I have another blog I somehow keep forgetting about. Here’s one of my favorite posts, and good motivation to go back on a regular basis.
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Someone tell Buttercup to go to sleep. She’s too busy hugging the shadows good night and telling them how much she loves them.
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Success breeds success, right?
So if I surround myself with successful people, albeit virtually, then I can only become successful as well, correct?
(Sure. It’s my blog, and I can be delusional if I want to.)
I recently learned that my Twitter Boyfriend (a.k.a) @beltonwriter, has officially been immortalized on wikipedia with his very own page. And holy wow, is it am impressive list.
Even more impressive is that Mr. Belton (*snickering) has confirmed that the page is 100% correct in presenting the holy-shit-is-he-successful-and-why-is-he-wasting-time-tweeting-me-and-reading-my-work-unless-that-thimble-full-of-fermented-grape-juice-has-really-gone-to-his-head list.
I have started many conversations with The Husband with the words, “My famous writer-friend in Japan…” And because The Husband is sweet and likes to amuse me, he usually pretends to be interested. Which is nice.
When my copy of Isolation (by Christopher Belton, of course) arrived from Amazon a few months ago, I was excited for two reasons. #1) I had a real, bound, BOOK in my hands. Written by someone I KNOW. (Don’t go jumping on the “only in my tweets” point, thank you very much.) Sure, it was published in 2003 and is only one of a few books available in English by @beltonwriter, but it was mine to read and let me tell you how famous-by-osmosis I felt when I was reading it and being perfectly surprised by the ending! and #2) I snagged it for $3.
True story.
Remember this post?
Well, Skechers didn’t come knocking at my door, so it wasn’t hard for The Husband to convince me to try on a different style. Just for fun. Which I bought. Then never looked back.
So that left me with a pair of shoes I’m not wearing anymore after barely being broken in! What to do?
Post to craigslist, of course.
Wanna see?
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I have for sale a pair of pink and grey skechers shape-ups, size 9, worn 4 times. If I hadn’t already thrown away the box, I’d be at the shoe store after cleaning off the bottom of the shoe and hoping I could slip it by them as a return. But I don’t. So here I am.
So why am I selling them? And why should you by them? Let’s do bullets for simplicity.
Why you should buy?
*They might not be the most attractive (which is really putting it nicely), but they are *really* comfortable.
*Perfect for walking, perfect for all day on your feet (my sister wears hers to work as a cashier)
*As ugly goes, they kinda fit the “so ugly they’re cute” category
*Mine are cheaper than the store prices and really, you know more than 4 pairs of feet have been in the shoes you could buy brand new at the store, right?
Why I am selling:
*I was in love with the Skechers for the whole four hour-long walks I took in them. I swear.
*I was making progress and starting to get over my being superficial preoccupation regarding their lack of aesthetic appeal. (Really, I was. Sort of.)
*Then The Husband had me try on a pair of Avia Avi-Motion when we went shopping. (So this ad is totally his fault.)
*The Avia’s were just just supposed to be my “every-day” shoe and the Skechers my “walks with the jogging stroller” shoes.
*That didn’t happen.
Bottom line?
My feet just like the Avia’s better. So if you wanna do me a favor and help me not get killed by The Husband for wasting over $100 on a pair of shoes I barely wore (that I begged and begged for, mind you) you’ll buy the shoes from me instead of going to the store. Where you’ll pay more money. And this all makes perfect sense to me.
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I have a new hat.
This is important because:
1) I look totally cute in it and…
2) This has been confirmed by total strangers commenting on my cuteness and because…
3) I found out after getting back to the hotel this past weekend that my hat is apparently a “poet style” hat. I swear to you that I had no idea when I purchased it. I was just going off of the fact that out of the million I tried on, this was the only one that I didn’t think I looked like a total jackass in when I saw my reflection. That, and The Husband didn’t point and laugh when I asked him what he thought about it. (Yeah, I know. He’s sweet like that.)
I. Have. a. Poet. Hat.
This amuses me beyond words and I may actually start wearing it when writing poetry. And you can bet your ass I’ll be online later searching for a Smart Ass Mama with a Hefty Side of Snark hat. You know, ‘cuz then I’ll be able to literally switch hats when necessary.
I’ve got a knot in my neck the size of a grapefruit (yes, still) and while I wait for the Flexeril to kick in I thought I’d share how it got there.
See, a few weeks ago I got the bright idea to get an entry ready for the memoir portion of the annual Writer’s Digest Contest. It all started with an innocent comment from my writing buddy, Juliette.
“I love Chapter 13!”
Yep! That’s what she said. So I ran with it.
And that’s when I thought, “Well, hell…let’s give it a shot.”
It was supposed to be easy. My plan was to edit the chapter down to the required max of 2,000 words, and bounce it back to Juliette for a final once over. Because she’s cool frijoles like that. And I, of course, (who can spot a diamond in the dark) can’t see a typo of my own until it trips me.
That’s when I found the word “desert” in my essay. (It was supposed to be “dessert.” See? Now do you get the title for this post? Clever? Huh? Yeeeeeeah.) Not alarmed, I tweaked, edited, and sent it back to Juliette begging her to help me whittle 2,267 words into a polished 2k.
And because she’s busier than hell with a real job and other priorities, I patiently waited while she attacked her to-do list and emailed me back with suggestions, cuts, and messages about how tired she was.
That’s when I realized “sugar free” needs a hyphen. And that the sentence with the words, “my parent’s house” had the apostrophe in, like, totally the wrong spot? That wouldn’t go over so well with a judge, me thinks.
So I made a few changes and sent it back. Then she did the same.
And we have continued to do so for the better part of the last few weeks because Karma (and my Muse) wanted to make it perfectly clear that editing is an ongoing process and well, that I’m not prefect. (Yeah, yeah..I did that one on purpose.)
Right.
We found a dropped word. An unnecessary “a”. An uncapped “Mom.” And our last collective nerve.
Seriously, people, this is why I was a reported in my former life and didn’t work as a copy editor. I suck at editing copy. Ask Juliette. She’ll tell you. Hell, read my tweets. Or my blog. Or that cover letter for the PR job I was trying to snag right outta college where I proudly proclaimed my “extensive experience in pubic relations.”
True story.
Oh, and I didn’t get that job. (Yeah, I know. I was surprised, too.)
Finally, after @beltonwriter agreed to graciously read what we are sincerely hoping is the “real” final, final, final draft, we’re pretty confident that the submission is almost to the point of not sucking enough to actually submit. Because seriously, it’s no secret that perfectly good writing can get lost in a sea of third-graders learning how to remember the difference between “desert” and “dessert.”
Now does everyone understand why I insisted on starting this whole process months before the deadline?
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