Meet The Tree-ras.

I recently read a blog post that said, (somewhat loftily, I thought):

"I don't just blog to fill space."

Well, good for her, but my take on that is 'Why the bleep not, empty space can be seriously boring!'

What to write about?

Anything.
Everything.

Jerry Seinfeld made up a show about nothing, and it ran for how many years?

One creative writing instructor says, "Take an inanimate object and write about it. Write about what's on your desk."

Well.
Okay.

I'll have to warn you, this is where it could get dicey.

I'm a slob sometimes, and because there are far too many items on my desk to name (and because my pride won't allow me to snap a picture of them all), I'll just go with one item today. It's my photo tree, which stands proudly by my computer.

There are only two photos of myself on the metal tree. The rest are complete strangers, ancient pictures of those I deemed 'strong women'. I discovered their long-forgotten images at a dusty-smelling antique shoppe in Hyde Park, where I tirelessly dug through a boxful to see who would make the cut.  Only people that had 'the look' got to hang out on the fabled branches. The look of aggressive, ambitious, women who didn't take any crap. One girl looks like she could eat someone's liver, and her sister or mother or whoever it is in the background looks (I swear!) exactly like Ashley Judd.

This tribe of sheroes cheer me on day in and day out. I can practically hear them saying, "You're going to kick it in your content writing job today," or, "You know, you really should be writing more authentically. Aren't you tired of writing everyone else's voice but yours?" or, as in the case of the little mean girl, "I'm about to eat your liver."

The woman leaning confidently against the door of her cruiseship cabin never says a word. She doesn't have to; her affluence speaks for itself. I don't always like the way she looks at me, to be honest. I get the feeling she might have been a real pill to live with.

One photo looks like a group of either housemaids or private school students, I can't tell which. If it's private school, someone really missed it on the uniform choice. I actually like to think they are hardworking housemaids, busting their backsides to get the job done each and every day. Heaven only knows the vast creativity that lurks behind any frustrated woman holding a mop.

These are my people.
I have no clue whatsoever who they are, yet they cheer me on each and every day when I turn on the office lights and hit my PC's 'on' button.

You've now all been properly introduced.

Way To Go, Momma

I loved going to the Editorial Board meetings on Thursdays.

The Editor was a savvy, strong woman who knew who she was and offered no excuses. A great role model for me. I observed how she masterfully cut off comments that droned on for too long, changed the subject when necessary, and her overall leadership of the group. I enjoyed the members of the Board, too, how each one of them brought a different perspective to the items of discussion.

We got to meet VIP's, politicians, and other newsmakers. For the most part, I was surprised to find myself unimpressed. One or two politicians stood out here and there, due to their seeming rather genuine, but I thought I would be more wowed by those in the public eye. It was a bit of a let-down. They were ordinary people, just like me. Many of them lost track of their tone when they got overly-passionate about a topic. Some of them talked too much. One very well-known public figure showed up wearing a shirt that looked as if it had been slept in. It being an election year, we were invited to the paper-hosted public forum. This is where I had my eyes opened when it came to how imperfect we all are, with few exceptions. Tempers flared, basic rules were ignored, and the Editor/ Moderator had to quite forcefully demand that a man in the audience sit down and remain silent.

Those on the stand who retained their maturity level made an impact, but they were the minority. I'd always envisioned community leaders as a composed, well-controlled lot. That forum changed my mind.

It occurred to me that everyone, every one of us, is just trying to make our way through life without making too big of a fool of ourselves. Titles, degrees, status, net worth...none of it protected against being painfully human.

If those people could put themselves out there into the public arena in such a way, writing out my innermost thoughts seemed to pale in comparison, guts-wise. People watched those VIP's every move, every word, every deed. As a writer, I had the delicious advantage of delay and physical separation. I could think about what I was going to express, and even after writing it out I could edit to my heart's content. Writing was mild, stacked against the spectacle that many people made of themselves. The thought gave me an additional spark of courage.


I continued to blog daily, which increased reader's comments and my ratings. One morning I switched on my computer screen, going directly to the blog out of long-practiced habit to check the numbers. On this particular morning, I had trouble believing my eyes.

I called softly to my daughter, who was just waking up in the bed several feet away. She groggily peered at the screen when I asked her to tell me what she saw. My eyes were too tear-filled to be sure.

"Is that an eleven?" I asked her in disbelief, half-expecting to her answer in the affirmative.

"No, Mommy," my teenaged daughter said affectionately, then softly said, "It's a number one."

On that particular blogsite, my essay blog was the top international blog in its category.

I put my head into my hands and cried as my daughter rubbed my back and said, "Way to go, Momma."

Talent Doesn't Pay the Bills

While I was taking college courses, I continued to blog.

The ratings weren't climbing like they had been, probably due to my less-frequent posts.

I'd been waiting for years to write, having tromped through an angry husband, divorce and relocation, years of business building with the cleaning and property management, surgery, and school.

Not knowing what move to make next, I spent my days writing. Maybe I was hiding out, maybe I didn't want to get back out there. No matter the reason, I was taking the opportunity while I still had it to get this writing thing out of my system, or so I thought. I didn't understand that this was next to impossible.

I blogged away, interacting with the other bloggers and leaving reciprocal, positive comments on their blogs. I made a few favorite friends who I corresponded with daily. The ranking numbers for my essay blog kept climbing and climbing. I woke each morning, ready to post another blog, writing about everything from the dog that urinated on my former husband's pillow within the very first hour we brought her home to the time I saw my father walking up the sidewalk from work wearing my band uniform. I blogged about the time I tried to grow longer, stronger hair from advice off the internet, and how the formula I was instructed to concoct turned my hair into brittle straw that fell like cut grass every night onto my pillow. Random thoughts that had been floating around in my head for years, stories that wanted to be told, they all found their way onto my blog posts. Putting them to words left me thoroughly entertained for hours.

By then it was December. The kids were all in school and my husband and I were the only ones home during the day. I always closed the door to my daughter's room, so as not to annoy with my clickety-clacking of the keyboard. I still interpreted that sound to be the sound of slacking. I also closed the door so that if my husband passed by, he wouldn't see me just sitting there, typing. Whether he approved or not, my guilt made that scenario undesirable. I myself thought I should be pounding the pavement, looking for work, although at that time I received more than a part-time job's worth of child support money, and had been getting that amount for years.

