7:15 a.m. PT: Writing is something I’ve felt compelled (in a good way) to do most of my life. I never thought I’d be able to support myself with it. But I am. Well, I blog for a living. I blog for businesses. Blogging is writing, but it’s a different kind of writing. The ultimate goal is to make a living writing books and articles, not updating blogs.

Writing has always been a part of who I am, but it was still a hobby for many years. A few years ago, I managed to turn it into a profession. The thing about writing is that you never know when and how it will pay off. Feeling like you have no choice but to write certainly helps keep you motivated, payoff or not.

If you surfed here from Google looking for political news, I have none for you. But maybe you can get something out of this visit by answering two questions. Regular readers, I’d like to hear from you, too.

Perhaps you’re a musician struggling to make a living, but one who is compelled to make music whether or not it pays the bills. Or maybe you have a hobby that makes the 9-5 grind easier to take. Your job isn’t challenging enough, or it’s too stressful, or downright boring. Engaging in a hobby can keep you sane.

1) Is there something you feel you must do (teach, preach, write, draw, make music, etc.)?

2) If you could, would you try to make a career (part time or full time) doing it?

Update (5/9): Here’s what stinks about being a writer: pitching an idea to an editor, not hearing from the editor, reading a story based on your idea sometime later, and knowing the editor got the article idea from you. That’s the way it goes sometimes. Still stinks.

But I’ll have a good weekend, anyway

And I hope you do, too.

Oh, the wheels of traditional publishing turn slowly…

For the past few months, I’ve immersed myself in digital music and digital media news. As I brainstorm and pitch what I hope are unique story ideas that will capture the attention of busy editors, I satisfy the writing urge on my blog. I write less on the blog because I’m trying to write more off the blog. But alas, the fruits of those off-blog efforts may not show up for weeks or months, if at all. The life of a writer…

I’m accustomed to hitting a “Publish” button and seeing my words immediately broadcast to the world. That’s why it’s sometimes frustrating dealing with traditional print publications.

Let’s talk about spam. I usually balk at being added to e-mail lists without my permission. Who doesn’t? How frustrating is it to get a bulky, HTML-filled e-mail from Blah-Blah & Associates singing the praises of some author you’ve never heard of with a book to sell that you aren’t remotely interested in reading? Man, back in the day, freelance writers had to jump through hoops to get review copies of books. Now, my inbox overflows with, “May I send you this book/CD/DVD?”

The other problem with PR types is some of them don’t target us writers and bloggers very well (ex: sending financial planning book spam to a catblogger). The Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson was so frustrated with poorly targeted PR missives, he blocked e-mail addresses and publicly listed them. It caused quite a stir in the techosphere.

On rare occasions, however, I’m glad to get certain PR/marketing e-mail. Yesterday, I received a bulky HTML-filled e-mail from a shall-remain-unnamed entity, part music production company, part band PR firm. And I was delighted! Why?

Somebody at the company either performed a Google blog search for digital music news, found LBC’s recent posts, and added me to the e-mail list, or somebody was already an LBC reader, read the digital music posts, and added me to the list, or…it doesn’t really matter how it happened. It pleases me nonetheless. (And it doesn’t take much these days.)

A music industry type noticed and reacted to my music blogging, and believes my blog is influential enough to share news about his clients. While a personalized “Hello La Shawn, my name is…” e-mail would have been much nicer, I won’t complain too much. One of the benefits of being on a PR company’s radar is free stuff – books, CDs, or, in the case of a PR firm for bands, being added to the guest list for concerts. And that may lead to backstage passes. (The company’s relatively unknown clients could end up opening for well-known bands.)

It’s sort of crazy that I’m going crazy over music at my age. Doesn’t this typically happen to people in their 20s? I hate to trivialize it and call it a mid-life crisis, this new interest in wanting to hang out with bands (what’s that about?), but in a way, it is. So let’s get everyone involved:

Are you now or have you ever gone through a so-called mid-life crisis? If so, do tell. But keep it clean!

Or:

Do you think “mid-life crisis” is a bunch of bunk, simply an excuse to justify doing crazy/wild/weird/immoral things?

(T-shirt image: Modern Drummer Magazine)

Update: I like Charles Hill’s response to the questions:

People do things like that, yes. And sometimes they do things like that at the approximate mid-point of their lives, based on how long they (or we) expect those lives to be. But I think that the idea that there’s a syndrome of sorts, something that compels us to act on things we might not have acted on otherwise, simply because we’ve reached X/2 number of years, is a bit dubious: it’s a convenient shorthand, nothing more.

Or look at it this way: if you’re too young to be having a mid-life crisis, you’re just sowing some wild oats; if you’re too old, you’re doing the second-childhood thing. Same actions, different label.

