february 06
the nature of the blog
by katey schultz

This is not the first time I swore I wouldn’t do something, and then turned around and did it. When I was in grade school, my best friend Jennie Winfree and I swore we would not sneak out of bed at night and steal my mother’s chocolate stash out of the cabinet above the refrigerator. Of course, we did again and again. In high school I swore I’d never start smoking, then I went ahead and started. (Thankfully, I later swore I’d quit, and I did that, too.) In college there was no way I was “going Greek,” as they say. But when it came to Friday and Saturday nights my freshman year, where did I often find myself? You guessed it.

The good thing about having a stubborn personality is that it is usually paired with determination. As an adult, determination convinced me that I could make it as a writer, one baby step at a time, until I finally gave up full-time work to make time for freelancing. Ironically, I found myself almost immediately where I started when it came time to produce new material. I swore up and down that I would never, ever, start a blog. “That’s for arrogant people.” I would say. “Or for people who like to share useless information.”

But au contraire. What I soon discovered, living in a quiet, secluded cabin at the base of the Black Mountains, is that a writer needs an audience. Once a writer can imagine an audience, there are limits to what can and cannot be said. All of the sudden rules form and demand critical thought and creativity in order to work with or around them. By starting a web log, or blog, I had to imagine that anyone I knew from any point in my life could discover it at any time. Within these limitations, ironically, I found the freedom to write.

I began on July 29th, 2005 with five simple rules that have carried me through more than 150 pages of new content (single spaced), multiple contacts from editors, several published essays, and profound lessons about the development of my own writer’s voice. I initially began posting on Live Journal, and for convenience, now post the same content on Blogger, as well.

Here’s the way I set it up at thewritinglife2.blogspot.com

My Five Precepts of Blogging

1) Write 250-1,000 words per night, no matter what.
2) Post first drafts only. No going back. Ever.
3) Write each blog entry in under 30 minutes (so, never over explain).
4) Never blog about your blogging. That’s boring and egotistical.
5) Be nice, fair, and honest – without selling out.

To date, blogging under these guidelines has been one of the most beneficial daily writing practices I’ve ever committed to. It is an exercise in anti-perfectionism, discipline, and practice that has the potential the change ordinary life commentary into creative writing that flows and paints a unique picture of the world.

For freelancers, a very important part of this pact is rule number three. Freelancing takes time, energy, availability, and research skills (to name a few things). It is very important to keep blogging time separate from freelance time. The blog world is full of temptations and time-wasters. If you’re not careful, you can end up putting in a lot more than you get out of it. This is why I choose to blog at the end of my day, outside of my work hours and outside of my freelance and grant project hours.

For people who are new to the blogging world, the best way to get started is to start reading. Limit yourself to one or two hefty online sessions of browsing different blog hosts such as: Blogger, Live Journal, and TypePad. There is a lot of bad writing out there, some decent writing, and occasional gems. Find some gems, click on the user’s icon or name to read more about him or her. Decide where your blog entries might fit in the most. As you browse, also take note of different layout and page display options available on each of the sites. A page that is easy to read and looks interesting makes all the difference in the world when it comes to attracting readers and keeping them. (For an excellent article on how to attract more traffic to your blog, see Biz Stone’s essay at help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060&topic=35.)

Once you decide which blog host suits your style, you are ready to start a free account and begin “posting,” as they say. If you’re taking My Five Precepts of Blogging, it can’t hurt to write them down in your user profile when you begin your account, so that your readers will understand your purpose. If you have other guidelines in mind that better suit your interests and needs (for example, posting once a week instead of once a day), develop those, tweak them until they’re right, and go with it. Once you get savvy with the ins and outs of posting, you can link to other blogs and credit your sources of inspiration and information by adding links into your profile and entries.

Happy blogging!

