The Moments Captured on the Page

February 25, 2010 By 15 Comments

Weird.

I remember hearing a story a few years back (I think I’m getting old since a few years back was actually over 10 now that I think about it) where Ray Davies from the Kinks was in a small New York Club, listening to a punk trio blaze through their set.

There was one song in particular that seemed to tickle the ear of Mr. Davies. He found himself tapping his feet, bouncing his head and humming along at the club. The beat stayed with him and Ray found himself bopping his head to the same tune as he sang in the shower the following morning.

It wasn’t until two days later when the “Well Respected Man” finally realized that the song in his head was something he’d written some 20 years earlier.

I remember hearing that story and being filled with disbelief. “That’s impossible!” I thought,”how could anyone be so disconnected from their art?”

I had similar feelings when I read Stephen King’s on Writing and he talked about how he couldn’t remember writing a single page of Cujo. At least he offered an explanation. Seems at the time old Uncle Stevie was self medicating with about 87 different kinds of mostly illegal pharmaceuticals.

Still, how can you create something, be deeply committed to it in the moment, then barely remember it a couple of decades removed? Maybe that’s the way it was for other people, I thought, but surely not for me.

I was wrong.

I’ve been preparing something special lately. A present I’d like to give to the Writer Dad audience. No big deal really, I’ve just gathered a few reader favorites from the last year and a half. Those stories which have generated the most response, either in comments or emails received.

The weird thing was that as I was reading some of the posts, I had barely any memory of them. These were deep, intimate moments as I wrote them. Some even made me cry and yet the memory on the reread was distant enough to make me seriously wonder how well I would remember them 20 years later.

Phrases used, feelings captured, the way I once used a semi-colon; a nickname for my wife abandoned. Moments in time captured before they shifted, now forever frozen like a ship in a bottle.

Written or not, our human moments are soft, and subject to fading memory as the sun will bleach the ink in a photograph.

I’ve never been more appreciative of the man moments captured on the page.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mac N’ Cheese Never Hurt

February 24, 2010 By 16 Comments

mac and cheese

You know I don’t like Mac N’ Cheese.
Will you make me something different please?
Pizza or pasta, peas and potatoes,
Tacos or turkey, tofu and tomatoes.
Hamburgers, hot dogs, fish sticks or fries,
Sausage or soup or spaghetti surprise.
I’m really not picky, but I want something new.
You say I like it, I swear that’s not true.
Wait… what’s that you say? Ice cream for dessert!
Oh, what the heck… Mac N’ Cheese never hurt

Filed Under: Syllable Soup

At Least She’ll Never Outgrow Me

February 22, 2010 By 24 Comments

This last year was a bolt of lightning with an endless flicker. It flew right by, but lingered all the way.

We’ve changed a lot. Can’t help it. The planet orbits and we evolve, inevitable as inhale and exhale.

Two weekends ago we had the annual Valentine’s Ball at our school, the same Father Daughter Dance I wrote about last year.

Mia and I had attended the two previous years together because Max had not yet started Kindergarten and tickets were limited. We didn’t want to take another child’s ticket.

This year, Max is in Kinder so it was our first time as a family. The children were a fountain of energy from first light to early star, sweet and happy all day long.

The four of us counted the many minutes until we could finally put on our fancy clothes and drive to the school.

Like last year, my daughter squeezed my hand, looked up at me adoringly in her poofy dress and blushing cheeks, and said with her eyes, “You are the most wonderful thing in the world, Daddy. I love you with all my heart and spending time with you is the bestest thing I could ever imagine.”

Then we entered the cafeteria and I became the invisible man.

Well that’s not true. Invisible men don’t get impatient glances and tapping feet.

Mia’s eight, so I’m totally used to the scriggles (screamy girly giggles) every time she sees her friends, just not when we’re wearing shiny shoes. From the second we entered the cafeteria ballroom, a series of scriggling second graders commanded all our daughter’s attention.

