Karen DeLabar

That’s right, friends, I’m back! What does that mean? It means you’re not going to see me for awhile. …Wait? Is that right? Let me check my flow chart… yep, that’s right.

Confused? Not as much as me, but let’s see if we can figure this out together. 🙂

Ok, so if you’ve been following me over on Have Coffee… Will Write, a blog I used to run with friend and writing buddy, Susan Borath, you know 2 things:

(Well, hopefully you know more than these 2 things, but for argument’s sake let’s just pretend that your world revolves around us.)

1. Susi and I have decided to blog on our own sites and run a brand new interview/review site called “Writing on the Rocks” to go live soon nudges Eric to hurry up

2. I’m a cheerleader. I mean, not a real one with the pom-poms, big boobs and a tiny outfit, but a cheerleader nonetheless.

I believe in my friends, they can do anything they put their mind to and I’m always willing to put my work, time, life aside to help them in any way I can. See a problem there? I didn’t; not at first.

I love to write. It has filled a hole in me I didn’t know existed until I opened Scrivener that first time. Sometimes I would write journal-like entries, other times I would write down random snippets of dialogue that floated around in my head and kept me up at night. I even started to write another novel.

This was all before Twitter. 🙂

You all know I’m a big advocate for social networking. In my last post on HCWW I begged you all to remember that we’re people who need connections. Well, I was a writer looking for connections and boy did I find some great ones. I learned that there is so much more to writing then just writing! I learned that helping a fellow writer is not just tweeting “Hey! You can do it!” but offering to beta read, line edit and write reviews. All great ways of showing support, all great ways to spend your time not writing your own words.

Here’s something that sounds completely random, but it’s not. Did you know that not everyone uses Twitter the way I do? Every night Eric looks at me like I have two heads when I tell him about the conversations I have with people on Twitter.

“I never have conversations on Twitter. You know how we use it? We see who can write lines of code in 140 characters or less.”

Now, it’s my turn to look at him like he has two heads.

Eric is a computer software engineer. No wait, that’s not right… he is a solutions architect. Hm, I don’t know what that means.

I know that in my context it means that there is a room in my house that looks a snake pit with all the wires running through it and that no electronic device is workable without at least two remotes.  More importantly it means that he is highly intelligent and makes computers do whatever he needs them to do just by looking at them.

He’s been on Twitter for 3 years now. He has 254 followers. I have been on Twitter since January, the last time I checked I have 964 followers. Now, I know this isn’t a contest (which I would so totally win) and it doesn’t really matter the number of followers. I’m from the school of thought that it’s better to have 100 followers that I have actual conversations with than 1,000 random followers with whom I never speak with.

So, why do I bring this up? I honestly, forget. Where did I put that flow chart? Ah, yes. Connections, helping people.

Eric and I both use the platform professionally. His line of work is analytical, whereas mine is personable. We both use it to connect to people in our field, to learn with them or from them, but with me it’s so much more. It has to be. I’m a writer. I need to study people and if I can’t be with someone physically then I need to study them through their words.

But I went overboard. Twitter enabled me. I just want to help people. I want everyone to be their best and if they think I can help them achieve their goals by reading their work then I am all for it. But I took on too much.

Other than blog posts, I stopped writing. At first I was ok with it because helping other writers and feeling a part of something was magical and addicting. But over the course of the last few weeks I started getting depressed; that once filled hole was re-emerging. Since I had once filled it, I knew what was causing it, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

I had a really good talk with a great friend last night. He picked up on my mood right away and we started talking. Instead of saying ‘Just start writing, Karen! You can do it!” He asked me questions about my main character, the one I left alone so many months ago. He brought her back to me. The wheels started turning and her voice is now in my head. Oh, how I’ve missed her voice.

After talking with him I had some time to sit and think. I realized that I am but one person. I can’t do it all no matter how much I want to. I have several things on the burner right now in regards to helping other writers, beta reads and reviews that I can finish all within the next two weeks. Once I’m done with that, it’s me time.

But in order to do that I need to step away… from Twitter.

Somebody pick up Steve, I think he may have hit his head.

Not for good, mind you, what am I nuts? I still need that connection, it’s just going to be on a smaller time frame. And of course, I’m not that hard to find if you really need to talk to me. But I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for my characters. They need their story to be told and I’m the only one that can do it.

