So Now What?!

Last week when I ventured out on my "Why" posts I was really just trying to sort out my brain and determine what my motivations really were for writing and obsessing about writing and losing sleep over writing. And I think I came to the conclusion that it is one thing that I am very passionate about.

But what do you do with a passion when you find it? Of course you exercise it but if it is to turn into anything you have to focus it, right? Which brings me to the next step in my journey. How do I want to focus my writing? Do I stick to social and political commentary and hope for an lifestyle and opinion slot in a newspaper one day down the road? Do I take a twist to the inspirational and start tailoring my bits and baubles into a devotional for the harried mother - a thought that flitted into my head randomly in the middle of church last week. Do I steer it full speed into humor and hope that there are people who get me?

This is where I envy Julie. She may have picked up her project on a whim but she had a goal in mind. She knew that when she got to the end of the cookbook she would have completed her project.

I don't have a goal. I don't have a target. I'm a little lost here and I'm not sure exactly what to do about it. So I turn to you, my 6 loyal readers (yeah! I think we added two recently!). Of the pieces I have written, which ones resonate? Which do you prefer?

Don't think that just because you weigh in on one, I'm going to turn the whole boat to your shore. I need a little more whimsy than that. I'm just wondering what works.

Oh and good news for all of you. I am almost finished with Julie and Julia so hopefully this whole soul searching phase will be over soon. I should probably warn you that Marley and Me is up next and I'm thinking that that one could go any number of ways.

Why? (Part 2 - The Blog Reasoning)

So by now those of you who have read Why? (Part 1) are asking yourself a different why. "Why not just write in a journal or in a word document on your computer. You're sitting there anyway. Why subject the whole world to your raving lunatic ramblings?"


I was sold.


You're familiar with that concept right? To be "sold" means that you are fed an idea and you take it so easily and eagerly that you never know you were just fleeced, taken to the cleaners and snookered all at once.


Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of a blog. I have met some really wonderful people through the blogging communities and I count them among my friends even though I have never actually met them face to face. And I love the idea that my words reach so far. Just last week I had visitors from France, Belgium, Sicily, Singapore, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Some of those people are return visitors; some found me by accident when they were searching for "pink sludge in the toilet" on Google. (I didn't ask. I honestly didn't want to know!)


But I hate the blog world some days too. I wish I had had the opportunity to get in early like Julie did with the Julie/Julia Project. Just looking at the simplicity of her blog makes me jealous. There was no nonsense about paid ads, reviews, ethics, blog trolls, who do we like this week and who can't we stand.


So why do I continue to keep the blog online? Because it IS my journal. At one point it wasn't online; it was just a word document on my computer that I picked at when inspiration struck. Someone (my sister) put a silly thought into my head that maybe, just maybe I could get published in a magazine. So I submitted an e-mail with my work attached and promptly got a "we are not taking submissions at this time" response. But there was a second line. "You may want to contact the editor of our online publication for consideration as a staff blogger."


And there was the big sell. You mean if I put this stuff together in a blog, there is a chance that I can get a writing gig that will reach the masses? I think I did a whopping 15 minutes of research before I hit up Blogger.com and started building The Zoo.


When I started I was simple like Julie. Then I started exploring the blogoverse and I started finding out about layouts, coding, keywords, links, traffic counters, traffic trackers. And that is when I stepped both feet into the quicksand that is blogging. I became so obsessed with those numbers and those visits and linking to the right people and having the right people linking back and making sure that I posted x number of times a day and tweeting and gaining followers.


I killed my writing. I effectively sucked the life out of it and smothered it. And that is when I took the summer off.


Now as I'm coming back into blogging, the why has come. Why? Because I want to write. I may never reach beyond the 10 visits a day and therefore may never make my way onto a "coming soon" poster in the Barnes and Noble window.


But I will write. Because it's what I am. Because it's what I do.

Why? (Part 1)

I took this past Sunday off and went to Barnes and Nobel (my mommy hide out) and then to a movie. While at B&N I snagged a few books for myself one of which was Julie & Julia. No, I didn't go see the movie right after.

I've been reading a little of the book every night before I go to bed and I am now three days into it and completely hooked. She is a writer (*ding), who works as a temp and undertakes a blog (*ding) in which she chronicles her attempt to cook (**ding, ding!) her way through a cookbook in one year. I love this book and I'm only 60 pages in.

Last night I was reading and she was explaining her Julie/Julia Project to her mother. Her mother's response, "Buy why, Julie?"

