Posts from — November 2011

I got to the end of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography during Thanksgiving as I was baking a cake for a friend’s birthday.  Josh and I were sitting at the kitchen table — he was reading Murakami’s 1Q84 and I was finishing Steve Jobs — and the cake was baking in the oven.  Warm chocolate, with an undertone of coffee.

I obviously knew how the book would end, but I found myself crying as I got to April 2011, essentially reading the looking glass: what was happening on the other side as we exchanged emails.  I knew he was sick — the whole world knew he was sick — but I have to admit that I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what was happening in his world.  At least, not specifics.  I had been touched that he had taken the time to write my son; knew that he was a busy man and a sick man at that, and the fact that he would take the time to change a little boy’s life spoke volumes — to me — about his character.

And now I was reading about spring of 2011, and my heart broke for his family.  Any death is impossible to wrap your brain around.

I thought about how often someone has written me, having no clue what is happening in our house mostly because I haven’t said what is happening in our house.  I think about the times that I’ve composed a not-very-nice, leave-me-the-fuck-alone email in my head before sending off a terse, “so sorry — I’ll get to this soon” because no one really knows as we bump into each other — interact with one another — what is happening in the other person’s world; day-by-day or minute-by-minute.  We reach out to each other at these inopportune times without knowing.  And the worst is that we think we know.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to Josh, “there is no reason why it should be taking this long for X to write back.”  And the reality is that I have no idea what else is happening, what I don’t know at all, that affects the other person.  And I do this knowing full well how many times I have left things unsaid here and had to deal with the types of emails that come in when someone assumes that nothing is up.

Reading the book drove this point home: that we have no idea as we read someone’s blog, as we exchange emails, as we see each other on the street, as we spend time in each other’s houses, the subplot, the hidden story, the words unsaid, the thoughts locked inside the mind that affect the emotions, affect our ability to process an interaction.

And that is humbling.

This is the end of the book, but in between, there are dozens of places I marked, dozens of stories that I’ve been discussing with the Wolvog.  And I hope that you’ll indulge me as I process the book and the talks I’ve been having with the Wolvog about the lessons learned from studying someone else’s life.  Because there is something amazing about a person laying themselves bare, even if the book comes too late.  What I really wish I could do right now is write Steve an email — and maybe I will send it off into the ether — and let him know that now seeing the conversation in context, it means even more.  And just thank him for playing the role for my son that Bill Hewlett played for him.  The best lesson I can teach him from the book is to be open with your time, with your ability to reach out, and to do so, even when it is not convenient or easy or even something you want to be doing at all.  Because we’re all just humans, and our greatest gift is to crash into each other, to change each other’s lives, and to be grateful for every interaction because every moment of the day changes who we are.

Photo Credit: Acaben.

A question recently came through the Prompt-ly list from St. Elsewhere (thank you!) about being asked to be a judge for a competition or being asked to review a product, and I thought I would unpack my thoughts here.  Since I am that self-important that I believe I have something worth reading on this topic.

This is my take, for what it’s worth.  If you are a blogger, you are a writer, and being a writer is work.  Not everyone who writes gets paid, just as not everyone who installs cabinets in their kitchen gets paid.  If you’re helping a friend refurbish their kitchen, you may be doing this task for free.  So there are cabinet installers who get paid and cabinet installers who don’t, and they’re both installing cabinets and they’re both doing work.  There are plenty of other professions that have this dichotomy that extends beyond just pro bono work.  There are people who act or sing or paint — and some get paid and some never get paid.

So all people who engage in these sorts of tasks are doing work, though not all of them can count this work as their job.  Does that make sense?  It’s sort of like how all chinos are khakis but not all khakis are chinos… or something like that.

What is it going to take for you to believe me when I tell you that you’re a writer?  Do I have to yank out my extremely fake Harry Potter wand that I made out of hot glue and paper?  Fine, swish and flick:

Bam! You’re a writer.

