The other day I had a really good day. It was a day like I hadn’t had in while. I got a story published online. I got my car out of the snow, which was kind of fun because it ended up spinning 180 degrees before it would go forward. My husband might not agree that it was fun, having pulled his back and shoulder muscles helping me get it out. But it was fun.
And after almost a year, I finally made some headway in marketing myself through Twitter. It was such a rush to finally start getting people, people I didn’t know, to respond to my messages, retweet my posts, and most importantly, pick up my stories to run on their own websites. I’m learning how to go viral!
On the very same day, I started to get nibbles on my blog. People were reading it, commenting on it, and even signing up to follow it! Granted I knew my blog readers, but they all started showing up on the same day. It was nice to see “You have a new comment on your blog” or "You have a new follower" show up all day long in my e-mail. I posted my good day on Facebook in a sentence or two. For two days, people kept adding to it, until I ended up with eleven comments and three likes. So far. That’s a pretty good return, I think.
I guess I felt like all the writing I had been sending out to the world over the Internet was just hanging there in cyberspace, a wasted effort on my part. Getting all of this response to my writing on the same day was some nice validation. Getting the car out of my snowy driveway without having to shovel it out by hand was a nice bounce, too.
It’s so easy to be negative, and so hard to be positive sometimes. I thought I would share one of those rare moments when it was easy for me to be positive.
Have you had a good day lately? Let’s hear about it!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Writing Fiction - It's Hard
My writing group has met faithfully once or twice a month for two years, ever since we were all rejected for the same fiction writing workshop and decided instead to get together ourselves. From that rejection, we ended up with a group that long outlasted the 3-month workshop, and we were lucky enough to develop great relationships with each other.
It can be hard to find a group that’s as copacetic as ours. It can also be hard to take criticism from people you don’t even know. But it’s quite rewarding to have them all agree that a particular piece of yours is good stuff, and better than the last piece you wrote. Reading a piece by another group member that is that much better than his or her last one also brings a sense of accomplishment. I like to think we’re rooting for each other.
Since the group’s inception, some of us have applied for workshops similar to the one that first brought us together. Some have been accepted, some rejected and some have opted not to bother applying at all. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I keep applying. I just received my third workshop rejection last week. My first reaction was that I was never going to write fiction again. I was starting to think that it would be easier to become a rock star than a novelist. Upon reflection, I gave myself some slack, remembering that only 10 out of 40 applicants were accepted, which means that 75 percent of us got the heave-ho.
I am a journalist by trade. I quickly found out that fiction writing is a completely different animal, and much harder to grasp than I first expected. While I can write a good solid news article with my eyes closed, I’ve been writing fiction consistently for two years now and still don’t feel I have the hang of it. Granted, I’ve been into journalism since grade school, which was much more than two years ago, and I have formal training in news writing. I just feel that, having the basics of writing pretty much down, that I should be able to wrap my head around fiction writing without too much difficulty. Not so.
The experts say that you should write what you know. That works, to a point, but I find myself getting too close to the characters, or becoming the characters themselves. Before I know it, the words “I” and “myself” start creeping into the piece, and I’m trying to cram exactly what I know happened into a story that doesn’t play out well on paper. So I’ve decided to try bucking the system by making up every single thing I write, fiction-wise, and hoping that maybe therein lies a better path for me.
It can be hard to find a group that’s as copacetic as ours. It can also be hard to take criticism from people you don’t even know. But it’s quite rewarding to have them all agree that a particular piece of yours is good stuff, and better than the last piece you wrote. Reading a piece by another group member that is that much better than his or her last one also brings a sense of accomplishment. I like to think we’re rooting for each other.
Since the group’s inception, some of us have applied for workshops similar to the one that first brought us together. Some have been accepted, some rejected and some have opted not to bother applying at all. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I keep applying. I just received my third workshop rejection last week. My first reaction was that I was never going to write fiction again. I was starting to think that it would be easier to become a rock star than a novelist. Upon reflection, I gave myself some slack, remembering that only 10 out of 40 applicants were accepted, which means that 75 percent of us got the heave-ho.
I am a journalist by trade. I quickly found out that fiction writing is a completely different animal, and much harder to grasp than I first expected. While I can write a good solid news article with my eyes closed, I’ve been writing fiction consistently for two years now and still don’t feel I have the hang of it. Granted, I’ve been into journalism since grade school, which was much more than two years ago, and I have formal training in news writing. I just feel that, having the basics of writing pretty much down, that I should be able to wrap my head around fiction writing without too much difficulty. Not so.
