and Smith Magenis Syndrome is one woman’s uplifting tribute to the trials, tribulations, triumphs, and gifts she encounters on her journey with her family. This is reading that will put you in a good mood whenever you need it.
Helen Writes – An interesting mix of tips on writing short stories, fiction, and crime, book reviews, and odes to Agatha Christie have repeatedly brought me back to Helen’s blog. I happen to be a big fan of crime stories, both written and in film/television, but this blog is a good read for anyone, regardless of genre preferences.
Michael Haynes – A Writing Blog is full of interesting story dissections, updates on Michael’s writing, and regular links to other great content. He has published both fiction and non-fiction, and I love the effort he makes to dissect and understand how other authors accomplish what they do in their writing.
The Voice of Stobby is wonderful. Stobby is the imaginary friend/inner voice of writer, N. Scott. The concept is great, and the writing very entertaining. Make sure to read ‘Who’s Stobby?’ when you visit.
Stories Connect Love Heals is a brilliant blog written by Charlie Hale. He tells stories that take you on journeys, and writes of songs, history, and genealogy. I’m sure Charlie has many followers, but his is one of my favorites, so I wanted to share it here.
Writers’ Platform Building Campaign
I was excited to learn about the Third Writers’ Platform Building Campaign, organized by Rachael Harrie. As a new blogger, I think it will be a great way for me to connect with other writers and take part in some fun writing challenges. Signup is open for a limited time, so if you are interested, get on over to Rachael’s blog and sign up now!
Then We Came to the End
I’ve been kicking around the idea of using a day a week in my posts to share something I’ve loved from the many random books I’ve read. Mondays seem like a good day for this, since Mondays tend to suck the life out of most of us and it’s easier than writing something new and fresh, which might be better suited to Tuesdays… or Thursdays.
I read Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris a few years ago. It is a story about many things, but it is primarily about of a bunch of sad Chicago ad agency mucks who are within an inch of being laid off every day because of a bad economy. At the time I read this book, I worked for a San Francisco marketing agency, which made it just a little funnier to me. We, too, were constantly waiting for the axe. Working in marketing is like pimping yourself out to whoever will bid the most – or actually, whoever will bid at all, whether you actually offer what they want, or not. You want Asian? OK, we can absolutely give you an Asian and she will be the best Asian you’ve ever seen! Meanwhile, the boss wraps Maria Sanchez in a kimono.
From Then We Came to the End:
Jim was so desperate one day to come up with inspiration for an ad, he exhausted his traditional list of people, broke down, and called his uncle Max. “You know how when you buy a new car,” he began – and immediately Max interrupted him.
“I haven’t bought a new car in thirty-five years,” said Max.
Jim suspected then that this was probably not a man with his finger on the pulse of the buying public. Patiently he tried explaining his assignment. When people buy a new car, he said, they usually have an image of themselves that corresponds to the car they buy. Jim wanted to know from Max how Max would want to perceive himself when purchasing a new ink cartridge.
“Ink cartridge?”
“Yeah,” said Jim. “You know, for your printer.”
“Uh-huh,” said Max.
We had a client at the time whose marketing objective was to make their customers feel like heroes when purchasing one of their ink cartridges. Our charge in every communication was to inspire the potential buyer with the heroic possibilities of man-using-ink-cartridge.
“I want to see myself as Shakespeare,” Max said. “What’s this for, anyway?”
Shakespeare, thought Jim. Shakespeare. That’s not bad.
“It’s for a client of ours,” he said. “They make printers and ink cartridges and that sort of thing. I’m trying to come up with an ad that makes you want to buy our specific ink cartridge after you see our ad because it inspires you and makes you feel like a hero. Will you tell me more about wanting to feel like Shakespeare?”
“So you’re trying to sell ink cartridges?”
“That’s right.”
Another long pause. “Do you have a pen?” his uncle asked. He began to quote: ” ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…’ “
Finally Jim reached out for a pen. He tried to keep up with him. At a certain point, Max stopped quoting and told Jim the lines should start to fade out, gradually at first, eventually disappearing altogether. Then he suggested the headlind. “A Great Writer Needs a Great Ink Cartridge.” The small print could explain how, if ink cartridges had been used throughout time, the history of literature might have been at stake using a cheap ink cartridge.