And now that you recognize you are a writer, you need to start thinking and acting like one.  Even if you never make a dime off your blog, you are a writer and your blog is your writing space.  I am a paid writer and there are still places — like this one — where I write for free simply because it makes me happy.  I get paid here in the currency of control.  It is the only place that I write where I have complete control of the process — from what I say to how long I say it to when it goes up.  So this is a place where I write for free, but just because I don’t get paid in money doesn’t mean that it isn’t a task — and what is another word for task?  Work? — and if it’s a task, it takes time and energy to complete.  Therefore, I’m fairly picky about what I place in this space.  It has to be an idea that I came up with or someone else suggests that resonates with me so completely that I don’t feel bitter about taking up my time to sit down and write the post.

So this is the mental place I start when I get requests to place something on my blog or do write something for free for someone else’s space.

The first thing I ask myself is why they are asking for me to work for free.  If it’s because they don’t have the money to pay — such as a fellow blogger or a non-profit organization — I can wrap my mind around that and feel fine working for free.  After all, I often ask people for favours; to give me their skills or time for free.  I do so because I don’t have a lot of money.  If I did, I’d pay them.  But I don’t, so I have to ask and hopefully find someone who is kind enough to give me their skills for free.  I am fine saying “yes” to a lot of these types of requests because I’ve been on the other end of making them.

If they do have the money to pay but are choosing not to pay me, I’m not quite as cool with that.  That goes for big companies as well as small.  You need to spend money to make money.  While paying me for my skills may be a hardship for a small company, I can appreciate that and still say no.  Unless the company itself is something I would write about unprompted, I don’t take on work — either to place here on my blog or to write something for their site — when asked.  I even say so in my “about me” page in no uncertain terms.

Okay, so what about product reviews where they’re sending you the product?  In that case, the product becomes pay, and you have to decide if you’re okay with both the virtual price and the work you’re being asked to do to get it.  As that Trident commercial shows, some people like to be paid in gum.  At that point, I ask myself, is an hour of my time worth being paid one bottle of baconlube?  If I really wanted meaty lube, I might say yes.  But 99.9% of the time, I say no.

I’ve turned down a new oven, electronics, use of a car, and free trips.  All because while I was fine with the virtual pay for the task, I wasn’t fine doing the work.  I wanted the oven, but I didn’t want to say nice things about the company giving me the oven because they’re a pain in the ass to work with as a consumer.  So I couldn’t have written honestly about the company.  I wanted the trip, but I didn’t want to go on the trip by their rules.  In order for me to take on that “work,” I need to be fine not just with the pay but with what is being asked of me in order to get that pay.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve done a review of a product or business where I was asked (vs. the times when I write about the peppermint tea I’m drinking just because I like it and think you might want to know about it too).

There are times when the product is something I want, and then I think it’s a fair trade.  My time, energy, or skills as a writer for their product.  If Tim Cook wrote me tomorrow and said,

Dear Melanie [I just assume that he'd get my name wrong since so many people do],

We’d like to give you an iPhone 4s and have you review it on your blog.  Would you be willing to do this?

Love,

Tim Cook

The answer would be yes.  I want an iPhone 4s, he is telling me that he’ll essentially pay me in an iPhone 4s to write a post on Stirrup Queens, and I am fine taking the time to write an honest review of my experience with his product in exchange for this type of pay.

But do I want to get paid in lipstick?  Or meatless frozen dinners?  Or washing machines?  The answer is no.  And once I start accepting those “payments” for the work, what I have is not an enhanced life where I feel like I’ve earned something of worth in exchange for my time and energy.  What I have is clutter.  I have a house cluttered with things I don’t really want.

What about being a paid reviewer?  There are programs out there where you can be hired to review a product.  You get paid for the post and you get to keep the product.  Those I treat just like any other freelance article.  I take some freelance articles that are pitched to me (at this point, the pitches go both ways — I pitch to certain places and sometimes other places pitch to me to write for them), and I skip others.  I usually base my decision on the pay (is it enough to warrant the work), how well I think I’ll do the work (am I comfortable writing about it), and my time limitations.  A journalist who reviews products for a magazine gets paid.  They get paid by the magazine.  A blogger who reviews products for their blog should also get paid.  They work for the review program; not the product itself.  And I’m fine with that as long as the review program wants an honest assessment of the product and will allow the writer to point out both its great features and its foibles.

