#BlogLikeCrazy - November 2015

The first time I met Javacia Harris Bowser was several years ago, at a blogging conference for the now defunct Skirt! Magazine. We were both blogging for the publication at the time and had made the short trek to Atlanta for the event.

We ended up being seated at the same table and I'll always believe it was meant to be because this lady is a force to be reckoned with and in incredibly positive influence in my life. The founder of the popular website "See Jane Write," Javacia is an incredible writer and encourager of women in her community (and around the world). She is a mover and shaker who I'm proud to call a friend.

We've stayed in touch over the years and she even featured me on her blog a few years ago. I recently joined the social media platform Periscope, not really knowing what to do with it but wanting to experience this cool, new thing I've been hearing about. It prompted me to follow some of the folks I'm connected with on Twitter and Javacia happened to be one of them.

Tonight, I was vegging out with a pile of magazines, trying to get ready for the coming week and heard this funny little chime on my phone alerting me that someone I followed on Periscope was online. Lo and behold, it was Javacia, sharing the #BlogLikeCrazy project. (*Sidenote: If you haven't checked out Periscope, you might want to. I haven't scoped yet, but you can find me thru my twitter @sthrnbellesimpl)

Image via See Jane Write

The #BlogLikeCrazy challenge involves thirty days of blogging for the month of November (similar to the National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo). It feels like just what I need to get myself back into the swing of things around here.

At the Skirt! conference (where I met Javacia), I'll never forget hearing from one of the speakers about how as a writer, you have to be able to picture your audience as if they are anxiously waiting just on the other side of a door to hear what you have to say. At that point, I had only been blogging for a year or so and it was hard to imagine any sort of audience reading at all, let alone some mob of people who cared to hear from me. 

But then the speaker asked if any of us believed this could be true. Some force that seemed to be outside me caused my hand to shoot up and I yelled "I do!" It was very surreal, but at that moment I did see it. Not like I saw myself rich and famous or anything. But I could picture people who might enjoy hearing what I had to say.

From there, a lot has happened. I quit one job and got fired from another one. I started my own business and went to work for lots of different companies. I got married and bought a house. But all along the way, Southern Belle Simple has remained. Many popular bloggers I've followed (some for years!) have closed up shop. At times, I have nearly considered it myself. My writing frequency has waned and sputtered. I have cried to my husband about it, attended other conferences to get re-invigorated and joined writing groups for support. Somehow this #BlogLikeCrazy thing feels different. Knowing Javacia is at the helm gives me courage to do it.

So stay tuned for what November will bring.

To every thing, there is a season.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes contains what have long been some of my mom's favorite Bible verses. She has quoted these words to me all my life, in different situations, under various circumstances.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..." (and so it goes...)

I thought of another set of things, and while it failed to be included in the Bible, each of these also has its own place in time (or at least in my life anyway).

A time to create, and a time to consume. 

I go through phases where all I want to do is create. It feels like a well is springing up inside me, with idea after idea that wants to be brought to life. Words flow onto the page during this time much more easily. Difficult things seem more possible.

In a season of creation, I find myself making time for the creative process, and making it a priority too. 

And then there is another season I often find myself in. When I just want to consume. When what I have to give creatively feels dry as a bone. And it's all I can do to simply enjoy somebody else's creation for awhile.

I used to heap lots of guilt onto myself for this. Especially as a creative type. These seasons of mass consumption can leave me feeling bad about myself, like I'm not contributing, not being productive, not tapping into my own unique whatever.

But some days are just this way. Some weeks too. Maybe even months.

A true creator understands there is a time to sit back and enjoy what you have created. And sometimes you sit back and enjoy what others have created also.

If you are in a season of creation, enjoy it. Savor every moment. Every frustrating, soul-searching, thought-provoking, mind-blowing, liberating moment. 

If you have found yourself in a season of consumption, well, enjoy that too. My only advice (and don't you love to hate people who give advice) is this: Be careful what you consume. 

Just like a healthy well-balanced diet needs a little junk food to keep life interesting, so does a time of consumption need things like binge-watching your favorite episodes of a cheesy reality show. But even though there's a place for it (in moderation), don't be fooled. It will never truly feed your soul.

