4 posts tagged “online writing”

Unless you never leave your house and don't turn on your TV, computer, or even radio, there's slim chance that your world hasn't been somewhat impacted by the loss of some major public figures in the last week.

Farrah Fawcett.
Michael Jackson.
Billy Mays.

Even if you aren't overly emotionally impacted by the passing of these celebrities, their last adventures color your world. They're all the talk over water coolers, grocery store lines, bar stools, blogs and neighborhood fences. I'm not the type of person who dwells much on celebrity figures. But yesterday morning when Lee and I woke up and were lying in bed channel surfing, we paused on a station that was playing video after video of Michael Jackson's greatest.

Always the moonwalk in those white suits. Always that crazy thing he did with his arms. Always the robotic but somehow fluid back-up dancers. Always those Scotland-yard looking policemen chasing after the truth about Billy Jean or The Smooth Criminal.

I couldn't help but think of the impact he had on my pre-teen and teenage years. Him and Farrah both, actually. I remember being glued to MTV and as fascinated by the Thriller video as any other kid my age. I remember getting a Farrah haircut and being so darn proud of my "feathers." I remember wanting to be one of Charlie's Angels and me and my friends making silly juvenile references to "Beat It."

I never understood how people can become so attached to celebrities that they'll camp outside their homes and wail and mourn over their passing. When I was growing up, my friend Kim's mother's had Velvet Elvises (Velvet Elvi?) all over her living and dining rooms. I learned to pick my own steamed crabs at their dining room table. Once, I pulled a claw too hard and a piece of crab meat flew out and smacked a Velvet Elvis on the cheek. I thought Kim's mom was going to smack me upside my head. When Elvis died, I recall her lying on her couch, sobbing as if her world had ended. She had a strong drink of something and took a valium.

I don't get that, but I do get the sense of sadness and loss and the feeling that there's a big empty space left by these people who somehow end up in positions to so dramatically impact and change our culture.

But you know what? Celebrities are not the only people whose passing will leave sadness and loss and emptiness in their wake even if you never "knew" them in the seen-in-person sense.  At least not these days.

I've never met Karen, otherwise known as CosmicCrayola or Cosmic. But through a little corner of the online world called Diaryland - the place where I still keep my private journal today - we've known each other for years. Karen was one of the first people I began reading after starting my own journal there, and we've remained part of the same small-but-big circle ever since, in spite of lots of changes in both D-land and our lives since those early entries.

Cosmic fits her so well. She couldn't have chosen a better moniker for her diary if she'd tried. She is so grounded and real, yet so way-out-there funny and inspiring in her shining and even everyday moments. Since I've been granted access to a slice of her world through her writing, I have come to know a woman who has been through incredible medical struggles, both her own and her husband Terry's. Sometimes it seemed their lives were a roller-coaster of one or both of them battling illness and hospitalization. Yet through it all, most of her journal entries have been about those moments we all hold dearest to our hearts. Family visits. Movie nights with the hubby. Good food. Jokes that hit us all in the funny bone. Daughters and grandchildren. Writing and publishing her book. We've emailed back and forth about a friend of hers getting a ferret. 

Many Diarylanders have met in person along the way. I've formed my share of friendships that transcended our online presence through the site. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to meet Cosmic. Others have. I wish I'd been there. But I didn't have to be to be touched by Karen and have her crack me up even on some of my worst days.

I've been behind in my Diaryland reading. So I was a bit stunned when I saw a Facebook status update from Golfwidow that sent me to Karen's diary. There, in the slice of colorful online space where she has written countless entries chronicling his medical battles - with the love, fear and humor that only she could - her husband Terry had posted an update letting us all know that Karen's longtime struggle is winding down. She'd been given just days, and that was a few days ago.

I may not get what I call "extreme celebrity mourning." But I am well aware of how much we can be touched by people we've never actually met through words and screens. Karen is my friend. Because she is still here, I pray for a miracle and hope that this isn't a farewell post but rather just an observation about how much people we haven't met can come to mean something good to us and change our lives. There will be an empty space in my heart that was usually filled with a laugh or a smile courtesy of Karen if she goes someplace where her regular routine doesn't feature blog updates.

It has been a strange week. And in our little corner of the online world, Karen is a shining star who will leave a huge empty space if she does take that journey alongside Michael, Billy and Farrah. I pray for her, Terry and their family.
 

Sometimes, a series of seemingly unrelated events get you thinking about the big picture, or just pondering life in general.

Or in this case, I guess I’m pondering the past, present and future.

