a publisher in rochester puts out a women’s magazine, and my mom was looking at the most recent issue yesterday when she told me i should submit something.
hmm.
so, i looked in the mag and saw they only had directions for hard-copy submissions, so i emailed the contact. she got back to me straight away, asking me where i hailed from, and then to send something.
i wonder if she’s needing writing?
anyway, i’m wondering what i should submit! oh my. i think it can be any length. i’ve got to go back and search through old blog posts.
i just wrote these couple paragraphs for the last chapter of my DS book!
This part of the state is a contrast in land studies. On the one hand, there are flat expanses that open the sky up to a driver with few trees dotting the horizon. Sunsets are vast and pastel. Fields are large, but there are more owners than west central; farmhouses crop up often and are easy to spot with the small cluster of trees close to the roadside. There are far fewer trees in this part of the state, and once you’ve gotten used to trees, it’s hard to go back.
When a person heads in a more southeasterly fashion toward the Wisconsin/Iowa/Minnesota intersection, the river valley rears its head, and valleys dip in and out of existence. One minute you’re driving across a flat expanse of corn-riddled farms and the next you’ve pushed on the brakes as you head into a rolling valley filled with trees with a river at the bottom. Nate and took a drive to a valley town during July, and as we drove along the ridge of the valley, we could see the rolling hills and trees – over the tops of corn fields.
“This would be a whole lot prettier if there weren’t so much effing corn,” he observed. Truer words and all that.
a thing for april to do for my blog. like take a picture of every meal. or work through a cookbook. if my dad ever finds his martha cookie book, i’ll give that a go, but what do you want to see here? anything in particular? haiku a day? cookie a day? picture of my foot every day? progressive photos of my grey hairs? cat a day?
let me know! i’m needing some ideas to tide me over til garden season.
haiku for you
veronica mars
early saturday showing
who: pizz or logan?
ten years ago. 2004. i had just moved out from a bad living situation and was renting a one-bedroom from a nice lady landlord. branden had a livejournal account, and even though i’d been bugging him to refer me so i could get an account, he declined. “yeah, i don’t want to give it to you if you’re not going to use it.”
10 years later, who’s still blogging? huh branden?
fortunately livejournal opened up for general consumption, and i grabbed an account and started typing 10 years ago today.
10 years ago:
i was in grad school after moving from one bad job to another bad job
had just started seeing a guy i’d eventually marry
was going through a mild quarter-life crisis
still had the same old cat (chasey!)
had only been using the internet for 7 (7!) years
had a two-DVDs/month plan with netflix
my blog has gone through a couple transformations in the past 10 years. i went from a livejournal-hosted blog to a personal website-hosted blog in 2008. i lost a year and a half’s worth of entries in the great blog migration of 2012. my livejournal (house of kate) is still alive, but i’ve deleted everything from it and put it here. and believe it or not, i actually opened up a blogspot blog a year or two before my livejournal, but who knows what the web address is or the date i started it (it was pretty short-lived), so even though i’ve “technically” been blogging for more than 10 years, this is the easily recorded anniversary.
i have two consistent readers i know of for sure: my sisters. thanks to them for at least showing me some traffic. i know there are more of you, but my sisters for sure have read my blog over the past 10 years.
and to celebrate my blogiversary, instead of getting myself a cake, i will give my readers a list of my top ten blogs.
salon published an article telling the world that we need to quit with the “year of” stunts. people write books or blog about how they’re spending their year being an atheist, or living the biblical law, or being vegetarian, or cooking all of julia child’s recipes. much of the article is focused on the goal-orientation and on-off switch of the year-long stunt.
i have only one beef with these sort of experiments myself: after the year is up, it’s bye bye blog! that’s why my blog covers many varied topics, all of which, coincidentally, have to do with me. my posts are about writing, photography, eating, running, campaigns against devil’s syrup, etc…and when those things run out, i will blog about something else i’m doing.
so my 10-year blogging anniversary is quite the accomplishment, if you look at other abandoned blogs.
and ironically, i’m doing a year of blogging to celebrate. unironically, i plan to continue my blog after my year of blogging ends, because, well, this is getting way too meta to think about, so i’ll leave it at that.
i’ll admit, blogging every day for a year is going to have its challenges, but ultimately i’m not going to quit writing or get bored with it.
so, salon, you can suck it. this is one “year of” stunt that is celebrating something i’ve already been doing and will continue doing afterward, just in smaller doses. (plus, i might continue on with the daily blogging – one never knows!)
i get these form http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/
once again, santa was a victim of inter-stellar mugging. this was the third time, and it was getting old. speaking of old, he was definitely getting too old for this.
just last night, christmas eve, he was out on his yearly journey, his eight tiny reindeer leaping through the skies toward their destinations. he was almost done – just a few of the aleutians left to drop down chimneys and leave goodies, then it was a quick right toward home. he could smell the hot chocolate laced with bailey’s already. he was dreaming of his comfy bed. his reindeer were dreaming of carrots and oats.
then, out of nowhere, they came for him. it was like they had a wormhole homed in specifically on him every christmas eve. suddenly santa and his sleigh were bathed in a bright blue-white light; the reindeer reared, the sleigh shuddered, and they were beamed aboard.
