Sherri Cornelius

Energy

There’s a certain amount of trust that goes along with putting your art in front of the public. You have to trust is that people will accept the work as your own truth and appreciate your candor, even if they don’t get it. You also have to trust yourself to weather criticism. You have to feel safe in your writing space and in your community and between your ears.

It also takes a certain amount of energy to trust. Trusting is something you can decide to do. You can create pockets of trust within an unsafe environment, if you have enough energy. I’ve been able to do this in the past, but I’m currently undergoing a massive restructuring that I can see now has been going on for a couple of years. Call it a mid-life crisis, or depression or whatever, but both physical and mental energy has been low, and the little I have is going toward figuring out more important stuff. Life stuff.

At the moment I have more energy than I have in a very long time, and I’m shocked to realize how small an amount it is.

However, even that small amount more will make it possible to start allotting a little more energy toward recreating the pocket of trust around writing. It will be a slow build, but I think I can do it. I would at least like to try.

I expect this will be the last post in this series. I figured it out. There’s always been fear and distrust and a reluctance to begin and self-sabotage, but the difference in my production has been the energy. I push and push myself, thinking I have something to prove or someone who’ll be disappointed, and when I don’t produce what I’ve decided I should, I beat myself about the face and neck and call myself a lazy slut. Yeah, that’ll motivate a person. Geez.

You can’t get blood from a turnip, and you can’t use more energy than you are producing. At least I know now that the problem is not with writing itself. That’s a relief. Instead of being angry with myself for failing, I can be compassionate and gentle, conserve my energy, redirect it from worry and concentrate on ways to make my life less stressful. I think that’s pretty good advice for just about any situation.

Hopefully pretty soon I’ll be able to blog about why I can write.

My little experiment with You Are the Muse on Thursdays hasn’t really worked. Originally I thought YAtM needed its own space, but I was too afraid to give that level of commitment when I didn’t even know if I could sustain it for a long period of time, so I left it here to see how I would do. Several weeks later, YAtM grew legs and walked out into the world.

I’m happy to announce my new blog, You Are the Muse. I’ve moved the YAtM posts from here to there and added a couple since, while I waited for the right time to tell you about it. Everything about this is different from anything I’ve ever tried before. It might not be an original concept, might not even be very important in the grand scheme of things. It might not turn into anything at all, ever, just me pissin’ in the wind here. (Hard for a lady, but not impossible. ;) I might not ever finish, but it’s asking me to begin.

I tried to box it in here where I’m comfortable but it never felt right, so now I’m trying to let it go where it wants, without a plan or even a destination. There may be many changes in the early days while I adjust course. I have a feeling I won’t be able to see the turns until I’m right upon them.

It’s funny how a blog about finding the muse within oneself seems to be coming from the outside. It might be the only way my subconscious can get around my inability to promote myself. I mean, who am I to tell other people what they should value? Am I really so audacious as to think I might make something out of this? Really? I can only do it if it’s not me doing it, that’s what I think.

And so I ask for your help on behalf of this-thing-that-is-not-me.

Here’s what I need, and you may do any of these or all, whatever you feel comfortable with. I understand you might not be interested in the subject of the new blog, but your friends might be. Anything will help.

1. On Twitter: Follow YAtM on Twitter, and if you feel so moved, give a #FF shout-out
2. On Facebook: “Like” the new YAtM Facebook page and share with your friends. I’ll be suggesting the page to my friends, to make it easier. Subscribe to YAtM with a FB app called Networked Blogs. It’s a safe subscription service, with no spam whatsoever. Very unobtrusive. I’ll also be sending invites for that.
3. On your blog: If you think your readers will be interested, give YAtM a mention and/or put it in your blogroll. I’ll return the favor. I invite you to write your own post about creativity or the muse and tag it with You Are the Muse, or send it to me as a guest post, or both. I have two lined up, but would love more.

I think that’s a good start.