The experts say that you should write what you know. That works, to a point, but I find myself getting too close to the characters, or becoming the characters themselves. Before I know it, the words “I” and “myself” start creeping into the piece, and I’m trying to cram exactly what I know happened into a story that doesn’t play out well on paper. So I’ve decided to try bucking the system by making up every single thing I write, fiction-wise, and hoping that maybe therein lies a better path for me.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Books Are All Right
My world came tumbling down last night - my world of books. A six-foot tall bookcase with five shelves, holding 100 or more of my must-have, meticulously maintained books, leaned just a little too far to the left. It had been wavering lately, as I piled book upon book onto its strained, sagging shelves. I had steadied it between the side of an open door on one side and a plastic water bottle wedged between the bookcase and a dresser on the other side of it. And as long as nobody closed that door, the bookcase stayed more less upright. And I piled on more books.
Last night, my husband was walking through that particular room and accidentally brushed up against it. The water bottle fell to the ground and then it happened. From the next room I heard a terrible crash as the bookcase fell, pushing the dresser, which was thankfully on wheels, a foot or two to the left, and the TV cart next to it, also on wheels, to the far left of the room. As the bookcase broke to pieces, and shelf after shelf fell to the ground, so went piles and piles and piles of books.
My husband was fine, the dresser was fine and the TV cart and TV were fine. When I ran into the room, knowing what had just happened, I saw them at my feet. There were my babies, all askew in one gigantic pile. I thought of the broken spines, the torn dust jackets and general damage to the pages of the once-pristine books that I was sure to find.
The bookcase was destroyed. But as I stacked up book after book, I found nary a broken spine, torn dust jacket or even bent pages. It was as if some invisible force had cushioned the fall of every single book. Even the box of my most precious books that I stored on top of the top shelf landed upright, flat on the floor and unopened. My husband’s life would be spared.
Something had been preventing the demise of that bookcase. It was going to go, it was just a matter of when. Less than a week ago I cleared a pile of change off one of the shelves and rolled it up to cash in at the bank. If that change had still been on the shelf last night, more than $80 worth of coins would have flown everywhere, causing a bigger mess than all the books that had actually cascaded from the shelves.
So now I have to get the broken pieces of the bookcase out of the room, and the house, and hope that the piles of books now littering the floor of my husband’s office will fit into two smaller, sturdier bookcases I have. Where to fit two bookcases instead of one is a puzzle I have yet to solve. And I’m pretty sure a third will need to be called into action. At least everyone is okay.
Last night, my husband was walking through that particular room and accidentally brushed up against it. The water bottle fell to the ground and then it happened. From the next room I heard a terrible crash as the bookcase fell, pushing the dresser, which was thankfully on wheels, a foot or two to the left, and the TV cart next to it, also on wheels, to the far left of the room. As the bookcase broke to pieces, and shelf after shelf fell to the ground, so went piles and piles and piles of books.
My husband was fine, the dresser was fine and the TV cart and TV were fine. When I ran into the room, knowing what had just happened, I saw them at my feet. There were my babies, all askew in one gigantic pile. I thought of the broken spines, the torn dust jackets and general damage to the pages of the once-pristine books that I was sure to find.
The bookcase was destroyed. But as I stacked up book after book, I found nary a broken spine, torn dust jacket or even bent pages. It was as if some invisible force had cushioned the fall of every single book. Even the box of my most precious books that I stored on top of the top shelf landed upright, flat on the floor and unopened. My husband’s life would be spared.
Something had been preventing the demise of that bookcase. It was going to go, it was just a matter of when. Less than a week ago I cleared a pile of change off one of the shelves and rolled it up to cash in at the bank. If that change had still been on the shelf last night, more than $80 worth of coins would have flown everywhere, causing a bigger mess than all the books that had actually cascaded from the shelves.
So now I have to get the broken pieces of the bookcase out of the room, and the house, and hope that the piles of books now littering the floor of my husband’s office will fit into two smaller, sturdier bookcases I have. Where to fit two bookcases instead of one is a puzzle I have yet to solve. And I’m pretty sure a third will need to be called into action. At least everyone is okay.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Cleaning should be a circle in hell
So my sister is stopping by for a visit while on a trip to show her teenaged sons a couple of colleges. I’m excited that they are coming, but it means that I have to clean! Cleaning is the bane of my existence. The only things I like less than cleaning are moving and looking for a job. I’ve managed to avoid those two for a while, but this cleaning thing never goes away!
