Voyeurism is for Facebook.

You know how some people like to say that to write, they need to be depressed, or unhappy, or just generally bent out of shape to be able to do what they have to do? I've heard it a lot and I've never really bought into that. I've been writing more lately than I have in the last few months - nothing I am ready to share with anyone, but still, things are coming along, and on a whim I started a new story that takes on a subject I know practically nothing about - space travel!  

Anyway, that is one thing that is making me happy lately. Just being alone and writing. Lately I've felt pulled in so many different directions, it's nice to be able to shut my door at the end of the day and tune everyone and everything out and just write. Not on the blog obviously, because that's the thing, I guess. Some say they can only write when they are depressed, and maybe I can only blog when I'm really happy, which, all things considered, I haven't been lately.

I hate complaining on my blog, so I won't, other than to say: Stress sucks. Right?

I wasn't even going to post anything today. I thought about it, I logged in and thought about it.. and then I thought, who cares? No one is really reading anyway, right? So I wandered up to my site statisics and found something frankly distrubing. It looks like in the last week, someone has read my entire blog - including the poetry, including Vampire Zombies From Space. I don't know if this person was just clicking through or not, but dude. DUDE. Whoever you are out there, stop being a creeper and just say hello. Voyeurism is for Facebook. 

***

Oh, and another thing. I've been reading like a fiend and haven't been reviewing a damn thing. I must have read at least ten books since I updated my 52 Books challenge, and not having a list of what I've read is making me twitchy, especially since my friend Chana just started blogging and reviewing books and movies. Perhaps I will get my act together one of these days.. perhaps not.

ALIVE!

I'm not dead. By the lack of posts here in the last week or so, you might think otherwise, but I'm not dead. It does seem that the quest to blog for a year is dead - at least for the moment.

See, what happened was, is I got really busy with Scope Magazine. I mean, REALLY busy. It's like a full time job being a magazine editor, on top of my actual full time job, on top of being a parent and having a life and writing and reading as much as I do. As it happens, the first thing to go is usually the blogging. So a day passed without me posting, and then another, and then another, and now it's been, well, too long, I guess.

I admit, I am disappointed in myself for letting it go so long, especially after months of daily posting, but I am not going to let it get to me too much. Because really, working for Scope is making everything about my life lately just better in general. I've met new people that I really connect with and enjoy spending time with, I've reconnected with an old friend that I never really thought I'd see or talk to again, I'm working on something creative with like-minded individuals, which is something I've been wanting to happen in my life for ages.. And people are proud of me. Or impressed. Or both, as it were. I have people I barely know coming up to me and congratulating me on the job. I have people I don't know AT ALL coming up and introducing themselves to me because they want to connect with the magazine. I've found this new... sense of purpose, I guess. At least I found something to do that really validates ME. Something that I am proud of and happy about, something that I can throw myself into even after spending so much time throwing so many other things and people out of my life.

That, really, is the best thing. It's been months since I've felt like I've been wasting time doing things I want to be doing, and that in itself is an astounding award. Lately, I have been able to do what I wanted: pay attention to the small pleasures. I just finished crocheting Elise's blanket that I've been working on for two years, I've partied til the break of dawn, I screwed the diet and ate peanut butter and fluff sandwiches with glee, and I've been singing Britney Spears songs at the top of my lungs until my throat goes raw. I think I've said "I love you" enough to the right people, and certainly haven't said anything that I didn't mean.

What I've been is startlingly alive in a place that for so long has felt very dead, and what I've done is, I found myself living parallel to the way that my head has been saying it doesn't know how to comprehend, and I'm not sure what things are going to change from this moment on.

All I can say is that I really don't know what to say, because I'm pushing upward while looking downward and it's funny to me that I'm plunging happily through my experiences at the same time that I'm struggling with self-doubt larger than I've dealt with in a long time. I've reached that annoying point where those words ring out so beautifully and I'd love to start a day born without regret, but I'm not stupid enough to think that it's possible anymore.

