Working From Home

On par with trying to get any rest while the kids are home is trying to set up a daily writing schedule.

July 6 at the beach.  A bit nippy.  But not bad for winter!

We've been here 8 months now, we are MOSTLY moved into our new home, Damon has work, the kids are at school from 8:30 to 3:00 and I am still here on a tourist's visa. 

I should be bored out of my mind, right?!

Let's not even get into the fact that Damon is still home until 2:00 most days, and gone all weekend.  He's a good egg.  (I make him take the kids to school in the mornings.)

But that's where the distractions come in.  Budgeting discussions for the new car.  Can we afford to buy all of Ryan's riding manuals first-hand?  (Vomit.  See next essay.)  Do we need to get the twins' hearing assessed right away or is their speech improving? (And does it REALLY matter that they still say "I muss toilet" after 8 months of living here?!)  Should I be there for all the dental appointments?  (Um.  Everyone's teeth were SUPPOSEDLY fine in Germany but I believe the Aussies have other standards.  Perhaps a bit high, but if the state is paying for the capping of milk teeth, then what the heck, right?!)  Who is going to write the letter to the real estate agent about the possums that are taking over the house WE are supposed to have exclusive use of? 

Nintendo DSIs are on sale at Target now for Christmas.  (No kidding.  Layaway in July is like the BEST Aussie tradition EVER!  Not only is the shopping almost done, we are paying it off a month at a time!)

Aidan

This is life - I like to think of it as LIF after a typo to my mom years ago that just about put it all in perspective.  LIF is..well, if I have to explain, right?!

LIFE would be getting it together to do what I love as well as the daily chores.  Although I have to admit, I am LOVING my new space, the ability to cook curries and peanut sauces due to that space - and the fact that you can get Asian ingredients at Walmart.  (Does anyone know the difference between a Malaysian red curry paste and Thai red curry paste?  I do!)

Still, writing professionally is going to take some dedication, some ability to set aside a space (got it!) and a TIME to take it seriously.  My Bible, Stephen King's book on writing (Funny enough just about the only book of his I enjoy!  GREAT author, as it turns out, just not my style story.) is on the make-shift desk in my bedroom.  And if he can do it with a portable Olivetti typewriter perched on his knees while hiding in the laundry room from his kids....

There's the rub.  But I don't WANT to wait until the kids leave home.

Matthew

So this past Monday, when I had a day-long appointment in Brisbane that involved a lot of just sitting in waiting rooms in between meetings, I did what Karenne taught me to do through writers' group.  I laid out a plan to write.  When and where.  (Not quite up to GOALS yet, Jim, but once I have the time down, I'll send them to you!  I know, I know, having seven projects in a list doesn't mean they are going to get done!)

I planned to start Tuesday.  9 - 11 AM four days a week.  Since I spend Friday mornings at school and quite a number of afternoons there as well.  (Writing program with the kids on Fridays- yay me - and Optiminds on Wednesdays - and did they really rope me into doing math with the smart kids?!  That doesn't sound too promising, does it?!  Ah well - maybe I'll learn something!)  Someone DOES have to do the grocery shopping and the errands too.  So 9 - 11 sounded doable, if not the 10,000 words a day, six days a week that Stephen suggests.  (Let's remember, HIS kids are OUT of the house!)

Swear to God, Ryan started vomiting on Monday night.  After I cleaned the bathroom and got her tucked back in,  Andrew woke up with a nightmare.  Which wasn't surprising, since the possums living in our walls seemed to have invited friends over for a late night party, without asking our permission of course..  I had a hard time falling back asleep after that since I wasn't sure whether the stomping going on above my head was Ryan vomiting, Andrew panicking, the possums or Damon coming home from work after midnight. 

Ryan.  My fairy, so beautiful!

My biggest regret about myself is that I need sleep.

I enlisted Ryan's help in setting up my writing space - some incense, my Anne Lamott books, Jane Austen, some other inspirations and, of course, Stephen - while Damon took the boys to school.