Katey’s Fave Links:

diggingwithspoon.blogspot.com
(Kathy Hauswirth)

apt2024.blogspot.com
(Marisa McClellan)

livejournal.com/users/brittkylee
(Britt Kaufmann)

fundsforwriters.com
(Hope Clark’s ultimate source for freelancers, including free e-newsletters)

 

First Seven Blogs of 2006
by Katey Schultz
1/1

For once, I receive multiple invitations to New Year’s Eve parties. I choose the one that is just two miles down the mountain and a few hundred yards up river from where I live. Most of my friends from my pre-freelancing job will be there, and so will my family. I wear my hiking boots because I know I’ll be doing a lot of walking on gravel roads and old trails I still know by heart. It is a mountain party, so I know that noisemakers will consist of uncooked bean kernels in mason jars. I know there will be dogs at the party and a campfire and the burning of old Christmas trees to entice the flames into a seething bonfire. There might also be a few former Boy Scouts there, now grown into sexy Carhartt-wearing mountain men, and there will be a handful of my favorite girlfriends too.

I drink white wine. I drink hard cider. I drink champagne. I taste homebrew. (All of this and I am hypoglycemic.) Midnight comes before we know it and we forget to countdown, but on cue everyone shouts: “Happy New Year! Feliz Nuevo Ano! Cuba Libre!” The last phrase, loosely translated as “Free Cuba,” is a token phrase from the host’s recent honeymoon in Mexico. This was the Spanish translation of his favorite drink, Rum and Coke, and somehow it became our mantra as the party rolled into 2006.
After midnight, the real party begins. We dance to MC Hammer, House of Pain, Beastie Boys. There are Christmas tree humpers and dogs barking and Todd dresses up in his fat-boy air-pumped farmer’s costume so everyone can joke about his butt. Lexa coaches us through old dances: the Kit ‘n’ Play, the Shopping Cart, etc. We are fearless, blind, full of fun and trust and love and utterly carefree.

At some point into 2006 Lexa and I toast around the campfire out back to being single. We are, after all, the only two single women at the entire party. I chuckle a little to myself, knowing that we shared one man (for a millisecond) in common this year, then toast again, to the past and in praise of the future. “Onward!” I shout to the fire, to the two of us, to Orion and Casiopia.

Our Grand Finale is marked by Peter’s completely illegal fireworks display, promised to be bigger than last year. He, Todd, and the crew drop down into Lower Field and begin lighting the night sky. For at least twenty minutes the Milky Way is rivaled by some of Chicago’s most illustrious, behind the scenes, light show luminescence. The show is interrupted twice to stomp out five or six small fires in that have sparked in the field.

Oops. Overall, the show is unimagineable, gargantuan, irreplicable.
When all is said and done, Peter marches up the railroad tie steps to the campfire and is greeted by an ally of drunk onlookers, who gratefully pass him their bottles, toss up their hands, and cheer him on.

1/1 (cont'd)
I spent the afternoon babysitting one of my students, Sophia, who is six-years-old. Her favorite song is “On Top of Spaghetti,” and I know this ahead of time so I make sure to bring my guitar and songbook for the occasion. Sophia is Chinese and was adopted four years ago by two loving, artist parents who live in the valley.
She has deep brown hair that is unceasingly straight and extends all the way down to her bottom. Her manner of speech is very matter-of-fact and articulate, but she has a slight r-lisp that she hasn’t outgrown yet.

“Let’s play faiwies, Katey!” she squeals through the screen door, coaxing me outdoors. She leads me through all the trails in her backyard, up to her mother’s art studio, and then back down along the creek bed. Along the way she points out little fairy huts that she has made in the woods out of twigs and pine needles. We find a patch of sun at the edge of a rhododendron thicket and get to work.

“We need to make them acorn soup, like this, see?” She gathers dried oak leaves and crumples them into a small pocket in the dirt. Next we crack acorn shells and peal the meaty hearts out to add to our soup. I suggest that we need a little more color, and she agrees. We gather green pine needles and stir them in.

For over an hour we crawl through the forest in Sophia’s dream fairyland, hiding and singing and gathering and building. It is a joy to be led by this little person and to share her dreamland.

