Truth Be Told

Recently, a former friend of mine published a memoir that included recollections of the small town we grew up in. There were several aspects of it that made me bristle and say, "Hey! That's not how I remember it!"

For example, Former Friend claimed that at our Catholic high school, there was only one single-session sex ed class a year, and it was taught by our gym teacher. But although it is true that they didn't really teach us much about "safe sex," what I also remember is that our religion teachers taught sex ed. I remember that sex ed occurred a lot more often than once a year, probably because they were afraid that we hormonal teenagers would be "corrupted" by the sin of premarital sex. (Little did they know that a lot of the students' minds had already been corrupted. If they had known, I can totally imagine the religion teachers shaking their heads sorrowfully while saying that we were going to go to hell unless we repented and the priests throwing holy water at us or something.)

(Side note: Although I am still a practicing Catholic and believe in many of its core principles, such as the Golden Rule of treating other people with kindness and compassion, there are several other things about the Church that I strongly disagree with.)

I don't remember our gym teacher teaching us sex ed, although he may have taught it to Former Friend and their classmates (Former Friend was in a different grade). I do remember that when the gym teacher taught us how to lift weights, he stood over us and yelled, "You're WEAK! Is that all you can benchpress, WEAKLING?" I also remember wishing I could say, "Who are you calling a weakling? Take THAT!" And then I'd karate kick him in the face.

Former Friend's memoir made me think about what might happen if I ever publish my work-in-progress, a book-length memoir titled Obsessions of a Workaholic. Since it's not a novel, I can't say, "It's fiction, and it's not based on you, of course," if someone from my life were to read it and get upset by my depiction of him or her. Everything that I've described in this blog really did happen, but I've had to alter the descriptions of some of the situations and/or people in order to protect their identities and my own.

That makes me wonder how much "altering" I'll need to do in my book. Since teaching has been such an important part of my life, naturally there are several chapters about my work as a teacher. But I have to be very careful about what I write, especially when it comes to the students.

Many of my students are good students who work hard, are polite and respectful to me and their classmates, and are dedicated to earning good grades and learning as much as they can while they are in college. Some of them have truly inspired me because of the writing they produced in my class or because of what they confided in me about their dreams for the future, which made me hope that all of their dreams would come true.

But as any teacher can relate, every year there is always a small, select group of students who are the complete opposite: the ones who are hostile and disrespectful, or the ones who believe they "deserve" A's just for showing up to class. These students are why my hair started turning white the first year I started teaching, and they are also why I always keep a bottle of Tylenol in my office at school.

Since I'm still working on the first draft, I've been writing down all the details that I can remember, everything from the student who confided in me about what it was like to be a transgender teenager in a community that believes people like them are mentally ill, to the student whose verbal attacks almost drove me to tears in front of one of the first classes I ever taught, causing several of the other students to feel sorry for me and apologize to me for that student's behavior after class was over.

I recently read a book titled Waiter's Rant, written by Steve Dublanica, who wrote about his experiences as a waiter at a fancy restaurant that the rich and famous dined at. His book was based on his blog, where he initially wrote under the pseudonym the Waiter. Once he revealed his true identity, he admitted that he'd never be able to get another restaurant job because of what he wrote. Fortunately for him, his book became a New York Times best-seller and he didn't have to wait tables anymore after it was published.

But the difference between him and me is that he didn't want to be a waiter until he retired, whereas I know that I want to spend my life as a writer AND a teacher. The problem is, if I write the whole truth and nothing but the truth about my former students, especially the ones who gave me the most problems, I could lose my job. Teachers are held to a different standard. Academia is a small world, and it's not just competitive, it's cutthroat because there are way too many people with PhDs and not enough jobs. I am a college professor, but I am untenured, which means that I don't have the job security that tenured professors have. If I lost my job, there would literally be hundreds of people lined up who would be more than happy to take my place.

This generation of students in particular is the one known for their "microaggressions" and demands for "trigger warnings" in their curriculum. Most of the students I've come across over the years are not like them, but there are nevertheless a few others I've read about in the news (as well as ones I've encountered in my own classes) who claimed that they were "offended" by things that their teachers said or wrote and then launched campaigns to destroy those teachers' careers and reputations, driving them out of their schools, and in some cases, out of education altogether. Sometimes, the teachers really did say offensive things, but in other cases, they didn't, but were nevertheless interpreted as such. Either way, I don't think that any of them deserved to be the target of hateful harassment campaigns.

Although I've achieved several of my academic and professional goals, I still have other goals. And I'm afraid that if this memoir did get published, I could lose everything I've worked for and everything I'm still working for if I revealed too many details about certain students.

I thought that if this book does get published, I could use my pseudonym: Neurotic Workaholic. But if and when I do become a published writer, I'd like to see my real name printed on my story, and if and when that happens, I'll reveal it on this blog. That's the thing about this blog: I can be more candid here because almost no one in my offline life knows that I'm the one writing this blog. It's different when it's a published book or short story.

For now, I've decided to follow Anne Lamott's advice about writing the "bad" first draft by including everything that I can remember, and I'll go back and edit it once I finish the first draft. I also try to remember what I've learned from other creative nonfiction writers I've read and heard speak: that what you write in creative nonfiction doesn't necessarily have to be 100% factual, as long as the core of what you're saying is true. David Sedaris, after all, is a creative nonfiction writer, but even he "embellishes" the truth about what happened. Dave Barry's hilarious columns are funny partly because he exaggerates a lot of things.

I think that one possible solution is that rather than describe the problem behavior of specific students, I could describe the problem behavior of a range of students, like the ones who sit in the back of the classroom, listen to music on their phones (even after I tell them to take off their headphones, they'll protest by saying, "But the music isn't even that loud!" And then I make a mental note to take some Tylenol right after class), and tune me out for weeks until they get their grades back. Then they blame ME when they don't get A's, and I also make a mental note to get my hair dyed to cover the white hair that is literally sprouting from my head at that moment. That might be less controversial than describing specific students.

What about you? Do you write creative nonfiction? If you do, how do you write about the "problematic" people you've encountered in your life? What do you think of memoirists who "embroider" the truth, as the writer Ruth Reichl admitted doing in her memoirs? (I love her books, regardless.)