Not only was Jim startled that his uncle could quote what he thought was Shakespeare seemingly off the top of his head; he was floored by the speed and ingenuity of his advertising abilities. Who was a greater hero than Shakespeare? And the person encountering the ad that his uncle had just pulled out of his ass could immediately put himself in Shakespeare’s shoes. Max had just made a million Americans feel exactly like Shakespeare. He told Max he’d missed his calling. “You should have been a creative,” he said.
“A creative?” said Max.
Jim explained that in the advertising industry, art directors and copywriters alike were called creatives.
“That’s the stupidest use of an English word I ever encountered,” said Max.
Jim also told him that the advertising product, whether it was a TV commercial, a print ad, a billboard, or a radio spot, was called the creative. Before he hung up Jim asked Max for two more examples of great pieces of literature, suspecting that an entire campaign could be generated from Max’s concept.
…
Sometime later that afternoon, Max Jackers surprised Jim by calling him back. “You folks overthere,” said Max, “you say you call yourselves creatives, is that what you’re telling me? And the work you do, you call that the creative, is that what you said?” Jim said that was correct. “And I suppose you think of yourselves as pretty creative over there, I bet.”
“I suppose so,” said Jim, wondering what Max was driving at.
“And the work you do, you probably think that’s pretty creative work.”
“What are you asking me, Uncle Max?”
“Well, if that’s all true,” said the old man, “that would make you creative creatives creating creative creative.” There was silence as Max allowed Jim to take this in. “And that right there,” he concluded, “is why I didn’t miss my calling. That’s a use of the English language just too absurd to even contemplate.”
With that, Max hung up.
Quiet days
Today was one of my quieter days in awhile. I spent the day reading and did a little blog surfing, as well. No real writing for me today. Tomorrow is the pre-season opener for my favorite NFL team, the Green Bay Packers. In honor of that, and again of my grandfather, of whom I wrote yesterday, I’ll post a short bit I’ve written about football. Any other football fans out there excited that the season is almost upon us, and is actually happening, after all?
I’m thinking of…
Today’s writing prompt was “I’m thinking of…” I sat down to write after checking my email this afternoon and here’s what came this time:
I’m thinking of my grandfather. I just read an email from my mom explaining that his hemoglobin count was too high. Apparently that means he has too many red blood cells, or more basically, too much blood in his body. He may have a tumor, but no one knows yet for sure. It seems some tumors create extra blood in your body. Bad news – bad health news – has come in torrents this year. It defies understanding. My mother had a stroke on New Year’s Eve. She’s 56. My uncle was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer a couple months later. He’s also 56. I was diagnosed with severe anxiety in between. My nephew’s father died in a car crash in April, on my nephew’s birthday. My niece had to have a piece of her heart frozen with some sort of cryo technology that brings the temperature of the tissue to -72 degrees F. That was to kill some of her heart because it had two electrical spots that prompted it to beat. When the second spot kicked in, her heart went into overdrive, beating as high as 300 beats per minute. Now my grandfather has an unknown “something that doesn’t look right” near his stomach, according to a doctor’s interpretation of a CAT scan. It just never ends. He has had so many medical challenges to face in his life. It took doctors a year to determine his body had stopped producing the enzymes it needed to digest food 20 years ago. He lost more than 80 pounds in a year without changing the way he ate or exercised and it was all a big mystery for a long time. They performed exploratory surgery on him back then in an attempt to figure out why he was vanishing. They found his gallbladder needed to be removed, though he never complained of what doctors said should have been excruciating pain. He is a borderline diabetic that had quadruple bypass surgery 15 years ago. He has a wheat gluten allergy and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few years ago. He has pushed through all these challenges and seems stoic through it all, but I can somehow sense that he’s scared – scared of dying. I know he won’t be able to last many more years. He’s approaching 80, and that’s very old for men in his family. I don’t feel the emotion of his impending death as I write about this now, but I often do when I think about it. He’s always been the most important person in my life and I dread the day he leaves us. Sometimes it feels like it will kill me, too.
I write about my grandfather a lot in my memoir. I have dedicated probably 4 or 5 chapters to various things he’s taught or shared with me throughout my life. I will post a few stories about what we’ve shared next in honor of my thinking of him today.
Anonymity
I’ve decided to publish my posts anonymously for the moment. The memoir I’m working on includes a number of characters from my life, some of which may not want me to write about them or my experiences with them. Until I am able to discuss my project with everyone (which may not happen overnight), I’m going to keep everyone’s identity under wraps, including my own.
east.bay.writer 