I imagine I will still post here with news of my life, but I might be a bit busy with YAtM for a little while. I would be EXTRASPECIALLY HAPPY, NO LIE, to hear your suggestions for features or improvements. This is a project for all, not just for me.

Thanks for all your support.

I must say I have reservations about re-opening Sherri Blossoms. All the old fears and pressures return as I open Live Writer and begin to type. Have I really taken enough time off? Do I have anything to say? Will blogging still be a bore, and is it worth the energy?

The answer to all those questions is: I won’t know until I try. And so I begin.

I’ve spent the past two months adrift, a necessary thing, releasing old ideas about how this blog, my career, my relationships should be. I played at NaNoWriMo; wrote parts of books and stories, but nothing that lights my fire; joined OWFI and planned to enter their annual contest in several categories, and actually got quite a bit done in that direction; accepted the fact that crappy stuff happens all the time, and I have to learn how to write anyway.

I think I finally settled on a blog theme that works exactly how I need it to, and will build it over time. I might post writings here, stories that maybe aren’t worth trying to sell but still have some entertainment value. A new About Me page would be nice.

I’m accepting the fact that the blogging community has changed immensely since I started. It used to be the way I communicated all the parts of my life, but I have Facebook for the more mundane stuff now. I used links and images, and I thought about SEO and getting the blog out there. That helped in the beginning, but dang... If you enter “Sherri Cornelius” into Google, Yahoo, and Bing, you will find this website in the top spot, not to mention various others of my hangouts in positions below that. I’m “out there”, mmkay?

The writing of the blog never bored me, but all the side work did, and I guess I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. I don’t want to imagine what I can make of this place, but to be surprised with what it becomes.

You know what? I just love this theme. I've missed it. And why, you may ask, am I changing it again? Because I'm schizoid. And because that other one was just too hard to tweak, and I never did get it just right. And because this one fits my personality and mood better. And because I'm thinking of going on hiatus, so I want something less dynamic.

The hiatus thing... Well, you may have heard Moonrat is, sadly, closing her publishing blog. A lot of the reasons she gave for the closing sort of matched up with why I want to change direction here. I've run into the thing most bloggers do, and that's the repeating-myself thing. The blog as it is doesn't fit my needs or goals now. It got me thinking it would be a good thing to close this one down and start from scratch, but I'm too much of a coward. Then Sarah suggested a very long hiatus to give me some distance, and that sounded like just the right thing.

I'm not ready to do it today, because when I go I think I'll be dismantling the whole website. Not even sure why I decided I needed to post about it. I guess I'm just thinking out loud, the same reason I always post, really.

Well, so I've been thinking about where to take the blog. It's no secret I've been less than excited about it lately, especially the personal stories which seemed so important in the first few years, but now...notsomuch. I've talked about everything personal already. I think I want to focus on publishing, but there's so much babble about it already.

But I have this feeling my perspective can fit into the babble somewhere. I just have to figure out what that perspective is. I've learned a lot about what it means to have an agent, to be on submission, to get critiques both good and bad, to give critiques good and bad. I've done a lot--and I mean a lot--of work on my internal process as a writer, and some of my insights on that could help someone. Briefly, I was on the other side, the editing side (and btw, the start-up e-pub isn't happening after all), and surely I could write something about that.

Do you know, the only thing that's dampened my enthusiasm for the blog is the worry about hurting the business side of my writing career. I worry endlessly about that, and it's hard to let the Muse of the Weblog off her leash to find a post for me when I'm afraid of sounding like a whiney-butt, or hurting someone's feelings, or giving away too much information about my professional relationships. I can't keep stifling myself like this. It seeps over into my real work.

