Tag: blogging

Check out my featured interview on the Mystery Through Manners podcast

Here’s the latest Mystery through Manners Podcast episode, featuring me! I truly enjoyed talking to the gracious and intelligent host, Jules Launi, and was very impressed at how she made something coherent out of my rambling. (I sound like a heavy smoker because I had bronchitis.) Definitely subscribe to this podcast. I don’t know anyone else doing this kind of work.
There is one tiny part where I think I was talking about Britney Spears and it sounds like I was talking about myself, but that’s on me. Ha!
 
Show notes:
 
In today’s episode, we primarily talk to one blogger, whose decade-long career has, in many ways, personified the ups and downs of the Catholic blogosphere. To begin, we speak to others in the Catholic blogging world about how they engage with their audiences, including dialoging with believers and non-believers alike about important topics concerning the Catholic faith. For information on these bloggers, please refer to past Shownotes for references to their work.
 
For the second half of our episode, we speak to Simcha Fisher, on her journey in the blogging world, the impact of blogging in her own life, and in the greater Church culture. Simcha’s story is honest, humbling, and funny, as she walks listeners through the story of her career in blogging, including her rise as a star in the Catholic writing community, her reflections on motherhood, the campaign to get her fired from the National Catholic Register (and some of the other writings about her), and her mistakes along the way. I am incredibly grateful to Simcha for her speaking to me and for the lessons we all can learn from her story.

Some things are hard to categorize

plainly-labelled

Hooray! I’ve just sent out my latest podcast to all my dear patrons, which includes anyone who has pledged anywhere from $1 to $100 of month to keep my daily blog and weekly podcast running. There are still plenty of open slots for the $500 level, if you were wondering. Valentine’s Day is coming, fellows.

Am I enjoying having my own blog? YES, I AM. There have been benefits and delights in working with each of my various employers over the last year, but I’m enjoying the heck out of writing what I want to write.  I hope you are, too.

Here’s a few (not even all!) of the things I wrote in January, just for you:

 I shared recipes for tiramisu and homemade ragu, and I shared a recipe for calzones and put forth the theory that food is magic;

I wrote an Amazon review for our mastiff;

I describe my experience with cognitive behavioral therapy and my experience of dragging a giant orange traffic cone all over the school parking lot;

I review a bunch of offbeat books for young adults and a bunch of top-notch TV shows for kids (and for their parents, too);

I rend my garments, or at least try;

I bared my horrible, horrible ceilings to the world, so the world would feel better;

I annoyed a lot of people by saying nice Catholic girls belonged at the Women’s March and pro-lifers have a lot in common with pro-choicers;

I went entirely around the bend, lost all credibility, went bonkers, showed my true colors, insulted the Jews, fomented hysteria and rebellion, and was a despicable slacktivist openly trolling for clicks and covertly begging for a mental health intervention by saying that Donald Trump is a dangerous man;

And of course  I declared myself Evangelist to the Assholes.

And I shared a recipe for shakshuka.

In other words, it’s a blog about just about everything. I have no idea what I’m going to write about tomorrow, and neither do you. (That’s my excuse for using the picture of the wet, leftover rice labelled by a four-year-old, up top.)

You may not always agree with me, but I promise I will not bore you, and I promise I will not lie to you. 

 

Also this month on this blog, I shared relevant posts from the past, and shared links to my new writing at The Catholic Weekly and The Catholic Herald UK. And it’s all free for you! Free and unfettered! No ads, no pop-ups, no autoplay music or videos, no subscription fees, no surveys, no paywalls, no cut-offs when you hit a certain number of views. That is not a bad deal, not at all, and I’d really like to keep it that way.

If you find yourself coming to my site a few times a week, or if I’ve made you giggle, think, lose sleep, choke on your soup, or write an angry letter to someone’s bishop, won’t you consider making a pledge so I can keep this blog as active as it is? I’m more than halfway to my goal, which is no random number, but a real reflection of the money I need to run the site and help my hard-working husband support our splendid little family of twelve.

Remember, all patrons receive access to my weekly podcast, which I usually record while drinking, and often record with my husband, who is also drinking. So if you wondered what I’ve been holding back when I write, this is how you find out. Cheers!