#amwriting

Ever since I got back from New York, I've been writing almost every day. Although I know that a lot of people prefer to work on one story at a time (and I can totally understand why since they can get it done faster), my workaholic nature has caused me to "multi-task" when it comes to my writing. That is, I'm currently working on three different stories: a novel that I drafted years ago but never revised, a creative nonfiction piece about teaching that I plan to submit to literary magazines that publish creative nonfiction, and a book-length creative nonfiction story: Obsessions of a Workaholic. I thought about just focusing on one of the stories, but I've been so excited about getting the words down on paper that I'm afraid I'll lose or forget them somehow if I put it off.

I've found that it's easier to write regularly when I incorporate it into my regular routine, like I did with exercise. Most days, I'd rather listen to Kylie Jenner talk about her lip fillers for an hour than spend that same hour working out, but because I'm now so used to working out at least 4-5 times a week, I feel worse if I don't go. And it's paid off, too, because I lost twenty pounds this summer. Although I still have more weight that I want to lose, the fact that I exceeded my weight-loss goal this summer has me dancing like this:
 
via GIPHY
By a similar token, by making a point of working on my writing at least 4-5 days a week, even just for half an hour a day, it's gotten much easier to motivate myself to sit at my desk or go to a coffee shop and write, instead of lie on my bed and watch YouTube videos on my phone.

It's easier for me to write out my first drafts in longhand in notebooks at coffee shops (the baristas like me because I always tip them, and I do that so that they won't mind if I occupy one of their tables for an hour or two) or in my office at school.

Then when I write the second draft, I type it out onto my laptop at home and start making changes at that point. But if I try to write out the first draft on my laptop, my mind wanders and I start Googling random things, like "what does it mean when Millennials say 'That's so lit'? Is that a drug reference?" Or I start watching YouTube music videos of bands from the '90s, like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and then of course I start Googling "whatever happened to the OTHER members of Nirvana?" which leads to too much wasted time on Wikipedia.

I've also joined writing groups: one for my creative writing, which is a Meetup group that meets at a coffee shop near my apartment every week, and one for my scholarly writing (in academia, the prevailing attitude towards scholarly writing is "publish or perish"), which has monthly meetings on campus at the college where I teach.

Since Creative Nonfiction is one of the literary magazines I plan to submit to (actually, I already submitted a story about my life in Small Town to them earlier this summer, which probably won't get published, but it felt good just to put my writing out there), I paid $22 for a package that included an issue of their magazine, several issues of their "mini-magazine", True Story, and an anthology of stories that have been published in their magazines. They say that you should read the magazines that you want to write for, so that you get a better sense of what they're looking for. The package also included cool writer's swag, like a tote bag, a pen, and a small notebook.

Thus, I've managed to be very productive in the last weeks of summer, and after all the emotional turmoil I went through earlier this summer, it feels good to have a renewed sense of energy and focus on my work again. I've especially enjoyed working on my memoir, Obsessions of a Workaholic. All these years that I spent blogging about my life as a workaholic, I didn't realize that I was in a sense writing the first draft of this book. When I originally started blogging, I was just doing it for fun and so I could take a break from the scholarly writing that I'd been immersed in during grad school. But I've realized that there is a lot of stuff from this blog that I could use for the book, and I've also been fleshing it out and reorganizing it into a more linear narrative. It will take months to finish that book, but once I finally do, I will go back to work on another memoir: one about my experiences as a member of seven different online dating sites over the course of a decade. Even though it will be tough to make time for writing during the school year, I try to remember what I heard a successful writer say once: that even if you only write one page a day, in a year's time you'll have more than enough pages for a book.

What about you? How's your writing going, and what are you working on? What's your writing process like?

A Life Without Writing

If I stopped writing...

1. I'd be much more likely to say what I really think of people to their faces, rather than just write it down, which means I'd probably get head-butted a lot more often.

2. I'd start posting pictures of my lunch or my outfits on Instagram, because everyone knows that those pictures are so fascinating (it's like, can we have MORE selfies, please?).

3. The fictional characters I already created would probably haunt my dreams and say stuff like, "You owe us endings to our stories. If you don't write one for us, we will give you nightmares filled with the things that freak you out the most, including clowns, knives, and one of the Kardashians as President (in that case, posting selfies would become mandatory, and anyone who broke that law would have to buy and read all 448 pages of Kim Kardashian's book of selfies)."

4. I'd stop going to book signings, because I'd feel jealous of the writers who never stopped pursuing their dreams like I did.

5. I'd read less, which would mean I'd have more time to "like" Instagram posts by reality show celebrities and read articles about their Twitter feuds, which would cause my brain cells to die, one by one.

6. I'd look at my journal longingly, similar to the way I look at cupcakes in a bakery or the muscular gay men dancing on floats in Chicago's Pride Parade.

7. I'd always feel like something was missing from my life.

8. I wouldn't communicate with all of you nice people in the blogosphere, who have been very kind and supportive to me through the years.

9. I wouldn't feel that same sense of pleasure I feel when I sit down to write, or when the story heads in a different direction that I wasn't expecting.

For a while now I've actually contemplated giving up writing. This past year has been really busy, what with my full-time job and my part-time job, which is why I haven't blogged as much in the past several months. To be honest, other than journal entries, blog posts, and Tweets, I haven't written anything (other than stuff for work) in months. It made me wonder if maybe I'd lost my writer's "mojo," and it also made me doubt that I had it at all.

I even thought about giving up my blog and my Twitter page. Some people get fifty responses (or hundreds) on their blog posts, whereas I'm lucky if a more than a few dozen actually read my blog posts one at a time, even though I've been blogging for six years now. I have more Twitter followers than blog followers, but more often than not, the people who follow my blog immediately send me DMs asking me to check out or promote their album/book/film/GoFundMe page, which tells me why they're really following me (I never respond to their DMs, nor do I do what they ask).

But if I gave up writing, then I truly would be a workaholic, one hundred percent. I've finally realized that there has to be more to life than work, and writing fiction and creative nonfiction is the one thing that doesn't feel like work to me. Even when it does, it's still something that I want to do, not something that I have to do to pay the bills.