When Damon came back to tell me about Friday's 8AM pancake breakfast to honor Ms Dance as one of Queensland's "Favourite Teachers" and how Tracy had invited us over for tea on Wednesday afternoon and Aidan had cried because he forgot how to pronounce the word "how" on his reading list (no worries, I have it printed on his palm now and he has to raise it like an American Indian to see it!)and if he should call the rental association and would I like to write a formal letter of complaint about the possums (who, by the way, look NOTHING like American possums, but are actually red and quite cute, and look a bit like foxes)....

I felt a little like I was throwing him to the wolves (with a vomiting child to boot!)

But I shut the door and put words to paper for 2 hours.

The big boys check out the beach conditions.  18C in the water.  (High 60s F)

I got 400 words down that I am reasonably proud of.

And today I plan to do the same.  9 - 11. 

Because, as it turns out, the bathroom isn't going to cheat me out of the pleasure of cleaning it by cleaning itself while I am looking the other way.  The books aren't going to jump out of their moving boxes and arrange themselves on the shelves in the wrong order.  And the laundry will hang on the line until I am ready to take it down.

Am I able to write from home while I still have kids in it?

Absolutely not.

But I'm going to do it anyway!

A Bush Poem Out of Dresden - Part One: German Roots

Feeling way more German as a tourist in Bayern than I ever did living in Baden-Wurttemberg.

I'm an Aussie out of Dresden via Washington, D.C.
And, since you asked, I'll tell the tale of how that came to be.

The bombs they fell on Dresden as my dad was born nearby.
The "good" guys fighting evil,  dropping evil from the sky.
So I wasn't even born yet, but became a refuge
When my father and his family fled westward to be free.

My dad was born in Rathen, which is now an exclusive resort town just outside of Dresden.  It was used by the DDR as an exclusive holiday resort for high-ranking Communist officials.

We are so psyched to be in the town that Opa was born in that we take pictures under every sign saying Rathen.

To think, Opa grew up among these very same houses.

A world away another man was out there fighting Japs.
He was there as Darwin burned, to help those Aussie chaps.
The Yanks, 'tis true, did have a rep - and tendency- to ogle
And, sure enough, his eye did land upon a sheila from Cayogle.

(It's their daughter, born in Brisbane, that I have got to thank.
She's why I find myself in Oz, although SHE'S now a Yank!)

My first few of Dresden.  The Catholic Church viewed from across the Elbe.

Back to the land of Dirndls, Lederhosen, Brats und Bier
'Cause MY parents haven't met yet and so I'm not really here!
'Tis a THIRD man sends his daughter overseas to learn and play.
She comes back speaking German.  And in the family way.

The Frauenkirche rebuilt.  My German heart.  My dad saw it last as a pile of rubble. 

She's young and doesn't get it, what the fuss is all about.
"So many nice American boys," her grandmother, she shouts.
But the deed it's been accomplished and they know it could be worse.
Although my dad's a German, at least they married first!

My kids playing in the Elbe, the same river Opa played in as a child  before emigrating to The West at the age of thirteen.

My mom, she graduates from school.  I'm born in finals week.
And I get my first passport, before I even speak.

So I grow up speaking German, learning English nights at home.
A rootless German Yankee with a tendency to roam.

Oh.  Here I am.  Feeling my roots among the cobblestone streets of Dresden.

My NEW Writers' Group is a Bunch of Poets! (With Photos From Australia Day!)

Australia Day, January 26.  Blending right in.

I went in search of a Writers' Group last week.  I'm missing that part of myself that The Group in Stuttgart helped me rediscover, the regular encouragement to work on what I enjoy, the validation that I am a person besides mother and household manager. 

Sigh.  I really really miss you guys.

So, what I found here, at a Tuesday morning book opening at the Strathpine library, was a roomful of poets.  For those of you who remember reading my one attempt at poetry a few years back (and I'm sorry if you do!), poetry is NOT my strong point.  Andrew seems to have that rhythm, but I don't. 

Still, I can enjoy it and so I walked right in.

The Canadian Mounted they ain't!  But then again, we don't have any aggressive neighbours to the south to protect against!  