The reasoner in me and the part of me that truly wanted to do nothing but write grasped hold of the thought that if I had no debt (I didn't), and nothing more pressing than helping out with a few bills here and there...then why was I so stressed out?

As soon as I'd have that thought, the reason-able part of me would kick in, with all of the name calling like 'slacker', 'mooch' and 'free-loader'. No one said this to me; these were the things I said to myself. Was I doing anything concrete, spending my days writing away? Was this just fun for me, or was there an actual purpose to it? The reasonable part of me said, "You're a grown woman who's been side-tracked from getting a real job and a real education for all of these years. It's nearly too late to redeem you. If you're lucky, you might squeak in a successful career yet if you can do what everyone else has done, which is to get educated and to get a real job."

The guilt won out, and I began to look online for employment, although my heart wasn't in it. My perfect life would have meant writing all day while my children were at school, then being home for them when they returned. I just didn't see that happening. Every day I spent writing, I felt I was stealing. If I stayed at home all the time and seemed to have no goals, what good was I to anyone, I thought.

Meanwhile I was getting comments from my readers:

"You're simply the best writin' winter remedy I ever read, end of story girl!"

"That was great! You're such a good story teller."

"Great writing, so much fun to read."

"You are clever gal. Oh I do adore your accounts. Still giggling - you're so good at how you tell it."

"I always find myself when I read your posts."

"You are such a wonderful writer."


---What was I supposed to do with that? None of it had a paycheck attached.

One thing was certain. I couldn't just hang around the house all week. I needed something outside of the home to give me my sense of usefulness back.


On a cold morning, I felt the need to look up a friend's obituary. He'd recently passed away, very suddenly. I'd known the family since almost the first day I'd moved to town. Viewing the write up required logging on to the newspaper's website. When I logged on, the first thing to greet me was a call for volunteers to the paper's Editorial Board. Something about that caught my soul's attention. Something about the thought of being on the Board felt like the right direction for me to head. I read the obituary and wrote a memory of my friend Neil. Then I went to work writing to the paper, as required, of the reasons I felt I'd make a good Board member. I edited and cut and edited some more, attempting to prove my prowess of the written word, and my mega-literacy. I wrote that I was self-employed. (I had just picked up one more property to manage, quite by accident and only because I found myself unable to say no to the money.) It was a stretch.

Then, I waited, even though I knew I would be chosen. This is something I still can't explain. I'm not a particularly lucky person. I've never entered a raffle or lottery, knowing that I would win. The few times I've ever won anything at all put me into an instant state of shock, no matter how small the prize. In this case, however, I just knew I'd be on the Board.

I was grateful for that knowledge, knowing that once a week I'd have somewhere else to be. I was glad that I'd be associated with a media outfit, no matter how remotely. It was far closer to my dreamed-of chosen path than housecleaning or property management. I'd get to dress up and feel sort of vital, helping to shape the community paper and giving input. My opinion and input would count and be heard; something I've always wanted.

In the weeks to follow, whenever I'd get caught typing away, I'd have the inner thought that I'd soon have just the tiniest amount of clout. I would still probably see myself as all of the names I called myself in my head, but perhaps a little less so. That notion brought some semblance of relief from the abuse I'd self-administered.

The email arrived a few weeks from applying for the volunteer position on the Editorial Board, saying I'd been chosen as a member.

What Now?

My psychology professor left us with one final nugget of knowledge.

"The more self expression, the more ways you find to express yourself, the better off you'll be psychologically, she told us, her blue eyes darkened with conviction.

According to the good professor, whether it be through art, carpentry, cooking, gardening, sculpting our body through exercise, singing, playing an instrument, writing, or whatever...it's all helpful and healing.

I'd been writing one or two papers per week for this class. No matter the subject, it felt like I was coming alive, it was good to be able to see my own words and thoughts printed on paper. I knew for sure that I wanted to do more of that. The summer semester was ending, but I was hungry for more. I took two additional classes that challenged me and I continued to make good grades. Then I ran out of money. I applied for a student loan, which got approved, and was just faxing the last of the paperwork to the appropriate office on my husband's fax machine that sat on his desk. When fully aware of what I was doing, he chose to take issue with my being in debt to the government. I had never even thought to ask for his approval, thinking an education was an inarguable necessary expense. I'd never intended for the loan to be his bill or concern. A lengthy discussion ensued, followed by my backing down.

I went through a week or more of discouragement and mild depression. If I wasn't headed towards an educational or career goal, then where was I headed? I didn't like being adrift. By now, after a health scare, I wanted to do more than just make a living, I wanted to make a difference. But how?

Doing the Writing Thing

At the end of the summer semester, the psych prof gave us one last assignment.

It actually went along with her ongoing theme.

On the first day of class, she'd brazenly told us that our biggest problem was that none of us knew how to chill. It was, in fact, America's biggest problem, in her opinion.

Daring to go completely sexist, she said, "You guys are even worse off than the ladies. You're gonna be in bad shape if you don't start doing something different. At least we have each other to talk to; most of you have nowhere to let off steam."

In keeping with her goal for us to chill, she taught us about getting into an altered mental state, what some called the zone. Giving ourselves a mind-vacation on a regular basis. Our upcoming paper would force us to put this into practice.

"Do something for thirty minutes each day for one week that takes your mind off of things. I don't care what it is. Working out, hiking, painting, needlepoint, whatever. Then write about it."

I knew what I wanted to choose, being the multi-tasker that I am, and probably hearing the worn-out words 'make yourself useful' somewhere in the mix, too. I chose gardening. After being in school for over a month, my front yard was a wreck.

On the first experimental day, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and I couldn't wait for my thirty minutes to be over with. My back hurt and I wasn't embracing the process, although I did notice that a person can do a lot by way of cleaning up the yard in thirty minutes. On the second day, I was began to catch a vision of what I wanted the yard to look like, and it was getting there. The time flew by. When the third day came along, I was getting creative, moving plants from one corner to the other and clipping stray branches and leaves. Day four, I finished all of the weeding and started ambitiously chopping away at the overgrown juniper shrubs. On day five, I finished chopping. By day six, I was just playing. I hung glass lanterns with tea lights from the trees, rearranged rocks and prettied things up. Day seven was picky work, perfecting the bare bones of what I'd already designed. I was truly sorry to see the project end.

