Monthly Archives: October 2008

A Syndication Opportunity For Me


50 Something Moms is one of several blog sites that work together under the banner of the Silicon Valley Moms collective. Every week the McClatchy-Tribune news service reviews all the blogs and selects four pieces to go out for syndication. Each piece has the opportunity of landing in newspapers and news sites all over the country.

Those bloggers and their pieces are announced on Friday by Jill via our Yahoo group. It is a big deal. Truly. I am not sure I can stress that enough. To be a writer, and that is what bloggers are, is to want to be published and read and recognized. Writing that never sees the light of anyone’s day might as well sit in a trunk in the attic.

I have secretly hoped that one day I would be chosen. This blog marks the first time I have signed a writer’s agreement or worked in a professional writing setting. As I mentioned the other day, I am as nervous as I am excited. 

Today, as I was scanning the new posts at Yahoo, I noticed that Jill had the weekly picks up and that my Tweener essay had been chosen for next week’s syndication.

Holy shit!

I emailed her immediately with questions and she shot a message right back with her phone number. She congratulated me on setting what might be a record for being picked up. It was my first piece and it went up on Tuesday of this week. She told me to set up a Google Alert on Monday to see where the piece “lands” and that I should print it where I find it or contact the newspaper for a copy.

I called Rob right away and of course he was pleased. Rob completely believes in my writing ability and is confident that I will be able to turn this into a career and be his sugar mama. Then I called Dad, who seemed happy for me as well though I don’t think he really understood what I was talking about. Dads are good at seeming pleased for their daughters even when they aren’t interested or think their daughters’ passions are too silly to ever pay bills. I alerted my Facebook peeps after that because anyone else I know has a real job and isn’t home to call. And then I wrote this for my dear readers (some of whom are also my Facebook peeps and/or aren’t home.)

It’s funny that this news should come on a day when my Technorati rating has tanked in a Dow Jones kind of way, and when I was seriously questioning the time commitment involved what with the deadline for starting my memoir looming. 

I remembered something that Sally commented a while back about when things start to fall together they do so quickly. Maybe I am in a favorable alignment of fate and stars right now? 

I need to bask. I am so proud of myself.

You Have a Friend Request


I have been on Facebook quite a bit this last week. I haven’t spent that much time there since I registered. Facebook was just a way to keep in touch with my step-daughters in the beginning. I really didn’t get the whole acquistion of “friends” thing. I mean, how can a person have 434 friends? Some of these people have to be acquaintances or simply networking connections, right?

Until about a week ago, I had about 25 friends give or take. Fewer than even my husband though in fairness to me – he is related to most of his Facebook friends. But after I discovered that a few of my fellow bloggers at 50 Something Moms were on Facebook and then started checking out their friends list…..it was all over. I went on a friend’s request frenzy. I now have 47 friends.

To be sure, I do “know” nearly all my friends. They are people I’ve met in person or via their blogs. Most of them I interact with if only virtually. Still, it’s odd. This new need of mine to reach out and connect and, um, network.

Rob had a glance at my list tonight and said,

“You won’t be able to use the “not knowing anyone” excuse to stay away from Blogher next year.”

Yeah, I know. How pathetic of an excuse was that? But I am very shy despite my online image to the contrary.

I read often via other bloggers, writers, writing bloggers, and blogging writers that using social networking is one of the keys to success. Facebook and Fuel My Blog are really my only form of social addiction, and I am not hardcore. I don’t know how to add the de*li*cious or Digg widgets to my posts. I think Twitter would force me to pay attention to my cell phone, and I am still not over being coerced into getting one in the first place by my late husband. It turned out to be little more than a GPS for my mother.

But do I aspire to be say – The Bloggess? She has like 400 and something friends. But Rob reminds me of some recent study that revealed that beyond 150 people, we become overwhelmed and shut down. This means that 350 of the friends on Bloggess’ list are taxing her mental processes to a point that could short-circuit her.

I don’t think I will ever have that problem.*

I do think that there is something to this networking thing though. In addition to my Facebook peeps, I have blogging comrades and have met writers and political pundits. I have even been allowed to blog elsewhere. Christina Katz, an author, blogger, and freelancer,** has a new book out titled, Get Known Before the Book Deal. I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know if Facebook, or anything else for that matter, is part of the “getting known”. I think probably, yes.

So, wanna be Facebook friends? It could be mutually beneficial.

*Her fame or the mental collapse thing.

**And someone I know through her blog and on Facebook.

P.S. Please run over to 50 Something Moms today for my new piece, The Full Monty.

The Eyes Have It is Song Lyric Thursday


Actual time and effort was devoted to the discovery of which body part is mentioned most often in song and the winner was (drum roll) the eyes.

There is no small irony in the fact that only song I can think of and really like about eyes is the Jeff Healey Band’s Angel Eyes which I think is from that awful Patrick Swazye movie Road House*.

Ironic, you ask?

Yes, ironic given the fact that Jeff Healey lost his eyes to cancer. 

But here is the song anyway because I really have always liked it. It was one of those songs from my youth that desperately wished I could find someone worthy enough to dance with whenever it played.**

 

 

Girl, you’re looking, fine tonight,
and every guy has got you in his sights.
What you’re doing, with a clown like me,
is surely one of life’s little, mysteries

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above,
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say,
to turn your angel eyes my way?

Well, I’m the guy who never learned to dance,
never even got one second glance
Across a crowded room was close enough,
I could look but I could never touch

So tonight I’ll ask, the stars above,
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say,
to turn your angel eyes my way?

Don’t anyone wake me,
if it’s just a dream
‘Cause she’s the best thing,
ever happened to me

All you fellows, you can look all you like,
but this girl you see, she’s leavin’ here with me tonight

There’s just one more thing that I need to know,
if this is love why does it scare me so?
It must be somethin only you can see,
’cause girl I feel it when you look at me

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above,
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say,
to turn your angel eyes my way? 
hey, hey, hey, yeah, awww

*The best scene in that movie is when Swazye’s character does his love interest against the wall and then seemingly dances her across the room without slipping out. An impressive cinematic decision on the part of the filmmaker.

**Rob thinks this is a really dumb song, but the opportunity for dancing to it hasn’t ever come up and it doesn’t suit him, or us, lyrically in my opinion anyway.