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Tag Archives: blogging

My Turn as Station Agent on the “My Writing Process” Blog Tour

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life

≈ 44 Comments

Tags

blogging, creative process, Dani Shapiro, George Saunders, Grace Paley, Margaret Atwood, Oberlin College, writing

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

When we writers aren’t writing, you can often find us thinking (and reading, and … okay, writing) about the writing process. The craft of writing is one that, at least for me, inspires endless and usually pleasurable study. We are, after all, self-reflective creatures; it makes sense that we think about how and why we do what we do—as long as it’s not at the expense of actually working on whatever writing project has embraced us. So when Stephanie Friedman, program director of the Writer’s Studio program at the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Chicago, invited me to hitch my car onto the “My Writing Process” whistle-stop blog tour train, I couldn’t say no. Stephanie and I were English majors together at Oberlin, and I’ve long admired her thinking and her writing. Besides, the exercise gives me a chance to further develop my thoughts about the creative process, and how it intertwines with my own work. If you aren’t familiar with Stephanie’s blog, “The Winding Stitch,” it’s well worth a visit. I encourage you to stop over there when you have a chance.

In addition to asking me questions about my writing process, Stephanie asked me to select three writers to carry on this blog tour’s tradition. At the end of my post, I’ll introduce you to the astonishingly gifted young adult novelist—and my good friend— A.B. Westrick; the diversely talented novelist and book critic Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski; and the intrepid and sage blogger and writing coach Jane Gassner.

These are the aspects of writing Stephanie has asked me to explore:

1. What am I working on?

I tend to plead the Margaret Atwood Fifth Amendment on this question, believing, as Atwood does (and here I paraphrase), that to talk too much about one’s writing while in the midst of it is bad luck—like naming your gods. But I don’t think it gives too much away to tell you that since starting The Midlife Second Wife (after spending two decades at a career that had me writing all day, although not for my own purposes) I’ve rediscovered my love for story telling and for creative expression. Besides which, the older I get the more I’m aware that my time here is finite. I have stories to tell, and I feel an urgency to tell them before it’s too late. So in addition to writing this blog, I’ve begun working on a memoir. There. I’ve said it. No mirrors cracked, so I think I’m okay.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I love that Stephanie answered this question by bringing George Saunders into the conversation: “Originality in art means settling into who you actually are.”

Think about that for a moment: settling into who you actually are. Think about the demands of that statement. Here are just a few of them:

  • to acknowledge painful truths;
  • to reflect back what the mirror sees, faithfully;
  • to accept that you are who you are—as a person, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a friend, as a writer, and to accept that you have unique limitations, gifts, and dreams;
  • to respect those gifts and dreams, and to strive, in the most honest way possible, to dig with your bare hands against the rough surface of those limitations until—scratched and raw and possibly bleeding—you discover something that looks like a vein of gold; and
  • to do this repeatedly every time you sit down to write.

So, applying Saunders’ dictum to the memoir genre, the answer is pretty straightforward: my work differs from the work of other memoirists because each life is unique. My work is exactly that: my work. There are as many different memoirs out there as there are coffee blends—the aroma and flavor of each is like no other. In the case of fiction, which I expect to be writing at some point, I have to turn again to Atwood. Asked how autobiographical her novels and stories were, she gave what I thought at the time was the most wonderfully cagey answer, and this, too, is a paraphrase: Everything a writer writes is autobiographical in the sense that it has gone through her own head.

So take that, biographical critics!

3. Why do I write what I do?

The short answer: because I can’t help it. I began my writing life as a poet. That’s how I trained at Oberlin. And while I will always love poetry, and still write it from time to time, it’s become clear to me that I need a bigger canvas for my stories. I should add that studying the craft of poetry has influenced my prose tremendously. (My professor, Stuart Friebert, used to quote Grace Paley to our poetry workshop: “A poem a day keeps the prose doctor away.”)

I’m not sure I do this consciously, but I seem to seek music in a certain combination of words … to find rhythm in a certain sentence. I can’t play an instrument to save my life, but I’ve always had an ear for the English language. It’s a good thing, too, because my math skills are horrible. What I’m learning now, as I write longform narrative, is that although I might have the nouns right, and the flow of a sentence, and the visual image, the proof will be in the pudding’s structure. How do I stitch paragraph to paragraph, section to section, chapter to chapter, to form an artful, pleasing whole?

As for subject matter, nearly all of the early poems I wrote at Oberlin dealt with loss in some way or other; I need to write the book I’m working on now because I clearly have not found resolution for the losses in my life. A host of questions prick at me,  sticking like burrs to a sweater. I have to pick them off, one by one, and try to answer them.

I mentioned Grace Paley. In August 2014, I’ll be taking Dani Shapiro’s “Transforming Chaos Into Art: A Workshop in Fiction and Memoir” at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Shapiro studied with Paley at Sarah Lawrence, so there’s a bit of nice, footnoted symmetry in my desire to study with her. In Shapiro’s own beautiful memoir, Slow Motion, she offers the best definition of why we write that I’ve come across in a long while:

I see that there might be some way I can take the raw material of my life and transform it into something that transcends my own experience. I can organize the noise in my head into something that has order and structure. I can make sense of what, until now, has been senseless.

