Screwing my Courage to the Sticking Post

After a year of not blogging I’m going to enter again with a clichéd song quote. But it’s so perfect for the all-too-personal post that follows and it’s helped me through at least half of the past year.

I’m trying to tell you something about my life.
Maybe give me insight between black and white.
And the best thing you’ve ever done for me,
Is to help me take my life less seriously.
It’s only life after all.

Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable,
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket.
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it.
I’m crawling on your shores.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains.
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains.
There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line. And the less I seek my source for some definitive; closer I am to fine.
                                                                              -Indigo Girls, "Close to Fine"

Simply put, a year is a particular amount of time. Some years speed by and some are excruciatingly slow. Like everyone who has to age; years seem to go rapidly the more of them you have under your belt. But this year was really quite different for me. I learned some stuff – I actually thought I might be too old to do that now. As you may recall from previous blog posts, long ago and far away, I’ve been in limbo for quite some time. Not sure of my place in the world, knowing it’s not my current location but struggling through nonetheless. When I think about a sane, steady place in my life; a time and location that made sense with who I am, I repeatedly end up at the office/copywriting gig. Quite honestly, I don’t know why this is. This past year, I discovered I lost myself in that job. I think the office space does something to the time and space continuum; there are big chunks of that time missing, and I don’t know where they went. It’s kind of like never going home again. Copywriting was never going to be my career, but I’m pretty sure it would have been without my even noticing had it not been for the slap in the face that is economic strife and workforce reductions.

But tell me why, over the next few years, I kept applying for office jobs? Apparently the answer is money. Who knew I was that person? Writing rarely pays the bills so I keep searching for something I like just as much, something that will pay the bills while I write. But I don’t like anything as much (If I did, why would I want to write?) and my damn work ethic makes it impossible to take any job half-assed. Dammit. Last September I picked up a freelance office fun-time gig. Which means, over the past year I’ve been working 50 – 60 hours a week between the freelancing and the part-time job hobby, just trying to be an active member of society; to be worth something. I’m not sure when this gigantic chip on my shoulder occurred, but here it sits. And yay, me, I can earn money and still work in an office setting. But there’s no time to write. And then I’m sad and then I don’t want to write when writing makes me happy. Oh, vicious circle of inactivity. Oh, slippery slope of depression and overwhelming anxiety. Dammit, again.

I was patiently trying to work through this *stuff* when I started having health issues. I’ve been anemic off and on since high school. As anemia tends to hit women between 20 & 50 who have heavy menstrual cycles, this isn’t exactly earth shattering news, but my anemia and dysfunctional bleeding landed me in the hospital with units of donor blood fed into my arms through IV’s & emergency surgery. Oh, I’m just fine. Promise. I think I was more unnerved from the hospital experience as I’ve never been a patient in one before. And considering what other people go through on a daily basis, I have no right to even be concerned or worried about my diagnosis. Of course that means I was terrified by my pathology results. Honestly, I think I put on a good face but I probably failed miserably and my friends & loved ones all know just how scared I’ve been for the last 8 months. I have something called Endometrial Intraepithelial Neoplasia or Hyperplasia; dummied down to my lexicon – there are precancerous cells growing in my uterus lining.

On the terrifying side:
-Precancer has the word CANCER in it.
-Most women with this issue have a hysterectomy (but most women are over 65) so the precancerous cells don’t have a chance to mutate into cancerous cells.
-Precancer has the word CANCER in it.
-Repeat 1 and 3, 10 more times!

On the, “I’m fine. Promise.” side:
-I went on a heavy dose of hormones for three months & have now had two biopsies since the diagnosis. So far, I’m good with no more bad cells growing and no evidence of any bad cells at all.
-I will continue to have biopsies every 3 months as long as I want to keep my uterus.
-I will be seeing an Oncologist on a regular basis who knows what to look for.
-Precancer doesn’t mean you’ll ever get the disease; it means everyone keeps checking on things (and insurance suddenly pays for those re-checks) because you are predisposed to cancer.

Ironically, just before I was diagnosed, Chris and I were really starting to talk about the pros and cons of having children; the likelihood of loosing my uterus before menopause sort of pushed the timeline forward. Alas, we’re still not entirely sure we’re the parenting type of people; but, we are willing to be slightly more proactive about figuring that out and attempting the family idea. Not sure what it says about us; to confront the imminent demise of childbearing organs and still not figure out if we do, indeed, want children? I think our fear might be wrapped tightly around us both at this point. Please note: these are topics I don’t discuss with my friends and family even, but I think about them, which means I write about them too.

These are my serious, fear-cocooning issues of the past year – well, some are fundamentally part of me and have been around since I’ve been around. And that’s where the screwing my courage to the sticking post and spanking my inner moppet come into play. I am absolutely trying to stop being so cautious with my life. You know, maybe start living it; which means growing up a little when it comes to house buying (something else we did this year!), baby making, novel publishing, and so forth.

Fear is not supposed to be my safe place. It is no place to live. I’m going to sound super cliché here: Do what you love most in the world; that thing you can’t stop doing no matter how crazy it makes you. I DO have things to say, I want other people to hear my voice and I’m just really sick and tired of being afraid.

