Because we all want to write more better...

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because if everyone did, I wouldn't be a comma fucker.

I've been a writer since I could string together a sentence. I've been an editor, professionally speaking, for more than 10 years now. I love language, words, sentences, breaking rules, playing with subtext. These things make me happy. What makes me sad also makes me an asshole, a "Grammar Nazi," and apparently, a "comma fucker." I present the evidence, shared by a Facebook friend earlier this week:

So yeah, Finnish: "pilkunnussija" literally translates to "comma fucker," or someone who corrects little or meaningless things.

Over the years I have learned that most people don't like to have their grammar corrected (exception: writers handing over manuscripts for an extended and intentional bout of comma fucking). I still do it silently. I no longer read comments on news stories or web sites. I hide Facebook posts by people I care about because I just cannot with the poor spelling and grammar. I cringe at an erroneous possessive apostrophe. I've sent kind and gentle (my opinion) emails to local businesses with misspelled signage.

In my defense, I don't do these things to feel intellectually superior. I do them because I have a dream. It's a big one, but I cling with every fiber of my being. I dream that every single person in the English-speaking world will complete early childhood education with an ingrained understanding of the difference between "your" and "you're" (yeah, I'm so fucking hung up on this that I once declined a second date with a repeat offender texter). I hope to never again have to explain that the correct idiom is "dog eat dog world," NOT "doggy dog world" (yes, this is a real thing that happened). And someday, in this perfect world, I will never again have to explain to a college graduate the difference between active and passive voice.

Trust me, my own mistakes make me cringe just as hard. I rarely read magazine pieces I've written once they have been published, lest I discover that an editor missed a wayward comma splice, misspelled word, or (gasp) changed my correct language to something less than correct. This blog is full of mistakes. There is a post somewhere around here in which I used "to" instead of "too." I beg your forgiveness, but use this example to illustrate 1) I am not a perfect comma fucker and 2) The fact that I discovered this error in hundreds of pages of archives and still remember it proves that I am harder on myself than anyone else.

I could go on about how texting and social media and a failing public educational system has ruined language, but I don't even use proper capitalization or punctuation in IM or emails to friends, so apparently I don't care. What I do care about: Journalism. Literature. Why media outlets thought it was a fantastic idea to ditch proofreaders and editors to save their struggling print publications, which people like me don't read anymore because spelling and factual errors are too damn distracting. Why e-book publishers charge for editing services, yet every single damn book I've ever downloaded for less than $2.99 (or free) was so full of grammatical inconsistencies I couldn't even tell if the writing was actually good.

Written communication matters to me and maybe I'm tilting at windmills. If so, I'll be quixotic until I draw my last breath. Call me pilkunnussija. Or comma fucker. Just spell it correctly.

*This post was sponsored by Grammarly, for which I received a trial period (but since I was hooked at "context optimized synonyms," I'd be telling you all about it anyway).

Writing about writing again, but sometimes confessions are necessary...

“I hate writing. I love having written.” - Dorothy Parker

I bought this from The Rumpus.

I can’t tell if this is too “inside baseball” because many of my friends are writers. We do what writers do: 1. Talk about writing. 2. Procrastinate. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

I AM working on a second book. It has a shape and a focus, but I tend to be “all or nothing” about my projects; if it can’t be perfect, then I don’t want to make the effort. And there are so many important things that need doing. Earlier this summer, I realized I forgot to watch The Wire. So I watched all five seasons in about a month like it was my second job. Then I had to start watching Luther, because Idris Elba.

I put off buying an e-reader forever. I LOVE BOOKS. How could I betray my beloved READING EXPERIENCE with an electronic device? Then I bought a Kindle Fire and it made me feel like I could live without paper forever, even just for the thrill of thinking of a book I once read a million years ago and being able to download it at 1 a.m. and read it. Instant gratification. Writing is not instant gratification. Unless writing a Tweet, which is extraordinarily satisfying. I have written almost 8,000 of them, which in sum total is a book-length work, albeit a boring one.