So for now, I'm not giving up writing, though I do have to accept that I may have to wait until summer to spend more time on it. I gave up or lost almost everything else that mattered because of my work. I'm not willing to let my work destroy the one thing I have left.

What about you? Have you ever felt tempted to give up writing?

Exposed

Recently, I accidentally e-mailed all of my current students with my online screenname instead of my real name. The reason is because I had tried to sign up for Google Plus with my screenname, except it kept my screenname in my account once I e-mailed my students. Once I realized what I'd done, I screamed so loudly that the mirrors in my apartment almost cracked.

Most people in my "offline" life do not know that I have a blog or a Twitter page, even though I've been blogging and Tweeting for years. Most people don't even know that I want to be a writer. They think I'm just this over-caffeinated English teacher who freaks out over grammatical errors and students who think it's okay to show up to class forty-five minutes late and still expect to be counted as present (insert head exploding here).

Some teachers blog about the misbehavior of their students, like students who don't turn in their work on time or the ones who keep their headphones on during class. Then the parents who raised the "everybody gets a trophy" generation come out in full force to bring the teacher down, because God forbid anyone should point out that their kids have EVER done anything wrong.

I'm lucky to have a full-time teaching job, even though it's in a small town where country music is played everywhere, to the point that I want to find a banjo and smash it over the loudspeakers. But I'm not a tenured professor, so my job security is far from certain. I've been hired on a year-to-year contract, which means that I'm still not sure whether they'll renew my contract for next year and I won't find out for months (that's why I'm applying to other schools in the meantime).

Since I'm still applying for other jobs, I know that search committees may Google me, though several of them will never admit to this. They won't necessarily find anything bad, like pictures of me getting drunk, since if anyone tried to make me drink alcohol I'd immediately spit it out. They might find reviews of my teaching on one of those awful Rate Your Professor sites, where there are positive reviews of me but also negative ones that say stuff like, "She's so unfair. She makes us show up to class every day."

If I put my real name or pictures of my face on my blog, those search committees (as well as the school that currently employs me) might not appreciate my posts about teaching. I never named any of the schools that employed me, and I never named any of the students either. But I did describe some of their bad behavior, like the volatile student who screamed at me for twenty minutes because I dared to give him a B, or the disrespectful student who almost drove me to tears in front of my class several years ago.

When I realized that I'd sent my screenname to my students, I was worried that they might Google it out of curiosity, since it is an unusual name. Then they would find my blog and my Twitter page. They'd read what I wrote about them, and they'd read about my personal life. It was one of my biggest nightmares. All it takes is one disgruntled student upset about his or her grade to find my blog or my Twitter page and send it to my bosses.

I debated deleting both accounts altogether. I also e-mailed several of you in a panic, asking for advice. You were all kind enough to respond promptly, and I appreciate your feedback. Ultimately, I decided to make both of my accounts private and (mostly) stay offline for a couple of weeks. That's why I haven't been blogging lately, and that's why you may not have been able to find my blog the last couple of weeks. I wanted to play it safe.

I couldn't bring myself to delete my blog. That's five years worth of writing, and I couldn't give it up. I gave up or lost almost everything else because of teaching: almost all my friends, romantic relationships, my twenties, and the city I loved. I couldn't deal with the idea of giving up my writing too.

So for now, I'll keep the blog and the Twitter page up. I'll still write about teaching, but I'll be more cautious now. Fortunately, none of my students said anything about my screenname. Hopefully, no one ever says anything.

What about you? Do you keep your blog or Twitter page a secret? Would you have deleted your accounts, if you were in my situation?

P.S. I might be taking a risk by stating this on my blog, but I couldn't e-mail everyone this since not everyone has their e-mail address listed. I'm going to change my URL to weirdworkaholic.blogspot.com starting next week. 

What I Like about Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter a few years ago, I dismissed it as just another fad that people would get tired of eventually. I did read a few people's Twitter pages, and they mostly Tweeted stuff like, "Going to work. Ugh," or "This is a yummy lunch," along with a picture of whatever they were eating, or a string of "@s" that just said stuff like "LOL!" It didn't really hold my interest, especially since I don't really care about what other people are eating, unless they're going to share their food with me (because, you know, free food!).

I also dismissed it because I suspected that several of my students, who were constantly tapping on their phones during class, were either on Twitter or Facebook. (Side note: I can't help wondering if the current generation was born with tiny cell phones clutched in their fists, because they never let go of their phones.) I disliked any kind of distraction that kept them from focusing on the lesson, and I didn't really see the point of being on Twitter OR Facebook.

My opinion of social networking sites slowly changed after I started blogging. Before I started this blog, I was too shy to show my work to anyone, unless I was in a creative writing class and I HAD to share it with other people. I kept my writing hidden in notebooks, and I kept my dream of becoming a writer hidden from almost everyone.

What I like about blogging is that it gave me the opportunity to "meet" other people, many of whom were writers, who I probably never would have met otherwise. I like reading everyone's blog posts, and I like the "dialogue" that we all get to have, not just in our blog posts but in the comments that we leave for each other.

I set up my own Twitter page a few months ago, partly because of two people who were on Twitter: Joyce Carol Oates and Pope Francis. As a Catholic, I admire Pope Francis, especially because he seems to be very open-minded and is working hard to make some much-needed changes in the Church.

As a writer, I admire Joyce Carol Oates; I always thought she would be one of those writers who shun social networking sites in order to focus exclusively on their novels or short stories. But she Tweets frequently, and even though I don't agree with everything that she writes, it's still fascinating to follow her train of thought.

I started following many other writers and agents on Twitter, as well as a couple literary magazines. It's a good way to find out about writing contests and agents and magazines that are accepting submissions. It's also a good way to find out about new books that other people have written.

I also follow a lot of "joke bloggers", people who write witty and funny one-liners. Some of them are celebrities, like Conan O'Brien, Steve Martin, and Ellen DeGeneres. Others are stand-up comedians or just regular people with a great sense of humor. Reading these people's jokes makes standing in line, my daily commute, and dealing with annoying people a lot easier, especially because doing those things gives me something to Tweet about (and it gives me something to do when I'm on my commute or standing in line).

When I'm having a stressful day, logging onto Twitter and reading about what's going through people's minds often makes me feel better, especially when they Tweet something that makes me think, Yes! I thought I was the only one who felt that way!