Infused into the write up was the relief I felt at being 'allowed' to spend time to myself, the calm that enveloped me, and the visual boosts my daily visits to the garden provided me. I wrote of the ripple effect: how my husband started cleaning out the garage, and how my daughter began to deep-clean her room. Most of all, the breathing space for body and soul was the side benefit. I felt different. When I told my sister about the assignment over the phone, she said, "So that's it! That's what's different. I thought you sounded more calm."

All of this I put into print. Then I handed it in.

The entertaining, intelligent professor who was almost young enough to be my daughter, the one with the doctorate...loved it.

"I REALLY enjoyed this!" she wrote across the cover page.


It began to dawn on me that I just might be able to pull off the writing thing.

Brave Enough To Ask The Questions

Apparently there had been an email from the psych professor that three of her students didn't get.

Julie the cowgirl and hockey player, Dan the polygamist's son, and me.

We waited around for a while, each of us in our usual seats. I was in the middle of the room, Julie was up in the front left, and Dan was on the back row.

Julie looked like she could take most everyone in the class down. Dan had revealed to the class in a comment a few weeks before that he'd come from a polygamist family, and that his father had four wives. He said that like he was mentioning the weather, or having had soup for lunch. I was dying to ask him about that.

Realizing that the class must have been cancelled, I took a deep breath, turned around in my seat, and said, "Dan, you mentioned you're from a family with four wives." I gulped, not certain I wanted to hear what he might feel comfortable telling me.

What happened next was unexpected. Dan began to open up about the way he was raised. Julie, curious, moved to a closer desk, as did I.

"Having four moms was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," he told us, which shocked me. He talked about what it was like at his home. 'Big as a shopping mall with twenty- three bedrooms,' he claimed, 'Seven bathrooms, too.'

He described how wonderful it was to have multiple siblings run to greet you when returning home from work, how he felt he had celebrity status every day. He told of how his older sister decided to make the boys her 'project' by teaching them public speaking skills through a very effective program she'd developed herself. He spoke of his love for his father, the vast amount of respect he had for the man.

"I wouldn't have wanted to grow up any other way," he said, "It was wonderful."

The darker part came when he spoke of his marriage. Their 'prophet' had chosen someone for him that he would have never dreamed of having for a wife. While he'd been a quieter type, she'd been the Homecoming Queen type. At first he was thrilled, but there were soon problems with the match that surfaced not long after the wedding.

"In polygamist families, the girls all know how to run a household by the time they're around fourteen. They can budget, cook, and balance the checkbook. She didn't know, nor was she interested in doing any of that stuff," Dan said.

A failing marriage wasn't going to fly in their polygamist community. It was shameful. More than that, a man's religious authority was in jeopardy, should a divorce ensue.

It did.

Dan, disgraced and unable to fully function as a member of his compound and religion, left the town for Babylon.

"I cried for a month and a half, lonely and scared in my apartment," he told us, "It's been the hardest thing I've ever done."

He'd watched the previously forbidden and evil tv, had gotten himself a non-member girlfriend, and was going to a college with worldly students.

At intervals, Julie and I asked questions, fascinated by the story being told. Before we knew it, the three hour block was spent. We all had places to be, and so we said an awkward goodbye. It was strange to go from being so intimate to being so public again. Perhaps Dan didn't feel that way, but what we'd just witnessed would have been impossible to replicate. In the weeks to follow, the three of us never did connect again the way we did that day. It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.


I went home and told the experience to my husband and children. Having been privy to the inner life of a polygamist family was incredible. Not a believer in polygamy, I wasn't expecting to hear the positive angles I'd certainly never considered before. The careful education of the kids, right down to their ease of public speaking. The love and cooperation among the women and children. My mind was churning with this new information.

Getting someone to talk to me like that was a trip. I wanted more; I wanted to know people's stories. Not just their surface stuff, but the nitty-gritty pivotal-moments that made them who they were.

I couldn't sleep that night, so revved up with processing the information I'd just gained. I'd been fortunate enough to talk to someone who was extremely forthright with their personal tale. Surely there were more out there like him.

I wanted to find them.

The Woman That Couldn't Forget...Ever.

With the bandages off my face and the stitches dissolving, I had no more obvious pain or ailment. Along with the healing came the now-familiar notion that I was doing nothing, wasting time.

When my husband would approach me in the writer's corner of my daughter's room, I felt guilty for just 'sitting there'. He wasn't saying anything, but I self-condemned. The unspoken sentence was that I needed to get off my duff and get back to work.

During my absence from cleaning, property managing and all things manual-labor, I found that to have my mind stimulated was huge for me. The intellectual part that had awakened wasn't about to take a snooze anytime soon. Seeking a way to honor that,I signed up for some courses at the local community college. The last time I'd attended school had been two decades earlier, and I'd stopped taking classes as a young married expectant mother. I'd been too pregnant and morning-sickness riddled to want to keep getting up early for a course. Once my son was born, I had no desire to leave him or the home, and luckily my first husband financially and morally supported me in that decision. My education was put on hold and basically forgotten about, with an occasional 'I want my degree someday' uttered from time to time, a bucket list item.

Seeing being a student as a way to accomplish validity, I enrolled in school, going back to college after over twenty years. I registered, bought the books, waited a week for class to begin and in the meantime frequently thought, "What did you just do?"

Back to having school days, I was in school while my children were not. I could have planned that better, but I was anxious to have a goal that didn't involve all-purpose cleaner.

I remembered myself as an average, if not below-average student, due to my short attention span (and distracting things going on at home when I was a child). I expected to make the usual mediocre marks.

On the first day, the classroom was full and our Psychology professor was late. I wasn't sure what to expect. I only knew that this woman had a PhD behind her name. It both intimidated me and made me envious, thinking of those that had both the time and opportunity for such an education.

Another student walked in, very tall, slim, with long blonde hair and youthful. The student took her place at the front of the class and proceeded to teach. She was the Dr., twenty-six years old. She might as well have been wearing a t-shirt with the words, "If you're over forty and in this class, you're a loser." I tried to put those thoughts out of my head.

