I Breathe; Therefore, I Write

How the Media Failed in the Jerry Sandusky Child Abuse Tragedy

2011-12-03T12:34:00.003-05:00

When I was in college, studying journalism, the point was made over and over and over again that a good journalist is objective, focuses on the real story, and keeps to the facts. I remember the first time my reporting class went to a school board meeting. Almost all of us came away writing a story that was discussed the longest. If that was thing everyone was focusing on, that was main story, right?

Wrong, said my professor, as he docked our grades for reporting on knee-jerk reaction. Just because a story has an emotional reaction doesn't mean that's the story. He then pointed out the most newsworthy item of the night -- that one student actually wrote about, if I recall -- that would impact the school district deeply for a long time.

I didn't stay a journalism major past that year because the type of writing and reporting I wanted to do was better served through the English writing major. Nor did I envision myself being the type of person who could go up to a woman in tears to get her reaction on the death of her child or butt myself into someone's tragedy. But the lessons I learned in those journalism classes have stayed with me all these years.

I should also add that I'm a news and sports junkie. I will spend hours each night watching news and sports shows. I read newspapers and news/sports magazines. I visit several news/sports sites each day online. You all can have American Idol and Jersey Shore. I prefer my reality TV to be honest-to-goodness reality.

And then the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. As I watched the news unfold, I could feel the world crumble around me. I was horrified for the young men who allegedly suffered. But I also felt tremendous pain for my university and for my community. Those of you who are not part of the Penn State or State College communities don't know how this story is tearing us apart, so don't pretend that you do or get all moralistic because we are having intense emotional reactions that you don't agree with or understand.

Yet, I also mourn the loss of the media that I once wanted to be a part of and good journalistic ethics. I mourn the loss of journalists and news outlets that is objective, focuses on the real story, and keeps to the facts. It is like that school board story all over again -- the story with the greatest emotional reaction is rarely the primary point.

The news media around the globe have dubbed this the Penn State scandal. Except, it isn't. It is a child abuse tragedy that centers on a former employee of Penn State and some actions that allegedly involved the Penn State campus and perhaps other employees. Many of the stories of the accusers (which is what they are until the case goes to trial) take place in locations beyond Penn State.

But by dubbing this a Penn State scandal, the media can devote much of their time to the real emotional base of the story -- Joe Paterno. He is a world-famous name and face. He is a "legend" and an "icon" -- a fact, which every single story I've read insists on reminding us. Then the media decided to create their own scandal to go along with the crucifixtion of Paterno: he did not live up to his moral authority, according to the Grand Jury report.

Let the sensationalism begin.

As I watched the witch hunt (and yes, that's how we think of it here) began, I began to wonder why the news media wasn't reporting the following:

-- that the Grand Jury report was just that, a report. It is not the full Grand Jury testimony. Nor is the Grand Jury a trial. It is a means of gathering enough information to decide whether or not a case should go to a judge and jury trial. It is one, very incomplete side of the story. Yet, I can point to only one news story or broadcast that emphasized that. Hence,

-- no one knows the true story. Matt Millen said it best: we don't know what we think we know. Here's an example for you: Yesterday, I stopped off for a hoagie, went to a volleyball game, cheered on my team to a win, and then came home. Do you know what kind of hoagie I had? Where I watched the game? What the final score was? Or what I did after I came home? Based on what I just told you, of course not, and you probably wouldn't bother to make any assumptions. The Grand Jury report doesn't give a second by second time line of everything. Nor has anyone in the media bothered to investigate how long police or other officials are required to keep documents on file.

-- Joe Paterno was not the most powerful person at Penn State, nor was Graham Spanier beloved by the Penn State community. Spanier was the king of kings around here since he showed up in the mid-90s, and folks who work at Penn State will tell you that quite bluntly. "I'm not sorry to see Spanier gone," is a common refrain in these parts. Paterno had power, to be sure, and he had it long before 1982, as one ESPN writer claimed. But Spanier usurped him supremely. But Spanier isn't as sexy a story as Joe. It's too bad the media only decided to report the "Joe is mean and powerful" anecdotes, because if you live in State College long enough, you have your own personal dealings with the man and I'd say most of them are positive.

-- the real story of the "riots" downtown on the night Joe was fired. A little investigation would have shown, first and foremost, that a vigil was in the works from the get-go. I had invites in my Facebook mailbox on Sunday night and Monday morning. The word was being passed fast and furious. Secondly, eyewitness accounts talk about police brutality, like innocent people who were walking home from an evening out and followed police directions ending up pepper sprayed. (Yet, at the same time, the same actions by police in the Occupy movement were condemned.) Thirdly, other eyewitness accounts discuss the media inciting the actions of the students. A local news outlet showed a press conference with the State College chief of police who stated some media outlets were reporting riot-like incidents BEFORE they happened and this was being investigated. I've searched and searched for other outlets reporting the same thing, and found nothing.

-- what Penn State students do for kids. In the rush to judge them as selfish, hateful, only caring about the football team, no one bothered to mention the millions of dollars and thousands of hours the students give to helping children. I invite every single critic to return in February to witness THON. If you aren't moved by that, you have a heart of stone. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Has anyone bothered to mention the nearly $500K that students and alumni raised in less than a month in support of victims of sexual abuse?

-- what really happened at Central Mountain. If we are to go by only the Grand Jury report, two coaches at Central Mountain High School witnessed alleged abuse and didn't report it to anyone. School officials allegedly allowed Sandusky to come into the building and take kids out of class, without parental permission. None of this was known until Accuser #1's mother went to the police. Note that the Grand Jury does not mention that any school administrator went to the police. Again, this isn't the sexy emotional stoy, but it is a media double standard when it comes to reporting.

-- everybody who is anybody in Centre County has a connection with Second Mile and after deriding one judge for her volunteer with the charity, didn't bother to report that all of the county judges recused themselves from the case. For the same reason. State College is really a small rural town with one primary employer -- Penn State. Many of the businesses that have been built up here were started by former Penn State employees or alumni. For many years, I've likened this to an old-fashioned company town. Everything is intertwined. You can't separate Penn State from anything. Second Mile is unique because of its strong football ties, but many of us in the community supported helping at-risk kids. Penn State is involved in a lot of other charities, like the United Way. You can't easily disconnect the community at large and the University.

-- the vast majority of the "children" accusers are now adults. Some of them may be Penn State students and alumni. They might watch the news or ESPN regularly. They might be football fans and season ticket holders, and maybe they were protesting on Old Main lawn. For all the protestations of "thinking of the victims," have the media ever once considered what their reporting is doing to the victims' mental well being? (No, ratings are all that count.)

Instead, I've read articles where the media try to create stories and draw an even stronger emotional reaction (hatred) from the public at large. Just look at all the conspiracy theories that have come up about Gricar. I've come to question the validity of many of the articles; in fact, many of them are just littered with inaccuracies. "Experts" are interviewed to give their opinions and condemn the people who were made central the story and condemn the community, but the "experts" don't know any more than the rest of us, and they certainly don't grasp the Penn State community.

If I lived somewhere else and this happened to a different school, I would probably buy into everything being reported and have very negative feelings too. How could I not, based on the information I've been fed? There are some voices stepping forward to say "let me explain the Penn State I know," but they are either trampled down or vilified in the comment section. I know I've tried to explain that the media haven't been reporting fairly or always truthfully, but I got shouted down and have been accused of all kinds of horrific acts.

A few days into the news of the tragedy, a news anchor I once respected discounted a lawyer who was the lone voice I heard who tried to explain the Grand Jury report, and the reporter brushed off her comments, saying that all that counts is public opinion. Rather than thanking the lawyer for providing perspective, the news anchor brushed off her comments as unimportant, that mob rule was supreme.

I can no longer trust the media to report the news. I know a lot of people will point out that this has been the case for many years, and they are probably right. But now I have proof. It makes me sad. I haven't totally weaned myself off the news because it is important to be informed. But now I only read the first paragraph or two to get the basic gist of the story because I can't believe anything that comes after. I stopped watching the news pundit shows. I stopped watching Sports Center and will not be renewing my subscriptions to Sports Illustrated or ESPN the Magazine because I can't read either one anymore without wondering how many lies and half-truths they are spouting.

Many people have asked me why I'm not out there reporting on the story. For one reason: I can't be objective. And I was taught, if you can't be objective, you can't be a good reporter.

So Many Books, So Little Time

2011-05-31T13:00:00.003-04:00

I believe Thomas Jefferson said that. Whoever said it described my world to a tee. I am addicted to books. I love to buy them, to own them, to read them. I buy them new. I buy them used. My house is littered with books.

Hence, the problem for me is to decide what book to read at any given time. When book group makes a pick, then my choice is easy -- I read that book as soon as I get my hands on it. But I read quickly, and I need something else to fill the weeks in between book group picks. So I head to the shelves in my library (or in the spare bedroom, or in my office) and say, "Hm, what should I read next."

This year, I decided to go on a rotation of books -- mainstream fiction, non-fiction, and literature. But again, that leaves the whole "what the heck should I pick?" question. I can take days to decide, and then sometimes I'll end up just pulling something off the shelf because I want a quick read while I make my "real" decision.

So I decided to try something new. I wrote down two lists: one of literature I want to read or re-read this year. The other was of non-fiction I want to read. I thought about making a fiction list, but that will likely come from book group stuff and the mind candy novels I'll pull out to rest my brain. I cut up the lists into small pieces of paper and tossed them into different otherwise unused coffee mugs. This is going to be the way I choose books if I don't really know what I want to read.

I'm finishing a Bill Bryson memoir now and next up is literature. I reached into the mug. I shuffled the papers, and what do I pull out? My old standby, my very favorite book ever written.

Last weekend, I read a novel that I randomly pulled off the shelf because I wanted to read some mind candy and I had never read it before, and it ended up being a book that spoke to me at a very deep, intense level. Now I pull out one of my comfort books, a novel I return to every couple of years because it is like an old friend I need to revisit. I almost put the slip of paper back in the mug to pull another one because I kind of wanted to read something I haven't. But that's not how this game is going to work, so I put the slip of paper down and pulled the book off the shelf.

And you know, based on everything that has happened around here recently, this is the perfect time to visit with that old friend.

Writing for Fun

2011-05-24T11:43:00.002-04:00

Some years ago, I was at a party and was introduced to a friend's then boyfriend. He was the son of a relatively famous musician. The guy wanted to think of himself as a musician, too, but he made his living as a writer. That's why I was introduced to the guy. Even though I wasn't in a job where I was writing full time, I had just begun to pick up some freelance work, and I spent a lot of my time working on my crappy fiction.

So, when I met this guy, it was very obvious writing was NOT what he wanted to talk about (something I totally get now), but when he heard I made some money writing, he seemed to relax a little. I think he even gave me his card because he said he sometimes needed freelancers. But then I asked him what kind of writing he did for fun.

"Didn't you hear me?" he sneered. "I write for a job. There is nothing fun about it. You should know that. I play music for fun. Writing is work." At that he rolled his eyes at me, and I had a few choice thoughts about his arrogance as I walked away from him. At the time I thought how could anybody claim to be a writer and not have writing they do for fun?

Now that I'm writing full time, I think about this guy every so often, and I came to this conclusion about him. First, he was jealous of his dad's success and thought it was due to him by birthright. Second, he wasn't a writer. He was a guy who wrote for a living because he could follow the formula and put the words in all the right places.

I thought about him the other day, after I read a book by Elizabeth Berg, called Home Safe. Had I not been a fan of Berg's, I would have hoped it was a book about baseball, but I knew it would be about a woman searching for the meaning of her life. Which it was. What I didn't know the woman would be a writer, searching for her desire to write again after her husband's death. As I read the book -- in one afternoon because I couldn't put it down -- it made me want to write. It made me miss writing.

Which is kind of funny because I write almost every single day. Six days a week, I have to write a short assignment and send it off to an editor. And then there are the longer articles I do regularly. So how on earth can I miss writing?

I miss fun writing. I miss doing the free writing exercises I did with a friend, some that turned into essays that got published. I miss writing essays, where I could just let my brain wander until it found the right story to tell. Mostly I miss writing crappy fiction, where I create characters and their dilemmas, taking up my life frustrations with pretend people. I don't worry about anyone reading my fiction because it is really really bad. But I love writing it. It makes me happy, really truly happy. And fulfilled in ways my writing job doesn't and never will.

So I gave myself a goal for this summer. On Friday afternoons, whenever I possibly can, I am going to free my afternoon to write for fun. Because as I read that book, I was reminded, I am a writer, someone who happens to also write for a living.

Hats off to WAHMs with Little Kids

2011-03-17T14:15:00.003-04:00

I've had my grandson all week. I purposely decided to limit my work load -- the blessings of being a freelance writer -- but the little bit of work I had to do during the day has been, well, interesting. I try to get those little chores done with interruptions of "Granny, I need 'stachios"; "Granny, I need a 'nack"; "Granny, can I pway wif you fwogs?" And so on.

Don't get me wrong. I love the little guy to pieces and we've had a lot of fun this week. We've been to the park, to the library, to the bookstore, to the Y swimming pool, and so on. We're watching Penn State play basketball now. But trying to get work done? I thought about writing at night, but by the time I get him to bed and read him 5 stories and then wait to see if he will be wandering back downstairs . . . well, by then I'm too exhausted to write and have vegged out with a novel.

So my hats are off to moms who work from home with toddlers and preschoolers around. That we as parents survive the years until the kids starts school shows that parents really can survive anything.

Who Do You Support: The Author or Local Business

2010-08-11T11:47:00.002-04:00

As it is summer and the college students are out of town, the local media need to have something to focus on. Their choice this summer: a used bookstore/cafe was being kicked out of its location because the owner had problems paying her lease. Her plight was immediately championed by her customers who were holding fundraisers and letter-writing campaigns to save the business.

Frankly, when I heard the news, I wasn't surprised. Now, I love bookstores and I love cafes in bookstores, and I'm the kind of customer bookstore/cafe owners love -- I rarely leave without buying a book. But I thought this was one of the most unfriendly places in town. The people who'd sit outside for hours drinking coffee were a little scary. Getting waited on inside was nearly impossible if you weren't a regular (and I heard stories from enough people who said they waited at the counter -- not in line but right at the counter -- for 10-15 minutes before getting someone to even acknowledge them). The set-up of the tables wasn't conducive to working with any kind of privacy. And the worst part was the way tables and chairs were set up in the stacks of books meant to be bought. The few times lately I've gone in there to look for a hard-to-find, out-of-print book, I was blocked by someone having coffee and on a computer in front of a whole bookcase. It was very awkward. Based on letters and comments on websites, I'm not the only one who had this reaction to the store.

A friend, knowing how much I love bookstores, was surprised when I said I didn't shop there and didn't care one way or the other. She said, "I thought you'd be someone who supports local businesses."

Last week at our book group meeting, my friend announced that she bought the book at used bookstore at its going out of business sale, everything half off. "I bought it for $5," she said. Which meant it was selling for $10, normally. I bought a new copy via an online bookstore for $10, no shipping costs. While I wasn't supporting the local store, I was supporting the author.

And there is the dilemma. I don't have a problem with buying used books -- especially when they are out of print or very hard to find new or if the profits of the book's sale is staying local in some way, like the used book store. I do have a problem, though, when I walk into a used book store and the owner is selling the book at the same cost of a new book, or close to it, and I could help an author out with a royalty. (Okay, truth is, I am so ridiculously picky about my books that I prefer new anyway; cost isn't the issue for me.)

