Julie Pippert: Using My Words

I'm really really glad I missed BlogHer this year. Every account makes it sound like a Self-Righteous Fest rather the the community building, sharing, learning, and fun I expect from that event. Then, that spilled over into the rest of the online community, and now moms who blog have garnered a reputation for being greedy, graspy harpies who cage fight for minor pieces of swag, like deranged parents beating one another up for the last Cabbage Patch doll. Way to further the rep. Even if people had fun -- and good for you -- clearly there was a major undercurrent I had been calling Culture Clash (which provided private amusement because it dredged up funny old 80s bands to mind) but have now begun calling the Whore Wars. You can subtitle it: That Same Old Mean Girl Judge and Jury Fest We've Had Since 5th Grade. It's because yesterday someone played the whore card in reference to the mombloggers + PR + Review = Sometimes Profiting/Being Compensated While Blogging. Don't be...

Elvin Bishop singing "Fooled Around and Fell In Love," an oldie but goodie and fave of mine through the ages (literally). I'd have preferred to put up the Rod Stewart modern cover of it but Rod says no. It's true: the mighty has fallen. After all my kvetching and questioning about social media, all my fooling around with Flickr, Twitter et al. you could call me a player. I dabble with Facebook, but it was clear: I was not really ready to settle down. But then. Michael Stelzner introduced me to LinkedIn . I fooled around. And fell in love. That place has purpose, use, functionality and fabulous resources. It's everything I was looking for. I think we'll live happily ever after. Even better...you can join us. Like one, big, happy family. ************************************************************************************* Drawing Winner In last week's Hump Day Hmm , I asked you to deliver and offered an incentive (art or editing). You followed through won...

Personal blogs are primarily memoirs in the making. Even professional, topical and niche blogs rely on the art of personalizing and storytelling. So as we tell our stories, how do we tell them? Who do we include? And how do we include them? William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well *, says a key challenge of writing personal history is focusing too much on victimhood rather than forgiveness. I believe that's true. Each personal history extends beyond ourselves. It's impossible to have a personal history that doesn't, at some point, require talking about other people and their role in your story. That creates a challenge: how do we write about others, ethically? Let's be honest: we all like to see inside other people's lives, and a little drama goes a long way to capturing our interest and emotions. But we can only stare at a train wreck for so long, and then we avert our eyes. Consider the popularity of feel-good movies; people love a story that overcomes. They lo...

There's this intriguing trend/theme going around the blogosphere lately: reader-directed blogging. Many bloggers are picking up a sort of "meme" and asking their readers to ask them questions, which they will answer in a post. I believe it's a twist on the 7 random things type meme. I think it's cool. I've asked every blogger I read who did it a question and have been thrilled to see all the questions and answers. Simultaneously, every "how to be a good blogger" site I subscribe to has done an article that either centers on or mentions "reader-directed" blogging, wherein you ask your readers to weigh in on the topics you cover. I find this approach very intriguing. Obviously the key tenet in any publishing endeavor is write what readers want to read. This involves "keeping your finger on the pulse of your market" and catching trends, interests, new innovations or concerns, etc. There are a variety of means to do this. Readers have...

On Friday, per a request from Angela, I fixed my feed in readers to full. Apparently that killed my feed. Gwen kindly alerted me to the problem; she said nothing has shown up in her reader since then. I changed two settings and tried to keep full feed. If my blog still doesn't show up, I'm sorry but I'll have to switch back to partial feed. Can you let me know if you see my blog in your reader and how it appears? And by the way, I did post Friday , Saturday , Sunday , Monday and today . Although, in the spirit of full disclosure, I handed the blog over to the kids for most of that time and they kept it up. I'm not even going to bother copyrighting this. If you steal this post? More power to you. Julie

Friday a.m. My dog began acting so oddly I was concerned enough to call the vet. They squeezed me in for the morning appointment and I called my friend to take Persistence, and completely dropped everything planned for the morning. HIGH: Haven't thought of one yet. LOW: Dog is sick and my day was shot. noon After a thorough examination by the vet, the dog is declared to have tumors and we get an immediate referral to a surgeon. HIGH: The location of the tumor gives a hopeful possibility that it is benign, or at least not the most aggressive cancer. The vet is highly entertained by my story about Fuqua (that's Few KWAY not fuck WA) Street confusion. He said that story beats his former non-native favorite which was Bexar (that's BEAR not BEX arr) County confusion. LOW: My doggie is sick. My doggie needs surgery. My doggie is uncomfortable. My beautiful chocolate only 7 years old Lab might have cancer. And we are going to have to schedule surgery, which probably costs as...

