Monthly Archives: April 2016

A Writer’s Salute

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It was 1999 and I wanted in.

An increasing number of television advertisers were referring to their company’s dot-com. The very concept of eBay fascinated me. And AOL kept offering me 1000 free hours.

That about sums up all I knew about the World Wide Web the day I drove over to a nearby Radio Shack, bought a phone jack, drove home and dialed up for the very first time.

I decided upon my AOL screen name, hahnmah, an online moniker I use to this day. My 15 year-old nephew gave me the names of a couple of sites he said I could use to search for things on the Internet–Metacrawler and Dogpile. Through them I quickly learned that you could shape your online landscape any way you chose; go down dark alleys and you’d find the evil lurking in every corner, or build your virtual world around pursuits you love and create a friendly, welcoming global community.

Naturally I chose the latter.

I initially primarily sought the company of other writers. In this time before social media, we found each other on forums, or on websites dedicated to us. Eventually I set up one of those myself, a website for writers, as I learned that there was plenty of room on the Internet for all of us. We swapped ads, articles and resources. Cheered each other’s successes. Promoted each other’s books and services. The bonds we formed on our screens and through our keyboards often seemed stronger and more enduring than ones in our offline world, where so many of our friends and relatives just didn’t share our passion for the written word.

After a number of years, I dissolved my writer’s website. But other writers I met online way back when have not. Today I want to salute those pioneers who stuck with it and who continue today to share information, ideas, inspiration and resources with other writers:

  1. Hope Clark: Her Funds for Writers website has deservedly made Writer’s Digest’s 101 best websites for writers over 16 consecutive years, and she continues to send out both free and paid email newsletters–all this while writing books of her own, teaching classes and doing book signings. I applaud both her tenacity and the wealth of information she provides. Truly one of the most remarkable women I ever crossed paths with on the Web.
  2. Yuwanda Black: She blogs. She writes ebooks. She’s all about how writers can make a living writing search engine optimized content for websites. She moved to Jamaica several years ago just because she wanted to–and took her freelance writing career with her. I’ve respected her worked for years, have learned a great deal from her. You can, too by going to her Inkwell Editorial site.
  3. Steve Slaunwhite: Steve is a Canadian copywriter who also provides marketing consulting to businesses. Moreover, he’s eager and willing to share his knowledge with other copywriters and wannabees, and has been doing so for years through both books and article. Just an all around nice guy.
  4. Anne Wayman: About Freelance Writing is another one of those venerable websites for writers that has been around since, like, forever. Anne continues to fill it with fresh tips and encouragement through her blog, and sends her subscribers a weekly email newsletter, while at the same time providing coaching services for writers and website development and ghostwriting services for those who need a professional. I love Anne’s work.
  5. Alice Wisler: I just want to give a shout out to this particular writer who, in the wake of her own personal tragedy, has worked for years with other writers trying to find their way  through grief and loss. Alice has also written tender novels filled with characters seeking healing and wholeness. I’ve known Alice, and have admired her work and spirit for years.

I owe a great deal to these dedicated writers, as well as to hundreds of others I have followed but never personally engaged with. Non-writers will never know or fully understand how remarkable an achievement it is to stick with one’s writing through thick and thin. I am both humbled and inspired by their perseverance.

Who have you “met” online whom you’ve admired, or who has inspired you? Feel free to share your experiences–we can never have enough positive influences in our lives.

 

Beware the Silent ‘P’

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Have you ever noticed how many wonderful words begin with the letter ‘p’?

There’s passion, purpose, playfulness, plentiful, potential, poetry, prayer,  partnership, positive, peace. So many wonderful words.

Then there are the not so wonderful ‘p’ words. Psychosis, pneumonia, pseudo, ptosis, psoriasis, psittacism (yeah, I didn’t know what it meant, either). Notice what those have in common?

The ‘p’ is silent.

So I began to wonder—could we relate to the difference between the pronounced ‘p’ and the silent ‘p’? Could it be that, as years go by, through conditioning or neglect, so many of us lose touch with the things we feel passionate about is that we’ve learned over the years to silence them?

During my teens I wrote poetry.  The ones I remember most vividly spoke about hope, love and possibilities (ah, another wonderful ‘p’ word!).  

Then, as life began to present me with its inevitable challenges, disappointments and setbacks, my poems began to take on darker tones. I wrote of loss, frustration, heartbreak, disconnection. Eventually, I stopped writing them altogether.

Around that same time, I also began to lose sight of my dream to make a living as a freelance writer.  Months would sometimes go by between one writing project and the next; attempts to submit my work or query ideas grew even more staggered. I left a trail of half-written stories in my wake, along with a few that I even finished, but that never saw the light of day.

After college I snapped up the first stable nine to five job I could latch onto and, relieved to receive a steady paycheck and benefits, I hardly even noticed as the dream faded.  I had college loans to pay back, an apartment to furnish, a car to maintain and insure.  I was living the dream, right?  Never mind that it was not my own.  My life seemed fine.  My chosen path seemed safe. Most writers never make a living wage anyway…

My ‘p’ grew silent.

