Well obviously, once we get to Abu Dhabi and I start blogging from there, I will become an international celebrity, perhaps get arrested for my outspoken and totally perceptive comments about women in the Middle East, my case will become a cause celebre, and I will be inundated with book and movie deals (after I get out of prison, of course, where I will be underfed just enough to finally kick that last bit of postpartum weight [um yes, my youngest child is seven, so what?]), and then Angelina Jolie will battle with Sandra Bullock to see who plays me in the movie. Viggo Mortensen or Johnny Depp (or maybe Taylor Kitsch) will play my husband and in the course of filming he (whichever one, I’m not choosy) and I will engage in a torrid affair, which I will end for the sake of our children. Bittersweet, we part, pledging our troth but knowing it’s best for our families. The movie wins all kinds of awards, makes beaucoup euros, and I retire to the south of France where I write brilliant essays in many languages for all the important journals.

Oh.

Um. Sorry. Did I actually write all that down? I was just sort of daydreaming there for a minute.

Let’s try again, now that I’m done mopping up the spilled chicken noodle soup (from a can) that my squabbling children just ate for dinner.  With potato chips on the side (counts as veg, right?)

In six months, I’ll be writing this blog from Abu Dhabi. I suppose that on some level, I’ll keep writing about the same stuff I always do: education, my kids, politics, books. What I’m hoping will happen–what I will have to work to make happen–is that I use my writing to explore a part of the world that way too many people in the West (including me) don’t know anything about other than what we read in the newspapers.

If anyone has ideas about how to work this expat thing, I’d love to hear ‘em.  I already got some great tips from Eli/Rose Social Media (thanks!) but I’d be delighted to hear what others have to say.

Because, you know, Angelina’s going to be calling just about any day now.

This post is part of a week-long virtual blogging conference started by Liz, at a belle, a bean, and a chicago dog, and Jessica, at four plus an angel.  Their idea was to create a blogging conference that didn’t require the participants to change out of their ratty gym shorts and oh-my-god-it’s-so-freaking-hot tank tops.  And for that, bless them.

Those of you not interested in reading about blogs–a kind of meta-blog blogging, as it were–might want to skip over the Summer Blog Social posts.  Or you could dig into the inner psyche of bloggers and read through all the posts on the site.

The topic for today is “before I blogged, I wish I’d known…”  It’s sort of a funny question, actually, because I think if I’d known anything about what it meant to maintain a blog, I probably wouldn’t have started.  A friend of mine who used to climb mountains on a regular basis (complete with ice picks, lots of ropes, and frequent instances of potentially plummeting to his death) said that he kept going on these death-defying journeys to “feed the rat,” by which he meant fueling the adrenaline rush he got with each climb.

Writing a blog creates another version of feeding the rat: you can’t stop or the blog atrophies and the six people who read it, other than your mom, will give up and go elsewhere. So you have to keep writing and thinking about writing and making notes about writing, and maybe waking up in the middle of the night to worry about the fact that you haven’t posted in a few days.

Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe other bloggers don’t do that.

So on second thought, I’m glad I didn’t know that blogging would become such a big part of my creative life; I think that I would’ve been afraid to embark on such a full-scale adventure. Instead, I started writing as a lark, and as a way to train my writing muscles.

I’m also glad I didn’t realize how many talented, funny, insightful, thoughtful, interesting people are writing online: I would’ve been petrified to dip my digital tootsies into these waters. Now that I’m swimming in the bloggy water, however, it’s delightful to look around at all the other blogfish in the sea and realize that, with a comment or two, you can actually talk to these elegant, talented fish as they swim by.

Hmm.  I seem to have answered this question by talking about what I’m glad I didn’t know.  If I’d known more, I think I might be still polishing that first-ever post, trying to make it perfect before I launched it into deep water.  So let me take one last stab at answering this question in its proper form: before I started blogging, I wish I’d known… how much fun it would be.

So here I am: NaBloMoPo, I just can’t quit you.

Luckily, the marvelous mind behind NaBloPoMo offers prompts, for the faint of heart and exhausted, and today’s prompt is great: what’s your favorite word?

Isn’t that a great question?

I love words. When I was little and my mom would drag us off to church on Sundays, I would sit in the back seat and say “episcopalian, episcopalian, episcopalian.” The way it clicked off the tongue–similar to the way Humbert Humbert likes to say “Lolita, Lolita, Lolita”  Try it.  They feel really good in the mouth, don’t they?

There’s a long ago book from the 1940s, Cress Delahanty, by Jessamyn West, in which Cress–who is of course an aspiring writer–reads through words in the dictionary, writing down her favorites: pilgarlic, rapscallion,verdigris, vermilion.  Those are good words too, because they’re so unexpected.

I over-use the word fabulous (I live in New York, the word is practically a medical necessity) and I’m also too fond of the word fuck, which I find really pretty much always appropriate, unless I’m in class (and even then I’ve been known to drop the occasional f-bomb–mostly to see if my students are still awake. Usually they’re not.)

Words like nostril and mucilage and mutton make my toes curl in disgust, but I’m a fan of bog, and muck, and smush.