That’s me reentrance into the blogosphere – this entirely too personal offering. Now we start rebuilding the fun times, book scrutinizing, and movie analyzing blogs. Can I just add here that I am so glad I did the month of fun days last August because my world kind of imploded directly after that and I’m just now sousing out the aftermath. That month of blogging sustained me through some of the darker moments in October, November, December, January and February. More fun blogs coming up! Why? Because I always feel better when I write and sharing those thoughts, ideas and musings is the good kind of fear I choose to wrap myself up in.

A Month of Fundays: Day 2 – Dance Like No One is Watching

Here’s the entire quote – and feel free to do each of these things as a funday activity; although, love as though you’ve never been hurt may not be a try-that-out-today-for-fun kind of thing.

Dance as though no one is watching
Love as though you've never been hurt
Sing as though no one can hear you
Live as though heaven is on earth. – Souza

Honestly, whenever I hear or read dance like no one is watching, I think of Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister in Love Actually dancing around 10 Downing in his stocking feet to the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump for My Love”. I’m not sure if this is because my cousins and I always used to dance-like-no-one-was-watching to that song whenever I slept over as a child; or because one thing I really miss about the office job is Ben’s reenacting of this dance every Christmas. Either way though – I can’t help but smile.

I look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm when I dance, so I’m often surprised at how much dancing means to me. Actually, I don’t know when I made this analogy. Maybe it’s because I’m not a good clubber. I just don’t get it. The hot and the sweaty and the meat market, ear bursting, public humping just doesn’t do it for me. Wow, I really AM old. So maybe that’s when I look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm – when I’m in a dance club with a techno beat really not enjoying the dancing. Essentially, I think dance is a wonderful expression of music and personal journey; it is joy or pain when words just aren’t enough (says the writer). As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I grew up with a healthy love for ballroom dancing. One of my happier childhood memories is watching dancing competitions with my mom in the living room with plenty of room to try out any moves I was inspired to recreate. I’m extremely klutzy – even in my adulthood – so how I didn’t break a leg, I’ll never know. Now I watch shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance because they are fun, and for me – nostalgic.

I’m not saying for this month of fundays you should choreograph a professional routine and go dance it somewhere. This is more of a happy dance sort of thing. You know, your happy dance. That thing you do when something amazing happens. Jump up and down, wave your hands in the air, fall to the floor and look like you’re having a seizure, whatever it is you do, I want you to do that today. My happy dance looks like an Irish jig gone way wrong; yes, like a dying duck in a thunderstorm performing an Irish jig before finally keeling (hah!) over. It’s awesome; I did it in the kitchen while waiting for my cup of tea to brew. I was really excited about my tea break today.

I will now give you a moment to go perform your happy dance. While your dancing around like no one is watching, feel free to watch the video below. It is Hank and John Green again…how perceptive of you. Here is their Happy Dance Project from three or four years ago. I dare you to watch this and not smile.




Last weekend we had a family reunion at Lake Independence – the BBQ, swimming, chatting type of reunion. My great-uncle Marston and great-aunt Margaret came over from the east coast for the event; I haven’t seen either one since my teenage years. Old family stories always surface during these things and I found out Marston taught dance at the famed Arthur Murray School of Dance after high school (late 30s or early 40s possibly?). The late afternoon saw Marston and I doing a jitterbug in the grass, near the beach of Lake Independence. I have to say for a while there I forgot that I looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, I forgot it was 90 degrees out, I forgot anyone was watching me dance and I forgot my great-uncle is 84 years old. But what I won’t ever forget is the dance itself.

I’ve also mentioned my friend Mitzi on this blog before. She was a WAVE during WWII. Mitzi lost her battle with cancer last year, but her memory lives on. It lives on in an article currently in the hands of a certain unnamed magazine who has yet to decide on whether they will print it or not, but I digress – freelance writing sometimes means your words are legally not your own. To sum up: Mitzi loved to dance. She spent much of the war on the west coast in Navy hospitals rehabilitating amputee victims. She rehabilitated through dance; because you don’t need to stand on two feet or have two arms to move to the music. I can’t think about dancing without thinking about her New Year’s Eve wartime story: She spent the evening dancing at a USO Club with Gene Kelly! The light in her eyes while recanting the tale makes this another dance I will never forget; even without seeing the original.

What are you waiting for, go dance already!

Picture: One of you dancing your happy dance. Or, film yourself dancing like no one is watching. You may laugh at yourself, but again, it will make you smile every time you see it!

Song: There’s lots of big band songs going through my head right now, but my iPod was playing JET’s “Are You Gonna be My Girl” when I performed my happy dance today.

Tomorrow: Cook or Bake Something YUMMY

A Month of Fun Days

I have a plan! Well, I have a project that I’ve been pondering for about 6 months now. It’s taken on many forms but now I just want to get on with it already. At first I thought about pitching it as an article idea, and then I thought I’d pitch it to a company like Disney as a blog idea, but I never quite figured out how either would work. Possibly just doing this thing on my own blog would make it easier to earn money on another blog or article in the future. For this to work though, I’ll need your help and lots of suggestions.