And this being La Shawn, after all, it’s not like she’s doing something wicked: she’s merely wondering if her sudden interest in music is a sign of the Dreaded Crisis. “Doesn’t this typically happen to people in their 20s?” she asks. Well, what if it does? Life isn’t Logan’s Run; there’s nothing that says “Okay, you’ve passed 29, you must put the following things behind you.” (Well, there’s Paul in 1st Corinthians, but an interest in music doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, qualify as childish.)

Besides, I keep a copy of Hanson’s “MMMbop” on iTunes up here, just to perplex people half my age. Because, you know, I can.

Cheers, Charles. Not to overplay the “mid-life crisis” idea, I’m actually just thinking out loud. An interest in music isn’t childish, but I think my desire to hang out backstage is something else altogether. What that something is, I don’t know. But I’m gonna have fun finding out!

Can I get a witness? Can I get an Amen?

According to WorldNetDaily, PBS’s Tavis Smiley said that he didn’t issue a “no applause” rule for the recent Democratic presidential debate at Howard University because “black people are an emotional people. I know it wouldn’t have worked.”

WND is trying to stir up controversy, no doubt, but I doubt Smiley’s remark would offend the average black person. Why not? Because it’s probably true. Actually, I think blacks simply are less restrained emotionally and feel “no shame” showing emotions.

There was a lot of clapping and verbal reactions among the mostly black audience of VIPs at the debate. In fact, there was clapping and verbal reactions among the black bloggers, including me (there was no “no applause” rule in the media room). I thought nothing of it at the time, but afterward, a white blogger said the debate “seemed like church” or something to that effect.

I thought about it for a few seconds and told him he was right. A black liberal blogger in the group agreed with me, and she and I also agreed that even if the audience had been comprised of black conservatives and black Republicans, it still would have “seemed like church.”

It’s part of the “call and response” tradition of the black church and certain black music styles (although not every black person or black church does it). I went to a relatively conservative black church, with no whooping, hollering, or shouting, but when I’m listening to a particularly inspirational speaker in or outside church, I have to suppress the urge to verbally respond even in a pin-drop quiet room. Responding just seems natural to me. Is it some cultural genetic trait? Oops! Can’t talk about genetics. Anything but that.

Also see “The Black Church,” a brief story…

(Photo: Campus Echo)

Addendum: You have to clarify everything around here. I’m not saying that blacks can’t or shouldn’t be expected to control themselves. I was agreeing with Smiley’s “blacks are emotional” statement with a twist: that blacks tend to be less restrained in showing emotions. Nothing more, nothing less. Blacks should not be held to lesser or lower standards.

Education wasn’t stressed in my house, so I pretty much was on my own. Lacking motivation and encouragement to excel, I coasted along, doing only what was absolutely necessary to keep from failing.

Although I really liked my junior year journalism class, I did only what was required. Most of the time. High school journalism students were part of the newspaper staff by default, but I wasn’t really interested in writing stories about the school’s latest pep rally. I wanted to cover “hard” news like rape and murder. For a high school newspaper. Funny, in retrospect.

Miss G. made us keep a weekly journal, a task designed to help us get the creative juices flowing by writing two pages in a black and white composition notebook once a week. All we had to do was fill up a page — front and back — to get an A. Most of the time, I went over the quota, writing several pages worth of adolescent angst over crushes on football players and going to the prom. One time, I wrote this sprawling “short story” about a dream fantasy, where the object of my affection was the singer Prince, an obsession at the time. I kept it clean, but I used my imagination to transport the reader into the fantasy, and ended the story on an enigmatic note. To my 16-year-old mind, it was cool.

Miss G. thought so, too. “You’re a good writer, La Shawn,” she wrote in the margin, the first time anyone had ever told me that. Comments like, “This would make a good column – save it!” and “Excellent writing!” were sprinkled throughout other entries. Her encouragement gave me the confidence to experiment and open up in the entries.

Not even 10 years older than we were, Miss G. was young and cool. She got us excited about journalism, teaching us how to find “the story” and covering the who, what, where, and when and basic styles of news writing. We watched movies like “All The President’s Men” and “Absence of Malice” in class and learned about journalistic ethics. The subject was great. Doing the actual work, not so great. As I said, I lacked motivation.

While I barely completed other assignments for the class, that semester-long year-long, journal-writing project saved me from failing. I loved writing in that journal, but I didn’t like doing it as an assignment. Sometimes I was late turning it in, and my grade reflected it. But journaling created a “fire in the belly.” I had connected with something at last.

Miss G. didn’t return for my senior year. She got married, became Mrs. M., and moved away. I missed her like crazy. But a strange thing happened after she left: I continued writing in the journal. The new teacher hadn’t assigned journal writing, but I kept doing the “assignment” anyway. I bought a new composition book and made entries even more personal, knowing I’d be the only one reading them.

