Category Archives: journal

Hopelessly Excited

I just got my first article accepted for publication! I received the email from the editor just a few minutes ago, and it hasn’t completely sunk in, and I am so excited I can barely type in coherent sentences, which is rather ironic considering the reason for this post, but I am practically bouncing off the walls! It won’t appear for several months, but that doesn’t matter, it is an article, in a reputable publication!And I need to calm down before I give myself a heart attack and end up with a posthumously published article.

There are two things wrong with it that need to be corrected before anything can go further.

The first is a very easy fix. Instead of double spacing, I spaced it 1.5. I am not sure why I did that. Also, don’t they reformat for publication anyway? Actually, what do I know? As I said, easy fix.

The second problem, however, is kind of a big deal. I didn’t know I did this, but I didn’t follow standard MLA citation. As far as I know I combed through this thing a zillion times for that very reason. I consulted the MLA handbook more times than I can remember. And I failed.

It is a little frightening because if I haven’t figured out MLA by now, I am kind of screwed. If what I have done so far isn’t good enough, then I don’t even know where to begin.

She said they really like the piece, but what if they won’t publish it because I can’t put the parentheses in the right place? Yes, I know this sounds hilarious, except right now I am not laughing. I am too excited to think straight, so trying to go over it tonight is futile.

I at least want to email her back tonight, but I haven’t the slightest clue what to say. Um… “thank you for letting me know.” No.

At work people always say my emails sound curt. I am not being curt, I just don’t know how to properly communicate. I either ramble on and on (i.e. every blog post I have ever written), or I send out one sentence responses.

I was able to email her in the first place because my email was a cover letter. I can do cover letters. But to promise proper MLA revision? I don’t know how to do that without sounding like an idiot. Not to mention, if I couldn’t do it right the first time, what makes anyone think I can do it right the second time?

I am hopeless.

And ridiculously excited.

 

I Had A Purpose

I started blogging a little under two years ago after I had my daughter. At that point I never saw myself as a full time blogger, nor did I really think I would end up with my own blog. I was blogging for Yahoo! Shine.
As a new mom I had a lot to say about my newfound role, and I saw blogging as a medium to vent, inspire, inform, and vent some more. Originally I started writing in a journalistic sense, and by this I mean as a way of keeping a journal, not what you would first think. Because I am no journalist.
Oddly enough, the more I wrote, the more I realized that most of the topics I had originally wanted to write about were really not that writable. The online world is smaller than you would think and voicing my opinions would, a lot of the time, offend others. In fact, I realized this very early on, when my posts were racking in several hundred, to even several thousand, comments on Yahoo!, and sometimes make front pages news due to their controversial nature. Hubby and I would joke about how I had a knack for pissing off people. And the funny thing was, I was actually censoring myself! Had I spelled out exactly what I thought, I might have inadvertently started an online war and find myself banished from the online community altogether. Or even worse, offend those closest and most important to me, and find myself exiled from family and friends.
So I channeled my writing into different directions, and found ways to teach and sometimes motivate. Honestly, I have no idea how the latter happened. But it did, and it was awesome! It still is. Whenever I get a message thanking me for something I wrote, or a comment letting me know I have made someone laugh, it makes me smile.
Yes, I had a purpose when I first started writing. It was a selfish purpose which never truly got fulfilled. I may not always be able to say exactly what I feel. Some topics are, and always will be, off limits. But I could not be happier with the outcome. And thankfully I have a very close and dear friend to me who listens to all my rambles on an almost weekly basis. I guess that makes her my human blog? No? Ok.
How do you vent your frustration with… well everything? Do you write it down? Is it private or do you share?