Concept
A month of daily blogs about fun stuff I’m doing. Now, who doesn’t want to read that?! OK, there’s more to it than that. I want to stalk wonder and I want you, blog readers, to join me in the pursuit of fun. I’d also like you to *gasp* comment about it right here on the blog…

Why?
Well, because it’s fun! No, seriously. I’m an unpublished writer and therefore, I spend much of my time depressed about this fact – and the lack of money, or running out of money (I did bills today and realized my savings is dwindling and I haven’t done any freelance stuff in a little while and the part-time job hobby is great, but not really meant for me to live off of without other sources of income). And yes, I do realize I rant about all of these things more than I should on a blog; however, there is a silver lining. Most of the time I am a happier, healthier person than when I had more money and a 40-hour a week office job; I realize this and want to share the fun with others. I think we pretty much live in a craptastic-economy-driven world but there is still fun to be had. We just have to embrace that fun!

When?
Well, I was thinking the month of June, because June is a month with decent outdoor weather for most of the globe. Then again, maybe June already has plenty of fun in it and doesn’t need my help. Also – if I haven’t already beaten this into your heads by constantly talking about it – I will be traveling in the UK and Ireland for the better part of June. One, this is a good thing because traveling lends itself to spontaneous fun times; but two, I may not be able to get to the internet everyday and I may not have time to write a blog post everyday. I think a month of fun days can, and should occur wherever you happen to be and with whomever you happen to be with; but maybe for easier navigation I will wait until July to begin.

In the Meantime…
Feel free to offer suggestions on any of this. I am looking for 30 fun things to do. I do think a lot of fun things happen spontaneously, so that can always be a factor; but if I leave at least a week’s worth of fun activities – people will be able to do them and comment on them on the actual days I do these fun things too. (That was an incredibly awkward sentence.) I also believe some of the fun things I do won’t be remotely fun for some of you; in which case, you would comment with something else fun that you did that day. Yes, this is why I’ve been mulling it over for 6 months now. I think I may have mulled too much at this point.

Fun thing ex: Find a crazy or unique sign and take a picture of it for the blog.
Fun thing ex: Go on a road trip to a little piece of Americana (i.e. Giant ball of twine or that ketchup shaped water tower) and experience its cheesy awesomeness.
Fun thing ex: See a movie on a rooftop with a group of friends.
Fun thing ex: Go to dinner with a group of friends and pretend it’s someone’s birthday. Extra points for best birthday song and best free-birthday treat.

You get the picture; and no, after 6 months of thinking about this, these are NOT my best examples…where would the fun be in that!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

This ego-centric rant is what comes of being holed up in bed sick for a week. I think I may have had too much time to think about me. Which, it turns out, is good, but now you have to read all about it.

I spent a good deal of last month reading Amanda Hocking, the whiz-bang self-publisher from my home state who has just signed a-very-healthy-dollar-amount-book-deal. Her books are entertaining; they need another edit or two and hopefully a book publisher will give her that. She sites on her blog that she wants to write; she doesn’t want to deal in the nitty-gritty business of writing. Kudos to her and anyone else who does self-publish, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I too hate promoting myself; heck, I don’t even always let my facebook page know when I have a new blog post. This is stupid; I should just get over myself and learn from Amanda Hocking, who has done an amazing job promoting herself. She’s not done with self promoting now that she has an agent, editor and publishing house though. In fact, I think she might be in for a little bit of a shock as she will, most likely, be working even harder now to meet deadlines while still promoting herself beyond what the publishing house is willing to do. But I get it Amanda; I too just want to write. Well, I want people to read what I write, and like it, and pay for it and support my writing habit – vicious circle!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Amanda Hocking is someone I can relate to because her ideas and writing style are not that dissimilar to my own. It’s always a good thing when someone making a lot of money doing what you want to do is only as good as you are; or maybe you are even better. You feel slightly more confident in what you are doing then. Of course after I finished reading Amanda Hocking, I picked up HP 7 again and cried a little. JK, you are just so good at what you do. Amanda Hocking and JK Rowling are really not the same writer. They both write YA but there the similarities end. I’m always amazed at how clean cut and concise JK is. If I ever meet her I want to know how she managed to edit so precisely all the way through to the end with deadlines, movie set visits and publicity junkets. I realize I am already a decent writer when I read authors like Amanda and I strive to be a better writer when I read authors like JK; but never do I think I’m in the wrong profession or that I can really ever be anything besides a writer.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

This week I received an email from the Unemployment Insurance of MN office asking me to fill out a work survey and self assessment. Apparently, if you’ve ever been on unemployment and you did not report the finding of a full-time job, they will keep tabs on you and “help” you try to locate employment; whether they give you money or not. This is a good thing. I know that. This is why I always fill out the surveys and assessments. They, like myself, want me to be a productive member of society. Here’s the problem: The unemployment office doesn’t really take into account who I actually am; to them I’m merely a number or statistic. If/when I’m gainfully employed they can move my number over from the jobless to the job-full. Really, it just means the surveys and assessments try to push me out of my writing box and into any category of employment I can simply do. The silly thing is, I sometimes agree. I spend hours going over these surveys and then looking for and applying for jobs in any field I know I’m qualified for. A few weeks ago I spent 3.5 hours in an interview for a job that was identical to the one I left two years ago simply because they called and I thought I should re-enter the full time work world. I didn’t get the job, thank goodness! What would I have done then?