I don't know, I'm just restless; thinking out loud. Is there anything about my writing experience so far that you'd like to know more about? The response here might help me decide where I need to go with the blog. The chirp of crickets would indicate I need to dump it entirely, but I can't seem to do that. Sorry to disappoint. :)

You probably saw a new theme every time you visited in the past three days. I think I'm going to keep this one for a little while, see how I like the layout and what kind of tweaks I might need. It has no theme options available, and while I usually look for a theme with as many as possible, I spent a little time learning some more CSS last night. I love doing that stuff, when I take the time to do it. So actually, this theme not having options may be a good thing, as it's forcing me to learn how to tweak things myself. That way, if I decide to keep it I will already know how to change the graphics into something more Sherri-flavored.

I'd been toying with the possibility of having a static front page, but I didn't know what to put there. I like the way this one's laid out. Of course, when I start promoting a book I'll probably have to get a real website built based on that, but this will work for now.

So apparently this is a time to prepare my external persona for success. If you're on Facebook, I have an author profile that will go active if I get a publishing contract. I expect it to be the easiest place to do news updates and such, and an easy way for people to connect to me. Log in to your Facebook account, click this link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sherri-Cornelius/#!/pages/Sherri-Cornelius/91241069662?ref=ts

and then click the "Like" button, and you'll be all signed up. If you "like" my author page it will show up in your friends' news streams, and that'll spread the word.  Some of you are already on there, and I thank you. Also thanks to those who gave me notes on this theme. (Talking 'bout Soho Serenity.)

Time to go eat lunch with the hubs.

I find myself wanting to do bullets for every post. With easy separation of my different topics, I don't have to put too much thought into those pesky segues, or too much work into cohesion. The separation is the key; I'm not married to the bullets. When I saw how Darcknyt separated his topics by bold headers for several posts, I thought that might work better for me, too.

Then I thought I could just separate the topics into their own blog posts like a normal person, but since my blog is a snapshot of my mood at any given time, I find it nearly impossible to write posts for the future. So far I've used blogging as a way of impressing my personality onto the Internet, quite unintentionally. I don't see it as a place to showcase my stories or to write persuasive posts, and I don't treat the posts like magazine articles the way some do. That's probably why I don't draw a lot of readers.

I think I'll try separating my topics into new posts. I'm experimenting, right? So maybe you'll get three or four posts this week instead of the usual point-five.

Well, I tried and tried to fix the comment form so it would show your line breaks, and I just can't figure it out. Lots of times when I hit a wall like this, if I just give it a little time it'll become clear, so that's what I'll try. I know it's annoying, but one day I'll have it fixed. I like having my own website, though at times like these I wish I had stayed at the free Wordpress blog. Every tiny problem means hours on the Internet trying to find a solution. *sigh*

In one week, the Little Bubba got the car door slammed on his fingers, ripped his hand open with barbed wire, got dive-bombed by a kite, fell of the front porch, and a bunch of other little owies I can't remember. That kid has a bullseye painted on his back and fate has the darts. It's gotten so every time I hear a thud or a shout I run straight to him. Good news is his little 8-year-old self is still "going good, great, happy" with his girlfriend.

The hubs is looking for a pickup. The van is getting more and more difficult to drive, so thank goodness we had a pretty good tax refund. We had decided to pay cash for an older vehicle rather than take on a car payment (you may remember that I have enough trouble keeping the bills paid as it is), but this afternoon we went looking and there's just not that much to choose from in the older pickup department. And let me just define "older" for you by saying the '97 Saturn I bought last year is the latest model I've ever owned.

I guess people either trade in their pickups every couple of years or they just keep them till they fall apart. The guy at Automax almost talked us into a 2007 Nissan Frontier by telling us he could get the payment down to $150 a month. But man, I just don't know. One-fifty a month when I was paying zero will be hard to swallow, especially when I figure in the insurance thing. So what are your thoughts on buying an older vehicle that may need more repairs, or making monthly payments on a newer one?

Imagine my surprise when visited my stats and saw a big bump in my hits over the weekend. It's been a long time since that happened, so of course I thought it was a mistake or a persistent spammer.