So your favorite blogger has gone insane

monster_soup_commonly_called_thames_water-_wellcome_v0011218

I’ll try to keep this organized, but it’s not easy, speaking from the howling, fetid depths of insanity to which I have recently sunk.

I get an awful lot of letters from people who are concerned, terribly concerned, about the recent turn my writing has taken. A good many of them start out this way (and if you think I’m picking on you specifically, you’re wrong. I’m not kidding when I say I get a lot of these letters):

I’ve been reading you for many years, and I’m disturbed and disappointed by your recent use of vulgarity and your turn toward critical, biting language.

And I says to myself, I says,

There is no way you’ve been reading me for many years. If you had, you’d be looking at my current stuff, comparing it to my stuff from several years ago, and you’d be thinking, “Wow, what a change! Compared to the old days, this woman is two derma peels away from turning into Mother Teresa!”

That’s me! So, with my recently acquired trademark generosity, I thought I’d share with you some tips for how to approach me when I’ve pissed you off.

Here’s how not to be like:

The Crystal Ball-Gazer 

Let’s say you read something I wrote that upsets you, and your first impulse is to think, “Good grief, this woman is a horrible human being. Why else would she say such things? But wait! Christian charity. Okay, let’s see . . . okay, probably she has something awful going on in her life. Yeah, that would explain it. She’s going through some kind of private turmoil, and it’s spilling out into her public voice.”

This may or may not be true, but I’ll tell you one thing. I get an awful lot of these “I’m terribly concerned about what you must be secretly going through” when I make some statements; and zero of them when I make other statements. Statistically speaking, your concern for me seems to have far less to do with how upset I am and far more to do with how upset you are about what I am saying.

For instance, if I said, “The clouds are dripping blood and the very grass under our feet has become like unto knives, because of what has transpired regarding that greatest martyr of our times, Kim Davis!” you’re all like, “YES. Preach it! Our Lady of Constant Sobbing, intercede for us!” and you share it with all your friends.

But if I say, “I see some serious problems with Donald Trump,” you’re all, “Oh, you poor thing, do you have lots and lots of secret cancer? I’ll pray for you.”

I’ll take the prayers. But don’t think I don’t notice the pattern.

The Spiritual Blackmailer

You tell me you were thinking of becoming Catholic, but now, all because of me, you’re not.

Yeah, this is baloney. You know why? Because you have been saying that exact same thing  to six other bloggers for the last eleven years, and we have all noticed it, and we just plain don’t believe you.

Yes, we all know each other, and we all compare notes. We meet on Wednesday nights in a torchlit, underground cavern where we roll around in a pool of money, dry ourselves off with the velvet bed curtains torn from the boudoir of St. Ludobutt the Meek, and then hunker down for a long night of “Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish,” which is how we divvy up available souls.  One for me, one for you, one for that new gal on Patheos who let on that she thinks Angels With Dirty Faces is kind of snoozer. Oh, the moral peril of it all! Is outrage. Is so, so outrage.

Listen. I understand that a bad example from a Catholic can have a big emotional impact, and can make it really hard for people to make that leap to signing up for RCIA. This is a real thing that happens to real people. But if you’ve been telling me for years and years that you were right on the verge of converting, and the one thing that held you back is that one person . . . then that one person is you.

The Snobvangelist

More times than I can count, I’ve been told that we’re called to be good evangelists, and that, as such, we have to present our best, brightest, prettiest, perkiest, shiniest, most decorous face at all times, because that is the kind of thing that is attractive to people.

Well, it is to some people. But what about to others? What about the people who were raised listening to loud music and cussing, and all their happiest memories are associated with good, kind people who are zero percent bright, pretty, perky, shiny, or decorous? What about them? You really think they’re going to want to join a church that requires all its members to act like they belong on Leave It To Beaver? Good luck with that approach.

Look, Paul was an evangelist to the gentiles, and I’m an evangelist to the assholes. It’s a heavy mantle, but I’m willing to take it on.