In Walden, Henry Thoreau famously wrote that most men “lead lives of quiet desperation.” A dismal worldview? Maybe…but look how it plays out in the “Thank God it’s Friday” existence that so many of us lead, lives where relaxation, adventure and fun are all packed into one or two weeks a year, or where we live vicariously through the success and joy of those who dared to do or be what we did not. These results stem from letting our ‘p’s’ go silent or, worse, by intentionally silencing them in order to gain the acceptance and approval of others, or through fear that we if we took a riskier path, we might fail.

I’m trying to decide how to bring this post to an optimistic close. The fact is, I continue to cling to the safe and familiar, and still need the approval of others more than I care to admit. So it’s not like I am a shining example of self-actualization.

But I guess simply being aware of that is a start. That’s the optimistic closing I was looking for and would like to share here because, as I am beginning to learn through the reading and exercises I’ve been doing lately, awareness changes everything. The first step in solving a dilemma is admitting that the dilemma exists.

Time to take the next step. Care to join me?

 

Life is SO Unfair!

download (2)   Every once in a while, when I struggle coming to grips with one of life’s thornier questions, I Google the question to see what answers I might find online.

Google, my guru in a box.

And so it was earlier today. I had another blog post partially written for this week, but over the last few days I hadn’t had the energy to finish it. It was way too positive, something I had not been feeling during most of the past week. Maybe I just would skip a week on my blog. Who would notice, really?

But then I began the peel back the layers of why I felt the way I did, at first blaming others for letting me down and not treating me the way I felt I deserved to be treated. My partner John. My boss.

I kept peeling. Eventually I got down to the core of why I felt so demoralized. What I discovered there didn’t really surprise me; I have actually been aware of it off and on for years. But this wasn’t one of those self-discoveries I’m particularly proud of. Not at all.

I felt disheartened because, dammit, life is just so unfair.

Rationally, I know better. I mean we’ve all heard the question, “Whoever said that life was fair?” It’s really not. Bad stuff happens to good people. It always has. But in my mind, that’s not the way it should be.

Time and time again throughout my entire life, when I’ve encountered a situation or an experience that I considered unfair, I’ve reacted in the same way—hot, angry tears spring up, my rational mind shuts down, and it feels as though my heart has turned into a rock.

I mean, why do I give so much and get so little in return? I have been more than a dedicated partner, employee, friend. Why shouldn’t I expect Easter flowers, a significant raise, or some unsolicited encouragement and support in return? I’ve been there for them, right? Shouldn’t it work both ways?

Life is just SO unfair!

When I finally recognized that this fairness/unfairness concept was once again the source of my discouragement,  I wanted to come to terms with it once and for all (which of course probably hasn’t happened—we are all works in progress). As I said, rationally, I know life isn’t fair. Why do I keep expecting it to be, only to be disappointed over and over again?

So I turned to my guru Google, and I typed in the search box, “How do I stop expecting life to be fair?”

The first page of results from that search contained articles that pretty much told me I should put on my big girl panties and just deal with it. Not very helpful because, as I said, my kneejerk response to anything I perceive to be unfair has always been immediate and automatic. I wanted guidance on how to change how I’ve been feeling in recent days. Telling me to just get over it didn’t cut it.

I kept scrolling. On page three of the Google search I came across the first article that struck me as helpful. Once again, it didn’t tell me anything that, on a rational level, I didn’t already know. But it explained my dilemma in a way that I could embrace at a deeper level, making it possible for me to break the downward mood spiral I’d been on and giving me the energy to write this new post.

You see—and you may already totally get this, but I obviously still needed enlightenment—that sense of unfairness unfailingly occurs when we set expectations for people, places and things that we have no control over. When those expectations aren’t met, we experience disappointment, resentment, and maybe even anger. We focus on what we believe should have happened, or should have been said or done. We justify our reaction by thinking that we would have behaved differently, or that we deserve to have our expectation met because, doggone it, we’re hard working or loving or honest or thoughtful, so we should get something in return for that.

And sometimes that happens. But quite often, it doesn’t.

Rather than get all worked up about it, then sink into a quagmire of defeat and lethargy, the emotionally healthier approach (and physically healthier approach, for that matter) involves resetting one’s perspective. Instead of mulling over the perceived affront or letdown, concentrate on all that is wonderful and good about your life. You’ll immediately feel an energy shift. I sure did.

So a couple of things didn’t go the way I wanted them to this week. Big whoop. I have my health, my family, my friends, my house, my yard…and that’s just for starters. I have Google to pose questions to. And the Syracuse University men’s and women’s basketball teams are both in the Final Four for the first time in school history.

But expecting people or circumstances to behave a certain way is simply unrealistic. It’s like expecting perfection from the weather, or travel plans to go flawlessly, or basing our financial future on lottery tickets. Expectations over things we can’t control creates stress. Releasing those expectations creates energy.

I hope, if you’ve come across this post, that it energizes you as well. Let’s face it, the world needs all the positive energy it can get. Each of us can contribute to that.