Mia looked over, around and through me to make eye contact with her friends, but never at me. She was off as soon as the music started. Eventually I headed out to the dance floor to look for my first born. I found her two songs in and asked her for a dance.

“No dice dad!”

Is what she might have said if she had taken the time to stop and say something intelligible on her scriggly whiz by.

That’s fine, I thought. No biggie.

Another four or five songs passed before the DJ hopped on the mic and invited all the dads and daughters to the dance floor for the father daughter dance.

I smiled. It was just what I’d been waiting for. I went out to the dance floor to find Mia, but she was nowhere to be found.

I found her a song and a half later. She’d been on a sequin safari with one of her friends, gathering the glittering hearts from abandoned tables and collecting them in an empty cup. She ran up to me with a foot long grin and a scriggle bubbling from her lips. “Look at all the hearts we found!”

“Dance with me,” I said, taking her hand.

“Okay.” I might’ve asked if she wanted seconds on vegetables.

We headed to the dance floor where we started to sway back and forth for all of six seconds before she was looking over, around and through me to see what her friends were doing.

I’m no fool. I know my daughter will grow up and away from me and I don’t want to keep her tiny forever, nor do I think she did anything abnormal or wanted to hurt my feelings in any way.

But I’m human, and find it impossible to ignore the incessant marching of time and all the evidence he leaves carelessly behind. Last year I was the only thing in the room that mattered. This year I wasn’t.

Seasons change and leaves fall from the tree only to flourish on the same branches the following year. I know we’ve done well to nurture our children’s soil and that growing pains aren’t only for the little ones.

I feel fortunate to know in my heart that though Mia will one day outgrow my lap, she will never outgrow me.

Filed Under: Fatherhood

My Puppy’s Using Facebook

February 18, 2010 By 4 Comments

My puppy started doing something, it startled both my eyes
I walked into the living room and much to my surprise
He was on the Internet and he was surfing all around
His tongue was hanging out, his tail was bouncing on the ground
I said, “”Hey Barkey, what’s the deal? You’re breaking nature’s laws!
You’’ve got a keyboard and a mouse, both right beneath your paws!
How can you use a browser…wait… how can you even read?””
“”Well, it is a little difficult,”” Barkey then agreed.
““I had to start out slowly, by learning all my A, B, C’s
And once I knew ‘’em fluent, I started on my 1, 2, 3’s
I covered all the basics and then I got advanced
I started out on YouTube and soon I was entranced
Now I’m checking email – Flickr, Facebook too
I can do a million things that doggies aren’t supposed to do.””
It was then I noticed as my knees were starting to get weak
That Barkey wasn’’t barking. Nope, my dog was full of speak
““So what’s next for you, buddy pal,” I was dying then to find
My canine had already detonated out my mind
“”Well,”” he said, paw on nose,”“I guess it’s time to share
But I think it’s best if you sit down, so please pull up a chair.””
As I sat down Barkey started barking out his plan
(Maybe the most amazing thing since at least the dawn of man)
““I have a lot of thoughts up here,”” he pointed at his top
And no matter what I do, well I can’’t get them to stop.
“So I’m gonna do something that’s never been done by a dog
I’’ve registered a domain and I’’m gonna start a blog.”


Filed Under: Syllable Soup

YAY! My First Book is FREE!!!

February 17, 2010 By 17 Comments

This is a guest post from Kelly McCannlis, 5th grade author of the new book, “Penny to a Million.”

Wow, I don’t know what to say!

When Mr. Platt told me I could write something for his site to promote my new book, I was super duper excited. I asked him what I should write about. He told me I should just be myself and that I would do fine.

“Should I tell them about my book?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, “that’s why you’re guest posting, isn’t it?”

So I guess I should tell you a little bit about the book, but I don’t want to tell you too much since it will be a lot cooler if you read the book without any of the surprises being ruined, especially the one at the end of the second to the last chapter. When it happened I almost had to sweep up my jaw from the floor with a dustpan!!!