You can't expect to have the energy and power you need to live this life if you wake up each morning and feed your body Twizzlers. And you can't expect to fuel anything deep in your soul by only feeding it things like Buzzfeed quizzes.

Read a chapter in a book that was written 100 years ago. Watch a movie in a language you don't speak. Listen to a podcast about something that challenges you. Talk to a person whose ideas are staunchly different from yours. Be open to what they have to say. Try a type of food you've previously wrinkled your nose at. Play music that you can't sing along to.

In whatever season you happen to find yourself, remember that it won't last forever. Often by the time we even realize what season we're in, it's already over. But please create. Something. Anything. The world needs all of us to be the beautiful, magical, amazing place it wants to be.

Finally, this passage which must have inspired me even though I didn't remember it til just before hitting the publish button:

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” 

― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

99 problems, but too much time ain't one.

There are 99 days left in 2015. Let that sink in a little. Doesn't it feel like this year just started? No wait, doesn't it feel like 1998 just started? Somewhere my sixteen-year old self is slurping a can of Diet Coke through a carefully chosen color-coordinated straw, wearing knock-off Doc Martens, and so much Wet 'n Wild shimmery eye shadow that it's caked. And my hair is dyed a semi-permanent shade of medium auburn brown that can only be described as Cinnaberry (thanks, Clairol Natural Instincts).

But that can't be right. I've been out of high school for a decade and a half. Y2K, something we anticipated for what felt like ever, has already come and uneventfully gone. We are 15 years into the 2000s. How is that even possible?

Do you ever feel like time is going by faster than you can even mark its passing? 

Where my girls at whose kitchen wall calendar was still on the August page for the first two weeks of September? Am I the only one?

I had a big idea of writing a post to challenge you (but mostly myself) about what you're gonna do with the next 99 days. A sort of friendly call on the carpet to say, now what?

But the truth is, I have no idea what the answer is. It's hard for me to picture the next three days, let alone the next 99. And I struggle with the fact that it's completely assumptive to think we are guaranteed the next 99 days anyway. It's totally cliche, but true, that we aren't guaranteed with the next minute. Anything can happen at anytime. But the moments keep ticking by.

Are you spending too much time planning for things and not enough time living right in this moment?

Maybe you're one of those people who has your whole life planned out. You probably have a goal board. And that's awesome. I'm not there yet. I might never be there. But you know what? That's awesome too.

I don't have all the answers. But here's what I know: The success of my next 99 days will not come from things I did which were motivated by shame. On New Year's Eve I probably won't even remember this post, and I'm certain I won't sit down and check things off a list to see if I accomplished it or not. That's just not how I roll.

I want my next 99 (or however many I've got left) to include the following:

• Saying yes to things I want to do, saying no to things I don't
• Giving people more grace (i.e. permission to fail) 
• Giving myself permission to fail 
• Really listening when people I love are talking
• Making new memories with people I love instead of just reminiscing about old ones
• Looking for adventure and not being afraid to jump when I find it
• Rescuing bugs that are trapped in my house
• Watching more tear-jearker animal rescue videos with my husband

It's a good place to start. And yes, a huge part of me wanted to post 99 things. But I think I'll stop right there. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

Good things come.

I've always heard the old saying that "good things come to those who wait." And I mostly, sort of believed it.

Today I was at the thrift store, scouring the racks for some fabulous clothing finds. I looked through item and after item, not having much luck.

[As a side note, if you are a size S or XS fashionista who donates your old J.Crew clothes to my neighborhood Goodwill, thanks...but don't you have anything bigger? I just can't fit you.]

After circling the store twice and flipping through what felt like ten racks of clothing, I finally stumbled on a gently-worn cashmere sweater from Banana Republic, in my size.

Aha! Finally! And then this phrase came to my mind: Good things come to those who wait. Maybe this is true sometimes, or at least maybe it seems to be true. But what had actually happened is that I wasn't waiting when the good thing came to me.

I was looking.

What if instead the old saying were that "good things come to those who look?"

Or take it a step further...what if "good things come to those who don't stop looking until they find it?" 

Maybe finding an old used sweater at a thrift store doesn't do it for you, but whatever "it" is, there's something you're hoping for. And sometimes it might plop right down in your lap. I mean, I guess anything is possible. Scratch that, I know ANYTHING is possible.