I immediately liked her teaching style and the course content. I looked forward to going to class three days a week, for a full three hours each time. The biggest thing I had to get past was the fact that my college professor was almost young enough to be my child. Her age put an exclamation point on the nagging phrase that ran through my head all the time:

"You're wasting your life."

I aced every test. The online school account said I was well on my way to an 'A'. I poured through the thick textbook as I sat in a lounge chair on the back lawn, soaking in the summer sun and drinking in knowledge with a brain that had been left dormant for far, far too long. I could not believe I was actually getting this stuff, the one who'd been called a 'poor learner', and more than once. Several more-than-kind grade school teachers had the nerve to pen that very phrase on report cards over the years. Now I was taking a college course and it was invigorating; there was no 'work' involved, it was pure joy. Like a hobby, but I got credit for it.

The young Dr. proved to be an 'old soul', and verbally talented. Anyone who could keep a roomful of people entertained and interested for three solid hours surely knew their stuff. She did warn us that those studying psychology were prone to thinking they had the abnormalities talked about in class. It was apparently a well-known hazard among psychology majors. When the Dr. told us about 'the woman who couldn't forget', I worried. I still remembered the names of my acquaintances' mothers' pets...what could that mean? 'The woman that couldn't forget's' fate was that it drove her up the wall, having facts and figures in her head that never flowed back out.

I fretted about that for months afterward.

Focusing on What's Inside

As I prepared for surgery, I scratched out thoughts and feelings through fervent journal writing. I did some blogging, too, but feeling like I got burned with that before (with my first husband's anger over my participating in a blog site), I was timid about it, not serious.

The 'tiny snips' the nurse from the surgical center had promised me over the phone when I'd called with nervous questions before my procedure were nothing of the sort. The surgeon had done a quilting bee, and on my face. Things were rearranged and grotesquely swollen.

If there was ever a time to rely on my personality and character, this would have been it. I wasn't so sure what would be what after things had healed up. Having the choice to either worry myself sick about my appearance, or to try to let that part of me go, I decided to focus more on the inside.

Writing, yet again, was a tremendous help.

My essay-type blog posts became more heartfelt. My poetry also began to have some flavor it hadn't previously held. Comments from other bloggers began to trickle in, telling me how my words had touched and affected them. This was an undeniable rush.

Why was it different about this time around? Two factors. I was giving myself time to write, and I was more conscious than ever of my mortality, which provided an 'I don't care if you like it or not, this is me' sort of an attitude. All in all, my writing was much more sincere, which in turn drew more interest.


As the weeks went by and I healed up, the swelling went down and I could see that my face would, for the most part, recover with an only slightly altered form. I continued to write with as genuine a voice as I could muster, learning this took maintenance. Skipping a few days or even a week meant battling personal walls again, and re-learning to open up emotionally. I found that outside events could also cause some backsliding, anything that created a self-protective, withdrawing mode would become a barrier, writing-wise.

The blog site I used had a ranking system, where I could easily see the popularity level of my blogs. The personal essay blog out-ranked the poetry blog by a long stretch, indicating what readers preferred. I started ranked at something like the 3,000th. Each day that number decreased. 1000th, 514th, 200th. Knowing this blog was international, to reach the 200 area was satisfying for me. Other than my high school teacher's comments, I'd never known any sort of recognition for my writing. Fellow bloggers' encouraging interactions and watching the rankings climb was what kept me posting.

Tips From a Pro

If I was going to have cancer, I was going to use it to my full advantage.

It became the perfect excuse to get out of managing the Gems. I was no longer worried about the loss of income; I really didn't care, having far better things to do with my time than to preserve dwellings that were already---who were we kidding--- essentially marked for the bulldozer. I gave my notice, stating 'health issues' as the reason. Instead of throwing a fit or getting upset because I'd let them down (my worst fear), the owners graciously wished me well and promptly found themselves another property manager.


I took some time off. I wrote in my journal. I took a few naps, and a few walks with my children and spouse. I pondered at least as much as I'd pondered while running the cleaning business, but these thoughts were even more serious and concentrated. Morbid or not, I kept envisioning a large grandfather clock tick-tocking away, and the tip of my deceased-from-cancer friend's nose sticking out of his casket during his funeral service.

I started to clean and organize even more, feeling the intense (and probably overly-dramatic) need to get things in order.

Since space at our home was limited, I had a computer and files stored in my daughter's room, where we all had no choice but to visit if we wanted to use that particular PC. I began toying with writing just a little. I started up an anonymous blog and began to spend more time in that space. My daughter began to go to sleep to the sounds of my click-clacking on the keyboard. Despite the cleaning I'd done in other areas, the desk the computer sat on was usually somewhat cluttered, as were the files I had also stored in that room. I decided that tidying up that particular space was the least I could do.

While going through files and paring down what was now irrelevant, I came upon a once- familiar green folder marked 'Freelance Writing.'

Years ago while attempting to blog for the first time, I'd become 'e-friends' with a woman named Fiona. Her writing stood out far and away from that of other bloggers. It was known she'd been hard at work making a living with her skills. Fascinated, I asked about her journey towards becoming a professional writer. In reply, I got a long and very thorough email. This I printed up and placed in the green folder for future reference.

Just days later, my first and continuously-struggling marriage began to unravel the rest of the way. Many long months of derailment and detours followed, and the thin green folder had been hastily stuffed into a portable file as it was moved from the family home in the country to the post-divorce house in town, forgotten about for years, until now. Seeing it again yanked me back to the day I'd hungrily perused Fiona's list, wondering if I could ever follow in her footsteps. I opened it again now.