Another friend argued that I only feel that way because I'm a writer and I published books, and that I should focus on saving a local business. Yet, I felt the local business was ripping off authors. And even if I'm buying the new book from a chain store located in town, aren't I still helping the local economy?

It balances out to an ethical dilemma, at least for this writer -- do I support the local bookstore, the only one left in town that isn't a major chain, or do I make sure the author gets a tally toward the royalty?

Following Directions

2010-07-21T22:56:00.002-04:00

I used to like flying. Not so much anymore for all the reasons other people don't like flying -- the hassles of TSA and the dumb changes in the airlines and the packed planes. On the flights I took this past week, though, I am adding another reason to the list: passengers who are above following directions.

Every plane was packed full. Before you got on board, it was announced to please PLEASE put small bags under the seat to save on bin space. The flight attendants kept reminding passengers to do that when people were going to their seat.

Yeah, I'm sure you can figure it out. Those requests and directions are for other people, not the special people on my planes.

Well, call me cranky, but I was in no mood to put up with the special people. My carry on suitcase is small and fits nicely into the bin. My bag with books, etc. fits perfectly under the seat. But I couldn't fit my suitcase into the bin because some moron had put his tiny backpack, maybe filled with some extra underwear and toothpaste, into the bin. Like I said, I was cranky. I pulled it out and asked who it belonged to. A 60something man in a jacket and nice pants turned around. I asked if there was room under the seat for it. He scowled and said yes. I tossed it to him and said, "You were asked to put it there in the first place so we could all have access to the bins." He gave me the hairy eyeball, but I gave it right back to him. The flight attendant smiled at me. My seatmate whispered, "Good for you." Hell, the guy had so little in that backpack that it would have fit on top of my suitcase with ease.

Had I not said something, the flight attendant would have. It may have been the first time where I saw flight attendants taking backpacks, purses, and the like out of the bins and telling the owner to put it under the seat.

On one of the flights home, the people sharing the row with me put their suitcases in sideways, taking up twice the space, because they were a) stuffed too full and b) stuck. I told the gentleman (using the term loosely)that he needed to put his suitcase in straight, not sideways. He growled at me and said he'd do what he pleased, besides the suitcase didn't fit if he did it that way. I said, "It doesn't fit because you are trying to stuff it in against the latches." He started to growl at me until I showed him how to get his suitcase in the bin without hogging all the space. But the point is, had I not shown him, he had no desire to figure it out. He and his wife were going to take all of the space in one bin with their two suitcases. And again, the flight attendants went down the aisle and made passengers fix their bags to be more considerate.

There is enough to be annoyed with when flying. I just don't get why the passengers have to add to that annoyance by their selfishness with storing their belongings or following simple directions.

Oh the irony

2010-06-29T16:44:00.002-04:00

Let it be noted that I am NOT a fan of Oprah. Don't watch her, don't pay any particular attention to what she says. But yesterday at the gym, I forgot to take a magazine, so I went to the cardio room's magazine rack. It looks like a doctor's office -- a bunch of magazines, most of them old and beat up. The only one I hadn't read was Oprah's (well, it was between that and a magazine about hunting and guns, and it was a tough choice). O won because I was intrigued by her summer reading recommendations. I'm always curious to see what books get highlighted (rarely anything I would read).

As I said I'm not a fan of the Goddess of Lake Michigan, I don't pay much attention to her book club. If I pick up something with the sticker on it, it is because I like the author or had wanted to read the book on its own merits. The only time I read a book because someone tells me to is for my own book group or for English classes. But it's no secret her picks become super best sellers. I can't tell you, though, how many times someone has read one of the picks but said, "I really couldn't stand the book, but I must be wrong."

So I get to this article on recommended summer books, and in the very first paragraph the writer tells the reader that everybody has different tastes in books and that's okay! I laughed out loud right there on the treadmill. For years, Oprah has touted her favorite books like the Pied Piper and the rats, I mean the audience, lined up to buy it. Because if Oprah says it is good, it is good. (Now I think it would have been more interesting if a random audience member was allowed to pick the next book.)

The author of the article is right, of course. We should all embrace our reading differences. No problem in trying something new but life is too short to waste it on something you don't think you'll like.

Although I may take up one of the suggestions. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. It's been on my shelf forever and it's about time I read some Dickens again. Or maybe I'll read Bleak House. Or Nicholas Nickleby. Or reread Copperfield for the millionth time. Because that's what I like.

Positive Signs

2010-06-24T13:20:00.002-04:00

To say the past year has been bleak is an understatement. I'd market my little heart out with little to show for it besides a mailbox filled with "no freelance budget now" responses.

But on this latest query challenge, I'm getting positive responses. Maybe my marketing techniques are a little different, but I've been getting good vibes from my old methods. This can only be good signs for the writing industry -- right?

Let the Challenge Begin

2010-06-14T12:45:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day of the summer query challenge. For 8 weeks, I, along with dozens of my fellow writers, will ramp up our marketing efforts to improve our client base.

I admit, marketing is my least favorite part of the job, but it is the most essential if I want to continue putting food on the table. The query challenge helps me focus on the marketing. I found many of my best clients through the challenge in years past.

Who will be my next best clients?

Long Hard Week

2010-06-11T14:31:00.002-04:00

I'm not the type of person whose life revolves around my pet. I would never in a million years take my dog to work (well, if I worked in an office with other people) or to the ballpark (Bark at the Park may be baseball's stupidiest innovation yet, and that's saying a lot) or shopping or all of the other places people insist on taking their pets. I was not my dog's mommy; the dog was not my child.

But this week has been an adjustment as I try to get used to this new life without her in the house. 17 years is a long time. Over the past five years I worked at home, we had our routines. One of the routines was putting her outside for a few minutes before an interview and then letting her back in before I got on the phone. I had interviews scheduled on Monday, and both times, I went out to the kitchen to let the dog out. Except she wasn't there. I still take a giant step over the spot on the floor where she'd sleep.

It will get easier and the routine will shake itself out. But this has been a long, hard week.

Good-bye Old Friend

2010-06-05T11:17:00.002-04:00

The happiness of Hump Day was short lived. My beloved little office staff took a quick turn for the worse on Thursday and she passed away Friday morning.

Baseball and Hockey

2010-06-03T16:03:00.002-04:00

I love sports. That's putting it mildly.

Last night I was watching the 3rd game in the Stanley Cup finals when I got a text on my phone. My son, who was watching the game at a sports bar/restaurant, wanted to let me know that a Detroit Tigers pitcher had taken a perfect game through the 8th inning. Perfect games are rare -- only 20 in all over the 120+ years of major league baseball. Yet perfect game #19 came on Mother's Day and perfect game #20 came on May 29. That in itself is unuaual. Two in one year? And now we were 3 outs away from 3 perfect games in less than a month.

I flipped from the hockey game to MLB Network (greatest network ever) to watch the 9th inning. First batter, a solidly hit ball that was heading for the gap, surely a double until the center fielder came out of nowhere and caught it. Second batter, ground ball to an infielder, easy out. Third batter, ground ball to the gray area between the first and second basemen. First baseman fields it. Pitcher is cover the bag. He beats the runner. Out. Perfect Game!

Except the only person who didn't see an out was the person who counted. The umpire. Who for reasons totally unknown called the runner safe. This wasn't a bang-bang play where the call could have gone either way. This was obviously an out. The umpire blew it. The pitcher got the next batter out, game over, 1 hit shut out, pretty impressive. Except the Tiger personnel went ballistic on the umpire. Everyone but the pitcher who had a bemused smile on his face. Later, the umpire saw the replay, saw what he did, and apologized, in tears, to the pitcher.

Baseball fans everywhere cried out that the call should be overturned. I'm a baseball purist -- hate the DH, hate interleague, hate the goofy softball shirts teams wear on Sundays, not a fan of instant replay -- and I thought it should be overturned. The call didn't change the outcome of the game. That's the important thing and I'll repeat it. The call didn't change the outcome of the game. But Bud Selig, worst commissioner ever, said no, call stands. Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated agreed with Selig and said you can't change what happened in the past.

Verducci and Selig don't watch hockey. After that call, I turned the hockey game back on. The Flyers appeared to score a goal -- the puck clearly crossed the goal line -- but it was pulled back out and play continued. Hockey reviews goals and the fans in Philly (and the one on my couch and the one texting me) were screaming for the review. But the announcers reminded us that the goal wouldn't be reviewed until play stopped naturally. And sure enough, as soon as it did, the goal was reviewed and the official said that it was, indeed, a goal, point Flyers. Then the time that elapsed during that period of time was put back on the clock. It never happened. The past was changed.

The contrasts are quite remarkable, aren't they?

Happy Hump Day

2010-06-02T10:06:00.002-04:00

I thought I was losing my office staff this morning.

My dog, who spends her days in my office with me, woke up in a pool of blood. She's 17, awfully old for a dog. The husband took her to the vet because I couldn't bear the idea of having to put her down. She's too old to take any real drastic measures, you know? I didn't expect to ever see her again.

But there she was, running across the kitchen floor for the door to go outside. She has a gum problem, which caused the bleeding. She needs some medical care, but the vets said for such an old dog, despite being blind and having back legs that don't work so well any more, she's surprisingly healthy and there was no reason to put her to sleep.

So she's back to her position on the office floor, snoring away. And I couldn't be happier to share my office.

In Common

2010-05-28T07:45:00.002-04:00

I never thought I'd have anything in common with Rachel Maddow besides some shared political ideology. But last night, I recognized the woman project manager she interviewed at the new World Trade Center construction. I interviewed the same woman 9 years ago about her experience of being on the site when the first plane hit the towers.

I loved her Nittany Lion logo on her hard hat, too.

My Day

2010-05-27T22:43:00.002-04:00

Today was one of those days I was thrilled to work at home. I slept in a little later than usual because I needed the sleep.

The temps got into the 80s. I wore a tank top and shorts and didn't have to worry about freezing in air conditioning.

At lunchtime, I went outside and found ripe strawberries in the backyard patch, so I had an unexpected treat today.

In the afternoon, I took a glass of peach tea and my notebook and sat at the picnic table to do some writing.

In the evening, I took advantage of an empty house to write up two IT blog posts that are actually due for tomorrow and Monday, clearing my work calendar so I can take the day off. The day off is spur of the moment. I didn't need to get anyone's permission to do it.

One last task, to finish an article that has stymied me for a week. I have a glass of wine, hoping that unblocks my brain.

I love being a writer in the summer. I love working for myself all the time. No way I could have had my day 5 years ago, when I worked in an office.

Opportunities

2010-05-26T23:38:00.002-04:00

I admit right up front that what I've experienced isn't even close to what other writers have experienced. Like my friend, who, for an assignment, went on a bourbon tasting tour or got to tour the new large cruise ships.

But one of the most beautiful things about life as a writer is that no two days are the same. Heck, no two hours are the same. Like today, I interviewed two people for the same article but got very different responses, wrote a blog on security issues in Google applications, and worked on my volleyball story. Tomorrow will be totally different.

Plus there are chances to do real cool things. I've gone on some conferences, including a cruise to the Bahamas, which allowed me to visit places I've never visited before. Last week, I got to meet a former NFL player from the old Colts and talk to some coaches I really admire.

On Saturday I went to a party and was able to talk about baseball, wind turbines, sustainable construction practices, religion, and the history of a local brewery, all because I wrote about these things in the past -- and trust me, it freaks people out when you can flip from wind turbines to beer without blinking an eye.

I couldn't imagine having to go to a regular job where I do the same thing day in, day out anymore.

My book is now available

2010-05-25T14:25:00.002-04:00

Always exciting news to announce. My book, 29 Things to Know about Catholicism, is now listed as "In Stock" on Amazon and other book seller sites. It's a handy guide for folks who would like to know more about the Catholic faith -- especially good for anyone who has Catholic friends and family and wonders "why do they do that?" The best part -- this purse-sized book is only $10!

I have a Facebook fan page set up for the book. Feel free to join.

We Interrupt This Blog . . .

2010-05-24T23:44:00.001-04:00

. . . to celebrate the Flyers first trip to the Stanley Cup since 1997.

Another Saturday

2010-05-22T13:08:00.002-04:00

Full social schedule this weekend. Pleasant morning has turned ugly and cold. I'd like to watch hockey and baseball, but I'm not sure how much that will all fit into today's plans otherwise. In any case, I'm taking today off from work.

Enjoy your Saturday, all.

A major goal reached

2010-05-21T15:50:00.002-04:00

From the time I started freelancing, my goal was to be successful enough to have my membership application to ASJA approved.

In general, I think I'm fairly successful. I have work. I have lots of repeat clients. What I don't have are the "glamour" publications to my credit. Mostly I write for trades, not consumer pubs. It is rare when you'll find a magazine with my name on it on your newstand.

But in the fall, I got a second book contract, and my credits began to increase. My writing pal encouraged me to hold my nose and jump in the deep end -- send my application.

Word came back today: congratulations, you're in!

I finally feel like I'm an honest to goodness real professional writer now.

Things I Can't Live Without

2010-05-20T23:11:00.002-04:00

Working for myself means I'm the one who keeps my office supplied with the essentials. Over the years, there are a couple of items I've purchased that are absolutely essential to keeping my office humming. Of course, I need a computer (two computers is actually better) and Internet and a phone.

But the number one most important piece of equipment I've purchased for my office? My surge protector with the battery back up. We have frequent power outages here -- had one this afternoon. Usually they last 10 seconds or so, just long enough for everything to shut down and need re-set. I can't tell you how many times I've been working on my desktop computer when the power went out. In the past, the computer went out and I lost whatever I was working on. With the surge protector battery back up, the computer continues to run for up to 30 minutes, long enough for me to save whatever I'm working on and safely shut down the computer if need be. The real lifesaver came on the day I was on the phone in the middle of an interview when the power shut off. My phone needs electricity to operate and it is plugged into the surge protector battery back up. I was able to continue my interview until its natural conclusion and the people on the end had no idea anything had happened. And I still had time to shut down my computer properly.

My cell phone may be my second most important piece of equipment. It's my official business number. I don't use it for interviews or calls I make because I don't feel it is comfortable to do interviews on that phone. However, I don't like to give out my office landline because I work from my house. Because of the topics I cover, the vast majority of my interview sources and contacts are based on the west coast. I'm on the east coast. I've had my office landline ring at 11 pm because a west coast source had time to return a call to me at 8 pm his time and didn't think twice about it. I've had sources call on weekends. It's hard enough to have boundaries when you work at home. Phone calls during off hours don't help. My cell phone is programmed to turn on when I am officially in the office; it turns off automatically at the end of my work day. These are my office hours and people who want to call me at 8 pm on a Friday evening can leave a message. Just like they would if I worked in an office outside the house.

The third thing is my recorder. When I first started writing, I wrote out all my interviews by hand. Luckily I wrote fast but it was hard to capture everything, especially if the interviewee talked 100 miles an hour. When I got the equipment to record interviews, my work life got so much easier. I still take notes -- I've learned that recordings can go wrong -- but now I can review the written notes to figure out how I want to write a piece and then use the recording for quotes and more exact info.

