My American Studies: The writing life and Whac-A-Mole

I have thought up and discarded several ideas for blog posts this month, because each time I start one a different writing task pops up. It’s a lot like playing Whac-A-Mole (without the smell of fried dough). So rather than take on any of those topics that came to mind and took me to the library to research, I’ll just jot down a brief account of the writing I have done this month.

There are grants for writers, which not surprisingly require the writer to do a lot of writing to apply. There are jobs for writers, ditto. There are more jobs for the teaching of writing, ditto ditto.

And there’s a writing contest. This was the most fun of all the projects initially. I did the “research” on a beautiful day in Boston and Cambridge with a fun friend by my side. And the writing was concise—a requirement of the contest. So I entered the contest. The month of March is the voting phase of said contest, an exercise in social networking. I don’t think I’ve ever exercised so much in my life. Fortunately, the voting ends next week.

The object: to get the most votes for my entries by March 31. I’ve asked virtually everyone I know. And I’ve them to ask people they know. Ideally, there should be some sort of exponential growth. But I’m a writer not a mathematician, and it doesn’t seem to be working that way.

So, if you’re interested in traveling and quirky things to do, you might be interested in the website Trazzler.com. It’s a fun site.

And if you’re interested in helping one writer not feel like one of the Moles, you might want to vote for my trips. (They’re in two different categories, so you can vote for both of them.) Here they are.

Skating into Winter Romance on the Frog Pond in Boston, MA