I still write ideas down in a paper notebook. I also have Evernote on my phone, laptop and tablet. I can’t say that technology has made be more productive (probably the opposite), plus instead of just a notebook full of brilliant ideas mocking me from the depths of my shoulder bag, the mocking comes from multiple sources. I have Tetris on my tablet for some stupid reason. A feed reader of informative blog posts and articles to attend to. I’ve watched 50 episodes of Shin Chan on Hulu in the past three months.

All of this side business (bullshit) means that my notes stagnate, angry, unruly, unattended to: “Hey, um, so…think you’ll get to work on me this weekend? You know, ‘cause you said you were excited about it and all, but here we sit—how long has it been? A month? I know you’ve got all that television to watch and those naps to take and, well, I’m sure that fascinating thing about your ex-boyfriend from a million years ago really needs to get written for your blog. I’m sure all of that takes precedence over, say, the possibility of a review in the Times before you turn 80. Whatever.” My notes are a sarcastic bitch.

It probably doesn’t help that I want my second book to be mine-all-mine, not advice, not for anyone else, my Didion book. And I decided that 45 would be a good age to publish this unwritten masterpiece, which is not right now, but later. Except this one doesn’t want to wait and it isn’t going away. But I push back. I’ve been on central time for three and a half years now and I still can’t get used to prime time television starting at 7 p.m. I have a day job that requires a lot of reading and editing, and it pays the bills, so if I feel like watching four hours of television or staring at the ceiling instead of writing, hey, at least my bills are paid.

Weary of covering my ears and humming every time a new thought surfaces, I set a schedule. I resolved to sit down and use the 5,000 words of notes I have accumulated, turn them into 60,000 words of brilliance, and I will do this for 10 hours a week. Last week, I wrote for one hour (not counting day job related writing or navel-gazing blog writing or Tweets or vaguely insightful Facebook posts). I know it’s bad when things I hate take precedence over my writing schedule: Laundry. Vacuuming, which I do monthly when my dog is at the groomer so she won’t go mental when she sees the Bissell Pet Vac (as in "good for sucking up pet hair," not "good for sucking up pets," but dogs think what they think). Financial paperwork that I don’t care about (someone else can figure out how to roll over my 401(k) into whatever stupid savings thing that won’t cause me to have to pay taxes). Did I already say laundry?

I have coached writers. I know what I am supposed to do when my brain wants to scrub the bathtub and organize the linen closet before I can sit down to write. Those are the thoughts I should ignore. I should sit in front of a blank page and let the words come. I should deactivate my Facebook account. I should stop reading the amazing ideas of others and start writing my own. Physician, heal thyself? I used to think it was weird to see doctors smoking cigarettes or eating fast food, but maybe it’s not weird at all. Maybe it comes down to a choice: Help others or help myself.

So, first step. I will forget the “what ifs.” What if this person gets mad because I wrote a thinly veiled description of a thing that happened a long time ago? What if people judge me? What if I don’t have a second book in me? What if I fail? Then I will find the rational part of me that hates the fact that I am never satisfied with my last great achievement and convince it to hunker down and get to work on a chapter outline.

I’m telling you these things because I need you to know that I am not fragile. You can expect things from me. I won’t flinch, make excuses, or fall apart. This is what we do, my friends. This is what we do, having written. Let's all write like motherfuckers.

Today I enjoy the view...

Inspired by creative and talented writer friends Angie Mizzell and Janet Lee - because their work and words have given me reason to hitch up my creative britches and get to writing more than they know - I'm sharing my own writing space(s).

My "home office" (and the desktop where my iTunes library still lives):


Even though I do most of my writing on my laptop - and occasionally handwriting in a notebook - so I'm often here:


Or on my back deck, here:


It's the words, the inspiration, the motivation that comes from knowing someone else is struggling to make those words matter, just like you are (or should be). Once those words are out there, we tend to forget how they came together. I want to remember and live for right now, not upon publication, not when the check comes, not later, now. I want to enjoy the view.