But what if the thing you want hasn't come to you yet. Are you looking or just waiting? Sometimes the good things are hidden, even if just right under your nose. Who knows what you might find if you look?

Sometimes we wait. And wait. And wait and wait. But during all that waiting, what's the harm in looking for the good things too? If you look for something good, I promise you will find it.

What to do when your truth is ugly.

Whenever I seem like I'm holding some bit of information back, my husband has a saying.

"Tell the truth and shame the devil."

I really have no idea what this means, but it never fails to make me smile a little bit.

There are all sorts of reasons why I sometimes have a hard time telling my truth.

Sometimes it's because I don't feel like the person I'm talking to is going to receive it very well.

Sometimes it's because I'm just exhausted and don't feel like working up the nerve.

And sometimes, it's because I don't like the truth.

Sometimes, it's ugly.

Lately, I've been sitting on a big pile of ugly truth. And I don't care what the devil feels about it one way or another. I just don't want to let it out.

But isn't it funny how the truth is the truth, no matter if we say it or not? And if it is, in fact, the truth, it has a way of eating away at us.

So maybe you're wondering what my so-called ugly truth is. It's nothing unique to me. And parts of it may look just like yours.

It's a collection of things really. When you take a page from my book, it's not one neatly colored-inside-the-lines page, but a whole handful of them, ripped haphazardly without the luxury of perforations. Just jagged edges.

Selfishness. Jealousy. Hurt feelings. Anxiety. Worry. And that was just in the last 45 seconds of scrolling through my Facebook news feed.

We all struggle. It's just part of life. And some days are more of an uphill climb than others. But it is what it is. And if everybody threw all their troubles in a big pile, I'd still pick the ones I have. Because they really aren't even troubles to speak of. They just don't look so shiny and pretty through an Instagram filter.

We've been watching episodes of Seinfeld on Hulu this summer...how I love that show. I have a favorite episode when George's fiance Susan wants to start hanging out with the gang, but of course he isn't keen on the idea. Somehow they all end up at the coffee shop without George and Jerry knows immediately that this is not going to end well when George shows up.

My favorite part is when Jerry says quietly to himself "This is gonna be ugly." Susan overhears him and asks "What's that Jerry?" and Jerry replies: "Boy, am I ugly."

I don't know why but this makes me feel better about my ugly truth. Maybe if we can just see things clearly, it helps provide some perspective.

What if just admitting it could take some its power away? 

Sometimes the truth is ugly. That doesn't make it any less true. It might be difficult, messy, unattractive, uncomfortable, awkward and gross. And that's okay.

But then there's something that comes to mind. The final line from Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn --

'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"

If beauty is truth and truth is beauty, how can our truth every truly be ugly? What if it's not up to us to decide what is ugly or not, but instead we were meant to use our energy spreading truth? Even in the midst of what feels ugly, we can be our beautiful, powerful selves if we just hang on to what we know. The truth.

My great-grandma used to say that "the truth will stand when the world is on fire." 

I'd so much rather live in a few ugly truths than try to keep up a pretty lie. How about you?

Clubs I'll Never Belong To

Bookstores are a magical place where I always manage to spend more time and money than I originally intended. I have a similar love for libraries, especially because the books are free, although my husband considers them inferior because "you have to give the books back."

As a writer, going to bookstores can also be a challenge, especially when you haven't published a book yet, but wish you had. Looking at all those beautifully designed covers and reading all the clever titles can be a reminder of what you haven't achieved. 

During a recent bookstore trip, I found myself in the Home & Design section where what feels like a myriad of books by bloggers-turned-authors abound. 

As a blogger who wants to be an author, this is a double-edged sword of possibility and despair. 

The possibility comes from thinking "hey, if he/she can do it, surely I can too!" while the despair tries to silence that hopeful thought with a big ole fat turd of "never gonna happen." 

Are you ever guilty of disqualifying yourself like this? Why is it that we are so quick to take ourselves out of the running for something we truly want? 

Is it because we think the big picture end result we seek is impossible? Or is it that we just can't see to the end of today because of all the little things that have distracted us?

Do you ever feel like an outsider? Like you just don't fit? 

