Help, I'm Blogging As Fast As I Can! The 2012 WordCount Blogathon

I hope the verdant mountains of North Scotland represent my blogathon journey

How many times have you agreed to do something then slapped yourself on the head several times five minutes later and said, “Stupid, stupid, stupid”?  That happened to me about 9:20 p.m. on Monday night.  Why?  Because at 9:14 p.m. I signed up for the 2012 WordCount Blogathon that runs for the entire month of May.  Yes, I agreed to post every day of this month, even though sometimes I find it hard to get two posts a week completed.

This is my year of challenges.  This is the time of my life when I’m eager to try new things.  This is the point when I’m committing to writing.  So why not go all in?  Go big or go home, and so forth.

Why beat myself up like this?  Less than a month ago my daughter called us to say she was going to run a 10k race.  She had never run a race in her life.  Her jogging habits had been intermittent, but she had been a 2-sport high school athlete.  As a break from her law studies she started working the treadmill at the gym, where she was spotted by a trainer who saw her 8-minute treadmill miles and told her she should join him and his team in a post-Boston marathon competition.  She had two weeks to learn how to run a road race.  Despite ankle problems and a makeshift brace she came in third on her team and maintained her 8-minute mile pace.  She’s now considering tackling a marathon in the future.

You won’t EVER hear of me running a marathon.  Or jumping out of a plane with a parachute strapped to my back.  Or climbing anything that requires more than hiking boots and a walking stick.  But my daughter’s adventure is just a reminder that lack of time and foresight is not necessarily a hindrance.  Many of the blogathon participants decided long before 9 o’clock the night before the event started to take up the challenge.  They’ve already noted that they’ve created calendars and filled them with blog topics.  They’ve even written posts and have them cued up and ready to go live while they sleep. They’re on top of things.
 

I hope these poor fellows don't represent me at the end of the challenge

However, lack of preparation is not going to stop me.  I think I’ll find my stride as I move through this.  After all the wonderful comments from you, my readers, on my tagline post, I do the blogathon as a way to improve and pay you back for your thoughtful support each week.  I’m doing it to make this page more interesting for you.Some days you may only get a few lines because of my other writing commitments, preparations for a big writing workshop this month, and my upcoming trip to France.  Some days you’ll find topics out of the normal realm as I attempt the blogathon theme days (haiku, anyone?).  I hope it’s fun for you and that we cross the finish line together.

Finally, Happy May Day.  Did you ever make May Day baskets and hang them on doors?  Here’s the wonderful Lily of the Valley gift my friend Martine sent me from Paris.

  "I bring good luck" -- I hope so

What challenges have you taken on recently?  What motivated you to start or keep going?  Share your experiences in the comments box.  And if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see covered – or re-covered – just let me know.  This even includes photo themes.  Let the race begin!

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I’ve been collecting links to great stuff online for a while but haven’t gotten many of them posted.  Here are just a few more:

I love the Vlogbrothers, Hank and John Green.  They combine random insanity and an educational focus.  Here’s a bit of both.  Sing it up, people!  “Oh, this is how you load a dishwasher.  This is how you load a dishwasher . . .” (And always check to make sure you don’t wash your cat).

Blogger Bella always has something interesting to say (and great pictures of Roxy, her dog).  This one is for other bloggers and blog readers.  She asks “How important are comments to bloggers?”  While her post is thoughtful, the comments she got are even better.  Why do you comment on blogs, dear readers?

Jon Morrow has lots of good advice for bloggers.  This time he tells us that we’re all working too hard to be original.  That’s not what sells.  See here what he means.

Today We Celebrate Puppies, the Number 7, and Helpful News

A resident cutie of Dijon, FR

Today is National Puppy Day!  Get out and celebrate by adopting one of your own through your local shelter or take the time to throw a ball for the dog you love now.  Or even post a picture of your own little fur-spreading machine. 