There is always going to be something that I am doing wrong in someone's eyes, there is always something that I could be doing better - there is always going to be that nagging feeling that whatever it is, it's never enough. I guess I'm tired of this space being one of them.

i365

Since I don't have enough to do, I decided yesterday that I wanted to take a photo every day for a year with my iPhone. I figure since I've blogged every day for two consecutive months (boo-yea) why not get a little more creative? I've had an iPhone for years and I've always envied and admired people who had talent with their iPhone photography.. I am SO behind the times. And you know, just because it's me, my second picture of the ridiculous self-imposed challenge is NOT going to be a particularly good one.

I was too busy stuffing my face with little chocolate eggs to think about composing a shot, sorry.

You will be able to see all of these i365 photos on the handy dandy i365 page.

On(line) Identity

I have a lot of things to work out, here. Thankfully I have this blog. "They" say it's cheaper than therapy, and that's true, as far as I know and can guess, since I've never had actual therapy. But you know, talking to myself and whoever else might be reading and willing to comment, it helps sort things out in my head. Plus, on this particular issue, I really need some feedback.

I've been writing online in some form or another since 1999. Yeah. I can't tell you how much it hurts my heart that there isn't a thirteen year archive of stuff to prove that or show for it, but it is what it is, and I am really trying to change that now. However, I am having identity issues.

Let me first list the reason why I blog before I start getting into the issues about it:

1. To have a record of my life. This is, first and foremost, a journal.
2. To have a writing outlet. Sometimes just getting the fingers moving on the keyboard is enough to jumpstart my creativity and turn it into something bigger than just a simple blog post.
3. It has helped my writing immensely. I write more because of blogging, and writing more is the first step to writing better. Period.
4. It has juiced up my creativity because I have become aware of and involved with so many writing projects and memes and challenges - things that have not only improved my writing, but have led me to be able to network with so many other great writers.
5. It is starting to make me new friends - and really, that should be number two on this list. Because making online friends (at this point) is one of my biggest wants and desires - it's one of the biggest things I want to get out of blogging. 
6. It puts my name out there. Surprisingly enough, after years of being anonymous, I want to be known. I want people to know that I write and that I write well (in my opinion anyway) and I want for people who are interested in my writing to be able to come to this blog and find what they are looking for.
7. It helps me figure myself out - that's a no brainer, right? This blog is essentially a reflection of who I am - to a point. Of course there are things that are too personal to share, and like I always say, everyone has their secret lives, but still. Writing things out really does help figure things out.
8. It makes me realize that people are just people, and some of them we will get along with and love, and some we won't. And that's okay.

So now, I have two conundrums. The first is my online identity as a whole. I own five domains. I have at least five email addresses. I have two Twitter accounts - one with 495 followers (@vzfsblog) and one with 33 followers (@hellocheney). I need to CONSOLIDATE. But that's hard. In the next couple of weeks I am really going to try to consolidate everything into HELLOCHENEY land. I need to get the domain and use it here on the blog, and I have to get one of those about.me pages and use my cheney.me URL to direct anyone to my everything. That's the easy part.

The harder part? Finding my niche. Because I just don't have one, and things are about to get even more wonky up in here.

See, I write. Duh. I have a lot of short stories on here, a web serial (defunctish) and poetry. I blog about writing A LOT. So do I have a writer's blog?

I also write book reviews. Am I a book blogger?

I post a lot of links to music videos... but I KNOW I'm not a music blogger.

I'm a mom, but I'm reluctant to write about motherhood. Am I a blogging mom but NOT a mommyblogger?

And now, horror of horrors, I've joined Weight Watchers. Again. And I NEED to blog about it. I mean, I HAVE to, for me, to hold myself accountable and make myself successful. But am I a health blogger? Dear god, no.

My question is, what has happened to just regular old web journals about people, like the ones that were around in the early 2000s? Everyone has a niche now, and within those niches, friends and groups of friends seem to be borne.

Where do I fit in, is what I am asking? Anywhere? But more importantly - do I NEED to find myself a place to fit into? Or will people want to come and read what I am writing anyway, because, well, they like me?