I gave my blog a present...

For it's 7th birthday, I gave Microfamous a gift: It's own Tumblr account. Microfamously microblogging at its best, you can see it here.

There have been times in the past few years when I thought about letting my blog go dark. I lost my voice for a little while. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I didn't want to say what was wrong. I didn't want to be wrong.

I remember how much fun it used to be, 2004, 2005...2006 was a hoot, and how much a part of me this little site I made just for myself was. It was my insomniac friend, my "go ahead and say it anyway," my little piece of the Internet where I could share snark and silliness.

I'm keeping it. Even if and when blogs aren't cool anymore, I'm going to be like that 60 year old lady hanging on to her Curtis Mathes floor model TV for dear life because THAT'S HOW SHE LIKES TO WATCH "MURDER SHE WROTE." I like that it keeps a history of 7-plus years of my life, reminds me of where I was when, back in the days when I still had to explain to people what a "blog" was, and that it's mine. It was my gift to me and I'm going to continue to use it for rambling and longer blog posts and pictures and musings. The Tumblr site is for the days when I don't have many words left, when my words have left me. This blog is going to be my three-day weekend; Tumblr is lunch at my desk. Also? There's an app for it on my iPhone.

Waiting for a friend at a restaurant for dinner? Tumblr post.

A weekend stretching ahead with nothing on my to-do list? Blogger.

So I'll still be here but I'll be there too. I'm all over the place and there's nothing you can do about it.

Twitter ate my blog...

No, I'm not really blaming Twitter for my slacking off on the blog posting. But it's just so damn easy to do my navel gazing in 140 character spurts than it is to sit down and write a blog post. I won't lie and say that the idea of shutting my blog down entirely hasn't crossed my mind. I have friends who did it and they don't seem to regret it. I miss reading their blogs, but if they're on Twitter I can still keep up with their goings-on.

It wasn't until I realized I was writing an email yesterday in "Twitterese" (abbreviating, leaving out pronouns) that it hit me: relying on Twitter to communicate so often not only takes away from my blogging time, but also that it has impacted my ability to think and write in complete sentences. I'm still writing essays, so I know I haven't lost it entirely, but I've also noticed that some of the editing I've had to do with my essays lately is different than the editing I did a year ago. A year ago, to get a 900-1200 word essay, I'd write about 2000 or 2500 words, then tighten everything to get my final, shorter word count. Now I write almost exactly to word count and during the editing process find myself having to flesh out sentences, change abbreviations, clarify thoughts, and basically translate Twitter-esque sentences into something that the general public will be able to read and understand. And I've been on Twitter for just about a year now.

Don't get me wrong - I love Twitter. I love being able to keep up with friends, find great links, find new blogs to read, and communicate faster online than ever before. I'm definitely a #twitteraddict. But if I don't keep up my regular writing here, I'm going to end up writing and speaking in 140-character bursts and completely forget how to express myself like a normal human being. Or a writer. It reminds me a little bit of "IM speak," something I fell prey to a few years ago myself to the point where (I admit this with some embarrassment) I actually SAID "O M G" and "I D K" (yes, out loud). I'm over 30 and shouldn't talk like a teenager. I blame my nieces and modern technology in general for that phase. And cheerleader movies.

This isn't an excuse or a promise to blog more often. This is the ultimate in navel-gazing: Me telling ME that I need to step it up. I still plan on Tweeting about what I had for lunch, about my puppy's behavior, about the weather. When you work from home and have little contact with people during the day, Twitter is like a group of online co-workers. But I also know I need a little self-intervention in the form of writing in full paragraphs. I also have VisualCV, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and my other blog for my book to keep up.

