Carolyn Erickson

…we are supposed to develop as writers:

I don’t want it.

There are two blogs I’ve been putting off only because I’ve been extremely busy and I know once I really take the time for more than a cursory visit, I’ll want to spend hours exploring them.

Fit in Real Life is a blog written by Dara Chadwick. In 2007, Dara was the Weight-Loss Diary columnist for Self magazine, where she chronicled her fitness efforts for 1.5 million readers to see. With courage like that, she’s sure to be someone I can learn from. At Fit in Real Life, she shares about maintaining the weight-loss and fitness levels she’s attained.

I’m writing this while snacking on some trail mix, so we’re going to move right along to the next blog I know I’m going to love.

At the Peace of Mind Organizing blog, Janine Adams gets to the heart of the matter right in the title. Organizing is not about impressing our friends, living up to a Martha Stewart-type reality or even because you feel guilty about being a slob. (Nor, I must remind myself, is it because you love to buy swanky containers from Ikea or Target!) Find organizational systems and methods that work for you, and you’ll shave pounds of stress (if stress isn’t weighed in pounds it should be) from your over-burdened shoulders.

I love organizing. I guess it goes hand-in-hand with my love of cleaning doesn’t it? But I still struggle to maintain organization in every part of my home. (It might help if someone would put things back where they got them, but I digress.) Janine professes to have struggled with organization herself, and she shares with readers solutions that have helped her. I intend to visit her site as soon as I get these papers all over my desk filed.

The month of May is nearly over, and I haven’t gotten around to highlighting all of my fellow blogathoners’ blogs. If you haven’t already, you might want to browse the blogroll and see what you find. All of them are professional writers, so if you’re one of my writing buddies, don’t miss the opportunity to visit each one and see what you learn about writing, about the wide variety of niches that are out there, and about whatever else these writers like to talk about!

It’s entertaining, for sure.

Blogging might trigger the release of dopamine according to Jessica Wapner’s article, “Blogging — It’s Good For You”, published this month in Scientific American.

The combined benefits of expressive writing and being a part of a blogging community have prompted some hospitals to include blogging in their supportive care for cancer patients.

No wonder I’ve been feeling so… healthy … lately.

Thanks to Barb Iverson at PoynterOnline who pointed out this article in E-Media Tidbits yesterday.

Vacation’s over. If you read my earlier post, you know I’m getting ahead on my assignments so I can spend most of the summer doing fun and educational things with my daughter. The only catch is that first I actually need to complete those assignments.

We’re trying something new today. My soon-to-be 2nd grader and I sat down with pencil and paper this morning and made a list of things she can do today so we can avoid some of the incessant “hey moms” that inevitably come just when I had a brilliant point to write in one of my projects.

We’ll see how it works out. The potential snags I can see are that she’ll either need help with some aspect of an activity or that she’ll power through the list by noon.

She’s very efficient that way.

Hey, maybe I should give her some of my assignments.

This weekend, our local lakes turn into small cities with as many as 50,000 people out camping and boating. Aside from the rough weather we’ve had in the evenings, it’s been a beautiful weekend for it.

Not willing to risk life and limb out at the lake, my family is spending a quiet day at home. We’ll take some time to remember those who paid for our freedom, and we’ll relish being alive in the greatest country in the world.

Dawn Weinberger blogs a journey through rough waters at her blog at Carl’s Liver Transplant. See how a boat represents smoother sailing in her husband’s recovery in More Than Just a Sailboat.

Happy boating, you guys.

When I was younger, I thought prayers were like wishes and God was a little like Santa Claus: You close your eyes and hope you’ll get what you want, but somewhere inside you know it’s just a matter of chance.

But then I discovered this verse:

James 5:16b … the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The word “availeth” is ischuo. Sometimes translated prevail, ischuo means to be strong, to have power as shown by extraordinary deeds, and to be a force.

That does not sound like wishing on a star to me. So why didn’t I see consistent results when I prayed? Well, probably because I really was only wishing and hoping, not believing. I didn’t yet know this verse:

Mark 11:24  Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Find a promise of God in the Bible and you know you have the right to pray for it. Believe when you pray, and you’ll receive it. These days, I get prayers answered. I’m not even surprised anymore - although I remain jazzed and thankful - when I see my believing prayers come to pass. The younger, skeptical me would protest, chalking it all up to coincidence. The wiser me of today would have to respond by wondering why I seem to have so many more coincidences in my life now than I did back then.

The early bird gets the worm.