There’s a lot of chaos from my childhood that I need to make sense of. In telling part of my story (and it is only a part) I’m also trying to reconstruct a life that’s not my own. As I work and research (I’m reading my father’s World War II letters to his parents), I’m finding that the story I’m striving to tell could be, possibly, more his than mine. I think that’s why some memoirists tend to write more than one memoir in a lifetime. As Shapiro has noted:

The memoirist looks through a single window in a house full of windows. After all, we can’t look out of all the windows at once, can we?  We choose a view. We pick a story to tell.

4. How does my writing process work?

Soon after waking in the morning, I’ll have a mug of hot lemon water and my first cup of coffee, thanks to my endlessly supportive husband. Sitting up in bed, still in a hazy sort of dream state, I’ll begin reading something inspirational to my writing. For example, I’ve just finished Shapiro’s exquisite Still Writing, in which she quotes from the late poet Jane Kenyon’s advice for writers. I think this is important, because a writer who isn’t reading is like a person who isn’t breathing:

Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. [emphasis added].

So I’ll read a bit of something for which I have a strong affinity. I think we all need literary mentors, and right now, Dani Shapiro is mine. It’s not long before what I’ve read will snag a loose thread of something in my memory, or inspire an idea that I feel compelled to pursue.

I’ll put the book aside, pull out my iPad, and begin following my idea, pulling at the thread, writing while it unravels into something that ends up, newly-fashioned, in my Evernote app. I keep at this as long as I can … as long as I feel I’ve pulled and stitched as much as I can … as long as my energy lasts. I then email the note to myself so it’s on my computer, waiting for me when I settle at my desk, with my third cup of coffee, to begin work.

This is how I’m working these days, and it seems to be a good method for me.

I don’t want to say much more than this right now…time to invoke the Atwood Fifth Amendment, because once started, I could truly go on and on. And that’s not good for the work.

It’s time for the train to pull out of the station, so I’ll announce, in my best conductor’s voice, the three writers you’ll want to look for at the next stop:

A.B. Westrick
A.B. Westrick
is the author of Brotherhood (Viking/Penguin 2013), an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and winner of the National Council for the Social Studies Notable Trade Book Award. She has been a teacher, paralegal, literacy volunteer, administrator, and coach for teams from Odyssey of the Mind to the Reading Olympics. A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Divinity School, Westrick earned an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She and her family live near Richmond, Virginia.
http://abwestrick.com/

Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski
Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski
has completed a novel, Still Life with Aftershocks, which was one of 50 semi-finalists (out of 5,000 entrants) in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. She writes book reviews for The Washington Independent Review of Books and belongs to James River Writers, Backspace, the Virginia Writers Club, and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She was a judge in the 2012 Maryland Writers’ Association “Great Beginnings” novel contest.

Ellen loves to tell stories that communicate the deepest human emotions while never drowning the reader in them. What interests her most is the tension between the uncertainty and pain of life and its everyday pleasures, triumphs, and absurdity. She enjoys exploring the intersection of the visual arts and literature, often drawing inspiration from Washington’s trove of museums, galleries, and gardens. She blogs about art, design, natural wonders, and dance.
http://ellenkwatnoski.com/blog/

Jane Gassner
The founder and editor of MidLifeBloggers, one of the first sites to focus on the midlife/boomer cohort, Jane Gassner has plied her craft as a writer in just about every situation that calls for putting words on paper or screen. She has earned her living as a magazine feature writer, a documentary producer, a scholarly writer, a business writer, a print editor, a radio reporter, and a non-fiction book writer. She has not earned a penny for it, but she is also experienced at film and television scriptwriting. (She lives in Los Angeles, and that’s what you do when you’re a writer in LA).

Jane has taught writing in both college classrooms and independent writing groups to writers of every level, from beginning to published. That experience, along with her graduate-level education in English literature and psychology, provide the basis for the client-oriented coaching and editing service she offers as part of the MidLifeBloggers Writers’ Workshop. She is currently at work on a book focusing on that service, entitled Writing As Process & The Process of Writing: The Psychodynamics of Writing for Writers.
http://midlifebloggers.com

Look for their thoughts on the writing process on Monday, March 31st.

Now go and write something.

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Good Day, Sunshine!

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Blog Awards, blogging, writing

Sunshine-AwardAs a writer and blogger living in Northeast Ohio, where the skies are, shall we say, quite frequently sun-challenged, I was gobsmacked to receive a Sunshine Award from one of my favorite bloggers, Lois Alter Mark over at Midlife at the Oasis. Aside from being a terrific writer, Lois has won some impressive awards—she’s this year’s Blogger Idol, don’cha know?—contributes, like me, to the Huffington Post, and (unlike me) went to Australia with Oprah. She’s also one of the nicest, friendliest, funnest bloggers I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. We crossed paths in real life at BlogHer12, where we both won Voice of the Year awards, and took each other’s photo standing next to our names on the big sign.

Marci Rich, VOTY12 at BlogHer
Lois Alter Mark, VOTY12 at BlogHer

I’m honored to accept the Sunshine Award from Lois, and not just because I think she’s all that and a bag of chips. I’m in some pretty august company here; several of the bloggers Lois selected are among my favorites, and I hope you’ll visit her page to discover some excellent new blogs to add to your reader.