“not again,” santa muttered. he decided to just close his eyes and let them do their thing.
once in the hull of the ship (it was a huge ship – santa more than once wondered how on earth, with all the fancy detection systems the countries around the world had, that no one had detected it. he had checked the news each of the previous two times he’d been zapped, and nothing), the speedy little suckers swarmed around his sleigh. they were children, climbing all over his sleigh and nosing into his bag. whether or not they were actually children or just transformed to look like kids so he wouldn’t be freaked out, santa didn’t know. all he knew was that he couldn’t kick a kaboodle of kids outta his sleigh.
so he sighed and let them take over. they took his candy canes, his chocolate, the remaining presents, his stash of hot chocolate (sans bailey’s for the sleigh ride), the tinsel in the glove compartment, cookies and candies, the extra stockings, jingle bells – even his naughty list! (he was getting to the age where he forgot often and so needed a list).
then they pulled him from the sleigh, and he obliged. the first time he had protested, but learned that was a mistake when they knocked him out cold and he didn’t wake up for another week. his tummy was certainly grumbling for a sugar cookie by that point.
santa stumbled to the circle in the center of the hull under a bright light. his reindeer snuffled, whites of their eyes showing, and stomped their feet.
“it’s ok lads. i’ll see you soon.” each time his sleigh and reindeer had landed safely at home in the north pole, none worse for the wear except for being stripped of anything of value and a frantic ms. claus.
a murmur in a weird language unknown to santa (and he knew all the languages) went up among the group of alien children who had led him over to the circle, then he felt a familiar swooping sensation, and glimpsing one last look at the horde overtaking his sleigh, he was gone.
*****
his suit was getting a little warm, and why on earth was his comfy bed so unbearable this morning? his mittened hands went up to rub his sandy morning eyes, and they opened on a cityscape. and then it hit him.
mugged again.
i got a great suggestion from my sister jane today for my kablpomo post today.
for kablamo (that’s how i read it in my head) you should write about the differences between nano and kablamo. what you like, don’t like, what you miss about nano that you can’t find in kablamo, etc.
kaBLAMo!
nanowrimo and kablpomo are two different beasts for me, and each has its own place.
1. kablpomo can be short and sweet or long and heavy.
2. kablpomo can change topics every day
3. kablpomo can be pictures, lists, youtube embeds, etc. it doesn’t necessarily NEED to be words. it’s all about the blog post, and blog posts
what does nanowrimo have that kablpomo doesn’t?
1. i don’t NEED to write nano every day. if i miss a day of kablpomo, big ol’ FAIL on my part. sure, i can get behind on nano, but it’s all about the final word count at the end of the month.
2. accomplishing nano is HUGE. to push out 50,000 words in a month is HUGE. the feeling of finishing nano vs. kabl is about 500x more of a high.
3. there’s something about finishing a story that used to be in my head. look what i pulled out of my head and put into words.
because my house life is a shambles right now, with boxes lining the walls and conquering the porch every day as i try to kick off my shoes, kablpomo seems a little hopeless to me. nanowrimo seems light years away, although i will attempt to do some writing on my devil’s syrup book this month, and i haven’t cracked a book in at least week.
at this point, because everything’s all over the place, it’s easier to come home from work, throw my stuff in the corner (because, really, does it make a difference since everything’s a mess anyway?), pet a cat, and plop on the couch to spend an hour deciding what to watch on netflix.
then spend an hour surfing reddit.
then spend an hour creeping people on facebook and twitter.
then spend an hour finding the best price on an obscure movie i watched 28 years ago.
then time to go to bed, and if i bring my phone, spend another hour on reddit.
what did i accomplish? well, i got my money’s worth of bandwidth from charter.
when did my brain make a switch from thinking reading and writing was fabulous to boring? why will i put down a book to pick up my phone to look at inane stuff that, ultimately, i don’t really care about? image by Audrey Westcott – http://www.studlife.com/author/audreywestcott/
way back in the year 2000, the american psychological association was already studying the effects of internet addiction. this was back when modems, chat rooms, and waiting until after you got home from work to check your personal emails were still a thing. if they were studying it THEN, when every person didn’t have a personal internet machine in his or her pocket, i can only image the effects now.
looking at some more recent coverage, there are some places that actually have internet withdrawal programs.
Bradford Regional Medical Center, has become the first in the U.S. to treat severe Internet addiction through a 10-day inpatient program. Patients admitted to the voluntary behavorial health treatment center must first undergo a “digital detox” that prohibits Internet use for at least 72 hours, followed by therapy sessions and educational seminars to “help them get their Internet compulsion under control.” “Like any other addiction, we look at whether it has jeopardized their career, whether they lie about their usage, or whether it inteferes with relationships,” Young explained. Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was first coined as a joke by Dr. Ivan Goldberg in 1995.
well har har, dr. ivan. who’s laughing now? not me, that’s for sure. the internet hasn’t jeopardized my career (quite the opposite!), i don’t lie about my usage, and the only relationship MY usage has interfered with is my self relationship (nate’s usage is another story 😉 ).
like all addictive substances, go through withdrawal and then stay away from it. willpower! willpower! but how on earth does a person stay away from the internet this day in age, especially when my job relies on it? it certainly doesn’t help that i’ve probably got a brain that tends toward addiction.
until that day comes, i’ll use that useless, addiction-crazy willpower of mine and attempt to corral my personal usage – attempt being the keyword. i’m not giving up the internet, but i can try to put it in its place. i win, internet. i win.