First off these are Aussies.  So I was welcomed with open arms.  Secondly, they were mostly men, retired, and so....yeah, I was welcomed with open arms. (Never mind make-up and exercising, just head into a room of men in their sixties for a quick pick-me up!)  And when I mentioned that I wrote mostly personal narrative right now that didn't stop 'em for a minute.  In fact, a couple of them started right in reciting their poetry.

http://www.noelstallard.com/  


And that is how I was introduced to Australian Bush Poetry, a cousin of American Cowboy Poetry, an artform I find lively, sharp, witty, insightful, entertaining and imminently accessible to the masses.  I like it.  Whether I have any talent in that direction remains to be seen, but I have been invited to BI-MONTHLY meetings.  In any case, I need the push of creative individuals around me again.  And I am certainly more than willing to try something new.  Even in a roomful of poets.

Australian Pride.  If only we didn't have that British heritage that is going to force this poor child to eat Lammingtons.  How about a good fudge brownie instead?

Funny enough, I had been on Jim's photo blog  http://jimmartinphotoblog.blogspot.com/  only the day before and bemoaning the fact that I was unable to find a way to create those pictures in words.  I appreciate the visual much more than I ever did but I still feel my strong point is words.  (And Jim, your words TO the pictures make the pictures come alive for me.  The shots themselves are beautiful, but for me at least, it's the words you add to the pictures that make the story breathe.)  I'm a words lady, I guess.   (No kidding, right?!) 

And here these guys are, creating living images out of words. 

The other thing I liked is that Noel is able to write about something very personal, like national pride or national spirit, without becoming bogged down in trite sentiment and moralizing.  Two of my weaknesses.  These poems are FUN.  They convey the message, but they do it with light-hearted laughter.  There is no need for explanation.  (Oh dear, whatever will I do without my pithy life lessons at the end of every essay?!)

I'm still a shy photographer at best.  But I can catch'em on the sly!

So that I went right home that night and stayed up three hours composing the beginnings of my OWN Bush Ballad.  I had the rhythms in my head from Noel's reading and I believe I may have finally found a form to convey my sense of self without beating you all over the head with it.

The judgement is still out on whether reminiscences about GERMANY can be called AUSTRALIAN poetry but, unlike Germany and England who have officially declared multiculturalism to be a failure in their countries (and you'd better believe I have an essay on that!), Australia is proud of its migrant heritage. 

So here goes.  And even if it IS terrible, I've got some photos from Dresden interspersed to make it worth your while.  If noone else, I think my Daddy will get a kick out of it!

My Southern Cross!

Creative Masochism

Claire and Lindsey at our August meeting in Stuttgart.  A rare day of sun. 

It must be a 'creative person'  thing. 

Jim said it best, or most succinctly anyway, at one of our Writers' Group meetings a few years back. 

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm a masochist."  he said.  "I don't write and I don't write and I don't write and I am miserable.  And then I write and I feel great.  And then I go ahead and stop writing again.  Somehow I must like being miserable to keep putting myself in that position."

He probably said it better than that but I can't find my notes.  And yes, I took notes, but only because it fit my situation so perfectly.

Claire says it all the time.  And Liz.  And Lindsey.

Except that, now that I think about it, we all say it about exercising too.  And eating well.  And getting fresh air.  And all those other things that are good for us.

By 'we' I mean most everyone I know at one point or another about one thing or another.

Caroline, Jim and Ken showing that you can't judge a creative person by their covering!

So that maybe its just a condition of human nature that we need to overcome.

Me?  I find that when I write, the house is cleaner, the meals are healthier and more things get checked off the 'to do' list than when I don't write.  I create the energy to live my life through writing. 

Why I'd stop writing - even for a few short weeks - is really beyond me.

Unless that quick burst of joyous energy that comes from starting again makes up for the pain.  Which makes us adrenaline junkies, not masochists.

Or maybe just makes us human!

A Word From Andrew

Reading is fun, yeah.  School is fun, yeah.  But fighting?  How would fighting be fun?  I hate, just HATE; fighting.  Man, war is the same, hate it.  Just be happy about YOUR land!, and betting: well, better than WAR and FIGHTING, but I don't like it.

(They ARE listening!  And how did a kid of MINE get to be a poet?!  Andrew got a star for his work.  The punctuation needs some work.  And I've not sure how that part about betting got in there.  (My best guess is a television commerical or ad campaign on the train somewhere!)  But that's what an editor is for right?!  For now, they are just letting the kids WRITE.  What a joy!

