The Ten Most Useful Websites for Your Family You’ve Never Heard Of

Most of my friends and family don’t quite “get” what my job is, but they know that it has to do with writing, the web, and advertising. Actually, come to think of it, if they understand that much, they’re doing pretty well. At any rate, as the resident web geek in my social circle, friends and family often ask me for recommendations for websites that actually add value to their lives, as opposed to becoming sucking black holes into which their time disappears.

So here are the ten websites that I recommend most often to my non-geek friends and family. Read more

No, No, Nanowrimo

This year, for the first time in three or four years, I am not planning on even attempting to write a novel in November with the rest of the NaNoWriMos.

Not that I’ve ever actually completed the goal of writing a 70,000 word novel (or to be more technically accuate, novella) in 30 days. But for the last few years, I have consistently tried to do so, and the experience of trying has been good for my writing.

Part of the reason Read more

tell me what you want, what you really really want

I have a habit of using song lyrics as post titles, but I’m betting none of my regular reader friends was expecting a Spice Girls lyric to show up, were you?

Apparently, the Spice Girls reunion tour is doing rather well. I guess even Pop Star life doesn’t end at 30, after all. Good for them–and it reminds me of something I’ve wanted to write about here. Read more

Haunt You Every Day

Chris and I are big fans of Grey’s Anatomy. I like any well-done character-driven drama and Chris likes medical drama, so it was an easy one to agree on.

So anyway, I see that the title of the “Halloween” episode is “Haunt You Every Day.” It’s a title that connects to me very strongly at the moment.

Maybe it’s the whole idea of All Hallows Eve and the Feast of All Saints. As positive as remembering and honoring those who have passed on ahead of us might be, it’s also fraught with fear, ambivalence, grief and loss. Read more

falling forward - striking a balance between dependence and independence

One of my favorite classes was Acting I when I was in college. In addition to working on basic acting techniques, the class did a lot of interesting exercises that helped students get in touch with body awareness, moving in space, and building trust with the other folks on stage.

If you don’t have theater experience, it might not be immediately apparent why the ability to build trust in other people is crucial to acting. However, it doesn’t take much time up on a stage to realize that you and your ego are pretty much at the mercy of the other actors. Not if, but when you forget a line, you need to know that the other actors have your back, and will help you out, rather than just stand there watching you flounder with an amused smirk on their faces. Similarly, there is nothing more frustrating than having a performance you worked your butt off preparing thrown completely off by someone else who didn’t prepare properly or for whatever reason, has decided (without giving you a heads up) to go off-script and just ad lib for a while.

So anyway, I was thinking about when we did the Trust Fall exercise in Acting I, and how it relates to how people relate to the world in general. In a class of about 20 people about half did the Trust Fall exactly as instructed. About half simply refused to do it, or tried and had to give up because they just couldn’t make themselves fall backwards into the arms of a half-dozen or so near-strangers. And then there was me. Read more

distractions

Now that it’s Fall, I picked up my crochet work again for the first time since Spring. I’ve been working on a shawl/poncho in a really beautiful shade of Simply Soft Autumn Red for a while now, and it’s about half done.

Crochet is a nice distraction for me–something that takes my brain out of my normal ruts and drops it into a nice, alternative, perpendicular rut. It helps me when, like tonight, I feel sick to death of myself, of writing, of the web, of everything that I tend to overindulge in. (Interesting, then, that I can blog about this when I’ve had difficulty finishing blog posts lately. I’ve started about three posts in the last week, only to find myself two screen lengths in and nowhere close to a resolution. Apparently, I have a book in me that is attempting to come out when I blog. But I digress.)

We all need our distractions. Honestly, if we had to face our lives head on 24/7/365, we’d probably spontaneously combust.

But we can take distraction too far. Or let it take over without realizing it. Read more

personal coaching and spiritual direction

Going to take a little of my own advice, and write today a little bit from my own personal story, only rather than fictionalize it, I’m going to be straight up and own that I’m not talking about “a friend.”

(Which, by the way, does anyone really think they’re fooling anyone when they ask for advice or share something personal on behalf of a “friend”? Why do we need that flimsy domino mask when asking for help for our problems anyway? Just wondering. If you have any interesting theories, feel free to post them in the comments.)

Read more

the writing life exposed: brainstorming story ideas

As I mentioned in my last post about writing, most of the time for me, figuring out what to write about isn’t an issue–I’m writing on an assignment from work, and things like format, story, and goals are already decided for me. In my opinion, that makes writing a lot simpler, but I’ve heard from people who say they couldn’t write if they had to write about things they aren’t that interested in. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I’m a naturally curious person, and I can pretty much get interested in anything.

But today, we’re going to talk about situations where no one is providing you with a topic, or any other direction regarding what to write, to whom you are writing, or why.

You might be lucky enough to have decided to sit down and write at exactly the time that a story idea has been really calling to you. If so, great–consider your brainstorming complete for today. Go have a cookie. The rest of us are going to talk now about ways to come up with a starting point when you really want to write, but you have no idea what to write about. Read more

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