It all started the summer before last when my grandma and grandpa invited me to stay with them for a long week out at their lake house. I was really, really REALLY looking forward to it. You probably think that’s weird because most kids don’t really want to hang out with their grandparents, but my grandparents are really awesome.

My grandpa once wrestled a bear and my grandma once chased a mugger for three blocks to get her purse back. And though I don’t really know if the bear story is true, I know for a fact that the one about the mugger is. My grandparents had a picture of my grandma holding her purse up in the air hanging over the cash register in the grocery store they used to run together.

So anyway, me and Grandpa were sitting by the lake eating sandwiches when my grandpa came out of nowhere and told me the secret of life. Well, probably not THE secret, but his secret – the one that let him retire early and take my grandma on a cruise around the world. The same secret that changed my entire life, starting with the last year I would ever spend at Roosevelt Elementary!

That was in the last week of August, right before the new school year started. When I went back to school, it was as a whole different Kelly!

I should probably stop there since I really don’t want to make you feel the way I felt when my friend Jessie Noble ruined the ending of this movie called “The Sixth Sense.” My mom and dad told me that I couldn’t see it until I was in middle school, but Jesse’s parents let him see it in second grade and he told everyone the ending and now I don’t want to see it as much, even though my dad says it was “groundbreaking.”

I really hope you like reading my book. I had a lot of fun writing it. In fact, I think I’m going to write another one, as long as this one does okay. I’m probably going to sell it for like five bucks or something, but right now I just want people to read it. If you go visit my site at Penny to a Million dotcom, you can download the book for free.

You can also follow me on Twitter if you’d like to keep up with my adventures. I don’t tweet often since my mom says that tweeting should really be for the weekend or after I finish my homework and chores. So it’s usually just the weekend. I would really appreciate it, if it’s not too much trouble, if you could click on the retweet button or let your friends know about the book. It’s the first one I ever wrote and I want to make sure it goes bananas.

Thanks!

Click here for a free copy of Penny to a Million.

Filed Under: Writing

You Are a Writer

February 15, 2010 By 19 Comments

You are a writer.

It makes no difference whether you plan to pick up your pen for the first time tomorrow, or whether you have been clutching it tightly for many years already; a woman is no less a mother when her milk first begins to flow.

Writing is the music you make for a dance of your design; the legacy you will one day leave of the life you once lived. Writers write for different reasons. Some of us write because there are stories inside us we long to tell, people we wish to impress or maybe products we’d like to sell.

You may have a single reason or a hundred. I could never narrow mine down.

Maybe you are a writer because you know it is a sterling affair, each of those moments when you find the sound of swirling syllables speaking from a symphony born in your private abyss; a tangle of thought unraveled upon the page revealing the inner you, then placing it on display for the reader as you stand back both bashful and proud.

Perhaps you are a writer because you mourn the brevity of our existence and are selfish enough to wish you might live through the best of your moments more than once.

You may not know why you are a writer, but that’s okay. The important thing is to know you are.

Though no one needs a blessing to consider themselves a writer, many people have kept themselves prisoner of anemic thoughts and limiting preconceptions. If you are searching for permission, here you go – POOF! – you’re now a writer.

You may now inhabit more than a single existence. One life fixed firmly in the reality that swims before you, the other quietly observing all the versions which wait in your mind’s eye, eager to reveal their own romantic record of yesterday.

Get comfortable. Allow the knowledge that you are a writer to settle in your senses. Ponder where it might lead. What worlds will you create and who will your mind manufacture to fill them?

Because you are a writer, imagination is your only horizon.

For the dozen years preceding my life with a pen, I made my living buying and selling flowers. Perhaps it was there where I first learned to manipulate beauty; there where I discovered I could take something which was already beautiful, and shape it into something breathtaking. I found my favorite flowers, combined them with colors that echoed, and discovered that nature herself was only offering suggestion.

