Blog Hoppin': Why I Write

A few weeks ago, my good friend Laurie Luh over at Mimosa Lotus contacted me to see if I'd like to take part in a blog hop. I didn't really know what a blog hop was, but I told her as long as it didn't involve dancing, I was in. As part of it, I was supposed to answer questions about my writing—which is kind of a funny exercise for me because although I write this blog, this blog, occasionally contribute to this one, and churn out buckets of marketing copy for my day job, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my writing methodology.

Writing has just always been something I've done.

I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was about 9 or 10, and immediately penned my first paperback in a 5x7 notebook. It was called Chester the Cat and I'm fairly certain my mom thought she was raising the next Danielle Steel. In high school, I was a staff writer for the yearbook and when I became co-editor-in-chief my senior year, I decided I wanted to purse a career in advertising. I majored in Communications and Advertising, snagged an agency job two weeks after graduation, and have spent the last 15 years using words to try persuade people to buy things.

Day job aside, writing is something that feels like a necessity to me. It's like breathing. Or maybe burping. I don't know. Something so natural, I can't imagine not doing it. To me, there's always a story to be told. It doesn't have to be done by way of the great American novel (although I do have a chick lit manuscript collecting dust in the closet). Stories happen in birthday card messages, blog posts, emails to friends, 140-character tweets. Stories are everywhere and I live to tell them. Even when I know no one may ever read them, I still feel compelled to write them.

So that's my back story. And here are my answers to the official blog hop questions...

1. What am I working on/writing?
When I'm not writing email campaigns for clients like Dropbox and Google, I'm trying to keep up with blogging. I love to blog. It's so immediate and it makes my day when I know I can entertain a reader or two with a funny tale. I also write Love Letters for a list of lucky subscribers (it's free—you should sign up). And I continually come up with ideas for books I want to write. Snippets and ramblings for those are always in the works over here.

2. How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre?
I'm not sure mine fits into one particular genre. Maybe that's what makes it different. I have no idea... Sometimes I'm writing DIY instructions. Sometimes I'm simply relaying funny stories. Sometimes I'm pouring my heart out. I would like to think that if anything makes my writing memorable, it's sincerity. 

3. Why do I write what I do?
I write what I do because I can't stop. I come from a big family of storytellers. There's nothing we love more than being able to recount some amusing tale to each other (usually over dinner and adult beverages). Writing lets me do this—but with the power to perfect the story even more on the page. I can noodle sentences and rearrange things until I feel I'm saying them just right. On this blog, I usually write because I'm trying to keep family and friends up on my adventures with Mr. W. And I usually want to try to make people laugh in the process. Over at The Path to Wonderful, I write because I want to empower readers. If I can help them feel understood or less alone or point them in a direction that might assist them in hopping over a life hurdle, I'm elated.

4. How does my writing process work?
Steven Pressfield has a great quote about putting your ass where your heart is. That is a method I wish I could master. Usually my process involves getting up a thousand times and distracting myself with dishes or laundry or the cat. I get my best ideas when I'm gardening or doing things totally unrelated to writing—and then when it comes time to put them into words, I fight it like nobody's business. A lot of times (like right now) my process involves sitting at the dining room table pounding on the keyboard when I should really be in bed.  

So, enough about me.

Meet some of my other favorite writer/blogger friends:

Laurie Luh is a career counselor, HR consultant and the co-founder of Mimosa Lotus, a lifestyle website that inspires personal growth by providing tools to live a happier, more fulfilled life. Laurie was the head of Human Resources at Participant Media since the company's inception in 2004, and left in 2013 when she realized that it was time for her to jump into the next phase of her career life. Now Laurie writes about the practicalities of "jumping" and dispenses overall career advice for Mimosa Lotus and greenlightjobs. She will also be a featured blogger on a new online career center that's still in development. Laurie has been a guest lecturer at USC and has spoken on several panels. Outside of writing and career counseling, Laurie lives by the beach in Los Angeles and is an active runner and hiker hoping to add surfing to her list of activities very soon. She's easy to find over at Mimosa Lotus, or you can follow her on Twitter, where she's often tweeting photos of favorite SoCal hotspots.

