on my memoir. and a reference to gay men and anal.

(via)

One of my ultimate goals in life is to become a published writer.  Sure, I'm a blogger for Brand-Yourself.com and a writer for the Examiner.com and I've got street cred out the wa-zoo it's all fun and awesome, but I want to publish a book.  Specifically, my memoir. 

So, I've been reading a lot of great books lately.  Like Michael J. Fox's new book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future and Jennifer Love Hewitt's, The Day I Shot Cupid.  Both of these are amazing and funny.  I'm not a big JLH fan, but my BFF wants this for her birthday next month, so I found it cheap on Amazon and figured I may as well read it, right?  The verdict is in: every woman needs to read this book.  I mean, I hate all things chick lit, but this one is definitely  worth it because she talks about crabs.  The STD, not the food.  And yesterday, on a whim, I decided to buy Jen Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat, and holy cow this book is hilarious!  

Note: I'm a sucker for really good memoirs.  Especially anything by my two favorite authors, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs.  Because reading about someone else's messed up life makes me think that maybe my life isn't that bad.

Maybe.

So, I'm writing my memoir.  It's been a work-in-progress for about seven years now (albeit slow progress), but it's officially crap and not something I want published.  Or even read by any of my friends.  

See, that's the thing about memoirs.  It has to be good.  Like, really, really ridiculously, mind-blowing-ly, "ohmygawdthatwasawesome"-ly good.  Whether it's about overcoming some kind of horrific, life-changing disaster or going from zero-to-hero, it has to be something your audience wants to read.  

And therein lies my problem.  

What do I have to provide to my audience?  Why is my story worth telling?  What can my audience learn from my book?

Absolutely nothing.

Sure, I have tons of crazy, drunken stories to tell.  Like that time I boarded the wrong plane and landed in Jacksonville.  Or that time I got propositioned for a threesome in Vegas and mistaken for a prostitute all in one night.  Or that time I had sex with a ziplock bag (no, I wasn't fisting myself with a ziplock bag).  Or that time a guy went wrist deep inside me to get a condom out.  But do people really want to read about that?

My current angle for my memoir is about how I transformed into [my version of] Superwoman by overcoming the loss of both of my parents and cervical cancer by age 25, and embarking on changing the world, but I realize that people probably wouldn't want to read that either, because it's just another cancer story and it's not like I'm curing AIDS or anything that a real Superwoman would do.

My flaw is, I feel like I have nothing to give people.  No one really wants to hear my story.  Sure, I've endured a lot in my 26 years, but who hasn't?  What makes my experiences any more challenging than your experiences?

I've always felt this way.  Maybe it stems from not having a close relationship with my parents, but I always feel like I don't have anything to give anyone.  I don't tell people my past experiences because it's all "Debbie Downer" and depressing and who really wants to hear about that?

I've wanted to write my memoir since I was 12 years old because I want to believe that I have a good story to tell and that maybe someone out there can relate to it or learn from it, but I don't know how to write the damn thing.  It's about believing you have an important story to tell, a life lesson to teach someone, an experience that changed your life that someone can learn from, and I don't know how to do that; I don't know how to write well.

Again, this all goes back to my #1 stunna flaw of feeling like I have nothing to give.  I also feel like I'm a terrible writer, but that's neither here nor there. 

It's hard to change the way you view yourself, and what you do, after so many years.  I want to believe that I'm a good phenomenal writer who has an amazing story to tell, but wanting to believe it and actually believing it are two different things. 

It's like hot gay men.  I want to believe I can change a gay man who is ridiculously good looking, to be straight, but actually making him swing on the other side of the see-saw is a completely different story. 

Good anal-ogy?  Ha!  Get it?  Gay men.  Anal.  

:::crickets:::

No?  Just me?

Best of 2009 Series - Best Book and Best Trip

Today's your lucky day because you get TWO for the price of a blow job  of one. 

BEST BOOK

This one was kind of hard (that's what she said!).  And I guess I can't count my coloring books.  Don't judge me.  I'm a big fan of biographies, memoirs (especially those of any kind of personal struggle) and economics.  I'm just now starting to get back into reading fiction (I read a lot of fiction when I was younger, but then I hit college and transitioned to non-fiction).  I loved Angels and Demons and I'm currently reading The Lost Symbol and I think it's amazing.  Oh and I fell in love with The Time Traveler's Wife, but the best book I read this year was The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz.  It's an inspiring memoir of a woman who spent her life on a quest to understand global poverty and to find powerful ways of tackling it.  

I'm in the process of writing my own memoir so I'm always looking for any kind of inspiration and introspection.  This book did just that.  As I read it, I felt like I was walking right next to her through all of her journeys.  Everything is described with intricate detail and it makes you feel like you're there, experiencing it yourself.  It's not often that I read a book that captivates me this much.  I hope that one day, my memoir will have that same effect for someone else.

So why is a memoir about poverty titled The Blue Sweater?  Well, you'll just have to read it to find out.

BEST NIGHT OUT

This was another hard one (that's what she said!).  Of all of the nights out that I've had, how am I supposed to pick out the best one?  I've traveled to a lot of cities this past year and all of those trips involved some great nights out.  Like the road trip to Washington, D.C. where we pre-gamed in the hotel, went out to the bars till 3AM, almost went to a strip club, then went back to the hotel to play Kings until about 5AM.  Yeah, that was a good night.  Or any of the nights I spent in Vegas?  Yeah, more good ones.  But the best one?  

Saturday, October 25, 2009.  

Tampa, Flo-rida.

I travel around the U.S. to play in hockey tournaments about 4-5 times a year.  I had missed the June Sunshine Shootout and all of my friends who went, came back telling me how awesome of a trip it was.  I was a little jealous that I wasn't able to go, but when I heard they were hosting another Sunshine Shootout in October, I knew I had to be there.

Hockey, the beach, 80 degree weather and lots of drinking.  Who wouldn't want to do that?!


With any big tournament we travel to, there's always lots of drinking, laughing, pictures and debauchery.  Some of my favorite moments have been spent with my hockey mates, actually.  It's kind of awesome and scary at the same time.  

Anyway, so that Sunday was the last weekend of the tournament.  After all was said and done, we all had a "team night out" at a local bar.  We drank, we ate, we were merry.  When the bars closed, we all stood around outside trying to figure out who was the most sober to drive.  Turns out no one was really sober to drive (and we all ended up in cars we hadn't originally showed up in), but luckily we didn't have far to go.  The partying continued at a rental beach house with six cases of beer.  As we all drank into the wee hours of Monday morning, I found myself having a pants-off, dance-off with a Canadian.  We dared to see who would get naked.  He took off clothes, I took off clothes.  He took off jewelry, I took of jewelry.  Needless to say, I was standing in the kitchen with 20 of my hockey mates, stripping against a Canadian. 


The Canadian won the stripping contest and ran around the house naked.  Did I mention he was hairy and obese?  Yeah, it wasn't even close to hot.  

Of all the trouble I get myself into - especially during tournaments - I think this one goes down in the record books as my all-time low point.  


I can only imagine what the 2010 tournaments will bring me.