Lately, however, I’ve been struggling. Maybe it’s lack of motivation. Maybe it’s stress. Or maybe I most likely need to borrow some of HC Palmquist’s Ambien or Robin O’Bryant’s pet Leroy and see where those avenues take me for inspiration. I had originally been thinking of buying a huge metal chicken named Beyonce to be my muse, but looks like that’s already been done. So instead I’ve been finding myself staring at an empty square on my screen waiting to hold my words while Add New Post kinda just stand there, mocking me.

A new post about what? Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes wonder if I need to filter my moods when deciding what to post. When it comes to blog hits, funny works. Introspective? Not so much. But that leads me to question why I am blogging anymore if my only desire is to see an upward trend in readership because if ‘m not writing for myself first than who am I writing for?

I’m not going to take some bullshit high-road and tell you that I’ve reached nirvana and no longer care what you or anyone else thinks and will be happy to just share my words on a public forum that no one other than myself makes time to read. I’m not going to tell you that being authentic is more important than being popular, mainly because, even through I agree with the sentiment, the blatant overuse of the word when it comes to blogging makes me want to pull my hair out. And I’m certainly not going to tell you that while your writing needs to be for you before it’s for anyone else, you had better damned well be thinking about your audience and your numbers and your popularity and your ability to network with other writers/bloggers/social media innovators to get your name out there for the sake of that Godforsaken platform because we’re happy your authentic blog that you write for religiously and maintain just for you because the mere act of sharing your words even if no one else is reading them is cathartic in and of itself but really? Who told you all that shit didn’t matter?

It’s all very chicken and egg-like. It doesn’t matter if our dream is to connect with others in the same place in life (shout out to all the Mommy Bloggers and a big WHAT UP to the Writer Mama’s out there!), or if we are trying to keep our heads above water in an ever-rising sea of expectations regarding what we need to have accomplished to be deemed worthy of a book deal (Bump-its come to mind), or if we just want to prove to ourselves that after wrangling the kids all day and looking for that nerve you are pretty sure you just had, we can still string together a sentence for other adults that don’t include the words “potty, nigh’ night, or Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you not to flash strangers your Hello Kitty panties to strangers in the middle of Target?” A dream is a dream is a dream. It’s just up to us to sift through the bullshit on the way, kick any and all irrelevant emotional baggage to the curb (being careful to store away the relevant emotional baggage for later use in the appropriate essays, articles, books, and or blog posts), and decide each and every time we sit down to send our words out into the universe what drew us to do so.

For me? This blog is my personal space which I publicly share. Sometimes I’m snarky, funny, offensive. Others I am introspective, reflective, and revealing. You might not like or appreciate the snark or maybe introspective isn’t your thing. And that’s okay. I’m not writing for you. I’m writing for me. And if something I say just happens to connect with someone who just happened to stop by on a particular day, that will be enough for me. I wore a mood ring as a child to let the world know without speaking the color of the thoughts I carried within my head. Now, there’s an app for that.

So which came first, y’all?

The chicken or the egg? The inspiration to share or the inspiration to influence?

* Insomnia isn’t really your thing. It’s just a way of life you’ve grown accustomed to. Exhibit A? Mom came to visit which meant Buttercup slept in her room for the first week. You slept like the dead. Until the New Grandma smell wore off and the baby monitor ended up back by your bed. That’s when the fucking thought of even the slightest shift in the cosmos will make it impossible for you to get comfortable in bed, let alone fall asleep.

* Bed time stories entitled Go the Fuck to Sleep? Sound like the best idea ever.

* Dreams of hiring a live-in masseuse start to actually make sense.

* That Facebook Like Page that the rest of the world has? Yeah. You created one months ago, it seems. And because you couldn’t sleep tonight, you created a new one, found the old one, realized it was an old one, and deleted the new one. You think. But you aren’t entirely sure.

*You are convinced that you are so past the high school social anxiety related to people liking you…until you refresh your Facebook Like Page for the 143rd time at 2:32 a.m. and realize that only 39 people actually like you.

* The puppy licking your toes under your desk feels kinda kinky.

*That thinking about ( maybe possibly trying to) getting pregnant again seems like an entirely feasible way to celebrate the four years it took to lose the 45 pounds gained with the first kid.

* That if this actually works, and it takes four more years to lose the baby weight, I’ll be kissing 40 before I can identify my waistline in a police line up.

* That by the time Buttercup loses her first tooth, I will probably have to distinguish between the fruit and the smartphone when I offer her a blackberry.