Because sometimes it's hard to spot the little treasure in the big picture... THE BRAIN is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do. The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do, As syllable from sound. ---Emily Dickinson Hello all! Yesterday I posted my 600th post. This is 601. It is no surprise to people who know me well that I haven't even come close to running out of things to say. However, today I'm not going to bend your ear about me or my thoughts. Today I'm going to bring your attention to some other bloggers. These are new, new-ish, noteworthy, recommended by someone, or blogs someone found...or any combination of those. The blogosphere is huge, and it's easy to get lost or lose the chanc...

Things on the horizon... 1. Blogging Pledge Class of November October's Pledge Class was a great round-up of blogs! So I've decided to do it again---plus I got some late submissions that need a place to go. In case you missed the first anouncement , let me explain what this is. If you are a new blogger, undiscovered blogger, blogger who wants to reach a broader audience, or if you know a blogger like this...send me the information! I have a great list going already and will post that at the end of the month-ish (to give everyone time). These do not have to be newbie bloggers. I do want to promote the newbies as best I can, but also enjoy pointing people to great blogs other people know and think people ought to know about. So please free free to "nominate" a blog, as well as submit your own. To get listed simply email me at j pippert at g mail dot com with a subject line of Blogging Pledge Class-November, and include a brief synopsis of your blog and a link to your b...

Note: Please also check-out my late-breaking post from yesterday in which I explain I'm not anti-social, just clueless. It's very, very short. Promise! Thanks! Hello! It's my pleasure to introduce the Blogging Pledge Class of October 2007. There were no bizarre rituals involving Sharpie markers or strange chants over candles in which the Secrets of the Yellow Rose were revealed. Note: However, I will reveal the secrets of these flowers, hereinafter known as the Blogging Bouquet. We've got delphinium for boldness , stephanotis for good luck , begonias for deep thoughts , and red chrysanthemums for sharing . To participate, all anyone had to do was simply comment or email their short blog promo and link to their blog and VOILA! Now I'm happy to share with you the list of bloggers! Some are new, some have been around a while, some found me, and I found some (mainly from NaBloPoMo !). Maybe you've seen their names here or there. Now's your chance to drop b...

I hope everyone had a happy weekend. I have a little bloggy business so I'll get right to it; this way we get back to the fun that is this week sooner! 1. Blogging Pledge Class of October 2007 If you are a new blogger, undiscovered blogger, blogger who wants to reach a broader audience, or if you know a blogger like this...send me the deets! I have a great list going already and will post that later this week (to give everyone who wants to time to join in). To get listed simply email me at j pippert at g mail dot com or comment here with a brief synopsis of your blog and a link to your blog. 2. Hump Day Hmm for Halloween 10-31: What other topic can I possibly ask everyone to talk about except something Halloweenish on this date? :) Tell us a scary story, a fun story, an experience, a tradition, anything you'd like to that has to do with the event most people celebrate on 10-31. If it means more than a night of silliness and trick or treating to you, tell us about that. If you d...

1. Using my words You may have noticed the new blog name? I mentioned a while back my increasing dissatisfaction with the former name (and excuse my laziness, no linky to that post). Then, one day, this name (Using My Words) popped into my head. It immediately felt delicious, like a death by chocolate cake a la mode, or putting on that outfit that feels perfect. It's too great, probably already used , I thought. So I checked. No, not that I could find. Better put my name in front, just in case my searching isn't as good as I like to think , I reckoned. Hold off, sit on the name a bit, see if it still feels good , I decided. So I waited. Still felt good. Be cautious, try it out slowly, without a big announcement, make sure it's good , I determined. So I let it breathe a bit, and I kept checking the flavor and bouquet. Still good. Then a few of you started noticing, and commenting on it (nicely, too!) and I figured, the cat is out of the bag...I better get this on the record ...

This is me, lately. Well, okay, how I feel life is requiring me to be. I've been doing the nice thing for a really long time and it's got me nowhere so...this? Is me now. I'm back to basics, hardball, burning woman. Or something like that. I'm just going to jump right in with all my Round Tuits here so bear with me as I do my Linear List Thing. Edited to add 0, the number before 1. 0. The Hump Day Hmm for next week. In order to placate my sister who says she's tired of me frying her brain every week (Girlfriend joined the JUNIOR LEAGUE...and she accuses ME of frying HER brain. KIDDING, hon. You know it. I'm all into the Sugarplum Fairy Sell-a-thon and crap next month.) I'm going a bit lighter next week. Take a topic, any topic, something that is weighing on you, bothering you, troubling you...and find the humor in it. Write about it from a humorous angle. It can be general or personal, just take a troubling topic and bring out the humor. FWIW, sarcasm counts...