What about being a judge?  A bunch of times, I’ve been asked to serve as a judge for a website’s contest or help work on another organization’s project.  Again, your time is valuable, and I’d take a good long look at how much buying your time should cost.  A few years ago, I implemented and ran and judged Resolve’s What IF project, mostly because I came up with the idea and pitched it to Barb Collura while we were having lunch in New York, and it made sense once the idea was fully formed for me to run it and give it my time — for free.  It came down to the fact that I believe the organization pays me in something else — lobbying hours on the Hill on my behalf.  Resolve fights the good fight for us, and I think  infertile soldiers should give something back to them.  So they pay me in the work they do, and I give them my skills for free as a thank you.

I’ve also been a judge and been paid to be a judge.  I was paid for my time in the judging process and then paid to attend the event where the winner was revealed.  They covered my travel expenses and gave me a stipend.  That showed me that the organization valued my time and energy.

But when I’m working on someone else’s project, I am giving up my personal time.  Or my paid work time.  Or my unpaid work time to dick around on everyone else’s blogs.  So I ask myself before agreeing to work on someone else’s project if I can afford to allow this other site or organization to take away my personal time.  Beyond that, when you work on a project, you are lending your name, your presence on the Web, your time and energy to THEIR project.  And I think my name, Web presence, and time is pretty valuable.  So I don’t give it out willy-nilly.

All of this comes down to one point: when someone asks me to do something for free (or for pay in the form of a product), I am rarely flattered.  Which is not to say when someone or an organization I’m a little star-struck over contacts me that I don’t run around the room in a tight circle for a few minutes saying, “they like me, they really like me!”  After I get that out of my system, I subject everyone and everything to those standards above.  I do not give away my time, energy, or skills without a lot of thought.  And I don’t think it’s very flattering to have someone ask you to work for free when they can pay you.  I think it’s more flattering when they say in no uncertain terms: we value your time and your expertise and your space on the Web, and we’d like to pay you in order to access those things.

I’ve always had the motto that if I can say yes, I should say yes.  But I keep myself inline with the word “can” since there is a personal cost every time I agree to give away my time or skills for free.  And frankly, I can’t afford to give away things that I need for myself.

So those are my very long two-cents on this free-work, review product debate.  And yes, it makes me sound like a curmudgeonly grinch.  But I like to think of it as respecting myself.

Photo Credit: Stevendepolo.

The greatest gift you can give a blogger isn’t a new computer or a year-long membership to self-host their site. It isn’t an Droid Razr or an iPhone 4S so they can blog on the go (though I certainly wouldn’t turn down an iPhone… just saying). It’s something simple and free that you can send out even at 11:59 pm on Christmas Eve and they’ll still have it by Christmas morning.

It’s the gift of the response: comments.

I know you’re probably thinking this gift sounds akin to receiving socks under the Christmas tree, but here me out. What do writers want most of all? They want eyes on their work and a response to their work. Bloggers crave traffic because traffic equals human beings all enjoying the words they’ve strung together. And they like comments because no one wants to speak into a vacuum. We want to know that our words were heard and know how the reader received them.

I think we all have good intentions to comment, but we often forget to actually do it. So here are a few ways you can give the gift of comments or traffic: openly or discreetly.

• Coupon Book: sometimes the posts we want feedback on the most are the ones that people remain silent on. Give a blogger an electronic coupon book with ten punch card spaces for comments. Whenever they have a post they really want a comment on, they can email you the link and you promise to leave them a thoughtful comment.
• Social Media Blast: give the gift of a social media blast. Tell a blogger that they can choose any post they wish and you’ll give it the social media royal treatment: tweet it, Facebook it, Stumble it, Google plus it, etc.
• Queen for a Day: throw a commenting party for a fellow blogger and encourage people to bombard them with comments and traffic for a day.
• Gift Giving on the Sly: you don’t always have to give gifts wrapped in ribbons and bows. Choose a blogger and without telling them so, commit to leaving a comment on every single blog post they write one month (or, if you’re up to it, the entire year).

While electronics are nice, no tangible gift can really replace the care and love that is shown through the gift of feedback and attention. So this holiday season, give the gift of comments. It won’t bust your budget, but it will make a world of difference in the life of another blogger.

Photo Credit: Vincent Van Der Pas.