I was glad to find out it was a legitimate bump! Woo! My blog was featured on this group I belong to on SheWrites. Welcome to all the new visitors! Feel free to comment or subscribe to my feed. New posts aren't as frequent as they used to be due to my working my butt off to get this book done, but of course you wouldn't know that if you're new! Forget I said anything.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my boy's story. I let him read the g-rated comments (lookin' at you, Knyt ;) and he was just thrilled he was such a hit. It also fluffed his feathers when the SheWrites reviewer mentioned his story specifically, saying she laughed so hard she woke the dog. I can't link to the review because it's a private group, but the reviewer is mystery writer Lauren Carr.

Full disclosure: After I posted the story he told me the "I could use a wetnap" part came from Spongebob. *sigh*

I'll admit I haven't been very active on SheWrites, but I've always thought I should be. If anybody wants to connect on SheWrites (which accepts men, too!), click that badge in my sidebar and I'll see you there.

[Reading over this, it seems like all these paragraphs should be in a different order, but I don't care enough to change it. Read them in any order you like.]

Maybe it's a good thing I haven't snagged a publisher yet. It's an accepted fact that publishing is changing in ways we can't foresee. It's possible that when the dust settles the Kindle will be law and physical books will be a novelty item. Of course the dust may not settle for years, maybe decades. We are in transition, for sure.

I don't want to wait till the dust settles completely, but I would like to debut in a more stable marketplace than we have now. My goal for a long time has been to sign with one of the big sff publishers, like Tor (whose parent MacMillan just had a tussle with Amazon), DAW, Baen, etc. in book form, with electronic publishing secondary. I think this is still a viable goal, but in a few years it may be the other way around. Some of these little eBook publishers like Damnation Books/Eternal Press may emerge as the brass ring eventually.

But really, there's no reason for me to speculate because I can't control how or when I get published. All I can control is the book I'm writing right now and let the rest take care of itself.

Don't know if any of you noticed, but I haven't been interacting online much. I'm bored with all my usual things, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and blogging, plus there has been an unusual development in my psyche, whereby the need/desire to write outweighs the distraction factor of the Internet. I'm still keeping up with what everybody's doing, but it's more out of habit. Probably twenty times in the past few days, I've typed out a whole comment and decided not to share, because I didn't want to be distracted by the ensuing discussion. What an antisocial a-hole I am!

Nah, not antisocial. I find myself wanting to email people instead of commenting with a mass of other people. I'm tired of the Internet with its constant barrage of other people's opinions. I'd rather be discussing things with folks one-on-one. This blog is a comfortable space for me, with a small circle of commentators, but then I'm forcing y'all to come here, and that's not fair.

Besides, I'm getting tired of the whole blogging scene. I've added very few new blogs in the past two years to replace the ones that folded, and my circle is shrinking. I'm in a rut. A rut I've seen before, no doubt, but a rut nonetheless. Anybody know what the next big thing is going to be? Because I'm ready to jump on it.

I'm not hiding and I'm not mad and nothing bad is going on in my life. I'm happy to get emails and comments and tweets from you, and I'm sure this isn't my final post. I'll still be around on Facebook, too, but I might stop announcing what I had for breakfast. Just slowing down on the info overload.

I'm thinking about starting a new blog. No, not in place of this one...in addition to it. You probably want to know what it's about, seeing as how I've run out of things to say on this one. I mean, my hits have tanked, people. My blog used to be a hub of interesting discussion and information. A hub, I tells ya!

I don't want to tell you, but I've already started, so... I want to start a spiritual writing advice blog. I see so much concrete advice for the nuts and bolts of writing, but hardly any for the writer like me who stumbles around in the dark. I believe in writing from one's spirit, because that seems to be the only way I can do it. I can't force things, because then I get all stopped up, in writing and in spirit, and I think a lot of other people are that way and don't know it. Strange how there's so much noise in such a solitary activity.