I hope blogs aren't dying. Watching print media take a dive has been bad enough. I still love reading blogs and my friends are funny as f*ck, so I hope they won't stop writing them. I've had this little corner of the web since 2003 and I'm not going anywhere soon. I'm going to keep navel-gazing, making lists of things that make me happy, rambling on about my lack of cooking skills, curing my social phobia, mocking family members (my mother hasn't managed to find my blog in six years, my younger sister still doesn't have internet access at home, and my nephew can't read yet), and bitching about politics, the neighbor's dinosaur that won't stop pooping in my front yard, how much I love naps, and my television addiction.

p.s. I was going to write this yesterday, but I was almost finished with Kate Christensen's "The Great Man" and couldn't put it down.

p.p.s. I was going to write this earlier this afternoon, but decided to give the dog a bath instead so she would smell like apples instead of wet dog ass.

p.p.p.s. You can find me on Twitter here.

Really just wanted...

...to stop looking at the same sad post from 10 days ago. I'm still working a lot (and will be through the election) and trying to decompress when I'm not. I actually went bowling Saturday night (this will only be funny if you know me well).

I tried to read last night because I've been anxious to start Haruki Murakami's latest, but couldn't concentrate long enough to get through a paragraph. So I plugged in the iPod and listened to new music downloads instead.

I'm not a huge Zach Braff fan (probably because Scrubs went on about a season too long), but I love his taste in music. I like the soundtrack from The Last Kiss more than I liked the movie (esp. Rufus Wainwright) and I just downloaded the soundtrack for season 2 from iTunes and it's dreamy: Old 97s, Rhett Miller, Joshua Radin, The Polyphonic Spree, Colin Hay...

Then I fell asleep during Law & Order. Did the same on Monday night 15 minutes before the end of Heroes (don't tell me what happened!).

Clearly, I am taking a "blog break"

a) I'm working on a campaign and, while I'm loving every minute, there are a lot of minutes. And I won't discuss campaign strategy anyway. Don't have to. Awesome candidate.
b) The lot of minutes thing? Also means I don't have a whole lot to say in my off time because I say a lot in my on time.
c) If I did write about my day, it would not be exciting. (Woke up, drank lots of coffee, went to work for 10 hours, home, eat, sleep). Sometimes I make a phone call or two just to let friends and family know I'm still breathing.
d) I use all my free time to manage the basics of my life, such as buying groceries and tampons, getting a hair cut/color, taking car to car wash. Snooooze. Trust me, my new job is exciting enough to make up for my after-hours boring-ness.
e) I think we all know I was slacking off on posting here before I took this job. I tend to become very reticent when I have a lot of upheaval in my life. And then I wait a year and write all about it.

So if you can stand it that long, I promise to update at least once a week if you promise to keep coming back. And I'll have some better stories to tell in a few months.

It always starts with a sentence...

I haven't seriously worked on fiction in a long time. I've had good excuses - busy with the day job, the writing of the personal nonfiction, writing a nonfiction book - but I've ached to get back to it. The most I've been able to accomplish is taking old stories that never went anywhere and re-working them from time to time.

I went to bed last night around 2am, expecting to have the kind of lazy Sunday morning that I love - getting up briefly to make coffee and grab the Sunday New York Times from the porch while still in my pajamas, back into bed with coffee and paper, watching Sunday Morning on CBS and reading the NYT Magazine during commercials, maybe even dozing off until noon.

Instead, I was wide awake before 7am with sentences running through my head. They weren't mine - they belonged to a character I haven't heard from in a long time. And because I learned a long time ago if I didn't get them down on paper or in a Word document right then and there, they would be lost forever. I won't lie; I did consider rolling back over and going back to sleep. But she wouldn't let me and I had a feeling if I didn't get up and get it down she wouldn't come back, maybe ever.

So I've been writing this morning for hours. I think I've hit around 6,000 words (granted, no editing at all - just the writing and writing). Mixed in with some of the other phrases that were running through my head was something about this character disappearing. I thought it was a veiled threat from this particular muse that she wouldn't return unless I put fingers to keyboard. But later I realized that it was the character - the woman becoming invisible, the one who was afraid of disappearing.