Mandy Fishburn writes for Lowe Campbell Ewald, an advertising agency in Detroit. Before she became a copywriter, she taught high school English and creative writing at an independent school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan and she is currently working on a Masters in Education as a Reading and Writing Specialist. Her blog www.mandyfish.com has been nominated as one of the BlogHer Voices of the Year in the Humor category.





Suzy is a stay at home mom living in New Jersey with her husband and 2.5 year old daughter. She has her Master's degree in Nutrition and taught nutrition, health, and diabetes classes for over ten years before becoming a full-time mom. Her passion for nutrition is now channeled in her blog www.suzyhomemaker.net. She focuses on teaching others about real food and real ingredients, and hopes to inspire others to eat less processed food and cook more from scratch. You can find her at Google+ and on Pinterest.

Nilsa is the founder and writer for SoMi Speaks, a blog about urban life in Chicago with her husband (Sweets), their son (Gavin) and dog (SoMi). In addition to writing for her blog, she juggles a full-time job and full-on social calendar. She started blogging in March 2007 as a creative outlet for writing, but has been astounded by the discovery that she also belongs to a pretty amazing community of bloggers and reformed bloggers. Her hope is that readers will go to SoMi Speaks with an open mind, respect fellow readers and have fun while visiting her little corner of the internet!

Wanting to Take a Big, Fat, Red Pen to 50 Shades of Grey

A girl can only handle so many non-fiction, self-help, and meditation books. When days upon days have been spent studying for life coach training and trying to educate oneself on the principles of more enlightened living, there comes a time when one just needs to give in to mental lethargy.

And so, this week, I began reading 50 Shades of Grey.

I am only 53 pages in, but already I know that Christian Grey has very long fingers. The author likes to remind readers on every third page. It's also been pointed out thirty or forty times that Ana, the main character, finds Grey "unnerving" and "unsettling."

If James cut back on the repetition of language she used, I think the book would be about half as long as it is.

The worst offender I've seen so far was on page 24:

"Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are beseiged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and John and Patrick—the two other part-timers—and I are beseiged by customers."

Seriously? 

Was an editor not employed during any part of the publishing process? I'm thinking not. I cannot imagine ANYONE reading that and not drawing a thick red line through one of those sentences.

Not every page is as painful as the above excerpt. There have been a few scenes that flow relatively well and hold my attention enough to want to keep reading without complaining to Mr. W about something. But then I come across a word that seems so unnatural for a twenty-something to use in conversation...like "taciturn"...and I lose it. I don't think I've ever even heard any person—regardless of age—use that word in real life. It's like James is working weekly vocab words from English class into her prose. Very Dawson's Creek.

I plan to finish the book, although I'm sure I will keep griping throughout the entire process. I just wish I'd hurry up and get to the S&M parts already...

Retraining the Mental Muscles

For the majority of my life, I absolutely hated running. I can remember having to run one lap around the track during P.E. in high school and feeling like I might just collapse. It was only a quarter of a mile but it felt like the length of the California coast. Even in college when I was working out regularly, any attempt to run left me feeling winded and wimpy and totally unmotivated rack up any sort of admirable distance.

Then in my early thirties, my girlfriends distracted me with conversation and I realized that if I could push through the first couple miles, I was totally capable of running several more after that.

I just needed to get warmed up.

Those first two miles always feel like a slog. But I know that once I blow through them, everything is going to get easier. And the endorphins at the end of my run will be that much better. Yeay for endorphins!

I realized this week that writing for me is just like running.

Well, except that I never hated writing.

But it requires me to warm up in a similar fashion—or else I can't really get in a groove and enjoy the elation of accomplishment when I finish. It's funny because I need about the same amount of time at the keyboard as I do on the sidewalk. Twenty minutes is the magic number.

I wonder if they've done studies on the twenty-minute factor. Maybe everything gets easier if you stick to it for 20 mins. Maybe the payoff is always better if you do something for longer than that allotment of time.

I'm just glad that I recognized the correlation between putting on my shoes and panting, and settling in at the computer and typing. I'll likely have to remind myself of it every single day while I'm *living the dream*.

Just like training for my half marathons, if I'm ever going to get to the publishing finish line, I'm going to have to warm up and push myself into better and better shape.