The Selective Pearl-Clutcher

You keep telling me that, as someone with a public platform, I have more power than I realize, and so I have a special responsibility to model courtesy, civility, charity, restraint, kindness, grace, and compassion. You tell me that I must, at all times, keep in mind how much influence I have, and that if I can’t muster up these virtues you admire so much, then I do not deserve to have a public voice.

And then.

You voted.

For Donald.

Trump.

Well, I’ll pray for you. Probably you have lots of secret cancer, that’s all.

 

***
Image: Monster Soup by William Heath [Public domain or CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Podcast #4! S.C. Naoum of Eye of the Tiber refuses to swear in Aramaic

 

… but only because he’s self-conscious about his accent. We’ll get him next time.

I just sent out a Soundcloud link to all my lovely patrons, so you can hear my fourth podcast, a half-hour conversation with the comic genius S. C. Naoum, who created Eye of the Tiber and who still writes 95% of it.  You can become a patron for as little as $1 a month, and I appreciate every single pledge.

I’m still experimenting with the best model to make this blog work. I would really love to keep posting five times a week, and to keep it free of ads. As you know, I also write for The Catholic Weekly, I freelance at various places, I do speaking engagements, and I’m about to re-launch my “Catholic Artist of the Month” feature at Aleteia; and I have another recurring project in the works for later this year.

screen-shot-2017-01-18-at-2-35-48-pm

Is that bringing in enough income? Nnnnnot yet!

This is the part where most bloggers will start calling you by affectionate nicknames, using lots of exclamation points, reminding you of how much super fun we’ve had over the years, and nodding and winking maniacally about how much super fun we will definitely continue to have, as long as you pledge at any point, such as now. FUN!

Maybe they will even laboriously put together “Top Ten Dank and Woke Reasons You Can’t and Won’t Even Bother to Consider Not Becoming a Patron of This Blog, As If!”

Instead, I’ll just share what really goes through my self-employed head:

11:40 on a Tuesday:

This is actually going really well. I am wise and prudent and enterprising, I know how to hustle, I have done my homework, and I really believe in this model of speaking to and working with my readers directly, eliminating irrelevant middlemen and fostering a true sense of community.

And as an added bonus which benefits everyone, never again will I have a perfectly good naughty pun neutered like a newt. Never again will I sit before my keyboard, locked into literary paralysis by the very real fear that, even though I said something good, true, and beautiful, it’s going to be misconstrued by someone who barely knows how to read but who is a giant donor to someone who is a medium-sized donor to someone who has influence over the person who signs my checks. Never again!

Yes, yes, I am seeing slow but steady growth, and I am striking a very good balance between gentle self-promotion and a liberating focus on my true vocation. Yes. This is my best year ever.

Five minutes later:

Fuckity fuckty fuck fuck fuck. This isn’t working, this isn’t working. Can I use my van to drive for Uber? [hurriedly Googles “sell kidney southern NH how much”] THIS ISN’T WORKING. The only thing I can do is ask for more money, and the more I do that, the more everyone hates me. I hate me. It’s only a matter of time before they kick me off the internet, and the only thing people will remember of me is that some lady named Cynthia got in a fight with Tito Edwards over a potato, and then everyone stopped believing in blogs. It’s over. It’s over. I’m done.

Three minutes later:

OH, somebody pledged a dollar! This is really, really working! I’M A GOLDEN GOD!

And so on.

So here’s my appeal to you:

I’m a pretty okay writer, right? I feel like I am. So, can you send me some money, please? I promise I’m using it mainly to pay very boring bills, and the occasional bottle of kangaroo wine. Did I mention that the van needs brakes, the washing machine is making a whole new squawking noise, and we have two kids starting college in the Fall?  And the rest of them keep eating and eating and eating?

If you pledge, not only will you stave off my nervous breakdown, but you will also get access to weekly podcasts, and I’m also offering various other perks as thank-yous: Pants Pass decals, Dignaroos, autographed books, and others. Please check it out and pass it on!

That’s all I got. Thank you.
P.S. You’re a golden god. You are.

Patreon! My podcast! And dignity. Always dignity.

My husband says that I have many skills, but self-promotion is not one of them.

He is correct.

Here are two things that I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell you about, even though I’m hoping they will, you know, succeed and make me money or whatever.