What works with flowers, works with words as well. You can write like that; words in a sentence like flowers in a bouquet. Language is color and there are few limits to its use. The more you use it, the more natural it will be.

Primary colors coalesce for the rainbow, yet the remaining hues paint the world which lies beneath. Paint your life with the tip of a pen or stroke of a key, rinse your memory in vivid color, and carve a future from the worlds you create.

You are a writer. Messy the desktop with your thoughts and pull the best from inside you.

Wonderful stuff, 4 days a week. Sign up for free updates. Click here.

Filed Under: Life's Better With the Right Words

I Mostly Thought of You

February 12, 2010 By 11 Comments

It was twelve years ago.

Our first Valentines was spent beneath the raging torrent of El Niño. She was the boogey weather of the nightly news for months. But she was also real.

The flower shop flooded. Customers couldn’t get in and we couldn’t get our orders out.

Three days later I was standing beside my father, chopping the heads from thousands and thousands (and thousands) of dollars worth of roses. We watched the blooms roll into the trashcans as the bundled stems landed on the counter with a thud. The scent in the air was sweet, but the room was heavy.

Twelve 32-Gallon trashcans were filled, each one packed. Every trip to the dumpster was heartbreaking. It is impossible to recover from the loss of a perishable product.

It was devastating.

Fortunately, I mostly thought of you.

The way we met, and how one day had just seemed to settle right into the next like it never had before.

How your eyes looked bigger than your face.

Your smile.

My worst professional Valentine’s Day was still the best I’d ever had. The day’s freeze fell off me just moments after I came home.

Everything was okay.

You gave me everything then, as you have now for more than a decade.

Children that bloat my emotion and pull me deeper into my days, your unwavering faith that I can and will do anything I throw my mind to, and an unfaltering system of support to give me the time and tools to make it happen.

I can’t believe it’s been more than twelve years.

The math is clear. Our oldest child is now eight, plus the five we were together before she was born. Yet it doesn’t seem possible.

After all these years, each day still settles right into the next.

I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Filed Under: Marriage

Lucky Chuck the Chicken Duck

February 10, 2010 By 13 Comments

Chuck the bird was not born sad, even though he knew no mom or dad.

He was always happy, night and day. Chuck loved to waddle, swim, and play.

Chuck was nice to everyone. He was kind and warm, like morning sun.

The other fowl were cold and cruel, but Chuck never lost his happy cool.

They puffed their wings and flapped about with whispered clucks and quacking shouts.

Often loud and rarely nice, the birds jeered him once then jibed him twice.

“You silly bird, you’ve such bad luck. You look just like a chicken duck!”

It was true that Chuck looked strange. But he did not ever wish to change.

His feet were webbed just like a duck and he did say quack instead of cluck.

He swung a sack beneath his bill which should have shook his iron will.

It was ruby red (like a rooster’s sack) and freckled all over in patches of black.

His feathers were white like a grown up chick, but waterproof and kind of thick.

The birds would laugh, then laugh some more, careless in an unkind war.

They kept on going, never done.  They never stopped, but never won.

“Words are just words,” Chuck would say, as he made the best of every day.

“They can not hurt me with harmless air. If they’re over here, I’ll play over there.”

They never shook him. Chuck ignored their cries. And all their empty, jealous lies.

The ducks in the pond would not let him play. The chicks in the coup clucked, “go away!”

Chuck raised his bill and quacked, “That’s fine. You have what’s yours, I’ll have mine.

These opposite ends both feel so mean, I will play in the farmland in between.”

The cows were happy, they said “hooray” and “moo” (so were the rest of the animals too).

The pigs said “oink!” and raised their snouts; the sheep baa-baaad with happy shouts.

The whole farm thrilled at its new luck, now  that they could play with Chuck.

He was always happy, so much fun. Pleased to play in rain or sun.

He liked Duck Duck Goose and other games with made up rhymes and silly names.