I also like that you can "star" or retweet people's Tweets; it always makes my day when someone does that to what I've written, because it makes me feel good that other people are reading and liking what I'm writing. I like being able to "talk" to other people on Twitter, especially because similar to online dating, it's much easier to start a conversation with someone online than to just go up and introduce yourself to an interesting person in real life.

I think that a lot of people join social networking sites like Twitter because they want to make connections with others. It's not the same as an offline connection, of course, but it's still something that makes people, including me, happy. And I think it makes everyone feel like they're not alone.

Twitter and this blog allow me to express myself, because so much of "real life" consists of me holding my tongue; I know that if I say what I'm really thinking in real life, I'd get in trouble. But I can say what I want to say online (though I do censor myself in many ways, just in case), without as much fear that people will attack/criticize/reject me as a result. A fellow Twitter user, who calls herself Sigourney Beaver, Tweeted this recently, and I think it's something that applies to a lot of people, including me: "I'm more myself here than I am in some real life situations because I've just learnt to censor things. This place can be my escape sometimes."

What about you? What do you like about social networking sites, whether it's Twitter, blogging, Facebook, etc.?

Picking Fights with Trolls

Last year, I received a couple of really long, nasty, angry rants from someone who'd read one of my posts about online dating. I think it was from the same person, even though one of the comments was left by an "anonymous" commenter and the other one left his name (though his profile didn't include any links to any blogs).

The commenter was very hostile towards me and towards all women, making comments about how unfair it was that women were in control of the dating scene. He whined about the fact that he'd messaged several women on online dating sites but most of them hadn't responded. He also said that my standards were too high and that I should be more "forgiving" of the flaws that I saw in guys' profiles. He said that the fact that I wasn't willing to overlook those flaws was why I was still single. According to this jerk, I was one of those superficial, self-centered, mean girls who never gave guys a chance.

What bothered me most weren't his insults towards me. It was that he blamed women for the fact that he was single. Yes, there are women on online dating sites who never try to make the first move; they just sit back and wait for the guys to message them first. There are women who judge guys solely by their pictures or who will dismiss guys because they don't make enough money. But I am NOT like that, and for him to claim that I was showed how much of a hypocrite he was; he was judging me in exactly the same way that he accused me of judging other guys. Not to mention there are plenty of superficial guys as well.

I thought about responding to this jerk, who was obviously very unhappy about the fact that he was single and took out his anger on me. It's not just guys who get rejected, so it bugged me that this creep was acting as if only guys were "victims".

I follow several blogs about online dating and the single life, and there's often at least one commenter like that guy who leaves nasty comments on every post. One blogger I followed had to deal with a particularly hostile troll (who was female). This troll left at least six or seven comments on every single post that the blogger wrote, criticizing her for the way that she lived. I think it's one thing to express your opinion, but it's another thing altogether to harass someone and try to force them to accept your perspective. This blogger eventually shut down her blog, and I think it was largely because of that troll's despicable behavior.

There are trolls everywhere. They show up in the comments section of online news articles and Youtube videos. They fall into several categories.

1. The Never Gets Laid Troll: This type of person makes sexist comments or crude jokes about men or women (usually celebrities), because apparently this troll thinks that derogatory jokes are attractive.

2. The Grammar Police Troll: There's always at least one person who's complaining about spelling/grammatical errors. What's ironic is that this person often has grammatical errors in his/her own comments.

3. The Anti-Politicians Troll: I read a lot of online news articles about crime, and on almost every post there's always at least one person who will be quick to blame the president or some other politician for whatever bad thing happened in the article.

4. The Racist Troll: This type of troll offends me to no end. It's people like this one that make me think that there should be limits on freedom of speech.

5. The Wanna Fight Troll: This type of troll insults all the other commenters, so that you'll often see random commenters fighting with each other. It'd be funny if it also weren't kind of sad.

6. The I Beg to Differ Troll: No matter what you write, this person will disagree with you and point out all the reasons that you're wrong. (I also think of this kind of troll as the Know-it-All Troll, or the I-Think-I'm-Smarter-than-Everyone-and-That's-Why-I-Have-No-Friends Troll.)

7. The Spammer Troll: These people leave comments that have nothing to do with the article or post and everything to do with promoting their scams. Spammers often leave comments with links to their "businesses" or websites on my posts, which makes me mad. It's one thing if advertisers e-mail me to ask if I'd be willing to promote their products. But these trolls don't even ask my permission to leave links on my blog. I always delete them.

8. The Anonymous Troll: Not all anonymous commenters are trolls, and not all of them are mean. But I've found that a lot of them do leave nasty comments, because they would never have the courage to say any of those things in real life. That's why I removed the Anonymous option in my comments section.

People often say: don't feed the troll. And I think they're right. I realized that responding to this loser was probably what he was looking for, because he probably wanted me to defend myself so that he could keep attacking me. But I was still tempted to fight back and stand up for myself.

I chose not to respond to his comments, which probably reinforced his belief that all women ignored him and it wasn't his fault at all. Even so, just thinking about mean people like that makes me angry. I have to deal with enough jerks like that in real life; I don't want to have to deal with them online, too.

I don't understand why people become trolls anyway. I think they must be very lonely, angry, bitter people, and they choose to deal with it by attacking strangers online.

Fortunately, most of the other bloggers I've come across are very kind, friendly, and encouraging. The connections I've made through blogging are why I continue to blog.

What about you? What do you think of trolls? Have you ever encountered any on your blog, or have you ever seen any mean comments left on other blogs? How do you think they should be dealt with?

This Blog Is Brought to You By...

Occasionally I get e-mails from advertisers asking me to promote their products or their websites by including a link to their sites on my blog. Once I was contacted by a company that makes - er - "toys" for women. (I just kept thinking of all of my former Catholic school teachers and how they would react if they found out about that. Maybe lightning really would strike me down for displeasing God.) Several advertisers have found my posts about online dating and want me to link to their posts/websites. Some of those advertisers/webmasters have obviously never read my blog, because they ask me to link to articles about how bad it is to be a workaholic. These articles typically say stuff like, "The Way Workaholics Live is WRONG", "Why being a workaholic is worse than being on an MTV reality show", and "Workaholics Will Die Alone".

