blogging

A Monday MEME


I am not much of a team tag player which is probably why I never get tagged but I found an interesting MEME on FuelMyBlog that doesn’t require any effort beyond the ability to put links in a post.

Link 1 must be about family

Link 2 must be about friends

Link 3 must be about yourself

Link 4 must be about something you love

Link 5 can be anything you choose

Post your five links and then tag five other people.

1) Family Night

2) Making New Friends

3) Me

4) Rob

5) Jasper

Normally I would tag Steven Spielberg but he’s got a premiere coming up at Cannes and probably just doesn’t have time, and Angelina and I are on the outs ’cause she doesn’t have much by way of a sense of humor these days (preggie with twins will do that to you). Since Oprah can’t admit she reads me (because it would cause a run on this site, overwhelm WordPress and make other bloggers jealous), and I really shouldn’t be name dropping anyway, I will call upon some of my trusted companions in blogging: Rob, Pammy, Girl, Uncle Keith, and Daisyfae. However, anyone can play (or not) as the moment moves them. If you do, don’t forget to post a link here for all to enjoy.

Just Say NO to Related Post Links on WordPress


A day ago, or so, WordPress added a new feature that essentially allowed them to show post links to other WordPress blogs that are related to whatever post a reader might be reading. My husband turned this feature off after reading a blog post that pointed out that a reader might confuse these links with the idea that they were simply other posts on the blog he/she was reading. This could lead to problems if said reader were to click a link and be taken to a blog post somewhere else that might be offensive.

I didn’t think much about that until a link appeared under my recent piece on MIley Cyrus that was titled “Bill O’Reilly Wants to Fuck Miley Cyrus”. Aside from the “I need a spoon to scoop out my mind’s eye” factor, that isn’t exactly what I want to show up as a link under a piece I wrote for my blog. And that’s what it gets down to. This is my blog. I want to decide what links to post within a piece of writing.

For now the feature stays off although this will cost me views and potential readers. I am not ready to let WordPress dictate my links.

Publishing Opportunities? Where? When? How?


I found this publishing opportunity via another blog called Mommy Writes. I am not the best writer on demand, although I am improving, but I thought I might be able to pound out a couple of pieces that would pass muster for this anthology. I have to say, I am in awe of niche bloggers. They manage to find topics that are so simple and yet so full of writing potential and therefore interesting to a vast audience. Me? I am too egocentric I guess. (What?! NO argument at all? Thanks, so very much.) I just write about any old thing that pops into my head, flits across the day’s headlines, dances in front of my eyes on the dvd. I am just a topic of the nano-sec kind of girl.

I run across writers too who spread their blogging out over several blogs so as to create a separate space for each specific type of reader. That way no one has to wade through blog entries on say…potty training when they really come to read about the blogger’s latest outdoor trysting spot with his/her significant other. It’s a really good idea but as someone who ran three blogs simultaneously – and was basically using the same post for each blog – I can’t wrap my mind or my meager talent around it. I have enough to do furnishing this blog with material and writing my fiction and creative non-fic for, hopefully, publication in a print forum someday.

I have run across online opportunities that seem challenging and fun, but nothing has come of them yet either. Rob reminds me that I shouldn’t expect too much too soon. Good (or not so is my fear at times) as I might be, everyone starts out at the same place and that is what “aspiring” means. And okay, my aspirations are great and varied, so it stands to reason that my doubts sometimes match. But I am working on a great story idea now, courtesy of a conversation with my husband about the current food shortage in the world, and I have solved a problem with my serial sci-fi stories and just need to sit down and apply my solution. I saw an opportunity to write for a feminist/activism blog (yeah, I know I say I am not a feminist but I have been quacking too much of late) that if I am lucky might allow me to write a piece or two. I sent a query and am waiting to hear back and waiting and waiting and feeling a little like the red-headed step-child in the process.

The realist in me therefore is planning for the fall and applying with the school district for a library assistant or teacher associate position. Anything but teaching in my own room really. Applying for a teacher’s license is doable but only if I want to take a Mickey Mouse course or two to satisfy some Franco requirements that the province just added to the to do list of new teachers. The course requirements variation from province to province (state to state back in the U.S.) is the worst kind of pandering to regional universities. It’s all about sucking a few extra bucks out of you and not about helping you be a better educator. Digression though. Rob thinks a job will also help “socialize” me a bit and it probably will but I have always found that for the most part, work friendships often don’t survive the job by much. There have been but a handful of exceptions in my life to that rule and I treasure them, however, they by and large are situational.

I am also going to put in an app with the city of Fort Saskatchewan. I am still bummed about missing out on that cool museum job but I didn’t have my work permit in time to apply. My massage therapist tells me to inquire about the posting to see if it was filled. Her husband works for the city and apparently many of their postings go unfilled due to the lack of qualified (read “educated”) applicants. We are still in a boom economy up here and anyone with the tiniest bit of education is working for the oil companies in some capacity. However most of the jobs that go begging are in the service industry or the medical fields.

It’s dumb to be glum about what is really a great life just because I can’t write for anyone but myself, my husband and the handful of people who come to this blog (and thank you, thank you my loyal followers and commenters especially – I love comments. They make me feel less like an idiot screaming into the vacuum of cyber-space). I just want a chance. Catch a break. That miserable Catch-22 of “experience” is biting my bum in the most unfair way.