A few responsibilities go along with accepting this award. (Thank God walking a red carpet isn’t one of them, since I’m still in a plaster cast.) First, I must reveal seven random facts about myself. I can’t imagine what you don’t already know about me after more than two years of blogging, but here, in no particular order, goes:

  1. I must start each morning with a mug of hot lemon water, otherwise I get cranky.
  2. I was the Lebanese-Syrian princess in the International Festival Princess Pageant in Lorain, Ohio, in 1974, the year I graduated from high school.
  3. I performed in plays in high school and, after graduating, in local community theater productions. I wore a blond Gibson Girl wig in a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, but made do with my own hair as Babe in Crimes of the Heart.
  4. I know how to twirl a baton.
  5. I’ve tap-danced on stage. I’ve also sung on stage.
  6. I tried to make roasted chestnuts one Christmas and vowed never to do so again. Have you ever tried to peel a chestnut?
  7. I’m happiest when I’m looking into my husband’s eyes.*

MarciRich_LebanesePrincess*Okay. You have to allow me one gushy item—this did start out as a relationship blog, after all.

But wait. There’s more. I have to answer these seven questions:

If you could go back in time ten years and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

You have no idea how happy you’re going to be in ten years.

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Rocky Road, but only if it’s from Mitchell’s in Rocky River, Ohio.

If you were to take me on a date, where would we go and why?


I assume by “you” you mean my husband. (See what I did there?) We would travel to Ireland for him, and Sicily for me, because those are places that hold great meaning for us.

Above all else, what are you afraid of?

Loss.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Speak, read, and write French fluently, play the cello, and spend at least five hours each day writing.

What has been your favorite age to be and why?

Every year since turning 50, because in spite of cancer and fractures and surgeries, that’s when I really came into my own…and when I found the love of my life.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

We’re almost done, dear reader. In fact, I think this is the best part. I get to choose 11 blogs that bring sunshine into my life (but I’m going to take a page out of Lois’s playbook and round it up to an even dozen). Suffice to say that many of the blogs on Lois’s list are among my faves, too, and I’m glad to discover some that I somehow missed before. I hope you’ll take my own list, then, in that spirit. Here, in alphabetical order, we go:

A Boomer’s Life After 50

Alexandra Wrote

Ann’s Rants

Dame Nation

Darryle Pollack: I Never Signed up for This

Dating Dementia

Empty House Full Mind

Grown and Flown

Lavender Luz

Midlife Mixtape

The Boomer Rants

Witty Woman Writing

I could go on and on, but since I can’t, please allow me to tell you that there are many other fine writers and bloggers whose work I admire, and you can catch them at three of my favorite sites: Midlife Boulevard, edited by Sharon Hodor Greenthal and Anne Jenkins Parris, the dynamic WHOA! Network, curated by Darryle Pollack and Lynn Forbes, and last but not least, Huff/Post50, edited by Shelley Emling. It’s been my honor to have appeared on their respective bandwidths, and I look forward to many more collaborations in the years to come.

Now go forth and spread some sunshine of your own. And Lois, thanks again!

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What on Earth Does Malcolm Gladwell Have to do with my Blog?

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bloggers, blogging, Malcolm Gladwell, The Midlife Second Wife, WordPress

WordPress.com’s 2013 annual report for The Midlife Second Wife is chock-full of interesting statistics, including a revealing bit of information about the noted writer Malcolm Gladwell. Intrigued? Click the link below to find out just what the author of The Tipping Point has to do with little old me. (I was surprised, too.)

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Real People Everywhere. But are they Experts?

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Current Events, Product Reviews, What's the Buzz?

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

advertising, blogging, Brand Marketing, Martha Stewart

This is a wonderful time to be a real person. Ordinary people—folks just like you and me—are popping up all over the place. You see us in ads for e-readers, Fords, room fresheners, and more. Today’s conventional wisdom, according to AdWeek, suggests that real people make a brand seem “more genuine and authentic.” If you happen to be a real person and possess an opinion, Madison Avenue wants to know what you have to say. Martha Stewart? If the brouhaha in the blogosphere is any indication, maybe not so much.

The domestic diva got herself in the soup for remarks she made in an interview with Stephanie Ruhle of Bloomberg Television. Here’s what Stewart said:

Who are these bloggers? They’re not trained editors at Vogue magazine. I mean, there are bloggers writing recipes that aren’t tested, that aren’t necessarily very good, or are copies of everything that really good editors have created and done. So bloggers create kind of a popularity, but they are not the experts. And we have to understand that. [Emphasis added].

As you can imagine, Stewart ignited quite a firestorm in the blogosphere, especially since many bloggers gauged her comments as hypocritical; Stewart has been a keynote speaker at BlogHer and her publicists actively seek bloggers to help promote her merchandise.

I’ve sat this out until now, but after considering the incident, it does seem to merit some discussion about nuance, authenticity, the nature of expertise, and what bloggers can and shouldn’t do.

Some disclosure is in order. Stewart’s aides have never reached out to me, although as a member of Viewpoints Blogger Reviews Panel and a contributor to its website I have offered my opinion on the Kindle Paperwhite and the KitchenAid Pro Line Dicing Food Processor, among other items. And a publicist for Verizon Wireless invited me to become a member of its Verizon Boomer Voices program, in which I offer my opinion on such mobile devices as the DROID RAZR MAXX HD smart phone and the Fitbit One.

I don’t at all mind that I’ve not been asked to serve as one of Martha Stewart’s brand ambassadors, although, had I been approached, I would have said yes. I have admired Stewart’s aesthetic and contributions to the domestic arts for years. But I find her comments troubling, especially in light of her active recruitment of bloggers. As many bloggers will tell you, our authenticity as real people who use real products gives us enormous credibility. There’s a case to be made for life experience contributing to expertise. It would seem as though that’s what the Martha Stewart brand was looking for.