Skyler, my favorite spring bloom

This week I was tagged by blogger Tami Clayton to participate in the Lucky 7 Meme (and check out her previous posts about her trip to Morocco.  I have to go there).  It’s a game for writers who blog.  I’m supposed to post part of a work-in-progress.  The rules are simple:
1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP


2. Go to line 7


3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written

4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know
(If your WIP doesn’t have 77 pages, it would be perfectly acceptable to post 7 lines from page 7.)

As I went through the postings of other people she had tagged, and subsequently people that those people had tagged, I realized I was in a bit of a different boat.  Most of the players were fiction writers and had a thousand pages of some incredibly dramatic story of dragons and time travel (or the like) from which to choose (go ahead, follow her choices and their choices for a bit of fun reading).  However, I’m a non-fiction writer working on a piece that will be a collection of essays, so I couldn’t follow the rules exactly.

The best part about the game for me, though, was looking at my own writing through such a miniscule frame.  I pulled up many essays and counted my 7s and 7s.  And I didn’t like what I saw.  Isolating the text like that let me see so clearly how I need to rethink some aspects of my writing.  The story was good; the writing was weaker than I remember.  That said, here are the last seven sentences from a travel story I’ll share.  It’s about my experience with an unusual religious icon in Dijon, FR.  If the story ever gets accepted in a journal, I’ll give you a heads up so you can find out why I feel like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.

And then like a petty criminal worried about being caught shoplifting, I glanced around to ensure I hadn’t been seen and hurried on.

I didn’t necessarily walk away with a lighter heart or a lighter step.  I was not enveloped in a blanket of love and happiness.  I did not expect to return to our apartment and find that in the hour that I had been gone all of my family’s problems had disappeared and all the stress that had been my constant companion had flown away on the wind.  I really had no idea how I should feel after my petition to the Dijon icon or what would signal me that my prayers had been answered.  I do know that our family dinner that night at a bistro on Place de la Libération served up a good dose of conversation and laughter.  And that night for the first time I heard the sound of an owl hooting in Dijon.

Because everyone I had considered tagging in this game I found was already playing, I’m not going to list 7 more.  Instead I challenge any of my readers who haven’t yet been tagged to take up the game on your own.  Search your own writing through this tiny frame and share what you find.  Post it in the comments box or post it on your own blog site and give us the link.  Tantalize us with a snippet of your story.

Finally, I’m ending the week with a bit of this and that news-you-can-use.
-- There seems to be a new trend of employers asking you for your Facebook password before they will hire you.  In a word – DON’T.  Find out more here.

-- For my writer friends wondering about how to claim writing expenses and how to get the IRS to see your writing as a legitimate business and not a hobby, Writer’s Relief has a good starting point for you.

-- It’s time to pull out your pruning shears.   Margaret Roach, writer of the memoir and I shall have some peace there, has some good answers to the FAQs of novice gardeners on her blog, A Way to Garden.

-- If you are a fan of Frank McCourt and Angela’s Ashes, you have to listen to this NPR interview.  Diane Rehms talked with authors and critics about why his story is so enthralling and why so many people thought he had made up the whole thing when it first came out.

Share your comments about anything in the post, share a picture of your puppy, share your writing, or share any links of helpful/entertaining news.  The comments box is waiting for you.  Have a good weekend.

Read the story behind this little fellow here

 

Dahling, You Don't Look a Blog Post Over 50

Cats in the window and copper pots.  This must be France

Wow, can you believe it?  I just turned 100 this week.  One hundred blog posts, that is.  I didn’t notice it until after I posted my Valentine’s Day piece.  Note to self – start looking at all the statistics generated by the statistics-gathering plug-ins I plugged into this webpage.  Considering that I started this project in 2009, I might reach my second hundred before retirement age. 

When I set up home on the internet as a way to share with my family the stories and pictures of a summer in France, I had no idea that I would still be doing it and that people I’ve never met would be reading it and joining in conversation with me.

