“Sometimes we become what we do. I became a writer by writing.”— Linda Lenzke, Blogger & More
“I write to discover what I know.” — Flannery O’Connor
Ten years ago in January, I took a WordPress class at Madison College. I decided that I wanted to take the next step as a writer: design, create, and launch a blog. I had been taking a series of reminiscence writing classes from a mentor and writing coach who would later become a friend and writing partner, Sarah White of First Person Productions. Prior to the classes, I had been writing for decades, poetry, spoken word monologues, stand-up comedy, and journaling for over 30 years. The reminiscence classes were a launchpad for my memoir, Perfectly Flawed, which I’m still writing, editing, and adding content as I live and write.
The first hurdle was to name the blog, then search for a domain, register the name, find a site host, and select a WordPress design template to use. Gratefully, the instructor led the class through these steps. I learned the basics of WordPress. The most important step as a writer was ahead of me, to write and upload content to the blog.
In February, 2013, I launched my blog, Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! Happy 10th Anniversary!
From the About section of the blog, The Poem:
Over the past few years as I toyed with the idea of starting a blog, I always got sidetracked by the name. I knew what I wanted to say, that the content of the site would showcase my poetry and prose, perhaps an occasional comment on the culture or politics of the moment, maybe even a rant or two, or a humorous take on the day’s events. What always tripped me up was what to name it.
The first challenge in this cyber world was finding a domain name that was available. Next, was how to connect the name to the content, to make it memorable and easily recognizable, to associate it with its owner. A name is a tag that helps one to be found and a good name, a talisman, whose existence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence.
As often happens in this world, the name found its owner. I had been writing a poem. It began first with a small story about baby squirrels falling out of trees. I added a second musing about mankind’s impact on the natural world, then my response to the tragedy of gun violence and vigilantism, and finally, the grief that followed the unexpected death of my sister. Each poem, each story, mixed metaphors about life and death, captured the pathos, humor, beauty and shadows that coexist for each of us in this material world. The name found me, Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Desk in my writing alcove.
The Backstory
The first story I posted was a vignette from my memoir, Perfectly Flawed, that I had written for my reminiscence class, A Pocketful of Gumballs, a story about my elementary school recess, marble-playing championship in the late 1950s. I was on my way.
Next, I wrote and uploaded a reminiscence that involved my younger sister. I first asked her permission to tell her difficult story. It was an essay about domestic abuse and gun violence. Protect and Serve. This became the template for much of the work that would follow and appear on my blog. I’d take a personal story, often my lived experience, or that of friends, family, and my LGBTQ+ and recovering community members, and attempt to find the universal truth in it, that the personal is political and the political is personal.
LGBTQ Narratives, Zine, “Queers Read This Too!”
Besides uploading the content to my blog, I’d post the stories on Facebook to reach more readers. In addition to the reminiscence-writing classes, I became a founding member of LGBTQ Narratives, an activist-writers group sponsored by the OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center in Madison and from a grant from the University of Wisconsin – Humanities. We’d write about our lived experience, and respond to prompts. We published a Zine, Queers Read This Too!, and wrote, produced, and performed in a spoken word monologue production, Conceal & Carry: Queers Exposed.
Today, I’m a member of another LGBTQ+ writers group based in Door County, Write On. We meet virtually via Zoom once a month, share our writing, and ask for feedback and notes if we wish. Often, we respond to a prompt, however we can always share the work of our choice or work in progress.
A Decade of Written Words (& Oversharing)
Sometimes friends, family, and ex-romantic partners accuse me of oversharing. I’m not only telling my lived experience, but my story in relationship to others. Memories of shared experiences do not always align. Memory is malleable. Sometimes I round-off the sharp edges of some memories, or I sharpen them to serve the myth or story that I tell myself.
For those who know me personally and/or read my blog or social media posts, I’m open and share freely about my personal life, some say I overshare. I write about my lived experience, often the mundane moments of everyday life, and sometimes I wax philosophically or poetically about our shared universal human experience. In essence, I’m an open book, and you choose whether to pick it up and read, or not!
A sampling of journals (not including online journals).
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! by the Numbers
First some background: My blog is free of advertising. I don’t pay for any services to improve my placement in Google searches and rankings. I don’t use algorithms or other tools other than antispam, site security, and analytics. People can subscribe to my site for free.
I average between 20-40 views per day. When I upload a new blog post, I may get between 50-75 views. I run stats each day to see what posts are being read and how many views for each post. Though I’m invested in how many people read my blog, I’m more motivated by the writing.
Note: Number of views today were from early in the morning as I was drafting this post. I often write early in the morning.
I write and post an average of one to three essays or reminiscences per month. There are a number of ways to search the content, one is by a drop-down menu by month and year, another search by title or keywords.
The Topics & Series
Over time, I revisit certain subjects, which soon became series, some organized as a collection, others with links furnished in related-reading sections at the end of a post. They represented the topics that were on my mind, subjects for me to understand lessons I needed to learn, or the course of action I needed to take. Sometimes, I paid attention to things I resisted, to venture out of my comfort zone, face my shadow, and chart a new course. Often it was simply the news of the day or where my curiosity took me.
- Reminiscences (Vignettes that became my memoir in progress, Perfectly Flawed)
- Conversations with My Next Girlfriend
- The Toilet Zone (The Trump Presidency)
- Random Topics (Unrelated subjects that piqued my curiosity)
- Dispatches from the Hideout (The Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project)
- The Rejected Monologues (Forward Theater Company Monologue Submissions)
- Death, Dying, Life & Legacy (Grief & gratitude)
- The Changing of the Seasons & Holidays
- Films
- Poetry
- Recovery from Alcohol, Substances, & Behaviors
- LGBTQ+ & Marginalized Communities
- Cooking & Food
- The Writing Process
What’s Next?
I will keep writing as long as I have a story to tell and something new to say. I will edit the topics and series I’ve already written and most likely self-publish the collections as books, including my memoir, Perfectly-Flawed, Conversations with My Next Girlfriend, imaginary conversations, Dispatches from the Hideout, the Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project, The Rejected Monologues, submissions from the Forward Theater Company Monologue Festivals, and lessons about grief, Grief & Gratitude Go Hand-in-Hand. My poetry chapbooks are currently available for download for free under Publications in the blog site menu.
The personal narratives, essays, poems, rants, and monologues published in Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! are snapshots of my lived experience, small vignettes, and glimpses into a life. They represent my point of view and a search for an audience of both the like-minded and those who help me raise my awareness and understanding. I consider myself perfectly flawed and human, one person, living a life, a recovering, lesbian feminist-activist in community with others. The stories, when woven together and shared with others, create a community of voices, diverse, and resilient.
I write because I’m compelled to as a storyteller like the generations that preceded me, my paternal great-grandmother, maternal grandmother, and finally my father, who each remembered almost every person they had ever met and relished in the telling and retelling of their stories, embellishing, adding and subtracting details in the service of the tale or life lesson.
My writing is my most valuable asset, my legacy, which I leave behind for future generations. They’re the stories I heard as a child, the memories I cherish of shared experiences with loved ones, still here in life, and those that have left the material world, reminding me that grief and gratitude go hand-in-hand. The essays, musings, and rants represent my observations on this life as a citizen of the world. The posts are mile-markers along my journey, first, as a human doing, then a human being, and lastly as a human becoming. Grateful.
Additional Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Procrastination Station: Dysfunction Junction
Related Reading on the Topic