Everyday in July Challenge: Day 1 - The story of my life in 250 words or less.

Hopping around Blogher, I stumbled upon another great writing challenge. Originally posted here, My Purple Dreams altered it for the month of July. I don't know what I like so much about these challenges. Or why I rarely finish them. But I like this one alot, and I hope to complete each day. Off we go.


I am an only child, as was my father. My mother has two sisters, and each of them had two kids. I'm number four out of the five cousins. During family holidays, my cousins and I would put on a show for everyone. We thought of ourselves as an up and coming Sylvers or Jacksons. We would make up dances to the latest songs. Two of us played piano and one played the trumpet. We would charge admission, which was never more than a quarter. The eldest cousin was always in charge of the money and to this day none of us have ever been paid.

I went to catholic school just about my whole life. I liked having to wear a uniform because that meant I didn't have to take time and figure out a new outfit for each day. To this day whenever I wear colorful socks I feel like I'm breaking a rule!

I was also a girl scout. I was a Brownie for one year, advanced to a Junior, and I would have been a Cadet but our troop leader moved away. I still have my sash with all my badges.

December NaBloPoMo 2012

via tequilastar

This month's NaBloPoMo theme is WORK. Or as RuPaul says WERK. What is the difference?

Werk is defined by Urban Dictionary as,
1) To do something to an exceedingly excellent capacity.
2) A congratulatory declaration of support, praise or approval, for an outstanding achievement in any area of life.

Work is "Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result."

Hmm... I think I'd rather WERK than work. Easy choice right? But the hard part is figuring out how to apply werking principles to work; I WANT what I do to be exceedingly excellent. But everything I do isn't exceedingly excellent. Sometimes you just need the grunt WORK done to make way for the excellence WERK. More WERK and less WORK.

Writing all this gives me the idea to conduct what I'm now calling micro-interviews. I got the idea from this. I plan to contact via the innerwebs various celebrities, bloggers, et. al., and ask for their advice about whatever subject I'm interested in. I've done this before when I took a course titled Women in Comedy. I reached out to a few female comedians I follow on Twitter and FB. I only asked a couple of questions and just about everyone responded. That's actually another one of my unfinished projects; writing about women in comedy, particularly black women in stand-up comedy. I wrote a part 1 of a series that doesn't yet exist. I got replies from Erin Jackson, Marsha Warfield and Leighann Lord. The trick with micro-interviews is to keep the questions short and simple. Most people to love to give advice about what they do, especially if they're on social media. That's sort of what it's for, right?

So in my quest to insert more WERK in my WORK, I'm going to MI some fabulous folks for advice and see where that gets me. I'm curious who will respond and tell me something I can really use.

via Chad Sell

 

Decisions: What adults do that children don't.

I think I got this from Malcolm in the Middle. I don't remember which episode it was but Hal was trying to explain to Malcolm how hard it could be to have to make decisions all day long. That's what adults do. Kids don't. Right now, I would like to not be an adult because I'm tired of making decisions.

I keep going back and forth about this blog. Should I post or not, should I continue the blog; delete it or just abandon it? What's its purpose? Stream of consciousness, daily log, entertainment, philosophy, life lessons...what the fuck is the point of this?

Then I remember, I just want some space of my own to write. I don't care if I never get a comment, an ad link, or income from this, I just want a place to share my thoughts. And that is the key difference between journaling and blogging for me. I want to write publicly; as if I have to defend what I have to say--not that I really do, but I want the challenge. I want to continuously examine my thoughts and beliefs and attempt to defend them as if I were in a court of law. Writing is the only way I think I can truly unpack my head and sort out my life.

I keep coming across these moments where someone or something resonates with what I'm going through right now, with my evolution with the concept of faith and spirituality, aging parents, kids leaving the nest, my health and end of life. I want to weave these threads together, and create an accessible, flowing, complex tapestry reflective of a life evolved.

Here's the end of this post. But decidedly, not the end of this blog. I'm not convinced I should change or delete this blog just because my posts will be different. In truth, I don't know that they really will be all that different. But I do know they will be honest and brave; hopefully amusing, inspiring and funny. I write my blog for me. But I welcome those who want to join me on this journey.

Happy Blogoversary!

Blogger says I've been signed up since June 2004. That means this month is my anniversary--8 years of having a blog. I suppose most bloggers would think that's nothing to celebrate since my readership is virtually non-existent. But I'm ok with that. My blog is about trying to figure things out, figuring myself out and my relationship to my environment. I didn't start my blog with the intent of attracting alot of views, making money or influencing others. What I really like about my blog, is that I get to determine its existence.  I don't need approval or permission. This is an ad-free zone.

I think about how I want to develop this blog and my writing. I debate the merits of having a niche versus its current cornucopia-esque theme. Should I link to other blogs that are similar to mine or should I link to a sample of blogs I read? Perhaps I should pay more attention to traffic and put more of a concerted effort into attracting readers. Meh. I think the best thing I can do for my lil bloggy blog is what I'm doing now. Write. Write. Write.

I've seen alot of folks who have more than one blog. Penelope Trunk says you should only have one. I like her alot. I like her because she says the craziest shit and thinks it's normal. My kind of gal. I really don't think she does it for the shock value--she's real consistent in her crazy talk which tells me she's not crazy. I like non-crazy people who say crazy things. Why? Because deep down I think most people are crazy. But they're too afraid or too ignorant to address it. So they hunker down and follow directions just for the sake of keeping order. So when the sheep start falling off the cliff, everyone is right in line. Insert digression here.


Back to one blog versus multiple. Here's my reality. My life's a mashup, a colossal clusterfuck of seemingly unrelated people, issues, circumstances and events. If I were to compartmentalize my blog, then it's only part of the story. I want my writing to reveal breadth as well as depth. I think multiple blogs works best when there may be more than one person behind the blog, or there is a tangible product or service. For now, I'll continue to keep it simple and just focus on one. And write. WRITE.


Thoughts? What's your blog rationale?

Beckie is on the air.

Hi, I'm Beckie Samuel, here with today's InnerBlog News. This morning we find the Electronic Village has a new post in which yours truly makes a brief appearance in a clip promoting the Blogging While Brown Conference. I'm am proud to say I was a recipient of a New Blogger scholarship for last year's conference in Chicago. I must admit, I was completely starstruck (and thoroughly exhausted) during the whole conference.

After deciding to attend at the very last minute(shout out to Sweeta for encouraging me), I rode the Megabus from Cleveland to Chicago. I got there early Chicago Saturday morning, so you can understand why I look so whupped. Like a dummy, I didn't bring a camera, so I have no pics of my own to share. I'm still trying to digest everything I learned there. I'm definitely planning to attend the 2010 conference in DC.

Here's a link to the clip (I'm at 4:35 for you uber-fans). If you're a blogger, you'll want to try to make it to the conference. You'll be amazed at the welcome and information you'll receive. If you're thinking about starting a blog, this is a great way to gather ideas about what you want to feature. I'm going to use this holiday break to further refine my focus here on this blog, and maybe set up another one. We'll see how that goes.

What a great birthday present!!