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I often get frustrated at the part-time job hobby – it’s not a bad job at all, but it’s not who I am. When people ask me what I do, I never think to mention the part-time job hobby unless in reference to researching for a novel. I don’t talk about it on facebook or think about it when I’m not there; I doubt I’ve mentioned it on this blog except in vague passing. And this may be what stops me from getting jobs in interviews. I have to talk about my current employment and in most cases it pertains – or I can make it pertain – to the job I’m interviewing for. I mean it’s not that far off from copywriting; I do all of the same things and bridge all of the same communication boundaries – just for one store instead of an entire corporation of stores. But ask me about my freelancing work, or The Loft, or the novel I’m working on, or this blog (all things at least mentioned on my resume) and I’m sure you can see the light shining in my eyes. All other jobs are just a stepping stone to my writing career. Honestly, if I can’t be a writer than what am I? Nothing.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Every year since I graduated from high school I talk to one particular friend on my birthday (mid February) and again on his birthday (beginning of March) without fail. These conversations used to be in person or by phone, but life often gets in the way; so for the last decade they’ve been via email. I hope you all have at least one friend like this. I’m borrowing from L.M. Montgomery here, but a real kindred spirit; someone in your life who honestly cares about the trivial information you are willing to part with on a not-so-frequent basis. Time seems not to matter for either of us; we always just pick up wherever it is that we left off the year before. I tend to confess things in these emails that I don’t to anyone else in the world. There are some things you just don’t want to – or need to – burden your nearest and dearest with…heck, on at least 360 days of the year I don’t even want to admit them to myself. Then there are those other days – days I need to spill it and tell someone how inadequate I sometimes feel. It helps that the return emails are similar in their pessimistic awkwardness. Oh, I don’t mean we dump on each other and then we’re both better humans until the next year – we share plenty of dreams and daily life happenings as well; I promise, usually the good does outweigh the bad. This year found us both complaining about work (my friend is a doctor in the middle of his residency and not so much liking the 80 hour work week on top of being a husband and a dad – with a second child on the way!!). I wrote back with some soul-searching comments about trying to make it as a writer when the rest of the world seems to be pushing me into a career in retail or office space. After I sent the email, it really hit home just how much I try to be these two different people. One who feels that looking for full-time employment, because she lost a job during economic-crisis-time, makes her a productive member of society; the other one is excited to have a decent part-time job hobby she doesn’t have to care about and gets to write for a good portion of each day. Why do I continue to tear myself apart like that? I know who I want to be, which one makes me happy and content.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I mean do you know that since college – about 12 years or so – I’ve weighed between 150 and 250 lbs. And I don’t just mean I started out at one end of those 100 lbs and slowly moved my way towards the other end; I mean I’ve yo-yoed up and down between them. That’s not healthy. Six months ago, so about a year after getting the boot at corporate job TM, I topped out at 227 and instantly had a small nervous breakdown. Once you see 250, you really, really don’t ever want to see it again. Truly, once you see 200, you really don’t ever want to see it again; and I’ve seen 200 about 4 times in the last five years. Every time I’m loosing weight I think, “This will be the last time!” I really hope this IS actually the last time, but here’s what I realized during this week of self discovery. The periods in my life where I’m loosing weight usually coincide with great feats in writing: A new job, a new project, heck even just a complete month of consistency in my writing regimen. So maybe it’s time to admit it to myself and stop trying to do all of this other stuff.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I believe I’ve blogged plenty about living and studying in London at the end of my undergrad career. Many moments from that time – in part because I kept a decent journal while in London – seem crisp and clean in my memory. One of those moments stands out as a big dot on the Mariah timeline – marking crucial moments that are often not so momentous at the time. In this particular instance, Ruth, a lovely Irish woman who used random air quotes and rode her bicycle all around London town, simply asked me a question. She taught a British Drama course which mostly consisted of reading plays and seeing London Theatre productions that sometimes corresponded but often didn’t. During a lecture one day she stopped to ask us all what we planned on doing with our lives. At the time I was getting ready to graduate, take my LSAT and move far away from MN to attend law school. I mean this was a clear cut path, one I was not going to be deterred from. For some reason I didn’t give the answer already in my head; I said the first thing that came to my mind, “In a perfect world I’d be a playwright”. It didn’t happen overnight. I still graduated, took the LSAT, applied for law schools and got accepted to two of my top choices; but that random comment kept sneaking through my subconscious, laying its seeds of truth. I have no doubt that I could be practicing law in another state right now, making a lot more money than I do at the part-time job hobby – but would I be happy, content or less-stressed? No. Writing is in my blood; it’s who I am.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

You, blog reader, already know this about me. I’ve already hashed through most of this in similar blog posts. You know more than I do apparently, because I keep trying to do something else. I don’t even want to do anything else; I’ve never really wanted to do anything else. Writing is my identity and my purpose. It’s not the only thing I am, but it is how I want to be remembered. We all have such a small amount of time here and I often feel a sense of urgency coming through when I write, like I have to get it all down while I still can. I want you to read what I have to say, my take on the human condition and the stories that inspire me. Wow, does that sound like I have a god complex? I don’t. I don’t think you have to read what I write or like what I write; I just know I have to write it.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Maybe all writers continue to go through this self-doubt stage. Maybe it’s a constant battle. Maybe the next time I sit down to work on my novel I won’t get up to wash clothes, scrub out the sinks and get caught up on my email correspondence. Maybe I’ll just sit down and write. More than likely I will have good and bad writing days; I will fill more blog posts with my needs and concerns about my lack of writing – or lack of putting down on paper all of the words and thoughts swirling around in my head, desperately trying to find their way out.

