Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

Making Love in Paradise

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 HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL
Laguna Beach, CA February 13, 2011

When my husband and I moved to Belize, I knew we’d found the perfect place for romance. The two of us would embrace on the powdery sand with the sun’s warmth caressing our bodies. After a couple of exotic coconut rum punches, passion would take over, right?

Wrong! A primitive hut on stilts is not the place for a fulfilling love life. There’s a limit to how many coconut rum punches you can knock back while ignoring scorpions, large spiders, sweaty odors and sand flies sharing your bed. Having a mosquito net made no difference; the critters appeared on-time, and uninvited.

We moved from a luxury California king-size mattress to a knobby double mattress in Belize. Duke’s feet stuck out a foot or so, but at least the mattress offered a separation between us and the floor’s ecosystem.

The ceiling fauna was exactly the same, but gravity caused numerous landings of critters and their poop, onto our protective mosquito net. I just prayed that a giant iguana or rat wouldn’t fall out of the palm-fronded, vaulted ceiling and cause the net to collapse over our faces.

Body odor was another distraction during romance. The humidity and lack of air-conditioning caused us to sweat like baboons. I tried everything to get our sheets to smell fresh, but our stinky well water didn’t help matters. I boiled pot after pot of water mixed with bleach on my kitchen stove, and sprinted outside to fill our washing machine located underneath our hut. A colony of dock flies resided next to the washing machine and pounced on my legs, like hungry carnivores. Within an hour, I’d have large welts. I finally gave up and sprayed my precious Chanel perfume onto our sheets, but this was only a three-second fix. Desperate, I sprayed some inside my nostrils, and screamed in pain.

On this special Valentine’s Day, please remember how lucky you are to have a comfortable bed with clean sheets. If you want some tropical romance, check yourself into a nice hotel with air-conditioning.


What about you? Any romantic or fun stories to share?

Women dominate men in the social media world.

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Did you know that women, in all age categories, outnumber men as far as the driving force of social media?

So what? you may say.

According to Johanna Blakely, Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California) this is changing the future of entertainment media. Blakely asks, “If social media is dominating old media, and women are dominating social media, does this mean that women are going to take over global media?”

In traditional media everyone is lumped according to demographics, and viewers over 54 don’t exist. Now with on-line media, people can escape their age, ethnic background and gender, as they aggregate around their shared interests, So it’s no longer age, gender and skin color that matters.

“Shared interests and values are far more powerful aggregators of human beings than demographics,” Blakely says. “Does this mean media companies are going to hire more women and we shall see more female characters in video games, TV, even chick flicks?” she asks.

I’m selfish, and yes, I hope that the entertainment industry realizes that they have a huge audience of females 40+  who are waiting to see movies they can relate to, women on TV they can relate to, marriages they can relate to, and of course family stories they can relate to.

I think connecting, sharing and especially “talking” to others is a female trait, so why am I not surprised to hear that women outnumber men in social networking? Do you realize the potential of social networking? Please share Johanna Blakely’s research with your friends. Lets get moving. This is HUGE!

I’m curious to hear your thoughts, whether male or female?

Has blogging improved your writing?

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Belize: A place that inspires me to write.

Sandra Lee from Always Well Within, wrote a post “Has Blogging Murdered Eloquence and Elegance?” that inspired my article today. I wanted to write about something that’s been bothering me but didn’t have enough to add, until I found Sandra’s article.

Sandra asked her readers some interesting questions regarding their writing styles. I have listed them below, but would urge you to read her detailed post.

1). Have you altered you writing style as a blogger?  Where do you draw the line?
Have you simplified your writing style?

2). Do you use formulaic headlines?  If not, how do you write effective headlines?
For example: 10 easy ways to get organized today.

3). Which words turn you in the opposite direction?
Sandra mentions words such as awesome, killer, kick-ass, dude.

4). What do you think about the use of swear words and vulgarity in blog posts?

My response to several of her excellent questions and points is: Who is your audience?
If you’re appealing to a young crowd of 20-30, your writing needs to relate to them. Since I cannot write like twenty-somethings speak, (half the time I don’t understand my own sons,) they are probably not my audience.

I added two of my own questions below.

5). Has blogging improved your writing skills? We all put more time and effort into writing and editing our blog posts than we would in an e-mail to a friend. My problem is I speak French and Danish, and notice after I’ve read or spoken French, my sentence structure is incorrect in English. (How do you like my excuse?)

6). Have you ever left a comment on someone’s blog you regretted after you clicked submit?
When I’m in a hurry or over-tired, I have commented without thinking before I hit submit.

This happened to me the other day on another excellent guest post, “5 Steps to Captivating Readers With Your Secret Message,” by Carol Tice on Copyblogger. Copyblogger is huge, the Guardian named it one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs.) And this is what I wrote:

“I don’t have a secret message. I want my readers to share their opinions and encourage them to be open. I love cross-cultural comparisons from around the world regarding topics that we can all relate to in one way or another. Thanks for asking.”