So what exactly do we mean by the word “expert” anyway?

Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, defines an expert as one “having special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience.” Let’s deconstruct this a moment, using my blog and one of its sections as an example.

In naming this site “The Midlife Second Wife,” I made two explicit declarations: I have lived a fair number of years and am therefore no spring chicken, and I have married for the second time. I am, at the present moment, 57-years old and have been cooking for at least 35 years. A section on my blog features recipes, many of which are mine and all of which I have prepared. In working with these recipes over the course of a lifetime, it’s fair to say that I have “tested” them. Every recipe I’ve shared on the blog has been wildly popular with my family and friends (trust me, I’m not about to share the occasional flop with you), so it’s safe to assume they are “very good.” In cases where I include recipes from some of my favorite cookbook authors—dishes I also have in my regular cooking rotation—I have asked for, and received, permission to reprint them. I make no claims to be chef, professional cook, or restaurateur; in that sense I am not an expert. But you can take to the bank the fact that I’m an excellent home cook with decades of experience in the kitchen. In that respect, I am an expert.

As for blogging, I bring experience as a published writer and editor to the enterprise. While the Oberlin Conservatory Magazine is hardly Vogue, it is nevertheless a beautiful publication featuring the students, faculty, and alumni of one of the most respected music schools in the United States. I served as its editor for 10 years, from 2001 to 2010. I also majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing at Oberlin College, so I learned a thing or two about what it takes to craft a narrative.

These are my credentials—I know many other bloggers who have résumés with similar bona fides. I present mine here not because this incident is about me, but because I’m a blogger, and the Stewart incident raises the question about what we choose to blog about, what our experience has been, and how we go about the whole enterprise. I’m happy to offer my opinion in areas where I believe I have something worthwhile to contribute, and where I can provide useful and enlightening information in what I hope is an enjoyable read for you. I also tend to agree with Linda Lacina, who posits in Entrepreneur.com that the real battle bloggers might consider waging isn’t necessarily with Martha Stewart, but with shoddy content. That could have been the point Stewart was trying to make, but unfortunately, her remarks painted all bloggers with a push broom-sized brush.

Let me add that I have never—and I promise you that I will never—pass myself off as an expert by adding to the critical literature on figure-skating, cross-bow hunting, parachuting, or hand surgery. What I will do is write, to the best of my ability, about what I know. In cases where I feel compelled to write about what I don’t know, but wonder about (hand surgery, anyone?), I’ll bring in the experts. (I’ve already interviewed a few on Monday Morning Q&A.)

And I promise to edit myself as carefully as I can.

Related articles:

“Martha Stewart Speaks Out: Bloggers are not Experts,” Bloomberg.com

“Note to Bloggers: Fight Bad Content, not Martha Stewart” by Linda Lacina,  Entrepreneur.com

“Whatever, Martha” by Adam Roberts, The Huffington Post

“Does Martha Stewart Owe Food, Lifestyle Bloggers an Apology?” by Rene Lynch, the Los Angeles Times

“Dear Martha Stewart, Here’s What You Should Have Said About Bloggers” by Julie Ross Godar, BlogHer.com

“Martha Stewart Likes Bloggers. I Have Proof.” by Gabrielle Blair, DesignMom.com

“Martha Stewart and the Case of the Not-So-Expert Food Blogger” by Tracy Beckerman, LostinSuburbia.com

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Greetings, GenFab Friends!

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Humor Me, Indulgences, Special Events, The Life Poetic

≈ 59 Comments

Tags

blogging, GenFab, Holidays, Humor, Midlife Bloggers, Poetry, writing

MorgueFile photo

MorgueFile photo

In the holiday season, in days of yore,
Scribe Roger Angell his feelings did pour.
On New Yorker’s back pages, right at the end,
Were yuletide wishes he called ‘Greetings, friends!’

To bold-faced names and celebs aplenty,
Angell rhymed his tidings in couplets steady.
And so it is in that spirit this year,
I do the same, so all lend an ear!

To the bloggers I read who are known as GenFab
(They’ve the gift of the pen and the gift of the gab),
I fill stockings chock-full of dreamings galore
That start at the ceiling and stream to the floor.

To the founding trio—Greenthal, Jeffreys, and Parris—
I send jewels and baubles befitting an heiress.
To the duo known widely as Grown and Flown—
I give pricey and fragrant eau de cologne.

There are other pairs, like the sisters Irving
So to Karen and Wendy I present two gold rings.
And to Maryl and Caryl of Second Lives Club,
Let’s create a great feast; end it with syllabub!

But what is that noise? That great big BOOM-BOOM?
It’s the BOOMBox Network and they’re working the room!
To Bradshaw and Kovacs and Van Petegem,
I send iPhones with apps for ad stratagems.

And off at HuffPost where bloggers do frolic,
There’s Lois Alter Mark and Darryle Pollack!
And here to the left is Nancy Wurtzel,
With Julie Danis and Donna Highfill!

Oh what shall we give HP writers like these—
So smart and so quick as to be the bees knees?
A home by the sea to vacation in Spain,
And designer umbrellas in case it should rain.

But look over there, on the Next Avenue—
It’s Linda Bernstein! Hello! Bienvenue!
What would be right for this media maven?
We’ll deed her a Caribbean tax-free haven.