What work things are most important to you?

When Days Get Away from You

2010-05-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

That's what happened today. More writing than I expected. More writing to be done that will be done tomorrow. Sometimes you have to put other things first, and that's what happened this evening.

Now for Something Different

2010-05-18T11:11:00.002-04:00

This is swap day in the Blogathon, where people will write posts for other blogger participants. Well, in my busyness and a sudden trip out of town, I completely forgot about it. So I'm going to shake things up and talk about something other than writing. Something important to my life.

The Pennsylvania primaries.

Today is primary day. If you follow national political news (and I admit to being quite a political junkie), I'd like to explain a few things to you that the national media are going to get totally wrong, both today and in November.

In Pennsylvania, you can only vote your party during the primary -- something I totally agree with, by the way. I don't like candidates who cross file (and rarely do I vote for any cross filer -- pick a damn party and stick with it. Don't be so wishy washy is my attitude). There are many reasons people why align with a party, and we should get to say who represents us -- not people from another party.

If Arlen Specter loses, the headline will be "anti-incumbent mood strikes again." Or something like that. Maybe for some voting people, but the Specter issue is more complicated than that. I honestly believe he would have won the Republican primary had he stayed Republican. Democrats are more wary about his switch. Most folks liked that he was an independent-minded cuss in the Senate. And remember, the independents can't vote in the primary -- so what is most likely his biggest voting bloc won't be able to vote for him.

However, the majority of people I spoke with have said the same thing: Arlen is the better candidate but his age and health concerns me. A lot. While it is true a 58 year old man can drop dead of a heart attack or get run over by a semi, an 80yo man with serious health problems who looked very VERY frail when we saw him recently at a PA Turnpike rest stop, there are a lot of concerns about his ability to survive 6 more years.

Then there is Jack Murtha's seat, which isn't my district but damn near close enough. I've read some articles on how this special election could be a bellwether for November. Except, no, not when it comes to party politics. I've seen hundreds of ads for these two candidates and I can't tell who is the Republican and who is the Democrat. People across the country got very put out when Obama, in 2008, said that area of Pennsylvania was all about God and guns. The people of that area of PA didn't get too put out (if letters to the editor and personal conversations are of any indication) because that area IS all about God and guns. One of the candidate's catch phrase on his ads is: I'm pro-life; I'm pro-guns; I'm pro-jobs. You tell me what party he is from. I dare you. That race is going to come down to this: which candidate will do for them what Murtha did. There are a lot of jobs in western PA that are there because of Murtha and there is real fear of them being taken away. I don't know if this is how people will vote, but if it was me, the number one consideration is voting for the person more likely to work with Congressional leadership and get positive results.

There are primary races for governor too, but even though we won't formally know until November who the next governor will be, I am 90% sure that it will be Tom Corbett (R). Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with Pennsylvania's "mood." This has to do with Pennsylvania's very odd voting habit of keeping a party in power 8 years and then switching for 8 years and then switching back for 8 years, and so on since the 1930s or so. Just when you think this will be the year it changes, it doesn't. So truth is, if the Democrats keep the governor's house, THAT will be a major reflection on the mood of the state -- not the other way around.

And because most Pennsylvanians figure the new governor will be an R, hence the concern among Democrats of Specter finishing a new Senate term if elected. If he dies, a Republican will be appointed to replace him (in the 1990s, when John Heinz (R) was killed in a plane crash, Gov. Bob Casey (D) replaced him with Harris Wofford (D) until election time; hence, we've seen this before).

See, I told you it was complicated, and I guarantee you, the national media will get none of it right come tonight and tomorrow. Tip O'Neill was correct -- all politics are local. What we do, what Kentucky does, what Arkansas does, doesn't reflect on the rest of country in the least.

Nervous

2010-05-17T18:18:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow I have interviews scheduled for one of the biggest assignments in my life. And I'm nervous. I kind of know how this article is going to go -- now it is a matter of asking the right questions and making sure I don't sound like an idiot.

Busy Day

2010-05-16T13:51:00.001-04:00

Meaning I'm only on the computer long enough to say hello goodbye.

The Perfect Pen

2010-05-15T13:19:00.002-04:00

I'm an old-fashioned sort. I really do prefer writing by hand. I don't as much as I used to, simply because it is easier to type directly to the computer.

Actually, as I think of it, it may be less old-fashionedness but the feel of the pen between my fingers and the way pen point feels against the paper. That feeling goes beyond writing, of course. It's why the chances of you ever finding me reading books on a Kindle or iPad are near zero (I hate to say never about anything, because you never know if someone will own one of those devices and will show me something on a "page" but I am pretty sure I'll never own a Kindle and I'm damn near positive I'll never own an iPad or anything by Apple -- hm, that may be a post for another day). I like the way a book feels in my hand. I like the way a magazine feels in my hand.

When I want to make a change on the computer screen, I hit the backspace button or delete and away go the wrong words, in come new ones. On paper I scribble out the words. It feels good. But I don't scribble so hard that I can't read the words because I might change my mind and want to bring them back. It's much harder to do that on a screen.

Because I like to write by hand, I have a lot of pens. A LOT of pens. Throughout my house there are old mugs stuffed to the hilt with pens and pencils of all sorts. Next to my favorite chair in the library, there are three cups of pens. I don't know why, but there are, and it is a good thing because I never know what pen will feel right at the moment. I use good old Cristal Bics, blue, for most things, like when scribbling notes during an interview and often when writing letters. But when I'm trying to squeeze a thought out of my head and I'm seriously blocked, I'll use a variety of pens and/or pencils, print and/or cursive, until the words start to flow.

So yes there really is a perfect pen. I just don't know what it is until I use it.

TGIF

2010-05-14T16:52:00.002-04:00

It's been that kind of week. I am more than ready for the weekend. Normally I like to start my weekends around 2-3 pm on Friday, especially when the weather is warm. This is one of those beautiful things about working for myself, but there are days like today, when an interview I absolutely had to do this week asks to schedule at 4 pm Friday afternoon, plus a few other unexpected things added to the schedule. And it figures, it is the first nice day we had all week.

But I am done now and a cold adult beverage has my name on it.

The Used Book Dilemma

2010-05-13T23:16:00.002-04:00

Every year, my local AAUW chapter has a used book sale for its fundraiser. The sale brings in over $100,000 a year, most of which goes back into our community to support things like the local women's shelter, libraries, and daycare for children of low-income families. The books are donated by community members; this year we had over 250,000 books for sale. I'm a volunteer with the book sale, but I've also spent thousands of dollars over the past 20 years buying books.

For the first 10-12 years, the bulk of the books I bought were to build the library of my dreams: literary classics, my president and first lady collection, old school books, and otherwise impossible to find books from my childhood. I'm missing one book from the Five Little Peppers books to make a complete set, and this year, I landed 3 first edition, original Bobbsey Twins that I didn't already have.

But once those goals were fulfilled, I began to think about more contemporary books. And this is where my used book dilemma kicks in.

I used to live in libraries. For a kid like me, who loved to read but owning books was a luxury my family couldn't really afford -- at least not enough to satisfy my tastes -- the library was my lifeline. The first thing I did when moving into a new town was get a library card. I got books out every week.

But as parenthood and a job took over my life, reading time was cut down considerably and I struggled to finish a book during the time I was allowed to have the book checked out (2 weeks back in those days). I was now building up this great library of books I loved reading, but truth be told, I needed more variety than literary classics, president biographies, and Bobbsey Twins. So at book sale, I began to look more at the general fiction table and I began to experiment with authors I'd never heard of. And so my attachment to the fiction table began.

As did my guilt about buying used copies of books that are still on store shelves and still can generate royalties for authors. I bought 3 copies of a book, all in beautiful condition, for less than it would cost to buy that same book at B&N. They are for my book discussion group -- people who would either borrow my copy of the book or they'd borrow it from the library.

Most of the books I get at used book sale are impulse buys and still let me experiment with authors I am unfamiliar with or find books that are out of print or hard to find by authors I've come to love. I tell myself that someone did buy those books and chances are I wouldn't have read it without book sale to encourage me.

Yes, I really do feel guilty about this.

The funny thing is, I buy more new books than anyone I know among my local friends. I buy hardcover by first choice; softcover trade paperbacks by second choice. I try never to buy regular paperbacks because I don't like the feel of them when reading. Like I said, I almost never go to the library these days because I prefer to own books. I borrow books infrequently. And I can tell you that many of the authors I've discovered and liked at used book sale -- Anne Tyler and Maeve Binchey for instance -- have led me to rush to the store to purchase every new release.

I wonder if I'm weird about this used book guilt. Is buying a used book -- one that someone actually bought and dropped off for resale as opposed to some of the scams on Amazon.com where reader copies given for free are being sold used for a profit going only to the seller -- any different than going to the library to borrow a book?

The Difference Between Writers and Non-Writers

2010-05-12T16:58:00.002-04:00

I've been thoroughly amused by the comments left on my Facebook page today. It is a good example on how writers view life -- or at least anything that has to do with magazines -- as opposed to non-writers.

For some background, I reached another one of those "bucket list" moments as a writer. One item was to have a book published -- checked that off in 2006 and will be doing it a second time later this month. Another item is hearing "let's do it" as a response to a pitch from my dream market. That's what happened this week. As you can imagine, I'm excited.

So I posted on my FB status: "Dream publication said yes."

My writer friends got it straight off. A couple of my non-writer friends go it, too, but these are people who have writing tendencies and/or know me pretty well to figure out what I was saying. My non-writing friends, however, seemed confused, not sure why dream publication would be saying anything to me. And it never dawned on me that anyone wouldn't understand what I meant. Because I think like a writer, and when a writer says the name of a magazine and the word "yes" in the same sentence, it means there was an assignment involved.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

2010-05-11T12:40:00.002-04:00

I love reading, especially fiction and political biographies.

One of my personal rules when it comes to biographies, I try to read at least two on a given subject because even the best writers are subjective and that leads to different sets of "facts." Some of the information in a book is flat out incorrect, but sometimes you can't tell that until you read multiple works, but mostly it is a matter of what is revealed versus what isn't revealed. For example, my favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt and I've read at least 20 books on his life. I've read authors who have TR as a near diety; I've read authors who think he is the antichrist. The facts themselves aren't wrong, but the authors are sharing their perceptions of the facts.

But there are some things that are unforgivable. Like the time I began reading an anthology on First Ladies and the author stated that Jackie Kennedy was our youngest first lady. That's flat out incorrect and after that, I had no trust in the author and I tossed aside the book. (Actually, I banished the book from my house.)

Fact, or lack there of, in fiction is my real peeve. My book discussion group thinks that I'm too anal about it, but honestly, the smaller the issue, the more it bothers me. For example, the novel I'm reading right now has a character who is on the evening news. The story itself takes place near Chicago, in Central Time. So when the character says something about watching her broadcast, which is over by 11:03 pm, I paused. Now, I live on the east coast (as does the book's author), but every time I've been to Chicago or in Central Time, the evening news came on at 10 pm, following the network shows. Unless that changed since the last time I was in the midwest, that's an easy little fact that somebody could have caught -- enough of a fact issue that it made me pause and go "huh?" I hate that in novels.

I recently read a book that was written by a famous, prolific novelist, a book group read. The book takes place, in part, in my town and mostly in areas that I'm fairly familiar with. I'd be willing to let go the liberties she took with my town -- we'll just call it poetic license. But the errors piled up as the book progressed, to the point that this author has been totally discredited in my eyes.

My book group didn't have issues with the facts in the book, saying it was just fiction. Maybe it was the way I was taught in my writing classes, but I feel that fiction has to work harder to make sure even the smallest details in the book are correct because the point is to make readers want to buy into your story and be transformed into these other lives.

What do you think?

Favorite Blogs -- A Confession

2010-05-10T16:52:00.002-04:00

Today is the 1st group blog for the Blogathon -- a list of our favorite blogs.

But I have a sad confession. I don't really have favorite blogs. I have some links on this site, that's true, but I posted those links a long time ago and I sporadically check them.

I read blogs based on recommendation more than anything. But I'm very random about the way I read blogs. Usually I follow a link from Twitter or Facebook because the particular topic interests me.

But hey, you never know when a blog will come about and become my daily addiction. Will it be yours?

Sunday Night

2010-05-09T22:57:00.002-04:00

I heard a rumor that today is some particular day on the calendar, but to me, it is just another Sunday in May. I went to church, came home to find the Phillies game blacked out so I had to listen via my internet connection, read the newspapers, watched the last 4 innings of the Oakland perfect game . . . well that part wasn't just another Sunday. I texted with my kid about the ball game, just like I do every Sunday. I like Sundays.

Saturday

2010-05-08T11:43:00.002-04:00

My house was volunteered for a party tonight. It was supposed to be a picnic on the back porch. But if these winds keep up and the sky actually comes through on its threat to rain, the picnic will be indoors by the fireplace.

Anyway, my time on the computer is limited. I need to clean and prepare some food before anyone shows up.

Happy Saturday.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

2010-05-07T17:04:00.002-04:00

I'm supposed to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of my town's writing group. I was on the board for a while and was one of the earliest members. I'm not sure if I'm going to be asked to speak or anything, but if I do, I'm going to share this bit of wisdom:

The most important virtue for a freelance writer is patience.

Oh, I know there are other important qualities needed: the ability to be your own boss and motivate yourself, marketing and networking and interview skills, etc. But I thoroughly belief that impatient people can't succeed in this business (Veruca Salt would not be a good freelancer. "But Daddy, I want it NOW!")

We send out query letters and letters of introduction and manuscripts, but rarely do editors reply instantly. Sometimes they do, and when they do, we tend to celebrate because it is such a rare thing. Mostly we wait. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Sometimes we wait so long we forget that we sent something in the first place. We send something that one editor files away but a new editor finds and likes.

Then when we do get an assignment, we wait for contracts and directions; after the assignment we wait for approval or revisions. Finally, we wait (and wait) for the check.

Perhaps that's why content mills are so appealing to many fledgling writers. From what I hear, content mills will accept more quickly than more traditional outlets and pay regularly, even if they don't pay much.

Freelancing is wonderful in so many ways. You can make or break your own destiny. Just don't expect destiny to be in any hurry to greet you.

Sounds of Summer

2010-05-06T14:36:00.002-04:00

I'm settling in to work on a re-write of an article. The Phillies are playing afternoon baseball, so I moved to my satellite office in the family room. It's a beautiful day, so I've opened up the patio doors and windows. The wind chimes are tinkling in the breeze.

But just as I start to concentrate, everything is drowned out by the roar of a chain saw at a neighbor's house.

Ah yes, the sounds of summer. The time of year when countless phone interviews will require asking the interviewee to speak up because I can't hear over the sound of the lawn mower next door or tree service across the street. Or as I try to wrap my brain around describing something very technical, someone test driving a motorcycle from the shop down the street goes flying down the road.

Don't get me wrong. I love summer. It is my favorite season. I like when the temps rise and getting fresh air from open windows (no air conditioning in this house). But I could really do without all the noise from power tools.

At least one nasty noise has disappeared from the landscape this year. The neighbors with the kids who would stand in their yard and scream bloody murder have moved away. Trust me, they were so bad I would wish for someone to start mowing their lawn!

A Thought

2010-05-05T16:03:00.002-04:00

Do you ever have times where you enjoyed the assignments from a publication and loved the sources, but the editor turned you into a ball of nerves?