The Fight to Write

Damon has been gone for two full days and I have spent a large majority of that time on the computer writing.  The days have been mild and sunny.  The kids have played outside, Luke and Leia running an intergalactic fast food joint out of the sandbox as Anakin and Obiwan ride around on their little plastic green tractors saving the universe from loose lawn debris and every so often in coming in for an order of fries.  With ketchup.

I did spend some time making sure that Luke and Leia could measure distance in meters, centimeters and millimeters.  And all four of the Star Wars gang has unwittingly been learning about Germany while playing a great Ravensburger game called "Deutschlandreise'' (Travel through Germany).  Not only are they learning map reading skills, they are learning all the major airports in Germany and which connections to take get from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Kiel.  The coolest thing is that the game is over 20 years old and still shows the divided Germanies.  So that we get a little history lesson built in too.  I'd highly recommend the game to anyone raising kids in Germany.  The kids learn to plan out a route, learn about places in Germany.  And it's fun.  Really.  Ravensburger is great.  And can feel free to advertise on my final web-site any day. 

Right now I just looked up to catch Andrew, in my straw sun hat, enter the bedroom.  Ryan has the camera  - I believe she asked permission and I just said ''Um."    And the four of them are writing and directing themselves in a movie.  Peacefully so far.

But Damon will come home to battle scars.  The latest occurred this afternoon as Luke, Leia and I were reviewing lengths and distances.  ( I get to be Padme, and have endowed myself with the powers of Gaia, something that Luke does not fully approve of but which he lets slide with a roll of his eyes as long as I am willing to remain in character.)  In order to stop Anakin (Matthew, appropriately enough) and Obiwan from waging their intergalactic battle on the sofa, Padme suggested they open a fast food stand on her bed using the Uno cards as currency.  Padme did NOT suggest taking her pens and tattoing their faces with them.  Although she has to admit it adds to the terror when they face their intergalactic space opponents.  Or, in Obiwan's case, scary spiders. 

It also has the added bonus of covering some of the scars Anakin inflicted upon Obiwan in yesterday's all-to-real battle here on Earth. 

Padme can use the forces of good to restore order to the universe.  Or in this case the apartment.

Nothing but time will bring back Andrew's toenail. 

My time is up.  Damon is on his way up the stairs.  I think of my children's battle scars and thank them for their self-less sacrifice on the altar of their mother's writing.

The fight to write.  Tougher than a light saber duel against Darth Vader.  May the Force be with me.

21st Century Woolf

It just occurs to me that the best words of wisdom I have heard about writing come from two writers whose works I really haven't read.  Virginia (Woolf)'s essay entitled ''A Room of One's Own" has been my clarion call since before I read it.  And once I finally did read it, two years ago, well, the woman is simply brilliant.  (I just can't seem to get into her fiction.  Huh.)

I don't have her essay here with me.  But I feel that I am living it.  Virginia's contention is that men in her time were more successful authors than women for a number of very simple reasons:  they had the freedom to write, they had the income to write, and they weren't getting knocked up every eighteen months and raising a passle of snotty nosed children. 

Nowadays the passle of kids is a choice, and not nearly as time-consuming as we all like to moan about.  (Is passle a word?)  The exception is the first few years with multiple small children, but those do pass.  Sure, we have to keep the buggers fed and clothed but we now have ovens, stoves, microwaves and take-out menus.  We have washers and dryers so that the laundry doesn't take an ENTIRE DAY out of every week.    Oh  - and the clothes DO make themselves.  Or at least some underpaid and underfed child laborer in China does.  And we have supermarkets.  We aren't raising and slaughtering our own meat or growing and canning our vegetables or going out the chicken shed or milking the cows twice a day.  And we aren't chopping the wood for our heating.  Or spending another day a week on our hands and knees doing the floor.  (Honestly, I can't imagine caring enough about the appearance of my floor to spend an entire day on my hands and knees on it but..) 

So that I think the biology of breeding has been taken out of the mix as an excuse.

Having an independent income would be nice.  No worry about mortgage or college tuitions or those braces Ryan and Andrew are going to need.  But we have the freedom to earn an income.

