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Surviving the Internet One Anxiety Pill at a Time

Today please welcome Lance: Anxiety ridden, punk rock listening, word nerd, music obsessed, robot-human hybrid husband, father, red velvet cake enthusiast, pumpkin pie expert and writer living with four women and not talking about Fight Club.

Inventor of #100wordsong

Serialized fiction of a punk rock princess – The Ballad of Helene Troy

Serialized fiction of a grieving widower and his headstrong teenage daughter, Violet-  Soul To Body

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All I wanted was a hamburger and a scoop of potato salad. I stepped up to the picnic table and began making my plate. A shrill voice came from my right side. My name was mentioned. Something snotty was said about my voluminous social media habits. I knew I was faced with Sophie’s Choice as a writer with a limited social life. Do I defend myself and my active online activity or do I smile and let my cousin run all over me, in jest?

 

I started writing when I was very young. Stories about baseball players, superheroes, and rock stars filled the fifty-cent notebooks my mom bought me in the last aisle of the grocery store. By the fourth grade, I allowed the rest of the world to see something I’d written. It was a story about a boy and his thirty-foot pet snake named Mike. While my teachers, classmates and family thought they read a short tale of wonder and imagination, I knew it was my insides pleading for a brother, because I only had a younger sister I had to take care of and didn’t like. The neurosis started. After getting the blue ribbon for best fourth grade story, I didn’t stop writing for a very long time.

 

If Love Is A Battlefield then the internet is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. It’s the best and worst of society. What you decide your experience to be depends on your survival skils. To borrow from the pop culture phenomenon of the moment, you better have a crossbow, common sense, and help from like-minded friends. I started my new world quest in early 2005. I was in a bad marriage with someone who didn’t support my writing. I hadn’t number-two penciled a damn thing since 1998 (when I married the first time), and I was exceptionally lonely. Message boards, fantasy football chat forums, and a small writer’s group I stumbled upon were my outlets. As my marriage led to a divorce the following year, I began a music blog on MySpace that emcompassed concert and CD reviews, opinion pieces of new and old bands, and general music discussion. I wasn’t prepared for the intense nastiness that. I didn’t handle it well. The music blog grew, and despite over 500 everyday readers, some free concert tickets, and an insider’s view of bands, artists, and the music business, I decided my charred ego and single dad needs were more important, so for the second time in my life, I stopped writing.

 

You know those poor saps who walk around with smudged fingers, bad eyesight, and a paperback something rolled up in their pocket(s). Yeah, hi, I’m the guy sucking on a Diet Dr. Pepper next to you on a plane. I write because I have to. It makes me feel alive. When I started my current blog- have you read it? It doesn’t completely suck. The link is here.  You can find me here on Twitter and here on Facebook.

I was looking to unload the thoughts in notebooks I began writing in after my second marriage in 2008. My wife is very supportive, and insisted that I blog as a way to get out my thoughts, fictional and real. The second chance at being on the innertwitterfacebooknets surprised me. It’s been positive. I’ve cultivated a corner of the web full of serialized fiction, sometimes humorous postcards of my life, also a second chance with a wife and now three daughters – 16, 8, and 7, and occasional posts on how blogging works for me.

 

Friends? What the hell are those? I live with four women, work a real job, and try to keep up with online writing assignments. Yes, I’ve made friends. I’ve encountered a community of like-minded writing weirdos who blog because they have to. They need to get it out. Blogging has become therapy and emotional release for all of us.

 

I smiled through the wisecracks of my wise-cracking cousin. The burgers and potato salad were really friggin’ good. I’m proud of my online life these days. As I barrel toward publishing something in paperback form that you can roll into your pocket(s), I’m heartened by what I’ve made of my second chance at writing, tweeting, facebooking and blogging. After being a husband and father, writer is really all I had left to accomplish. I think I made it.