"Brace yourself," she'd written, "This is going to be a long answer, since you've asked about my passion---writing.
I began with blogs and found them a useful forum for practicing. Once I felt comfortable with that, I decided to approach magazines. I sent my first article to Cosmo and was lucky, the editor was really sweet and sent back a very encouraging rejection letter. Thinking back, I cringe. I did everything wrong. (Before submitting, read their guidelines thoroughly!)
You can submit articles to online sites and if those don't sell try selling to another site until they do. Keep a list of what you've sold, and which website it appeared on. Copy and paste your articles and save them for future reference, because when querying with a new editor, I find it much more effective to say, "This sample was published in ABC newspaper..."
As a new writer, you may not have many clips but I've found that research and confidence can more than make up for that. My suggestion is that you use what you know first. If you have any qualifications that you can use, find the right publication and use them.
The idea is to be able to convince the editor that you are the best person to write the piece. You need to be somewhat familiar with the publication. (I once sent a story and then found out that they'd done a piece on that very topic in that month's issue.)
I also kept queries as short as possible. Never, ever irritate the editor. Editors get hundreds of emails a day. You stand a better chance if yours is short and to the point. Don't tell them that you've never been published and be confident in your email.
Look to your local newspapers, can you write something for them? If so, check and recheck what you send them, and edit it down ruthlessly. The easier you make the editor's life, the better it is for you. I send my articles and then leave the editor alone until I have another article idea. Also, always be polite. If a piece is rejected, send a short 'thank you' email. Don't argue about the validity of your article. If they don't want it, move on and find someone who does. If the editor doesn't respond (and many don't), move on. If the editor is rude, don't sink to their level, just cross them off the list. You have to develop a very thick skin. If your writing gets rejected it does not necessarily mean it is bad but just that it's not right for the publication. Rejection can be disappointing but don't let it get to you.
Best piece of advice? Never, ever give up. If something doesn't work, find another way. Always ensure that you read and re-read your work. Your aim is to submit perfection. Research, research, research. Know your target publication. Who is their target demographic, story length, writing style, type of articles, type of advertisements.
Read, read, read! You'll get so many ideas, it's unreal.

Regards,

Fiona"

What To Leave Behind

The Gems continued to have problem after problem. I'd drive by and see a police car, lights off, parked outside one of the units and just shake my head, roll my eyes, groan inwardly and drive on. It seemed bizarre that I'd gotten used to that sort of thing. I'd also learned not to tell anyone which houses I was managing, since once they realized the described location, the conversation would ultimately turn to tales of drug sales and busts, prostitution, or a murder in the basement.

Whenever a tenant moved out (with or without giving notice), I'd try to bring a muscular son or two along while I was cleaning. They didn't enjoy being there for hours on end, and I got none of the solitude I used to get when I owned the cleaning business.

"This is a trashy place, why don't you just quit managing these?" they'd frequently ask.

I had the same thoughts. Once again I was concerned that if I quit, I would not be 'earning my keep' within our household. Being in a second marriage, my husband's former wives (!) had, according to him, all held at least part-time jobs and had been a source of income. I already had an issue with comparing myself to the others, and financially it was no different. To let go of the money I was making off the Gems didn't seem prudent until I could replace it with the same or greater amount from another source.

This caused no small amount of dissonance within. I'd promised my fellow-cleaner friend with a solemn vow, 'no bleach', and there I was, scrubbing again. I rationalized that this was different, that I no longer cleaned for a living, but it was a weak argument. I was also clearly working in a dangerous part of town, which didn't make a lot of sense no matter what angle I angled it. The money earned wouldn't be any consolation if something adverse and/or life-altering happened. My hair stood on end and my spine tingled each and every time I entered one of those ancient units. Haunted? Undoubtedly. Full of 'bad' energy? Like an atomic bomb. As I swept, vacuumed and dusted I wondered in which of the rooms the murders had been committed. Since all four of the houses had basements, and according to the tales I'd heard, that was the likely scene of crime. My active imagination got the best of me a time or two, when I thought the cleaning cloth sitting on the counter top that brushed against my arm was someone who'd just emerged from the closet, watching for an opportunity to maim and destroy. Brooms or jackets hanging on a hook sometimes got mistaken for a person or personage.

Still, month after month I took the barely-literate phone calls, showed the units that were vacant to (often suspicious-looking) would-be tenants, and worried about who was going to get shot in a basement next and whether or not I'd have to be the one to clean up the blood stains. It was getting ridiculous; yet I wouldn't crack. I kept telling myself that I had to be responsible, make money and not be a quitter.

Someone else had other plans.


I got cancer.

After a skin biopsy that I hadn't been that worried about, (I'd actually put it out of my head) the doctor called me back on a Friday morning, surprising me by saying it was cancerous, serious and that I needed to have surgery right away. This wasn't anything immediately life threatening, he told me in his calm, business-like doctor's voice, but it could turn into a huge issue if I didn't take care of it as soon as possible.

I didn't clean that day. I didn't do anything at all that was 'useful' that day. I took myself to a movie theater and watched, of all things, "Mama Mia", crying through the entire feature with the thought that I might not be around for my daughter's wedding after all. It didn't help that I'd attended a friend's funeral not long ago who had died of the exact same type of cancer I had just been told I had.

I did some thinking in that theater that afternoon. Big time.

If my days were numbered, how did I want to spend them and what did I want to leave behind? Occupied, paying rental units? Well-cleaned, hundred-year-old crap traps? The memory of telling my children, 'not now, I’m busy’ because I had to run down to the Gems yet again?

Not even.

The Right To Relax

My property management business overlapped with my slowly winding-down cleaning business. I was taking fewer and fewer cleaning jobs. When employees left for other pursuits, I didn't replace them, knowing I didn't want a future on that path.

By that time, I'd listened to so much NPR, the intellectual part of me was begging to get used. The constant hum of thoughts churning inside my mind was almost distracting.

I cleaned my last unit. I didn't know it was my last, I just had that insistent feeling during the many hours I spent there that it might have been. My lunch with a friend cinched it.

This friend and I had met in Real Estate school years ago. We'd had big plans for making the bucks, back in the day. In a beyond-strange twist of fate, both of us wound up divorced single moms, cleaning for money instead. We both eventually laughed and many times nearly cried about that fact, jokingly coming up with useful cleaning tips like, "If you do have to cry, do it over the commode...the salt in your tears acts a natural and effective cleaning agent." On this day, we'd both been discussing doing something (almost anything) other than scrubbing to earn a paycheck. My friend suddenly leaned over the cafe table and looked directly into my eyes.

"Raise your right hand and repeat after me," she firmly told me. Then she said, "NO BLEACH."

I laughed and agreed, mostly because I rarely used bleach in my cleaning solution, but I got her point. It was time for both of us to move on.