Obviously, these aren't the real titles, but the message of many of these articles is pretty close to them. It always bothers me when I get an e-mail like that, because I don't like being criticized for being a workaholic. I know that the advertisers don't mean to criticize me, but at the same time I'm not going to promote an article that describes all the reasons why my lifestyle and my identity are completely messed up. Though there have been some negative consequences (which I'll write about later) that occurred because of my obsession with work, at the same time my life is not solely about work. But being a workaholic is part of who I am, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

Some of the advertisers have actually offered to pay me, anything from small sums like ten dollars to Amazon gift cards. It would be nice to earn a little extra cash, but the problem with those ads is that I'm not even sure how long I'm supposed to keep them up. What if it's for as long as I have this blog? What if I get tired of seeing them up there and I want to take them down? Will I even be allowed to do that, or will I have to give the money back? And there are some products that I'd rather not advertise anyway, like those articles about how bad workaholics are.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with including ads on your blog. It's your choice and your blog, so you have the right to include what you want on it. I also don't think that the advertisers are necessarily doing anything wrong by trying to persuade bloggers to promote their products. Obviously, the advertisers have caught on to the fact that they can now reach consumers not just through TV and print ads but also through social networking sites, especially since so many people are on these sites.

But if I did include ads on my blog, I'd be tempted to throw in my two cents rather than let the advertisers have the last word. Here are a few examples: (Side note: the products listed below aren't from companies that have contacted me.)

Peanut M&Ms: the #1 reason that I will NEVER be a size 4

Who cares what the new iPad does? You'll still be cool for having one!

Dance Moms: A heartwarming show about the devil and her minions!

What about you? Do you include ads on your blog? Why or why not? Have any companies contacted you about advertising? If so, how have you responded?

Using Your Blog to Make Money

I think that a lot of bloggers dream of being able to make money through their blogs. Maybe they hope that a literary agent or editor will come across their blog and offer them a book deal. There's nothing wrong with that, and one can dream, right? After all, it happened to Jen Lancaster (who originally blogged about being unemployed), Julie Powell (who blogged about her attempt to cook her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks), and Angela Nissel (who blogged about being a broke college student). But I think they got book deals not only because they are all great writers, but also because they started blogging before a lot of other people did, not to mention their writing focused on specific themes.

You may also dream that the book deal will lead to a movie deal, where A-list actors like Ryan Gosling and Elizabeth Banks will clamor to star as the fictional leads in the story that you wrote. Ryan Gosling will fall in love with you just because he's so amazed by your talent; he'll say, "Who needs an A-list actress who looks like a Victoria's Secret Model when I could have you?" And you'll say, "Sorry, Ryan, but writing will always be my first love."

And then you may dream about becoming so rich that you can buy a helicopter. That way, you can travel in the helicopter to your high school reunion, like that guy did in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. After all, showing up rich and successful to your high school reunion (in a helicopter, no less) is every high school nerd's DREAM. When everyone comes out to see you arrive, the mean girls' dresses will fly up over their heads, just like in the movie, and the mean guys' toupees will fly off and they'll have to go running after them. Meanwhile, you will climb back into the helicopter and fly away, but not before yelling, "See you around, LOSERS! Eat my dust, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Wait. Am I the only one who has this dream?

When I first started blogging, I didn't really think that a literary agent would come across my blog and offer me a book deal, but I thought that it would be good writing practice. I also thought that maybe I could take some of my favorite posts and put them into a book, or I could use the posts to get ideas for stories. I  wanted to share my writing with other people, because up until then I'd kept my writing hidden away in my journals. But I do think that some people are hoping to get book deals through blogging, which may explain why several of the comments I read on agents' blogs say stuff like, "Oh, you are SO RIGHT about EVERYTHING! Why didn't I think of that? I bow down to your utter wisdom and glory."

Even though I'm not a member of 20sb anymore, I still check out their discussion forums every once in a while. I read one where a blogger wrote that he was asking for donations on his blog; he was going to use the donations to buy a car. However, most of the other bloggers reacted negatively, criticizing his actions. When I looked at one of his recent posts, he said that after a year of collecting donations and saving his own money, he had enough to buy a used car.

There have been  people who asked other people on the Internet to give them money, like Karyn Bosnak, who started a website asking people to give her money so that she could pay off her $20,000 credit card debt. It worked; thousands of people gave her money as well as gifts and care packages. AND she got a book deal and a movie deal out of it.

I think what Karyn Bosnak did is very different from the guy who wanted money to buy a car. She included a lot of fun stuff on her website, like  "The Daily Buck", where she wrote about the things that she did to save or earn money each day. That's why I think that she was kind of like those street performers that I often see dancing, singing, or playing instruments around Chicago. Recently I saw a girl perform with a hula hoop. Once I saw a guy who danced while doing tricks with yo-yos; he advertised himself as a college student trying to pay his tuition. He got several donations from people who stopped to watch.

Even though Karyn got a lot of hate mail and death threats from mean-spirited jerks, a lot more people were generous enough to help her. As she wrote in her book (which is one of my favorite reads, even though I cringed at some of her purchases, such as how she once spent more than seven hundred dollars on lingerie. For me, a "splurge" means buying brand name cereal.), many people can relate to what it's like to be in debt.

I think that Karyn came up with a pretty imaginative way to pay off her debt, but I don't agree with that other guy's actions. It's one thing to get a book deal because of your blog; it's another thing to ask people to give you money just so you can buy a car. I wouldn't mind having extra cash to buy a new car, or enough money to buy all the coffee and chocolate that I want (because then I can be wired ALL the time and work as much as I want, bwahahahaha!). But I'd rather earn my own money to pay for those things. The guy who was trying to get people to pay for his car claimed that he was a full-time college student with not enough time to work multiple jobs. But as someone who's worked multiple jobs while attending graduate school full-time for the past several years, I have no sympathy for him. I also think that what he did was wrong. Next thing you know, he'll start trying to get people to buy him a helicopter.

In my next post, I'll write about including ads on your blog to make money, but I'm curious to know what you think. What do you think of people who use their blogs to ask other people for money? (Side note: I'm not referring to bloggers who ask readers to donate to charity or some other noble cause, like a medical operation, because that's different.)

