Month: February 2016

I would categorize myself as an Extroverted Introvert (yes, it’s a thing). Most people would be surprised at the Introvert part because I’m generally very social. However, like most Introverts, I absolutely must have my recharge time. Now, even being social, I’m not one who enjoys talking on the phone under most circumstances. Yesterday was one of those days, tho, when I simply did not want to talk to anyone. At all. No texts, no emails, nothing. I decided to bury myself in writing and sat down to write a blog post.

And so I sat there, intermittently playing Candy Crush and waking my computer to look at a blank screen. I didn’t want to write a blog post. I mean I really didn’t want to. Irritated at what I labeled writer’s block, I put the laptop aside, grabbed my journal, and started writing about not wanting to write. Lemme tell ya, the words flowed like hot lava. WTH? I realized, in and through my furious journaling, that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to write — I didn’t want to talk to my blog audience.

This epiphany made me look at other times I thought I suffered from writer’s block. Could it be, I wonder, that I slip into writing for a specific audience instead of just writing the story? Hrm.. me thinks we’re onto something.

Perhaps I’ve been in the technical/business/non-fiction writing realms too long. The first rule in that type of writing is to know your audience. With fiction, there are no rules. Okay, I know that’s not literally true – there are definitely some rules, or at least guidelines. Obviously if you’re writing a genre like children’s lit, you need to write for that type of reader, letting this guide your language choices and style and rhythm and whatnot. But in the grander scheme, do fiction writers write for their audiences? I’m intrigued by this idea and have made mental notes start keeping a closer eye on it. For a true extrovert, having an audience in mind may actually help. All of this stream of consciousness is purely theory salted with speculation. I’d be interested in knowing if anyone else experiences this type of mental block. The next time I’m trying to avoid writing I’ll have to do a bit of research to see if there’s anything out there on this topic.

There is ALWAYS something to do in Columbia, South Carolina, which is one of my favorite things about living here. Today we chose a regular family favorite, the Soda City, our awesome weekly street market, where we ran into a friend of my husband’s from college, local artist Sean McGuinness. We didn’t bring the puppies this time since we were meeting a friend for lunch, but Soda City is a great, dog-friendly event that lets Fido get his social fix, too. Unfortunately, Riverfront Park remains closed from the historic flooding we had last Fall, but I’m looking forward to this summer we can combine a run along the canal with the dogs and a trip to Soda City.

Along with the street market we visited a few of the great stores along Main Street. Valentine’s Day weekend or not, we would have stopped Sylvan’s Jewelers, to see their recent remodel, which is stunning – I was so happy to see the character of the original store remain. I’ll have to post about them again when they update their website with new pics. After showing infinite patience while we did some Valentine’s Day shopping, the kids begged for a stop into Mast General Store to sample the barrel candy, and how could we possibly deny them? Point of interest: Mast General is dog-friendly, so feel free to let Fido get his shopping on, too!

For lunch, we chose Michael’s Cafe, which is definitely a favorite of mine as evidenced by how many of our Girls on the Run lunchtime meetings “happen” to get scheduled there. We met up with a friend who lives downtown and I finally got to see her lovely apartment with all its exposed brick… sadly, just as she packs up to move back to DC. Living in the downtown Columbia area has become the ‘thing’ to do, and this has really revitalized the area in the past few years. Turns out I know several people in the building, but that shouldn’t surprise me since Columbia, while a large capital city, feels a lot like a small town.

Overall, we had a very nice Saturday morning to kickstart the weekend. We have lots of domestic/family stuff to do or we could have enjoyed ourselves downtown all day. There just so much about ‘Famously Hot’ Columbia to talk about and to recommend – way more than this tiny sampling.  We have the State Museum, the art museum, the zoo, the children’s museum, the Nickelodeon Theatre, the historic district, the Vista, Five Points, Koger Center, the SC Philharmonic, the Trustus Theatre, Colonial Life Arena, the Town Theatre, the Village Square Theatre… it goes on and on. And the restaurants! Haven’t even started listing the restaurants. I feel the same way about my other home of Knoxville, Tennessee and could probably support a blog writing about just those two places. Maybe I’ll make a couple categories and make them semi-regular topics and show my cities some love.

Ah, grad school. It’s funny how much perspective we gain with time and distance, isn’t it? Petty things like tests and grades seemed end-all-be-all important back then. When, in the course of my daily life today, will I ever need to be able to translate passages of literature into English? And if I did, why would’t I just use Google Translate?

I did love graduate school and I miss being a creative writing major… when I read 2 or 3 books every week and writing was my whole world. I loved the daily camaraderie with fellow students and professors and even though I stay in touch with many of them, it’s just not the same.

So anyway… that’s where Erika for President came from and I love it. My brother (who is an amazingly talented artist and is also currently writing his own novel but needs to update his blog) still “gets” me. The other day he sent me a text at nearly midnight to alert me about a couple of typos on my blog that, of course, I had to fix right then and there.

Perfectionism is a bitch, ain’t it?

But, even though I still have to spell everything right (yes, even in texts I capitalize sentences and use punctuation), I have mellowed considerably when it comes to “perfection” … especially in writing. What I have come to realize since grad school is that there’s no such thing as perfect – often because of subjectivity. I know there will be people who love what I write and people who don’t. I’m okay with that. I know that I’ll look back at something I wrote, like the passage above, and think of all kinds of ways I could edit it that may, or may not, improve it… until more time passes and the eyes of an older me see even more ways to edit it. I think this realization has triggered my desire to write fiction again after so many years of writing non-fiction.

I am Erika for President – I represent the writers and my platform is that whatever you write can only ever be as “perfect” as it is in that moment – with what you know then and have experienced up to that time then. Whomever reads it will bring their own experiences and their interaction with what you wrote will be personal to them – and some will like it while some won’t. And guess what? With the perspective of time and distance, you won’t even care. It just won’t matter to your future self the way it churns your stomach up today, so just let go of it. All of it. Let go of all of your critics, especially the one inside your own head.

TRUE STORY: Sometimes the mean girls help us see the David Bowie in ourselves.

Source: TRUE STORY: Mean Girls and Revelations

Photo post by @jackmjack.

Source: Mark Twain “Writing Is Easy”