Tag Archives: blog

A chance for some good ol’ fashioned butt-kicking! (A Giveawayyy!!)

Posted on
21

Just a few months ago, I had the chance to sit down with Jeff Goins, who has richly influenced my writing over the past ten months. He’s a brilliant writer and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to learn more from… I mean, meet him.

We talked about sources of inspiration and hiding from all the noise and unplugging from social media. We talked about finding ways to find your words when they’re all lost. We talked music and songwriting and I confessed to him that I’m so distracted/enamored by Adele’s voice that I haven’t paid much attention to her songwriting skills.

I don’t think he judged me for that.

And now, Jeff is rocking the writing world, flying through the ranks and leaping over his peers in a single bound. His blog is at the top of the list of 2011′s Top Ten Blogs for Writers. He is generous with resources and in fact I’ve been molded by his “Intentional Blogging” course. All of that is pretty cool, but the most exciting part is that he’s just signed a writing contract and will be published in the not-too-distant future.

I say all this to say: dude knows what he’s talking about.

Some of my favorite recent blog posts include:

He’s recently released a pair of e-books that are valuable writing tools. To get a copy of both “Before Your First Book” and “The Truth About Writing” leave a comment below. Drew, my amazing mathematician husband, will pick three numbers on our hot date tonight and I’ll announce the winners on the morning of manana.

Sound good?

How to Speak the Spammers’ Language

Posted on
11

Great “post” right back atcha, Latoya. Too bad your comment was eaten by the spaminator, prevneting Moweezles chance to reply. The conversation wouldve been exciting to watch–impressive even. Like Mo!

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Namari. :) To answer your question, I hope we’re Having Fun Yet around here. Not sure if I can take cerdit. I give ll the recognition to my lovley commenters, just same as you.

this is an amazign request, swete spammer-commenter. if you could leave an accurate weblog url, i would be happy to check out your site. if i think your content is a fit for my style, i’ll write something equally odd, but full of capital letters. Just. For. You.

Inspiring! “Subject and predicates,” you are undoubtedly my favorite spammer. Your grammar is accurate, which (judging by your name) shows consistency and effort. I want to thank you for offering help. I would definitely refer Tam Hodge to you. Tam has been blogging as long as I have, and I’d be the first to admit that I have obvious grammar deficiencies, but Tam is still leans towards anti-capitalism at times. So, my dear spammer, please stop by her blog and tell her that Mandy sent you. She’ll LOVE it!

Steve Jobs’ team hasn’t released Artificial Intelligence into the mainstream technological culture yet. So, until those people at AAPL make it happen, you’re stuck with tignhs men think up. IJWTS: Good luck with that one, robo-buddy.

So, back to you, real readers. The whole point (there’s always a point) of this blog is that I want y’all to know I read all the comments. All of ‘em. And I even go digging for those buried in spam. Thank you for commenting. And reading. And all of it.

And I have a question for all of you: How long have you been hanging out around this blog?

This is what they want to read.

Posted on
30

(follow me on this long and winding road)

Drew has a blog. It’s worth clicking over to read, if you aren’t aware. He’ll disappoint you with the quantity, but he won’t disappoint you with the quality. I promise.

Anyway, we recently had a good ol’ laughing-fest piled up on the couch flipping through his stats and search terms. Naturally, we wandered over to my slightly-less-unimpressive stat page, and found a few favorites that appear to lure unsuspecting googlers rere again and again:

  1. The one about girls being the root of all evil. This was one of my early early early posts… And I’m not even sure if the picture will show up anymore. But I STILL get comments on it. And, like any blogger who’s loyal to *real* readers, I don’t even comment to them. ;) But the comments, in all their belligerent glory,  are worth flipping through.
  2. People really do intentionally go poo in public places.  Older than #1 (did I actually blog in 2007?), this #2 post (pun intended) will go down in history as one of my personal faves.
  3. Then there’s the one where we talk about pant-wetting. And, well, yeah. I did. And I did. Here’s a good link to the first youtube video in that post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvHRdudIRoY *pausing for a pee break*
  4. Then there’s that lady that made Ellen lose all sense of composure. I’ll just let y’all watch it here if you wanna:

But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m curious about is what do YOU want to read more of here? See, I have this new 3rd day to deal with, and I think I’ll post whenever I want. (yay!!! we’ve come to a decision!!!!) Because it’s my blog & I guess I can. And a lot of y’all said I could, so taadaaaaaa. Rest assured,  you’ll always find something new here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then a smattering of something somewhere else. It’ll be like a surprise. Or something.

