Day 2: Write On, Mamas! Blog-Off

My stepfather is what they call a “real writer.” Publishes books and goes to bookstores and signs them. He’s really low-key about it and his nonchalance is contagious.

He writes on a manual typewriter and every year it gets harder to find new ribbon.

He writes every day. He’s 81. Sometimes he takes out an essay he’s working on and just changes one word. Then he puts it back in its manila folder and files it away for another day. It’s not ready yet.

Sometimes when I go home I hear the steady typing upstairs, a nice, even percussion section to complement my mother on the piano downstairs.

Once at a writing conference, the leader of my group mentioned to us how exquisitely perfect Elroy’s prose was. Crisp and sublime. Only, the leader got mixed up and told the group that I was Elroy’s daughter rather than his stepdaughter. The group looked at me and everyone raised their chins ever so slightly, re-evaluating. Still staring and slightly gaping, they collectively exhaled. As if I then must be talented by proxy.

I didn’t bother to set the record straight. I just raised my chin, too. As if it were true.  

What’s the Great Blog Off? It’s just something I made up as an excuse to write a blog post and then link to the Write On, Mamas! Indiegogo fundraising campaign. Our group is raising money to self-publish an anthology of our essays. The campaign started today and I have decided to write one blog post a day for each day of the campaign.

Here’s the link to our site.

Here’s the link to our campaign.