So that I'm actually forgetting what I was going to complain about in the first place!

Oh.  Yeah.  THE ROOM.  OF ONE'S OWN.  Time, breathing space, a moment to oneself. 

The second brilliant writer I worship but don't read is Stephen King.  Not my style.  Although I will be taking out all of the books under the King section in the Brisbane public library because I want to see what I've been missing.  I'm not into sci-fi or horror or creepy and weird.  I have enough trouble dealing with the horrors of reality and don't need anything more to lay awake nights trembling about.

But he knows how to write.  And he says a writer has to...guess what...write.  (And read too.  Yay.  I have access to English language libraries again and free license to do what I love best.  And call it work.)  A writer, according to Stephen, has to write.  A lot.  And to do that you need a place of your own.  His own words, a century after Virginia said the same thing.

Stephen doesn't say you need a ROOM per say.  He wrote his first two published novels, Carrie and 'Salem's Lot,  ''in the laundry room of  a doublewide trailer, pounding away on my wife's portable Olivetti typewriter and balancing a child's desk on my thighs."  You can either hate people like this or you can try to emulate them.  But the room, according to Stephen, ''really needs only one thing:: a door which you are willing to shut."  And that is when I realize that Stephen's wife, also an author, was taking care of the kids a large percentage of the time he was writing.  I believe he'd be the first to admit it too.  (And the guy was writing four hours a day, at night, while holding down a full-time teaching job, so that I am not saying he had it easy either.  Virginia again.  Independent income.  Which Stephen has NOW but did not have when he started.)

I'm reliving all this in Iglersreuth this month because I don't have internet access.  Poor baby.  Virginia would not be impressed.  But Damon is home, on our only table, working.  He dominates the scene and the access to cyberspace.  And I am drained by the demands of teaching in the mornings, entertaining the children all afternoon (although we have a good time) and then home, hearth and husband to boot.  Always there.  Sapping my space.  I have managed to condense that ''room of my own'', that space with a door, into a laptop and a blind eye to the mischief around me.  And still I am fighting for that.

But Damon is supportive of my writing.  And the kids start all-day school in January.  So that maybe, and maybe soon, my day will come.  I envision myself in puffy blue houseslippers and a flowered house dress, my hair done up in rollers and a coffee in my hand, cheerfully handing everyone their lunchbags on the way out the door.  Never mind the rollers.  Too much work.  Hair in a bandana wearing an old Tshirt of Damon's, sitting in front of the sliding glass doors, sunlight already streaming in at 8 AM, and sitting down to work on my writing.

Virginia's dream realized. 

Because women like her worked hard to make it possible for women like me to have the freedoms and luxuries (and yes, doing the laundry in a washing machine IS a luxury!) we have.  Because technological advancements have given me time I wouldn't have had  a century ago.

And because I've been working long enough, hard enough, with four little monkeys clinging to my back to appreciate the gift of time and space I am being given.

A whole lot of nothing.  That's what I'm getting for Christmas this year.

"The" Plan!

I've been writing this blog for almost 18 months now.

And, I'll be honest, I do it for me.

Getting it off my chest is saving us loads in psychotherapy.

But things are changing and it might be time for more than first-draft ramblings of whatever comes into my head.

I feel I can do better.

And you may be feeling you deserve better too.

1. I'd like to devote Fridays to an ESL blog. Which is going to be a LOT easier said than done. Because it requires forethought and editing. More than one draft of what comes off the top of my head. I do it for two reasons. One is as an exercise for myself. I can do better. And I do it for my German-speaking friends who keep expressing an interest in the blog, but find it too confusing to read regularly. Sure, I find myself witty as all hell....but, if you are trying to figure out the idioms....it isn't nearly as much fun. Most of my friends do read English and they would like to keep in touch as I drag my brood halfway around the globe. So...I will attempt to catch everyone up, and work on all of our English skills at the same time.

2. I've thought of Mondays as a general update on events in our family. Because, again, we are leaving....and because some of you are curious as heck to hear how it all works out. I've never found family narratives very entertaining myself but.....well, we will do our best to amuse and entertain! (Looking at Jim's blog over the weekend I realize that adding some photos might liven up the updates!)