After that last unit, whenever a property manager called, I'd tell them that I was sorry, I couldn't help them that time. And the time after that, and the time after that. Putting into words that I was closing my business was still not something I found easy to do, and I never did. Eventually everyone stopped calling, which seemed right to me. (Yet admittedly not fair to 'them'). A gradual and natural death. My brain found it hard to believe that after more than two years of wearing myself out to get the cleaning business going, after the marketing and the advertising and the building up of reputation as a competent cleaning service...that I'd just let it go. My heart, however, was joyous.

Since property management is a sporadic thing (the renters need something when you least expect it, and usually when it's the least convenient time, like midnight), I found that many of my days were oddly wide-open. I didn't feel comfortable puttering around the house while my self-employed husband worked eight-plus hours in his home office down the hall. I still had it in my head that I needed to be 'worth my keep.' A carryover, I'm sure, from my bio-father, who regularly used to say to us, if he happened upon us lounging, "Why don't you go make yourself useful?"

Tired as I was from two-plus years of the intense housecleaning of some of the filthiest properties on God's green earth, I didn't feel I had the right to slow down, nor did I give myself permission to do so.

I started to desperately clean and organize my own home, hoping that my thoroughness and organization would get me accolades from all who dwelt within. They noticed, and probably appreciated it, but no one went wild with the praise. No one ever said, "You clean baseboards better than anyone I've ever known."

So I canned salsa and peaches and dried fruit and cooked fantastic meals. Again, appreciated but not ultimately fulfilling. Many times when I'd need validation, I go out to the shelves in the garage and just stare at the rows of jarred tomatoes, pears, and pickles.

I shifted to outdoors and cared for the lawn, planting flowers and rearranging landscaping. I became the one to depend on, running household errands or doing the banking for my husband, since he was busy and hard at work. Were I to have stopped whatever I was doing to have remained stationary long enough to write for hours on end, the guilt would have no doubt consumed me.

From Blogging to Bad Renters

I started with blogging.

I'd actually tried blogging a couple of years earlier. Some halting posts, a little awkward poetry. It was on an interactive site, and the other bloggers said some nice things and made me feel accepted.

This during a tricky time in my first marriage where there was a lot of resentment, and very little trust both ways, earned or otherwise. My then-husband did not have the password into my private blogging site, and that irritated him quite a lot.

"What you are doing on that blogging site, you should be ashamed of!" he raged one day. I almost laughed out loud. I'd been doing some anonymous journal-ly type stuff and creating some bad poetry. How evil.

His anger, however, was enough to slow me down some. By the time I'd taken the kids and moved out, I wasn't blogging at all. Who had time, with an upcoming divorce and bills to pay?

After the NPR program's spotlight of author Nancy Peacock, I knew I needed to stop living the mute life. I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the housecleaning business was also the thing I loved the most about it. I was hidden. No one saw me, no one heard me. The summing up of my personality to a tee. I need to be introverted and solitary a full half of the time. The other half, I need to be out with the public, interacting, relating, observing.

I had many things to say about many subjects. Probably the same old list, but I could say them MY way. Growing up with child abuse. Living with a verbally cruel spouse. How to get by on fifty bucks a week with a family of four. Making the mental adjustment from well-off property and business owner to a housecleaning business-owning renter. Not everyone had been through these ordeals, but perhaps I could help the populace to understand them better, from my point of view.

One thing was certain; I was tired of having no voice.

When I thought about what it felt like to be virtually invisible, to have about no say, I quickly recalled the many nightmares I'd had where my bio-father was coming after me, with the intention of harm. In those dreams, he'd smile the same glaze-eyed, numb little smile every time. No matter what I did, I couldn't get him to back off. I'd open my mouth to alert whoever else was around that this bad man was up to no good, but nothing would come out, no matter how much air I took in to produce the loudest scream I could muster.

I was so done with being mute.


A couple of years after my divorce, as a remarried woman, I reassessed my priorities. I knew I didn't want to grow my cleaning business. I'd watched employee after employee get physically and mentally burnt out, and I was right there with them. Anyone that can do that kind of work for any length of time has the intellectual and emotional toughness of an Olympian. It wasn't for me.

I got some child support, thank Heavens, and that kept me going, but in order to not feel financially burdensome to this new fellow, I felt obligated to continue trying to make a living.

I started a property management business and got a few clients. One client owned four ancient properties downtown that I laughingly called 'the Gems', because they'd easily be any property management's worst bet. Dilapidated and tired, the Gems and their low rental fees were magnets for the interesting, chemically-dependent types. I cleaned and staged the cottages with both of the eyes behind my head as wide open as I could get them. I wasn't in the best part of town, and although no one had said it outright, I could sense that these 'Gems' had a colorful history.

That was confirmed when two men in uniform came pulling into the short driveway as I was out on one front porch with a broom, brushing off the cobwebs. They didn't even get out of their car, just signaled me. Trusting the official look, I approached, assuming they were lost and needed directions. They needed directions, all right. To a very fiery location. It became obvious to me that they were hoping for the same kind of experience they'd had previously at that residence. After the first few words and upon seeing the disdain in my look, they quickly backed out of the driveway, not making any further eye contact.

Break-ins, vandalism, and the scent of unwashed bodies long after they'd spent an unauthorized night inside the rentals followed. To find decent renters that stayed employed and stayed off the sauce proved to be close to impossible. If they weren't drinking or abusing drugs when they moved in, they'd be into it by the time they left. Their neighbors in the other three Gems would get them involved, like the good neighbors they were.

I was overwhelmed. Because of its low rent, and because I only took a percentage, the Gems brought me as little as $500 per month. When I'd have a sore back from picking up cigarette butts at the now-vacant (because they moved out unexpectedly under the cover of darkness) units, I'd ask myself if any of this was even worth it. By this time, I knew I wanted to write, but to sit in front of a computer for hours when I had an obligation to hold up my half of the financial bargain would, I thought, make me look like the biggest of slackers. When would I ever have that time to myself, and if I took it, would I even produce anything of value?

I didn't know.

Follow The Leader

I didn't always know I'd become a writer.

What I did know was that if I was breathing, I'd be writing. Whether that would be journaling, blogging, or writing professionally, it was all the same to me. I had to get the words out and trusted myself to do that.

