How do you view your blog? Is it a hobby, art, your passion, or a means to an end? Most fellow bloggers, who have been keeping a blog for a few years, will admit it is stressful, time-consuming, without a lot of rewards. Or is that an unfair statement? I’ve poured my soul into blogs that garner shameful stats, dismal likes, and very few comments.
I have to ask myself on occasion - why do I continue to publish a blog?
Well here are my reasons for continuing to blog despite the stresses and hassles. I’d love for you to add a few of your own.
When I don’t write I feel as if I’ve not exercised my brain, she gets lazy, and after a while, I can’t get her away from the television, or off youtube. When I’ve been working my brain, reading, writing, and synthesizing the material I’m able to think critically and write with ease. But still, I take breaks and send my brain on a mini vacation.
It’s a great outlet for my thoughts and observations on life. I can process my experiences and hopefully, this informs or resonates with others. What I don’t like is spending precious time promoting my work on social media with zero results or obsessing over meaningless stats. But still, I write.
I find it difficult to balance the competing forces in my life which are living, working and writing. When I’m working I’m thinking about the blog and when I’m blogging I’m thinking about my classes, and then my life tries to squeeze itself between me and the keyboard, tempers flare, and at times I’m accused of “sitting on my ass for hours doing nothing.” Which I choose to ignore. Not. The struggle is real but still, I write.
One time I was nominated for a writing award, I got all excited, answered all the questions, followed all the rules, publicized the award as instructed, and then found out it wasn’t really an award at all. It’s what I call the circle jerk, crude, but accurate. The expectation is you are nominated and you go out and nominate others, this is like getting a gold star on your paper, it’s one person’s opinion and meaningless. But still, a small part of me was thrilled “just to be nominated.”
It’s difficult to respect and please those closest to me, the people I interact with on a daily basis, because they end up in the blog, and believe me when I say they’ll let me know if something is inaccurate or exaggerated. Oddly, some of my most popular posts are about my husband, whose only claim to fame and being featured on the blog. On occasion, I admit writing about that exasperating man just to see my stats go up. I’m not proud but still, I write.
I suppose the best part of maintaining a blog is the writing community I’ve come to know and befriend. I have people across the world who I interact with, exchange comments, and enjoy immensely although I’ve never met them in person. Recently one of my writing friends who resides in England is sending me some Yorkshire Tea to try because he’s annoyed with all my references to coffee. I don’t care why, a reader is sending me a gift, and I’m thrilled.
I may have started my blog to establish a platform for this book I’ve yet to write, but it ends up I write because life seems meaningless without exploring my trials and tribulations on paper, and besides, it’s not as if there’s a chance in hell it’ll go viral. One always can hope.
I would love to hear your thoughts about why you write, your frustrations, your successes?
I have spent a great deal of time focused on yet another shift - as in occupational - my sixth I believe - only to discover this holistic inner longing - to become a writer - gritty - exposed (except for the fig leaf) - which I believed to be absurdly unique for someone my age - ends up being as common as a hang nail, just as annoying, and completely devoid of value. Shit.
I have a thing for Nora Ephron. I wonder if anyone else struggles with the same affliction?
I walk around dropping Ephron quotes like bread crumbs, as if meaningless idioms can be tracked, and followed. Most of the time I get blank stares? "Who?" Then I shout, "Everything is copy," which I think is hysterical. Apparently I'm the only one? I start spewing bullet points from Ephron's resume. "When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail!" Nothing? Most people need to refresh their drink at this point, which suits me just find, I wasn't enjoying your company either.
I have come to grips with the fact I'll never be Nora Ephron. I'm not Jewish, I don't write screenplays, nor am I fearless, acute, or funny but we do share the same birthday. It's our thing. I'm not sure if life happened to Nora or Nora happens to life because she struggles at being Nora too. Don't we all.
I mean the struggle to be our authentic selves, not Nora.
She wrote, "after I went into therapy, a process that made it possible for me to tell total strangers at cocktail parties that breasts were the hang-up of my life, I was often told that I was insane to have been bothered by my condition (small breasts syndrom)." Her large breasted girlfriends assured her their lives were much more miserable than hers, to which she responded, "I think you are full of shit." Who doesn't love her?
Nora's dirty laundry is epic and she hangs it out for everyone to see. In her best selling novel Heartburn she recounts with fictional characters her devastating divorce from Carl Bernstein. It's sharp, painful, and funny all at once. Your emotions get confused, fighting to emerge at the same time, as in wincing with a smile, or laughing so hard your hernia kicks in, but you really just want to cry. She does this with words.