Tag! I'm It

Fellow blogger Anna Saikin is playing blog tag with some other bloggers, and she tagged me. Apparently I have to answer six questions about myself and then tag other bloggers. So here goes:

1. Are you hot?
YES! It is WAY TOO HOT in the Tourist Trap, and the A/C still hasn't been fixed (though it seems to be working fine in the managers' office). It doesn't help that the temperature has been in the nineties lately. I feel like wrestling the water bottles away from the tourists just so I can splash some water on my face. But I suppose that would be bad customer service.

2. Upload a picture or wallpaper you are using at the moment.
I haven't uploaded any pictures of myself that show my face on this blog because I am not photogenic at all (and also because I'm more or less anonymous on this blog). In most of the pictures that have been taken of me, I think I look like Medusa, the woman whose hair was made of snakes. Or maybe that's just because I don't brush my hair every day.

3. When was the last time you ate chicken?
I ate Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's a few days ago, even though I don't like McDonald's. I have this slightly irrational fear that if I eat too much chicken I'll turn into one.

4. The song you listened to recently:
Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night". When I was a kid, I looked a little like "Kathy Beth Terry" (pre-makeover) in the video. Except I was more nerdy.



5. What were you thinking while doing this?
I was thinking that the fourth season of Jersey Shore is starting soon. If I was trapped in an elevator with Snooki and The Situation, I would literally pry open the doors with my hands (I think that the sheer terror would give me the adrenaline I need) and climb out of the elevator, leaving them to fend for themselves. And yet when the first episode airs, I'm going to watch it. Somehow watching the stupid things that they do (and say) makes me feel smarter, even though I accidentally put my pants on backwards the other day.

6. Do you have nicknames? What are they?
None that I know of. But I suppose that if I did tell people in my "real life" about my blog, they'd agree that "Neurotic Workaholic" is an appropriate nickname.

7. Tag eight blogger friends, even though I only tagged six, because I'm a rule-breaker like that. And to the people I've tagged, feel free to answer the questions and tag others. Or not. (It's not like I'll OBSESS about it if you don't.)

Cantaloupe
E.R. King at Get Busy Writing!
Geophrie at The Far Too Important Blog
Teddi at She Was Write
Lalalalauren at lauren vs. reality
Shannon at Shannon McMahon

Now I'm off to do some homework. And by "homework," I mean watch Jersey Shore reruns.

Little White Lies

Recently a blogger started a discussion on 20-Something Bloggers about how honest we should be on our blogs. I can't remember the specifics of the discussion, but I think the blogger asked if it would matter if some of the stuff on our blogs wasn't 100% true. That made me think of people who write memoirs, particularly the ones like James Frey who have taken "creative liberties" with nonfiction.

When I read a blog I simply assume that whatever is on there is true. What is on my blog is actually what happened. I started a blog because I had never really shared my writing with anyone before, and I thought that this would be a good start. I didn't want to reveal the complete truth about my life, such as my real name, which neighborhood I live in, and what school I go to or where I've taught. Nothing against anyone who isn't anonymous online, of course, because I figure it's your prerogative to reveal who you are or not to. And for now, I've just chosen not to.

What matters to me is the story and whether or not it entertains me and inspires me. It doesn't necessarily have to be what really happened. But on the other hand, I have to admit that it would bother me a little if a nonfiction writer specifically made a false claim about something being true. I can understand why people would be upset with authors like James Frey who misled their audience. But I guess it depends on the reader and what you want or expect from a book or a blog.

If I was going to lie on my blog, I'd probably write the following things:

1. I never thought about filling a big bucket of ice cold water and dumping it on the heads of the people who smoke outside my window every night (I live right above the front door), even though their cigarette smoke fills my apartment every time I open my window. (I have to open my window, even in the winter, because it's incredibly stuffy in my apartment and it feels like it's eighty degrees even when the heat's turned off.)

2. I don't even really need an online dating membership; I just signed up for fun. In fact, whenever I go out, all I have to do is flip my hair over one shoulder and the guys all start arm-wrestling to see who can buy me a drink. (In reality, when I flip my hair, it's more than likely that my hair is going to get caught in my watch and I'll start trying to yank my wrist away from my hair, shrieking, "Ow! I can't get it out! I think I'm stuck!")

3. It doesn't bother me at all when I'm woken up in the middle of the night because somebody is leaning on their car horn or some drunk people outside have decided that it's much more fun to start singing in the street than have some consideration for the people who are trying to sleep. (What, did I get trapped in a Broadway musical or something?) In fact, I'd open my window and call out to them, "It's 3 A.M.!  You should totally sing louder! I just love it when your voices crack on the high notes! Encore!"

4. When a guy suggests that we go out for "drinks and appetizers," I never feel tempted to say, 'Maybe you can be satisfied with just an appetizer, but I'm going to have an actual dinner that I'll pay for myself, okay? And FYI? I'm going to eat every bite of it without sharing it with you, so PBBBPPTTHHH!"

5. When a guy I meet online pulls a disappearing act on me after sending me a few e-mails, I never have the urge to e-mail him an award that says, "Tool of the Year". And it's not like I would ever want to e-mail that same award along with all of his information to every female I know.

6. When there's a person in front of me in line in the grocery store who's buying fruit, vegetables, nonfat yogurt, and fish, I never feel guilty that I'm buying Froot Loops and chocolate.

7. I write every day and I never procrastinate by watching crime dramas or Youtube videos of The Office bloopers. I also never procrastinate by thinking of all the things I would do if I ruled the world. (#1: My slogan as World Leader would be, "Workaholics of the world, unite!")

What do you think? Would you still be willing to read blogs or memoirs that aren't 100% true? If you were going to write "little white lies" on your blog, what kinds of things would you write?

How to Lose Followers and Alienate People

1. Write a post titled "The Top 100 Reasons Why I Am Better Than You".

2. Write a post titled "The Top 100 Reasons Why You Suck for Not Following Me."

3. Plagiarize entire passages and/or posts from other bloggers' writing, and "justify" it by saying, "They stole from me! I just didn't get the chance to write down MY ideas yet, so they must have read my mind or something. But I'm ON to them!"