Respect

2010-05-04T23:03:00.002-04:00

On Sunday, we were at the local winery and buying some wine. I joked with my husband that I now I had a good supply to get me through work deadlines. One of the winery workers overheard and asked what kind of work I did that I could drink wine. I said, "I'm a writer."

And she said, "You are not."

I stared at her. Yes, I said, I am.

"I don't believe you," she said. The person who was checking us out even turned around to look at his co-worker. She shrugged. "A lot of people come in here and say they're writers, but when I ask them what they write about, they tell me about a novel they started six years ago and never finished. Probably because they drink too much wine."

Now it was my turn to shrug. "That's them. I'm a writer. It's what I do for a living. And sometimes I have writer's block, so I'll relax with a glass of wine to help clear my mind."

She leaned over the counter a bit. She was seriously skeptical. I should have left, but it really bugged me that I was being treated as a liar about my own life. "What do you write about?"

I told her. Computer security. Energy. Engineering. (I wish wine . . .) I've published a couple of books. I'm going to be ghostwriting another. I told her she had my name, feel free to do a Google search.

And suddenly she was impressed.

I wish this was unusual, but it isn't. I don't like to talk about my job much with friends and families (or strangers for that matter) and part of the reason is that friends and families (and strangers) have little respect for what I do. Just last Friday, when I mentioned to a friend I was going to take the afternoon off, she said, "Yeah, you can do that because you don't work." She quickly bit her tongue and said, "I mean you don't work for a boss." And so it goes. I'll go to a family event in a couple of weeks and at least three relatives will make a snide remark about their perceptions of how I spend my day and none of them will have anything to do with actual work.

Short of having the skeptics sit on the extra chair in my office to watch me all day (which would be pointless because I struggle to get anything done with other people even in the house, let alone in my office), there isn't much I can do to make anyone believe how hard I work and that, despite the fact I can arrange my day around my own schedule or come to work in sweats, it is a job. One that deserves the respect of any other job.

Happy Anniversary

2010-05-03T12:57:00.002-04:00

I realized this morning that Saturday was a milestone date in my freelance career. It was 5 years since I left the safety of a full-time job at Penn State and settled in with my laptop on the couch every day.

In some ways I was prepared for the moment. I had picked up some freelancing work to do on the side and had a couple of regular assignments, plus sold a few essays, starting a few years earlier. My goal was to build up the freelance work and maybe go to a part-time job while my son was still in high school and college, and then move into full-time freelancing around 2011.

Except I was greeted on January 3, 2005, with a meeting with my supervisor to tell me that he had run out of funds and unless a miracle happened (ie, a huge grant), he couldn't keep me and my office mate past the summer. I half-heartedly began to look for something else on campus while the freelance work picked up. We went on a wedding anniversary trip to Aruba that February and it was on that trip that we began to discuss the realities of a career change.

By the end of March, I had some interviews, but I approached them half-heartedly. My supervisor made another visit to my office. He had run out of funds for me. He could keep me through April but that was it. For the first time, I got scared. We finally had a comfortable lifestyle and I didn't want to go back to scrimping from payday to payday. Because I had a contract through October, I would stay on the University's employment roll, but was technically on unpaid leave. That way I could continue to look for employment and not lose service time.

So on May 1, I woke up and realized that I didn't have to answer to anyone but myself, and that I was in total control of my career destiny. I had a nice slate of assignments. The following week, I had a book contract. I liked not having a boss staring over my shoulder and I especially liked not having to endure air conditioning on beautiful spring days.

In June I got called for a job interview. I went and looked around the table at the 4 or 5 people who seemed bored and crabby. As the interview went on, I thought more and more about how much I didn't want to return to this. The interview wasn't going well anyway -- largely because I lost all desire to put on the fake smile and "I would love this stupid job" attitude and the interviewers caught on to that -- so I finally said, "I'm sorry for wasting your time, but this interview made me realize just how happy I am freelance writing, and I'm no longer interested in this position."

At that point, I set up my home office and focused on building this career. It has its ups and downs, like any job, but it was the right move for me, even if it came 6 years early.

Getting respect as a writer is whole different issue, and I'll talk about that tomorrow, including the conversation with the lady at the winery.

When I Grow Up

2010-05-02T22:46:00.002-04:00

There was a writer conversation some weeks ago . . . what would you be doing now if you weren't writing. My response was that I have no idea because all I ever wanted to be was a writer.

Then I thought about it a little more. I seriously never wanted to be anything but a writer my whole life. The type of writer I wanted to be changed every so often . . . I'd read the teenie bopper magazines and dream about being the person who interviewed those heart throbs. Then I wanted to be an investigative reporter and eventually move to broadcast news -- Barbara Walters was my hero back then, when she became the first woman anchor (yeah, even as a kid I was a news junkie). Then I wanted to write sports, especially for Sports Illustrated. (Still would like that to happen.)

But every so often there would be some other things I'd dream about. For most of my teen years, I really wanted to be baseball commissioner. When my interest in politics kicked in, I wanted to be president of the U.S. -- even though today I realize that my skill would be as political advisor.

Note what those two "dream" jobs had in common -- power and being in a position to make change. But as a writer, I hold some power. The power of words to introduce new ideas, change perceptions, educate. And I can work in shorts and a t-shirt, which I can't do if I'm president, and I can keep all the Phillies pictures hanging in my office, which I probably shouldn't do as baseball commissioner.

May Day

2010-05-01T13:13:00.003-04:00

I've wanted to get back in the swing of blogging so I'm participating in FLX's 2010 blogathon. So here I am.

May is an exciting month for me, as my new book, 29 Things to Know about Catholicism, is being released. So I'll be talking about that, as well as some other writing and life things.

But today being Saturday, I'm hanging out in the family room as I write this, watching playoff hockey and later will watch baseball and will likely flip on the Kentucky Derby to watch 2 minutes of horses in the mud. I'm not thinking much about work today.

Spring

2010-03-10T14:08:00.002-05:00

The weatherman was calling for rain today. But the sun is shining and I see blue sky. The birds are singing. The snow is melting. It's too early to say winter is gone, but it sure is nice to feel spring in the air.

Spring brings with it a renewed spirit. This cold, long, dreary winter seemed to bring slumps and funks and all kinds of bad vibes with it. Now, my heart is lighter. My mind is clearer. And I'm excited to bring a fresh outlook to work.

Surely 2010 will get better than this

2010-01-04T12:09:00.002-05:00

Like it was for many of you, my 2009 wasn't the best of years. Wasn't the worst of years either, but let's just say I was more than happy to toast it away. Come to think of it, I can't remember my New Year's Eve group ever say good riddance to a year as enthusiastically as we did on Thursday night.

So now it is 2010 and it seemed to pick up right where 2009 left off. At least on the home front. Never a good sign when you discover the front bumper of your car was smashed in and you know you did't hit anything. (This is why I always park at the outer edges of a parking lot.) A cranky computer and a phone call I didn't want to get this morning didn't help get things off to a good start.

I look at it this way -- at this point, 2010 has nowhere to go but up. I'm coming up on my 5th anniversary of freelancing, and I think I have a good idea at where I want my business to go. I've learned the difference between dreaming big and reasonable, life-balancing goals. I had a rough December because I didn't set that balance, and I don't want to do that again. The result will be something awesome, but it was a good lesson in time management and cost vs. benefits.

I have goals for 2010, and perhaps I'll post them here soon. One of my goals is to make this blog a regular routine. It is a good way to get my brain moving.

My Favorite Work-at-Home Benefit

2009-08-13T14:33:00.002-04:00

There are a lot of reasons why I love being a freelance writer and working at home. Sure, there is the setting my own hours, wearing comfy clothes, no bosses or co-workers to bug me with their annoying habits, not having to endure air conditioning (which I loathe), and so on.

But my favorite benefit? I'm doing it today. I've moved to my branch office in the family room because my beloved Phillies are playing an afternoon game, in HD no less.

In the old days, if the Phils played an afternoon game, I had to figure out how to listen to the game without raising the ire of a cranky boss. For some reason they thought I couldn't multi-task well enough to listen to a game and work (silly old bosses -- I've been writing to the soothing sound of baseball since I was a little girl and the jobs I was doing in my past life tended to involve more photocopying and filing and stuffing envelopes than it did writing). Even worse than the bosses were the co-workers. Even though the volume on my computer was always turned down so only I could hear it -- step two feet from my desk and the sound disappeared -- my co-workers thought baseball in the office was a bad thing.

So, I'd have to often turn the games off so I could listen to my officemates talk about Tom Cruise's love life, graphic details of someone's surgery, or gossip about someone who worked in an adjacent office. Yeah, well, sue me for thinking a Phils game was much more interesting.

On most days, I spend my entire work day in my little office. Day baseball is a nice treat, and I'm still able to answer email, take phone calls, and stuff envelopes without missing an at bat.

Happy Hours

2009-08-11T15:26:00.004-04:00

I think I may be the only person in the world who doesn't care what other people do to make money and almost never bring up work as cocktail conversation. While I get that "so what do you do" can be an ice breaker, think about it. You're at happy hours or a party or some social function to have fun. Why bring work into it when work is often stressful and about the last thing we want to think about outside of the office.

As a writer, I don't like talking about my career with non-writers. I find that telling someone that I'm a writer evokes three responses: 1) "Oh, I'd like to write a book"; 2) "What are you working on?"; and 3) "How do you get these magazines to publish you?" This tires me because 1) everybody wants to write a book; 2) I never work on one project at a time and are almost always subjects that make the average person glaze over; and 3) marketing is tough and very difficult to explain to anyone who doesn't do this for a living. It is the very last thing I want to discuss while sipping a Blue Moon.

I had to endure this at a social event last Friday night. And by a person I know. We had not spoken in years, this person and I, but she decided to drill me with questions 2 and 3. I explained that I don't like to talk about work on Friday nights, but she insisted. "You should be proud of yourself!" she said. "You should be bragging about how successful you are. You're a writer!"

Well, I was always a writer. Now I'm just making an income from a skill I have and the degree I earned. I am proud of myself for starting a business from scratch and making it float during these tough economic times. But brag about it? Really? Do other people brag about their jobs?

I changed the subject with that second best cocktail ice breaker. "Want to see a picture of my grandkid?" As I pulled out the pictures, the woman suddenly saw another old friend and said she'd talk to me later.

And I sipped my Blue Moon in peace.

Blurry World

2009-07-27T12:46:00.003-04:00

The recovery from PRK surgery has been a bit slower than I anticipated, and it is disrupting my work life a bit.

I'm not one of these people who recover well. By that, I mean I don't take the down time I need. I want to be back at it. And as a freelancer, I don't have the luxury for a lot of down time because I don't have someone to back me up. And in this case, I can't even participate in what is my prefered down time activity -- reading.

Writing has been a lot harder than I expected. For one, the words one the screen are a little blurry at times and reading too much gives me a headache. But the real challenge is looking from my (blurry) notes to the screen. Moving my eye ball hurts like the dickens!

But I have deadlines so I must plug away. And every day has seen an improvement. I'm also anxious to get back to working normally.

I'd love to hear any encouragment from anyone who has had PRK. Compared to Lasik, it's been a very different, slow, painful process. Yet, I feel like there is progress, whereas with Lasik that left eye just wouldn't improve and I always felt off balance.

I'm Back

2009-07-21T11:29:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's been months since I last posted. 2009 has kicked my butt in both good and bad ways. I'm lucky that work has been steady -- but I'd like to bump that up to busy. However, things always happen for a reason, and as I look back on the past 6.5 months of the year, it was probably in my best interest that the fates kept my workload right where it was.

I had lasik surgery in January and as my luck would have it, I was one of those people who didn't have stellar results. I battled dry eye and a left eye that still had an astigmatism. Seeing the computer has been a bit of a challenge. Last week I had PRK laser surgery in the left eye, which will hopefully solve the problem. The eye docs warned me that PRK was a very -- and I mean VERY -- different experience from lasik, but honestly, I didn't ezpect this. My left eye has been totally blurry as it begins its healing process. I feel lopsided, but the odd thing is, in some ways, my reading vision seems better. Probably because my right eye is doing all the work.

There have have been other things to 2009 that have kept me from blogging, but I won't bore you with them. Let's just say that those situations have begun to right themselves, and as August makes its approach, life is feeling somewhat normal again. Which is why I'm anxious to get work up from steady to busy.

Like I said, I think the fates played a hand in my work and writing life. And it is hard to write when you are worried about family members and the results of medical tests. I'm excited to write again. Which is why I decided it's time to fire up the blog, get back to writing essays, and start thinking seriously about a couple of book ideas that have been floating in my head. That along with bumping up my marketing and getting some of my article ideas in front of editors.

New Day, New POTUS, Simple As That

2009-01-21T10:53:00.003-05:00

From the time I was a very little girl -- seriously, from about the time I started reading -- I read biographies. I remember a series of biographies written especially for kids and I would devour those things. Every week at the school library, I'd take one or two home with me. I'd read them over and over. Sometime in the 5th grade, the librarian joked with me that those biographies would collect dust when I moved along to the 6th grade and she showed me that I was the only one who ever checked out about half of them, and my name was there four, five, six times.

In middle school and early high school, I was the typical adolescent -- movie star struck. I still read a lot of biographies (and at this point I moved on to classic literature as well) but the bios tended to be of celebrities, as opposed to the Virginia Dare, Betsy Ross, Sacajewea, Clara Barton books of my youth.

But during that adolescence, Watergate happened, and Watergate was THE topic of conversation at my grandparents' house, where I spent a good deal of time. My grandpa put his cassette recorder by the television and taped the hearings, then would listen to them again in the evening and on weekends. He made me want to know, he made me want to care about politics. I took an interest in this Gerald Ford guy, and followed the 1976 election closely, and the 1980 primaries, still too young to vote and unsure yet of any ideological leanings, I knew that there was something about that George Herbert Walker Bush guy that I liked. I went back to the nonfiction section of the school library and started taking out the books on history and biographies on presidents.

In my sophomore year of college, I needed a speech topic, and I couldn't come up with anything. I met with my professor who asked me what my favorite classes were outside of the writing/English classes. I said history and politics classes. She asked what I liked best about history, and I said the presidents. She told me to pick a president, someone from before FDR, learn about him, and present a speech that would make the case why we should know about this president (and not any of the usual suspects). I picked Theodore Roosevelt, and once I started learning, I couldn't stop. My office is filled with books about TR.

But my library is filled with biographies of almost all the presidents, as well as the first ladies, and tons of general reference books and anecdotal books and books about other political figures who influenced these presidents. It is an insatiable passion of mine.

And it should be no surprise that when primaries and elections and inaugurations come around, I'm in my total element. I've tried to talk to people about primaries and elections and inaugurations, but it's difficult. People are too passionate about their ideologies. I have my ideologies, to be sure, and I struggle at times to see the other person's point of view. But I don't really watch presidential politics like most people I know. Let's just say there aren't a whole lot of things that surprise me about a candidate or his administration.

I love inauguration day. I've watched every one since Reagan 1984, taking vacation days when I had to. I used to tape them all, too, until Bush 2004. I watch from early in the morning, when they attend church services, to late in the evening, through the balls. I think it should be a national holiday, to celebrate this greatest of American traditions. I've watched when the guy I disliked was sworn in; I've watched when the guy I voted for was sworn in.

