writing skills/profession

all about me


Sometimes I remember that the point of this blog is me. 

Spring has finally arrived in my little acre of Canada and with it the urge to purge. In the spirit of that quaint custom known as spring cleaning, I will be engaging in a sweep of the corners of my mind and a trip or two into the depths of my soul. Things have been stirred up in the last few days. Issues that are old and no longer fit the newer, but certainly not completely improved, me.

I find my inspiration in the oddest of places. The newspaper. Upcoming anniversaries and holidays. My sadistic yoga instructor. The act of writing. Employment opportunites. Things that other people blog about. Regardless of where the impetus comes from, in the end this is about me. Try to remember that and keep up because I don’t want to have to pull over and repeat myself.

 

BlogHer ’08 in San Francisco


I am a registered blogger at BlogHer, a large almost entirely women-only site that kind of collects the various female bloggers in cyber-space and houses them under a single “roof”. I don’t blog there – yet – still thinking about it, but I really would like to attend their annual conference which this summer is in San Francisco. Last year’s was in Chicago, I think, but Rob and I had only been married just shy of a month, Katy and I were still adjusting from the big move north, and there was that sticky thing about not being able to travel freely back and forth across the border without Rob as I wasn’t a permanent resident yet.

This July I will have my PR card. In fact I should have my final approval within the next week or so as the FBI very kindly put an expedite on my fingerprint/background check (and as I suspected I have never been arrested) which my caseworker at CIC will have this Monday. After that it is (I assume) stamping and mailing me the final approval. With that I can apply for the cards for Katy and I. Once again, freedom of movement. Not that I was restricted all that much. Canada is an overly large place. However the mere idea that I couldn’t get to the States and back on my own felt confining for some reason. This development means, of course, that I could go to Blogher ’08 in SF this July. It would come pretty close on the tails of our return from Iowa (family business), but it’s doable. It’s also an expense. Rob figures about $2000 dollars between airfare, hotel, and conference fees. My tax refund will more than cover it, but I hate to be frivolous with that money. Is this conference something that could be beneficial for me as a writer?

Pro and Con?

Okay, pro is that I was recently accepted as a writer for an online activist site called Moms Speak Up. It’s not a compensated position but it’s also not self-publishing. It is a chance to write about things that matter to me. Issues that affect our lives and futures. A few of the scheduled sessions dovetail with the type of thing I would be doing like political opinion writing and writing with a global perspective. There is also an interesting sounding session on the gender and race issues generated from the current presidential campaign. In addition there will be sessions on building traffic and syndication and promotion. And advertising. Can’t forget that. And yes, I realize I can’t get to that many sessions, but as you can see there is a lot to learn. I would get my money’s worth out of the registration.

Continuing with the pro, there are opportunities to meet other bloggers. I think they call this “networking”. I didn’t do that kind of thing as a teacher because I wasn’t interested in moving into administration. I don’t consider admin having much to do with real teaching. I had some great bosses, don’t misinterpret, but managing isn’t educating though a really good admin knows how to set up a productive atmosphere and get out of his/her teachers way. Networking among bloggers is important. You can learn things from the good ones. I have learned so much from just reading good blogs. Daisyfae and Nurse Myra for instance have taught me the importance of replying to commenters. Julie has shown me that it is possible to mix serious commentary with personal life observations and anecdotes. Meeting bloggers in person and talking about blogs and writing seriously could be even more informative.

Cons? Oh yeah, gotta do that list too.

Being away from Rob for another three days. We will have already spent time apart when I head to Iowa to help my mother out. Rob is going to spend part of that trip up here working – at the plant and on the house. There are reno jobs that are going to create a certain amount of dust, among others things, that an asthmatic like me shouldn’t be exposed to (this could technically be a pro too but time away from the husband is not counted as a positive in my world-view).

There is also the money aspect. It’s not a bank breaker but it is enough money to give pause. Okay yes, it could be considered an investment but an investment in what? Me? To what end?

Hmmm. I have to give this more thought. It would be fun and the bottom line is that learning should be fun. I have never been to San Francisco although in going there it does put the onus on me to try and find time to visit my younger brother now that he has moved down there from Tahoe (that is almost a con).

Has anyone been to BlogHer or is going? Your perspective would be interesting to know.

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.