FIRST THING: I have a podcast. Damien and I have been doing 27-minute* podcasts which do not at all labor under that awful burden of too much polish. Nope, I will never ever say “Wypchać się sianem!” Nor will I overproduce, overthink, or over-prepare for one of these podcasts. Last time, for instance, we explained what not to do about ice dams on your roof, we accused each other of various misdeeds with soup, and I praised Mariah Carey’s beautiful tush.

HOW can you hear this amazing podcast? You can become a patron through Patreon. That’s SECOND THING.

As you can see, this blog does not have any ads on it. This provides a beautiful, uncluttered reading experience. It also keeps my bank account from becoming cluttered with money. In the interest of feng shui, I’d like to balance out the zero advertising dollars with dollars coming in from somewhere else, because of my wretched attachment to things like groceries and electricity.

This site will always be free to read. With Patreon, masochists readers can keep it going by, well, sending me money; and as a thank-you, I send various perks.

Here’s how that works:

If you sign up to pledge a dollar a month — A DOLLAR A MONTH! — you get access to my podcast. (I originally set the podcast pledge level at $5, but those four extra dollars have been haunting me, so $1 it is. If you pledged $5 to get the podcast and want to change your pledge to $1 now, I won’t be offended.) (See above: Not great at self-promotion.)

Here’s my Patreon pledge structure:

$1 monthly pledge makes you a Fisher of Pants (an actual phrase someone typed into Google and then ended up at my blog) and gives you access to the podcast. Every week, I’ll email you a private Soundcloud link so you can download it and listen at your leisure.

Any additional pledge earns you the podcast and also . . .

$5 monthly makes you a Little Two-Legs, and I’ll send you a Pants Pass decal.

$10 ??? Still looking for ideas. I’ve rearranged this perk structure so many times, I think I’m going to throw up, so I’m just going to leave it like this because I’m dying here.

$50 monthly makes you a Heretical Hosebeast, and gets you an autographed copy of my book, The Sinner’s Guide to NFP, OR an autographed copy of one of the other books to which I’ve contributed: Style, Sex, and Substance and Catholic and Married: Leaning Into Love.

$75 makes you a Defender of Dignity and earns you a pair of Dignaroos, which I still think is funny, even if no one else does.

$100 patrons are Actual Patrons, and I will contribute an additional $100 yearly to our partnered family in India through our favorite charity, Save a Family Plan. Hooray, I’m useful!

And finally, for $500, you can call yourself a Mensch, and I’ll mail you a nice batch homemade rugelach. Your choice, cherry or apricot, with nuts or without.

Okay, phew.

To all the amazing folks who went ahead and pledged even before I got my act together enough to tell anyone about it, thank you so much. It was enormously encouraging to me as I made the leap to an independent site, and I appreciate it so much!

To everyone else, please consider making a pledge so I can keep churning out this nonsense. And whether you pledge or not, please share this post, especially with your rich friends.

Thank you. From the bottom of Mariah Carey’s beautiful tush, thank you.

*I don’t know why.

10 Ways to Insult a Catholic Blogger (and Why You Shouldn’t Bother)

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1. You’re just trying to get attention with this! Oh gosh-all-whillikers, not attention! You mean that I made an effort to write in such a way as to persuade people to click on the headline, think about what I said, and elicit a response of some kind? Is outrage! Next time I have a thought, I’ll jot it down on an orange peel and bury it under the shed. You know, for the greater glory of God.

(If I’m writing flagrantly click-baity headlines, attaching photos of Mila Kunis’ chestal area, or just plain lying about stuff, then that’s no good. But just being interesting? That’s my job.)

Read the rest at the Register.

***

So you want to start a blog?

This isn't a picture of a blog, but it is a picture! Always have a picture.

This isn’t a picture of a blog, but it is a picture! Always have a picture.

 

Every so often, someone asks me for tips on launching a new blog. Here is some general advice for the typical popular blog. I don’t take all this advice myself, but it’s still all good practice.

Experienced bloggers, what would you add?