So what did I see yesterday, beyond the pomp and circumstance and the unusual historic relevance of this election? I saw a new president faced with the task Lincoln had before him -- to reunite a severely divided nation -- and faced with the task Grover Cleveland and FDR and Ronald Reagan had before them -- to fix a nation that seems to be imploding -- and the task of Richard Nixon -- to end an unpopular war -- and the task of Theodore Roosevelt -- to put greed in check. This would have been the task that fell to whomever won the election. I also saw a vitality and youthful exuberance I've never seen before in an inauguration (and remember, the Clintons were about the same age when they took office in 1993). It had little to do with the crowd, but with Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden themselves.

The biggest takeaway? What I take away every four years -- that the exchange of power happens smoothly and that even if the opposition doesn't like it, well, they have a chance to change it in the next election.

So it is now 2009

2009-01-06T11:51:00.002-05:00

Workwise, 2008 was a very good year. Heck, it wasn't so bad on the personal side either, although there were some moments there toward the end that were a little hairy.

I don't know about anyone else, but I always feel a change -- mental? physical? emotional? -- when I hang a new calendar on the wall. I love the new calendar feel. I take the cellophane off (note to calendar makers: can you get a little more ecofriendly with the wrap?) and page through it. Not so much to see the pretty pictures, but to see the blank dates.

I'm a calendar obsessive. I have them all over the place, including three in my office -- two appointment calendars and a wall calendar where I track deadlines. Actually there is a fourth, from 2004, I think, that has beach scenes. I keep it around because I like the pictures. I keep my old calendars, too, which probably tell more about me and my life than any journal I ever kept.

I love the blank dates. To me, they represent hope and the openness of the future. I get a thrill every time I write something into one of those big blank spaces. It means something good is happening -- a deadline, lunch with a friend, LASIK surgery.

But sometimes the blank dates are scary. No deadlines. No interviews. Nothing on my plate, what will I do? You know the answer to that -- go out and try to fill those blanks, that's what!

My calendar is looking pretty good right now. There are interviews scheduled and deadlines all over January.

I can't wait to see what else 2009 brings.

Back to Work

2008-12-01T11:35:00.002-05:00

It was a Thanksgiving miracle. I finished all my work by Wednesday afternoon -- well all the work that had to be done. I was able to kick back and enjoy the holiday weekend. I was able to start on Christmas cards, visit friends, start the first of the many cleaning and uncluttering projects I have, read a book, catch up on email, all without thinking "Oh I need to be working on XXX."

Back to the deadlines and work this week. But not too many deadlines to deal with so far in December -- although I do get hit with four the first week of January, plus LASIK on the 15th of that month. But it's not crazy busy that I can't do some serious marketing and take some afternoons to do Christmas shopping when the stores are less busy.

Flexible to a point

2008-11-18T17:23:00.002-05:00

My book group met to talk about Eat Pray Love -- my book pick. This was such a wildly popular book that I was interested to hear what my friends thought. (I read it in January and didn't read it again for book group, if that tells you anything. The book I wanted to pick wasn't out in time.)

The conversation turned to the idea: if you could take a year or four months or four days for that matter to disappear and do what you want, wherever you wanted, to completely indulge in YOU, where would you go and would you go?

Which led to the conversation that only one person in the room had the luxury to pick up and go like that -- and they all look at me. "You're a writer," they said. "She's a writer. You guys can do things like that."

Hm. I know someone personally who did one of those types of retreats from the real world and wrote about it. And this person and Elizabeth Gilbert had two words in common before they left.

Book contract.

Look, if a publisher wants to pay me to do my dream retreat -- follow the life path of David Copperfield (the Dickens character, not the magician) -- I'm all for going. Or to attend Mass at all the great Cathedrals of Europe, I'm up for that, too.

But without the book contract in hand, I've got to still come up with a way to pay the bills, and that's with my regular freelance work. And I can't do that if I'm ignoring the real world.

The real world doesn't go away, either, as the people I know found out. The whole family went on that retreat away from the world, except they had to rush home at one point when a family member died in a plane crash.

Anyway, that discussion at book group was one more reminder that freelancing is a real job, even if there is flexibility to it. Yes, I can do it from anywhere, kind of. I was able to write an article in a friend's spare bedroom in Alabama and did interviews from hotel rooms in Maryland, and who knew but me? But seeing how hard it was to juggle interviews with people traveling in China and how spotty the internet connection was in my one hotel room, freelancing wouldn't be easy to do from the road for long periods of time.

Besides, I'd miss my husband . . .

A Moment of Politics

2008-11-05T14:05:00.002-05:00

Those who know me know that I love politics and political history more than the average bear. I study presidential politics for fun. I studied political science with the idea of getting a graduate degree because I think studying politics is fun.

Yeah, I'm opinionated. I've never met a person who isn't. And yeah, that shapes the way I look at the world and my politics. But I try to be fair, really I do (and I also try to avoid talking about politics when I think it can get ugly).

My candidate didn't win last night. That's because my candidate, the person I really thought would be the best president, wasn't on the ticket. I voted though because that is my civic duty and I had to make a choice one way or another. And even if I didn't circle the ballot for president, there were other important choices for my state that I had to make.

Today, I'm hearing a lot of talk about hopeful possibilities and a lot of talk about fear. You know what folks? It is rare when we can guess what is going to happen. I do know that the 44th president isn't going to be able to change abortion rights or take away your guns or wave a magic wand to fix health care. Some of the things social conservatives worry about will happen on the state level and then maybe go to the Supreme Court, which is going to be shifting right after four years unless there is a mass of replacements needed. A Democratic Congress doesn't mean agreement (see 1993/1994). To throw oneself into a tizzy over which candidate won is time wasted. First, maybe we should take time to rejoice that we had an election without scandal. That in and of itself speaks volumes. Second thing, take the time to really educate yourself about the way government works. It helps you understand the big picture and also the importance of your state politics.

Today is a day to look forward. As I read a few places, change isn't always good. No, but change can be exciting because it means the possibilities are endless.

The World Outside My Office

2008-10-17T13:30:00.002-04:00

My office has been quiet lately. Some things have changed in my work world, and I'm not quite as busy as before. I've been pumping up the marketing efforts (anybody need a great writer?).

On the other hand, the downtime came at a good time. My attention has been many other places lately. All summer, as I watched my beloved Phillies play baseball, my husband would ask, "Is it October yet?" meaning that he was waiting for baseball season to be over. Well, it is October, and the Phillies are still playing. Game 3 of the World Series will be on my birthday. It doesn't get much better than that.

But it is also football season, and football Saturdays rule this household. I can't quite explain the beauty of tailgating all day Saturday. Even some of my friends who enjoy tailgating don't understand how I, the anti-morning person, will crawl out of bed at the crack of dawn in any weather to sit outside with 100,000 of my closest friends, eating sausages from the grill and drinking a few adult beverages. But to me, it is almost like a vacation. I carry no mental baggage to tailgates. I refuse to discuss work. I don't think of problems in my life. I really truly live in that moment, for that day, and nothing else. We'll watch football on tv and then head to the stadium to watch football then back to the parking lot to watch football. It is pure bliss.

Then there is the Thesis of husband's, my essay class, which needs more attention, the impending trip of mine, the impending visit by the daughter and grandbaby.

With all this life going on, I'm grateful beyond words for the work I have, but equally grateful that I'm not in the deadline hell of September.

Mixed Bag

2008-09-26T15:15:00.002-04:00

That's how it's been around here lately. A mixed bag. Work is good. Work is frustrating at times. Life is good. Life is frustrating at times. That's how it goes.

Today has been an unusually quiet day. It almost feels like the day before a holiday weekend. My email box had a flurry of busyness in the morning but has pretty much stopped now. No interviews scheduled. No phone ringing. I was able to get caught up on marketing stuff, and am working on a larger project today. And watching the birds outside my window. With fall coming, the landscape at my feeder has changed considerably. Not just the species of birds showing up but also in the look of my regular birdie friends who will be around all winter. They are all puffed up and fuzzy in their winter feathers. A woodpecker has begun to show up at the feeder. It's beautiful. I'd never seen a woodpecker that close up before. The blue jay has returned, too. He is beautiful, and every time I see him, I think of an old friend, Terrie, who passed away from cancer. She was a birder and during a visit with me and another PA friend, a blue jay perched in a tree outside the window of the room we were in. Terrie had never seen a blue jay before and you could tell it was a highlight of her visit to the east coast.

Yesterday I made that always tough decision to part ways with a client. It was evident we were no longer on the same page, and an incredibly rude email sealed the deal that had been spinning in my head for a couple of weeks. I always get nervous about moving on, but each time I find that something better has come my way. And in fact, since sending that letter, I got two positive emails about potential work opportunities.

Now to get a little something done before happy hours arrives.

Helping Our Own

2008-09-11T10:55:00.003-04:00

If I was working in an office today, I'd find an envelope on my chair with a note to please donate what I can to help a coworker in need.

Well, my "coworkers," my fellow writers, are spread throughout cyberspace. So if you haven't already seen this, please consider it the envelope on your chair.

Lori Hall Steel is a single mom battling ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)and chronic Lyme disease, who faces the loss of her home to foreclosure within days because she's too sick to work. She has medical bills totaling more than $50,000, which may ultimately reach $120,000.

As a freelance writer Lori has published more than 3,000 articles for > local, regional and national publications. In September 2007 she > mysteriously lost the ability to move her feet. The paralysis later > spread to her legs and arms. Lori is now confined to a hospital bed > and is dependent upon a Bi-Pap breathing machine. Lori is only 44, and she is determined to fight this disease with all her strength.

You can learn more about Lori at http://www.hallsteele.blogspot.com.

If you care to donate to save Lori's house, or send a supportive > message or get any media publicity that might bring in more donations, please do so.

I finally decided

2008-09-08T13:31:00.003-04:00

On my book for book group, that is. I went with Eat, Pray, Love. I'm not a huge fan of the book, to be honest, but I think it is one that would make an interesting discussion. If I know my group would do it, I'd love to compare and contrast the subject of the memoir with The Year of Magical Thinking. I found myself thinking a lot about how two people reacted to a major loss in their lives. Granted, one loss was a boyfriend relationship vs a multi-decade marriage coupled with another life-threatening situation, so I would expect one recovery to be much more difficult than the other. Yet, both authors did essentially the same thing: she hid from real life. But getting my group to read one book in six weeks is tough enough, let alone two!

The choice was well received and one person said she was going to choose it for her next book.

Now I have about 10 months to think of my next book, but I've got it narrowed down to 50 or so already!

Finding time for everything

2008-09-04T12:30:00.002-04:00

I was joking with a writer friend that my work is doing well enough that it is starting to feel like a job.

When I worked full time in an office, it seemed like 95% of my day was dealing with busy work -- necessary busy work, of course. The busy work would take a few minutes to deal with, which on the surface seems like nothing, but those few minutes begin to add up: answering the phone, answering emails, putting out fires, running an errand down the hall, etc. By the time I wanted to settle into the larger tasks at hand, it would be 5 o'clock, and I'd either put them aside for the next day or bring them home to work on in the quiet time of the evening.

That's how my past few weeks have felt here, too. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love being busy and all the work challenges. But this week, my days have been spent loaded with interviews, answering phone calls about articles, sending and answering emails that needed to be addressed during work hours, and by the time I'm ready to sit down and write the article, it's 5:30 and my schedule needs to move on to other non-writing tasks on my calendar. Writing comes later at night, when the house is quiet again. I write best in the afternoon or the wee hours of the morning, which is a good thing because the wee hours of the morning seem to be the one time of day I'm not busy!

Today, however, I made my calendar totally empty in order to spend time with a family member who is visiting. He's running late, which is fine, because I'm able to get some other things done that have been pushed to the side of my desk. But I started thinking . . . it wasn't hard to clear off this afternoon. I simply said, "I am not available for interviews Thursday afternoon." And voila, my afternoon calendar has nary a mark on it.

So I started thinking. What's wrong with keeping one day a week empty of interviews so I can focus on other tasks, like spending a day solely on writing? Nothing. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pick a day each week that will be my writing day.

What do you do to find balance for the busy work and the bigger tasks?

So much for the empty house

2008-08-28T12:36:00.001-04:00

I found out today that the husband will be writing his thesis at home through the month of September. The same thesis he wants me to edit.

So much for the lovely empty house . . .

My Lovely Empty House

2008-08-27T11:27:00.002-04:00

July and August were really crazy months here. My husband had surgery and was home for two weeks. My son was home from college and often had friends here in the middle of the afternoon after his work ended. The daughter came to visit with the beautiful grandbaby. And I was out of town a couple of times.

While I like having music in the background when I work, I don't like a lot of other noise, especially talking. I can't write when there is a lot of chatter happening. And with a house filled with people -- especially when the son's bedroom is right next to the office (I can see into his bedroom from my desk) -- it is difficult to get much done.

And my family likes to pop into my office to talk to me. Even when I shut the door, they pop in. I don't often shut the door for a variety of reasons, but when I do shut it, I always thought it was a signal to the family that they should not disturb me. Apparently, I've always been wrong in that assumption because they'll open the door and start a conversation. "You're busy? You should put a sign on the door, do not disturb!" they say. I'm thinking they'd ignore that, too.

But now? The husband has returned to his regular schedule. The daughter and the adorable grandbaby have ended their visit and are back on the west coast. The son moved to his dorm room last Saturday and has begun his fall semester.

The house belongs to me again. Well, the dog is here, but she mostly sleeps on the floor next to me and forces me into a little exercise when I have to let her outside. With this empty house, I can work in peace. I can interview without interruption. Heck, I can work naked if I wanted (but that might scare away the birds at the feeder outside my window).

Wait a sec. The husband sent me an email: I'm coming home to do a few chores over lunch. I'm sitting here in my office, fingers typing away on an important email, when he pops his head in my doorway. "Am I bothering you?"

Sigh.

Back in the Saddle Again

2008-08-21T11:59:00.002-04:00

After a week off to enjoy my grandbaby, I'm back at work, trying to get back into a regular routine.

The time I took off wasn't all fun and games. I had a few quick deadlines to meet and some phone calls to return. Which I did when the baby was sleeping.

I didn't begin freelancing full time until my baby was a sophomore in high school. While I always worked on my writing, I didn't even start doing any real freelance marketing work until my kids were a little older -- maybe the youngest was in late elementary school -- and I wrote late at night when they were sleeping or during my lunch hour at work. I noticed how much easier my work life became when my youngest went off to college and he was no longer rushing into the house at 3:35 each day, full of conversation, often with several other teenaged boys. I'm an afternoon writer, and without fail, his arrivals were interrupting something. Even now, he's home for the summer and when he comes home from work or class, he stops in my office to chat. Makes no difference to him if I'm on the phone doing an interview or have my keyboard on my lap -- a sign that I am writing. When he's home, he wants to talk.

I don't know how anyone with young kids manages to get anything done.

Granted, when the grandbaby was here, it was temporary, and I wanted to spend time with him. But there were a few times I came into my office while I had some emails to check and he was occupied with food or his grandpa. Soon enough, he'd come toddling into my office, all smiles, wanting to pull out all the cables on my computer or open my filing cabinet drawers or sit on my lap to pound on the keyboard. He was a pleasant distraction, but it wore me out, constantly watching his every move.