So the first question is, do I have the qualifications to write an advice blog? Probably not. But I'll show you what I have.

• I've written almost two books


• and about twenty short stories, none of which have been published, although a couple were well-received in contests.


• A decade ago I wrote a popular newspaper column for a year, which was basically exactly like what I do on this blog


• I have an agent and am actively seeking publication


• I was an editor for a few months last year


• I think I'm good at reading people and a good advisor, and the baring of my soul on this blog seems to get a better response than any other topic


• I've done a TON of work on my own self in this area

So see, the list is long, but none of the items is that impressive. It's not like I'm an industry professional, or a spiritual advisor, or anything solid. So why do I need to start another blog? Why can't I just write posts like that here? Well, because this blog is me, online. It's centered around me and what I think and what I do, and while you're all a necessary part of my happiness, it's still like you're coming to my house, you know? I'd like the new blog to be about the reader, and it can't be on this blog which is named after me. I thought about calling it The Writing Guru, but that's already a popular phrase in Google. Two other choices are Your Writer's Soul and Spirit of the Pen, both of which are not being used. Or maybe You Are the Muse.

Topics? Well, I'd have writing book reviews, guest columns, reader questions, maybe a week-long feature where I delve into the writing psyche of a willing victim participant, and my own journey.

It's probably stupid. It's probably been done before, and I probably don't have the follow-through. But that's what I'm thinking about this morning.

I didn't want the angry post to be up all weekend, so here's one about my new template. I lurve it! See that flower up there? Put your cursor over it, you should be able to change the picture. The old template was pretty, but the code was written for a much older version of Wordpress, and I think that's why I was having such trouble with my website not letting people comment, and losing my graphics and stuff. Since I'm not a code master, I decided to just look for another one. I think this one will do.

I was thinking about how I needed to update my sidebar, because I know there are people who link to me but to whom I haven't added a link but I waited too long and now I don't know who they are. I used to love tinkering with my site, but lately it's just been a chore. So I thought I would ask for help on this one.

So here's what we'll do, if you'll indulge me:

• If any of you would like to be on my sidebar and aren't, please leave a comment and let me know


• If you have a favorite writing or publishing site that isn't on my list, put that in a comment and I'll check it out.


• If you are already on my sidebar, please take a moment and make sure your URL is correct and, if you have more than one, that I'm using the one you prefer.

Well I am really liking this template. I feel like I've seen it around, but I guess it's not over-used. I usually choose cleaner blogs with simple lines and a focus on the content, but I realized I rarely post pictures anymore, and having a busy template seems doable, as the graphics won't be competing with images and video and yadda yadda. I still have a couple of chores to do with the template before I can call it good enough, such as adding an RSS button up top somewhere. (There's one at the bottom...don't ask me why the designer put it down there.) I'm also writing a new front page to tell a little bit about me and probably include a picture (which I must take), and I have to figure out how to get all my pages to show up where I want them to, but that one can come later. Tell me if you have any problems.

I walked with my daughter's kindergarten class this morning on the yearly trip to the Pumpkin Patch. It's not a real pumpkin patch, but an empty lot where the local Methodist church sells their pumpkins, and which over the years has grown to be a bumpkin amusement park. There's a train engine and tractors and a fire truck to climb on, roping and bean bag toss games, and a homemade kiddie train pulled by a lawnmower. It's country fun at its finest, and the kids have a blast. I was happy to have a school activity for which I could actually volunteer--since we were outside the whole time, the fragrance was negligible, especially since I took it upon myself to be the caboose along the way, while the other parents stayed up toward the middle of the line. Not only was I helping myself, but I also provided a needed service, which was keeping the stragglers somewhat with the group.

Maggie Rose was delightful, as usual, and was proud to have me there. I befriended a couple of other kids whose parents couldn't come. I wish I'd had more time to talk to those two boys, because they seemed to have things they wanted to get off their chest, like having an adult willing to listen was an opportunity to be jumped on. I remember what it was like to be a kid without a voice. We all need to be heard.

