Gallery post format: no photo glue or decorative scissors required!

Posted in Blogging, Entertainment, Events and Courses, Hobbies, Tips and Tricks by Marci

The other day, as part of the Zero to Hero program, I published a post in a “new to me” format. The new format was a gallery post, which arranges a bunch of pictures that you specify in a grid that is attractively laid out to highlight your photos. Today’s post is a follow-up to that post, which (if you remember) was called Kitty Derps, starring my cats in their most candid moments. Awwww! So cute! I really liked the gallery format, so much so that I used it on my new page, My Fuzzy Family, to feature my pets that are gone but not forgotten (in addition to the presently living ones, of course).

The reason that I chose to explore the gallery format is because I’ve always been drawn to layouts and organization in print media. I used to be a cartoonist, and after that, I had my own ‘zine (the Goyal Talk Times). I LOVED arranging panels and pages to make eye-pleasing visual arrangements featuring both text and illustrations. More recently (oh, the last fifteen years or so), I ventured into scrapbooking, and then went all-digital the past several years. I use Photoshop Elements to design my pages, then get a hard-bound book of my pages for each year printed through Shutterfly. Everything is organized and arranged just so! I go through phases of digital scrapbooking mania (it takes a lot of creative energy), but I’m always happy with the product. Want to see a few of my favorite pages? Well shucks…here you go, then!

So there – you’ve learned another little nugget about my anal-retentive personality – graphics have to be done just so, and when things aren’t arranged perfectly, it really bugs me. That’s why the gallery format post is so wonderful – you don’t have to line anything up yourself! Just pick out your photos and they are all sized, spaced and placed just how you want them. Just like magic!

And you don’t even have to lug around a big craft tote full of paper, templates, scissors, glue, stickers, glitter and all the other madness that scrapbooking entails (unless you’ve gone digital, of course)!

Kitty Derps

You might not believe this, but my cats are not always completely photogenic. I’d say, that on average, it requires about 10 derpy photos to get one good photo of any one of my cats. So here’s my gift to you: a gallery of my kitty derps. Don’t tell Jesse, Sam, Momo, Oliver or Abbey, because 1) they will be very embarrassed; 2) they might exact revenge by posting a gallery of Marci derps (and there are many, I tell you); and 3) they might kill me in my sleep. They have tried before; I am lucky to be here.

Abbey says grrrrr…

Sam’s letting all her nips show!

Oliver sniffing my camera.

Wink, wink, Momo!

Jesse’s letting it all hang out!

Fuzzy Undertones Blogroll Linkies

Just finished putting together my new blogroll for Fuzzy Undertones (i.e., links to blogs and webpages that I follow)! It’s pretty big, so I gave it its own page. If you’d like your blog to be listed, let me know and I’ll take a look! 🙂

22Feb2014

Is this good? Does this suck? Answer: Irrelevant

Posted in Blogging, Events and Courses, Writing by Marci

A page from Lynda Barry’s “What It Is”.

I’m struggling with this post. Ironically enough, I’m trying to write a post on writer’s block. So, having writer’s block about writer’s block…kind of dumb, right? Since starting this Zero to Hero blogging process (and thinking about the upcoming A to Z Challenge in April), I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity and what it takes to keep pushing through blocks. It has been a long time since I’ve pushed myself creatively, and I’m afraid that it will wane at some point, as it always does. Yesterday I found a blog called Year of Creative Habits, by Crystal Moody. Every day, she posts pictures of drawings that she’s made in a small notebook while having breakfast. On day 17/365, she included this quote by Lynda Barry:

The two questions [i.e., Is this good? Does this suck?] came from trying to write something good and not getting very far because I had forgotten that trying to write something good before I write anything at all is like refusing to give birth unless you know for sure it is going to be a very good baby.

What struck me about this is that being either good or sucking is not really a part of the creative process. Yet somehow, we let these two questions drive our ability to create. We either create, or we don’t. We do, or we don’t. For some of us, creating is something we need to do. It’s the same as eating, sometimes even breathing. But we don’t say to ourselves, am I good at eating? What if I suck at eating? And we certainly don’t let the answers to those questions (should we even ask them) stop us from eating. We might not be hungry all the time, nor will we like everything we eat or like the way food makes us feel when we eat something naughty (oh, and I do love you, bacon egg and cheese McGriddle). But at some point, we have to eat.