When I was young, my mother always changed all the sheets and did all the wash, and cleaned up after all of us. She made all of our meals and cleaned up after those, too. She used to say “I’m doing this for you now because someday you’ll have to do it for your own kids.”
Her logic was flawed in two ways for me: 1) I never had any kids; 2) Now I don’t know how to clean. It never occurred to me that cleaning was skilled labor, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can clean all day only to end up with unsatisfying results. This is how I learned that I didn’t know squat about cleaning and why I hated it so much. For me, cleaning was just one big exercise in spinning my wheels.
I’ll never forget the day I read in Real Simple magazine that you should stock two buckets with the same cleaners so that you can keep one upstairs and one downstairs, spending less time and energy running up and down stairs (or not) looking for what you need. Seems obvious, but it was an epiphany for me.
Then there were the days, ever so briefly, when I could afford a cleaning woman. One day she asked if I had a toothbrush so she could clean the detail on the radiators. I was flabbergasted. First, I would never even think of cleaning the detail on the radiators - I barely run the vacuum. Second, it never occurred to me to use a toothbrush to clean anything but my teeth. Now, a toothbrush in is the forefront of my arsenal of cleaning tools. I use it when I’m doing the laundry, the dishes, the bathroom, everywhere. I buy more toothbrushes for cleaning than I do for brushing my teeth!
These are the things, things that seem so obvious to me now, that I didn’t learn until I was an adult. I also learned that coffee filters will attract static-y animal hair that won’t wipe off a sink or tub or toilet with a regular cloth. Not such an obvious cleaning method, but very effective, and very useful when you have an animal, or like me, six of them.
So while I don’t clean as much as I should, certain things look a lot better than they used to, now that I have some new tricks in my bag. Sorry sis, Aunt Mary’s house will always be cleaner than mine, but at least you’ll have clean sheets and towels and there won’t be any, well, as many, stray animal hairs in the bathroom. I don’t think I’ll ever get around to cleaning the detail on the radiators, though.
When I was young, my mother always changed all the sheets and did all the wash, and cleaned up after all of us. She made all of our meals and cleaned up after those, too. She used to say “I’m doing this for you now because someday you’ll have to do it for your own kids.”
Her logic was flawed in two ways for me: 1) I never had any kids; 2) Now I don’t know how to clean. It never occurred to me that cleaning was skilled labor, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can clean all day only to end up with unsatisfying results. This is how I learned that I didn’t know squat about cleaning and why I hated it so much. For me, cleaning was just one big exercise in spinning my wheels.
I’ll never forget the day I read in Real Simple magazine that you should stock two buckets with the same cleaners so that you can keep one upstairs and one downstairs, spending less time and energy running up and down stairs (or not) looking for what you need. Seems obvious, but it was an epiphany for me.
Then there were the days, ever so briefly, when I could afford a cleaning woman. One day she asked if I had a toothbrush so she could clean the detail on the radiators. I was flabbergasted. First, I would never even think of cleaning the detail on the radiators - I barely run the vacuum. Second, it never occurred to me to use a toothbrush to clean anything but my teeth. Now, a toothbrush in is the forefront of my arsenal of cleaning tools. I use it when I’m doing the laundry, the dishes, the bathroom, everywhere. I buy more toothbrushes for cleaning than I do for brushing my teeth!
These are the things, things that seem so obvious to me now, that I didn’t learn until I was an adult. I also learned that coffee filters will attract static-y animal hair that won’t wipe off a sink or tub or toilet with a regular cloth. Not such an obvious cleaning method, but very effective, and very useful when you have an animal, or like me, six of them.
So while I don’t clean as much as I should, certain things look a lot better than they used to, now that I have some new tricks in my bag. Sorry sis, Aunt Mary’s house will always be cleaner than mine, but at least you’ll have clean sheets and towels and there won’t be any, well, as many, stray animal hairs in the bathroom. I don’t think I’ll ever get around to cleaning the detail on the radiators, though.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Broke? Join the club - it's not that bad
Money can be a real drag, mostly when you don’t have any. But it’s amazing how you can get by when you think you’re broke.
I get paid once a month and it’s not always easy to parcel it out evenly over four weeks. There are always unexpected costs that invariably crop up, like the new tires you have to buy, right away, when your car fails inspection. Boom! There goes your walking around money for the next two months. Definitely no Starbucks for a while. Hopefully there is enough left over to make the minimum payments on your credit cards.
When you still need to put gas in the car, the one with the new tires, and might like to at least go see a movie, who wants to waste money buying food? It’s surprising what you can find to eat in your house when you’re low on cash. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.
