Being Published

Last Day of NaNoWriMo


Today marks the official end of the race. I have 7 chapters and about 15,000ish words. Not the 50,000 one needs to be a “winner” but that wasn’t the point of it for me this year. I have proved I can write that and more in a month. There was no need to do it again. This year was about a decent fiction novel.

Of course life got in my way in a big way. There is the writing gig which is more like journalism than I thought it would be and consequently requires more time and effort. There was flu which I am only just, finally, getting over (secondary infections get me every time). We took a holiday and I wanted to live the time rather than spend it at the keyboard.

I won’t be publishing any more of The Fenns online for general consumption. I will move it soon to a private forum and if you want to continue reading you can let me know via email or leave a post.

Not sure about blogging in general. I have slacked quite a bit this month and found I didn’t miss the personal blogging all that much because I have two grogs – 50Something and Care2 as outlets. And the memoir and novel. I also do a lot more of my radical opinion spouting off on Facebook. I have found that people there are more likely to comment on things and engage in conversation.

I made the decision to go ahead on the yoga teacher training and have my application in. I start in January and will be done by June. 200 hours of training all together. My current instructor told me she’d love to have me teach at her studio once I am done. I like that idea a lot.

I am published in an online magazine of late and was picked up for syndication again through 50 Something.

Life feels full to bursting.

On Becoming a Columnist


I can’t imagine a better job than writing a weekly newspaper column. Being paid to comment on life as it swirls around me?  Could employment be more intellectually and creatively stimulating?

Not in my opinion.

For my birthday, Rob gave me a book on the art of writing columns that a columnist I know recommended to me. It is one she uses in the writing course she teaches. I have read just the first few chapters and find it quite helpful.

This same writer friend also urged me to simply begin asking after writing opportunities via my local papers. This is a bit of a problem. There are two local papers. Both are free and more ad than news or other content. The Post is owned, written and published by one man. I have tried to submit to him before and was informed that he only takes letters to the editor. He does not need anyone to help him with content – of which there is precious little. The Post is the newspaper equivalent  of a vanity book. The only difference being that it is read. I think as many people read The Post as read The Record, which is the “official” newspaper of Fort Saskatchewan.

I prefer dealing with the editor of The Record. He is a nice kid. Always happy to get tips on feature stories and never ignores an email.

I needed to find out if The Record would be interested in running a story about my writing group’s anthology project and decided that since I was contacting the editor anyway, I would ask about column opportunities. Specifically I wanted to know how a person went about becoming a columnist.

The book I am reading is a wealth of information on what columnists do but makes the path to a regular column sound a bit like pulling a sword from a stone. Not one of the columnists the author interviewed, and she includes herself, could pinpoint the steps to achieving this lofty thing called “a weekly column”.

The editor responded to my query in less than an hour. They didn’t have money to pay columnists was the first thing he wrote. I wasn’t surprised. It’s a free newspaper. He also went on to inform me they weren’t looking to expand their stable of columnists at the moment but were always open to new ideas and pitches but – isn’t there always one? – they liked columns written by experts.

Experts. Sigh. I am not an expert in any field. Frankly, I don’t read that type of column unless I am in need of information. Usually it is just easier to google information than follow an advice column in the hopes he/she one day writes about what I need to know.

The Record’s columnists include a couple of ministers and a woman who I think works in the mental health field. She is always writing about depression. There are many, many forms of depression and just as many ways to write about it.  Somehow she manages to write nearly the same thing every time however. I don’t know what the holy men write about because neither are very good writers.  Oh, and I’m not holy inclined to waste the minutes required to find out what concerns them enough to write about. Okay, that was unkind.  They are “technically” good, can’t fault their mechanics, but they are boring and that is just wrong.

I am glad I included my query in the email. I am not at all surprised to be politely sent back to my own little corner.  Now I can check this possibility off my list and look for others.

I do think it is a little sad my own local paper errs on the side of informative rather than enlightening or entertaining but when you have only a tiny bit of space for local politics, news and sports between the ads, the stuff which makes people think or smile is often sacrificed.