Like many people who find their true vocation a little later in the game, I took multiple detours. Fresh out of high school I worked at a fast food establishment, one of the only jobs to be had in a college town where throngs of students clamored for any kind of employment. I worked in a bakery as a professional cake decorator, off and on for nearly ten years. I learned to prepare taxes, teach preschool, run a daycare. I even became a licensed electrical contractor and a general building contractor. Housecleaning and property management were in the mix, too.

While I could do all of those things well enough, none of them stuck. Quite frankly, I was miserable doing many of them.

My post-divorce job was as a cleaning business owner. I ran a six to ten-person crew. We restored vacant rental properties. I often worked alone while others worked together, needing the quiet to collect my thoughts. I was angry and hurting over my divorce, and my life felt more than chaotic. I figured that if I could just spend enough time alone, I could sort things out, both what had just happened and what I was going to do with the remainder of my days. Cleaning proved to be an effective tool for that.

Many people around me thought that what I was doing was impressive, having gone from being an electrical contractor to a cleaning business owner without skipping much of a beat. I did what I had to do to provide for my children. That didn't mean I liked it.

I heard, "You're such a business-woman!" all the time. I received tons of encouragement. Some assumed that the business would become another franchise like a few of the now-larger cleaning services had done. While I know they were being kind, none of that talk sat well with me, and I needed to figure out why. Why would I throw away a perfectly good business opportunity, one I had been striving feverishly to make a go of? I eventually got very honest with myself: I didn't want more cleaning jobs. I didn't like supervising, being the boss, the paperwork, or the cleaning. I knew I couldn't strive for an end goal of something I really didn't want.

Just because I could do something didn't mean that I should.

Though the introvert in me preferred solitude, I often got lonely enough to switch on the portable radio I carried in my cleaning kit. Listening to talk radio sprouted colorful thoughts in my mind that were soon popping like firecrackers on the fourth of July. A forgotten tap had been turned on, and it was hard--if not impossible--to turn it off. Notions of essays I could write, stories I could tell, ideas for fictional novels all kept me awake at night. I dreamed of these tales, waking in the mornings with a smile on my lips.

Hungry to put pen to paper, I began taking longer breaks in the tiny yards of the rentals I worked on. I'd sit out in the sun and write and write and write, finally forcing myself back into the stale units to finish cleaning.

The urge to write seemed to have a pattern of strengthening and waning. I'd begin a story or an essay, then get busy and leave it for later. When later would come, I'd have no idea where I'd planned to go with the piece, get frustrated and either quit or start something new.

There were days I told myself I could never put words together in a way that people would read. I remembered a talk radio program that claimed every writer had to have a goodly amount of narcissism in them, to be vain enough to think that anyone would want to read what they'd have to write. For myself, I wasn't sure if I had enough of that vanity, or if I could even fake having it. The only feedback I had was from the high school teacher who said I wrote ' very lucidly', and in considering my older sister's addiction to my journal writings when I wasn't looking, years before.

Then along came a day I'll never forget. It hadn't been a good day; I was in a junky public-school-from-the-sixties-green interior duplex. The place was filthy, it had to be scrubbed from top to bottom. I was in the process of wiping down the hideously-hued walls, feeling lower than usual. My radio was dialed in to a program about people who led double lives. I was only half listening.

The first segment featured an anonymous exotic dancer by night/kindergarten teacher by day. She had to work two towns down the road to avoid being discovered by a parent. Her other ongoing concern was that she might not be able to dance much longer, since she was pushing forty. I listened with only mild interest.

Then the interviewer switched to a housecleaner who was also a professional writer. Nancy Peacock (author of 'A Broom of One's Own' and other books) cleaned houses by day, then got dressed up to do readings in the spotlight in the evening. After she'd been published, she still kept her cleaning jobs for the steady income. In the same twenty-four-hour period she would both swish a mop and get celebrated for her literary creativity. She spoke of the huge contrast, and how the two worlds didn't play so well together. No kidding, I thought.

That was a breakthrough moment for me. If this woman could write a book (and later have it named the New York Times' Notable Book of the Year), I thought maybe I could too.

I knew more than most just how well spending time behind a broom could bring about soulful expression. Hearing that I wasn't alone was a pivotal moment. It gave me the nudge to consider giving the writing thing a go.

It Just Returns In A Stronger Form

I was once in a relationship with a man that, unbeknownst to me until it was too late, liked to snoop through my journals when I wasn't around.

One evening when he picked me up from work, he had my journal with him, much to my extreme surprise.

"You have a lot of stuff about other guys in here," he complained, "And either you get rid of this journal right now, or we're through."

I was very young, insecure, and I thought (I know, I know) that I was in love. He'd already given me a diamond promise ring. I told him I'd go through it and take out the entries that mentioned others. I figured I could do that, since it looked like this was going to be a long-term relationship. I imagined he'd take my word for it, and that would be that. I could remove things at my leisure.

"Do it right now," he told me, "We need to get this behind us."

What I should have been doing 'right then' is smacking the guy over the head for snooping, then giving him the boot. Hindsight.

I sat on the curb and started thumbing through the pages, plucking out one here and one there.

"That's good enough," he said, "Come on!"

At that point I was beginning to stand up for myself, protesting that a lot of the entries in the journal were precious to me; there'd been a lot of growth represented on those lines, a lot of difficult circumstances that I'd gotten through. My pleas didn't phase him. He angrily drove me to a canal and ordered me to dump my journal over the railing and into the water.

I did.


That unhealthy relationship lasted for years. I always knew that the instance at the canal was sick and twisted, and that my acquiescing to a narcissist's demands was inherently the wrong thing to do. I've deeply regretted allowing someone else to censor me on behalf of their own comfort, and whenever anyone else tries to do that currently, it irks me still. Changing your writing for anyone's tastes is, in the long run, never worth it.

The story of my grandmother's writing is the perfect example.

Although I was only six months old when she died, I know a few things about her. I know that people loved her. I know that she used to practically invite their entire small town over for Sunday dinner. I know that she was short, curly-haired, and loved to laugh. When she died at the young age of 54, so many people were heartbroken. The cheerful elfin-like woman with the bright blue eyes and unforgettable laugh was sorely missed.