* And that when she hears a bird say tweet in the park, she will most likely tell me to check my phone for new messages (because that’s what I’ll be doing, anyway.)

* That I am not in the minority when my phone rings and I get annoyed. Who the hell uses those things to talk anymore?

* It’s 2:42 a.m. And my kid didn’t come with a snooze button.

Tomorrow morning is not going to be pretty.

If your first thought was of a real, live breathing birdie, this post probably isn’t for you.

But if your mind instantly jumped to @’s and 140 characters? Pull up a chair. We need to talk. Let’s chat about @’s and Dm’s (read: direct messages) and if the word twitter itself is an actual verb.

Shall we?

*First of all, no. It isn’t. In Pauline Land, when you are referring to the act of writing a 140 character bit of brilliance and then sending it out into the World Wide Web, you did not twitter. Nor have you twittered with so and so. While Google may have earned it’s way into the modern lexicon of actual verbs (Go ahead, Google it)  Twitter is (in my head) a noun. Nothing more.

An example using the word “eat” as an example.

Present tense: I am eating.

Past tense: I have eaten. I ate.

Now try saying “I eatered.” Doesn’t sound right, does it?

Let’s use what we have learned with the word, ” Twitter.”

Present tense: I am tweeting.

Past tense: I have tweeted. I tweeted.

Done.

Now for the next lesson.

*While I get slightly pissy when calling anyone and getting the automated voice mail message with nothing but the phone number to make me wonder if I am leaving a message for the right person to call me back, I get even more pissy when following anyone on Twitter and get an auto DM (read: automated direct message) in return.

“Let’s connect on Facebook!” (I don’t think so.)

“So glad to meet you! Check out my blog at www.notgonnahappen.com!” (‘Nuff said.)

“Please click here so I can verify that you are real.” (Do we really wanna go there?)

Listen up, people. I know plenty of my own online friends use them, and I get the idea. “Why not instantly thank everyone who is nice enough to follow me! It’s like a virtual welcome mat,” you think. But really, it’s more like a very real turn off.

Why? Because Twitter is about (or should be about) forging connections with the people you want to interact with. If you are a business owner, a writer, a blogger, a life coach, or a self-declared social media expert (keep reading because you have your own category) the whole point to to make the 140 you send out in the world reflective of yourself, your brand, or whatever else it is you are putting out there. And an auto dm is not the way to go.

People are busy. That’s why the idea of summing up your thoughts into a concise little 140 characters is so appealing to so many. Tweet about your kid peeing in the bushes at the park and get a few tweets back from other moms dealing with kids who have totally been there. Tweet about that latest blog post and maybe get a few RTs (retweets) from people who like what you wrote. Or tweet and let it float off into nothingness because that’s what happens when you let your thoughts go.

But under any circumstances, please avoid alienating your followers with an auto DM. They reek of impersonal. Instead, save the direct message feature for real conversation with those you have already established a connection.

Capiche?

*The first rule of Tweet Club? Don’t talk about Tweet Club. Or rather, it’s a numbers game that isn’t a numbers game. Yes, having a higher number of followers can be impressive and used to your advantage for a variety of factors like platforms, business reach, etc., but I am on Twitter for real conversation. Which means? I follow you if you talk to me or because I find what you have to say interesting. Not just because you followed me (That would be referred to as an auto-follow, for those who arrived late to class). So please, stop with the Team Follow Back thing. Or keep at it. Just leave my name out of that tweet. Whichever floats your social media boat.

*I don’t know about you, but the one thing that has always driven my utterly bonkers about movies and TV is the fact that no one ever says good-bye. They just hang up! Mid-conversation! I don’t care if the script says that’s when it’s time to put the freaking phone down, if you want me to believe this is real then for the Love of God! Say Good-bye!

But guess what? Twitter? Is not a phone call. It’s okay to walk away mid-conversation. It’s even okay to not respond to every tweet. Instead, respond to the tweets you find interesting. And keep building relationships that have value. Or tweet-stalking The Bloggess like I do.

Gotta have a hobby, right?

*The last time I got a phone call from a telemarketer on a land line, the conversation went kind of like this:

Telemarketer: Is this Pauline Campos?

Me: No hablo ingles.

Telemarketer: (audibly puffing up chest in poorly accented pride) Esta bien. Yo hablo Espanol.

Me: Oh that’s okay. I don’t speak Spanish, either.