The boy's home sick today, one of those borderline illnesses where he's not feeling terrible, but he's contagious too. Since today's the last day befor Fall Break, I decided to keep him home. You're welcome, classmates.

I'm working on bringing some maturity and professionalism to the blog. Not a lot, mind you, just enough so when editors come here they don't shriek and click away. I think I need to re-do my "about", including bio and contact info. I came across this post about author websites from the point of view of an unpaid intern, and it reminded me that professionals who visit my site looking for information about me as an author don't want to wade through posts about my sinuses, nor do they want to read my sad attempts at political diatribe. They want to know about my books, my experience, how to contact me, and how to contact my agent (though if they're here it's probably because she contacted them first).

I thought about creating two pages, one for editors and one for regular folks, the thought being that the info relevant to a visiting professional wouldn't be buried within the site, but visible on the front page. Under each page would be sub-pages, the editor page having the professional info--contact, book descriptions, links to relevant posts, etc--and the regular folks page having the talky traditional About Me, and all the social media contact stuff. There may be some overlap.

Another thought is to have one About Me that everyone would visit, and on that page have a link for editors to click if they want. The goal is to make it easy for everybody to find what they want.

What do you think? I haven't seen much besides the single About Me, with a vague outline of the blogger's interests and location. I'd be grateful for a link to examples of other types.

So cleaning up the old posts on the blog got me to thinking about privacy on the Internet. Basically, there is none. Right? Google knows your every search and much turn that data over to authorities if presented with a court order. The ghost of the blog you deleted 3 years ago still lurks on its servers, and possibly other places like another individual's computer--Google Reader is web-based, but FeedReader stores the files on the reader's computer. Pedophiles troll the Internet looking for pictures of your children. You're a celebrity, you just don't know it.

And there is why I'm streamlining and culling this blog. When I started it I was a budding writer, rosy-cheeked and wide-eyed, finishing up my first book. I absolutely knew nobody in the world would read my blog. I imagined a cloak of invisibility based on my self-perceived importance in the blogisphere, which was no importance whatsoever. It was fine and dandy for me to shout out my writer's angst, the struggles of finishing a manuscript, and following that, the struggles of form rejections from agents. Then I got an agent, and while I had the feeling things should change, I wasn't sure what, exactly.

And no, I haven't had huge rants about the inanity of any certain industry professional, nor have I given scathing reviews of any books. But I'm starting to get uncomfortable talking about the process at all. I find myself reluctant to mention anything about my writing, yet sometimes I still force myself to, because this is a writer's blog... But I'm going to stop that. I will talk about writing in more general terms, which in the long run will probably snag more readers anyway.

The general idea in the comments yesterday was that a blog represents the road you've walked, and it's nice to have that history for people to peruse. Only thing is, if I look at someone's archives and find in January '07 a rant against stay-at-home moms, that's going to affect how I see that person's present personality, even if they made peace with the SAHM who was giving them problems in January '07 and that rant no longer applies.

I'm not the wide-eyed, over-sharing, timid person I was 3 1/2 years ago. This is my career blog, with my name on it for all the world to see. At this point, I want the blog to reflect what I've learned, not how I learned it.

The best cure for a birthday hangover is a complimentary email from a new reader. The second-best cure is to take steps to get your life in order. So when the complimentary reader asked me how to subscribe to Sherri Blossoms, I took a look at my template and made some changes which should have been made already.

If you look above the header, you'll see a few buttons with various subscription options. You can either syndicate the content to your favorite RSS reader or get the posts in your email. You can also register as a user of the blog, which is most useful for solving avatar issues, apparently. After you've registered, there's a login button which should (if I've configured it correctly) bring you directly back to the blog once you've logged in.