What used to look like an empty cupboard is now filled - with the box of Ritz crackers that has been in there forever - Everything sits on a Ritz! - the Ramen noodles that you brought home with you from college years ago, even the shredded mini-wheats you bought that week you were on a fiber kick. Way in the back, you can even see that old bag of coffee beans that you used before there was a Starbuck’s. How long ago was that? And of course there’s tuna fish. Whether you like tuna fish or not, for some reason, it’s always in the cupboard. As long as your almost empty fridge has at least some milk, eggs, cheese and a little mayo, you’ve got a smorgasbord!
For breakfast, it’s time to haul out the “unsweetened” mini-wheats. Hopefully there is some kind of sugar around to help out with that. Okay, so you can’t have Starbucks, but that’s what the coffee beans are for. Crank up the old coffee maker, add some milk and sugar to your coffee, shake it up and you’ve got a latte.
At lunch, it’s time to whip out the Ritz crackers and make a little plate of cheese and cracker sandwiches. Maybe you can find a tomato or cucumber from the fridge to slice up, and add a shmere of mayo on a couple of them for variety. Put them in the toaster oven and you’ve got mini grilled cheese sandwiches. Voila!
Dinner presents you with a choice - tuna fish or Ramen Noodles. You could just have tuna fish and mayo, or you could spice it up with all that jazz in the refrigerator door that you haven’t used in ages. Italian salad dressing instead of mayo is a calorie saver, and you can chop up some of that tomato or cucumber from lunch and toss it in. While you’re at it, why not get out those pearl onions that you bought during your short-lived martini, or rather Gibson, phase? A few of those chopped up in a tuna fish mix will give it a real zing. Who knew such bounties could be found in a seemingly foodless kitchen?
Don’t forget the Ramen noodles. Add the flavor packet, stir in an egg while it’s still boiling and then cover the finished product with shredded cheese. If there is any cucumber and tomato left, mix it with some of that salad dressing on the side and you have a balanced meal. Protein, dairy, vegetables, carbs and of course the indispensable flavor packet.
So when life causes you to pinch a few pennies, there are ways to handle it and not have to sacrifice everything. Who knows? You might even save enough to get your Starbucks!
I get paid once a month and it’s not always easy to parcel it out evenly over four weeks. There are always unexpected costs that invariably crop up, like the new tires you have to buy, right away, when your car fails inspection. Boom! There goes your walking around money for the next two months. Definitely no Starbucks for a while. Hopefully there is enough left over to make the minimum payments on your credit cards.
When you still need to put gas in the car, the one with the new tires, and might like to at least go see a movie, who wants to waste money buying food? It’s surprising what you can find to eat in your house when you’re low on cash. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.
What used to look like an empty cupboard is now filled - with the box of Ritz crackers that has been in there forever - Everything sits on a Ritz! - the Ramen noodles that you brought home with you from college years ago, even the shredded mini-wheats you bought that week you were on a fiber kick. Way in the back, you can even see that old bag of coffee beans that you used before there was a Starbuck’s. How long ago was that? And of course there’s tuna fish. Whether you like tuna fish or not, for some reason, it’s always in the cupboard. As long as your almost empty fridge has at least some milk, eggs, cheese and a little mayo, you’ve got a smorgasbord!
For breakfast, it’s time to haul out the “unsweetened” mini-wheats. Hopefully there is some kind of sugar around to help out with that. Okay, so you can’t have Starbucks, but that’s what the coffee beans are for. Crank up the old coffee maker, add some milk and sugar to your coffee, shake it up and you’ve got a latte.
At lunch, it’s time to whip out the Ritz crackers and make a little plate of cheese and cracker sandwiches. Maybe you can find a tomato or cucumber from the fridge to slice up, and add a shmere of mayo on a couple of them for variety. Put them in the toaster oven and you’ve got mini grilled cheese sandwiches. Voila!
Dinner presents you with a choice - tuna fish or Ramen Noodles. You could just have tuna fish and mayo, or you could spice it up with all that jazz in the refrigerator door that you haven’t used in ages. Italian salad dressing instead of mayo is a calorie saver, and you can chop up some of that tomato or cucumber from lunch and toss it in. While you’re at it, why not get out those pearl onions that you bought during your short-lived martini, or rather Gibson, phase? A few of those chopped up in a tuna fish mix will give it a real zing. Who knew such bounties could be found in a seemingly foodless kitchen?