After you read “5 Steps to Captivating Readers With Your Secret Message” you realize I did not pay attention to the article’s main focus. It was about how our writing is an opportunity to tell readers what we’re about; to convey our personality, passions, expertise, and attitude.

I realized my stupidity, or shall we say, “misinterpretation” and tried to redeem myself by writing a second comment in the Reply section, to myself (like the world cares!)

“I hope to be authentic in a Gutsy way, that inspires viewers to think about everyday issues in unusual ways.”

Please hop over to Sandra Lee’s “Has Blogging Murdered Eloquence and Elegance?” and Carol Tice’s article on Copyblogger’s  “5 Steps to Captivating Readers With Your Secret Message” to help with your writing and content.

Please share anything you care to about your writing and commenting experiences.

"Skins" Is there a problem with this show?

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“Skins” watch trailer HERE

 

Call me naive, or a recent empty-nester, but this is the first I’ve heard of the teenage series “Skins” which premiered on January 17, 2011, drawing in 3.3 million viewers, with 1.2 million of them under 18.

“‘Skins’ is the American adaptation of a UK hit about the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll lifestyle of a group of teenagers. The PTC (Parents Television Council), a TV watchdog group, thinks the program might actually be child pornography, as many of the actors playing wayward teens are under 18 themselves. The group has persuaded a number of advertisers to pull out of the show, and called for a federal investigation,” according to today’s article by Dr. Harold Koplewicz in the Huffington Post.

Dr. Koplewicz talks about “the apparent lack of consequences,” on the show which portrays extreme behavior involving drinking, sex, and pill-popping. Teens drive under the influence, get involved in drug deals, and generally skirt death, and I can understand why the PTC would declare “Skins” as perhaps, “the most dangerous television show for children that we have ever seen.”

Though I haven’t watched an episode of “Skins,” I agree with Dr. Koplewicz when he mentions, “a world where parents and adults are mostly ineffectual, not to be trusted, or simply absent. This isn’t a good message to send — but it’s sadly accurate for many kids whose parents, well-intentioned though they may be, are out of touch with their teenagers.”

When our son started dating, my husband and I struggled with the complete lack of parental involvement and supervision from the girlfriend’s side. Many of the parents were divorced and looking to date themselves, forgetting to act as parents. Peer pressures and problem teenagers was another reason we chose to uproot our kids and get out of Orange County, California, and start over in Belize in Central America.

The third episode shows the toll that having no available parents takes on one of the characters. “His mother has checked out, leaving only a thousand dollars in cash; his father has a new life and wants nothing to do with him. Hurt and abandoned, he tries to party those feelings away.”

So what does “Skins” offer teenagers? Perhaps a way for those who are struggling to, “see their very real emotions taken seriously,”

What are your thoughts?  “Skins”?  Comments?

Pitching at a conference is like bull-running.

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My mind is foggy after two full days of networking, listening to presentations by agents, editors and publicists, and pitching my memoir.

This SDSU (San Diego State University) writers’ conference is known for being intense, especially when so many are hoping to get an agent or editor to fall in love with their work.

Here’s how the pitching sessions work. Prior to the conference, you’re allowed to select one agent or editor to do an advanced reading of your your first ten pages, and as many consultations as you wish to pay for.

This is what it felt like charging into the editors and agents appointments.

Numbered tables are set up in a large room and each agent or editor sits at his/her allocated table. Approximately fifty or so nervous and excited writers line up outside the room and charge into the room when told. Just like spectators chancing their luck in the streets of Pamplona, Spain, during the bull-running, here we are fifty or so writers chancing our luck at landing an agent or an editor. A bell rings two minutes before the session is over, and you realize your ten precious minutes are up.

During my third appointment, another woman took my seat. I couldn’t believe it. Had I made a mistake? It so happens she missed her 1 p.m., meeting and arrived at my 1:12 appointment instead. There am I waiting for her to get out of the chair as the clock is ticking. She’s negotiating with the agent to give her another appointment. Meanwhile, I’m losing precious time, but fortunately this agent liked my pitch and requested 50 pages.

If you’ve attended a writers’ conference, you’ll understand the mixture of emotions that comes from a weekend of intense workshops, networking, and getting the attention of an agent or editor. It’s exhausting for all attendees, and I admire the agents and editors for coming to the west coast from New York, where numerous canceled flights and delays due to snow, caused them to wait for hours at the airport.

So how did it go? I’ve been asked to submit 50-70 pages to two agents, my first chapter to two, and invited to contact three others. I am now on the second phase of my journey, and feel like a nap right now, before I can cope with the marketing proposal I have to work on.

By the way, all agents and editors, expect an online presence and about 10-20,000 unique hits per month. That’s significant. If you have figured out how, please share with us.

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