Writing
Charlotte Rains Dixon  

True Confessions

Does anybody other than me remember the magazine with the same name as this post?  It was pretty racy stuff back in the day–women confessing their deep, dark secrets, though nowadays what with the advent of internet porn, the stories in True Confessions would be very tame.  I’m not even sure if it exists anymore.

At any rate, it pains me to announce that I have a true confession.  Here it is:  I am a slacker.  Oh no, come back, don’t slink away in horror.  You know that if you were to look deeply into your soul you would find at least a wee, small part of yourself that could be considered a slacker, also.  But then I have the good fortune to live in one of the great slacker towns in the whole world, Portland, Oregon.  Don’t believe me?  Head to any coffeeshop here (and we have one on every corner) and note how it is filled with people hanging out.  Don’t let those laptops and briefcases fool you, people, we have raised the activity of hanging out to an art form. 

But I digress.  So back to my shocking true confession.  In between working on a book about successful fundraising letters for Atlantic Publishing, editing for Loose Id, and writing copy for a web design company in San Francisco (which, to my great amusement, doesn’t yet have a website), I have been neglecting my blog.  And to continue my whine, let me also remind you that it is Christmas, or Hanukkah, should you prefer it.  Really, you say?  Really, it is.  And that means entire weekends, such as the one recently ended, are taken up with holiday activities, such as getting the Christmas tree.  This is a full-day expedition, seeing as how it is the sacred duty of my family to go out to the Oxbow Rim tree farm to cut a tree every year without fail.  This little adventure involves walking about in the cold for at least an hour, while looking for the perfect tree.  Then it is a given that the perfect tree will either be A. located at the bottom of a steep hill, meaning certain people of the male persuasion are then required to carry it up the hill after cutting it down, or B. it will end up being the very first tree you looked at.  And that is only the Christmas tree expedition.  Don’t even get me started on the parties, of which we have at least one a weekend, or the shopping, of which we have only just barely started. 

So it is for all these reasons that I have been a slacker when it comes to my blog.  I know, I know, I haven’t even been able to find 10 spare minutes to work on it?  Moi, the one who is always going on about finding time to write every day, even if it is only to take notes for 15 minutes?  The one who is always harping about momentum, and how important it is to keep it up by engaging with the work on a regular basis? 

Well, its not that easy, people.  Actually, blogging is easy and delightful and a joy.  But what happens to me is that I start to worry about all the other stuff that goes along with it, in a very un-Zen way.  Like the fact that I’ve not posted a new chapter of Make Money Writing Online in ages.  Or trying to decide if the posts I’ve started to do on Everything I Know About Writing I Learned from my Pug is a series or not.  And then there are my commenters.  I love my commenters beyond all reason and it pains me to admit that I’ve been neglecting them.  I’ve not been responding to comments and I’ve not been visiting their blogs, as I usually do.  Finally, there are the 243 emails related to my blog that I’ve not dealt with.  (Has anyone done research into the phenomenon of emails multiplying like rabbits?  I think they mate at night and bear numerous offspring in huge litters, which in turn then have more children. It is the only thing that can possibly explain how they multiply so quickly.) 

So I am here today to humbly beseech you for your forgiveness and assure you that I have a Plan to deal with my slackerhood (slackerness?)  I am of the opinion that every single one of my problems, and probably pretty much all of the world’s problems, too, can be solved with a Plan.  (Actually I’m learning that a little meditation and mindfulness is pretty good for what ails you, too.) So I am working on a Plan to get my blog back on track. 

Stay tuned for the next episode, in which I conquer my slacking ways and return to the fold of regular blogging.  With luck, it will appear tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way True Confessions, the magazine, does still exist.  You can find the website here.  The only thing that worries me is the fact they are still advertising a feature on Fourth of July cupcakes.  Um, people?  It is December.  But in doing my exhaustive research about the magazine I have learned that it, and others of its kind, are considered to be very good markets for writers.  You can read an excellent article about it here.

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