Obviously, if I had a small child, I'd be operating much differently. My office set up would be kid friendly. I'd revamp my work schedule around naps or Blues Clues. I'd have a routine. But I also know how my grown up son is while I'm working. My hat goes off to those with young kids underfoot while you try to work.

Today, the baby is back in his own home, 3000 miles away. The husband is back in his office. The teenager is packing to move back to campus in two days. And it is now time for me to get back to tackling this growing work load on my desk. One of my editors wrote to ask me if I was ready to start working again today. For the most part, I'm glad to have a regular routine and things back to normal.

But I do miss that little blonde head popping in here with a grin a mile wide as he reaches for the computer. . . .

Talking about work

2008-08-11T12:09:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we had a family party at our house, and one of the guests began to pepper me with questions: what are you working on, what is your favorite project, what publication do you like writing for best?

I gave her vague answers, in part because of the family dynamics of other people who began to lean in and listen to the conversation, but mostly because this was a party, I was relaxing, and the last thing I wanted to do was think about work.

Back in the day when I worked in an office with other people, I rarely talked about my job to anyone but coworkers, except to grumble to the husband or friends about it. I like to separate my work self from my real life. And I almost never ask anyone about their job, either, unless it is someone I used to work with and I want to get caught up on people I used to know.

And back in the day, people rarely asked me about work except in a small talk kind of way -- how's work going? Fine. And that was that.

Now . . . I find people want to talk about my work all the time. It isn't small talk conversation. They want to know the nitty gritty details. They want to know who I'm writing for, what my current projects are, how much I make. They ask if I'm busy or if I'm able to make any money doing this.

It drives me nuts. It's hard enough when your work is in your house, and it's always looming. If I was a person who enjoyed talking about my job, that would be one thing. But I'm not, never was, and so to avoid questions about my daily work is not out of character for me. Except now people are bent out of shape if I don't answer.

I've been told -- repeatedly -- that people are interested because this is such an unusual job (it is?) and most folks don't understand it. They want to know more. (I interview. I write. What's so hard about that?) But the odd balance to me is that, even though what I do for a living is explain other peoples' lives and careers, I can't stand explaining my own outside of a work context.

One family member once said the reason everyone asks is not that they are truly interested in what I do, they just want to make sure I'm actually working and not sitting at home doing nothing all day (not that that's their business, either).

The bottom line is: on Monday-Friday and sometimes on weekends, I work hard. I haven't had a real, out-of-town vacation in 18 months, in part because my calendar is so full, and on the days I do take time off, I still end up working a bit. So when I'm sitting on my back porch sipping a cold Blue Moon, the last thing I want to think about is looming deadlines and juggling projects.

The "Real Me"

2008-08-05T15:23:00.003-04:00

Of all the things to add into a letter of introduction, the unedited "real me" version of an article is one of those things that I've flip flopped about.

The idea came to me from my writing hero, Julie, who has carved herself a successful writing career. Like me, she mostly writes for trades, and she suggested adding that unedited, but published, article in order to give the editor a glimpse of what to expect when you send off your article. Providing published samples is all well and good, especially when the potential editor can see you are a frequent writer for a pub. But let's be honest -- that published piece has been edited and isn't 100% your voice. I got a couple of assignments in large part because I added that unedited piece.

Then I took a marketing class because I feel marketing myself is one of my greatest weaknesses. For one of the first lessons, I was asked to send along a copy of my LOI template to be workshopped. The first thing I was told: lose the unedited article. It wasted an editor's time. They want to see credentials, publication lists, articles of various lenghts and types. So, I cut the article from my LOI and focused more on my credentials. I continued to get assignments, probably because I was highlighting those credentials.

So I go off to the conference, and sat at a roundtable discussion of freelance issues. It included editors as well as writers, and we got to ask -- what do you want to see in the LOI we send you? And every editor at the table said, "An unedited version of your writing." Why? Because they'd like to see how clean the copy is.

No brainer here -- the unedited version is back in. And here's an interesting statistic. I expected to get some sort of response from the editors I met in Kansas City, and I did -- all of it encouraging, if not with an assignment on the spot. But the couple of marketing letters I've sent since the conference? The one that not only really brags up my credentials, but also highlights "the real me"? 100% positive response. One editor even noted how much she appreciated that unedited article. Do I think that's what swung her in favor of wanting to work with me? Absolutely.

Lesson learned: never be afraid to show the editor the "real you."

The Value of Meeting Editors

2008-07-29T11:50:00.002-04:00

I haven't had the opportunity to meet many editors since I started freelancing, so when the chance came up to attend a conference for trade publications, I jumped at it. Even if I don't get a single assignment from it (and I'd be a pretty poor self-employed writer if that happened), the experience was totally worth it.

None of my editors was at the conference, so I got to meet new-to-me folks. I listened to what they needed, listened to what they didn't need. The seminars were being addressed to me as a freelancer, but it was handy to see how publications are being run from the inside.

I think the most valuable part was the roundtable where I had the chance to talk to editors about working with freelancers. I learned how they feel about writers who ask for too much money. We all want to be paid what we're worth, of course, but it shouldn't be at the expense of hurting other writers or eating an entire budget. I think a lot of freelancers forget about the budget issue.

I admit to being a little put off by one writer who had no qualms about interrupting a conversation in order to hand her business card into the hands of an editor. When I first got there, of course I wanted to meet as many editors as possible. Then I realized that I wanted them to remember me in a positive way, not as a blur or as rude and pushy. I tried to have a few conversations that had nothing to do with writing. I went to the baseball game that was part of the conference, and, as I tend to do at baseball games, I took score. This got noticed by the others and it started conversations.

All in all, it was a good learning experience for me. I'm anxious to go out on the road again. Editors beware :-)

The Big Read

2008-07-21T10:18:00.002-04:00

I found this on my friend Teri's site. Apparently, The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books below.

As you can see, I read a few more than 6. A lot of those books I read in my literature classes. A lot I've read for fun. A lot I have no intentions on ever reading because I don't like science fiction or fantasy. Some of the books on the list I question: Bridget Jones's Diary? The Mitch Albom book? And interestingly, none of the books listed below are on The Big Read's current book list. The Big Read is a community reading project, and there are about a dozen or so books currently promoted for discussion (I read most of those, too, like Age of Innocence and The Death of Ivan Illych).

Anyway, I've read a few of these books. I'm pretty sure my life will continue just fine without having read Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE. (I've added a * to the books I loved)

1 Pride and Prejudice* - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird* - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights *- Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women* - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I read some Shakespeare. Does that count?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch* - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (I have tried to read this book and failed)
22 The Great Gatsby *- F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House* - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina* - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield**** - Charles Dickens (This is my all time favorite novel)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion* - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers* - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Uh, is there a reason this isn't included with the complete works of Shakespeare?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A Little Brag

2008-07-14T10:02:00.002-04:00

If you wander over to the Washington Post Style section, you'll see my essay there, my ode to my popcorn popper.

When the Walls Close In

2008-07-09T16:56:00.002-04:00

I learned something very important about myself when I began freelancing. Well, actually I kind of suspected it all along but freelancing put the exclamation point at the end.

I prefer to work alone.

For the most part, this has worked well for me. I'm not a morning person, and you just can't be that mean grumpy person in an office (unless you want everyone to hate you). We all have quirks we can't stand, and one of mine is listening to people eat or chew gum with their mouths open. The worst was the woman who sat less than 2 feet away from me and slurped her oatmeal every morning. What surprised me was how little I missed the practically mandatory office social obligations. "I don't care if you can't stand the boss; you will go to lunch for his birthday and you will kick in to the cost of paying for it." Oh and we won't even go down the road of office lunch meetings with the ever present boxes of pizza.

Working at home, alone, has increased my production ten-fold, and my stress level has dropped a million points, at least.

But I learned something else about me this summer. Even if I don't miss the office overall, I miss some of the social aspects of the job. The impromptu lunch with coworkers I'm friendly with, or with friends who work in different offices/buildings. Somebody stopping at my desk on a Friday afternoon to say, "A bunch of us are going to the Grill for happies. Wanna come?" Or someone else saying that they were having some friends over for a bbq, and I'm invited. Heck, I even miss when I'd sit out in the sunshine with a book and someone I know would stop for a chat. I still get included in these things sometimes, but that means planning and no one I know plans these things.

I didn't realize how much my world had shrunk until I was at happy hours with two girlfriends, who chatted on about their days and the things they did with others. Not quite the same to say, "I had an interview with a guy who builds luxury horse barns today!" I felt totally left behind in every day life. Heck, with my kids grown and gone, I don't even have them to shake up my daily routine anymore.

So I made an executive decision. I looked at my calendar and decided that I can spare the time to be flexible, even if it means writing at night once in a while. I can block out a few hours to get out of the office; I'll just do so on days without deadlines. So I signed up for a photography class on Tuesday mornings, and already discovered that one of my classmates is a freelance writer, as well. Maybe I'll arrange a bi-weekly lunch with friends. Or maybe I'll put in a few hours to volunteer somewhere or take another class.

How do you keep from feeling isolated as a freelancer working from home?

Writing through the thoughts

2008-06-30T11:59:00.001-04:00

There's a reason why I've named my blog "I Breathe; Therefore, I Write." Writing is second nature to me. If there is something troubling me, I want to write it out. If I need to think things through, I write the thoughts. If I have to make a decision, I write out the pros and cons.

This week I had a couple of things that were weighing heavily on me. One was a comment made by a friend. It was the type of comment that if I had pressed the point, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. But it bothered me enough that I had to write about it. Once I did, I stopped thinking about it almost instantly.

The other thing was one of my clients, my second longest client. Unlike any of my other jobs, this one caused me a lot of stress and the cons were beginning to outweigh the pros. I decided to talk to a group of my writing friends who would understand, for the first time really putting the details of the job out in front of me. I knew it was time to part ways, but there was that part of me that was saying "this is my security line for the slow times!" that didn't want to let go. But once I saw it on paper (so to speak), spilling all the thoughts from my brain, I had finally managed to convince myself.

Truly, if I couldn't write, I might as well not breathe.

Manic Monday

2008-06-23T10:49:00.002-04:00

Ever have one of those Mondays when you wish Sunday just rolled over for another day? I'm having one of those days.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job and I usually don't mind Mondays. When I worked in an office for somebody else, Sunday nights would turn into a giant stressball, and I'd get a knot in my stomach about having to start the work week again. It was like that even when I was in a job I enjoyed. There was something about getting out of bed early, getting dressed in uncomfortable clothes, and having to spend my days following someone else's orders.

Freelancing has taken a lot of the stress out of Mondays. I know what's on my calendar and I have a good idea of what needs to be done. Most days I can come to my office at my leisure, be comfortable, and slide into my week.

But there are days like today, with a calendar full of interview calls, a to-do list a mile long (with more calls to make to set up interviews), lots of little things and a couple of articles to write to round off the day. But it didn't bode well when my 9 am -- early for me -- interview was busy and had to call me later (and didn't provide much information; not good), and my 10:30 interview for an article due today and already rescheduled from last week, didn't get back to me until 11:15, and well, it's been one of those days already.

Writing in my blog is my equivalent to a deep breath and preparing for the next thing on the list, hoping that will go more smoothly than everything else has so far.

Interview with Jen A. Miller

2008-06-19T16:51:00.003-04:00

My fellow Phillies fan, Jen A. Miller, is the author of The Jersey Shore, Atlantic City to Cape May: Great Destinations: A Complete Guide, and we had a chance to chat about her book.

What's your connection with the Jersey shore? Besides writing the book, that is.

I've been going to the shore every summer since I was born -- literally. I was born in July and on the beach in August. My family had a trailer at Avalon Campground, so that's where I lived during the summer. Then, as an editor and then freelance writer, I covered that same area for the New York TImes, Philadelphia Inquirer, NJ Monthly and SJ Magazine, among others, so when it was time to pick a book topic, it seemed the logical choice.

Tell us about the book. How'd it come about, how'd you research it, all that fun stuff?

I saw on freelancesuccess.com that Countryman Press was looking for more regional guides in their Great Destinations Series. I was doing a lot of writing about Atlantic City at the time and pitched them that as a topic. They said it was a bit too narrow, so I came up with the idea of writing about the South Jersey Shore. While there's been a lot of books about one shore town or the whole coast, I couldn't find anything that targeted just that region.

I researched the book in a lot of ways. I spent a lot of time in the library in the colder months. Then, when the summer season started in May 2007, I lived in Avalon, using the dining room table of a shore house as my base. Most of my information came from on the ground research. I'd park my car, walk into every place I saw, and go from there. I also spent a lot of time interview locals to find out those places tourists might not know about. In one cases, the regular patrons of a bar asked me NOT to write about it -- how could I not write about a bar with name that tune! (Owen's in North Wildwood, FYI).

I'd ask which is your favorite shore town, but you shouldn't play favorites. So I'll ask, which town was the biggest discovery for you? As in, things you didn't know before you wrote the book.

That's a great way to phrase it! I learned the most about Cape May. I didn't like it much as a kid, but as a grown up (I'd like to think), I found out why so many people rave about it. There's so much to see and do, whether your idea of fun is shopping or kayaking.

Growing up where I did, I know what you're talking about when you say you're going down the shore. After all, I spent my childhood going down the shore, but never went to a beach until I was in high school. But I say that to my Ohio inlaws, and they think I'm nuts. Did you ever discover why the folks in South Jersey, Delaware and eastern PA say they are going "down the shore"?

I still don't know. Since the book came out, I've learned that even Central and North Jersey people say "down the shore." I think it might come from when the easiest way to get to the shore was by rail. From Philadelphia, the train went south to Atlantic City.

Okay, so what's the dividing line between South Jersey and North Jersey?

For me? Cut a line through Trenton and then go south to Brigantine. Under that is South Jersey. But as I've talked about this -- and I talked about it a lot since I became a consultant on New Jersey: The movie -- I've realized that there is no set line. It depends on where you're from. It's like trying to say who has the best pizza or ice cream at the shore. Your opinion is going to be shaded by where you went as a kid.

And while this has nothing to do with the shore, a very important question -- how do you like the Phils chances this season?

Any time the bullpen sings like they do, yes. It's been a stunning season so far, and I'd be very disappointed if they don't get to the post season. I'm counting on Chase Utley as MVP, too!

Mourning to Excess?

2008-06-16T23:12:00.002-04:00

I guess at this point you have to live under a rock to not know political reporter Tim Russert died. I liked Russert, and he would have been my first choice of political pundits to watch during the upcoming election season. Well, no, actually, he was my second choice. My first choice was Peter Jennings, but he, too, is dead.

Some writers I know feel that the TV media have gone overboard in their tributes to Russert, and I have to agree. Russert was a man who did his job, but was also, by all reports, a good man. But that's all he was -- a man, doing his job, albeit on a larger stage than most of us do. In the grand scheme of things, Russert, nor his job, were all that important to mankind. But I also can't fault the media for their zealous mourning. These are media people. They lost one of their own. Hashing out the details is what they do. All professions mourn their own in their own way.

