Concept Writer -- Julie

I figured the occasional Saturday blog was just my speed. Surely I could conjure up some solid writing every few weeks to share with the Lithia Writers and Readers. What I have in reality conjured up are half-baked ideas expressed in barely coherent word scraps littering my lesson plan book. An idea will pop into my head when I'm in the middle of deciding when to schedule that spelling test; I'll capture it in a rush and then a few lame faltering words later – crickets. I lose steam. I'm like a half-rate concept artist. There is a tolerably interesting idea, but there is no craft in the expression of it. You need me to put my money where my mouth is, you say? So where are these tolerably interesting ideas, you ask? Let's go. You and me.

Blog Idea #1 “As Seen”
A post written from the perspective of an alert television viewer who thinks she saw the elderly woman from the LifeAlert commercial on the commerical for PastaNMore as well, and is concerned that her LifeAlert necklace has given her a false sense of security. Several other As-Seen-On-TV commercials would be woven in, including but not limited to: the HyrdoGlobe plant watering system, the SwivelEase vacuum, the CleverClasp necklace putter-onner, and the LateralThighTrainer.

Blog Idea #2 “The Other Shoe”
This would open with a brief description of a morning I had recently that resembled the opening scene of a movie, establishing that the main character has a perfect life, moments before everything goes awry, vis-a-vis a murder, a kidnapping, a cataclysmic natural disaster or a terminal diagnosis. This sunny morning my son was practicing for his oral report on Paul McCarney when I said goodbye, and he said “I love you Mom!” in his best Liverpool accent, then my husband showed up in my classroom with coffee and a rice crispy chew for me, and in the middle of class one of my students blurted out, “Ms. Inada, this is my favorite class!” I would go on to say, in this blog, how days like this leave me feeling anxious, like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that sometimes the other shoe is simply a creeping pessimism that slides in unannounced, mucking up your montage. But then I would need to address the fact that I don't really understand what is meant by 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' – it implies that one shoe has already dropped, and is that first shoe-drop something good, or simply the first of two bits of bad news? You see why I couldn't follow through.

Blog Idea #3 “The Inadas Turn Down the Heat”
This post would begin by explaining that I have always maintained near tropical levels of heat in my house, day and night, with hilarious descriptions of it – “wall of heat” “company gasping for air upon entering,” very good stuff. I would go on to reveal that my son and I, inspired by a December '07 issue of National Geographic for Kids, decided to turn down the heat to 64, day and night. We had read the issue a year ago, same article, but it was only now, when I felt sure that my president had also adjusted the heat in the White House, that I felt compelled to do it. I was confident that if Obama got chilly, he would simply get a sweater – likely a nice striped Gap number. A year ago I was equally confident that if W got chilly, he was cranking the heat to 73 and parading around in a 'Don't Mess with Texas' wife beater. But then I wondered whether it was okay to use the term 'wife beater', if readers would know what I meant, or if they would be offended. And when I start thinking about whether or not I'm going to offend someone, it's pretty much all over.

Okay, so you enjoy your lengthy blog posts, meandering along beautifully and then coming to a sweet insight; I'll just be here with my little concepts. See you some other Saturday!