3. But I know you'd all miss my revelations on life, personal growth and the universe as I know it.....

4. I will also have all four kids home as of August. And spending time on our education. And getting rid of all our stuff. Which is NOT as easy to do in Germany as one might suspect. (What? Poor people in Germany won't take a used kitchen table? Well the Red Cross might not so...they never have a choice.) SO that my writing - and this blog - may suffer from the time I put in elsewhere. My goal will be a weekly family update and also progress on our home-schooling experiment. What I learn. Oh yeah - what the kids learn too. Although I'm betting I learn as much - or more - than they do. Typical.

4. Somehow I hope to merge into a travellog too. The crazy German-American in Australia. I think this COULD be interesting - and funny- as hell. All the assumptions that are wrong. All the expectations going topsy-turvy. Preconceptions out the window. Obviously, I'll still be writing from the viewpoint of a parent - and a person - so it should just be a new perspective on an old journey.

In between, I have to figure out how to work from a new computer, with a different email system. And maybe where to get laundry done. And find edible food. In France. (Hmmmm- isn't McDonald's a hot spot?!) Or Stuttgart. Or...oh honestly, please don't try to pin me down on autumn housing plans at the moment! And make sure the kids don't run wild in the streets and get caught by the home-schooling police! So that my whole tiny, ordered, neat, predictable day-to-day routine will be shattered. (Have I EVER had an ordered, neat, predictable day-to-day routine! Let's just work with me on this one, shall we?!)

So...Monday updates, Wednesdays personal views on life as I try to understand it, and Fridays English as a Second Language. And somewhere in between...the beginnings of a German-American viewpoint on Australia.

Or something like that.

Let the games begin!

Push-Ups

I've discovered - and succumbed to - a new disease. It's not writer's block. I am writing like crazy, every chance I get. Notebook at the ready. Rewrites not being rewritten. New stories and ideas. Old stories with new twists. The creativity is all there, spewing out....unfiltered, unedited, partially processed.

Man, have I got GREAT ideas to share. I got stuff you just GOTTA hear.

Except...well...I'm going to call it EDITOR'S block.

Don't you, the reader, deserve MORE than my unedited stream of consciousness? Do you REALLy want to know how I feel about the school system in Germany? Is my view on the nature of life and change REALLY something you need to hear? Shouldn't I try to pull it together a bit more, tighten it up, make some connections, wait for something REALLY and truly witty or insightful?

Do you really want to read unprocessed ME?

Thank goodness I have the cure for this disease too. Monthly Writers' Group in Stuttgart. Phew.

"So, what's up with the blog lately, Christine? You doing any writing?"

"Well yeah, but.....see above paragraph."

"Oh. That's you thinking like an editor, Christine." says Jim. (And he should know!)

Jim then proceeds to tell me about creative push-ups, the work we need to put into anything, the preparation, the PROCESS...just the sheer act of getting it down on paper, snapping a photo, sitting to an instrument and playing what sometimes amounts to sheer crap, in order to buff ourselves up for the good stuff.

The thing is you don't need to show anyone this stuff, but you do need to keep on doing it.

And POSTING the blog makes me keep on writing.

So that this is what you get; the good, the bad, the ugly, the irrelevent, the uninteresting....oh and every now and then, if we are lucky, the seeds of something really good.

So that my job is to write.....

It probably is a similar thing to writer's block, this fear of posting. Even ten years ago you just didn't write it if it sucked. Now you can post anything on the Internet in seconds flat. With no discrimination as to value.

So that I can panic and try to present a perfect finished piece....and hence, never post anything. Or let you all see the worst of it and decide for yourself what to keep and what to throw out.

Funny thing there is, and I believe this is where an editor and an audience comes in, is that some of the stuff I am most truly embarrassed of (honestly, did you REALLY want to hear about the town hall meeting in ALTDORF?!)is some of the stuff that people really want to hear. (Answer: yes!)

My blog is process. My main character is myself. (I don't believe I ever even pretended it was about the kids. It was about me learning from the kids.) I learn as I write: about writing, about what people like to read, and about myself.

And it turns out I'm a fairly interesting and likeable character...or at least a character that keeps 'em guessing and talking!