Would that life were this simple again.

1/2
Standing in line at the grocery store behind a woman who is hauling one large bunch of collard greens the size of a small child over each shoulder. Her five-year-old tugs at her heels, carrying nearly ten pounds of black-eyed peas. In the South, eating these foods on New Year’s Day will bring health, wealth, and good luck.

Hog Jowls appear in the produce section of the grocery store. Apparently they’re “in season.” I try not to be grossed out when I accidentally knock an entire pile of them onto the floor while reaching for the bananas. Thankfully, they’re shrink-wrapped and can still be sold. “Customer service in the Produce Section please, hog jowls are rolling all over the place.”

Kissing Evan for the first time and finding it difficult to stop, then blaming this on his Italian testosterone and the good fortune of running into each other on New Year’s Day. Later, shuddering at the memory of how he kisses with his entire body, hands, torso, mind. Wondering if this is the beginning of, say, Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” or the roller coaster of an album, Desire.

Receiving a phone call from Auntie Loon, who waxes poetic for forty-five minutes about the writing samples I sent her for Christmas. Tapping my pencil on the desk while she asks me questions about “process,” and wondering to myself: Will this be the year that I get a book published? Is it possible to be committed to the memoir and work part time? Should I publish a book of blogs? Will I get into grad school? Should I go if I do?

Next-to-free Yoga classes begin and will continue all winter at the local community center run by a land-share community across the river from where I live. The instructor is a visionary, well-meaning Hindu genius whose style resembles “military Yoga” more than anything else. My muscles ache to think of the first class tomorrow night, for which I am registered.

Two rejection letters with apologies from editors who stutter about being understaffed and overwhelmed because of the holiday season. Two positive replies to queries from editors who, appearing to have taken time off, returned to work today and sent pleasant replies my way via email.

1/3
The silver, smiling moon is waxing its way to fullness and in the dim halo of its light, I can just make out the rest of its grey, round body. After several days of rain, with every creek in the valley sweating along its banks, the sun showed itself this afternoon like a child peeking her head out from behind clouds of bed sheets. From my gravel driveway I can see the Milky Way and am reminded of Kathryn Stripling Byer’s “Piece of Cake” poem (poet laureate of North Carolina), equating the sweet power of poetry with homemade Milky Way cake.

After yoga class, the noise of the world and the noise in my head often seem paradoxically muted and crisp at the same time. The ocean of thoughts in my mind calms down as my body relaxes, and I am not pulled by the undertow of life. Instead, I can hear cleanly and clearly, then decide without effort what to let my mind react to and what to simply let go of. Tonight I choose to be swayed by the sea of stars above my head, the happy moon, and the ease of snuggling down onto the futon with a cup of tea. It is nice, also, to have companionship, fresh and unsure as it still is.
Work begins again tomorrow and I am already excited to hold the tiny hands of my students as they step out of the parents’ cars and into the classroom. Because of snow days, our vacation was almost three weeks long. With the exception of one babysitting appointment, I have not had any little kid time since then. Before turning out the light tonight I’m setting the intention to carry this yoga-calm feeling with me for as long as I can into tomorrow. This way, maybe, just maybe, the sweetness of their crescent moon smiles will remind me to connect each breath, each act, with the entire universe.

1/4
Paul Desmond’s “Take Ten” album is like a gentle sauna of sleep: soothing, soft, sophisticated. His jazz is the kind of music that doesn’t demand your attention when it’s on, but is sorely missed if it’s off. It is difficult not to pause and sway a little in time with the beat while, say, walking toward the kitchen sink to scrub a sweet potato. Or maybe you find yourself lost in the activity of cleaning your toes, cupping your fingers around their tips to keep them warm, and then deciding to lie down and just listen. The grogginess of sleep deprivation can slip off the body like satin under the spell of Desmond’s trills and melodies. Listening to his music, all of this can happen without any sort of conscious recognition of the level of relaxation you’re approaching.
Suddenly you find yourself spinning a web of words in your mind, like a poem that turns into itself. Or maybe a canvas wraps around your field of vision, paint smoothly pressing along its surface with each flinch of the retina. When one form of art inspires another, there is perhaps something divine at play in the interaction. There is no language for English meeting Russian, just as there is no language for the unspoken power of music co-mingling the mind’s thought-tremors and internal movies. The mystery is actually born and lived in an in-between land of both genres. And the moments, as they tick by unnoticed on the metronome, are as immeasurable as a grain of sand (though not for lack of size).