 

To increase your audience:

-Always include a picture. People are much more likely to read and share a post that has an illustration of some kind.*

 

-Post everything on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus once or twice, and make good use of keywords and hashtags. Also consider using Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest.-Post regularly. Aim for three times a week, if not every day.

 

-Make post titles short, snappy and searchable. Questions make good titles (but not for every post). Intriguing trumps descriptive.

 

-Before you try to get any big traffic, do a “soft launch” by having about 5-6 posts already published. If you intend to have a comment box (which is not necessary), find a few friendly people to leave comments in those first posts, to give it a “live” feeling.

 

-Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself to bigger bloggers who have an audience that might be interested in your writing. Don’t expect to hear back from everyone, of course, but many bloggers are happy to do a quick, general “Here’s something new, might be interesting” post on social media, so cast a wide net.

 

-Put a link to your blog allllll over the place: in the signature of your email, in comments that you leave on other blogs, in the heading of whatever social media you use, etc.

 

-Include the option to subscribe to your blog via feeds and email.

 

-Link to other bloggers on your blog, either within the content or at the end of the post in a “related reads” list. Share other bloggers’ work on social media.

 

*Bloggers, even tiny little ones, are getting sued more and more often for using copyrighted pictures! Make sure that you only use images you have permission to use — either your own photos, or images from sources like Wikimedia Commons, Wellcome Images, Pond5, or other sources of royalty-free images. Make sure you attribute them correctly (the sites will give you directions for how to attribute).

 

For the writing itself:

 

-Write about things that you really know about, rather than Things People Really Ought to Know. People really like to get snapshots of worlds that aren’t anything like their own, OR snapshots of worlds that they know all too well, and wish other people understood. Dialogue, vivid description, thoughts that popped into your head – these are all much more captivating than explanations or analysis.

 

-Let your unique voice come through. A consistent, authentic voice that becomes familiar is what will keep people coming back. It’s okay to assume a persona that’s not exactly you, as long as it’s consistent.

 

-It’s fine to be dramatic and punchy; it’s not fine to be sensationalistic. People are very, very tired of the breathless “You’ll never believe what happens next!” kind of stuff that’s everywhere, and they resent being tricked into reading a story. Let the writing and subject matter be compelling on its own.

 

-It’s fine to be controversial or critical; it’s not fine to be nasty or to get personal. If you’re angry, be angry, but be other things, too.

 

-There is nothing wrong with latching onto a hot topic, news story, or celebrity name and using it as a hook to talk about something that you have insight or experience about, but don’t let every post be like this.

 

-Keep posts short, under 1,000 words. This isn’t applicable for every type of blog; but the typical reader has a pretty short attention span. And for crying out loud, use paragraphs. Too many bloggers offer a solid brick of writing, and I, for one, refuse to read bricks.

 

 

For the blog:

 

-Seems like common sense, but search around to make sure no one else is already using whatever name you choose. You don’t want to be constantly explaining, “No no, I’m Musings of a Random Guy, not Random Guy’s Musings.”

 

-Have a picture of yourself somewhere on the blog, and make sure there’s an “about me” or “what we do here” page.

 

-Include contact information. It’s a good idea to have a separate email just for you blog, so your inbox doesn’t get too cluttered with blog stuff.

 

-Remember that you don’t owe anyone a platform. People are free to start their own blogs, if they have something to say! If you do decide to have a comment box, consider moderating comments before they get published. It’s nice to have a lively comment box that feels like a community, but if the jerks feel too free to say whatever they want, then decent, sensible people won’t bother getting involved, and you’ll just have a cesspool.

 

-Use tags; have archives on your sidebar; and once you get going, consider having a “my favorite posts” or “most popular posts” list on the sidebar, to keep people browsing around.

 

-Keep it as uncluttered as possible. Avoid pop-ups and autoplay ads.

 

-For the love of mike, don’t use a dark background and light print, and don’t use any kind of gimmicky font.  Make it as readable as possible or . . . dun dun dun . . . people won’t read it.

 

***

#Patheos5Yrs (In which I use both hands to celebrate Patheos’ fifth anniversary)

Wellity wellity wellity, look who is five years old! No, not that Puerto Rican tire fire. No, not sixty gazillion Isabellas and Sophies, Aidens, Jaydens, and Bradens. No, not even that weird protuberance on the side of my foot that doesn’t hurt or anything, so I’m just going to officially not know about it anymore.