My grandmother was a journal-keeper. She'd written her heart out in them; she was said to have been a sensitive soul. She had volumes and volumes of her thoughts on paper.

When she passed, my grandfather discovered the journals. For reasons only he could know, he took them and burned every last one. Perhaps there were things therein that incriminated him or others. Perhaps she'd written things about friends or family that were touchy. No one will ever know; the secret died with my grandfather. There's a part of me that's peeved about that; he deprived us of being able to know a woman that only shared the same planet with me for mere months. I could have known her; the good, the bad and the ugly if there was any.

Does anyone have the right to make that call? I suppose there could be arguments for either way. One thing I can tell you; when I knock on the pearly gates, my journals will be in safekeeping with those that I trusted. If that's not someone in the family, then they'll be stored out of the family. My grandchildren and great grandchildren have the right to know where they came from, and who I was. Who I am.

I like to imagine, in a plucky sort of way, that the writer in me comes from Grandma. That even though her thoughts were burned to ashes, she's able to work through me sometimes. The sensitivity. Her thoughts of injustice. Her emotions. I hope she feels rather satisfied that two out of five of her grandchildren turned to writing as both a hobby and a career. More than once I picture her smiling down on me and thinking, "You can't stop the writer in me, no matter how hard you try."

Pearl S. Buck penned it this way:

"Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment."

Like the baby whose cry isn't heard the first time around, she gasps for air, then cries even harder, louder, and with more strength. Self-expression can't be stopped, and it can't be silenced.

It Never Goes Away

I couldn't stop writing.

Because at age fourteen my life wasn't all that great, I designed stories in my 'journal' about one that was much improved. Attentive boyfriends that complimented me. Special awards. Friends that cared. It was all right there in the pages, and cathartic-ally so. My mind needed something happier than my reality.

Unbeknownst to me, my older sister was amusing herself daily by reading the ongoing entries. When she couldn't help but mention the name of my pretend beau on one of her weaker days, it was game over. I couldn't write any more hopeful fiction; the magic of that had faded. Years later when I was keeping some very secretive and truthful journals hidden away, my older sister still brought up my fiction.

Apparently it was good enough to have been memorable.


I rarely delved again into fiction; although I've been known to use the occasional embellishment. What good writer doesn't dress up a sentence whenever they can?

I kept myself busy with long letters to relatives and pen pals, and put my all into papers for school, which brought on a high school teacher's comment to my mother: "She writes very lucidly."

I, not accustomed to using words like 'lucidly', had to look that one up. It means bright, shining, transparent, readily understood, clearheaded and rational. In full disclosure, I looked that up just now as well.

I wrote a lot as a teen, but nothing I'd ever thought to have entered in a writing contest or anything. I was a closet writer, thanks to the incident with my sister's ridicule.

The years sped by and I was married, a young mother, a mother again, and a mother again. In between pregnancies I often worked full time doing various jobs, none of which I loved. I fell into professional cake decorating, daycare providing, scan coordinating, preschool teaching, and then doing the books for a business my husband and I started together. On top of that we built two houses and managed an acreage. Who had time for writing?

Yet the urge to really put my heart into it never went away.

How Did You Become A Writer?

Before anyone even begins to open their mouth to let the words, "So, how did you become a writer?" escape their lips, allow me to offer a warning.

It's a long story.

An interesting story? I think so.

Is it intriguing? Uh, sure, I suppose.

Does it have a good ending? The jury's still out on that one, because my story of writeousness is perpetual.

I discovered the power of words at my friend Yvette's house. Yvette lived in the projects and normally my parents wouldn't have let me sleep over at such a location, but Yvette's mom was attending our church's congregation and looked like a prime candidate for joining, so they allowed it, hoping, I guess, to win points. Yvette's brother Scotty, age 9, knew words I'd never heard before. I asked Yvette what they meant and she grinned and looked away from me, mumbling, "I'll have to tell you sometime later."

When I tried out one of the words in our gentler neighborhood setting, it was as if the world stopped turning. And not in a good way. My previously quiet and shy self had just created an impact like none other I'd been able to make previously. My mother was alerted (Thank you, snotty Kim that lived up the street. You always were a snitch) and steps were taken to assure that I'd not be using that particular verbage again in the future. At least not around snitches, anyway.

All I'll have to do is write the words 'middle child', and you'll get the basic picture. The oldest got the good grades, did her best to please the parents, was always the one winning awards in school and promotions at work. The younger ones were cute and got the attention. I was just sort of there. If I pouted, that might bring the adults around, but not for the long-term. If I tried to stand out, I was told I was showing off.

Here again, when it came to attention, words didn't fail me. No matter how faltering I was at math, science, or social studies, there was often that language teacher who couldn't help but say, "Your daughter seems to have a way with words."

At least I had something to cling to, although I had no idea how that was going to help me in a chaotic houseful of five children, two adults and a dog. I hadn't thought of it until just now; I should have maybe put out a newsletter.

My parents were strict. Unreasonably so, in my opinion. I thought my opinion of the level of strictness might eventually decrease as the years wore on and I got further and further away from childhood, but no. It hasn't. They were strict. Unreasonably so.

When I got poor marks my eighth grade year in mathematics, my father grounded me to my windowless basement level bedroom for the quarter. I could only come out of the room to eat, use the restroom, or shower. Phone calls, tv, and books that weren't textbooks were strictly off limits. Because I couldn't call anyone or receive phone calls, my circle of friends gradually decreased, then faded to a very weak trickle. Fourteen being an awkward age anyway, this was not helpful. School became a pretty lonely place, with no respite because home was that way, too.

I had to have an outlet. I turned to journaling. Writing something down in a notebook looks exactly the same as taking notes, if you've got a textbook out and opened. If my father looked in on me to see if I was hard at it, his eyes met the fact that I was. Hard at writing stories. About sad teenage girls trapped in basement bedrooms that had mean fathers. I wrote several of these novelettes over the course of the quarter, in notebooks that, once filled, I hid in my clothing drawers. And I pulled an A in math, since I wanted to see sunlight again.

Spend a few months in near solitary confinement with no one to express to but a notebook and a pen, and just see what happens. It couldn't help but solidify the writer in me.