And while on the topic of real estate,
A house for N. Hill, with a very grand gate.
Recreational grounds for Ms. Jean Parks.
For PK Fields—all the Ozarks.

We cannot neglect Kay Lynn Akers,
To her we give mansions in Heights known as Shaker.
And lest we forget Robin Meadow Dinsmore
Here are keys to a cottage by the seashore.

To the Wolf called Big Little, a red riding hood.
And to Wolff, Linda Maltz, some Norwegian wood.
For Lisa Carpenter, the tools that she needs,
And for Nina Knox, some gold shiny beads.

There’s no therapy quite like retail,
So a flagship store goes to Beverly Diehl.
And Debi Aronson Pfitzenmaier,
Gets a personal shopper and personal buyer.

Still have shopping to do? Go and see Joy Weese Moll.
She’s getting a high-end luxury mall.
It’s all quite posh and there’s never a crowd
There’s even a spa for Connie McLeod.

For Sarah Chesko and Cathy Chester,
A titan of Wall Street to have as investor.
And Jacqueline Tierney De Muro
Gets an ivory inlaid mahogany bureau.

Think life is Better After 50?
Then tell Felice Shapiro that you think she’s nifty.
And please don’t forget Mindy Klapper Trotta—
Bake them a cheesecake made with ricotta.

Save some for their own Ronna Benjamin,
(Or would she like boots made out of snakeskin?)
For Molly Campbell and Lib Aubuchon,
We give each a chair with a plush ottoman.

For Barbara Albright and Jo Heroux,
We’ll throw a big shindig with great barbecue.
To Haralee Weintraub and Janie Emaus,
Ad-free Words With Friends that aren’t blasphemous.

On Jennifer Comet, on Wagner, on Blitzen!
On Amy Noggle, on Ruhlin—on Vixen!
Open your socks by the chimney with care—
They contain fine wine and imported Gruyère.

To cineastes Flournoy and Bradley Colleary,
We give options and meetings with Dennis Leary.
Helene Cohen Bludman gets signed first editions.
Jessica Bern gets successful auditions.

A collection of art for Ann Dunnewold.
For Lori Jo Vest, in case she gets cold,
A hat and a scarf and a coat of faux mink
For Maddie Kertay,
An ice-skating rink.

Who would like chocolate truffles from Belgium?
Lynn Forbes, Susan Williams, Walker Thornton—come get ‘em!
Denise Danches Fisher shall have priceless etchings.
Mary Anne Tuggle Payne gets Paul Klee’s sketchings.

For Midlife Bloggers’ Jane Gassner
A leather portfolio with jeweled fasteners.
For Laura Lee Carter, midlife crisis guru,
An all-expense paid trip to Peru.

To the spiritual Lori Lavender Luz
A new yoga wardrobe. Why? Just because!
And to Cheryl Pallant, the dancer so rare,
A trip back in time to partner Astaire.

Caryn Payzant, Kim Phillips, and Jodi Okun
Get to boogie with Springsteen and sing “Born to Run.”
To Judy Krell Freedman and Pauline Gaines,
Strands of fine diamonds on silvery chains.

To Patricia Patton and Patricia Petro,
Unlimited flights in and out of Heathrow.
She’s far too polite to ask, “Whatcha bring us?”
She was raised right, Bonnie Petrie Dingus.

To her we bequeath a wishing well.
And another just like it to Sara Cornell.
Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez
Gets whatever she wants. Sez who? I sez!

Daphne Palmer Romero, what do you say
To a comedy session with Tina Fey?
Lori Ann Lothian of Elephant Journal
Gets a date with a five-star general or colonel.

To Tammy Gordon and Missy Lawler:
A fully equipped fishing trawler.
Complete with a crew (or at least a sailor)
To teach nautical stuff to Karen Williams Taylor.

To Susan Keats and Cindi Moomettes,
Platinum combs and ruby barrettes.
To Sweeties Teamer Wendy Limauge,
Season Patriots tickets, with seats in the loge.

A language course for Ellen Dolgen
Taught by a bona fide Parisienne.
And last but not least, exotic ports of call
To Karen Espensen Sandoval.

My fear is I might have left someone off,
If your name’s not been spotted, well, tell me off!
It’s hard to keep track of so many bloggers,
There are more of them than Alaskan loggers!

For the writers I know and the ones I’ve not met
There are musical duos and string quartets.
And to readers of mine who have followed me here,
Thank you for indulging my GenFab cheer.

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TMSW is Now a Huffington Post Blogger

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blogging, BlogHer, Facebook, Huffington Post, HuffPost, HuffPost/50, Katie Couric, Life, Sally Field, Sissy Spacek, Viewpoints, writing

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

Have you heard the news? I’m now a blogger for the Huffington Post!

My essay about how I met John on Match.com appeared this week on what is known in the trade as HP’s “vertical”—HuffPost/50. The first day it ran, I received nearly 600 visits to the blog. Yowza!

This has been quite a year, friends: blogging for Katie Couric’s new show, joining the Viewpoints Blogger Review panel (look for my next report tomorrow!), interviewing Sissy Spacek and Sally Field for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, being named one of the top seven blogs for those over 50 by the Huffington Post, and now this relationship with them.

As always, I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t be here it if weren’t for you.

If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could visit the HP site and like the article on Facebook, or tweet it, or leave a comment. In the wonderful world of digital publishing, that sort of activity makes a tremendous difference. Thank you in advance for your extra support!