But I have to say, there were two other media deaths that touched me more deeply. Jim McKay and Charlie Jones. Sportscasters. Guys I spent my childhood listening to. Every Saturday with Jim McKay and Wide World of Sports. Sundays with Charlie Jones and football and my dad. I've missed Wide World of Sports for years. These are voices who haven't been around much lately, but that isn't to say that their permanent silence won't be missed.

Still Thinking About Books

2008-06-10T14:30:00.002-04:00

It is deliciously hot and humid and I am taking a source-hunt break. The source hunt is by far the most stressful part of my job, but that's another story for another day. It's too hot to be stressed! (Although I love this weather and am enjoying it to the fullest.)

So back to books. Reading and writing go hand in hand, and I've no doubt that all the reading I do makes me a better writer. I read tons of magazines, but it seems like the past year or two, my book reading was focused on books for the group or books that I could share with friends to talk about privately. I realized it has been a long time since I jumped into books for no other reason than my personal enjoyment.

My other goal is to read more books this year. A fellow writing buddy did a book a week last year, but while I admired her efforts, I know that isn't realistic for me. Twenty-five or thirty books, however, is more than do-able, if I push up my reading time a little bit. I'm at 10 so far for 2008, again, all of them either book group related or loaned/given to me by friends.

So what I've decided to do is put together a reading list of books I want to read this year. I know there will be some I don't get around to, and others that will get added in for whatever reason. I'm going to take a notepad and pen and wander around my library and make a list of the books I absolutely want to read. It's a political year, so there are a couple political books I want to devour. Biographies. Some literature. And yeah, a couple of beach reads and one or two baseball books. It is summer, after all.

Networks in Odd Places

2008-06-06T12:24:00.002-04:00

I've talked about the importance of networking before. At least, I'm sure I have. But the point of this post is to show that networking can come in ways and forms you might never expect.

This morning, I got an email from my husband. A guy he knows from work stopped by the husband's cube to ask if I might be interested in some writing work. He had a project and needed a writer. I was recommended to him by a person I used to work with and now freelance for. All well and good. I appreciated this editor's vote of confidence in me (it is the second time he recommended me for a writing job).

Later I found that while all of the above is true, it didn't quite happen in the order the husband thought. Apparently, the guy looking for a writer mentioned this to the staff assistant who works in my husband's office. She is someone I know, although not very well, but she is also someone who considers my husband a good friend. So she recommended me, and the guy then went to the editor I know (how that all fell into place I do not know), and voila, I have a new job on my desk.

The moral of the story is networking shouldn't be confined to editors and publishers and writers and those in your writing field. Networking can come in many ways: casual conversations, friendships, volunteering your time to help someone, etc. Being a good person with those people you meet can end up paying itself forward in the long run.

Books Continued

2008-06-04T12:30:00.003-04:00

My book group met last night (The Shipping News will not be included on our list of favorites).

We read The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian in January or so -- perhaps the only book in the history of our club that everyone had finished and would be included on a favorites list. I'm a huge fan of Chris's books and am in the midst of Skeletons at the Feast right now, hot off the presses. One of the members said she'd like to borrow it and recommend it for her book next year, when it comes out in paperback. If I chose one of his books, it would be Trans-Sister Radio, which is fascinating. But if my friend wants to pick one of his books . . . well, I don't want overkill.

The person on deck picked a Jodi Picoult book, something with Hearts in the title, and sounding way too similar to Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Although, it might be interesting to compare and contrast.

I may write down a bunch of books on slips of paper, then have someone at book group pick a piece of paper out of a hat. Or maybe I'll pick it out of the hat myself.

Right now my list is including: The Age of Innocence, Wuthering Heights, The Glass Castle, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, A Magical Year of Thinking (or something like that), gods in Alabama, and so on.

And on the 31st day

2008-05-31T17:44:00.002-04:00

I went to the local bookstore today. I'm trying to come up with an idea for my book choice for my discussion group. I've got a while to go until it is my turn, but I'm always thinking about it. I'd really like to highlight a book by one of my writer friends, but they are tough books to find locally.

Any suggestions? We have a couple of rules in our group: no book over 400 pages (we all enjoy books, but not all of us are what you'd call fast readers), nothing overly depressing or involving really horrific events, nothing that requires too much brain power. They were all afraid of reading the uber-thick biographies and Victorian literature I have on my shelves and read for fun. And sure, I'd love to introduce my friends to the beauty of Sons and Lovers or Anna Karenina or, my favorite, David Copperfield, but that's not fair to the rest of the group.

So I'm trying to decide . . . I have no qualms of buying a new book, but part of me would like to pick a book I've already read and liked and wanted to talk about. On Tuesday we're talking about The Shipping News. Next up is The Giver. The last book was Water for Elephants.

What to pick . . . what to pick . . .

A new pet peeve

2008-05-30T15:19:00.002-04:00

I grew up with some strange dialects. It started off pure coal cracker, then morphed with Pennsylvania Dutch when I hit middle school. A summer in Philly gave me a lifetime of "wudderice" and, of course, there is this mishmash of central PA whatever it is that I've picked up. Somewhere in high school I came to realize that this oddball language I spoke was going to cause me a lot of trouble in the writing world. I pretty much had to relearn a lot about basic grammar and such, and I'm far (very far) from perfect.

Mostly, then, I take a deep breath when I edit. I know that people tend to write the way they speak. But I had a long-standing pet peeve: writing loose when lose is meant. That extra O drives me bananas. And I don't like bananas.

I didn't think that anything else could bother me as much as loose/lose. I was wrong. There's a new one, one that, for some reason, I've been seeing a lot lately.

Could of.

As in, I could of had cake but I had ice cream.

What they mean, of course, is could have.

Don't people think that looks weird? Could of? But probably not. In my editing travels, it is obvious that the basics of writing have either been ignored or long forgotten. I'm not talking about the poor skills teenagers and young adults have now, thanks to texting and IMing, but adults who had to diagram sentences in the seventh grade.

There is a lot of fuss made over those who don't have strong math skills and the need to better understand science. Frankly, I think it is time to push for better writing skills. After all, if you aren't able to communicate, all those other skills are irrelevant.

Rate per . . .

2008-05-29T22:30:00.002-04:00

Over at Freelance Writing Gigs, a place where I have found some pretty decent jobs, there is always a discussion about rates. A lot of the people who hang out over there are people who are focused on the bird in hand school of thought. Better to have a job that pays $10 for a 500-word article and pays it quickly than wait a month or six for something that pays much, much more.

The argument is almost always, "These jobs don't take me long, so the per hour rate is great," with the corollary that $10/hour is a great income in parts of the country.

But I was thinking about this the other day. One of the discussions happening on the site involves a job posting for a one 500-word post a week, with a paycheck of $40 per month. Some people thought that was a rip off; others thought it was a great "per hour" rate.

Anyway, what got me thinking was this -- that's $40 for 4 hours of work (say) in a month. That's a pretty rotten "per month" rate when you think about it. It's a pretty rotten per day rate, too.

A "per hour" rate means nothing unless that per hour is over the course of a day, a week, a month.

Everybody looks at the way they earn money differently. I've said before, after years of working in a job where I got paid once a month, I'm more interested in seeing what my bottom line is on the 30th, and from there I can figure out how I'm doing per hour or per day.

Sure, it's important to consider what you are making per hour on a job. But it is also important to put it context with the big picture. That $10 per hour is $400 per work in a regular work week. But one $10 job a day is $50 a week.

But of course, only you can determine if that's the rate that works for you.

What I See Out My Window

2008-05-28T11:38:00.004-04:00

So yesterday I wrote how gazing out my window helps me think. With the new bird feeder, I now have sites to see, as well, beyond the wooden fence and the corner of the neighbor's roof.

This is what I saw yesterday when I came to work.

Gazing out the window

2008-05-27T11:39:00.002-04:00

On Saturday when we were in Ohio, we were sitting on my MIL's balcony before dinner. Her condo is in a high rise, sitting along Lake Erie with a magnificent view of the Cleveland skyline. I watched the boats out on the water and really drank in the view. I said to the husband as we drove home, I don't necessarily want to live on Lake Erie, but if the time does come that we decide to move away, I want to live near water. I want to be able to sit on my deck and see water.

I've said in past blog posts that I need music to write, and that is so true. The music I listen to can really help pull along the words.

But equally important to me is gazing. I'll write a sentence or two, then look out the window. I'm not really looking at too much. It's how I get my thoughts in order. Gazing out at water both relaxes me and energizes me. It makes me want to write for hours.

When I write at Panera's, I like to sit by a window so I can gaze out. People will think I'm staring at them, but I rarely notice the people in the cafe. I'm looking out the window, watching life move out there, completely connected, yet totally disconnected at the same time.

Yes, these are weird, polar effects, but writing does that to me. Writing can often be an etheral experience for me, especially if I'm writing essays or something creative. My husband once told me I'm not all there when I write, and it's true. I don't mean that in a negative way. My brain goes into another place and time. Gazing out the window keeps me in that place. I don't know how it works, but it works well for me.

Now I have my bird feeder outside my window, and it's begun to attract visitors. I looked out the window this morning to see a bright yellow bird and his girlfriend having breakfast. It excited me. It made me want to write even more.

Waning Moments of a Long Weekend

2008-05-26T22:19:00.002-04:00

This is the first holiday since I've started freelancing where I felt totally okay with putting my work on the back burner. Oh there was work I could have done, just like I'm sure lots of people had work on their desks. But the weather was fabulous, and I wanted to enjoy the time, not worrying about assignments coming in or phone calls to return. After all, it returns to normal tomorrow.

So today, we took a walk around the neighborhood, goofed around with my flower garden, planted sunflowers, and put up my bird feeder outside my office window. We cooked on the grill and watched baseball. And I've curled up with a book.

I'm kind of sad to see May coming to an end. It's been a re-energizing month.

Lazy Sunday

2008-05-25T20:31:00.003-04:00

I'm taking the weekend off. It was beautiful, so I hung my laundry out on the backyard line, and then sat on my lawn chair to read a book. Now the husband and I are enjoying adult beverages and watching a movie.

I really needed a weekend this low key.

Ohio

2008-05-24T11:34:00.002-04:00

We drove to Ohio on Saturday to pick up some furniture. And put $110 worth of gas in the tank. Ouch.

It made me realize how happy I am to work from home and that we live so close to most of the things we do. We can ride our bikes lots of places. We can walk to church. Even when we do drive somewhere, it's rarely more than 5 miles round trip, sometimes 10 if we go out to the mall or bookstore. We can usually fill up the gas tank every 3-4 weeks, depending.

People used to poke fun at me for living here in the middle of nowhere and my ten-minute errands. They aren't poking fun now . . .

The Weekend

2008-05-23T17:02:00.000-04:00

Finally.

My Eclectic Self

2008-05-22T23:37:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I like hanging around with other writers is that they get me. (So do my artist friends and musician friends, for that matter.) We think a little differently than the rest of the world. We do things a little differently than the rest of the world.

I was thinking about that especially when I was at the gym tonight, and a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas song came on my mp3 player, followed by the Monkees, followed by Led Zepplin.

You mean you don't have Christmas songs on your mp3 player? In May?

When I'm at the gym, I look at the people working out and turn them into characters for a novel I'm not writing. But I guess I could. If I had the time. Then I came home to watch baseball -- because nothing is better than baseball.

If I wrote a novel, I'd somehow have baseball in it. Everytime I try to write fiction, baseball shows up somewhere.

So does a character with gray eyes.

I read an essay in More magazine while on the treadmill, written by a woman trying to get adjusted to life with her teenage son after her daughter, her pal, went to college. I pitied the woman. My teenage boy is one of my favorite people to hang with because we talk the same language -- baseball, hockey, football, and basketball.

And now a glass of wine is calling my name.

Writing for Free

2008-05-21T17:23:00.002-04:00

This topic comes up every so often -- should you write for free?

While there are enough harden writers out there who say no way, never, I think it depends on the circumstance.

My church asked me to work on a writing project, and I said yes. It's a volunteer thing. Even though I might be the only professional within the publishing business who is volunteering for this project, I think it is important to lend your talents to causes that are important to you. Sure, I hope that others in our community take note of my work and give me a call about job opportunities down the road, but that would be nothing more than icing on top of the satisfaction of doing something for the good of the whole.

And I love to write essays and even some fiction every so often. I've sold my essays, but really, the writing is for my enjoyment first and foremost. Again, anything I sell is icing on the cake. The fiction? Hoo boy, let me tell you, that's all writing for free because nobody would ever pay me for that.

Oh and I don't mind blogging for free because I like having a soap box.

If a magazine said, "You're untested. So you write this article for free, and then we'll decide whether or not to give you a contract," that's a tough one if you are a new writer. That's on spec, and I've been down that road. I felt that flutter in my heart when I saw the phrase, "I'd like you to write this article," and I felt my heart sink like a stone when I read the rest, "on spec. If we decide to accept the article . . ."

But I'd let the flutter get the better of me. The first on spec piece I wrote sold straight off. The second, sent with more confidence than the first, turned out to be a spectacular waste of time. She put me through 3 rewrites and then turned it down. I wrote a spec piece for another magazine I wanted to break into -- turned down immediately, without rewrites. The last time I worked on spec was for a pretty glossy pub that I saw as my chance to break into a much-coveted genre. A friend warned me, "don't write on spec!" I had my own lessons of how it can bite you in the butt, but I REALLY wanted this opportunity.

I wrote the article. I rewrote the article. I agonized over it. I sent it. I never heard another word from the editor. Ever. Despite follow up messages and a phone call.

I did eventually sell a version of that piece, but it was extra work to do so.

I learned my lesson though. While I might volunteer my writing services for an organization I volunteer for otherwise, my business is a different story. It's my job to earn money by my writing, and when I'm working with a magazine from the get-go, it doesn't help me or my business to offer them my hard work for nothing.

What's in a name?

2008-05-20T17:39:00.002-04:00

On Deb Ng's blog someone called me Susan, then quickly apologized (which I appreciated).

Susan is a perfectly good name -- if that's your name. But it isn't my name. I'm not overly fond of my real first name, so I only ever use it on formal documents that require my legal name, like W9s. The name I use in emails and on blog posts and as a by-line is the name I prefer to be called.

There seems to be a natural impulse among people to either lengthen a nickname or shorten a formal name, even with people we don't know. This is rude, no matter how you look at it. In a social setting, it might be easily brushed off. In a professional setting, it may cost you some work.

It's a matter of respect, really. When you decide to change the name of a person, it's a subtle sign that you don't respect them. You might think it is no big deal, but it is. Think about your own name -- why do you use it the way you do? Maybe another name has a bad memory, maybe you wanted to separate your adult self from your childhood self, maybe you just like the way your name sounds as is. Whatever it is, it is part of who you are. It's your identity.

As for me, my real name rhymed with my maiden name, which rhymed with way too many other words that led to a lot of childhood teasing. When people call me Susan, however, they don't realize the amount of pain that causes. It's why I cringe whenever someone calls me that.

Many years ago, I worked for a man named Don, who called me Susan two or three times before I summoned up the nerve to say, excuse me sir, but my name isn't Susan. He was pretty much a mean man, but for that moment he softened just a bit and said, "I know how you feel. My name isn't Donald. It's just plain old Don." About a week later, I saw plain old Don great a salesman who said, "Hello Donald, nice to meet you." Plain old Don said, "Meeting is over," and showed the salesman the door. As he returned to his office and looked at me and said, "If he can't get my name right, how can I expect him to get my order right."