1/6
New Steps?
I have been over pouring my tea all week. This is what happens when I get lustful and a man gets under my skin. I’ve walked into branches more than once—branches, mind you, that I previously warned visitors about because I was so practiced in avoiding them. One morning at work, I had to return to my car three separate times due to forgetfulness.

Add to that a mix of germs from the kids all week, and I might as well be walking sideways. At the school, our students have been puking left and right the last two days. I’m crossing my fingers that I’m not next. Right before little kids puke they get the most lonely, helpless look on their faces. It’s almost reaching, terrified, yet, eager for relief. I have recently discovered that this face instantly triggers a mothering instinct in me that I previously denied. For the child, throwing up literally “brings up” something. Assisting in the deed by holding a little one’s hair back as she instinctually heaves over a toilet bowl, now brings up a hazy vision of some distant family life I might call my own. Before, I would just think of holding my friends’ hair back in college.
A lot is changing. Tonight marks my first night out of my little cabin and into the big house (just sixty feet through the woods) for the winter. Here, I will housesit for three months for the landlords as part of my “rent” for the smaller unit. More importantly, here, there is running hot water and full indoor plumbing (yes, that means toilet and bath). Oh Lord, washing the dishes tonight was heavenly.

1/7
Lucky (and Thankful)
Everything about today has appealed to the senses. I woke to a rosy pink sunset across the face of the Black Mountains. In the loft of the big house, the bed faces this ancient range and I left the curtains open last night in anticipation of the early morning light. The hue of the sunrise this morning is a color belonging distinctly to the Black Mountains. I have lived in, backpacked through, and photographed dozens of other mountain ranges in the United States and only seen this watercolor marmalade-pink color here.

It warms the peaks gently, and only on the surface. I imagine the mountains craning their necks towards the rays of light, arching their backs and swelling their creeks under its warmth. And the color, unlike other sunrises, lasts. It is possible to watch this sunrise for half an hour, to make a cup of tea and return to the window for gazing, or even, to make love while the colors unfold and maybe, just maybe, they will be waiting there for you when you’re finished.

I closed the day with a hot soak in the tub. After six months of life without hot water or a bathroom, this simple act felt like sheer gluttony. Carefully pouring handmade bath crystals from Jenn into the steamy water, I then lowered myself in to bask in the lavender-mint vapor. Norah Jones was on repeat play through my iPod, her simple sexiness as clear as water. All of this, and a glass of Australian Shiraz in my hand, made for a very relaxing evening.

This is what it takes in order to remain creative. In The Artists’s Way course I learned experientially about the correlation between self-care and creative power. The two are linked together as if in a chain. One cannot be nurtured without the other. Equally, when one is ignored, the other suffers.

Tomorrow is Sunday but there is work to be done. I have three lessons to plan for my students, a Buddhist mind-training class to prepare for, and instruments to practice. Additionally, there will be writing tasks (not ordinarily occurring on Sundays) to make up for my sluggishness earlier this week.

 

Katey Schultz is a freelance writer and tutor living in Celo, North Carolina. Her current project highlights the salient aspects of adolescence, combining her memoirs with informal research conducted in local schools. To contact Katey, visit thewritinglife2.blogspot.com and post a comment. If you decide to start a blog and use My Five Precepts of Blogging or a similar version, Katey would appreciate a link to her page or this article as the original source for the idea.