Archives for December 2013

Two months ago, I found out I was pregnant, and I immediately burst into tears.

They were happy tears, because my husband and I had been trying for the past three and a half years. Not only that, but we’d been about to try a third round of IUI. Talk about dodging a bullet. That whole process is a pain in the ass.

After the at-home test was confirmed by blood work and an ultrasound, I transitioned smoothly into Crazy Neurotic Person Who Worries About Everything:

Will I break the baby with coffee?

Will I break the baby with yoga?

Will I break the baby because I keep tossing and turning in bed?

Holy crap I forgot I’m not supposed to eat soft cheeses. Did I break the baby?

(My OB/GYN assures me that, unless I smoke crack, the baby should be fine. This is why I love her.)

Then — after going through a phase in which I wondered if the baby was actually just a food baby from too many spinach balls — I decided to preemptively worry about how my identity as a sex writer might affect my child. Here are just the first seven things that popped into my head: [Read more…]

I’ve had plans to be a writer for the past 28 years. And for the past 28 years, I’ve done a pretty good job of achieving success in that endeavor.

It started with published poetry and both lit mag and school newspaper involvement when I was a young twerp. Later on, I was an editor and writer for my college paper, and also landed a part-time editorial assistant / copy editing gig at a local weekly. I went on to intern at alternative weeklies, online mags, and small presses before landing a full-time job for an academic book publisher. And though I moved steadily up the ladder while there, I eventually left to go full-time freelance, during which time I was an editor at an online mag, a sex columnist (twice), a blog manager (twice), a ghostwriter, etc.  I even landed myself a literary agent on the strength of my book proposal.

I also spent a couple years coaching beginning freelance writers but, during that time, found myself becoming disillusioned by the whole damn game, and burnt out on the things I was writing. Rates were dropping everywhere. Quality writing was being devalued. And I’d been asked to write so many lowest-common-denominator listicles that I began to lose my taste for the hustle. I mean, what was the point? Why write crap content for crap rates? Why continue hustling for work that didn’t even make me proud? [Read more…]