Cross-posted with BlogHer

I am a big fan of rules.  I like to be given a set of instructions, and I like to follow them.  I’m the sort who does really really well when someone says, “I’d like 500 words written about iguanas, and I want it by 4 pm on Tuesday.”  I can promise you, you would have those 500 words about iguanas by 3:59 pm Tuesday.  Who am I kidding?  You’d have them by 5 pm Monday.  Unless you told me that you only want the piece on Tuesday.  In that case, I would finish it by Monday and then place a post-it note reminder some place conspicuous so I don’t forget to give it to you promptly at 4 pm Tuesday.

I have a library book due today.  On Tuesday night, I realized that I would never finish it in time.  I began stressing out about the idea of leaving the book unfinished.  I started talking incessantly about how I couldn’t finish the book rather than sitting and reading the book.  My plan was to return the book to the library and then linger there for hours until the book went back on the shelf so I could snatch it up and check it out again.

Finally, Josh gently said, “at 50 cents a day, why don’t you just keep the book out a few extra days, apologize to the librarian, and pay the fine.”

Is he fucking kidding?  Isn’t keeping out a library book past the due date as badass as snorting coke off your dashboard as you do 90 up the shoulder of I-95 the day before Thanksgiving?

Keeping out library books past their due date is illeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegal.

What?  It’s not actually a law?

I decided to let Josh be a bad influence on me and keep the book out a few extra days.  I can’t remember the last time I was this wild.

What would you have done if you were in the middle of a book you really wanted to read with no chance of getting your hands on it again for a long time?  Would you have returned it and bought a copy?  Not returned it and eaten the fines?  Returned it and waited months to check it out again?  Hang around the library until it goes back on the shelf?  Or something far crazier than the options I was considering?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Sometimes There are Just No Words” (I Believe in Miracles)
• “Dancing” (Bio Girl)
• “Stages of Life” (Anabegins)
• “Gandhi and Gestone” (The Lucky Life)
• “My Twi-Life” (Aidan, Baby of Mine)
• “For November – Not Quite a PSA” (I Lost a World)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Do Without Doing has a post about scars– the physical kind as well as those left behind by infertility.  I especially love the ending: “It seems like every piece of my life has been touched by infertility.  Scars do heal, but they leave a mark.”  You’ll need to read the whole post to understand.

Waiting for Little Feet has a letter she wrote to her grandmother who has been gone for 10 years.  Though they didn’t really connect on an emotional level while her grandmother was alive, she has since felt a kinship with her knowing their similar fertility stories.  She sees her grandparent’s marriage in an entirely new light; a situation created both by circumstances and the time period in which the miscarriages were experienced.  She cannot go backwards in time and talk about this with her grandmother; she can only go forward knowing that strong women came before her.  A warning; bring tissues for the end of the post.

Reese Dixon has a fantastic post about watching the Muppet movie with her son.  Okay, her post got me bawling at this point: “Then came a part in the movie when Kermit and Miss Piggy sang Rainbow Connection, and I totally lost it. I was overwhelmed in that moment of watching my baby love something that I loved, awash in the nostalgia of my own childhood, reconnecting with what felt like long lost friends, and that scene in Matilda came back to me. As bad as things were before, that’s how good they became.”  A beautiful, must-read post about realizing how far you’ve come.

Life and Love in the Petri Dish has a post about her sister becoming her egg donor.  The post was fascinating.  The lines that stuck out the most for me were that “Her take home message was that my sister’s ability to donate eggs to us would be a gift, an amazing gift. And one that we might need to work a little harder on just learning to receive and say thank you for, rather than analyzing it and then analyzing it some more.”  That was just a huge, huge, huge thought — applicable in so many places in life.  I loved how this post made me think.

Lastly, The Elusive Second Line has a post about being 5 dpo.  She admits, “My husband was concerned that I was going to be upset if this cycle didn’t work, I assured him that I wouldn’t be since I did not expect it to work.  I lied.”  But that wasn’t why I loved this to-pee-or-not-to-pee post.  It’s for this line: “Decisions suck. Almost as much as infertility.”  Damn straight.

The roundup to the Roundup: I play by the library rules and lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 18th and November 25th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Imagine your life five years from now: what do you hope is down the road? What is right beyond the bend in the trees?  A nice thought to play around with in your mind as you sit at your Thanksgiving meal and consider how it will look in just a half a decade.