Writing isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am. And sometimes I need to remind myself by screaming it out loud…I.AM.A.WRITER!

It’s November. What Else Would I Be Blogging About?

Yes, it could also be about the new Harry Potter movie coming out, but it's not. Maybe next time.

I’ve been in a writing slump for a few months – as you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts. It’s November, and I usually participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo); this year I decided not to. I was even OK with this decision through all of August, September and most of the month of October. I’ve been finishing up a second draft of my current novel and writing blog posts (not publishing mind you, just writing them) sporadically when a decent topic reveals itself. As the second week of October hit, I stopped writing altogether. No words, nothing, nada. If you are my facebook friend, you may have noticed those short little status updates appearing more and more on my page. It’s like that’s all of the energy I was willing to divest in writing. I think this goes beyond my lazy self into new and unchartered territory. I’m not sure what’s up with me. Writing is still what I want to do and when I sit down at a computer I loose myself in words completely. But my voice has been missing for quite some time and everything turns out lackluster and boring.

A couple of weeks ago I did some freelance work. I’ve decided that being a freelance writer means you are perfectly willing to freelance anything-with-words-as-long-as-it-pays. This means I will proof your novel, mark your paper, SEO-itize your website, train your trainer, or write an article. So while I did this freelance work, I found a word that wasn’t an actual word. It may be a word one day like frenemy or unfriend, but for right now it’s simply not. I loved this non-word and kept thinking about it. I went for a walk a week later, and the non-word popped into my head again. Only this time I was listening to my iPod and Lady Gaga (Alas, I’m becoming quite obsessed recently) was playing. Walking, thinking, listening to music – this is where the best book ideas come from; isn’t it? Two miles later I had my main character and a general outline worked out in my head. I spent three hours on the computer working out the basics and getting some rough ideas down.

And that’s it really. That’s what NaNoWriMo IS. It’s a ridiculous goal – 50,000 words in 30 days. When I’m done it won’t be good. I’ll dump at least half of those words and a handful of characters, but I’ll have words on paper again. Some of those words are bound to stick; at this point I’m just looking for my voice. I do realize it’s not a panacea – writing a novel in one month won’t cure all of my writing issues. Hopefully it is a step in the right direction though. Heck, I may even start blogging again…

Wish me luck and if you too are participating in NaNoWriMo, I wish you words – lots and lots of words.

The Deafening Silence

I know, I know. It’s been a few weeks and I haven’t posted a blog. I promised everyone we would be starting HP 6 last week, but I still have more to say about HP 5. And yet, I haven’t spent any time this week (or last) thinking about Harry Potter – I’ve spent all my time this week (and last) delving back into the freelance world.

I’m glad to do it – I like the research and the confusion that inevitably comes from trying to decide which magazine to pitch to. In this case, I’m researching a hot button issue with lots of government overtones (and no, it’s not healthcare) – talk about your shades of gray! You wouldn’t think adoption would be that much of a conservative/liberal debate. Jump on the bi-partisan bandwagon everyone. I mean who doesn’t want children to be safe and secure in loving arms? Apparently a lot of people!

In the long run this one small article could turn into many, larger articles because there is just so much to say on the subject. Of course every day the legislation changes or fluctuates and at this point I’ve read three or four pieces of info stating it’s our government’s fault and three or four pieces of info saying another country’s deportation issues are the problem. One magazine praises the way both countries smoothly co-exist and the easy chain of events that will get kids to their parents in lickity-split fashion, while another magazine is afraid prospective parents will be in limbo for years.

Yes, I’m being vague for a reason. Needless to say after two short weeks of fact checking and trying to get a straight answer about what is going on, I’m so frustrated I could spit. And then I realize there are a number or parents (I can’t FIND out how many exactly, so a number will have to suffice. Interviewing two such parents gave me the closest estimate I currently have for kids waiting to get into our country at “2,000”; so if you must have a quantifiable number there it is.) out there without their children and with no clear concept of when their children will be home with them; and I can’t even imagine how frustrated they are. So, I’ll spend some more time doing this and trying to be a voice for those who can’t speak – or write – in the medium I’ve chosen. Do you hear me world? I’m going to write this article and get it published [shake fists above head and look towards the sky here]!

Wish me luck blog followers. Write to your Senators, representatives and government officials. Tell them to make HOPE Act a bill (like School House Rock told us to do in Cartoonville). Just say “yes” to H.R. 4603 and unite children and parents. As one parent told me it’s the not hearing anything that’s the hardest. “The silence is deafening.”

And yes, one day soon I’ll get off my soap box and you’ll see a Harry Potter or Mariah-trying-to-get-her-book-published blog again. I promise that too.

