” Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that has the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.” Dale Carnegie
It’s Wednesday night and I’m cooking dinner wondering, “What the hell am I going to post tomorrow?” (I apologize, I do swear once in a while.)
Does this happen to you or are you so organized that all your posts are prepared weeks or months ahead of time?
Please don’t answer if you’re one of those because you’ll only make me feel like a loser. OK, I admit, I’ll feel happy for you and perhaps a smidgen of envy will creep in wishing that I could be more like you.
So while I stir the mushrooms, let me take a moment to think about what to write next.
I have a confession to make. I’m still working on the rewrite of my travel memoir. I know, I know, why is it taking me so long to finish my travel memoir?
Do you want to know the real reason?
Here it is. “I finally listened to agents, editors, a memoir teacher I had three years ago, and someone important: my husband.”
“Start with the action in Belize,”
“Sonia, too much fluff in the beginning, get to Belize faster.”
It has taken several years for me to hear them, and as I mentioned in the truth about writing a book, publishers are looking for unique stories.
Unless you’re a celebrity, it’s highly unlikely that an editor will be interested in publishing your manuscript if it relates to any of the following problems:
- raising a difficult teenager
- an alcohol problem
- an autistic child
- you’re a cancer survivor
- you suffered abuse as a child
- you left your abusive husband
At least that’s what I’ve heard over and over again. I’m sorry, it sucks, but that’s a fact today and I realize it. That’s why I’m trying very hard to become a celebrity. (Please don’t laugh.)
OK, so here’s something else I want to talk about. I’m very confused about the way I was taught to write in Europe, and the American way. I used to say, “I learnt this,” and it’s taken me almost twenty years to realize that in the U.S. it’s, “ I learned this.”
I also have comma problems. I truly believe the British use more commas than the Americans. At this point I’m so confused, I add a comma just to be on the safe side.
Let’s not get distracted here; I know you care more about other things than my grammar issues. I would like to find out a few things about you.
- Do you find it a challenge to stick to the theme of your blog?
- Are there times when you’d like to write whatever, just like I am today?
- Once you hit publish, do you get nervous what readers will think of your post or should I say you?
- Do you wake up at 2 a.m., in a sweat (ladies you know what I mean) and panic because you don’t have a topic to write about, and you work yourself into a tizzy because you realize your book is more important than your blog, so you start worrying about your kids, your marriage, your life, and global warming? Then by 3 a.m., you finally relax enough to sleep until you decide to get up and write your post before you forget what you wanted to write about.
There are days when we think we’re on a stage, performing for an audience, and in a way being a writer/blogger is the same. Even if we think we wrote a brilliant post, article or book, we can’t be happy until we know what our audience thinks of our “performance.” Of course we can judge by the number of comments, Tweets and reviews we receive, however, this shouldn’t matter as much as what we think of our self.
