Blog hops are catching on like wildfire, and I’m so excited to participate in one thanks to my friend and fellow-blogger, Miller Murray Susen.
What’s a blog hop? It’s when a group of bloggers post on a common topic in a loose sequence, and then refer readers to other participating bloggers they admire. For this session, the topic is “My Writing Life.”
1. What am I writing or working on?
My short-term writing projects are the posts I write for the Coconut Girl. My long-term project is a book for new moms. I also have a novel underway; the manuscript coughs “A-hem!” from inside my desk drawer once every few months. I fantasize about big, muscular blocks of time (>45 minutes) when I can sit down and work on the book projects. My other projects include being the primary caregiver of two amazing, sassy children, and several house renovations and additions. I write and design for families.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
My work differs from others in that it’s not always writing. Posts on the Coconut Girl shape-shift. While most are essays, others are cartoons, songs, or infomercial spoofs. For me, parenthood is a 500-horsepower creative engine. The barrage of stimuli from being a mother and a professional blows my circuit-board daily. The flying sparks turn into posts.
I feel so fortunate to live in the age of blogging because I’ve never been exclusively an architect, or singularly a writer. Instead, I’m a strange, sardonic, and sentimental creative concoction of many things. I can be completely myself on the Coconut Girl, and my readers keep reading. Lucky me!
3. Why do I write what I do?
I write because I have to (see blown circuit-board, above). When I saw the movie “American Beauty” years ago, I really related to the character who films the plastic bag blowing in the wind. Part of me is that character observing the bag, and part of me is the bag. I have to step outside my billowing and eddying life in order to see the beauty in my hectic days. Writing lands me in a place of gratitude.
4. How does my writing process work?
I almost always write late at night, when my children are in bed, and my husband’s in the den watching TV. Usually it’s my first quiet moment of the day. Some people get up early to exercise or meditate; I postpone bedtime to write. I turn the radio off, and fill a glass with something reachable in the front of the fridge, like pomegranate juice, or beer. Occasionally, pomegranate juice and beer.
Most times, I don’t know what I’m going to write when I start. I just have a tightness in my chest that I want to loosen. It’s like pulling a tangled necklace out of a drawer and wanting to brave the knot because the necklace is important, and I want to wear it properly. To begin an essay, sometimes I’ll look at recent photos I’ve taken, or at objects my children have made or taken apart. There’s always something beautiful or disgusting that makes me realize something about them, and about myself.
For blog posts, I typically write directly into the WordPress user interface, rather than composing first in Word. This is a risky strategy because the blog log-in can time-out, or a random internet glitch can suddenly delete the post. The scale-tipping upside, though, is that the blog interface feels laid back, immediate, and unintimidating. Maybe it’s the beige background, or the lack of formatting options, I don’t know. But I do know that I write better when I’m just casually typing, Man, not writing. If I allow myself to perseverate over diction or phrasing, I can fall from the wire.
Once I have a draft done, I immediately go back and revise it a few times before I post it. Otherwise, the odds are good I won’t have time to get back to it for a week or more. And because I write a lot about fleeting topics related to my family, my connection to that particular moment will have receded by then. The next morning, I re-read the post and make any necessary edits that my late-night brain missed.
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And now, in keeping with the blog hop format, I’d like to introduce you to a blogger I admire, Jocelyn Johnson. Jocelyn writes at Jocelyn’s Stories about motherhood, art, and the world we live in—and the intersections between these things. I’ve known Jocelyn since our children were very young, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know her better through her lovely and insightful writing. Thank you, Jocelyn!
I’d also like to thank Miller Murray Susen again for inviting me to participate in this blog hop. Miller’s hilarious-poignant observations can be found on her blog, Amomynity.com. Her enthusiasms include writing, acting, teaching, directing, storytelling, lady arm wrestling, and child wrangling.