Just A Little Red

Negative Exposure: When You’re Pinned As Something That You’re Not While The Hits Are Coming In

Posted on April 25, 2016 by DMW

Last Thursday my blog exploded in terms of views. Seriously, despite my open letters to AWP and ReSound getting a ton of hits, or my commentary on the whole female nude photo leak or even my travel post about the Winchester Mystery House I have never in a single day reached 418 views. But I did on Thursday.

I never pay attention the day I post things, in terms of views and whatnot. My husband who is my greatest cheerleader, on the other hand, does.

“Did you know you had 352 views today?” His face was in shock. I think the best I had done before this was about 200.

“No. Why?” I asked suspiciously, because if timing wasn’t ironic enough, I had just posted something that day which talked about me taking a step back from blogging. Whoa, timing. Well, I was in for an even bigger “Whoa,” than I imagined.

Vox.com put out a feature article that day: The Smug Style of American Liberalism. Now, I’m not going to comment on the article itself, because I don’t consider myself all that smug. (Though the author is quite smug, though that was the point, poking fun at the subject matter and title, and adding a layer of something. The tone didn’t bother me; I saw it as a literary technique/device.)

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Posted in Blog, blogging, community, culture, Entertainment, Journal, media, Social Media, Thoughts | Tagged article title, blogger, Emmett Rensin, exposure, image, Kim Davis, liberalism, misinterpret, Opinion, politics, sexism, social commentary, The Smug Style of American Liberalism, Vox.com, wordpress, wrong impression | Leave a comment

Taking A Step Back: A Blogging Perspective

Posted on April 21, 2016 by DMW

When I first started my blog I had my reasons. Mostly, it was my own attempt at daily writing. I wanted to challenge myself to write beyond just prompts. Whether they were reviews or opinion pieces or parts of my own personal story. Writing is a muscle and I wanted a lot of flex time.

So I challenged myself to write four blogs per week, or at least average that. For the first year I did and then I broke my blog into two after a lot of introspection. My original blog would stay as is, but the new blog would feature all of my reviews. I still planned to do an average of four posts per week, but now they were divided between two different blogs. I didn’t care if this meant each blog would have two posts per week or one would have three and the other just one. As long as it all came out to four, I was fine.

But now I am reevaluating again.

I don’t doubt that blogging has done wonders for me. I am flexing my muscles and between this writing and my attention and focus on craft and workshops and classes, I have grown exponentially as a writer. Blogging is a part of that. And should I ever publish a book (God, I hope so) blogging will be important. I’m not walking away or even taking a giant step back. In fact, I’m not doing anything officially… But unofficially I have decided to give myself permission to step back. To cool it, just a little.

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Posted in Blog, blogger, blogging, Happy, Journal, Life, Thoughts, Writing | Tagged aspirations, book, career, goals, perspective, stories to tell, what really matters, writer | Leave a comment

The Truth About Privilege

Posted on April 18, 2016 by DMW

Privilege. It’s a scary word for some. The idea that one group of people is automatically counted while others are left behind – seen as better, and treated as such, is repulsive. I think a lot of people feel this way, both those with privilege and those without. No one alive today created the system that dolls out privilege more than it does basic human rights – some simply exploit it. (I feel like these people are the minority to be clear.)

For me, I’ve been aware of privilege most of my life. I’m a disabled, gay, bi-gendered (or genderqueer, I really don’t care what label is used) non-Christian, white person. In nearly every category I have been the one who is outside of privilege. But it wasn’t until I was aware of my own privilege that I became aware of privilege as a concept. I grew up in a comfortable enough family. Money wasn’t an issue. Sure both of my parents always wanted more, but neither of them were actually hurting for it. Vacations and Nintendo and Christmas gifts – they were all standard. And by standard I mean not-so-standard but at the time I didn’t realize that.

By the time I was fourteen however, I was more or less on my own. Being openly gay in an uber-conservative, Catholic family was not advisable, but I didn’t care. I suddenly found myself bouncing place to place and at times homeless. My upper-middle class privilege was gone. I felt like I was Cinderella in reverse. But it humbled me. And it cleared a lot of things up.

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Posted in community, culture, Equality, Journal, LGBT, Opinion, Personal, Social Justice, Thoughts | Tagged "white privilege", able-bodied, allies, awareness, check your privilege, debate, disabilities, gay, marginalized voices, minority, prejudice, privilege, privileged, society, under-privileged | Leave a comment

AWP: Take 2!