Every year or so, I’d buy a new one and fill it up. And I kept at it, sometimes daily, sometimes a few times a week, other times skipping a month or two. I’ve cried while scribbling in it, laughed while jotting down silly moments, and grieved over it as I captured adolescent suicidal thoughts and feelings. Those journals carried me through high school, college, my parents’ divorce, pregnancy scares, alcoholic fogs, falling in lust, out of lust, in love, out of love, first job, second job, third job, law school, moving to D.C., struggles with faith, personal days of reckoning, finding Christ, becoming a child of God, starting a blog, getting nasty e-mail from strangers, going on radio and TV, self-doubt, self-criticism, hearing from old friends, old boyfriends, making new friends…

Twenty-four years and sixteen black and white composition notebooks later, I’m still scribbling. Sometimes crying. Always laughing.

A few years ago, I decided to track down Mrs. M. and tell her about my journals. I wanted her to know that the spark she ignited in me had become a long-lasting burning flame. I loved writing and kept up the journals, and I felt it was important for her to know that. Thanks to the web, finding her was easy. I fired off a quick e-mail, reminding her who I was (slacker student) and what I’d been doing in the subsequent years. I told her how much she and that journaling assignment meant to me.

And she wrote back.

Miss. G. remembered me! She thanked me for getting in touch after all these years and was very pleased that I’d kept up the journaling. As she was politically conservative, too, she loved my op-eds (especially the pro-life stuff) and told me she was proud of my accomplishments. She even commented on a blog post once. I felt like a 16-year-old kid again, reading her approving remarks in the margins of my journal entries.

A homeschooling mother, Mrs. M. wanted us to get together the next time she and her family visited the nation’s capital. She was a generous woman, homeschooling other children and inviting foreign exchange students into her home. And she was a believer.

Mrs. M. and I continued our correspondence, and she shared a humbling story with me. She assigned weekly journaling to her homeschool students but was about to remove it from the curriculum before I e-mailed her. Mrs. M. said that my keeping up the journal for 20+ years, and knowing what that high school assignment has meant to my life, inspired her to keep journaling in the curriculum, to the consternation of her students.

One day, I got an e-mail from one of her sisters. Mrs. M. had been killed in a car accident.

I was numb for a few days, then I called her sister. We talked about Mrs. M.’s family and faith, and she told me how proud Mrs. M. had been of my work and for keeping up the journaling. I’d done what many people don’t do, Mrs. M.’s sister said. I’d followed through by contacting a former teacher and letting that teacher know how her classes affected my life, and it meant a lot to Mrs. M.

I regret not seeing Mrs. M. before she died, but I’m so glad I took the time to find her. I wanted her to know that at least one of her former students kept doing her “assignment,” an assignment that changed the student’s life.

As I said, Mrs. M. was a Christ follower. I missed my chance to see while she was alive, but I definitely will see her again.

Which teacher(s), if any, had a positive impact on your life?

I’m having some painting done in my place, so I decided to work and blog (the same thing, actually) at a local coffee shop. I don’t get out like this during the day nearly enough. I’m in walking distance of two Starbucks and at least three other independent shops (with free wireless!), so here I am, blogging. In a coffee shop.

When I first arrived, I claimed a table and set up my equipment. Then I’m in line buying coffee and a croissant when I look over at my laptop and see a homeless-looking woman sitting at my table and touching my computer. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I get out of line, walk over to her and say, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, baby, is this yours?”

“Yes,” I say indignantly. She gets up and sits at a table across from me and stares at me, occasionally making grunting noises. As of this posting, she’s still looking at me. I’m unfazed by the glare, and as long as she’s not bothering anyone, the employees don’t seem too keen on kicking her out.

Although the employees here are OK, other places I go lately, the employees clearly are not enjoying their jobs. Either that, or they’re having the time of their lives but lost their ability to smile. I was once fired from a job because I didn’t smile enough. I’m always smiling! Just ask anybody who knows me. I make an effort to maintain a pleasant expression, no matter how I’m feeling inside. Sour faces are a turn-off, man.

So anyway, it’s a drag dealing with “customer service” types who take out their job and home life frustrations on customers. One in-your-face conservative guy I know actually confronts the situation head on, asking for the manager when he’s treated rudely. But get this: He doesn’t complain to the lowly store manager. He asks for the telephone number of the regional manager and calls the person on the spot. A few employees have been fired because of the way they’ve treated him. I love it.

OK, so I need to go earn the palace now. And yes, homeless-looking woman is still staring at me.

Addendum: A Whitney Houston song came on, and the homeless-looking woman started singing. Needless to say, she was off-key. An employee asked her to leave and suggested she go to the free library. Old girl left with no drama. Billy Idol’s “Flesh for Fantasy” is playing now. Ah, the 80s…