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TMSW a “Great Blog,” Says Huffington Post

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Blog, blogging, Facebook, Huffington Post, HuffPost, Midlife Second Wife, writing

So happy to see that my friend Judy Krell Freedman, pictured above, made the list with me!

There was no phone call. There was no email notification. There was only me, taking a brain vacation to scroll through the Top 100 Tweets about Liz & Dick on my iPhone while cooking dinner. Then, at the top of the phone, a Facebook alert appeared: one of my blogging colleagues had mentioned me in a post. A moment later, a second alert, from another colleague, arrived. And then several more, in rapid succession. I noticed the word “congrats” was being bandied about.

What was going on?

I interrupted my mindless stroll through the snark about Lindsay Lohan to check Facebook, where I found this news:

The Huffington Post has named “The Midlife Second Wife”  one of seven “great blogs” for post-50 women.

Crikey! Dinner was in danger of being burnt.

I don’t know how this happens, especially with so many excellent writers—many of whom I admire—blogging for the post-50 set. I count quite a lot of them among my friends. You can find some of them on my blogroll, and I encourage you to visit any of them the next time you’re here.

What I do know is that I’m humbled by this honor—and recognition by the Huffington Post is an honor. HuffPost, after all, is the first commercially-run digital media outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Pulitzers aside, I imagine this recognition must be what it feels like to win a MacArthur fellowship—you know, those “genius” grants where you’ve no idea you’ve even been nominated, but one day you receive a phone call that changes your life.

Yes. This feels that big to me. And once again, dear readers, I must share this with you. Thank you for joining me on this adventure!

My thanks also go out to those at the Huffington Post who are responsible for giving the Midlife Second Wife the surprise of her life. I’ll work very hard to ensure that I’ve earned your recognition.

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The Midlife Second Wife Joins “Katie” as a Featured Blogger on Monday, Oct. 22

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Love, Relationships and Family Life, Special Events, What's the Buzz?

≈ 43 Comments

Tags

ABC Studios, blogging, BlogHer, Divorce, Katie, Katie Couric, Life, Love, media, Relationships, Remarriage, talk shows, Twitter

The elegant set of ‘Katie.’ The show is taped at ABC Studios in New York and syndicated across the United States.

(MONDAY, OCT. 22, 2012)—UPDATE: I learned late last night that the segment featuring Dr. Terri Orbuch has been postponed and will be rescheduled. When the producers announce a new air date I will let you know. Hope you can tune in to watch Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon speak with Katie Couric and see both women engage in a bit of competitive sport!

The call came on a Monday in August, about a week after I had returned home to Richmond following the BlogHer conference in New York City. On the line was Brittany Jones-Cooper, a producer of Katie, Katie Couric’s new syndicated daytime talk show.

She and Couric had been at the BlogHer conference—Couric was featured in one of several keynote interviews, engaging in a lively discussion with BlogHer cofounder Lisa Stone, and issuing a clarion call for bloggers to participate in her new show. The television legend certainly came to the right place!

And, it would seem, so did I.

Back to that phone call. Couric’s producer had seen my blog, liked what I wrote, and asked if I could be in ABC Studios in New York on Thursday for a taping. Couric has employed several ingenious methods of integrating social media into her program; one way is to have two bloggers in the audience for each show. The theme of this particular program would be divorce.

Now as we all know, I happen to know a little bit about that subject.

And so it was that three days later, my husband John, who grew up about 20 minutes outside of the city, drove me into Manhattan. A bonus of the trip? We’d take some time to explore all of the landmarks of his youth—something I’d wanted to do ever since meeting him.

What a whirlwind! Just arrived backstage at the ABC Studios, still wearing my traveling clothes. TMSW got dressed and made up in record time!

I’m in the cobalt blue jacket, wearing a necklace and an Apple MacBook Pro. At my right is blogger Deesha Philyaw, of ‘Co-Parenting 101.’

You’re reading about all of this now because the program I was invited to attend airs on Monday, Oct. 22, at 3 p.m. on NBC12 in the Richmond market. You’ll want to visit the Katie website to check your local listings; in some markets the program airs at 2 p.m.

Katie Couric chats with the audience before the taping. Check out her gorgeous shoes!

The featured guest? One of my favorite actresses—the smart, sultry, simply ageless Susan Sarandon—as admired for her social activism as she is for her award-winning performances. Single after a long-term partnership with actor Tim Robbins, she turned 66 earlier this month; she shares her thoughts about commitment, relationships, and what it’s like to be an older—albeit steadily working—actress in Hollwood. Also on the show is Dr. Terri Orbuch, aka ‘the love doctor,’ offering useful marital advice—from a surprising source.

After the taping, Sarandon and her two dogs, Rigby and Penny, posed for pictures with Katie. Remind me to tell you a cute story about Rigby!

The colorfully-garbed audience of ‘Katie’

I’ll be tweeting LIVE during the broadcast beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. If you’re not already following me on Twitter, please hop over to the next window and click “follow.”

The producer also asked me to write an essay for the program’s website about finding love after divorce. (I happen to know a little something about that, too.) KatieCouric.com published “Learning to Love Again” on Oct. 22, 2012. The post appears as “The ‘L’ Word” on this blog.

I hope you’ll have a chance to tune in or follow my LIVE tweets during the broadcast. Enjoy! And as always, thanks for reading!

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Of Change-Agents and Renegades … and a Winner is Announced

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

AmyJoMartin, blogging, BlogHer, Facebook, Melissa Harris-Perry, Social Media, Twitter, WordPress

Who won this book? Scroll down and watch the video to find out!