If someone asked me for the best business advice I could give, it would be this: when someone introduces themself to you, call him or her by the name they give you. Always. It could be the difference between landing a great new client or having the door slammed in your face.

Four in One Blow

2008-05-19T18:02:00.003-04:00

I felt kind of like that tailor who boasted that he killed 7 in one blow and embroidered his proclamation on his shirt. Of course, the kingdom didn't realize he meant flies. They thought he meant giants. And hence, he went off to kill the giants and win the hand of the princess.

That's how my day felt. I whipped off four articles this afternoon. I feel like strutting a bit. FOUR!

But realistically, I wrote less than 2000 words total. They were four short articles.

Even so, now they are done and I can now go accept the hand of my handsome prince.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

2008-05-18T21:02:00.002-04:00

It is the 18th of May, a Sunday evening, and I'm in my library, preparing to work. I'm listening to MASH's last episode rather than watching it.

Why am I in the library rather than in the family room? So I can sit by the fire.

That's right. The fire. Because it is in the mid-40s, rainy and cold. It snowed on Monday. They are calling for snow flurries tonight.

Shouldn't I be sitting outside enjoying a cold beer instead of keeping toasty by a roaring fire?

Riddle Me This

2008-05-17T20:13:00.002-04:00

Today we watched the Preakness. Well, we turned on the tv around 5:30 because we weren't sure of actual race time. We had to wait another half hour or so for a race that last less than 2 minutes.

I love sports. I'm pretty sure I love sports more than 99.9% of all Americans. In fact, as I write this, I'm watching tonight's Phillies game.

But I just don't get the obsession of pre-game analysis. A horse race lasting two minutes gets more than two hours of analysis. Super Bowl Sunday? If you only count actual game day coverage, you are getting six or eight or ten extra hours of coverage (depending on the station you watch). That doesn't count the non-stop ESPN coverage leading up to it.

I watch the game for the game. Fifteen minutes would have been enough to tell me what I needed to know about the horses and jockies. An hour would tell me what I need to know about the teams in the Super Bowl.

I love sports. I love reading about them and writing about them. But come on. Over two hours for a two minute race? That's overkill.

Empty Mailbox Syndrome

2008-05-16T13:27:00.001-04:00

Is there anything sadder than logging into your email and not finding any new mail? Especially when you are expecting, hoping, praying to find mail?

Maybe it is because of the bleak weather -- it's been raining pretty steadily today -- but by the lack of email arriving, it seems like the whole world has taken a holiday and forgot to tell me.

If you asked me the most important tool for a 21st century writer, I'd say email. I can't imagine life without email to begin with, but it is how I communicate with editors and others I touch base with professionally about 95% of the time. While I do most of my interviews by phone, but I make initial contact by email.

An empty mailbox isn't bringing in assignments.

I sent out a request for comments with some press people this morning. No replies. Not one. Not even a note to say sorry, can't do it. It's frustrating.

Heck, even my husband hasn't answered the last email I sent him. Maybe he's already started happy hours. Which is sounding like a very good idea about now . . .

Ever have one of those days . . .

2008-05-15T22:49:00.003-04:00

. . . when you have the attention span of a gnat?

My list of things to do today wasn't very long, but the work I had to do was lengthy and time consuming. But I'd focus for about five minutes, then I'd be off checking email and getting a cup of coffee then fussing with something on my desk.

I really hate days like this. It means I'm going to have to work a late night and probably this weekend.

Some Days

2008-05-14T17:17:00.002-04:00

Mostly I love working at home in my little office with all its comforts.

Today was not one of those days.

I should have high-tailed it out of here the moment it was obvious everything was going down hill. And that moment came when I called my 10 interview and they wanted a third person involved who wasn't available today. That's when I should have gotten dressed and bolted for Panera's.

My husband came home around the time I was on the phone. The furnace guy was coming today to do his annual furnace cleaning and general care thing. He was later than expected, so the husband was bopping around the house. I shut the door to my office to signal I was working and needed privacy. A shut door, as you probably guessed, is a clear invitation to "walk in, she must not be busy." I think that happened every time I was on the phone.

The furnace guy came. Luckily, my office is not directly above the furnace, but that didn't stop the oil fumes from permeating into the room. Did I mention that I am hypersensitive to fumes? I smell fumes that supposedly have no odor, so just imagine what oil fumes do to me. I would have left then, but now I was expecting some phone calls, so I just opened windows in my office.

It's not a warm day . . . but at least it wasn't snowing like it was on Monday. I put on a sweater, and I'm listening to the new baby birds chirping right outside my window.

My college-aged, home-for-the-summer son decided that this would be a good day to clean his bedroom. Next thing I hear is loud pounding. Did I mention his bedroom is right next door to my office? I call to him. He pops his head in my partially open door (I needed the ventillation) and says, "I'm hammering my bookshelves. Are you on the phone? If you are, I'll stop."

At that point, I decided that concentrating on any work was going to be difficult. I put my daily assignment to bed, took two aspirin, and now I'm going to watch mindless tv.

The Chicken Factor

2008-05-13T09:00:00.003-04:00

I took a major step on Monday.

I sent a query to one of my dream markets.

Will anything come out of it? Maybe. Maybe not. But I did it. Finally.

I'm not usually very intimidated by challenges. I'm one of those people who says, "yeah, let's do it."

But tackling a dream market? That's when I get a little star struck, wondering if I am really good enough for this.

Then I noticed that one of my blogs I write on another dream market site was excerpted in the print version. This was the second excerpt in a month. It was on a topic I am passionate about, something I toss up there as National Holiday status in my life.

So I knew I had to do this. The time had come. I had an idea. I took a deep breath. I wrote the query. And then came the most important part: I hit send.

Now I wait. Even if they say no, I jumped over the most difficult hurdle.

A Post-Mother's Day Rant

2008-05-12T12:54:00.002-04:00

I'm going to say this straight up: we don't celebrate Mother's Day at our house. I think it is a phony holiday, wraught with guilt, unrealistic expectations, anger, frustration. Heck, even the woman who started MD thought the original purpose was lost and she was angry about the way it was celebrated. And that was 75+ years ago!

But the one thing that bugs me more than anything is the number of people who insist on wishing me a happy mother's day. There are only two people from whom any sentiments about my motherhood count -- my daughter and my son. I don't really need or want other people wishing me such sentiments. Especially not strangers.

Being a parent is about as complex a job as one can have. It is also extremely personal. A simple well-meant mother's day greeting can cause intense pain for a mother who has lost her child or to an infertile woman.

I know this is a holiday that many women love and look forward to. If that's the case, good for you. I do believe in special days -- for me, it is my birthday. My kids know, if you want to pamper me, that's the day to do it, not some random day in May, a date picked to celebrate the life (and anniversary of her death) of someone else's mom.

That said, I always like getting gifts, and here is the best type of "mother's day" gift, in my opinion. On Friday night at the book sale, I was talking to one of the organizers, and she was asking about my son and his first year of college, etc. "He is such a wonderful young man," she said to me. "We all like him very much."

If you want to wish me a happy mother's day, that's the way to do it.

Combatting Slow Down

2008-05-11T22:45:00.002-04:00

For the first time this year, work has hit a slow down.

While I don't want many slow periods, I think it is healthy once and a while. Over the next week or two, I'll be able to take care of the kind of housekeeping things that get pushed aside, expand my marketing horizons, and take a step back to evaluate my business.

But mostly, I'll re-energize. It's been a very hectic winter and spring. Not only did I have a wonderfully busy workload, we had some personal things that added extra stress. I think everybody needs to take a step back every so often and take a deep breath. Freelancing is like any other job -- if it is go, go, go all the time, you risk burning out.

So I'm looking at the rest of this month to explore new horizions and think about what I can do to be a better writer. I'm very excited.

Book Sale Pictures

2008-05-10T11:55:00.002-04:00

I'm not in any of them, but the paper always shows up to take pictures for move in weekend.

I got very few books yesterday. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I got one biography on a first lady not in my collection, Nellie Taft, and some cute books for the grandbaby. It was weird. Nothing jumped out at me this year. And the book I was looking for for my book group -- nowhere to be seen, at least not where I looked. Figures. Any other year, I see 50 copies of this book.

I'm going up again today, so I'll look again today. By late afternoon, the used booksellers (who have been in line since last Friday) will have gone through, grabbed the best stuff, and it will be easier to go through things.

My Favorite Day of the Year, but . . .

2008-05-09T14:19:00.002-04:00

This is the day I most look forward to all year -- it's book sale move in day!

My local AAUW branch, of which I am a 21-year member, holds a used book sale to raise money for various community organizations, from the women's resource center to Head Start programs. The book sale began in 1962, the same year (and I believe in the same month) I was born. I joke that I was born to volunteer for this event.

It is truly a community effort. The community donates books throughout the year, and the AAUW has to put a cap on the number of books it can receive, somewhere in the 100,000 range. Yes, our relatively small community regularly donates 100,000 books in about 7 months. That's a lot of books, folks.

Then dozens of volunteers show up to move the books from the warehouse to the arena where the sale is held. Volunteers unpack the books to tables (this is incredibly organized, no willy nilly books thrown on random tables), volunteers work the four days of the sale. Books not sold are sent for recycling to raise money for high school kids.

I am in charge of the biography table. I've worked that table for 15 years, all by myself. As a move-in volunteer, I can also buy a box worth of books that night, and I'll go back to the sale multiple times this week.

Book sale is the reason I have the library I do. I have a complete set of Dickens, Fitzgerald, Lawrence, Austin, and some other favorite authors thanks to book sale. Not matching sets, but all the books. I've been able to pick up out of print copies of some of my favorite books or upgraded books from paperback to hard cover of books I can't find in stores anymore. I have a book case of president and first lady biographies, most of which came from book sale finds. Heck, you should see my Bobbsey Twins and Five Little Peppers collections. I spend money at this thing, trust me.

But I find myself growing more uncomfortable with buying used books. No problem with used books by long-dead people, of course. But the tables are filled with books that are still relatively new -- people who read the book and didn't want to keep it, people who got the book as a gift and didn't want it, etc. The books have been bought already, but I feel like I'm hurting the author if this was a book I had wanted to buy otherwise.

So I made a rule for myself regarding newer used books. If it is a new-to-be author who has a ton of books already on the market, I'll buy used. If I like the author, I do end up buying his/her new books when they come out. If I don't like the author, well, I won't be buying any books anyway.

Mostly, though, I'll be going for older, harder to find books. Two years ago, I bought everyone in my book group a copy of Pride and Prejudice for their own as none had read the book and it was the book I had picked. Last year, they all got copies of The Great Gatsby. I didn't spend more than $10 total on all the books. That's what I love about book sale.

This year's mission? Books for the grandbaby!

Lean to the Left, Lean to the Right

2008-05-08T22:49:00.002-04:00

Even though I'm a writer, I've learned a long long time ago that a reader should never take anything at face value. Just because you read it doesn't mean it is the whole truth.

I read an article today about mothers who can't say no to their children and the consequences. The article used the age-old stereotype of moms who work don't have time for their children, so they give in to their child's every whim. It was the only premise offered in the article -- mothers who work and are "too busy" for their kids. Yeah, the article had some truth to it, but it missed a whole lot of other issues -- mothers who are trying to make up for an absent father, mothers who give in to peer pressure and think saying yes all the time will mean their kids will fit in with the crowd, mothers who want to be their child's best friend rather than a parent. It wasn't an untrue article, but the author created a slant and the readers will only come away with part of the story.

Writers aren't experts (although sometimes we forget that). It's our job to find enough information to present mulitple sides of the story that allow the reader to learn something new and to make his or her own opinion. Even so, there will always be some sort of slant. The writer gets to pick out the information that interests her most, sometimes she gets to pick the pros and cons, the slant.

As readers, we have to remember that one article's slant isn't the whole truth. As writers, we have to remember to present multiple points of view so the reader can make an informed opinion.

Avoiding Isolation

2008-05-07T12:32:00.002-04:00

One thing I don't miss about working in an office with other people is, well, the other people. I didn't mind some banter and I made some good friends back in those days. But after a half hour, I craved privacy, which in a cubicle world, you rarely have. I'd put on my head phones whenever possible so I could shut out other people. If I had a door, I'd often push it shut. I'd cringe if someone came to see what I was doing. And nothing bothered me more than having my back toward someone. I had one job where I was at a desk closest to one door, so I could see who was coming in, but it meant my back was toward everyone else in the office. I got stuck there because I had the least seniority. I transferred out of there within five months.

So here I am in my own lovely office, in my own lovely house, and despite all the stressful things about the freelance business, I've never been less stressed. I attribute that to leaving my biggest stressor behind -- the regular 8-hour face time with lots of people.

But yesterday, because I was on a tight deadline, I knew I had to skip kickboxing class. I was going to go to the local writer's group meeting, but I was too worn down. I did make it to bell choir practice because if I'm not there, there isn't someone to cover me. When I got home and crashed on the couch, mentally exhausted from writing all day, I realized that I had been out of the house for a whole hour that day.

Granted, yesterday was unusual. A typical day sees me running off to one activity or another in the evening, often with the gym squeezed in there. I'm out among people while on my terms and for short periods of time that don't sap my energy. But still, yesterday was an eye opener for me on how easy it is to get sucked into being too isolated.

As summer approaches and all my school-year activities wind down (I don't know about other places, but everything here is pretty happens during the school year and goes on a three or four month break for summer), I'll need to find reasons to get out of the house more often. I'll pick up more gym hours, but I think it is time to plan more lunches with friends, especially writer friends, find someone to go walking with before I get too busy in my day. Any suggestions?

Just a Tad Bit Busy

2008-05-06T15:13:00.001-04:00

Feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I hope to write a real blog post soon. Otherwise, this will suffice for today.

Monday, Monday

2008-05-05T12:07:00.003-04:00

Why is that Monday seems to be the craziest day of the week?

I'm swamped under with deadlines today and trying to get my head wrapped around the rest of this week, which is a little unusual, schedule-wise.

Taking a deep breath and plunging in to start my week.

We take a break from writing for a moment

2008-05-04T14:51:00.002-04:00

I was pushing to finish the project I was working on yesterday so I could grab a quick shower and be on my recliner sofa, remote control in hand by 7 pm. Because at 7, my sports world was exploding.

All with 7 pm start times were my favorite baseball team (the Phillies) on a local channel, my favorite hockey team (the Flyers) were on Versus, up 3-1 in their Eastern semi-finals, and then over on ESPN2, the Penn State men's volleyball team were playing for the national championship.

I curled up with dinner and the remote and mostly watched the Phillies, but kept checking on the other two games during the commercial breaks. My timing, though, seemed to be impeccible. I saw all but one of the Flyers goals, and the important moments of the volleyball game.

Recap:

Penn State finished up first, winning the national championship. Penn State is at the top of collegiate volleyball; our women's team are the reigning national champions as well.

Moments later, Flyers came from behind to win 6-4, and make their way into the Eastern Finals.

The Phils went into extra innings, but came up on the losing end, 3-2. But the managed to hold on to first place.

I did take a 3 minute break in the middle of my work to come watch the Kentucky Derby. I'm not much of a horse racing fan, but I watch the Triple Crown. Sad story about the horse that had to be put down. Otherwise, it was a splendid sports day. If you were me.