It's hard to admit, I guess, that I am fishing for readers and a fellowship of followers around here. It's hard blogging every day and not seeing stats rise or comment sections left empty. Am I that boring? Or is it something else....

Hello.. you out there? Let me know..

Oh, the balls.

Three days away from the launch of the super secret project I have been working on... and I am stressed to the max. I should have gotten a lot more work done today but instead decided NOT to cancel my D&D plans, which turned out to be a great choice because it was decidedly the most fun night of encounters I have had to date. It also helps that I am beginning to get more of a grasp on things.. 

Also, I'll be writing a big post tomorrow on the state of the blog and life and what I want to do with those things, so. Yeah. If there is anyone out there listening, I'll want your comments tomorrow!

Where am I?

So, it's February. Oh, time.

An old friend of mine, Brad, used to yell at me every time I made a comment about how time feels like it's flying by so fast. "Time never goes faster or slower," he'd argue. "Time is just arbitrary numbers we give to to sunsets and sunrises." Which, yes, it could be true.

I hear there are people in the world who argue that time as we know it isn't really a straight line that we imagine it being, that it twists and curves and folds in on itself, and that's why when we look back at our memories we sometimes have trouble remembering what came first in any sequence of events to lead us to where we are now, at whatever particular moment in time. 

Sometimes I wish there were more hours to a day, or that sleeping wasn't necessary - at all. As much as I hate to leave the comfort of a warm bed on a cold morning in winter, a bigger part of me always resents that moment in the wee hours of the morning when I have to tell myself that it's time to lay down and give up the day, and it always pisses me off, because very infrequently do I feel like I've done enough with the hours I had, or at least did enough of the things I wanted to do with them.

This blog, I'm not using it like it should be used. I'm not saying the things I should be and want to be saying because within all of us there are secrets and in my case they can't be given up, even though I'm coming to realize that one of the secrets I am keeping is shaping my life into something I don't understand and haven't been able to come to terms with. 

What things do you hold on to and what do you give away? What does it mean to be authentic in a place where you are still constantly admitting that you are a secret keeper because some things just can't be discussed online or with anyone else in your life? And really in the end, what does that matter?

I could tell you about how this morning as I was walking in to work there was shattered glass in the parking lot, and the clear shards I stepped around twinkled in the sun and momentarily blinded me, and I was half annoyed and half amazed that trash really can be beautiful. I could tell you that I have listened to Britney Spears pretty much non-stop today and her music does more for my mood than chocolate or sex put together. I could tell you that in the last week I've panicked over my financial situation, and that I am not proud of the fact that the only snacks Elise has to take to school right now are string cheese sticks and baggies of mommy's cereal, and that we've eaten pasta with butter and cheese for days on end because putting gas in my car to get to work takes precedence over grocery shopping, and the cost of milk and fuel only rises. 

I could tell you anything, is my point, and I usually don't because I am hiding behind this wall of fear. Fear like I've always had as a writer on the internet - of being rejected by people who know me. Fear of being considered a fraud or a fake, because even if those things aren't true, they are impossible to defend against when you don't have a posse to back you up, to explain things to people who don't understand.

I don't know where I am now on this life journey we all have going on, but I'm starting to understand, slowly and painfully, who I am. That's something.

Goodbye, Susan.

Lots of pressure lately to get things done with not enough inspiration to go around for all the balls in the air. 

I'm so excited to be working on something that is important but at the same time I feel anxious because my own creative endeavors are suffering for it. No writing challenges, fluff blog posts, nothing real or of substance.

And then, tonight, playing our first game of a new D&D campaign, I took a minute to check Facebook and was met with sadness. 

Goodbye, Susan, goodbye.

I didn't know her. Which is to say, I never met her. But I did know her, through years of reading her words and occasionally commenting, and then one day recently, like a gift, she commented back. She came here, to my home. She let herself in the back door. She read words that meant something to me, and shared her thoughts. She reached out and touched me. And now she's gone. 

So, take her husband's words to heart. Honor her. Go out and make a difference somewhere, anywhere, for anyone.