This is certainly quite a week for Amy Jo Martin.

The founder of the social media consultancy Digital Royalty has a new book out tomorrow, Oct. 2. On Sunday she was a guest of Melissa Harris-Perry’s on MSNBC, talking with other panelists about the influence of social media on politics, and the change-agent behind the sports and social media phenomenon covered in a Forbes article. And today (winking here) she’s making her second appearance on my blog. What a whirl!

As you know, I met Amy Jo at the BlogHer 12 conference in New York City. And here I must digress to tell you that I felt an immediate bond with her when she shared her experience of finding a lump in her breast the size of a golf ball. As a survivor of thyroid cancer, I’ve become hard-wired to relate on a deeper human level with those who have either had cancer or a cancer scare. As someone I admire once said, we become members of a club no one ever wanted to join. And it’s something of a paradox, because once admitted to the club, you want to remain a member in good standing, if you know what I mean. Amy Jo’s honesty—her fearlessness—in sharing her experience speaks to the very essence of what is so intrinsically valuable about social media: honesty. Being real. Or as Amy says in her book, “showing some skin.”

So I’m sitting in the Pathfinder session, listening to Amy discuss innovation, intention, ideas, influence, and inspiration—and writing as quickly as I can to take down what she is saying: “Coloring outside the lines without crossing the lines.” Sharing the corporate mission statement of Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh: “Be real and use your best judgment.” Explaining the value of “Random Acts of Shaqness.” (You must read this book. And yes, she’s referring to Shaquille O’Neal.)

In the midst of my flurried note-taking I had an epiphany: As a blogger, I’m ipso facto on social media. But I wasn’t really on social media. It was quickly becoming apparent that I had much to learn and I’d better get cracking. And that’s why I’m reading her excellent book, and why I want to tell you about it. I think that it’s a game changer for any public persona, corporation, brand, organization, or entity not yet on board with the new rules of the game. For those already using social media to enhance their relevancy, it will provide an entertaining and enlightening overview of where they have been. I suspect even they will learn things they didn’t already know.

On paper (in pixels?) it doesn’t seem as though I’d be such a social media newbie. I began writing content for Web 1.0 back in 1998 on behalf of Oberlin College. I was wired in for the advent of email, and only just slightly behind the curve on Facebook and LinkedIn, although I caught up fairly quickly. I did a bit of blogging and video interviews, and even composed tweets during our 2.0 phase. And yet I hovered there. It wasn’t until starting my own blog in August 2011 that I truly recognized the importance of communicating regularly and with intention across diverse social media platforms. I’m sure one reason is because I’m now working for myself, and so I feel a sense of urgency. But I am also a writer who blogs. And like every other writer who blogs, I want people to read me. How does a blogger find readers? On social media. Duh.

And so I advanced on the board from Facebook and LinkedIn until I reached Twitter. I opened my own account (kind of feeling the way I did when I first opened a checking account); passed “Go,” and in a year attracted more than 400 followers. (This is more than double what I had before the BlogHer conference, which shows you how much I learned in a very short time). These past weeks I’ve slowly begun to build my presence on Pinterest and Google+. This weekend I wrote my bio for Huffington Post and figured out how to upload a video to YouTube and connect it to what you’re reading now. Just today I sent out my first Instagram. (It’s fitting, on many levels, that it was a photo of Amy Jo’s appearance on the Melissa Harris-Perry show.)

@AmyJoMartin discussing social media & politics on @MSNBC’s @MHPerry #TeamRenegades http://instagr.am/p/QNA_tOSDze/ (Amy Jo is on the left.)

When you start a blog, and hope for it to be meaningful and authentic and actually read by people, it soon becomes apparent that it’s not enough just to hit “publish.” Bloggers control their own distribution. Those who take what they do seriously are not just members of the media, they are also the means of the media—the studios and the control rooms and the printing presses and the distribution houses. It’s exhausting, quite frankly—especially if you’re a team of one. Even a renegade team of one. Even a renegade team of one with an awesome husband to help with things like shooting the video you’re about to see.

This is why Amy Jo’s book is important to me. As a team of one, I have to think about economies of scale. If I spend three hours writing a blog post and only 30 people see it, I’ve just poured four minutes of my life for each of those 30 people. If 300 people see it, I’m starting to get some traction and make some impact for the time I’ve invested. If 3,000 people see it, well, you can do the math. The greatest impression one of my post’s has had was last November, when WordPress featured an essay of mine on ‘Freshly Pressed’ and more than 5,000 people read it over a two-day period. That truly felt relevant. That’s what a writer hopes for.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. Every one of my readers is valuable to me. Whether 30 people visit a post or 3,000—each reader means something to me. Each has invested his or her own time in reading what I had to write. Economies of scale work both ways, after all. That’s why I hope I’m providing interesting, informative, and entertaining content for you.

Time is money, as they say. And I’m as busy as the next person—I also run a business and freelance. So these things inevitably begin to matter, especially if your blog is part of the foundation of your livelihood.

Amy Jo learned something early on about the time factor, and she has shared the anecdote widely—in a TEDx talk, at conferences, and in her book. Her former boss, who wasn’t wild about all of this social media business, challenged her by sliding a sheet of paper across her desk. On it were written three words:

Work. Family. Self.

“Choose,” her boss told her. “You can’t have all three.”