But back to my question: What do you wanna read here? Or, better, *why* do you come read here? Yeah… That’s what I’m really interested in knowing. Feel free to comment anonymously, you precious lurkers. I’d love to hear from y’all too. :)

Oh but please do answer: why do you come read here?

p.s. This’ll be the last time we drag out any talk about what day to post when. You’ve been beautifully patient with me.

This is what might happen if I start posting on Mondays…

Posted on
12

two of my friends have been kidnapped. for days. and the kidnapper just left a string of creepy comments on my blog. luckily, the creepy commenter-stalker left a comment the monday before the kidnapping, and included the email address with the name “eduardo” in it. so, “eduardo” it is.

I see a man in a black shirt & blue jeans climbing a tree outside the window.

Eduardo has come for me. [insert general panic here]

someone in the house finds & stops him. but, he is a middle-aged woman. and she is furious at me for not replying to comments. so I explain. “I knew when I first started blogging that I would not be able to make everyone happy. This is one of those moments. And it doesn’t reflect how much I do value the conversation & interaction with readers–it’s my favorite part of blogging, but I can’t do anything differently with this.”

something about that speech wins her over.

[jump to the future]

she lives in the Nashville area. and, during a trip to visit my BFF, I go to see “eduardo-ette” too. we’d become friends, maybe…? [skipping a few fuzzy and unimportant details] while at her house, someone steals everything out of my purse, including $100 cash (which I never have in real life), my credit card, and iPhone. there are a lot of teenagers at her house, so I suspect them. we get online to track my phone (bc it’s smart like that) and discover it is traveling at a car-speed away from her house.

she says it’s the guy that works on her car. he was just leaving.

that’s when I for-real panic. i get all upset & say “I’m sorry. this is just too much. all of this happening at once.”  [insert panic attack]

Something in my brain flipped the “this is only a dream” switch, which automatically popped my eyes right open. Heart pounding. Ok. That was just a dream.

I must’ve fallen asleep after the two hours that I spent laying there wondering why I wasn’t asleep, what I was going to do with my blog on Mondays, and if two friends of mine would like to go on a blind date together.

My blog predicament? Well, nearly half of you voted for Mondays, twice as many votes for Monday than for any other day… Sheesh. I’ve set aside Monday as sacred-songwriting-and-solitude day. So, what’s the problem? I can still put a post up, right? Well. Sorta. See, like in the dream, my favorite element of blogging is the interaction. The Comments–and so many of you are faithful to talk back to me.

So. If I post on Mondays, I’ve gotta stay away from the comments until *at least* 4:30pm my time–and you’ve gotta keep me to that commitment… Is that ok with you? (Please vote. I’ll be back at 4:30 to see what y’all have to say!)


this could be one of the best days in the history of me.com

Posted on
19

So, y’all know I try to come through when you start asking for something around here–it’s the least I can do to show gratitude for the fact that y’all even read this nonsense. And recently the masses have spoken. Nay: begged (ahem: Toby, Bernard).

Thanks to Fred McKinnon for pointing out the error of my ways, now all of you can subscribe to replies when you leave a comment on this here little blog. And, yes, it’s my fault that this never happened. Because I didn’t check the painfully important box beside the setting that enables this feature.

“My bad. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. How can I make it up to you?” And all the other things I’m supposed to say to rectify the situation.

Speaking of: Does the word “rectify” remind you of any other words that none of us like to say, hear, read, or think…?

Just askin’

So, go ahead. Comment away. And check that little box, and I will reply, and your email will tell you. It’s maaaagic.