Mary Bernard

We called him “Chicken Legs.”

He bobbed about with the cadence of a chicken’s walk, with tall, bony legs and turned-out feet that mimicked fowl. From the waist up, however, he favored Eddy Munster with dark black hair and bushy black eyebrows.

Chicken Legs was the bane of my existence during my middle school years. He was a maniacal, yet mostly benevolent, girls’ P.E. coach. He was intent on making us girls well-rounded students of physical education.

He and I could not have had more opposite goals for my education.

Every fall and every spring, Chicken Legs made us play whiffle ball, a “lighter” version of softball/baseball. I was horrible at this game. The sad part was — every time I thought I was doing well, Chicken Legs would come over to me and fix my stance or say “choke up on the bat!”

I had that bat so choked that I was almost swinging it like a golf club.

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I saw this idea on another blog and thought it would be a good idea for my blog.

Every Friday, we’ll take a word and list as many phrases as possible containing that word. (It’s OK if these are portions of song lyrics, proper nouns, or brand names.)

This week’s word is “crazy.”

Here we go!

1. Crazy bread
2. Crazy for you
3. Miss you like crazy
4. I’m going crazy
5. Crazy train
6. Let’s go crazy
7. One wild and crazy guy

What did I miss? What would you add to the list?

So, it’s been three years since I’ve blogged here and you’d think I would choose some happy or funny or thought-provoking post to “resurrect” my entries.

But, no. See, I’ve begun a few of those posts but haven’t finished them quite yet.

Instead, I choose to tell you a long tale of misery and woe, of lies and deceit, of hope and peace.

Hmmm …. sounds like a plot line for a daytime soap, doesn’t it?

The Short Version

For those of you who just want the facts, here they are:

Chris received a signed offer letter and accepted a job offer in mid-July with a start date of August 1. His start date was repeatedly pushed back with excuse after excuse until it was September 8. After talking with the VP, he discovered that the job did not exist and the offer letter was a forged fake.

So, Chris needs a new job with full benefits, a robust salary, stability, and a future.

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So it’s been close to 3 years since I’ve blogged over here. I’ve been blogging—trying to write from a business-type angle—at my other blog, Look In Your House. If you are at all interested in work-at-home-type topics, I invite you to check it out.

But anyway, I missed being here, and increasingly, I think I have a few things to say again. So anything that doesn’t fall under the “work-at-home” umbrella, I’ll put over here. Call it “mommy blogging” or “lifestyle blogging” or whatever.

Stay tuned. I have no idea what will transpire. But I appreciate your reading. 🙂

So I know this blog’s name is The Writer’s Block.

But I didn’t choose that because I actually suffer from it. (No. I just thought it a cute play on words.)

From time to time, however, I get writer’s paralysis, I guess I’d call it. I have snippets of ideas and phrases and story starts all swimming around inside, but I find it terribly difficult to put them together and coax them out.

I always am writing and rewriting in my mind, as my husband is always playing music in his.

When this happens, I have a few tricks to unleash my subconscious and trigger the writing.

1. I really like doing mundane tasks, such as vacuuming, folding laundry, and washing and drying dishes. I’ll rephrase: I don’t always like doing them, but I like what results and goodness knows, I need to be doing them anyway! I always, always, always have something come to mind when I do these things. I get kernels of article starters or even whole paragraphs for a project I’m agonizing over at work.
2. Listen to good conversation. I hate inflammatory and irate talk radio. But I love thoughtful commentary on current events from all different perspectives. I enjoy call-in radio shows and Christian talk/preaching. I’m an NPR junkie and believe Terry Gross is one of the best interviewers in the world. The ladies of The View even get my wheels turning from time to time. You get the point. Bring words and thoughts and news and ideas into your head through your ears and eyes from all different points of view and see what happens.
3. Try PLR articles for idea prompts. I have just discovered PLR (private label rights) articles within the last year. These articles are extremely affordable (typically about $1 per page) and in purchasing them, you buy all rights. This means you can slice and dice them any way you want. Edit them, use them as is, put one paragraph in today’s blog post and another in your newsletter—whatever. You want to find quality written PLR, of course; and as with most everything, junk does exist. But I have isolated a few reputable sources, take advantage of their free offerings, and purchase from them occasionally as well. If you are stuck and you need content, PLR is the way to go. It’s great to have in your arsenal! I recommend Tiffany Dow’s PLR MiniMart and Nicole Dean’s Easy PLR and my very own AllContentPLR.

Hi.

It’s been a year since I’ve written over here.

It’s been a few months since I’ve blogged, period.

Anyway, I was getting a little bit homesick, I guess you’d say. And I have an idea.

I think I’m going to do something with this blog that I probably should have done almost four years ago.

Talk (almost) exclusively about writing. That kind of goes with the name and is certainly a passion of mine. I’ll still blog from time to time about faith and family at Look In Your House.

So, if you’re curious, you may want to stick around for more writing-focused posts.

I have a new blog.

It’s called Look In Your House. I invite you to check it out, subscribe, and tell your friends. Every new subscriber from now until January 31 will be entered to win a great Winter Survival Kit, full of my favorite Melaleuca products.

I’ve been wanting a more niche-focused blog for almost a year now. It’s just taken this long for me to figure out exactly what it would be. It’s not 100% perfect just yet, but I’m giving up perfection! I want it to be in full swing by January 1, so I’m just going with it. (Aren’t you proud of me?)

I’ll still be here writing from time to time, but the bulk of my efforts in the new year will be at Look In Your House.