4. Write reviews of shows like Jersey Shore and Rock of Love and explain why the cast members are our nation's "future".

5. Reveal all the secrets that were told to you in confidence by your friends and family, and say that they have no right to be mad at you because you are simply answering your calling as an "artist". And, if they never told you any secrets because they know that your mouth is the size of Soldier Field and you will blab everything to anyone with ears, then make stuff up, as long as it makes you look good.

6. Make sure that all your posts are about how great your life is, how everyone loves you, how you NEVER have ANY problems with writing EVER, how all the agents and publishers are beating down your door RIGHT NOW just because you're so awesome. That way, anyone reading your posts will roll their eyes and then run to find a place to throw up.

7. Host blog contests where the first prize is the pen you used when you wrote your first novel.

8. Write guest posts for other bloggers, and make sure that the titles of your guest posts say something like, "And here's why you should be reading my blog instead".

9. Instead of making people fill out that word verification box in order to leave a comment on your blog, make them sign over the rights to their first published novel, or make them guess what number between one and 1,546,287 that you're thinking of, or make them give up their blogs so that your blog won't have any competition.

10. Respond to everyone who leaves comments on your posts, and write them messages that say stuff like, "Yes, I know that I'm amazing, but the question is, do your friends know?"

11. Recognize your fellow bloggers by giving them awards with names like "Almost as Cool as Me" and "I GUESS his blog is ok".

12. Don't follow too many blogs, because it takes up too much time that otherwise would be spent admiring your reflection in the mirror, practicing your acceptance speech for the Pulitzer Prize, and writing ANOTHER 100 reasons why you are better than everyone else.

Feel free to add to this list....

That's Not My Name

When I first started my blog, I debated using my real name. Why wouldn't I want people to know that I was the one writing this blog? Why wouldn't I want to receive credit if I wrote something good?

On the other hand, I kept thinking about what would happen if I wrote something that someone didn't like, especially if that someone was someone I knew. I also thought that there was always the possibility that I might get some obsessed fan, and that that person might track me down and profess his or her psychotic devotion by leaving stuffed animals that were blindfolded at my front door or write the words "I know what you wrote last summer" on my windows.

I ultimately decided that it would be better to stay anonymous. One reason I don't have a MySpace or Facebook page is because I've heard of teachers who lost their jobs because of what they posted on those social networking sites. But then again, I doubt that there'd be anything incriminating on my page if I had one. It's not like I have any provocative pictures of myself where I'm under the influence or anything. I don't drink alcohol or do drugs, and I always keep myself covered up, thank you. I do have pictures of myself from college where I was doing readings from the Bible at Mass. I was very wild back then.

I also decided not to tell most of the people in my life about my blog. I thought that if people I knew were reading it, I might be pressured to write what they wanted to hear, not what I was actually feeling. By staying (mostly) anonymous, I can write what I want and not worry what anyone else will say. On the other hand, I've included several details about my life on this blog, so it wouldn't necessarily be too hard for anyone to figure out it was me.

College students are very Internet-savvy, and one fear I have is that my students might read this blog. I don't discuss my personal life with them, because I want them to see me as just their teacher and not someone who will throw fruit at any customer who cuts in front of her in line at the grocery store.

I think it'd be cool to have a video blog, or vlog, but then people would know who I am. I could  wear a mask, but then people might think I'm an alien or a criminal. And I think I'd feel too self-conscious about how I look. But I guess I shouldn't feel too self-conscious. After all, I look a lot like this woman:

Just kidding. That's Kate Hudson. No, really, I look like this woman:

Tee hee. No, I don't look anything like her either. That's Natalie Portman. But people do often mistake me for a supermodel. Then again, these are the same people who also believe that vampires walk among us and will one day rule the world. (What? According to a lot of people, it's already happened.)

And I'm not really single, either. No, this is what my husband looks like:

Yeah, he wears a suit all the time, because he works for the FBI and specializes in cases where people are found guilty of watching The Real Housewives or talking on their cell phones in movie theaters. He says stuff like, "Freeze! Now put down the cell phone and back away from it slowly."

Psych! That's the British actor JJ Feild. And I'm not really married to him. Not yet, anyway. Tee hee.

What I can say is that what I write about my life in this blog is true. I didn't start out with any particular theme or message in mind. I just wanted to write about what I was feeling and thinking, and I wanted to describe everything that I thought was interesting (or annoying or weird).

If and when I do publish a book, I'll use my real name. Maybe eventually I'll put my real name on this blog. But for now, it's just going to be "Neurotic Workaholic". And as anyone who's read this blog can tell, I definitely am a neurotic workaholic anyway. But if someone were to spill the beans on who I am, let me just say that I have stuffed animals of my own and I'm not afraid to use them.

What about you? What are your thoughts on writing anonymously?

Losing Followers

A few weeks ago, I discovered that I had lost a follower on my blog. My reaction was very calm, very low-key. It went something like this:

Me: Oh, DEAR GOD! NOOOOO!! The HUMANITY of it all! Why did I lose a follower? What did I do wrong? (Gasp gasp gasp) I've lost the will to blog! It's too late for me, but SAVE YOURSELVES!

Even though I only lost one follower, it did bum me out for a little while. It's always a nice ego boost when I get a new follower. I'm grateful for the fact that there's at least a handful of nice people out there who are willing to read what I'm writing. So I was caught off guard when I found out that someone decided to stop reading my blog. Was it because I wasn't following that person's blog? Was it because I wasn't posting as often? Did that person find one of my posts offensive? Was he or she offended by my belief that Britney Spears deserves a Grammy? (FYI: She does.)

I know that losing a follower isn't the worst thing in the world. But it does sting a little. For just a moment, it made me question whether my blog was good enough, whether I as a writer was good enough. It also made me wonder if I should be blogging about more "interesting" topics, like maybe instead of writing about my neighbors or guys who take their pants off on the train, I should write more posts about online dating, especially since those usually seemed to get the most comments.

But ultimately, losing a follower wasn't enough to make me stop blogging. For me, blogging is a good way to motivate me to write regularly; I've definitely made a lot more progress in my fiction-writing since I started writing. And even though I do write with an audience in mind, at the end of the day I'm going to blog about whatever's on my mind that day, and hopefully someone out there will want to read it. If I keep thinking about pleasing an audience when I write, I'd probably never write anything.