This weekend while shopping at the Dollar General, I had a brief conversation with the sales clerk who shared that his day wasn't going very well. When I asked him what the trouble was, he replied,"the world's a tuxedo and I'm a pair of brown shoes." 

How succinctly that says it all. 

As much as being different and celebrating our own version of unique-ness can be fun, sometimes it's really nice to just fit in. 

My mom likes to say that "people join clubs for the same reasons they once carried them." Think on that for a second. 

There's a certain kind of safety in numbers. Also the feeling of comfort that comes from not being the only person struggling with a particular issue. 

Don't you just want to feel seen, heard and most of all understood? 

I know I do. 

Back at the bookstore, I had a thought. There are clubs I'll never belong to. Not for lack of wanting, but just because of not fitting. 

I'll never belong to the club of people whose hair blows gently in the wind without frizzing. And I'll never belong to the club where they have the perfectly manicured nails and the clothes that fit just so and thin ankles. Or the one where people wear white linen and eat spaghetti while never spilling a drop. 

And then there are clubs I don't belong to yet. Like the one for book authors. I might not be a member today, but I won't say never. I'll just say not yet. 

That brings us to the club of which I'm a card carrying member. 

It's anything but exclusive. There's plenty of room for you and anyone else who might happen to tag along or wander in or just show up.  

Our dress code is not fancy. Many of us wear our hearts on our sleeves. 

Nobody calls the roll and you won't get a X by your name if you happen to miss a meeting. 

There's no collecting of dues. Although we do ask that you be yourself. [It's okay if you don't know who that is. Most of us are still figuring it out.] 

Instead of Robert's Rules of Order, we adhere to the natural order of life, which hardly ever actually follows any order that makes sense and keeps us on our toes, always wondering what is going to happen next. 

We are the dreamers. The thinkers. The over-thinkers. The kids who heaved a sigh of relief when the teacher said it was Library day, as opposed to P.E. The ones who feel deeply for the ones who hurt deeply. 

The ones who are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, even though we secretly (and wrongly) thought perfection might be possible. We are the ones who believe anything is possible. 

We are the ones with single moms who worked overtime to send us to the 'good' preschool. Whose dads wanted to create for us a more stable and peace-filled home than they'd had themselves. We are the ones whose grandparents told us we were their pride and joy. 

We were the ones who showed up, day in and day out. We were not star athletes. We were not the valedictorian. We don't always finish what we start. We don't always start what we want to finish. We still show up. Sometimes we feel like nobody notices us. Sometimes we hope nobody will notice us. 

We ask too many questions and we have none of the answers. But the answers to the most important questions are etched onto our hearts. We love the people we love without any rhyme or reason. Sometimes this is to our detriment. We keep loving them anyway. 

While the details of our stories may be different, we recognize that we all begin and end the same way.

We make room for each other.

There's room for you. 

Pull up a chair. Set your burdens down. Kick off your shoes. Today the world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of black patent wingtips. You fit perfectly here.

To be a writer, you must listen.

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.” ― Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings

To be a writer, you must first be a listener. More than that, you must be a watcher too. There's only so much inside you. The rest must come from around you. And before you can truly tell a story, you have to understand it all the way to your core. 

Remembering is like listening backwards, which can be hard to do. This is why I like to hear the same stories told over and over. Like the one about my grandpa hitchhiking to Laramie, Wyoming. 

Born in Texas, my grandpa moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee when he was a boy. There he discovered one of his first loves: football. In his senior year of high school, he was invited to several colleges for recruiting visits, including Auburn, Texas Tech and the University of Wyoming. He and a couple buddies set out during Easter break to visit the schools. 

Recruits were given money for bus tickets, lodging and so-forth but my grandpa and his buddies decided they would keep the money and hitchhike instead. It's hard for me to imagine a group of three high school students hitchhiking 1400 miles one way, but in 1953 I guess it wasn't that big of a deal. 

I've heard this story told so many times, I know it well and can anticipate what parts are coming next. But each time, something new comes to light. That's why I never tire of hearing it. 

And this is only one of the stories he lived. One tiny sliver of the pie of his life. 

There are so many things I want to write about, as a self-proclaimed champion for stories that deserve to be told. But unless I have the person's exact words, I'm going to be guilty of telling them from my own perspective. 