First, I spent some time over Easter Weekend with my grandmother. She talked about how her brother (my great-uncle) has been doing some research into our family and discovered a journal kept by their great-grandfather in the late 1800’s. She showed me a picture of her grandfather, who is the spitting image of Doc Holiday as portrayed by Val Kilmer in Tombstone. And my interest in the past, never too far from the surface, was rekindled. I would love to get my hands on that diary.

Then the writer of a few of my favorite blog reads, Awannabe, wrote an entry on her dream of becoming a personal historian:  http://www.awannabewriter.blogspot.com/ .

Her post is chock-full of interesting links on this creative career path.

Later in the day, I was surfing instead of working and stumbled on a very useful freelance writing blog: http://www.allfreelancewritingjobs.com/.

One of the job leads posted in this blog was this:

http://www.uslegacies.org/writer_wanted.shtml.

In case you don’t feel like clicking on the link, this advertisement is basically seeking writers interested in interviewing elderly people and writing their life stories. What a fascinating freelance opportunity that could be.

So here I am, thinking about history again. It’s funny, I was always interested in the times, cultures and lifestyles that came before me, but was never really about to make it through a history textbook without yawning. But give me a project involving learning about those who came before me by poring through old journals and letters, and I can lose myself for days. It is individual glimpses of life, whether from famed figures or the average joe, that connect me to the past.

To learn about the centuries before us today in this fashion, we pore through the limited written words of our ancestors. We piece together the past with sporadic and sketchy records, and many voices go unheard.

But we have now entered a period in time where those words will no longer be limited. It amazes me to think of the plethora of voices about our time that are online today, in the blogosphere and elsewhere. I imagine being a student a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred years from now, with the words and images of all of us right at my fingertips. I could almost drown in them if I’m not careful.

And I really understand how the technology of our times will change history as we know it, because we're just getting started. 

All the writer's resources say to "write what you know." I can't tell you how many times I heard that from my old college writing professor, who was also the advisor for our campus newspaper. Of course, he was prone to writing about people who talked to ghosts and creatures from other planets, so I guess in retrospect that advice should have been kinda scary ...

Anyway, I have to admit that I do my best work when I'm writing what I know. My words have to come from the gut. I can research and learn and write about factoids and tidbits just like the next person, but it rings sort of hollow.

Lately, though, the things I had to write about by the "write what you know" philosophy were a bit painful. Going through a divorce and learning to live alone just aren't things that fun to go through. Reliving them in writing isn't so much fun either.

That is, unless you make it fun.

Humor is my favorite style of writing. It's what comes natural to me, and what I think I do best. I wanted to make a living writing romance novels at one point, but backed off that idea pretty quickly when I realized trying to get a laugh out of your steamy sex scenes sort of defeats the purpose.

Anyway, it took me a while to try to figure out how to make divorce and the fact that sleeping in an empty shell of a house was both heartbreaking and terrifying to me funny. When I was in the midst of living it, I flat out couldn't do it. Heck, I couldn't write much at all.

But with a little time and healing, a lot of adjusting and the wonders of new love now between me and those awful nights, I can now look back and laugh at myself a little. I can write about that time in a way that makes me smile, and share the experience with others who have or may some day go through the same thing.

At least I hope that's what I've done, because there's nothing more healing than that. You be the judge: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/146914/the_newly_single_womans_guide_to_independent.html

I've been the keeper of an online journal for years. In my little private space over at Diaryland, I have written about my idiocy and my family, my marriage and my divorce, the circus that is my day job, my misadventures re-entering the dating world, my ferrets and my neurotic cat, and my father's bar and the collection of humanity drinking itself silly therein. Eventually, I was lucky enough to find myself writing about falling in love again.

As my life has shifted into something a bit more calm, I've found my focus turning once again to writing and my dream of being a freelance writer.  Every aspiring writer should have a place where they scribble their ideas for future articles and stories, talk about their successes and rejections, work through writer's block, or kick themselves in the butt for doing anything BUT writing on those bad days. I need a spot where I have to face myself when I make excuses like "I had a hard day at work," or "I'd really rather get silly drunk tonight and sleep all day tomorrow instead." I need a place where I can go on and on about writing, where I've published and why I haven't published somewhere else.And I need to connect with other writers.

But I don't want my little life journal to turn into a writer's notebook. It has its own identity and purpose. It is the story of my whole life. As all-encompassing as writing can be at times, it is only a slice of the story.

So this is the place for my writing journey.