This is the paragraph in the first few that turned the light on for me:

She felt like she was suspended — not just in time, because that had already slowed so gradually she was scarcely aware of the absence of forward movement — but weightless and insignificant. She floated just out of the perception of anyone who may have been paying attention. She disappeared, faded in and out. She was more than invisible. She was vague; she was vapor. Just being empty could have done it, she thinks wryly, no explanation needed. But explanations are needed.

I'm going to finish this one. Maybe today (maybe not because my hands are cramping now and I think I need a nap), maybe later this week. But I will finish it. Because inspiration might be like lightning - random and fleeting and never in the same place twice. And because explanations are needed.

(photo by Mallory Morrison)

Why I am not always up in here...

...because, since the redesign of Skirt's web site and relaunch, I also blog on Skirt.com. So when I'm not here being all Microfamously Me, it's usually because I'm writing here. Visit, read, register, comment!

Word of the day...

I've been subscribing to Merriam Webster's "word of the day" emails for a few years now. Today's word of the day:
luftmensch
\LOOFT-mensh (the “OO” is as in “foot”)\
An impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income.

This is the first word o' the day email that's ever made me say, "hey, I dated that guy."

I wish I'd known the word back then, if only to have something better to call him besides "lazy," "dilettante," or "trustafarian."

In honor of Valentine's Day...

And because I haven't done one of these in a while, my latest "love list."

J'adore: The way Valentines that come in the boxes that you used to give out to classmates smell, lingerie we buy for ourselves, my new favorite perfume, friends who inspire me, friends who are living on the edge, far-away friends I miss until my heart hurts, friends who let me sleep over when I'm in town, my sweet little sister and her little peep, the audio book I bought after my signing at Joseph Beth to listen to on my late night drive back from Charlotte, keeping the faith, an upcoming party/oyster roast on Goldbug Island, not having to age gracefully, a shot of color (vineyard!) in my otherwise somber wardrobe, open windows in early evenings, dark chocolate-covered strawberries that came as a surprise, women who put the "femme" in feminism, I have wings in my dreams, trying this on for a while before getting it for real, I'm not the the only one obsessed with my cat, and you. Always you.

Sibling secret languages...

I've always been fascinated by the secret language of twins (and siblings born close together). My mother had her daughters in pairs. My older sisters are 8 and 10 years older than I am and there's a two year age difference between me and my younger sister Katie.

Katie and I had what I think could be considered a secret language, or at least a language that meant something to us but that other people couldn't understand. We still use it from time to time. Katie used to sing a song whenever she had to use the restroom (because my mother thought it was crass to say "I have to pee"...or worse), so Katie sang "skidamarinkadinkadoodle" (I have no idea how one would spell that - it started when she was 3 or 4). It came from a song my grandmother used to sing to us. Later, we shortened it to just "doodle."

We used to make up meanings for words we heard and liked but didn't know what the definition was. At around 3 and 5 years old, we still took baths together and made shampoo horns from our hair and called each other "three-horned butler" and giggled hysterically. "Butler" was a funny word. Probably because it has the word "but" (or "butt") in it. I remember a moving day when we left Guam and we were playing between the boxes in the driveway. One was marked "sewing" (my mother sewed back then) and my sister spelled it out loud and asked me what it meant. I told her it was our "sea wings" - the rafts we used to use in the ocean water pool in our neighborhood. I just made it up, because even at 5 years old, I didn't like to admit I didn't know something. I could spell "together" when I was 5, but apparently not "sewing." Others: "Button jam" was a signal to flee. I can't explain that if I tried. "Peapie" meant "cute," later shortened to "peep."

My older sister Kristin and I still call each other "seester" instead of "sister." I don't know where that came from. She must have started that one. She also calls Katie "hoop" because her middle name is "hope." I can't think of any good examples of Kristin and Karen languages because the only thing I really remember about them is a lot of knock-down, drag out fights before Karen went to live with my grandmother when I was 6 or 7.