Comments

  2. I write because it make me alive. I know that all too well. I love your word innertwitterfacebooknets perfect description of this crazy blogging, socializing, tweeting, linking, liking, commenting world of the blogosphere. Here is hoping you massive success with your paperback because I think that is what validates us in the end. The ability to have someone else say ‘wow that was awesome, or I totally understand’. It makes us realize we are not as screwed up as we once thought.

    • Oh, we’re screwed up but we’ve found each other and we’re ok with it. Thanks for the comment

  3. I loved your writing. I always get uncomfortable when the mention of my blog comes up IRL. Most people don’t get it. Oh well. I agree, blogging is therapeutic! 

    • right, but we get it, and that’s what’s important. now lay on the couch and let’s do some therapy. thanks

  4. Love it! Nice to meet you Lance. I think we are from the same gene pool. Best of luck to you on your writing…and social media.

  5. This is one of my favorite pieces of writing concerning your writing that I’ve ever read. I loved this perspective, and the history you shared here.  I’m an unapologetic fangirl of your writing, and I’m so grateful to have found a friend in you as well. 

    Thanks for sharing Lance with you readers, Erin!! 

  6. Yes. Writing is therapy. Even amongst the craziness of the internet, I find solace and peace of mind in the words I put out there. In the opportunity to have someone actually read what I write. In the friends I’ve made. 

    This was great, Lance. I’m glad I found you and your words. You’re one of the good ones. 

    • one of the good ones? whew? my parents were wrong, I don’t completely suck.

      thanks Katie, you’re the best

    • I’m too poor to hardcover it, unless well, you know, they;re giving out book deals on the street corner these days.

      Hi and nice to meet you, too

      • 😀 Most people take the self-publishing route these days and make it sound like: click, click, click and you are done. But seriously, there seem to be lots of people successfully promoting their digital books on Amazon with Kindle versions. Of course, I love the smell of a hard cover.

  9. Hi, Lance!  Nice to meet you!

    My hubby doesn’t “get” blogging, but gets that I need (NEED) to do it and he’s fine with that.  I told him I could write or become an alcoholic and he seemed to prefer me writing, though he does find it strange that people we know already know what’s going on in our lives before he tells them.  I don’t mind beating him to the punch(line).  It makes up for the fact that he’s more outgoing in person.  Congrats!!

    • hi back, My wife blogs occasionally but she doesn’t get it either. she’s very supportive, though.

  13. well you know that after got over my crazy fear of your blog (thinking my pink skirts wouldn’t be welcome) I found that your space is one of my favorite places in the blog world and your words, well they inspire, push and pull, make me GUSH about them. I can’t wait for the book…just like I wait for each installment in all your fantastic stories.

    • you’ve been such great friend. There’s even a lit Lance at your place. Thank you K.

  14. “Blogging has become therapy and emotional release for all of us.” – couldn’t agree more. Nice to meet you, Lance. 100 word song sounds like a great game, and I’m itching to have a go…will definitely pop over to your blog and check out some more of your posts. 

    Best wishes, 

    Casey

    • 100 word song is a writing prompt meme. The name of the blog is MY Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. Can’t wait for you to visit.

      Nice to meet you too.

  15. It’s so nice to “run” into you again here. I will have to head over to your little corner of the blogosphere and do some snooping around. Love this post… glad you are writing. 

  16. I’m really sorry to be late to this comment party because I was an instant fan of yours, Lance. And I’m glad you can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous cousin commentary and still enjoy the potato salad at the picnic. (Both real and metaphorical, of course.)

    The writing world is a better place with you in it. 
    And I hope you see my words here because they’re true.

    • This will sound weird but I was very envious of my friends that we share knowing and talking about you before we finally became buddies on the twitter and the blogs. You are a ray of light on the web too, even more than Madonna.

      Thank you for your comments. I responded on my blog too, because I’m crazy like that.

    • thank you terri. I hit you up at twitter but still, thanks for reading, commenting and retweeting. it means a lot.

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