I just ask that you stick with me. Don’t forget about me and if you happen to be in #pubwrite one night, raise a pint in my name. Next time I’m in I’ll buy. 😉

 

I know, I know, it’s been two weeks since I’ve posted to this blog. But if you would just put down the pitch forks I can explain. OK, I can’t, not really. I admit it, I got lazy. It was the final weeks of “Willy Wonka” and I just wanted to laze around and drink beer with my friends on #pubwrite. Can you blame me? … OK, resume with the pitch forking. (HA! That sounds dirty!)

Oh, but wait! Before you start poking snicker you can’t be too mad at me, I must have been doing something right! Look….

See? Someone thinks I’m doing something right and that someone is Jack Flacco! Woo-hoo, thank you, Jack! (check’s in the mail, buddy!) Um, where was I? Oh, right! The award! Yes, Jack has been so gracious as to bestow upon me the Stylish Blogger Award, which is funny because those of you who know my style know me as a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. Style fashionista, I am not. But this isn’t about me, this is about my blog.

My blog that I have been ignoring.

But no more! Thanks to Jack I am going to return to this crazy world of sharing random thoughts and ideas with you…wipe that scowl off of your face, you asked for it.

But apparently, accepting this award comes with some rules and here they are:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.  (check!)
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

Ok, so seven random facts about myself.

1. I have recently discovered, thanks to caring and supportive friends, that I stick my tongue out when I’m thinking, laughing, blushing, reading, writing….um, yeah I have a tongue “thing.” And those same caring and supportive friends feel the need to point it out every time I do it.

2. I absolutely hate it when people grab my big toe. I know, how often does that happen, really? But when it does I freak out. I can wear flip flops no problem, but the second a hand goes to grab just my big toe, I kick and scream…well, like a girl.

3. I can change my entire outfit without showing any goods. It’s true, tops, shorts, underwear I can change in and out of it without having to get thrown in jail for indecent exposure. It comes from years of playing soccer and needing to change jerseys and shorts in between games at tournaments.

4. Basements and attics freak me out. When I was younger my brothers locked me in the attic after telling me that the woman who lived in the house before us died up there. Scared the living daylights out of me. Every night after, I swore I could hear someone walking the floorboards of the attic. Basements are just creepy, they have spiders. Enough said.

5. I believe in ghosts. I have been on two ghost tours where you take pictures and record your questions and I kid you not, I captured someone telling me not to go into the attic! (See, another reason not to like attics) It’s a good story, I’ll have to tell you about it sometime.

6. When I was 18 the horn in my 1993 Chevy Cavalier broke off while I was driving it – the sucker just popped off and hung there from the wires. Fearing for my safety with the dangling horn getting in my way when I would go to turn the wheel, my dad disconnected it. Unfortunately, I am a firm believer that there is a reason for putting horns in cars; I felt lost without it. When someone would cut me off, or piss me off, I found myself grabbing the unattached horn and shaking it at them. For my 19th birthday my parents bought me one of those bike horns to use. 🙂

7. I like music and when I say I like music, I mean any kind of music. I can sing along to the Big Boppers “Chantilly Lace” then jump right into “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco. I can sing you Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” in one breath and pay tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Sweet Home Alabama” in the next. I know who Jelly Roll Morton is and all the blues/jazz greats. I can listen to rap, hip hop, r&b, pop, Broadway, classical, bluegrass and even the occasional smooth jazz amongst many others. Sadly, I can not do heavy metal. I have tried, but I just can’t. I apologize to you metal heads out there.

That was fun. Now on to the funner part…um, I mean, funnest part.  No wait, still not right. Eh.

5 Blogging buddies (These girls aren’t newly found by me, but they deserve the award so forgive me as I stretch the rules a little)

1. Susan Borath

2. Cara Michaels

3. Rinn Ziegler

4. AJ Aalto

5. Belinda Frisch

Enjoy the award ladies, you’ve earned it. I don’t know how I did, but I know you girls are awesome and that’s enough for me!

If you enjoyed this little “Get to know Karen more” then don’t forget to check out my post for Have Coffee…Will Write tomorrow for more randomness and blog award fun!