Since Amy ultimately left that employer and formed her own business, I naturally wondered if she ever did have to end up choosing. I asked her about it, and she replied via email:

“Since founding Digital Royalty a few years ago, I have been able to design my own day, whether that means working late at night while on the elliptical machine, or taking a conference call from a mountaintop. Through creating Digital Royalty, and especially Digital Royalty University, I have been able to find my Royal Bliss. That’s what balance is to me. It’s not a perfect equilibrium. It’s finding that sweet spot, where your purpose, passion, and skill collide.”
I love that, don’t you? The “sweet spot where purpose, passion, and skill collide.” That’s what balance is. And now, before this post gets too unbalanced by growing too long, I think it’s time to let everyone know who won a signed galley copy of Amy Jo’s book. Watch this video to find out!

Related Article: “Who Wants to be a Renegade? Enter to Win this Free Book!”

A note about the contest: The winner was drawn from the Facebook fans of The Midlife Second Wife. A drawing held Friday evening, Sept. 28, did not yield a winner because I was unable to reach the person whose name was drawn despite two attempts via Facebook. A subsequent drawing, represented in the above video, was held Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. Out of fairness to my fans, members of my family were excluded from this drawing. I should also note that I received a signed galley copy of Renegades Write the Rules for the giveaway, as well as a free download for my Kindle. Other than that, I received no compensation to write about the book. 

If you would like to like the Midlife Second Wife on Facebook, click the embedded link at the start of this note. You can also follow me on Twitter: @midlife2wife. Thank you for your support!

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Buh-bye, Cookie. I’ll be Blogging it Off With the Digest Diet

06 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Healthy Life, The Writing Life, Transitions

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

blogging, BlogHer, Diet (nutrition), Health, Life, Readers Digest, Social Media, Weight loss

Do you see this? This is a cookie. A rich, chocolate-coconut-walnut-laden cookie from one of my favorite lunch restaurants in Richmond, Café Caturra. Take a good, hard look at it. I’m certainly going to. Because if good intentions have anything to say about it, this cookie and I won’t be seeing each other for a long, long time.

Sigh. It is a delicious cookie. I enjoyed every decadent crumb yesterday for my mid-afternoon snack. With coffee, of course. And then I promptly decided to join Team Digest Diet. Starting Monday, September 10, I will officially begin the Reader’s Digest’s “Blog it Off!” campaign. For 21 days, I will study this book, follow its guidelines, try its recipes, and—if there is a God—watch the pounds melt away. I’ll also blog about the process.

I’m telling you this because I’m going to need all the moral support I can muster. Eating delicious food is one of my favorite pastimes. Dieting? Not so much. But as I’ve gotten older—and especially since I had to bid farewell to my thyroid gland after it went and turned on me by developing cancer—the pounds have crept on. I know how important it is to my health to lose weight and exercise more. I’ve been bad about this, especially as I’ve gotten busier and more sedentary. (Computer, I love you but we’ve got to stop meeting like this. Is there an app that will boot me out of the house for a nice, long, invigorating walk? I didn’t think so.)

And so this diet challenge. I discovered The Digest Diet at the BlogHer conference I attended in New York City last month. Reader’s Digest, one of the conference sponsors, had a suite at the Hilton where I happened to saunter in one day because I heard they had cupcakes. (They were delicious. But they were from a different book—Reader’s Digest’s new Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes. Oh yes. I’ll be trying some recipes from that book, but after the diet challenge, as a reward for good behavior.)

In the interest of full disclosure, the kind folks at the Reader’s Digest suite gave me a copy of the diet book to try. (They probably saw me eating the cupcake.) And at my request they also sent me a copy of Best Loved Recipes, from whence the cupcake recipe came. But that’s it. There was no expectation on their part that I’d do anything with either book. This is something I want to do because, as I’ve already established, I need to lose some weight. And, as you already know, this blog is chock-a-block full of recipes, and I’m always on the lookout for more to share with you. Reader’s Digest is not paying me, either.

Now that I’ve dispensed with that business, I will tell you that because I signed up for the challenge, I will be checking in with you a couple of times a week to let you know how my experiment with the book is going. (I’ll share some of my favorite recipes from the Digest Diet, too.) And I’ll be tweeting and facebooking about it. You know, I’ve tried Weight Watchers before and enjoyed great results, largely, I suspect, because of the communal nature of the enterprise. But since I’m working from home (alone) and on the computer all day anyway (walking for exercise the exception), I view social media as just another way to supplement my efforts to lose weight. It’s kind of like keeping a food journal, but in a very public way.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a huge step for me—not just the jumping-on-the-diet wagon part but the being-so-public-about-it part. I’m a little fearful of things like letting the world know how much I weigh. Nevertheless, one of my editorial missions for this blog is to present you with good information and resources. If this diet works for me, you’ll observe it happening. If it doesn’t—for whatever reason—you’ll see that, too. You’ll learn while I learn. (And if I lose my resolve or willpower, I hope you’ll cheer me on.)

So there you have it. Starting Monday. That gives me the rest of today, Friday, and the weekend to gear myself up for the Digest Diet challenge and strengthen my resolve to leave the sweet treats and rich foods behind me for a while. After all, turnabout is fair play; they’ve certainly remained on my behind for a while.

Other than providing me with a copy of The Digest Diet, Readers’ Digest is not paying me to blog about my experience on the program. (If I lose the weight I hope to lose, that will be compensation enough.)

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