I've deleted approximately the first half of my posts. My first blog was 3 1/2 years and four URLs ago, and I've just been dragging those old posts around with me. I feel pretty good about leaving them behind on my previous blog site, and soon I'll be cleaning up that template to reflect its abandonment.

I have a strong urge to wrap things up, finish old projects, de-clutter my life. We'll see how long the urge lasts. Meanwhile, wear out that "Subscribe by Email" button, why don'tcha.

If I miss the morning blogging window, I never think of blogging in the afternoon. Duh. If I have something to say, but either I already posted or I didn't post that morning, do I jump on and make a new post? No. Because I put myself in boxes, and that is one of them: Blog every morning, and save any ideas for the next morning's post. I don't know why, and I know it's dumb, and that's why I'm blogging right now, because I have to shout to the world

I ROCK!

I printed out my book, right? Well I just got done separating the scenes, which was extremely satisfying. I have a buttload of stuff that needs writing, mostly toward the end, but at least now I can see what I have, right in front of my eyes. I have direction. Some of it can't be used, but not much. Also, I have some scenes written from other PsOV that really work, and I'm reconsidering my single POV approach. And another thing? It's good writing. You know how when you take a story out of the drawer in which you stuffed it with disgust some months ago and find that it isn't as bad as you remember? In fact, it's workable? Like, you wouldn't kick someone out of bed for writing something similar? That surge you get? That's me. I guess it's clear how big of a deal this is to me. I'm pretty proud of myself. Ready to go. Glad I climbed out of some boxes and did this.

To top it off, I'm doing some really good editing work, and getting some housework done. I love productive days. Can you tell?

There's been a discussion over on Darcsfalcon's blog which started about leaving behind toxic family members, and then morphed into personal boundaries and expectations. Last night I was all gung-ho about continuing the discussion here on my blog, but the moment has passed. I'm not feeling particularly analytical or reflective today, but if you're interested in these topics, go on over to Fal's place and add your two cents.

So today is the last day of NaBloPoMo in the month of July. It was an interesting exercise, and I'm absolutely amazed that I managed to come up with something to talk about every day. Here are some interesting tidbits I've come away with.

• It's funny how the little throw-away posts can garner the most discussion. I guess when I touch on a subject and throw it out there, it generates more thought than if I impose my ideas on my readers.


• I simply don't have any interest in creating long, article-style posts. That's not what this blog is about, and it's not what my readers expect. I feel like those blogs are more legitimate than mine, but I don't know where I got that idea. The blog is not the only place I limit myself by arbitrary "shoulds", so hopefully I can take that lesson and apply it to other areas.


• Posting 31 days in a row did little for my daily hit count. The same posts get all the search engine traffic, I don't think I picked up any new regulars, and my old regulars visited only slightly more often, as far as I can tell.

Those little tidbits add up to one thing: I can relax and have fun on my blog. Duh.

Thanks for hanging around for my experiment. Now I'm taking off the month of August!! Not really.

I'm not beating myself up over my blogging style. Really. It's fine. It just looks so easy when other people write articles instead of rambling, so I think, I can do that!

The attitude came from my upbringing, of course. If something needed to be done, Mom did it. Fixing cars, chopping wood, raising gamecocks--Mom just jumped right in and made it happen. She taught herself how to make bumper stickers, to silk-screen t-shirts, to write, to reload shotgun shells for her husband, to cast sinkers on the kitchen stove, and so much more. Whatever she learned, so did I. She said to me over and over, "Well, you could do that. Doesn't ______ sound like fun?"

So I have the idea that I could do anything. I've only recently learned that while I could do almost anything, I'm not actually suited to all those things I've tried. Like choreographing a high school show choir. Or writing confession stories. Or being a housewife. Or selling things on Amazon.com.

So the thing is, I have to try things out to see if they suit me. Otherwise, how will I know? You know?

This post went in a completely different direction than I planned. Which is my style, and I embrace it!