When I sit down to write, fingers to keyboard, ready to fill the white void, I often have a moment’s hesitation. There is something daunting about that blank space that gives me a pause, and I have a short burst of writer’s block. What if I can’t fill the space? What if my brain doesn’t want to spit out the words? What if the fact that I haven’t written anything substantial in three months finally catches up to me? What if it’s gone? What if…what if…what if…?
Then the words flow from brain to fingers, and the white void becomes something substantial – something real.
When I was invited to post to Medium, I was so excited. But I had no idea what to write – of course now that I had an opportunity to reach more people on a large platform, I felt like my brain was out of good ideas. My first (and only, save this one) post was something I had written in 2007.
I used to write all the time. In gradeschool I was the huge nerd who wrote short stories and read them aloud during Reading class in school. I started a full-length novel my first year in college, an angsty fantasy romance where the heroine dies in the end. I took many classes where writing was the focal point, finishing with a minor in creative writing. I enjoyed writing research papers (yes, you read that right). A couple years after college, I started my blog as an outlet for my words, and nine-and-a-half years later, here we are. My lifetime readers have seen the early entries, posts pulling from the past with memories swelling at the seams; they have also seen recent contributions, where the majority of my posts are daily comings and goings and full of pictures.
What do you do when the well feels like it’s drying up? I started writing a book on my journey to eliminate corn syrup from my diet back in May…I haven’t written a word in three months. Instead of pushing through and putting words to paper (so to speak), I have been pushing it aside. I used to be able to write for hours and hours, but I feel it’s such a chore lately.
Part of this I blame on a self-diagnosis of social ADD. I spend so much time checking my online presence – my work is social media, so I get to work and login to Facebook and Twitter, then go home and login to Facebook and Twitter. I have been known, on more than one occasion, to check my Facebook WHILE ON FACEBOOK. Back in the old days of 2003, I would go to work with no internet access, then come home and check my email and messageboards. Now my technological life is in my pocket at all times. I need an intervention, but when my work revolves around that from which I need to abstain, it gets a little hairy.
Another part of this is that I’m just lazy. I need to get a schedule to write and stick to it. That’s why I like NANOWRIMO so much – it’s only a competition with myself, and only myself loses if I don’t finish. Out of the three years I attempted NANO, I beat myself two years – 2007 and 2011 (RIP 2010). It’s such a rush to have this national gathering of writers pledging to write 50,000 words in a month. And when you plug in your finished product at the end of November to find your word-count is awesome? It’s such a rush.
My sister Jane and I recently went to a convention where we encountered an unexpected guest – an hour Q&A with a writer at a horror convention (nerdism runs in the family). He was speaking specifically to horror and thriller writing, but his advice can be applied to all types of writing. Words are words, after all, scary or not.
I asked how he got past writer’s block (without actually mentioning writer’s block). He said one of his books took 15 years to write – it just had to gestate that long. Ultimately, though, you just have to write and push through the block, just like with anything that’s in the way. That’s what I have to do, that’s what you have to do, that’s what anyone has to do.
November’s fast approaching. NANOWRIMO might be the final push I need to get myself back into the writing groove. It really isn’t NANO that does it though – it’s a personal choice that has to come from a person’s own ambition; whether you win or lose in the end is really up to you. Get those fingers in shape – time to push past the block.
image via Flint-Hill on flickr
today i took a bike ride a little later than normal and was riding back just at the cusp of dusk. the sun had just set, but it was still light enough to be out for a walk or bike ride. rochester has quite the array of bike trails, and i am able to trail ride for all but about three blocks of my rides. the final stretch of trail runs alongside a ditch that slopes up into a wooded area. tonight as i was riding home past the ditch, it suddenly lit up with fireflies, blinking my way home.
there were fireflies when we lived in austin – midsummer evening twilights my siblings and i would run out across the lawn to catch the blinky bugs. my dad would catch one and smear the butts across his shirt, neon yellow fluorescing his chest. when we moved to new london, the fireflies were nowhere to be found, but i didn’t realize they were gone. once in st. joe i saw a firefly, but i think it was lost.
last summer i had a glimpse – once or twice in austin i would sit outside at the right time and see some fireflies, but i think they tried to stay away from the cows. this summer, however, it’s been a bevy of bugs. last weekend jane and i were driving from lacrosse back to rochester, and the ditches were glittering with fireflies – one hit my windshield. the past couple nights i’ve been outside at dusk and fireflies light up the ditches, the yard, the driveway – they’re everywhere, and i am fascinated. how on earth did i go so long without fireflies, and why did i forget about them?
ever so slowly, i might be ok with the move to this part of the state.