We are told to honor our father and mother so that our days may be long on the Earth. The best way we can honor the ones who came before us is to tell their stories. And the only way we can do justice to someone else's story is to know it inside and out. Thus, we have to listen.

How to be a blogger

This post might seem untimely. But it's pretty relevant to me. I used to spend a huge part of my day reading blogs. I had a list of all my favorites and I would hop around the Internet from one to another taking in the latest posts. This was back when I worked at a regular 8-to-5 job that I left each day and didn't give a second thought to during my downtime.

Since making a shift to my current work in the world of marketing, there's less definition about when the work day begins and ends. Meaning I'm always thinking about one work-related thing or another at all hours of the day and night. And I really love my job. But I don't have much time to read blogs anymore.

The other day, I found myself with some free time and ended up going down a rabbit hole of blog reading, trying to get caught up on what some of my old favorite bloggers were up to. I was surprised to find that many had not posted anything new in several months and some seem to have quit blogging altogether.

Then it hit me. If anyone else found himself doing the same thing and landed on my blog, he might think I had given up on blogging too.

For the first three years after starting Southern Belle Simple, I blogged regularly, religiously, at least 5 times a week (Monday through Friday). Then I made a career shift and my time was more filled with work responsibilities. Since 2012, my blogging frequency has slowed significantly (once or twice a month?).

If you are an avid blog reader, you may have experienced this as some of your favorite bloggers have slowed down or stopped blogging. Or maybe you are a blogger yourself and this is you. One thing that may be to blame is burnout. I've experienced this for sure. Something else that may be a stumbling block for bloggers is frustration from not having many readers or feeling like your voice doesn't matter in a sea of others who are louder and more "popular."

Here's the bottom line...

If you feel in your heart the urge to blog, you should go for it. 

For that matter, blogging is simply a means of communication and not the end-all and be-all by any stretch of the imagination. The deeper calling is to write.

If you feel led to write, it means there's a reason your voice needs to be heard.

Don't be selfish with the incredible gifts and talents God gave you. The world needs your unique perspective, just like it needs mine. And for the record, I'm mainly writing this post to myself. I just thought there might be others who could benefit from it too.

A year or so ago, I was invited to attend an exclusive event for bloggers. Everyone was talking about different funny things they had experienced while blogging and also what kinds of emails and correspondence they received from readers.

One blogger in attendance is pretty popular among certain circles. She was complaining how she got all sorts of requests from readers asking for guidance on how they could make their blogs as popular as hers. She basically said that because of the influx of bloggers out there all vying for attention of companies and readers, the window to become a successful blogger had shut.

To me, it sounded like a message of "don't even try. You won't make it and it's not worth it anyway."

So is that what we would tell young writers? Just because a ton of great books have already been written, it isn't worth trying to write another? Or what about songwriters and composers? Are there no great songs still left to be sung? Or what about filmmakers? There will be no more movies in the future that are worth watching because all the good ones are already out there?

Nonsense. There's plenty of good stuff to go around. There's enough pie for all of us.

So that being said, here are my best tips for how to be a blogger...if you were wondering.

1) Just do it. If you feel it in your heart, you gotta run with that. It doesn't matter that other bloggers are quitting or that social media is always changing. Maybe a long-form blog isn't what you had in mind anyway. Find what works for you and do that.

2) Tell your truth. Blogging isn't really about painting a picture-perfect scene that presents your life in such a way that everyone wants to be you. I mean, there are plenty of blogs like that but do they make you feel better about yourself? They usually serve to make me feel worse. But when you tell your real-life, gritty truth, it gives the world a chance to relate to you. The real you.

3) Don't bury your treasure. When a thought or idea comes to you, and you ruminate on it for awhile and it seems like a good topic for a blog, explore it. Ideas are like Velcro. If they stick, it means something is working. Sometimes a thought comes to me for a blog post, but then I bury it under busy schedules, household chores and mindless social media scrolling. If you do this long enough, the ideas will seem fewer and farther between. I oughta know.

The bottom line is this: It's never too late to start something new. It's never too late to give life to a dream in your heart. All we get is this one life (if we're lucky). Do the stuff that matters. And if for you, that includes writing or creating something, do that.