Ramblings from a Sleep Deprived Writer

Or, how I’m really not writing my novel right now, but still pretending I am…

I’ve written myself into this very strange place. I’m not sure how I got here or how I’ll get out, but I’m here right now and I feel I must continue on. I think it would be easier if I’d written Tea – my protagonist – into the corner, but it turns out it’s actually me. No, I’m not my protagonist; but I am the writer and have borrowed from my past – and present – for this novel. It took me about 8,000 words before I had to borrow from my past (although in retrospect, I did it in the first 1,000 without realizing it).

Tea is 17 and the novel takes place the summer between her junior and senior year of high school. Alas, I don’t really remember high school that much. Not that anything bad happened to me there; in fact I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it, but apparently I’m older than the hills or something and high school memories are fading fast – almost as fast as that cliché.

This is what I do when I get stuck in my story and need some younger-than-my-current-age interaction and dialogue. I write down a memory from when I WAS that age and then go back and re-write it to show what’s happening – instead of just telling it. I add dialogue and descriptions and honestly make up a lot of the stuff that probably never really happened; because that’s what writers do after all. And then once it is all done I can usually pick right up in my story, maybe using a line, description or small idea from my recent, made up memory and plug it into the action. So far, this scenario has been working out well. It means I don’t stop writing when I’m stuck and I can use some of the overlooked memories for later characters and novels.

There is a side effect as well, the more I write about the experiences I had in high school, the more I remember them. Entire conversations come flooding back into almost perfect clarity – things I wore, things I thought, things I never told people. It’s honestly bizarre, especially reliving these escapades from my adult view point – which has changed quite a bit since high school. I’ve thought about people I haven’t thought about in…I’m counting on my fingers, hold on…15 years or so. When did I get so old?

The problem: Here I sit, writing away, on my own personal journey, forgetting all about Tea and her teammates trying to solve a murder in their grocery store, those poor people. They haven’t figured out who the real killer is which means John is rotting away in jail after confessing to a crime he didn’t commit…all while I’m worried about who I’ve forgotten from high school. I know I’m making this sound like high school doesn’t matter – which is silly because the large majority of my readers ARE high school students or teachers – but I have a point about high school, I promise.

About halfway through one such writing exercise I remembered someone I haven’t thought about in years. Someone who IS very similar to one of the characters in my story – apparently I’ve subconsciously written in a friend from high school. Then I realized I never thought of him as a friend when we were in high school, but I think of him that way now. Not because I talk to him now (as far as I know, we haven’t talked since the late ‘90s) and our relationship is that much stronger, but because we actually WERE friends in high school. Just by remembering all of the time we spent together, all of the things we shared, and some of the conversations we had, my adult self realizes we were fairly close for a time.

I don’t really keep in touch with many friends from high school – the ones I actually realized before today were friends I mean – oh, many of them are now facebook friends, but that doesn’t really count, does it? Anyway, most of these people friended me (and if any of you are reading this, I’m glad you did). If you know me at all you know my two closest friends have been my closest friends since the second grade, making today’s writing epiphany a little odd. Here is another paradox – I don’t necessarily consider those two friends high school friends – Amy, Stacy and I transcend all of that somehow. Sure we knew each other in high school but we each did our own thing – some of our friends overlapped and we spent a ton of time together outside of school – but that’s never been who we are.

I thought about this guy – who I now realize was a friend in high school – and I suddenly wanted to know what he was doing now, as an adult. I wanted to see what adulthood had changed or nurtured in him. If, like me, looking back on his high school experience illuminated some part of his adult character: Is high school a time to remember and learn from, or do we all just start to forget about it after our mid twenties? Of course it didn’t just stop with one person. I’d just finished writing out a memory involving four people by name, am I in contact with any of those people now? No, I’m not. So what are they all doing? I guess this is why classmates.com exists – possibly even twitter – don’t hold your breath, I’m not joining either of those social networks anytime soon. Twitter is just a bad Doctor Who episode waiting to happen!

I did some digging on my preferred social networks and found out a lot of interesting stuff in under an hour. This is both cool and creepy (see previous Dr Who comment). I’m not sure I want someone sitting around wondering about me and then finding out everything they need to know just by clicking a button. Obviously I must be OK with it to a point or I wouldn’t have a blog, but still! See how I’ve not only written myself into a corner but I’ve completely stopped working on my novel today.

And what did I discover in the end? I told you I had a point, way to keep reading. I’m not really sure if this is a big reveal or not, but I discovered I like writing YA and mid-grade because I DO think it matters. I’m hoping kids and students will get something out of their current situations, maybe get a leg up on where I was at your age; and I’m hoping adults will remember something meaningful they’ve forgotten from their childhood or teen years. Maybe we all have a forgotten friend or teacher who helped shape our adult selves and reading one of my books will plant a seed in your subconscious; a seed I hope grows into a beautiful memory.

Or, if you aren’t as sappy as I am, then here’s some startling facts I learned in my hour of research on high school classmates – maybe this will inspire you.

Startling facts about people Mariah went to high school with:

• At least 12 are now teachers – two in our old high school.


• At least 8 were, or still are, professional athletes or college/pro coaches (this is utterly ridiculous, apparently I went to Jock High)


• At least 10 are in bands – from garage bands to Harry Connick Jr.’s orchestra and everywhere in between (I was in the marching band, so this number is probably higher – but I stopped counting at 10. I can go see at least 5 of these people in upcoming concerts; I’m on the fence about this).