Sometimes I am informative. Mostly I am just someone whose writing about life is something others can relate to and, in a world where people feel alone more than part of humanity at large, this is important too.

A Week in Review: August 18th thru the 22nd


Globe and Mail writer, Christie Blatchford, was moaning about blogging and bloggers in Thursday’s paper, so in her honor I have decided to write the most banal of all blogging pieces – the update on my life.

I find “real” writers’ abhorence of blogs and their laments about the decline of “real” writing and journalism amusing. Newspapers long ago succumbed to the tabloidy tricks that placed selling above content. Print will never be able to compete with cable news channels and the Internet for timeliness of delivery, and when it comes to depth of topic, the political blogs have the edge and the freedom. Everything evolves. Just ask Darwin.

Besides journalists with blue-blooded leanings make lousy bloggers anyway.

So read along as I squander my finite word bank* by committing to the blogosphere my “most idle thoughts and mundane obeservations”**

My funked up mood from earlier in the week has cleared up thanks to a near complete abandonment of my schedule. No gym. Late lunches. Later suppers. No manuscript.

I just did as I pleased, and oddly it pleased me to reorganize the bathroom closet and search out the source of the fouler by the day odor in the cabinet where the dry goods are kept. The former is still awaiting final purge approval from the husband and the latter turned out to be a sack of something that had reached the gelatinous stage of decomposition therefore defying labeling attempts by both Rob and I.

I attended writing group on Tuesday evening and managed to be racially offensive to a potential new member of Cree descent. I didn’t do it on purpose but as I was explaining more of my novel to the group after reading the first several pages, I mentioned that one of the stories my main character tells is based on a family story. My grandmother’s great- uncle was the source of much concern when he was a toddler because a local native woman took quite the shine to him and hovered about whenever they ventured into town. The family, like most white immigrant settlers of the time, mistakenly thought she might snatch him. I could see the new member tightening as I told the story – even though I explained its origins and how it fit within my novel. I hate having to weigh words. I hate more that when people are offended they often fume instead of speaking up.

I finalized my writing course picks for the fall. Made out my yoga class schedule.

I prepared a new dish for supper.***

BabyD and I shopped. For her. She is quite the opinionated little clothes pony. While trying on a variety of pants, she jumped, pranced and wiggled – admiring herself in the full-length mirror as she did so. One pair of leggings left her standing completely still and not smiling. When I inquired about this, I was told,

“This pants don’t make me dance, Mom.”

A girl with her priorities straight.

While at the cute children’s clothes boutique, which is actually in The Fort, I overheard the owner mention she was looking for part-time help and I inquired. I nearly danced myself when she asked me to bring in a resume. Until I remembered that I don’t want to work for someone and that I dislike “service” work. Oh, and I am none to fond of the constant flow of humanity in the real world and that I find most things SAHM-ish incomprehensibly dull.

In fact now that I am sounding a bit more mommy-bloggish than I am comfortable with- let’s get back to me, shall we?

All deck work stopped this week. Rob and I are slightly fried around the edges and have just taken a step back from all the reno for this week. Sometimes one needs to surf the web and watch pointless movies in bed.

I got back to contributing at Moms Speak Up. Wrote a piece on Texas teachers being allowed to carry concealed weapons on the job. I won’t go into why this is the worst idea ever but if you knew some of the people I have worked with over the course of two decades, you would just take me at my word. I have yet to meet the educator who hasn’t uttered the phrase “It’s a good thing I wasn’t carrying a gun” at least once in their career – out loud and in the presence of witnesses.

Oh, and I have been reading. A novel.

Finally, I finished tagging my earliest blog posts from mid 2006 until about the time Rob and I started dating. Mostly very depressing widow stuff, but if that kind of thing interests you or you would like to know where I started my blogging journey, I am now easy to search under widowhood or grief. They can also be found under remarriage or long distance relationships or YWBB. Enjoy.

* Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated believes that writers have but a finite number of printable word combinations in them and to blog is to basically piss them to the wind.

** To quote Ms. Blatchford

*** That deserves its own paragraph. I am sure my husband can attest to the wonder of my attempting to expand my meager repertoire.