NO, CRAZY, IT’S PATHEOS!

Like the gracious host it be, Patheos central is inviting us bloggers to share our favorite posts.

I’ve  been blogging for about seven years — my first blog being a Blogspot joint, which I set to “private,” and now I can’t remember how to invite myself back in.  This seems like some kind of metaphor for blogging. Something about not being able to find your own blog with both hands and a flashlight. Anyway, I’ve only been with Patheos since June of 2013, so I’m going to share posts from that month on. (If you have a hankering to browse through other posts, remember I have archives dating back to 2010. You can find them in my sidebar without even a flashlight.)

Without further butt jokes, here are a few of my favorite posts from the past yearish:

 what do we know about human beings? They sin. They sin, and they sin, and they sin. Sometimes they enter into a valid marriage and then they cheat. Sometimes they understand fully what they are supposed to do, and they just don’t feel like doing it. Sometimes calamity strikes, and they crumple under the blow.  Sometimes they let their own sorrows and weaknesses and selfishness overcome the love that is offered to them. Sometimes — no, my friends, always — they are a tangled ball of good intentions and bad habits, unhealed wounds and unfounded desires.
You know what’s scandalous? It’s scandalous to tell suffering people, “Don’t you speak.” It’s scandalous to tell them that their sorrows are making other people sad.  Good heavens. There are worse things than being sad. One of them is being happy and telling other people that, if only they were stronger, they’d be happy too.

PIC bearded stoner

  • On an entirely different note:  the day they took me where I did not want to go:  A long holy Saturday

Those are the worst nightmares:  the wave comes, the darkness falls, the crowd sweeps by, and your child is gone.  Where did he go?  Why didn’t I hold on tighter?  My husband would have gone and dug up the frozen ground to bury the body, but there is nothing to bury.  He has been washed away, and I don’t even know when.  Maybe he died weeks ago, when he was too little to be seen.  Maybe I was happily patting someone who was already gone.

It wouldn’t change anything if I could have buried him. But I wish I could have done it.

I encourage my kids to listen mostly to the [Beatles’] earlier stuff, where their technical brilliance can be enjoyed unimpeded with the navel gazing muzziness that came later.  We have discussed how people in Hell are probably holding hands and singing “Imagine” right now; and I have taught them to identify the sitar, when played by a white man, as the sound of bullshit.

But . . . oh, I don’t even know what to say.  I’ve said it so many times, and I don’t know if there’s any way to persuade people who don’t already see it so clearly.  We’re Catholic. Our main job isn’t to apply “censor” bar across everything that doesn’t come straight from the Baltimore Catechism.  We take what is good. We’re supposed to beexperts at identifying what is good.  We’re not supposed to be screaming meemies who bite our lips and blush every time someone dips into a minor key.  We’re supposed to use sifters, not dump trucks, when sorting through culture.

[Abortionists] liked it when the gory pictures were out there.  It made their job easier.  Women literally ran toward abortion.
  • A finally, few reasons being fat might be the right choice for you . . . today!!!: Seven Fat Takes

 #4. You get to discover that your husband is really, really in love with you, or else he’s a fantastic and indefatigable actor.  Just think, if I were still the proportions I was when he met me (36-24-38, just two inches away from being zoned as a brick house!), I would always wonder if he was sticking around all these years because of me, or my measurements.  Now that I’ve added the equivalent of a six-year-old child to my frame, I know it must be true love.

AND, I figured out how to use the video camera on my thing, except I held it sideways. I realize now that I achieved that “won’t you rescue this poor puppydog who fell into a well” camera angle, but that’s only because I didn’t want you to see how many chins I have. But seriously, this was my favorite Patheos moment, and I mean it:

Well, happy birthday Patheos! And thank you, my dear, dear readers, for sticking with me. Patheos will be hosting and featuring videos from bloggers on all channels, as well as “best of” posts, so keep your eyes peeled, as my mother used to horribly say. So much talent on Patheos, you definitely don’t need a flashlight to find it.