In developing my own blog, I’ve found many others writing with voices stronger than my own and with so much to teach me – about writing and about life.  They may not be headlines on today’s celebrity news, but they tell stories of remarkable encounters, of the poignancy of everyday life, and of the uproariously funny oddities of the world that confound us all.  In the span of 100 posts I’ve gotten inspired to up my writing game.  I’ve gotten more disciplined with putting words down on paper (digitally speaking).  I’ve seen that it is possible to be that strange creature called “writer.”

I’d like to thank everyone who has read during these growing years.  And if you have taken time to share your thoughts, I doubly thank you.  I’m trying to get to the websites of each commenter, but it’s a slow business.  Knowing you’re out there makes me eager to sit down and start each new online conversation.  Especially when I return yet again this summer to the place that started it all.

To mark this day, I’m turning on the Wayback Machine and sharing a few of my posts from the summer in France that started this whole writing experiment.  Enjoy.

J’ecris (I Write) -- “It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.” --Alain de Botton The Art of Travel
This quotation started off my blog.  It expresses why I travel.  The post says why I write.

Look Up -- Up is where the French obsession with geraniums takes root. Up is where the lights glow. Up is where the architectural intricacies hide. Up is where unrecognized music drifts out of unknown windows.
You could get vertigo trying to keep alert to all the life that happens above street level in cities like Dijon, FR.

Suits Me To A Thé -- French cafés invite engagement with the world. There is nothing on the internet more entertaining than a French street on market day. My senses overflow.
American coffee shops may offer free wi-fi, but their atmosphere pales in comparison to a ringside table at a French salon de thé on market day.

While I hope that you’ll click on the post links, above, and make comments on them, I also hope you’ll come back here for some more conversation.  How does travel inspire you?  What projects or activities did you start on a whim then find you couldn’t stop doing?  Where are you traveling this summer?  What do you want me to write about next?  Share your responses to these questions or add any other thoughts you have in the comments box.

I think it is not possible to have too many geraniums on too many bridges over too many rivers

Flash Fiction -- What a Challenge

I (heart) French courtyards hidden behind thick doors

As you can see by the large purple button on the right I’m part of Rachael Harrie's Platform Campaign for writers.  In addition to connecting with other bloggers in a multitude of genres, we Campaigners are also issued challenges to exercise our writing muscles.  Here’s the first:

Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.



If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut" (also included in the word count).



For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!

In no way, shape, or form would I ever consider writing fiction – even a paltry 200 words of it.  I decided that once and for all back in a creative writing class taught by the oh-so-talented-and-humorous Jim Thomas.  I just can’t make stuff up.

I was about to bail on the first challenge, but I remembered that part of my intentions in this midlife transition was to push myself in new directions.  Hey, I learned to communicate enough in French that I won’t ever starve when over there.  Right?  So I stared down that blank screen until I had bled out exactly 200 words of fiction.

And, please, if you’re a fellow Campaigner please “like” me.  Let me know where I can find your story and I’ll do the same.

Home

The door swung open.  Wide and towering, the ancient, arched oak framed a wrought iron inlay of rambling grapevines.  Beyond she saw the garden.  Red rose topiaries stood above the fray while knot gardens of boxwood and lavender filled the center.  The cool limestone blocks of the 17th century walls stood guard.

Only ten seconds to cross the ancient cobblestone courtyard to the waiting French doors and I’d be home, she thought.

She already saw herself sitting at the long trestle table in her kitchen, its wooden top marred by a century of knives slicing leeks and gutting rabbits.  She knew by this time tomorrow she’d have an apple tart cooling on the iron rack by the window lined with pots of red geraniums.

“May I help you?” a stylishly patrician woman asked in French, startling her by coming quietly up behind.

“No, no. Je regarde,” she answered with a flush of embarrassment at getting caught looking.

With one last wistful look back, she walked on down the street for an afternoon of writing at a nearby café as the owner of the Renaissance mansion built with the wealth of French dukes deadheaded a rose before the door swung shut.

The courtyards of Renaissance hôtel particuliers in Dijon are an architectural treasure

Where would you have a home if you could pick anywhere?  Describe it for us in the comments box.  Then go here to see what a great piece of flash fiction looks like.