But the best word? My favorite word? I’m going to go with Henry James on this one: “summer afternoon, summer afternoon…the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

I’m behind on reverbs. Far enough behind that I thought about quitting but then the Puritan in my head spoke to me sternly (do Puritans ever say anything not sternly?) “you made a commitment to this project, so you have to stick with it.”

Not, of course, that anyone in reverb-land would know or miss my posts, but still. That Puritan is up there keeping score.

So here’s the prompt for Dec 6 (I told you I was behind): Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

This one kills me.  I make stuff all the time: I make dinner, make lunchboxes, make snacks, make the bed. I make blog posts, I make Halloween costumes (sort of), I make bedtime stories.

None of it – with the exception of this blog – is really what I want to be making.  What I want is to sink into a writing project the way I did two summers ago, when I was finishing revisions on a novel (unpublished, natch). Every day, five and six hours a day, I got my butt in the chair, as Stephen King says in his fabulous book on writing (yes, seriously, that Stephen King).  I love having a big mass of paper to shove around, mark up, draw arrows and circles; revision, for me, looks a lot like a pre-school art project.

It’s creating that big mass of paper that’s the problem at the moment, however, which is why this question about “making” really hits home. I’ve got some notes, a few pages about this and that, but nothing solid…just random beginnings. The idea of trying to weave these ideas into a substantive whole feels daunting, utterly impossible.  Are there are people out there who think that starting something new is exciting and challenging and filled with opportunity?

I hate being at the beginning; I like to already have written, to be already in the middle of whatever it is.  Which is, of course, impossible. And so I spend untold hours (days, weeks) procrastinating, throat-clearing, doodling—and listening to that damn Puritan muttering that I’m just wasting time and I should be doing something professional or at least something useful, like cleaning the closets.

So yes, oh reverbers, there is something I want to make and “all” I need to do is clear the time. “Just say no,” as they say, to all that other crap that gets in the way? Put the Puritan in the (disorganized) closet, get my butt in the chair, and teach the boys how to call the Thai food place for dinner?

Sounds like a plan.

November ended with a blustery storm and I’ve not posted in a few days (I know, your world has no meaning as a result of my dereliction. Sorry).  Then I noticed a few people doing this “Reverb 10” thing and I got curious. It’s another post-a-day thing, with the intention of reflecting on the year that’s passed and articulating goals for the year to come.

There are big changes brewing in 2011–moving out of this apartment, one kid starting middle school, Husband turns 50, maybe moving out of the city–and that’s just the stuff I know about.  Seems like reflecting and articulating might not be a bad thing to do–and writing about it is a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.

I’ve missed the first three days…but here are the prompts and responses:

Dec 1: 2010 in one word, and explain. And then what would the word be for 2011?

2010:  Tension. Moving too fast, doing too many things, going in too many directions at once. I realize that this description just about sums up the lives of any working person who lives in New York, but sitting here right now, I think Husband and I have spent most of 2010 scrambling to make sure that not too much stuff falls off the edges of our very full plates.  So that means I’d like 2011 to be the opposite of tense. Calmer? Slower? Centered? Any of those would be good.

Dec 2: What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing and what can you do to eliminate it? Ha! Eliminate that which doesn’t contribute to my writing? Gosh, is it part of this reverb project that I can abandon my family? Get a room of my own and all that? Or hey, what about that day job? Reading student papers really gets in the way of my writing. Ditto laundry, housecleaning, and miscellaneous meal preparation.

Dec 3: Pick a moment when you have felt most alive this year… Walking in the desert outside Qasr Al Sarab, along the ridge of a dune. The side of the ridge in the sun was so hot it burned my feet; the other side was deliciously cool.

Reverb…maybe the idea of doing this sort of writing is to find the good stuff in the year that’s sliding to a close and find ways to let that good stuff reverberate into the new year.

Hmm.

Caleb and his friend A. wrote a book last week, a collaborative project featuring extensive illustrations and a comprehensive overview of the world of espionage.

A: It’s called all about spies.

C: That’s not how you spell spies. Spies has a Y in it, right mommy?

A: Told you.

C: Now write that spies steal lots of stuff.

A: Steal?

C (with authority):  Yes! S-T-E-E-L that’s how you write it.

A: Okay.

C: Mommy do you spell stuff s-t-u-p-h?

(Sounds of erasing)

C: Now we’re on page 4! Picture time.

A: I don’t want pictures.

C: Books about spies have to have pictures. Otherwise it’s all secrets and no one will know.

A: Okay. And we should make codes.

C: Great! Spies steal codes. Write that.

A: What else do they do?

C: They wear lots of black.

A: And they steal necklaces.

C: And airplanes.

A: Airplanes?

C: Yes. e-i-r-p-l-a-y-n-z. Airplanes.

A: I can’t draw an airplane.

C: Make it invisible.

A: Ok.

C: Now write The End.

National Blog Posting Month.  It’s like the bikram thirty classes in thirty days challenge, but less sweaty: write a post a day, every day, for a month. 

February, being the shortest month, seemed like a good time to start.

So. Onward with a month o’blather and blither. Consider yourself warned.