I love my sisters and that we're all still so close as adults. Unlike some of my friends, I actually look forward to holidays and family gatherings and the time we can spend together. They make me laugh like no-one else can. They were there for the whole show of our childhood and an outsider will never be able to understand us like we understand each other. They're the part of my "weird little world" that I didn't get to choose, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

And today is my nephew's third birthday (my sister Katie's son and the only boy in our family). He's our peep. And if Katie doesn't get his first haircut soon, he will also be our three-horned butler.

They're heeeeere....

Now it's real: I have a book and I can hold it in my hand. My advance copies arrived this week. Let the shameless self promotion begin!

If you're a reviewer and would like an advance copy of Skirt! Rules for the Workplace , email me at kelly.love@skirt.com. I'll be your best friend (or at least your hi-bye friend) forever.

You show me yours and I'll show you mine...

Inspiration, I mean. I'm working on my essay for Skirt's October issue and it's supposed to be about creativity. So for the past week or so, I've been thinking about what inspires me, how it works, what used to inspire me but doesn't any longer, and how I'm going to find my next source. The basic facts:

* I lost my muse a few years ago and that's just not a position you can place an ad to fill. So I've been muse-less.
* Creative inspiration is like a drug. After a while, the same dose doesn't do it for me anymore.
* People ask me how I can write an essay every month and how I managed to write a book in just three months. The answer is easy: I do not have a social life. I knew what I was getting into when I chose what I do for a living. I love what I do, but I also know what I've given up. Long term relationships are few and far between because, really, who would want intimate details of their life put out into the world for public consumption?
* I don't know the answers to (a) where ideas come from, (b) how ideas turn into essays, or (c) how I stay motivated. I work as hard at keeping myself inspired as I do at actually writing about what inspires me.

Here's my latest source of inspiration: Inspiration Boards Flickr Pool.

To all of my creative writer and artist friends out there: What inspires you? Please share. It's an emergency.

Five for Friday...

Listening to: "Only You & I" by Tim from Misspelled Marquee. I found it through IndieFeed's podcast last year and it's been part of my iTunes top 25 most played ever since. Also, The Whigs "Technology," James Figurine "Apologies," and The Black Angels "Black Grease."

Eating: A hard boiled egg (but I wish it was an egg & cheese bagel with ketchup) and a microwave organic veggie lasagna my art director gave me because I forgot my real lunch today.

Reading: A really awful book my sister gave me called How to Sleep With a Movie Star. It's mind-numbing brain candy, but Katie thought I'd like it for some reason. I'm worried that she thinks my job is like the one the main character in the book has at a Cosmo-esque women's magazine. It is not. And I do not care about movie stars or sleeping with them.

Wearing: Boys jeans (don't ask), my newly repurposed belt with the skull/bottle opener buckle, and a black Banana Republic tee.

Thinking about: My next book proposal. Apparently I don't have enough to do, so I'm ready to start another manuscript!

What matters is saying yes...

When people ask me how to get their articles/essays/books published, how they can get a job like mine, how I get my ideas, or how they can write for a living, I never know what to say. I spent a long time not working on my own projects and resenting and being jealous of the creativity of others. A couple of years ago, I read the following quote:

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a f***load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."
~Dave Eggers, The Harvard Advocate

Now every time I hear that little voice in my head telling me I can't do something as well as this person or that person, or that it's going to be a long time before I'm the next Joan Didion, I respond with a simple "yes." Forget everyone else and focus on your own. Eggers is right; it is a lot of work. But it's worth it.

In honor of National Poetry Month...

The first poem I memorized was a short one. I think I was seven or eight and reading one of my mother's large collected works volumes.

The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of a bright world dies
When day is done.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

~Francis William Bourdillon

I memorized it because I liked the rhythm of the words, but did not understand the meaning behind them until many years later. And when I did feel that light die for the first time, I wished I was still seven, sitting in front of the massive bookcases in our family room surrounded by open volumes. I wanted to be back in the place where the words were make believe and the emotion behind them foreign.