Don’t forget the Ramen noodles. Add the flavor packet, stir in an egg while it’s still boiling and then cover the finished product with shredded cheese. If there is any cucumber and tomato left, mix it with some of that salad dressing on the side and you have a balanced meal. Protein, dairy, vegetables, carbs and of course the indispensable flavor packet.
So when life causes you to pinch a few pennies, there are ways to handle it and not have to sacrifice everything. Who knows? You might even save enough to get your Starbucks!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Irritating Experiences
So I'm Just Jane. I'm starting a blog way later than just about everyone on the internet. This irritates me because I am a writer and should have been blogging long ago. Then again "they" say you should never dwell on what you should have, could have, would have done. Good advice, but hard to follow.
I'll be blogging about whatever topic strikes me on any particular day, topics to which everyone can hopefully relate. I invite comments and look forward to posting back and forth with anyone who wants to talk. Which brings me back to my topic for today, irritating experiences. It drives me crazy to see the English language butchered. I literally cringe. In the previous paragraph I wrote about should have, could have and would have. Did you know there are people out there who think it's correct to write "should of," "could of" and "would of?" I don't pretend to have a complete command of the English language, but this is just wrong! My skin crawls thinking about it.
I just got back from a particularly irritating trip to the grocery store. I was bringing in a bag of soda cans to recycle when a woman with a grocery cart full of cans eases me out to get to the recycling center first. So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. I finally get to the recycling machines and when I bring my deposit return vouchers to the customer service line to quickly redeem them, guess who is in front of me with a half full bag of off-brand bottles and cans that the machine wouldn't accept? This indicates that I will be waiting yet again for the same woman to make her case for the ineligible containers, and then count them out one-by-one for credit.
Before I could get totally irritated with her, I notice the woman in front of her is buying 50 or so gift cards and the store clerk has to ring up each of the cards and activate them individually. All this time my dog is in the car, because I thought I'd be in and out. My tolerance level is at zero now and after two or three people then backed up behind me, I gave up. Three dollars in recycling vouchers was not worth this level of frustration. And now that I'm carrying the vouchers around with me, they will undoubtedly get lost before I get a chance to redeem them. At least the dog was happy to see me, which always cheers me up.
Then there's the paper boy, or paper man. Depending on how our two cars are parked in the driveway he chooses to bring the paper to the door, or leave it at the far end of our long circular driveway in a snowbank. It is a cold walk in the morning walking to end of that driveway in pajamas. He says he's afraid he won't be able to turn around if our cars are parked a certain way. Did I mention that we have a "circular" driveway? He doesn't have to turn around. He can simply drive around the circle and get the paper within at least 10 feet of the front door. Irritating.
I could go on, but that's for another day.
I'll be blogging about whatever topic strikes me on any particular day, topics to which everyone can hopefully relate. I invite comments and look forward to posting back and forth with anyone who wants to talk. Which brings me back to my topic for today, irritating experiences. It drives me crazy to see the English language butchered. I literally cringe. In the previous paragraph I wrote about should have, could have and would have. Did you know there are people out there who think it's correct to write "should of," "could of" and "would of?" I don't pretend to have a complete command of the English language, but this is just wrong! My skin crawls thinking about it.
I just got back from a particularly irritating trip to the grocery store. I was bringing in a bag of soda cans to recycle when a woman with a grocery cart full of cans eases me out to get to the recycling center first. So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. I finally get to the recycling machines and when I bring my deposit return vouchers to the customer service line to quickly redeem them, guess who is in front of me with a half full bag of off-brand bottles and cans that the machine wouldn't accept? This indicates that I will be waiting yet again for the same woman to make her case for the ineligible containers, and then count them out one-by-one for credit.
Before I could get totally irritated with her, I notice the woman in front of her is buying 50 or so gift cards and the store clerk has to ring up each of the cards and activate them individually. All this time my dog is in the car, because I thought I'd be in and out. My tolerance level is at zero now and after two or three people then backed up behind me, I gave up. Three dollars in recycling vouchers was not worth this level of frustration. And now that I'm carrying the vouchers around with me, they will undoubtedly get lost before I get a chance to redeem them. At least the dog was happy to see me, which always cheers me up.
Then there's the paper boy, or paper man. Depending on how our two cars are parked in the driveway he chooses to bring the paper to the door, or leave it at the far end of our long circular driveway in a snowbank. It is a cold walk in the morning walking to end of that driveway in pajamas. He says he's afraid he won't be able to turn around if our cars are parked a certain way. Did I mention that we have a "circular" driveway? He doesn't have to turn around. He can simply drive around the circle and get the paper within at least 10 feet of the front door. Irritating.
I could go on, but that's for another day.
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