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The Dog Ate My Website—Tuesday, May 20, 2008
It is four solid weeks since I have posted a piece on the much-read-by-six-people nonBlog. But I have a good excuse: FieldReport.
FieldReport is an online community of writers and readers devoted to sharing—and rewarding—great true-life stories. Another web site, you may be thinking. I don’t have the strength. Fair enough. But consider this: as of last month, blog-posting has exceeded newspaper readership. We are all writers now, creating our own content. But the average blog draws, what, a half-dozen readers? (I love every one of you, by the way.) What if true-life storytellers had a big audience? Not sold yet? Let’s buy you then. What if true-life storytellers could compete in front of a big audience for significant cash prizes? I see I have your attention.
Here’s what I would like to do with it. Ask you to check out FieldReport’s beta contest at www.fieldreport.com. Type in the password truelife. The contest is judged through a member ranking system that is new on the Internet; in order to post a story you must become a judge in the competition. This way the stories are ranked by quality, not popularity. The top prize during the beta period is $20,000 for the best overall submission, plus 17 prizes of $1,000 to $2,000 each in categories from Love + Hate to Travel + Nature and everything in between. Prizes will be awarded July 1. Post a story or tell a friend (and give them the beta password). Since we don’t expect the beta period to have a very large attendance, the odds are good. Cash money!
I’ve known about this launch since winter and I joined the team three weeks ago, working more or less full-time for the foreseeable future. I am suddenly consumed by something other than my own writing. I am consumed by other people’s writing. It is an unexpected and liberating turn of events.
A Little Brain Dead—Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I have become convinced that losing a parent is like having a small stroke. It destroys a piece of your brain. It feels like your brain is functioning perfectly well and you are going about your business like a normal person. But then evidence shows that’s not the case. You go to move your arm, say, and nothing happens.
I am working and socializing and volunteering and mothering just like always. But I keep making these weird mistakes. The first time I went out to lunch with a friend after my father died, I parked my car and left the hatch up for two solid hours, with bags of Goodwill donations filling the cargo area. Nobody stole anything, and why would they? Passersby assumed no lunatic would leave their hatch open unless they were in the immediate vicinity, unloading.
In the course of one week I forgot—clean forgot—three of the kids’ appointments. In the hour or two beforehand, I was perfectly aware that the appointments were on the calendar. I had it worked it my head who needed picking up and dropping off and in what order. But when the hour arrived, there I was at my computer, typing.
This morning I was crossing the street. I looked left—white car coming—and then looked right—nobody there—and walked right in front of the white car. The driver went ballistic. I’m not trying to kill myself. It’s just that my synapses are misfiring. It’s like my father went off to heaven and took a piece of my gray matter with him as a souvenir.
Glamour Girl—Thursday, April 3, 2008
I’ve been such a dark cauldron in the wake of my father’s death that I have failed to report a ray of sunshine glinting off the pot: my daughter Olivia’s first publication in a national magazine. I certainly didn’t imagine I would write that sentence quite so soon in her life. I thought she might—oh, I don’t know—get her driver’s license first. Or maybe graduate from junior high.
In the April issue of Glamour—page 85—is the News section. The top story is called “Kids to Hollywood: Just Say No!” and is accompanied by photos of Brad Renfro and Amy Winehouse along with Mischa Barton’s mug shot. The intro paragraph says:
Here’s hope that the next generation isn’t learning by example from all the celeb DUIs, rehab and OD investigations of late. When we asked preteen girls to write letters to the stars, they didn’t mince words. Refreshing!
Quotes from girls follow, chosen from “Dear Celebrities” letters the editor received when she circulated a submission request on the Internet. It was forwarded to the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto Yahoo group, and I saw it several weeks ago, on the last day the editor could receive responses about potential girl contributors. I wrote to her right away, telling her about Liv’s (no doubt inherited) talents. The editor said great, she would send a courier in the morning if Liv could hand-draft the letter that night.
Not much notice, especially for a winter Wednesday. On winter Wednesdays, Liv has a long drama practice followed by a guitar lesson at the School of Rock. She doesn’t get home until 7:30pm, at which point she has to eat dinner and start her homework. I didn’t tell her about the opportunity until then because I didn’t want to distract her from everything else she had to do first. But boy, Liv is one hard-working kid. She not only composed the letter right away and went through at least a dozen drafts to get a clean handwritten copy, she also did every bit of her homework even though her school permits you to write a note if something unusual comes up. All of this took her until 1am on a school night.
The editor told me that she was surprised to receive dozens of submissions in response to her query. She chose just four quotes; Liv’s is the last. It goes like this:
“Drugs don’t make you happy, and then you have an awful hangover. I want to ask, Seriously, celebrities, why?”
--Olivia Losee-Unger, 13, San Francisco
New, or Practically New
- Read the latest press on Office Mate and check out video and audio clips of our appearances here.
- My essay on how I brainwashed my daughter to be a Democrat appears in the new anthology The Maternal is Political.
- An essay about the first time I visited my father in his nursing home, called “Hermit Crab,” appears on FieldReport.
- Commentary in The Huffington Post on the circuit court decision to allow the “Choose Life” license plate in Arizona.
- My thoughts on the subject appear in Time to Write: Professional Writers Reveal How to Fit Writing Into Your Life by Kelly Stone.
- Look for my coverage of the best personal stylists in the Bay Area in San Francisco Magazine’s July “Best of the Bay” issue.
- The Maternal is Political reading on August 7 at the San Francisco Book Passage in the Ferry Building at 6pm.
- Office Mate reading on September 16 at the San Francisco Book Passage in the Ferry Building at 6pm.
- Fame and fortune: any minute now.