What are you going to do? Everything, is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. Nora Ephron
In chapter thirteen of her novel Heartburn, "If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma." She throws a pie at her husband and we all cheer. She helps us not only imagine what a blueberry pie would look like on a new jacket, but how satisfaction is an impermanent condition, as our emotions tend to be. The pie, the mess, her husbands surprise, and yet absolutely nothing changed. Her husband was still having an affair with her best friend while she was expecting their second child. It's pitiful but you don't pity her. Why? She owned the story.
When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh. So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke. Nora Ephron
This is what I like best about Nora. When asked why she's compelled to turn everything into a story she said, "because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it." She does lament the hardest thing about writing is writing. Nora Ephron passed away in 2012 and I've been trying to channel her ever since. She's busy, I get it, but once in a while she throws me a bone, and I come up with this spectacular thought so beyond my scoop, that all I can do is bow down and thank her!
You do get to a certain point in life where you have to realistically, I think, understand that the days are getting shorter, and you can't put things off thinking you'll get to them someday. If you really want to do them, you better do them. There are simply too many people getting sick, and sooner or later you will. Nora Ephron
Nora wrote, "I spent my first 45 years never thinking about my nails. Occasionally, I filed them with the one lone wretched emery board I owned, put a little polish on them, and went out into the world." My life as a hang nail is going pretty well especially when you consider I could be snipped at any moment. I've been hanging on, annoying the best of you for years, maybe it's time for a manicure?
I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance. Nora Ephron
“We have a game we play when we’re waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was [in my twenties], I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy.” Nora Ephron
“And so, Thanksgiving. Its the most amazing holiday. Just think about it — it's a miracle that once a year so many millions of Americans sit down to exactly the same meal as one another, exactly the same meal they grew up eating, and exactly the same meal they ate a year earlier. The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about? I don't think so." Nora Ephron
I'll have what she's having. Nora Ephron
Do you have an author obsession? Share a few thoughts in the comments!
The last time Valentine's Day landed on Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Aprils Fool's Day was in 1945. I read that the Detroit Tigers won a World Series that year, but that's beside the point, and has not been verified.
Being of the female persuasion I look forward to flowers, chocolates, dining out, and maybe even some champagne on Valentine's Day so this will make my Lenten sacrifice a bit tricky? Ash Wednesday traditionally marks the start of the season of Lent, a 40-day period that Jesus spent in the wilderness. A time of reflection, prayer, and penance. The irony is rich.
On April Fool's Day, while my children will be participating in an IPA hunt in celebration of Easter, my husband will be attempting to blow out fifty-eight candles in a single breath. He was born on April Fool's Day, the same day we'll be celebrating the birth of the Church, and new life so to speak. I'm simply captivated by the texture of things that coincide this year - a crucible of love, faith, and parturition.
So that got me thinking about the relationship between love and sacrifice. Right? I read a blog that concluded the healthiest couples look for the best in each other, love unconditionally, and accept each other for not only who they are, but who they are becoming. Sweet in theory, but love is complicated, "like a box of chocolates." Which got me thinking about modern day love vs love in the future. We now have dating apps that connect those looking for love by simply swiping up. It's a real thing. You only get to do that once in a while therefore limiting your preferences to a select few. If modern love is dependent on downloaded apps what will it look like in the future?
You had to ask.
1. The first thing I discovered in searching futuristic trends is the decline in languages. They predict in a hundred years only three languages will prevail: English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Minor languages are dying out at a fast pace including most of the romance languages: Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. I love you will be limited to three versions. Time to touch up on your Spanish and Mandarin people! Te Amo, Te Iubesc, if you want to say I love you in the future.
2. You can forget languages altogether, because we might have the ability to communicate telepathically, or through something known as thought transmission. Picking up on someone else's thoughts is highly likely in the near future. Synthetic telepathy is possible if we can learn to interpret electrical signals rather than words. If thoughts are just electrical impulses they can be captured not unlike storing something on the net. In the future learning to control your thoughts might be imperative especially in close relationships. Can you just imagine futuristic arguments, instead of yelling, we'll be slamming each other with a series of electrical thoughts. Shocking.
3. Another alarming trend that will challenge our most intimate relationships is Nanorobots which will allow our memories to be recorded. Nanorobots are well within the realm of possibility but currently only exist in theory. A popular Netflix show call Black Mirror has an episode dedicated to this new technology. Relationships will be under a lot of scrutiny in the future, gossiping with the ladies at Bunco will be a thing of the past, along with ice runs for the guys.
4. It is also completely possible that our brains will be wired to computers for increased functionality in the next forty years. Cell phones already supplement our knowledge base but in the future they'll be embedded. Have you seen the movie Her where a man falls in love with his OS. They say by 2075 most people in the developed world will use machine augmentation of some sort to increase the capacity of their brains. I already have a mountain of things to compete with for his attention, including football, but now a savvy OS? Talk about a crowded relationship?
