Monday, June 24, 2013

the vine field

The post-school-year getaway trip is over. I'm in a holding pattern with a couple of clients while they decide the fate a line of products (for which I'm the copywriter), and I have a manuscript out to a freelance editor, and another out, via my agent, to a couple other editors. And a third, yes, a third, composting between drafts. I'm also letting a book I've just read muddle about in my head before interviewing the author, and waiting for another book I've been asked to review to arrive in the mail.

So. Instead of power-washing the garden shed, training for an iron man competition, or catching up on all the blogs I've bookmarked, I'm following my chickens around with my iphone in order to figure out this vine shit that all the youngsters are hot and heavy about. Y'all playing in my sandbox? Embracing the latest distraction because, really, we simply do not have enough of them?

Plus, I have a cold.  

How did you celebrate the Super Moon?

Thursday, June 06, 2013

alt(ar) ego

So, as many of you know, I've been married a few times. With each trip to the altar (although, in honesty, an actual altar was only part of the first knot-tying episode), I embraced my new identity as Mrs. So-and-So with equal vigor and engagement.

And so it goes with my various long-term writing personas. Any of you know this person? Well, that's who I am Monday through Friday when I'm called into service for packaging copy or social media or the occasional press release.

Then there's me as a writer of dark literary novels and short stories. That's the voice I cozy up to in this blog.

But, like any Gemini worth her weight in salt, I became restless. Something was missing. I felt that my nicer twin wasn't getting much air time. That writer of fantastical tales. The daydreaming teenage girl that I still am sometimes. In marketing speak (I know, yuk), I needed another platform. A place where I could talk to teenagers and wax blabbily on  about YA books, authors and other topics of interest to the YA crowd.

Plus, I wanted a hipster look. My own Instagram account.

To the rescue came my fantastic daughter-in-law and graphic designer, Katie. After a few back-and-forth emails and discussions, she assembled the look and feel of what I was after. And, hey, my toolbelt comes complete with any number of names so I grabbed the one that the feds currently know me as.

It doesn't escape me, the narcissism in all these identities. In fact, I think I'll just up the ante in the arrogance category and keep wishing really hard for the day to expand to 26 hours. Two additional hours in which neither exhaustion, hunger nor sloth factor in my ability to keep up with all the various versions of me. Anyway, I guess this is my official launch. Suzysoule.com. Check it out.