Posted on April 14, 2016 by DMW

Last year I attended my very first AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference. The experience was… well, not so great. I was going to say “complicated” but it really wasn’t. It was just very, very “not great”. Why?

The conference was not accessible. In fact it had so many ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) violations, it was shocking. And I’ve always considered myself to be unshockable. I wrote about it a few times from my very rough beginning at last year’s conference to finding myself needing to apologize for my deafness. I wrote with a positive tone, trying to find the good in all things makes me feel better. It doesn’t mean there isn’t things that need to be changed, but I don’t want to think of my time as totally wasted. But any positive I got out of the conference was from people I saw or collective energy rubbing off on me, rather than panels or things that AWP should have had covered.

See, I reached out to AWP well in advance regarding my disabilities (primarily my profound deafness and the devices that needed to be used in order for me to understand the panels) to make the necessary arrangements. Instead of being told what accommodations they had available, I found myself asking, and eventually fighting to have them do very simple things that were really things I was doing and they were allowing me to do. Many panels outright refused to use the devices I gave them. It was radio silence from AWP’s staff for weeks before the conference and during. I was so disheartened. I knew things needed to change.

I wanted to do a disability caucus and was frankly surprised there wasn’t one already. But I didn’t have the time to prepare a proposal in time, especially still reeling from my experiences. Luckily, someone else did. And I thought that perhaps I would try again, but didn’t think it would be very likely.

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Posted in Editing, Events, Thoughts, Writers, Writing | Tagged “second chance”, access, ada, americans with disabilities act, Association of Writers and Writing Programs, AWP, bullying, conference, disabilities, discrimination, equality, inclusion, Kate Gale, open letter, open mind, progress | Leave a comment

Hello Hollywood! A Los Angeles Return/Vacation/Reunion All In One

Posted on April 11, 2016 by DMW

Two weeks ago, Roy (the husband) and I traveled to LA for a weeklong trip that was both work and play. It was a big deal to go back to Los Angeles (I lived there for a few years while in graduate school) but I’ve already talked about why it was a big deal to go back and how I felt once I did go back, so I’m not going to get into that again. The reason for going to LA (officially) was for a national writing conference, which took up half of our time. Unofficially it was a chance for me to go back to a place I once called home and for my husband and I to have a little vacation (it’s been a little more than a year since we’ve done any serious traveling, almost two where the traveling wasn’t family visit related). From all accounts, I think we had a fabulous time! 🙂

Our trip could have gotten off to a shaky start. We only had an hour’s sleep because there was a lot of “right before” craziness that came up. I swear it is always like this, even when we’re practically completely packed days in advance. But we both slept on the plane and I slept in the car, which certainly helped. Plus, Roy got his coffee fix and I was pleasantly surprised at the rental place. Roy decided to “splurge” and rent a small SUV without telling me (we always get economy/compact cars) and then the place upgraded us for free and we ended up with a minivan! I love minivans, as in when people think of their dream cars, I have always pictured a minivan since I was eight. Which I am pretty sure is just further proof I was born to be the soccer mom to 6+ little ones. 😛

Our first day in LA, we didn’t actually stick around in LA; we went to San Diego. One of my biggest “wish I had” things about my time in LA was going to the San Diego Zoo. I love animals. Seriously, I wanted to be a veterinarian to wild animals like lions and tigers for the longest time as a kid. I am still obsessed with animals today. Just how much? I tracked down a crazy wildlife book collection a few years back and just this last Christmas, my husband got me this:

One of my favorite Christmas presents, btw. So anyway, it was off to the zoo for us. I loved it, and so did Roy. We spent all day there! I am trying to think of my favorite part and it was probably the tour at the very beginning of the day. We walked around (and got lost a few times) and saw everything there was to see. (My favorite part is always the big cats.) The San Diego Zoo is most definitely the second best zoo I have ever been to. The Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo remains in first place, which I was not expecting (I was sure San Diego would bump Omaha down) but both zoos are incredible and must-sees for any animal lover.

Then, even though we were utterly exhausted, we had dinner on the water. The place (Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern) was so amazing. I had the Salmon Rissoto Tower and it was so unique. They had so many great options and I was on the fence, but was so happy that I got this. Roy was equally impressed with his meal. And being on the water, it was just so romantic and the perfect end to the perfect day.

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