Category: writing

Posted in #Confessions, writing

Author’s Stepping Stone by Ginger Keller Gannaway

Posted on by gingerkellergannaway

Nancy and I are gathering and polishing our favorite posts for a publishable book of essays. Research tells us we need to create an author’s platform before we reach out to literary agents. Most editors advise boosting our social media presence. Some say using WordPress sites (like sittinuglysistahs.com) are worthless unless you have at least 20,000 followers. Our blog has 269 subscribers, and it takes longer for me to “publish” an essay than it takes me to write and revise it. 

On comic Hasan Minhaj’s The King’s Jester special, he asked an audience member, “What are the most likes you ever got on a photo?” When the guy hesitantly answered, “86,” Minhaj exclaimed, “If I only got 86 likes on a photo, I’d kill myself!”
 
Should I start stockpiling sleeping pills because I’ve never had more than 32 likes on a photo?

Yosemite’s Half Dome in January (by Gary McClain Gannaway)

For Nancy and me, building a decent author’s platform is as scary as scaling Yosemite’s Half Dome at midnight in winter without a harness, safety cables, or climbing rope. I have no interest in Pinterest; I’ve never been on Instagram on purpose; I don’t know how to get on TikTok, and I joined Twitter ten years ago because a tweet was limited to 140 characters and I could read actual quotes from my idols Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. Also, I didn’t join Facebook until all the cool kids got off of it.

Create a platform?! I’ll never create more than an author’s stepping stone in a Texas creek during the August drought with nothing but snakes and grackles as my audience. Or considering my Cajun side, I’ll try balancing on a cypress stump in Bayou Fou-Fou where mosquitos attack so fast I can only remain on that wooden platform for three minutes before I’m weak from blood loss.

I yearn to, like Walt Whitman,’“sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world,” yet I cannot get used to not being heard. Our Sittin’ Ugly Sistahs  posts may get twelve likes and seven comments on our blog. Facebook may get over fifty likes and twenty comments. I treasure our regular readers, and I keep on writing because I love to write. However, we lack the skill to boost our numbers.

Last week Nancy and I got advice from a social media expert – someone under thirty-five who knows his way around technology. We weren’t sure what plug-ins were and didn’t know how to delete info. on our blog that was just taking up space. For a large cup of coffee, our guru convinced us to expand our outreach with Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. When I suggested trying TikTok, both he and Nancy gave me “you got to be kidding” stares. 

Therefore, I’ll balance on my stepping stone in the rushing, murky waters of social media and post more content, and I’ll hope for new followers and settle for not embarrassing myself worse than the time I asked my high school students to explain hash tags. “But why smash all the words together? What do hashtags accomplish and why include a list of them?” The freshmen had tried giving me examples, modeling how to create them, and even retaught me how to use them on a blog post. In a teacher-becomes-the student moment, I blinked at their excellent teaching methods but lied when I said, “Thanks. Now I understand.”

Today I will boldly step onto my next social media stepping stone. I may not ever get across the bayou because I’ll likely splash into the murky water; however, I will not drown. I’ll float on my back and let the Instagram pictures and YouTube videos carry me to new places. Maybe I’ll pick up friends and followers along the way. And against all odds, Nancy and I may write something that gets a three digit number of likes! #ItsWorthAShot #WeBelieveInMiracles 

Posted in writing

A Writer’s Soul by Nancy Malcolm

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            Writing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I had a white ‘My Diary’ journal in sixth through eighth grade.  It had a tiny key so I could lock up my secrets safely from prying eyes.  I’m positive I wrote about daily occurrences and boys I liked or who said what about something or other.  I wish I could remember what happened to ‘My Diary’.  Maybe it made it to a landfill somewhere, fully intact, secrets safely hidden.   Maybe I dramatically ripped out each page and tore it into a million pieces to protect my thoughts… I  don’t recall its demise.

            Once, I came across some writings from high school where I had copied the words from songs. During one particular romance, it was that song by the Turtles: “Imagine me and you…I do.  I think about you day and night, it’s only right…. So happy together!”  The name of the boy is nowhere on the pages, and quite possibly he didn’t even make it to the end of the song, but I had pages of songs written out.  I must have listened to my albums playing over and over to get the words, because there was certainly no google lyrics to look up.

            In my early twenties, my then husband and I tragically experienced the stillbirth of our first daughter together.  The months afterward were dark for me, and I have since found the poems I wrote during that time.  The poetry of my grief was written in sprawling handwriting on sheets of stationary and somehow, I preserved them, guarding my grief like the protective mother I wanted to be.  I still feel the sadness written onto those pages.  It rises from each word like heat off a summer sidewalk.

            I saved the hysterical letters I later got from my girls when they were at summer camp.  I’m sure my letters to them were discarded long ago, but theirs are short and confessional.

Dear Mom, I’ve worn the sme cloths evryday, but they made us take showers and eat cantelope.  Send stamps!  Luv, Courtney

           Sittin’ Ugly Sistahs, the antics of life that Ginger and I share with you, as well as the birth of my memoir, I Thought It Was You are recent projects that fill me with joy and at times, angst. I feel as though to write is to live.  To breathe is to write.  Words scrawl across my mind like an old-fashioned typewriter clicking away.  The one thing that remains the same is my fear at being vulnerable and, in contrast, the exhilaration of facing my fear.

            I’ve learned an awful lot about myself since beginning this writer’s path.  I’ve seen boldness and shyness live on the same page.

I’ve pushed myself to see parts of my life I long ago buried.

I’ve resurrected bravery.

I’ve accepted that not everyone wants to read what I have written, and I’m learning not to take that personally because I have to write.  It’s part of who I am.  And whether trolls on the internet agree with me or not, I am a writer.

Whether an agent takes my book or not, I am a writer.

Whether my husband, children or grandchildren ever read a word I’ve written or not, I am a writer.

Whether somedays I don’t believe it myself, and my inner critic is screaming ‘You’re Not Good Enough!!’ I am a writer.

I am a writer with a writer’s soul.

I am a writer.

 “I can shake off everything as I write, my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”

Anne Frank