5. In the near future you might be able to honeymoon on Mars, or the Moon, because something called space elevators will make space travel cheap and easy. Cheap is a relative term, because in the near future only the rich will be able to afford this technology, but eventually it will trickle down to the masses (especially when they need workers to domesticate the raw land and clean the spaceships). This takes traveling abroad to a whole new level. "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man (woman) has gone before," might be a real thing. Colonizing other planets will not only separate our species, but how will this change our evolution, and the way we love?
5. Because people will be living past one hundred years of age marriage contracts will become common in the future. This is a weaker form of marriage designed to last a decade or two rather than a lifetime. Traditional marriage will always be an option but with increasing longevity this might prove to be a challenge. These contracts will allow people to enter into a long term commitment without the fear of financial ruin when the relationships ends. We currently have prenuptial agreements to compensate for a financial imbalance before you enter into a marriage but we're also seeing a decline in matrimony all together. Couples are opting to live together and raise children without the traditional constraints of marriage. It's not for me even if I live to 103 (that could be the first line of a modern day love note).
6. Due to the rise of infertility most women will be impregnated artificially in the future. This doesn't sound nearly as fun as the old-fashioned way. Couples will be able to choose advanced fertility techniques for genetic diagnosis. An artificially inseminated embryo can be selected for a desirable sex along with eliminating congenital illnesses. We can already screen for many congenital illnesses prior to embryo implantation, but this will allow families (mostly wealthy) in the future to avoid common genetic diseases, like breast cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. You'll be able to decide on the sex of your children, spacing, health, intelligence, and eye color. What will the nuclear family look like in the future? 7. I saved the best for last, robotic engineering, which will allow for incredibly intelligent humans, who are immortal. Most likely this will start out by keeping people alive (those who can afford it that is) artificially until electronic immortality technology is available. "The idea that breakthroughs in the field of genetics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence will expand human intelligence and allow our species to essentially defeat death is sometimes called the Singularity," claims Patrick Tucker. Deciding on a spouse becomes ever so important, because never before has marriage been eternal, "unto death do you part" has been the common biblical wisdom.
What are your thoughts around the future of romantic love?
When I'm not posting at ATB, I'm Living in the Gap, drop by anytime.
I have been avoiding all non obligational things this summer, especially reading and writing, not unlike the protagonist in John Grisham's best selling novel The Partner, minus the ninety million dollars.
My summer objective was to lounge around the vast recesses of my mind, drenched in memories, with utterly no expectations. This is my chosen form of escape and let me just say it's not going well.
My sister suggested I read something fun, I believe she used the words for pleasure, pounding her fist on the coffee table for emphasis, "read this and maybe hit the shower this week."
She spilled my coffee with all her zeal. See, I would rather sit here watching a ring form on the dark wood then leave the comfort of my "housecoat." That's normal. Right?
She threw a worn copy of John Grisham's "criminally entertaining," novel The Partner at my head. Arizona Daily Star claims "compulsively readable." I was able to catch it was alarming finesse for someone my age. We'll consider that a sign.
Now these are rather weighty accusations as to the readability of this novel and I believe someone should substantiate these claims.
I carried the book around for two days like one of those beloved miniature chihuahua's before opening the first page. The first chapter was quite a jolt and I was hooked like a big old catfish. It happens.
I suppose the attractiveness of a story has much to do with the interests of the reader. So...avoidance queen, coffee addict, no expectations kind of girl was unexpectedly caught in the Grisham web.
If you only read romance or horror, do yourself a favor, and browse through a Grisham novel. There's an entire exegesis on torture, a complicated trail of betrayal, deep dark secrets, torent lovers, grieving mom's, sleazy senators, and way to many lawyers. He must of been in the middle of a law suit when he wrote this book.
I'll skip all the flowery language, subtle nuances, and intellectual wit. Here's the short version.
Fat lawyer, good mind, bad marriage, trusted, slipped out of town with ninety million dollars, "now they don't want justice - they want revenge." Poor Patrick is found, tortured, tried, but there's a twist, as unexpected as a double yolk. That's a clue.
This book is so good I'm planning on re-gifting at the next wedding I'm invited to. (That should curb the invitations)
The ending is worthy but you're not going to like it. Just sayin.
What have you got your nose stuck in this summer? Do tell. Living in the Gap, drop in some time.
We're a diverse group of writers, ranging from kidlit to adult. What is the one thing we all have in common? The love of a good story. Welcome, and thanks for stopping by. We'll see you on Mondays & Thursdays!
