Saturday, October 01, 2011

Get to know me

(Please tell me you get the Jon Lovitz reference here. I always loved that SNL skit. Unfortunately, SNL is pretty tight with their content and no YouTube reference has been found yet.)

This is blatant self-promotion. And I hate promoting myself, which is why I don't have a book deal yet. At least this is what I tell myself. (Ugh. There were way too many first person pronouns in just the past two sentences.) The truth is that I do want people to notice me; I just don't want to be the one drawing attention to myself. I think that I just want to be discovered and then sit there shyly, saying, "Who me? You want to give me a $250,000 advance on a book? Oh, alright."

I get jealous when I hear of other bloggers who get book deals and get angry at women who are able to put together book proposals with an infant and several small children in the house. (You know that you hate them, too.) Yet, I do believe that I've been given a gift for humor and honesty, which most of the time are the same thing. At least they are for me. It helps me take life a lot less seriously. And since I believe gifts are God-given, I feel an obligation to share my talents whether it be with a handful of people or thousands.

I always think of that parable in the New Testament about the three slaves who were given bags of money commensurate with their abilities. The two with the most bags of money multiplied it. The third man was given one bag of money and he buried it, figuring he didn't have enough money to do anything worthwhile. The master was not pleased with number three. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm burying my talents. Other times I'm afraid that any attempt to showcase my talent will be excessively narcissistic. I either fantasize about being at the top of the heap or am busy burying myself beneath the heap.

Humility is a balancing act and I have horrible balance.

All these mental gymnastics are just to let you know that a friend and former colleague of mine recently asked if I would write a get-to-know-the-blogger type article for a local parents website. I know it ain't Oprah or anything, but I agreed. I love to write and it gave me a chance to distill just what my family and I are all about and why I write on a regular basis.

So, basically, I'm sharing with you a link on my blog to an article about ... my blog. I realize this is a little circular. Enjoy the ride.

3 comments:

Monica said...

oh my! that is SOOOOOO great! i love your responses. made me laugh and brought a tear to my eye. huge congrats to you from a fellow blogger who is waiting for a call each and every day telling me i am steps away from fame. ;o) AND i'll take the $250 Gs too. p.s. - hubby and i lived in greensboro pre-kids. huge cultural shock for us, but we loved it and have fabulous memories from the nc.

Leigh Powell Hines said...

Josee,

If you don't promote your own writing then who will? Hopped over from the site, and enjoyed checking out your work.

I'll look forward to reading more.

Leigh

Josee said...

the comments section has been down the past few days or i would have responded sooner. thanks, leigh and monica.

good point, leigh. if i don't,then who will? i always think of marty mcfly in back to the future saying, "what if they don't like it? what if they say i'm no good? ... i just don't think i can handle that kind of rejection?" at least not until i get more sleep! :0