I heard my little boy say, ââ¬ÅDonââ¬â¢t look that way,ââ¬Â as he pointed left, ââ¬Åand walk that way,ââ¬Â as he pointed right. He was telling me to be looking in the right direction to navigate the mountain.
Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.
It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 limited seating. Register Now!
Perhaps the real question is
Should he?
If by some force of magic, and you were Drew,
then would he?
If he were offered millsions of $dollars,
then what do think the answer is? Could he?
All I know is right now. Drew is
advertising that he’s got a secret about SOBCon 07.
Click the title to find out about the secret that Drew has.
Want to know [Drew’s Confidential] secret?
Pass on the secret . . . there’s only 16 days left!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 limited seating. Register Now!
Hi Everyone! Every week Sandy and I try to think how to sum all that we talked about but you know it’s impossible to capture the joy, humor, and camaraderie of four hours in one simple blog post. And as much as I like taking a clever comment and sharing it here, it sure takes time and once in a while it embarrasses folks.
So we’re going to stop trying to do the impossible, trying to retell a fabulous memory, and instead let you enjoy the comments as they were said whole.
It was a busy night. We were talking about words we canââ¬â¢t get out of our heads, songs we love; songs we hate, lyrics we wish we had written, how songs affect our moods, silly songs, romantic songs, childhood songs, happy songs, sad songs, and our song.
You can read all about it in the comments.
Here are some cool links we shared.
Thanks to everyone for the cool links and for being part of the conversation.
See you next Tuesday? I sure hope so.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?
WANT TO GUEST HOST AN OPEN COMMENT NIGHT WITH ME? PICK A THEME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT. C’MON IT’LL BE FUN!
She came into my office and sat across the desk from me. She might have been the brightest person I ever hired. I know she is the best.
We were meeting on her first lesson for a teacher guide that she was working on. Her name was J.
I looked down at the lesson. I looked up at J. I said, “Do you like this lesson?”
J said, “Do I like the lesson? Well it has this, and this, and that.”
I repeated myself. “I said, “Do you like this lesson?”
J said, “Well it has that, and that, and this.”
So, I said, “J. This isn’t a test. Do you like this lesson? Would you actually teach from it?”
“Oh no! I wrote what I thought you wanted. I’d never teach it like that.”
J get this straight. You can’t write my lesson. I can’t write yours either. If we tried we’d both just fail miserably — we’d both write bad facsimiles. I’d write a bad facsimile of your lesson. You’d write a bad facsimile of mine.
Writing a blog works the same. You can’t write my blog post. I can’t write yours either. What I can do is pay attention to how you do things and find my own version of doing them that makes sense for me.
I can’t write your blog post.
But I can find my version. That blog post that would be only me.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 It’s incredible. Are you coming?
Related
10 Reasons to Write and Publish Every Day
Put Yourself into What You Write
This is the story of a brilliant, shy man I know. We were joined by a mutual friend who is so dear to each of us. At the time that this story took place, the brilliant, shy man was someone I knew well, but had hardly met.
He stood 6 foot 6 inches tall and, in the English cottages and restaurants where I often saw him, he had to bend quite low to clear the doorways. I was traveling internationally to make a small publishing company happen. He was the CEO of a multi-million dollar international publishing giant. He would always make time to have a meal with me.
He won my heart one day after lunch as we walked to the car. I asked him, “Do you ever have trouble when you’re traveling in another country, deciding whether to go back to the hotel or to go out to dinner with the people who invite you?”
“Oh,” he said. “Those dark nights in a hotel room.”
“Wow!” I thought. “He’s the CEO of an International Publishing Mega-Company and he gets that way too.”
One second, I was walking next to that brilliant, tall person wondering why he took time out for me. Then he said that and I suddenly felt taller. He didn’t look at me, but I literally looked up at him in a way that was new.
You see, he didn’t have to, but he told me he knew.
As time went by, the International Publishing Mega-Company began to ask things of this shy, brilliant man that weren’t who he was. The stockholders asked him to do things that he found counter-intuitive. That took a toll. Then the result of that was that he had to break his word to the people who worked for him, and he had to do it again, and again.
Until finally it exhausted him completely. He was left dazed, a bit broken, and confused. When I went to England, he sent his regrets through our mutual friend. This time he could not see me. Our dear friend said that the tall brilliant man was seeing no one at all, except his own family and our dear friend.
I so wanted to give back what he gave me.
All I could do was send a message through our dear friend.
This is the message I asked our friend to relay,
Just because they talk the loudest, doesn’t make them right.
“Will you tell him, please? It’s important. I want him to know that I know that.”
That’s what I said to our dear friend, and because he is our dear friend, he did.
In time the tall, brilliant man was fine.
Now he is far better than ever.
It’s a gift to tell someone that you know . . . about the dark nights..
We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Here’s how it works.
It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.
There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.
We might talk about
And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?