The other birds grew jealous fast. They said, “Hey Chuck, you know, it’s in the past.

We did not mean those things we said. We love your slightly different head.

Come swim with us. Play Hide-N-Seek. You can be our star this week!”

But Chuck was pleased with his new crew. They were nice to him, and funny too.

They never judged or laughed at Chuck. They never called him “Chicken Duck.”

“Thanks, but no,” Chuck said out loud, in a voice that made the barnyard proud.

“You never let me play your games. You laugh at me and called me names.

But I’m the one with all the luck. I really am a special duck.

I have friends who think I’m great. We love to dance and celebrate.

They do not care about my face, or how it seems so out of place.

My friends love me for who I am. Exactly how I feel for them.”

Seasons came and seasons went. Chuck’s good cheer was never spent.

He bounced in the barnyard every day as the birds all watched from far away.

On their own sides, in their own muck, no matter how they quacked and clucked,

Or waddled round and ran amuck, they never got to play with Chuck.

Wonderful stuff, 4 days a week. Sign up for free updates. Click here.

Filed Under: Syllable Soup

A Content Marketing Carnival

February 9, 2010 By 5 Comments

If content marketing doesn’t bore you, then you’ll think this is awesome.

I’ll keep it short either way.

Though I have a lot going on, I try to keep business off the site as much as possible. Occasionally I’ll mention something either because I think it’s of genuine interest, or (rarely) because I’m trying trying to set some SEO in place, But for the most part what you get here is my version of fatherly art, four days a week.

However, I can see by the emails that there is curiosity.

I started a series on Ghostwriter Dad a few weeks ago. I’m not ready to blog about being a ghostwriter and I want to be genuine in anything I write. But the site needs content and I can’t afford to stop publishing over there. The SEO on the site is strong, enough so that it’s currently on page 1 for the general term “ghostwriter.”

I thought of the perfect solution. I’m now using the strong SEO on the site to benefit both myself and any reader who wants to learn about content marketing.

Simply put, content marketing is the means of growing a site through the creation of quality content which fuels word of mouth. It’s what David and I do for every site in the Collective Inkwell family. Each week we’re putting out a ton of great content. Why not use Ghostwriter Dad as a place to pull it all together?

So each Monday I’ve been doing a roundup that explains everything we did the previous week, along with the why. If something was a success, I write about it. If it was a failure, I write about that too. If it didn’t go one way or the other, I write about it anyway just to mop up the Google Juice.

If you’re in any way interested in getting a behind the scenes look at content marketing as it happens, or if you’ve ever wanted to see the buisness side of Writer Dad, come on over and check it out.

Click on the link for this week’s content marketing carnival. Or sign up for free updates delivered once a week.

See you there!
Filed Under: Etcetera

The Awesome Stuff Your Child Says!

February 8, 2010 By 6 Comments

Yes, we have another site in our syndicate.

But if you have kids, you’re going to LOVE it.

Have you ever been in line at the grocery store and had your son or daughter say something that made you want to melt into a puddle and then get mopped into a bucket?

Or has your child said something so funny or touching, you wished you could cast it in silver and hang it on the wall?

Good or bad, one thing seems to hold true. When our children have a memorable verbal experience, we are usually eager to share it.

Now we have a way for you to share with style!

Blogger Dad has designed what I think is our most adorable site yet.

The premise is simple. The site is called “Things My Child Says.” You can submit a quote from your child, niece, baby brother, you when you were small, the kid down the street who wears a purple shirt and runs real fast, it doesn’t matter, send it in. We’ll post it with a smile to match your own.

Along with the quote, you can send a brief introduction to give the story context, then David will post it on the site for others to see and comment on. You can send a photo to go along with the quote if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.

You can click on the submissions page for more details, but make sure to visit ThingsMyChildSays. You’ll love it. If you want free updates delivered to your inbox, click here.

Filed Under: Etcetera
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