Which is why I encourage worms everywhere to sleep in.

Back in September of last year, I won Linda Formichelli’s Tom Swifty contest. (The accolades, the prestige!)  Actually, it was a heckuva lot of fun and I got a copy of The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rocked, which is a very helpful book to have if you want yours to rock too. (Some of them were eye-openers that - gasp - broke all the rules.)

Anyway, since writers just wanna have fun, especially leading into the Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would post my winning Swiftie, as well as the ones that didn’t make the cut. (What’s a Tom Swifty, you ask? Click on the link above - Linda explains it admirably, and you can see a slew of funny ones in her post and in the comments section. Two of my favorites are “I can’t write with this thing; get me some No. 2 pencils!” Tom said pointedly. and, “You need to think of a plot,” she outlined.)

So, my winning entry (ta-da-da-DAH):

“I hate writing articles with bullet points,” he said listlessly.

And here are the duds:

“I might need corrective lenses,” she speculated.

“That phrase is not redundant!” she repeated.

“The milk’s gone bad,” he uttered.

“The fire has died!” he bellowed.

“She’s a little pigeon-toed,” he pointed out.

“Don’t let the left brain know what the right brain is doing,” she said thoughtfully.

“One of my legs is longer than the other,” she said unevenly.

“If this were a foot-race, I’d be a shoe-in,” he said flatly.

 Sure, some of them bite, but they’re fun to write. Can you come up with your own? Really you should try it! Yours will probably be much better than mine. Put them in the comments! (”There is no prize though,” she said meagerly.)

If you need some inspiration, I made a list of verbs and adverbs (and saved them, which says something about me, but I’ll postulate later on what that is…). And I will gladly share them with you. (Because honestly, what else will I do with them?)

Hey, postulate - that’s a good one. Here are some more: Read the rest of this entry »

Cleaning makes me feel good.

Wait. Before you label me a neatnik and click away in disgust, you must know this: I am not a neatnik. Actually I quite like letting a thin layer of filth build up before I clean. (Maybe “filth” is too strong a word. Let’s call it debris.) It makes wiping it away all the more satisfying.

I wasn’t always this way. In fact, if any family friends who knew me when are reading this right now, put your eyes back in your head. It isn’t weird. It isn’t strange. I haven’t been abducted by aliens.

What it is is about twenty years of turning a shortcoming into a longsuit, by much trial and tribulation (and some gnashing of teeth) and money. That’s right. Money. I didn’t spend money learning how to clean. I made money.

(This is for those of you who were about to make the joke, “That’s great, Carolyn! Come clean my house.” To you I say this: $35 an hour. Yep. And I am SLOW and METICULOUS. Still want me to come? I’ll be right over.)

Nothing’s better than cleaning a horde of nameless germs off a countertop than being PAID to clean them off a countertop.

Except for maybe one thing: Being paid to WRITE about cleaning them off a countertop. I love writing for  HousekeepingChannel.com. I don’t get a byline, but when you see the articles where someone is enthusiastically bursting with information about what type of bowl brush is best, you may have just hit on one of mine.

Go to this site when you want to know something cleaning-related. (Or regarding healthy homes.) If you don’t find what you’re looking for, come back here and ask me. It just might turn into an article. (And I’ll answer if I know the answer.)

Don’t we feel better now that we got that off our chests?

Jane Boursaw writes the Film Gecko blog for B5 Media. She reviews movies and television shows and gives behind-the-scenes info on celebrities. I appreciated her review on the movie Prince Caspian, since it was one we thought about taking our daughter to see. But after reading Jane’s review, I think we’ll opt for lighter fare. (Jane recommends it for kids 9 or above.)

Yesterday she linked to me and tied it in to her post, Jane’s Top 5 Movies About Writers. Give it a peek. I was surprised to find that I haven’t even seen 3 out of the 5 (or if I’ve seen them I don’t remember), but Stranger Than Fiction and Devil Wears Prada are two of my favorites. A commenter mentioned His Girl Friday as another good movie about writers. If you have a favorite that wasn’t listed, add it to Jane’s comments!

Boy, feeling famous being on the blog next to a pic of Will Smith, Nicolas Cage, Harrison Ford et. al.

Check out the site. These are the kind of reviews I can use, and the celebrity news I’m actually interested in.

P.S. Check this article out on Media Bistro (if you’re a member) about how Jane got her entertainment column, “Reel Life with Jane,” syndicated in more than 300 publications and websites nationwide. Congratulations on getting featured in an article that recognizes your success, Jane!