That’s probably when his brain imploded from trying to think too much. But what else was I going to do? Twitter didn’t exist yet and I didn’t have a Block and Report for Spam option. Which means if I get all googly on twitter about my iPhone lust or happen to mention that I am in search of yoga pants that look good on my fat ass and you send me a reply attached to a half naked porn-star wanna-be telling me about your amazing deal on free iPhones and yoga pants for fat-asses?

Bu-bye.

*Wear your name tag. And by that I mean WRITE YOURSELF A TWITTER BIO. Even if it just says “Hi! I’m new here!” Write it. Why? Because the aforementioned bots are famous for not having them. And when an experienced twitter user does a quick check on a new follower to see if they want to return the favor, you may find yourself getting passed up just because you forgot to tell people you were real.

*Speaking of bios…if at all possible, leave the word expert out of yours. Especially if it follows the words (and I finger quote) Social Media. There is one exception, of course, and that is if you actually are one. New to twitter and feel the need to follow every self-proclaimed expert out there? Read this first and then decide. I didn’t write it. So don’t be confused by the lack of typos.

I did, however, do some informal research to determine what others think when they see the term “social media expert” in a twitter bio. And by informal research, I mean, tweeted the question and waited for the four people who actually talk to me to respond. This is (some of ) what I got:

@Hamsasya: Next!

@Pj_Kaiser: 97% of them are blowing smoke.

@TinaNguyen: Run the other way!

@Tyroneem: You self-centered jerk (not you. The social media expert.)

Now, if you are an actual social media expert who understands the Social part of that equivalent? Kudos. Carry on. There’s nothing to see here.

*Did I just tweet that? And did you just unfollow me because I did? *shrugs shoulders* I understand that not everyone appreciates the use of an occasional F-bomb in their tweet stream. But I also strive to write as I speak (even in 140) and that means I sometimes say “fuck.” I say it on my blog and in my book, too. So if you unfollow because of a tweet? It’s okay. You probably don’t want to read anything else I have written either. And that’s fine with me. It’s who I am. (Moral? Be true to the you that you have created online.)

And that, my friends, ends today’s lesson in The Aspiring Mama guide to twitter. Live it. Love it.

And Tweet. Tweet.

It’s not my thing.

But 10 years ago, I was in a small newsroom when the world stopped spinning. When planes hijacked by terrorists flew into the Twin Towers, killing thousands. I remember being afraid as I drove home that evening. I was in Michigan, far from Ground Zero, but I was afraid.

I interviewed a woman who lived in the city I covered who sat on a bridge as the towers fell. I cried as she spoke. All those lives lost. The hate responsible for our nation’s terror. She saw it all happen. Her eyes captured the images I painted with words.

Today, I am afraid once again.

The nation celebrates the death of Osama bin Laden. And rightfully so. I believe in justice. I believe in bringing those who lost loved ones the comfort that only closure can bring. And I believe that our nation has the right to cheer the death of one so evil.

But, yes. I am still afraid.

While cheerleaders do pyramids in front of the White House. While crowds sing, “Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na! Hey Hey, Hey! Good-bye!…” And while images of Stanley Cup celebrations cross in my mind with tonight’s breaking news, Osama bin Laden did not take all of Al Qaeda with him. Osama bin Laden did not die clutching all evil known to human kind to his chest.

I have closed my eyes and breathed in the sorrow surrounding Ground Zero. I am watching tonight’s celebration at the site and I understand it. I do. I didn’t lose anyone I know on September 11, 2011, and yet, I want to say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing our national anthem and shake the Obama’s hand and thank our military personnel who put their lives on the line to protect the country they serve.

I am proud to be American. But I am afraid.

Osama is dead.

But tomorrow is a new day. And I only wish I knew what it will bring. Because I don’t, I can only hug my sleeping daughter close, breathing in her innocence.

I’m a non-fiction kind of gal. I love reading memoirs and how-to books. Fiction? Gimme a Sophie Kinsella book and you are my new best friend.

So when I saw that Carolyn McCray’s 30 Pieces of Silver available on Kindle, I bought it only to support a fellow writer. And?

It. Was. Awesome.

I can’t compare it to anything. I won’t give away any spoilers. But I will tell you that I finished it in three days.

Because it was that good. Her characters are believable. Her plot is full of incredible twists. And the story? So very well told.

Are you a writer trying to build your platform so you can share your words with the world? Buy 30 Pieces of Silver, support on of your own, and send her a tweet thanking her for the inspiration.

She’s doing it, people. Give the woman some props.