It stuck with me. I dreamed it. I woke up and drank it with my coffee. I scrubbed it into the porcelain of my toilet and the granite of my counters. I've been itching all day to get back to the computer so I can chew on it and break it down for my own life.

"Why, Sarah? Why are you undertaking this blogging project?" In order to answer that I have to back up to a more basic question. "Why write at all?"

Because it's what I want. I've mentioned before that Erma Bombeck is one of my heroes. I love her humor. I love Patrick McManus for the same reason and one of my favorite books of all time is Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawles. Now I add Julie Powell and her quirky, wordy adventures to my list and I discover that I want to be on someones list. I want someone to see my name on a coming soon poster and be as giddy as I was when I saw Dan Brown's name on Sunday. I don't necessarily want the rabid, raving, borderline obsessives that J.K. Rowling has but the idea that my words could have that potential is what keeps me dreaming.

Why write?

Because it's in me. In my head; in my heart; in my bones and in my blood. I have always been subject to flights of imagination. I think I took three completely unnecessary courses in college simply because I would "have" to write. There is something about taking a topic or idea and twisting it on its side or finding an angle that is overlooked that intrigues me. It's an adventure with words. It's a challenge and it can sometimes stretch my brain when I am paused searching the crevices of my mind for the perfect word to capture my ideas.

Why write?

Because it is my sanity. You would never begin to know the number of drafts that go the way of the delete button simply because it is total brain junk that just had to come out. If my internet provider charged by the character we would have to take a second mortgage. It allows me to reach out anonymously to random and not so random people and add to their lives or impact them or make them think or simply entertain them.

Why tell you why I write?

Because it's what I've been thinking about. And after all this is THOUGHTS from the Toilet Bowl.

I Have Decided to Quit Blogging.

I’ve gotten a few notes and comments from regular readers asking if I’m okay and telling me that they miss my blog updates. Thank you. That is very sweet of all of you.

And while I don’t OWE you an explanation for my absence because after all this is my place on the web and I will do with it what I want, I will offer one out of friendship. Simply put, I burnt out. I was pressing everyday to find something to write about and stressing about whether my stats were climbing and if I was "good enough" to be a part of bloggy land at all. I was worried about whether you were enjoying my writing and was I funny enough? Why wouldn’t my meme take off and why didn’t I take more pictures this week for Wordless Wednesday? Who in the forums was reading my stuff and why wouldn’t more people comment? Why couldn’t my most controversial stances spark any kind of debate?

I was dreaming in blog people. I would wake up thinking blog and I would eat blog for lunch and I would blog while I was brushing my teeth. Not on the blog but in my head. I would wake up in the middle of the night to make notes about a dream because maybe when I was fully awake I could turn it into a roll em in the aisles post.

For some people that is a great thing. For some people that would be a rocking life. For me it was torture. I want to write. Just write. I don’t want to install meta tags and learn CSS code and HTML code and link all the right keywords. I don’t really care if Google finds me or not. I don’t necessarily want to make millions off of my blog. It would be nice if it happened but only if I can still be happy while I do it.

I just want to write. And that is what this started out as. A place for me to write. Then I got sidetracked with stats and comment counts and posting two or three times a day and making sure that I was friends with the right people in bloggy land and making sure that I didn’t offend or comment on the wrong blog because that would draw drama.

So I am going to quit blogging. I am just going to write. Here. When I feel like it and about what I want. The family stuff will still be found at The Zoo and the brain junk and social commentary will still be at The Bowl. But don’t expect me to update everyday. I don’t have THAT much to say.

I am no longer judging my success by stats, followers and page rank. I am purely judging my success by comments and my own happiness. If I can inspire you enough to cause you to comment then I have been successful. My biggest reward is forcing Buck to come out of his reader to comment. And that is what I want it to be all about. Just writing and sharing my writing with people who want to read.

Those of you who know me from some forums, give my regards. It’s not that I don’t like you or want to hang out with you. I just can’t get sucked back into all "stuff" that is blogging.
So farewell to blogging - welcome back writing.

**Note: For those of you who follow both, you will see this post cross posted today because the same audience is not in both places. Thanks for your tolerance.

I Think I'm Going to be Sick.

I can't believe I just did that. I might need to go be sick.

I just turned down an offer to participate in a series on Parenting.com. We would have been interviewed and I would have had a chance to write a few blogs for them. My foot was in the door. And I pulled it out and closed the door myself.

I'm going to be sick.