If I accept the fact that I have to eat, I can come to the conclusion that just by eating, I am a good eater. And in the same way, just by creating something, I am a successful creator. Whether it sucks or not is irrelevant.

Generally, it’s not the lack of ideas that get it my way, it’s that nasty little voice in the back of my head telling me that the ideas that I have suck, so I should just not waste my time by writing them down. And in that respect, my ideas are dismissed, shot down, disregarded as soon as they come so that it feels like I don’t have any ideas, or at least no good ones. Please remind me to read this post next time I get writer’s block, m’kay? Or better yet, do YOU have a way to overcome writer’s block? Please share it with me in a comment!

Zero to Hero Update

Just a Zero to Hero update:

Day 7 – Personalize your theme – DONE! Notice the new background, title font and headers? Eh?
Day 8 – Make your About page irresistible – DONE! Click here and let me know what you think. Irresistible, no?
Day 9 – Head deeper into the blogosphere – DONE! I followed an additional 5 topics and/or blogs. Yay!
Day 10 – Add two widgets – DONE! How about several? I might have too many, and there’s always more. Help me!

It’s a good thing I have self-control and don’t become obsessive about new interests.

18Feb2014

Silence is never louder than when you should be asleep

Posted in Blogging, Travel, Writing by Marci

Did you ever notice that just before your alarm goes off at 3:15 in the morning
your sleepy mind expects so much silence
that you’re afraid you’ll fall back to sleep?
Maybe you need to catch an early flight out or
maybe your dad was coming to get you out of bed and hit the road early for the trip
you were taking when you were so little.
But as you lay awake you think (or remember):
there are no birds chirping, there is no wind blowing, there is no coffee brewing.
When you should be alone in your wakefulness you are most certainly not,
because the traffic in the distance is accompanied
by the train you never hear, roaring.
Do the other people awake at 3:15 in the morning hear it too?
Who are they, the people driving trucks and trains in their own starlit silence?
But there is no silence, not really.
There are only sounds, invisible during the day, but solid enough to reflect moonlight
in the wee hours of the morning.

******************************************************

About this poem. I almost never write poetry. However, I wrote most of this poem in my head last Thursday when I was getting ready to pull myself out of bed at 3:30 am to catch a flight to Arizona. The sounds in the distance – freeway traffic and a distant train – brought me immediately back to car trips I took with my dad and family that almost always started early in the morning. He would come in and wake me up, and sometimes I would be allowed to stay in my PJs while he drove down the near-empty roads. The sounds were always the same – so quiet, but so constant. Thank you, Weekly Writing Challenge, for giving me the opportunity to solidify my groggy thoughts on the Sound of Silence.

Days 5 and 7: Done and Done!

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, not every day of the Zero to Hero challenge has a writing component to it. The day before yesterday I played around with LOTS of different themes for this blog (Day 5), and today I experimented with various headers, backgrounds and fonts (Day 7). If you like them, let me know! If you hate them, please don’t tell me that in those words because I dislike like wearing my frowny face. But you’re welcome to offer up some constructive criticism or ideas! Oh – and an extra treat for you – I now have a few different headers randomly cycling through at the top of this blog, so stop back often and collect ’em all! 🙂

Day 4: Complete

By the way, I completed the Zero to Hero Day 4 assignment. Boom.

11Feb2014

In the beginning…there was A Very Marcilicious Blog…

Posted in Blogging, Events and Courses by Marci

Here I am, trying to be contemplative about this blog post on my lunch break.

It’s Day 3 of Zero to Hero. And before you start thinking “SLACKER! It’s only the third day and she missed Day 2!”, you can just stop right there because I did Day 2, it just wasn’t a regular blog post. The assignment for Day 2 was to edit my blog title, tagline, and add a widget that gives a short explanation about my blog, which I did, and you should pay more attention next time. That’s one of the things about this Zero to Hero thing; it’s not just about writing a post every day, there are other blog-related assignments in addition to writing. However, today is not one of those days. Today, I write (on my lunch break, of course).