See you over there! (Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.)

Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

Last week as I was working on my MacBook, it froze. When I tried to reboot, the computer offered me a white screen. I couldn’t get it up past the white screen.

I didn’t panic because I knew the guys at the Genius Bar at the Apple store could help me.

And this is the primary reason that I psychotically love Mac products: those Geniuses at the Genius Bar.

Oh sure, I could tell you that I love the sleek, clean, and streamlined look and feel of my MacBook and my iPod Touch. And I do. Oh, I do. I could also tell you about my love for the intuitive navigation around Mac OS. I may also bring up the fact that I don’t worry about viruses. And, it’s true. All of these things endear me to the Mac camp.

But it’s access to unparalleled customer service that makes me so satisfied.

The Genius at the Bar last week helped me with my MacBook and its white screen. A few checks and he pronounced: “a failed hard drive.”* The computer was out of warranty, so  replacing the hard drive and restoring it to factory settings (now almost 4 years old), would cost about $230.

“But,” he said, “you could change out the hard drive yourself, and I’ll show you how.”

Would you believe, he totally walked me through everything I needed to do to order the hardware, install it, and order, upgrade, and install memory? All of that for $100! He said that once I had all of the new upgrades in place, I’d have the equivalent of the latest and greatest machine.

I was blown away at his forthright and candid help, his patient instruction, and his keeping my best interests at heart.

As I thanked him profusely, I declared loudly, “This is why I’m a Mac customer. And this is why I’ll always be a Mac customer.”

And you know what? I did it. I replaced (and upgraded) my MacBook’s hardware and memory—and saved $100-something doing it myself!

Thanks, Genius Bar.

*Post forthcoming on the importance of backing up data on a regular basis because hard drives will fail. Thankfully, we do back up on a regular basis.

I was not compensated by Apple in any manner for writing this post (I wish!). I simply adore this company and these products and think everyone should convert to Mac. And when I experience good customer service, I like to tell others about it.

I majored in broadcast journalism in college. I spent oodles of time working on my voice and fretting the fact that everyone thought I looked 12 on camera. But I had the good sense enough to chase after the thing that really mattered: becoming a better writer.

I didn’t land on the nightly news (which is a topic for another post entirely), but I do write every day. In fact, I’ve made some money writing over the years. I still have the very first “book” I wrote from the first grade. I have always been a writer and will always be a writer.

When I interned at WSMV Channel 4, I’d tag along with reporters on their news stories. More than anything, I wanted to mimic their good habits so that I, too, could become a better writer. On the way to a story, riding in the news car, I’d wait for a break in the conversation and ask, “What advice do you give for being a better writer?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. This past weekend, I attended a blow-your-socks-off conference on apologetics (I’ll post more about the conference later). Among the things that astounded me was the level of scholarship these speakers exuded. The men I heard were smart. Very smart. Extremely well-read and studied. Quite articulate, excellent story-tellers, compelling wordsmiths.

I was confronted with my steady diet of Spongebob, CNN news headlines, and Seinfeld re-runs. Really. Just soaking up the knowledge in these men’s brains and being asked to track with them was invigorating and convicting.

So what makes a good writer? I offer my suggestions (from a mix of that aspiring television journalist in the early 90s and a worn-out mother of three in the 21st century):

• Live. Writing must be authentic, born from life experiences. You gotta have something to say before you can say it.
• Learn. Read. Research. Open books. Immerse oneself in classic literature and in the great minds past and present.
• Listen. Train one’s ear to listen for beautiful language, great storytelling, weighty words with meaning, and foreign words needing more explanation.
• Expose oneself to other art forms to find inspiration. Great music, theatre, or film often jump start a creative notion inside. Hang out with creative people and tap into their muse, too.
• Don’t settle for life at the surface level. That’s easy. Life is offered to us on a paper plate every day. Go deeper. Ask for the good china and the steak and lobster. Spend some time mulling over the weightier matters of philosophy or theology. Everybody’s good at the surface-y stuff. Don’t be like everybody else.
• Write.

What makes you a better writer?

photo credit: tech no logic

I spend a lot of time online. I work online. I play online. I gather information online.

You do, too. I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this blog, then you’re also probably online a lot.

In case you’ve been under the proverbial Internet rock (or have just procrastinated way too much), I want to make sure you do two things before you again shut down your Internet connection.

Sign up for Groupon and Swagbucks.

Groupon offers a deal each day. If enough people buy in, then the deal is “on.” And these are incredible deals. All sorts of services, retailers, and restaurants offer Groupon deals. Chris and I have eaten a $40 dinner for $20 at Amerigo. We have another Groupon worth $25 for Bria Bistro that I got for just $2. Referring friends gets you Groupon credit, which can be applied to future Groupons. It’s just a brilliant set-up and rewards you for doing what you’re already doing anyway. The hardest part is not jumping in to every Groupon offered. I have to be quite deliberate about which ones I buy.

Swagbucks is a search engine. As you use the Swagbucks search engine to do the searches you’re already doing anyway, you accrue points. You can then redeem points for prizes. My favorite “prizes” are gift cards. You’ll find your favorite retail gift cards there: Amazon, Target, Starbucks, iTunes. My goal with Swagbucks is to use those gift cards for my “fun stuff”: books, coffee, Target therapy.

I know there are all sorts of great online deals vying for your attention and many are worthy of it, I’m sure. But if I could highlight the two most-basic “no-brainers,” it would be Groupon and Swagbucks.

What are you waiting for? Go. Go now and sign up.