• 8 are – or soon will be – medical doctors. With another 5 earning PhDs in some other field. (Some of these are married to each other – you are all making way too much money!)


• 1 is a magician.


• 1 is an actress in movies and television shows I’ve bet you’ve seen. She’s also a stage actress in NYC.


• 1 had his house torn down and rebuilt by the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team – it was the season premiere house this season.


• 1 ran for the Mayor of Bloomington in the last election. It’s not a small town – alas, he did not win.


• 1 is working for some government agency or embassy (The fact that I found this out on-line means I hope she’s not a field agent and our national security is a little stronger that that).


• 1 is an Army Ranger (on-line did not tell me where he is stationed so a little more at ease about this whole national security thing).


• At least 2 others are published authors (one of those is published in Welsh, which is an entirely different language with lots of double letters, and therefore gets extra kudos from me. Way to go Chris!)


• 4 are social workers.


• 3 are pilots.


• 3 are currently trying to adopt (my fingers are crossed for you Morgan!).


• 5 are expats currently living abroad at least semi-permanently (Yes, this includes the guy published in Welsh. I think you have to live in Wales to understand the language, let alone write in it).


• At least 4 others have blogs (You guessed it; one of those blogs is at least partly in Welsh).


• 1 – ME – discovered if my husband and I do have any children they can be duo-citizens because he is a British expat living in the US (this makes me happy, but does not mean I will be having those babies any time soon – no breath holding again. And yes, I looked that up in the hour allotted as well!)


• 10 people married their high school sweethearts (Scary. I don’t remember that many people from high school, I can’t imagine finding marriage love there).


• 1 – ME again – just sheepishly realized that she a) really fell in love for the first time her senior year of high school and b) met her husband her senior year of high school and c) a & b are two different guys.


• At least 6 people are no longer with us (I’m sure this number is higher – social networking is not really a good tool for things like death, cancer and other life taking illnesses. We really try to be happy and upbeat while we network on the internet).


• I stopped counting marriages, divorces and babies – I’m guessing these match national statistics.
  
  

And that was just in an hour, imagine what three hours would produce! I’m done with my ramblings, I’m going back to write some more about Teagan and her SuperMug exploits. I’ll tell you what – her character arc just got a whole lot bigger!

Dancing with Mitzi

Sorry in advance for my lack of humor today. This is one of those venting posts where I mostly just need to write out my feelings before I go insane.

So, I’ve been fighting – well not really – with a magazine about an article. I say fighting because I originally received a positive response for a pitch, then went about ironing out the contract with the editor, only to have the editor get laid-off. Not surprisingly, the new editor was less than thrilled to take any articles the old editor had agreed on that hadn’t been signed to a contract yet.

I’ve pitched the article to a couple other places and offered to submit this article on spec. On spec – or speculation – means the magazine can do whatever they want with the article – publish it or not – and they don’t have to pay me if they don’t want to. Why would anyone do this you ask? Well, to get the darn thing published!! Why do I want this article published so badly? Well, it’s about this really wonderful woman who’s lived this amazing life and I’d love for her to see her story in print. To make matters worse, I found out today that she has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, making this article all that more important.

I’m leaving my pitch here, and in a couple of weeks if I don’t hear back from those pitched magazines, I’m going to post the article here too. Your good thoughts, prayers, wishes, chi energy, whatever you have to spare would be greatly appreciated. Not just for the publishing of this article but more – and most – importantly the improvement in health of my friend and anyone else who’s struggling with a life threatening illness.

In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Public Law 689 – the Navy Women’s Reserve Act – enabling women to enlist in the reserve branches of the Navy. These women became known as WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services).

At the age of 20, Mercedes ‘Mitzi’ Ward – with two letters of recommendation from outstanding members of her Minneapolis community and her parents’ consent – joined the ranks of the WAVES and was shipped to a Navy hospital in San Diego for the duration of WWII and six months.

I’m contacting you to pitch a profile of Mitzi, whom I met while working my first part-time job in high school – cashiering at a local grocery store where Mitzi still demos frozen pizzas and other food on the weekends. I still visit her frequently at the store to listen to her tales, and for the pure motivation she inspires in those who listen. This story will highlight just some of the most fascinating aspects of her life: her activities with the WAVES during WW II – focusing on Mitzi’s job rehabilitating amputee soldiers by teaching them to dance; visiting some of the big band dance halls/hotels of California; and dancing with a young G.I. named Gene Kelly. Although she’s now in her eighties, Mitzi still has a mischievous sparkle in her eyes and a young, sly smile. Her sense of humor is almost as strong as her no-nonsense demeanor. She is an Everywoman who still remains active in her Minnesota community. In her own words, Mitzi’s lived. She’s (literally) danced through life with an undying optimism that makes her story relevant to your target audience: smart, savvy women who enjoy empowering histories and profiles.

As an experienced copywriter, I’m skilled at self-editing my work. You can expect a well-researched and fact checked feature article for your Life section. Mitzi’s dance through life is a choreographed journey worth taking. Thank you for your consideration.

