Tag Archives: blogging

End-of-year Blog Settings

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Re-calibrating my blog settings.

Re-calibrating my blog settings.

After publishing like clockwork for 50+ weeks since last year at this time (I think I’ve varied twice), the week following Christmas finds my blog schedule set on “random.”

How was everyone’s holiday? Despite my downer post, pre-Christmas, I actually rallied Christmas Eve and managed to keep the cheer rolling through Christmas Day. Perhaps it was my sister’s Baumer Bingo and assorted prizes (although, I came up empty). It might have been my ability to “screw up” whatever emotion is called for, whether I’m “feeling it,” or not. It might have simply been the magic of Cointreau and some holiday cocktails I tossed together over the two days of our holiday celebration.

Spending December 25th at the beach was a new experience. Miss Mary and I drove to Popham Beach State Park, along with what seemed to be everyone else in Southern Maine, as 60 degree December weather doesn’t happen every year on Christmas. Cars were lining the road as we approached the park gate (locked, as all park personnel had the day off). Many others decided to take their afternoon celebrations to the seashore. Continue reading →

“D” is for Discipline

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Discipline is an old-fashioned word. It belongs to the time before everyone’s shortcomings got filed under disease, disability—or better—blamed on someone else or a societal injustice. To use “discipline” in a sentence or conversation is a great way to get you branded as an anachronism.

That’s fine. There are some things that can’t be fixed without traditional approaches.

I was thinking about this as I was swimming my lengths in the YMCA pool, part of my twice-weekly routine that I’ve adopted to remain fit and flexible. I rarely am excited when I wake up at 4:30 to be in the car by 5:15 (that’s AM, not PM!) to do something that three years ago I considered impossible. But when I’m done, I’m thankful for the intrinsic motivation that got me up and out the door.

Discipline means having your own personal drill sergeant.

Discipline means having your own personal drill sergeant.

Continue reading →

I Don’t Want to Hear It

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We all have opinions. Most of us have strongly-held ones. The desire to share my opinions, as well as some of what I thought was foundational information behind those opinions, were reasons why I started blogging back in 2003.

I still have opinions. Many of them have evolved over time. Having an opinion and sharing it is also seems fraught with danger, 12 years later. Now, I’m less likely to add my two cents worth to whatever battle is being waged over symbols, or people’s preferences.

Being hesitant to weigh-in on the Battle Royale raging at the moment also leaves a limited amount of topics to write about at times, or so it seems. Also, that’s what Facebook and Twitter are for. Spending time wasting words via a blog seems so 2006. No one seems interested anymore in reading several hundred words. 140-character tweets are now de riguer with the cool kids holding court, ruling the turf formerly held by bloggers. Who cares if they have nothing behind their prattle except their strongly held opinions?

"La, La, La, La..."

“La, La, La, La…”

My previous post touched down on binary thinking. I’ve mentioned the topic enough before. I won’t go there again today. I will only say that our inability to have a dialogue on a variety of tough subjects, even those deemed by our arbiters as “controversial,” doesn’t bode well for us. Screaming louder than your foes, or using your newly-found majority status doesn’t indicate rightness, either.

Perhaps I’ll just blog about the weather and puppies—no one is opposed to sun and cuteness, right?

Some ‘Splainin to Do

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I’ve been putting up regular content here at the JBE since 2012 when I first launched this site. The primary purpose of creating this WordPress platform (my first time designing my own website, btw) was launching my personal brand. At the time, given what was happening—basically, getting down-sized—plus, I was reading Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, and others; personal branding seemed to be the proper exit ramp to free agent nation.

The most important aspect of the JBE now looks like it’s been centralizing where I blog. That’s one reason why I chose to include one as part of the website in the first place. At the time, my plan was to write about reinvention and other things central to my personal brand.

With all that’s transpired over the past three years, the blog remains the primary reason I keep the site up and running. My efforts the past year to reinvigorate my own freelance writing is the reason why I also maintain another site where I post my freelance writing clips and keep my online portfolio up-to-date—something that seems like it would be a requisite for a free agent writer these days. The personal brand thing—I’m not as bullish on that anymore. Continue reading →

Facebook Isn’t Real

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When I had a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday job, it was a given that I’d see the same people on a regular basis. For most of us older than 40, being at work for the better part of your waking hours has been the norm.

As the world changes, and work as many of us know it continues evolving, our time toiling for the man doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll have this same kind of face-to-face interaction. While many of us are freelancing these days, many others are telecommuting and working from home. You have interactions with people via telephone, email, and even social media, but rarely do you spend significant amounts of time in the presence of other human beings. It’s possible to do work for others and never once meet them in-person.

Preferring our phones over other people.

Continue reading →

Get Writing

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I was at a party with holiday overtones over the weekend. The hostess introduced me to another writer. We had an enjoyable discussion about writing, particularly the craft of writing. A recurring theme in our discussion was why some writers move beyond mere procrastination and actually get down to writing.

There continues to be a romanticism attached to “the writing life.” Some of this is the equivalent of what is attributed to Joyce Maynard in Salinger, about the late literary icon, and his hatred about the “artiness in writing and writerliness…tweedy types sucking on cigars on their book jackets or exquisitely sensitive-looking women in black turtlenecks.”

While Salinger became as famous for his obsessiveness and privacy as he was for his literary output, he apparently kept up more closely with the literati than we thought he did at the time, and had “little but contempt for what he sees…” of that world. Writers more famous for the pose they strike, than their writing.

Writing requires work, and sometimes slogging along in near obscurity for some period. Yet, any craft requiring creativity (and ability) must be honed.

Writers write!

Writers write!

Continue reading →

Posting Time Again

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It just occurred to me that it’s Tuesday and I’m supposed to have a post up—well, in a technical sense, I still have slightly less than six hours to get it up before Tuesday’s done gone.

In some ways, Sunday’s food review/post about Slab was really my Tuesday post, two days early. But, just in case somebody’s keeping score, I’m staying true to my Tuesday/Friday posting schedule.

I’ve actually been chasing a story since late last week that’s due to hit the streets on Friday. It’s got some investigative elements, and it’s one I’m feeling really good about, getting it sourced and written, and turned in on a tight deadline. I also appreciate a new editor who took a chance that I could deliver it. More details to follow on that one. Continue reading →

Deadlines

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Deadlines drag us from the idolatry of ideas, forcing us to produce, and then ship. It’s the best cure for paralysis emanating from over-analysis.

At the JBE, I’ve self-imposed deadlines in order to force the issue and keep fresh content coming. Not all the content is award-winning, or apparently, even enticing to people who’ve visited the site in the past. That’s ok—I’m going to keep on keeping on, robust blog stats or not.

As for deadlines, I’m now facing other types, the ones that come from making successful pitches to editors and having them tell me when they want my article, and how many words I get to tell my story. I especially like those kinds of deadlines because they also come with dollar signs attached. There wouldn’t be these new opportunities if not for my diligence in keeping my blogging storefront up-to-date and current. Continue reading →