Today’s assignment is to write about what was on my mind when I first decided to blog. A bit of history first, though; Fuzzy Undertones is the reincarnation of A Very Marcilicious Blog, which I started way back in July 2005. At the time, I was recently out of graduate school and mostly living on my mom’s couch trying to piece bits of my brain back together. I had a part-time job at the San Diego Wild Animal Park as a tour guide for their overnight camping program (best job ever, by the way, maybe I’ll blog about it some day). Since I have a record that captures why I was thinking about starting a blog at the time, here’s a little quote for you from my very first blog post, dated July 8, 2005:

I’ve decided to start this blog because it might encourage me to do something so that I have something to post on my blog. Who knows if this cutting-edge experimental technique will work, and I can’t promise that I’ll update this blog very often, so you’ll just have to hold your breath and keep your pants on.

And what a grand idea, in a circular-logic kind of way! My reason for reviving this blog is pretty much the same – I want to draw more meaning from the events in my life, my thoughts, my actions, and the world that surrounds us. I’m a natural-born observer, but I find myself all-too-often glossing over daily life. In fact, when I was a kid (like, under ten years old), I distinctly recall thinking “why do the grown-ups walk around looking like they’re asleep? Where are the smiles and the emotions? I don’t ever want to be like that”. But unfortunately, I’ve caught myself falling asleep as an adult. Writing might just help me stay awake. And if you have any other pro-tips for staying awake in life, I’d love to hear about them!

But back to Day 3. I’m supposed to write the post I wanted to write when I envisioned myself with a blog (or reviving my old blog). I’m not sure I’m doing that now, although this post contains elements of that post – I’m trying to be honest, incorporate memories, and reflect. Maybe it is even humorous (well, at least I think I’m funny, sometimes). There will be other opportunities for me to write about specific things, but for today, a couple of somewhat cohesive thoughts will have to do.

And just so you know, Day 4 is a blogging community exercise. But I just might write a post anyway, especially for you!

9Feb2014

Fresh-Squeezed Blogging

Posted in Blogging, Events and Courses by Marci

I started A Very Marcilicious Blog back in 2005. I can’t remember why, exactly, I started it, only that I really loved writing and humor, and wanted to connect with the world in some bigger way than I was at that time. My blog posts started with funny clip art pictures or brief thoughts on whatever topic passed through my mind. It then evolved into more of a “what I’m up to” blog, then a travel blog, and then a blog that I always had to catch up on, and then an overwhelming blog that just seemed unmanageable to deal with. Sad to say, it had turned into something that I looked at as a chore, and that I did largely to update a few family members and friends that I didn’t talk to regularly about my latest whereabouts. It was toned down, bland, and uninspired. I quit writing for a few months. I took some time off.

Enter 2014! I decided to revive A Very Marcilicious Blog, which I’ve renamed Fuzzy Undertones. I switched from Blogger to WordPress to breathe some fresh air into my blog’s appearance. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to write. I may not have everything fleshed out right now, but I know that I want to write more creatively. I do a lot of technical writing at work and it has been crushing my creative side. But it’s not dead yet, as evidenced by this blog’s re-emergence into the web-o-sphere! I will post pictures, random thoughts, irreverent rants, updates on my adventures, and everything you wanted to know (or not) about my cats.

I realize that blogging (and most social media) is all about narcissism…so much of it is about the writer. Honestly, why should anyone else care what one person (like me) has to say about anything? Why not just have a personal journal as opposed to a web-published diary of sorts? I think part of it, for me at least, is that I’m having trouble owning my ideas and thoughts as being valuable – and I don’t want my brain to settle for apathy. That scares the shit out of me. So to connect with other people who might have similar thoughts and ideas, or at least appreciate them, is almost a way of validation. It shouldn’t matter what other people think of me, and it doesn’t. I guess I’m just scared of not being thought of at all. And bonus – having a blog is like being given a little bite of low-cal immortality. Taste it once and you’ll want more.

I just started doing this “Zero to Hero” blogging thing, which is a 30 day process to better blogging. I hope you’ll understand (and maybe appreciate?) this little (albeit self-centered) journey I’m about to embark on – to be a better writer, a more creative thinker, and more of a participant in our human community. Maybe you’ll start or refresh your own blog, yes? If you do, let me know where you live online – I’ll follow you with all my support! ❤