I’d like everyone reading this post to really think about talking to friends, relatives, teachers, anyone about their lives. Listen to your friend’s favorite life experience, and feel free to comment/post those stories here. There are a lot of good stories around that may be lost if we don’t start listening to each other.

I'll step down off of my soap box now, thanks for listening.

Acquired Reading: The Love of a Good Magazine

Today I’m tooling around the magazine shelves at Barnes & Noble looking for prospective short-term employers: Who wants to publish (and pay for) an article by me?! There are so many to choose from – shelves upon layered shelves of magazines on every subject; which one will I choose to solicit next? Each magazine is a bright, scrumptious fruit in the jungle of freelance anonymity – pick the right one and I could be famous…I’ll settle for just published!

I like Barnes & Noble for their variety. Want to read a magazine on Colombian coffee? There’s one at Barnes & Noble for you. Want to learn how to knit with only wool from a lamb named Baa-rty living on the side of Blaven in the Isle of Skye? Surprisingly, there’s a magazine at Barnes & Noble for you too. OK, I may have exaggerated on that last one, but you get the picture.

Back to topic: The most productive way to pitch an article is to find the publication that needs your words and ideas the most – if they need you as much as you need them, you are almost guaranteed a job. Once I’ve narrowed it down I get myself to the library and do some major research on a couple particular publications by looking at back issues to see if they’ve already done something similar to my idea. It’s not always bad if they have because you can work off that knowledge and pitch a continuation or more in depth piece; but sometimes it means no, they’ve been there and done that – move on to someone else.

As I’m searching through the jungle laid out in front of me, I can’t help but smile sardonically. Maybe you have to know a little bit about my love/hate relationship with magazines to fully understand the irony of my current situation. And maybe you have to understand me a little more than this blog will let you to understand how utterly fascinating – and truly enjoyable – that knowledge is…and why I wouldn’t trade my current situation at all, not even a little bit. Let’s stick with the magazines for today.

I used to see magazines as reading nuisances. They don’t have the same smell or flavor of books – even textbooks (gasp) are preferable. I can count on one hand the magazine subscriptions I’ve actually had in my life. There are a lot of things I don’t like about magazines. I don’t like the little postcard-sized subscription cards that pop out every time you turn a page. I don’t like the super-concentrated cologne samples that give you a headache and smear the words as you try to read while wiping your hands on the shiny cover in a vain attempt to get the stench off; because inevitably the sample always rips open, spraying you with a blast of something that may have smelled good originally, but is now mixed with paper, glue and other perfume samples into a cacophony of evil potpourri. I also really don’t like the amount of advertisements – from a marketing standpoint I get them, some of them may even work on me – but I don’t have to contend with these attention distracters while reading a book. Mostly, I don’t like the break-up in flow. If I’m into my article on the benefits of yoga and meditation, I don’t want to have to find page 125 in mid-sentence.

At this point you are wondering how I can possibly be a freelancer; right? Why I’ve chosen to make this my career? I can and I do because once you make it past all of the stuff I just talked about (and most people really don’t have a problem with that – just throw the postcards and samples away before you start reading – how lazy are you anyway?) some of the content in magazines far outweighs the content in the latest mystery or YA book I’ve read. It’s uplifting, it’s motivational; it is smaller, intense doses of good literature and it is geared toward a target audience who can’t stop seeking knowledge on the subject at hand: Magazines are pure dead brilliant! How lucky am I?

New Motto for a New Blog

I received a facebook message from a friend recently asking for a critique on her writing. She included a poem in her text for me to look at. The message came with a warning: “I’m insecure about my writing and tend to shut down when discussing it, but I trust your voice and value your opinion”.

Although I do think I was treading on thin ice when I responded with my critique – and I would like to state right here in my blog that it was an amazing poem that paints a moving picture – what struck me more than even her writing sample was that simple warning phrase, “I tend to shut down when discussing my writing”.

Amen sister! We all shut down to a point; bearing your soul is NEVER easy and I think it’s what stops many potential writers from following through. Heck, it still stops me in my tracks almost every day. A writer needs to get used to rejection – because it WILL happen – but I can’t think of a better way to start my blog. And again to that friend out there who may be reading this: Please, please, please keep on writing. Work through the pain and fear to find the exhilaration of painting that perfect word picture. It’s SO worth it!

I do feel like I’ve been forced to blog. I’m not complaining; it’s something I’ve thought about doing for awhile, but freelancers need to post musings so editors can check out their style. A pitch can only take you so far in today’s social networking society - and so here I am blogging. Soon I’ll be forced to tweet too; and then what will I do?! Those who know me know I refer to all things Twitter as “tweety-twatting” and I hate it. If you really want to know the minutia of my existence then this probably isn’t the blog for you. And may I suggest you get a life while you’re at it…seriously…right now. Stop reading this.

For everyone else, this is where you can find the ramblings of a freelance writer, novelist and avid reader. I learned a life lesson three months ago when I lost my day job; instead of taking the lackluster jobs my old company offered, I decided to turn to my passions to make a living. I will no longer use the office job as an excuse for my unfulfilled dreams and ambitions! I will no longer (or less seldom) shut down when someone rejects my writing – or gives it a scathing critique!

I’ve honestly never been happier and I’d like to share those lessons with anyone who will listen – or read – them. Write. Read. Live. It really is that simple.