Is my novel out there? I've started three this year.

Do you deserve better than my ramblings? Sure.

But unless I do these pushups, and do them regularly....the stories won't be written. I want to write fiction. I want funny, witty, characters people will relate to. And I want them to say something about the human condition - without actually coming out and hitting you over the head with it.

Until I get there thanks for helping me count the pushups.

Lucky 13

I gotta admit it, I was pretty psyched when I got home from Florida a few weeks ago and saw I had a new fan.

I had a new follower on my blog, number 13, and let me tell you, as much as I say I am writing for myself, it felt really fantastic that someone I didn't even know had signed up to read me regularly.

I've also kept some good reviews - from Lynn-Anne, Liz and Sylvia - just for when I'm looking back (fondly?) on the early years.

There's also a little thrill - and a sense of gratitude - whenever Catherine or Babette or Sue or Anita mentions that they read something of mine. When Amanda comments from the USA or Maarit mentions a piece over the phone.

I guess I gotta apologize to readers 11 and 12 too, because darn it, I couldn't figure out who you were to email you and thank you. I'm pretty sure one of you may be Laurie, only because I googled "twintensity" a few weeks ago and found out I was one of the ten most popular blogs read in Haiti.

ONE OF THE TEN MOST POPULAR BLOGS IN HAITI. Means more to me than my sarcasm shows. I thank my one follower there. (I will NOT cry and make sad comments; I will NOT cry and write something melodramatic.)

I've been writing this blog for over a year now. In that time I have become a writer. Because I have to write. Because I love to write. Something I lost, or gave up, almost twenty years ago in order to pursue the more practical and serious pursuits of life and veterinary medicine, has become a part of me again.

(Insert memory of pretentious twenty year old at Cornell University telling her creative writing teacher that she wouldn't switch from premed because she wanted to live and experience things, have a real life, and not just "settle" into writing as an undergraduate. Ouch. And duh. Arrogant little snot. Serves me right.)

Number 13 introduced herself to me at English group last week. I think I might have blushed. It was almost like learning that the cute guy with the really great biceps one seat ahead of you in highschool geometry class likes you too. (For the record, I got a "C" in geometry, but I still remember the biceps!)

Writers often claim to be needy and insecure. Yup. I don't need EVERYONE to love me, I just want MOST everyone to at least like me a little bit. Oh, who am I kidding, I want you all to find me as clever, witty and insightful as I find myself.

Number 14 joined recently - silently, during a time when I didn't have access to my computer. And the thought, once again, that someone I didn't know found something I had to say even remotely interesting, or perhaps just kinda funny, inspired me to learn how to access my blog from my netbook.

I write. I have some fiction I am working on. I have some ideas on a collection of personal essays. But honestly, I'm just as thrilled to share my thoughts and ideas with those of you willing to read them.

Nice to meet you. I like you already. You are obviously brilliant!

Lucky 13

I gotta admit it, I was pretty psyched when I got home from Florida a few weeks ago and saw I had a new fan.

I had a new follower on my blog, number 13, and let me tell you, as much as I say I am writing for myself, it felt really fantastic that someone I didn't even know had signed up to read me regularly.

I've also kept some good reviews - from Lynn-Anne, Liz and Sylvia - just for when I'm looking back (fondly?) on the early years.

There's also a little thrill - and a sense of gratitude - whenever Catherine or Babette or Sue or Anita mentions that they read something of mine. When Amanda comments from the USA or Maarit mentions a piece over the phone.

I guess I gotta apologize to readers 11 and 12 too, because darn it, I couldn't figure out who you were to email you and thank you. I'm pretty sure one of you may be Laurie, only because I googled "twintensity" a few weeks ago and found out I was one of the ten most popular blogs read in Haiti.

ONE OF THE TEN MOST POPULAR BLOGS IN HAITI. Means more to me than my sarcasm shows. I thank my one follower there. (I will NOT cry and make sad comments; I will NOT cry and write something melodramatic.)

I've been writing this blog for over a year now. In that time I have become a writer. Because I have to write. Because I love to write. Something I lost, or gave up, almost twenty years ago in order to pursue the more practical and serious pursuits of life and veterinary medicine, has become a part of me again.

