Curves Ahead.

If Michelle’s project is a journey…well so is this blog. I know the blog heroine is going to face the twists, turns, surprises and delights that make an unfamiliar trip so satisfying.

Will GuestWomb take this same interesting route. I hope so. But so far? Well, it’s been way too much like driving Interstate 5 through northern California. Painfully straight for mile after mile. Not nearly enough curves.

Curves and turns, dips and hills — that’s what I call interesting terrain. When people start sifting through these words, they might find it a little flat. So far these first 20 posts are mostly explanations, facts, storylines, and introductions. And while perhaps necessary to give context to the reason we’re all here…..well, this was not my intention at all.

I saw GuestWomb being much more commentary and observations, and less of a calendar or guide. Anyone who’s involved in this crazy surrogacy business could do a journal full of facts, figures and whatever else would fill a DIY Surrogacy site. That’s not for me. GuestWomb is intended to be a place where I share some of the more absurd, wonderous and just plain ass wacky aspects of our new, temporary lives.

Yeah, I’ll cut away from the funny stuff to present some of the more poignant moments that will undoubtably occur over the next nine months. But mostly I want the end product to be Dave Barry meets Maureen Dowd, seasoned liberally with some Ken Burns to taste. My dream would be to leave behind a rich jumble of words, phrases and sentences that will mean something to lot of different people.

People who desperately want to have a child and are searching for answers. Any answers.
Women considering following in Michelle’s footsteps.
Gay couples who feel the unmistakable calling to add to their families.
And maybe — just maybe — people who are interested in a good, rich and slightly bizarre family saga.

We’re only 20 posts into to my first-ever serious writing project in 25 years. I’m still confident that things will begin to lighten up as we get past these necessary first information laden chapters. I’ve been penning this stuff to provide context that’s been for my sense of organization and order.

But I think we’re about finished with that.

Warning: Curves ahead.

 

Last One To The Blog Party

189 million blogs. That’s a big universe of people yakking online. Or blogasphere as the kids say.

 OK, now it’s 189,000,001. With this humble outpost of vowels and consonants with a little too much punctuation thrown in.

 And while those numbers are astonishing, even more baffling is why I’m so damn late to this party. For the first 22 years of my life, all I wanted to be was a journalist. A cross between Howard Cosell and Walter Winchell, mixed with a little Edward R. Murrow and sprinked with a liberal dose of liberal Walter Cronkite.

I would write powerful columns. Scorching hot expose stories. And books. Many, many best selling books!

Fast forward another 27 years. My journalism career aborted after two fun-yet-very poor years at a small town Oregon newspaper. I work in marketing for an interesting company, and for many others along the way. Mattel. Hasbro. My own companies, great and small. I’m pretty happy with the way my career has taken off. But yet….I’m not writing.

No columns or exposes. And certainly no books. Not even a pamphlet. Or even a blog.

Until today! And the reason I started it? Because I was finally going to write a book. I had the topic — Michelle’s upcoming project. I was armed with books about how to write books. I had time cleared off my calendar and I was ready to start.

And then project just seemed too big. Daunting. I didn’t know where to start. Writer’s block? You have to actually be a writer to have that. I had pre-writer’s block.

So instead I’m starting here. One post at a time. Will GuestWomb turn into that best-selling book that I have always wanted to pen? I don’t know.

But it’s great to be finally writing again.