A while back in one of my writing groups, someone was asking for advice. She had pitched a story idea to an editor at a website and, after a few weeks, had not heard back. (I know, so weird, right? Ha ha.) When she sent a polite note of inquiry, the editor said she had been busy but would respond
Category: Semi-Charmed Life
Here was my idea for a fun blog post: I would avoid saying anything that was at all negative for 30 days and report what I had learned. After dozens of attempts, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never write that blog post, so I’m writing this one instead. I wanted to try this experiment for
In the past few months, I’ve gotten a couple of compliments that I never used to get before. Three people referred to me as a “ray of sunshine” (that exact phrase), and two people called me a “powerhouse.” I was super pleased about both of these, which is probably why I’m writing a post about them. I’m basically just bragging here. But
Soon after I began this blog, I wrote about ways I have kept depression at bay for years. I thought people might be interested in ways to treat depression besides meds, although for some cases of depression, drugs are needed. Then I deleted the post. Like many people, I feared that if I talked about past mental health struggles, people might
A friend of mine suggested I write this post. The other day, she called me because she was feeling embarrassed about an awkward meeting. When she first got to the meeting, she introduced herself to someone who turned out to be a high-ranking executive — someone she maybe should have recognized. He said they had met before, although they had
I don’t like April Fool’s Day that much. A lot of April Fool’s jokes are just mean — they scare people, get people’s hopes up and then crush them, or get them to eat something disgusting. Why would I want to do that? Besides, I am a really trusting person. And I like trusting people! Don’t make me spend a whole
If you ask most people, they’ll say they are against bullying, but plenty of us who say that also engage in it. We don’t do it face to face, with people we know, but with strangers who have somehow caught the Internet’s attention and gone viral. I’m not talking about people who are reviled for bigoted or cruel comments or