I think it's like writing fiction. I was always taught that you're supposed to write about what's important to you, rather than write about what's popular or what's trendy. And even if it's not what everyone else is writing about, there's always the possibility that you can connect with someone through your writing who feels the same way that you do. And that, to me, is part of what's rewarding about writing. It's always been one of the good parts about reading, to read something by a good writer and get that thrill of recognition, to think, "That's exactly what I feel!" Another good thing is helping people see things in a different light, so that even if they didn't see things your way before, they came to understand it better once they read your writing.

So even though it isn't fun to lose readers, at the same time it'd be even worse if I gave up writing altogether just because some people don't want to read my stuff anymore. I can't even imagine what my life would be like if I stopped writing, because being a writer is the one thing I've always been sure of.

What about you? Have you ever lost a follower? How did it make you feel?

Blogger's Block

My eharmony membership expires next week. I'm not going to renew it.

On the one hand, I do like the way that eharmony works better than the two other dating sites I've tried. But I had more success finding dates on okcupid, and that site is free.

On the other hand, two more guys pulled the disappearing act on me after we got to the third phase of Guided Communication. That's TWELVE guys total. WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME? Do they not like what I write in the open-ended questions? I can't imagine why; I haven't written anything offensive or lame. It makes me angry that these jerks seem to get some kind of ego boost for giving girls like me false hope.

I did get to go on two dates, but neither of those guys was worth the money that I spent on this membership. I could have used the money to pay some bills. I could have used it for a one-year membership to the Art Institute. I could have gone to several movies; I haven't seen any movies in months. I could have bought ten new books.

I think I'm going to take a break from online dating, at least for now. I hate the stress it puts on me, and I don't think dating should be stressful, do you? I think that the stress is one reason I have blogger's block; I haven't been able to think of any good blog posts lately. I just feel frustrated.

To top that off, one of the classes I was supposed to teach just got cancelled due to low student enrollment. That's a loss of a significant source of income, and I cut my hours at my website job because I thought I was going to teach that class (and I don't know if I'll get those hours back). And of course, I found out about the cancellation just weeks before school starts, so it is too late to find another teaching job. This is yet another reason why I hate being an adjunct.

Although I disliked the book Eat, Pray, Love (I thought the author was a little selfish), I like the idea of taking time off to travel around the world. I've always wanted to do that, especially since I haven't been anywhere since college. I wish that I had the time and the money to see all the places that I've only read about, and try new foods and meet new people.

But since I can't do that, I think of writing as an escape. When I write, I'm able to go somewhere else and get to know new people, and forget about everything else.

That's why every time I feel angry about everything that's wrong with my life, I go to a coffeehouse, order a cup of coffee and a cookie, and write in my journal. Even though I have blogger's block, somehow I've gotten a lot of fiction writing done. I finally finished a draft of my first novel, and I've completed more than thirty pages of my second novel. And that is something.

I'm off to go drown my sorrows in caffeine. Hopefully my next blog post will be more lighthearted, but I didn't really feel lighthearted today.

The Things We Do for Followers

A couple weeks ago, I received a note from a fellow blogger on 20 Something Bloggers. This person complimented me on my blog, telling me how much she liked it, and included a link to her own blog. I was flattered by the compliment, but then I started thinking. If she liked the blog so much, why didn't she become a follower?

I checked the blogger's profile, and looked at the comments she had left on other people's profiles. As it turns out, she had left the exact same compliment on dozens of other blogs; many of the people were flattered and became her followers.

Somehow, it made me think of this guy who was one of the matches that eharmony thought would be compatible with me. He only had one picture up on his profile; it was a picture of Daniel Craig. I mean, really? It's bad enough when guys don't put up any pictures at all on their profiles (and a significant number of the matches I've been sent don't post any pictures). But if you're going to put up a fake picture to attract people, DON'T put up one of an A-list movie star; everyone's going to know IMMEDIATELY that it's a fake. The guy took down the fake picture a few hours later, but I had to wonder if any women actually responded to him.

I recently entered my blog on blogged and blogcatalog, which are two blog directories that people use to publicize their blogs and promote their own writing. One blogger from blogcatalog posted a thread in one of the discussion forums; it went something like this:

Stay AWAY from the blogger who writes about Beanie Babies; she is a LIAR. She said she would follow my blog if I followed hers, but she DIDN'T and now she's going to HELL because she LIED and even though all 5 of my followers think that I am simply FASCINATING, this person is a LIAR and she should be banned from the blogosphere FOREVER and...

Ok, so the blogger didn't actually write that. But his message was pretty much the same. He was very angry that the person whose blog he was following didn't return the favor; incidentally, this angry blogger happens to be from my hometown.

I've gotten several messages from fellow bloggers on blogged.com and blogcatalog who leave messages like, "Check out my blog; follow my blog and I'll follow yours." But the people who have contacted me through these directories have blogs about stuff like technology and politics, neither of which interest me very much.

There have been several discussion threads about this on 20sb, about bloggers who are trying to figure out how to get more followers; there was a discussion thread recently about whether people followed other people's blogs in order to get them to follow theirs. Although the discussion forums on 20sb are meant to promote discussion topics on everything from grad school to dating to jobs, many people will simply create a discussion thread to promote their own blogs. Although I have met many awesome bloggers through 20sb, I have to admit that the self-promotion that other bloggers (not the ones that I think are awesome) do on this community does get a little annoying sometimes.

I follow several blogs, but not as many as some people do. The number one reason is that I don't have a lot of time to read everyone's blogs. I found the blogs I'm following now from other people's blog rolls. They stood out because they were funny, interesting, and the bloggers wrote about stuff that I could relate to. But if I choose not to follow someone's blog, it's nothing personal. I can't explain why I don't follow someone's blog, because there isn't always just one reason. And I don't think I really owe an explanation anyway. If someone reads my blog and likes it enough to be a follower, then great. If not, oh well. And either way, I'm not willing to follow someone's blog just so they'll follow mine, you know?

What about you? What makes you decide to follow someone's blog? Have you ever unfollowed anyone? How do you get more people to follow your blog?