Working on Life Support

 There's a certain irony in the fact that one of my past clients included
a job-seeker website. Also ironic that it too go cut from our company...

A couple years ago, I read Joshua Ferris' acclaimed novel Then We Came to the End which tells the story of a slowly dying advertising agency. Through lost clients, layoffs and personal tragedy the agency disintegrates character by character until there is no one left.

That book keeps popping into my head lately as I watch my coworkers deal with our impending department death.

We're lame ducks to some degree right now, putting finishing touches on projects we started Before The News. Handling the few assignments our clients beg us to jump on because they don't want to send them to the mothership in Sunnyvale. Mostly, though, we all come in and work on our resumes and portfolios and LinkedIn pages. It's rather nice that we're earning paychecks while we gear up for unemployed life.

It has been an interesting character study to observe the different attitudes of the people around me.

There are the angries. The people who say, "I'm checked out," and no longer want to invest in providing the service we once offered. There are the panic mode-ers who want a job immediately because the instability and wondering is just too much. There are the nostalgics who are most upset because this was a job they loved and they don't want to think about leaving.

And then there is me.

I am caught in the middle of a muddle of emotions.

I'm endlessly excited about having time off to work on my outside writing projects. Although my rational self doesn't feel scared about getting future jobs and income, there's a ratty little voice that has popped up a few times and said, "What IF you can't ever find a good job again?" Then there's the prickly little sadness that crept in over the weekend when I realized I won't get to be around the inside jokes and quirky personalities I've enjoyed so much these last 6 1/2 years. I suppose I'm feeling bittersweet.

I don't know how many more days we'll be in the office—if we'll actually continue coming in until our exit day, November 1st. I wonder if we'll just slip away unnoticed or if our client coworkers will feel our absence and rant about us being gone.

I wonder what my new normal will look like. Whether I'll segment my day into crafting, writing, cleaning and networking spells. Or if I'll talk Mr. Wonderful's ear off when he returns from his 12-hour days because I haven't had enough human interaction. Maybe I'll need to have skype lunch dates with people where I save money by eating leftovers from my kitchen, but still get to chat with a live person in the process.

I'm hopeful that the "great" will outweigh the "unknown." I'm hopeful that I will get paid to write in a new capacity that fulfills me more than ever. I'm hopeful that this job was not the pinnacle. And that I will continue feeling that this has all happened for an important reason. I am hopeful. I am hopeful. I am hopeful.

There's No Crying on the Doorstep of Possibility

The outpouring of sympathy and well wishes over my layoff have been quite astounding to me. I have to credit social media for a large chunk of that. After one post on Facebook, people I hadn't talked to in years were contacting me with optimistic notes and potential job leads.

As appreciative as I am for all the nice attention, I feel pretty strongly that I don't need sympathy. I wrote a post about this once before—about how everywhere we land in life is a direct result of the choices we make. I could've chosen to look for a new job months ago when I saw things starting to slip out of whack at work. But I chose to stay. I took the risk, I'll pay the price. It was my choice.

I have a hard time with people who play the victim because I believe that many rough situations are simply our opportunities to create change. Every day is a chance to take a different path. Turn things on their ears.

When my team got the news that our department was being shut down and our work being moved to the Sunnyvale office, I felt a mix of shock and sadness, but also a huge flood of excitement.

What did it all mean? Where would I go next? Was it a sign that I was supposed to move on to something new?

Yes. Of course it was a sign. The old Yahoo! door was swinging shut and 50 new ones were flying open in front of me. I would have time to write. I could get caught up on projects at home. I'd be able to take a little breather from a workload that's been wearing on me since January. I could possibly travel with Mr. Wonderful on his next movie.

The possibilities of what I could do with this layoff—this gift—and where I could go as a result of it were overwhelming.

Of course, when I got up and went to work the next day (we're on the books until Oct. 25th) I felt pretty blue.

But every time I stop and think about what this change could mean, I feel energized.

I may be the victim of a corporate amputation, but I am not a victim. I wish more people I knew would stop feeling sorry for themselves and start exploring the possibilities around them.

Sorry, I think I get saucy when I'm not under a day job's thumb...