But I have to know that I did the right thing. I did what was right for the family. The series was about families being impacted by the recession and how they are handling it. If you know me or have followed the blog for any time at all you know that we are being drop kicked by the recession.

My husband is a salesman for an Acura dealership. Yes, a car salesman. Pure commission. I am a stay at home mom. And before you say "Well, why don't you just get a job?" You know what the job market itself is like but have you coupled that with the cost of child care for three children? And even though Mo is in school, she would still require after school care and summer care. Here in the metro Atlanta area, to put three children in childcare, pay for car, gas and insurance, and still come out with just $1000 a month, I would have to take home over $50,000 a year. Do you know anyone who is willing to pay an executive assistant that? Because that is about my skill set.

We even looked at the idea of an overnight position but with Beloved's hours being what they are and the frequency that he has to stay late to finish a deal, there was no dependability that I could get to work on time. Couple that with the fact that a person's body will force them to sleep and you still have a problem.

Writing is my dream. I have wanted to write for a very long while and being home and blogging has allowed me to hone that skill and learn about different writing styles. Then Parenting comes knocking and I turned them away.

I definitely need to be sick. I guess I just have to keep praying that another opportunity will come up. This one came, right? There will be more. I just have to keep praying and writing.

And go brush my teeth.

You May Have Noticed

that my writing has slowed down a little lately.

I was losing my inspiration. I was tired of Bloggy Land and all the nonsense that goes with it. On top of that the entire family (dog included) managed to catch the flu. Add the financial crunch that everyone is finding themselves in these days and I just could not shake the funk.

So I took a day off. I went out after church and did some dream shopping for a laptop/netbook at Best Buy and priced the oh so necessary external hard drive. Not that the entire family who was all trying to look at the same box slammed right up against the shelf even noticed me on my tip toes trying to see price tags and sizes over their heads.

Then I headed over to JoAnn's to see if I could find a pattern for a skirt for Easter (only a month away! Eeek!) and ended up talking to my parents from the pattern counter (weird) and walking out with nothing.

So then it was to Target to get the famous clippers (or they will be when the post goes up at The Zoo). And then I looked at the clock. I've only been out of the house for an hour and a half?! I can't surrender yet! I hate shopping and the mall makes me break out in hives so where will I go next? How will I make this brief recess last? I refuse to go to the grocery store. That's not recess.

And there it was. Beautiful B & N. Resist the urge to go snag a caramel machiatto. I was struck with some inspiration as I wandered through the stacks of books. There was a child laughing in the children's section and I thought, "I could use a good laugh!"

Tucked back in a corner there was the humor section. Entirely too small and not nearly enough copies of any one book for my tastes but at least it was still there. Smashed in behind the religious fiction and wedged in front of the "teach yourself to play the oboe" book.

So I started to scan the titles. An entire section of the shelf was dedicated to bathroom humor. You would think from the title of this blog I would be more appreciative but a whole rack of books about bathroom humor? I kept scanning. Now we come across Lewis Black and Dennis Leary and their cohorts railing against all things political. Here are two full racks of comic strips. I will not speak against them. My faves were there. Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Baby Blues, Fox Trot and of course the Classic Peanuts. Bless you Mr. Schultz.

But just general musing about life humor was scarce. And then I saw them. Down on the bottom shelf in small pocket size paperback form were the four titles I was looking for. There was my muse for seven dollars a piece. Erma Bombeck. I picked up a copy and started to read and while I was not laughing out loud there was a poingnacy in her writing that made me smile. A real connection that just made me feel at home. A quiet humor that did not speak of bathrooms, or politics, or naked bodies (unless you count feet). It was not angry. It was not laced with foul language or explicit suggestions.

Call me old fashioned. Call me a prude. I'll wear both ideas with pride. Life is weird. It's strange and it's funny and when you really look at the nonsense that happens every day you have to laugh. You HAVE to. If you don't laugh about it your only other options are to get angry, give up, or cry. I picked one of the four titles out for myself and brought it home with me. Every time I pick it up I only allow myself to read one short chapter at a time. Like I'm savoring a bag of Lindor truffles one small bite at a time.

I have been inspired again. I have decided that how many posts I get out to you is not the critical part. I have to make sure that I make you laugh or at the very least, smile. I have to make people see that anger and vulgarity aren't necessary in life. There is enough ugliness in the world. It's time to laugh at just the general strangeness of it all.

You HAVE to laugh. You have to laugh because when you can laugh and you can share that laughter with other people, they get to laugh. Life is just too weird not to laugh and share the laughter.