(Insert memory of pretentious twenty year old at Cornell University telling her creative writing teacher that she wouldn't switch from premed because she wanted to live and experience things, have a real life, and not just "settle" into writing as an undergraduate. Ouch. And duh. Arrogant little snot. Serves me right.)

Number 13 introduced herself to me at English group last week. I think I might have blushed. It was almost like learning that the cute guy with the really great biceps one seat ahead of you in highschool geometry class likes you too. (For the record, I got a "C" in geometry, but I still remember the biceps!)

Writers often claim to be needy and insecure. Yup. I don't need EVERYONE to love me, I just want MOST everyone to at least like me a little bit. Oh, who am I kidding, I want you all to find me as clever, witty and insightful as I find myself.

Number 14 joined recently - silently, during a time when I didn't have access to my computer. And the thought, once again, that someone I didn't know found something I had to say even remotely interesting, or perhaps just kinda funny, inspired me to learn how to access my blog from my netbook.

I write. I have some fiction I am working on. I have some ideas on a collection of personal essays. But honestly, I'm just as thrilled to share my thoughts and ideas with those of you willing to read them.

Nice to meet you. I like you already. You are obviously brilliant!

Brave New World

I joined my writers' group because I wanted to write. Ideally a novel. I want to inspire others to see things from a different perspective, to open their minds to a different world.

I did not envision myself blogging. Certainly not on facebook. And I am still avoiding Twitter.

It's not only a question of snobbery, although I'll be the first to admit there is something of that in there. I'd like to write LITERATURE, not some easy-to-read, dumbed-down mini-thought of the day for people too superficial to pick up a book.

Karenne has dragged a whole slew of us into blogging, kicking and screaming the whole way. I can't call myself a blogger, and I still don't think it is my art-form, but my blog has gotten me to write. I don't know that I want to commit myself to the networking a serious blog requires to grow and reach a larger audience. In fact, I'm quite sure I don't. And I don't work on the technology or format enough to make my blog user friendly.

I just write. Which, for someone who wants to be a writer, isn't a bad thing. I figure once the writing becomes as second nature as breathing, then I can work on the outlets for it. For now, blogging is writing and writing is what it's all about.

This topic of new technology comes up quite often in our writers' group. "I don't want to have to answer all those emails." "I don't know that I have the time to commit to facebook." (Twitter. Sorry, I'm not sold on that level of brevity yet.)

My aversion to Twitter is similar to a friend's aversions to email or facebook. Does someone have to know what I am doing EVERY minute of the day? Do I need to check in and keep up with everyone all the time?

The answer, as I am fast discovering, is NO.

Most of us check into our facebook accounts sporadically. Some weeks you live on it, managing your pig farm and vegetable garden, and some weeks you don't tune in at all. Some emails, some facebook remarks, get answered right away and inspire you to write the next chapter of your novel. Others disappear unanswered into the realm of the forgotten email, maybe to surface again in two months, or never again.

This seems to be accepted and okay. facebook is a superficial window onto a bigger world. You can either connect into it and explore that cyber world deeper. Or you can ignore it and concentrate on your own life in the real world. The nice thing, and the thing you have to remember, is that you get to CHOOSE your level of involvement. The technology does not own you. (Unless you let it.)

We're that in-between generation that still feels responsible for answering every letter, returning every phone call. But that's not how facebook at least seems to work.

I use the Internet, and social networking, to inspire me to greater things.

You CAN choose to ignore them altogether, of course.

The problem is that as everyone else is beginning to use them to connect, you are going to miss out on some of the conversation.

It IS a brave, new world. One hundred years ago most homes didn't even have a telephone. Radios were still over a decade away. We now have information, and the ability to comment on it, at our fingertips.

I want to write. I need to gather information and ideas. I like to connect to people who encourage and inspire me.

One hundred years ago, most homes still didn't have a refrigerator or a washing machine. One hundred years ago I would have been too busy feeding and clothing the kids to become the person I can become today.

Ignoring the Internet, and social networking, today, is like washing your clothes on rocks down by the river. You can do it, but you're wasting a lot of time and energy ignoring something that really can make your life better.