My op-ed on my first pandemic concert and pandemic socializing

For the Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote about attending my first pandemic concert and pandemic socializing. Hope you'll check it out. Also, since I wrote it, I've gotten my first pandemic haircut!

My SELF essay on no longer being kinky

I wrote my first piece for SELF, a very personal essay about no longer being kinky.

My Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed on smartphone addiction

My first byline of 2019 is my smartphone addiction op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you're local, it should also be in print today or tomorrow (I have to see if it's available where I live in New Jersey or I'll get a Philly friend to get me a copy).



I'm proud to have a new publication to add to my credits as 2018 was a slow year with a lot of rejections (including one from this same paper, which I didn't hear back from when I submitted one in June on Seth Grossman). However, that one was to a generic address. This one was to a specific editor. I follow Sonia Weiser on Twitter and subscribe to her excellent editor pitch list newsletter, which is well worth the suggested $3/month and how I got this piece published. Sonia collects Tweets from editors about what they're looking for from writers. Happy writing (and less smartphone obsessing) in 2019!

The Frisky archives got deleted and I have mixed feelings

At Medium, I wrote about The Frisky archives getting deleted and my mixed feelings over having some of my most memorable essays (sex with a Top Chef contestant, if you recall) deleted. Researching this essay took me back to every time I sold a piece to The Frisky and was so thrilled. If you like it, please share, clap (hold down the hands button 1-50 times) and follow me on Medium, where I'm aiming to post 30 times in June. You can find me posting more frequently on Twitter (my favorite even if social media professionals tell me it's "dead"), Facebook and Instagram (and do follow the Best Women's Erotica Instagram too).



Also, in my early morning haste, I've now made this blog a mess. My apologies to anyone reading it on the blog page. I'm working on getting the layout fixed but also getting ready for my Berlin trip so it may look like this for a bit longer. Sorry!

If this month, and all my years of self-employment, have taught me anything it's that I have to prioritize. I'm still dreadful at that, but I'm trying, so since this blog isn't income-generating, it can't be my top priority, but I haven't given up on it. It's often the seemingly small tasks that I think will take five or ten minutes that spread into a half hour or hour and eat up my writing time, so I do my best to balance it all and focus on being the best businesswoman I can first and foremost, because without income, I...well, I would be in a very dire situation. So it's business first, all secondary things second. It took me so long to think of myself as a businesswoman, but last month I had a call to discuss a large branded content project and it reminded me that no, I didn't graduate law school and I don't wear suits and I constantly feel behind and stressed out (working on that too) and I ruined my blog code at five a.m., but I'm still respected enough in my field that people contact me about professional opportunities. That's a tradeoff I'm happy to make.

Speaking of priorities, one of mine that I developed at Alt Summit is finally getting my website revised. I'll be switching to Squarespace and am getting the copy ready for my web designer this week. I've got several fun writing and teaching projects in the works that I will share soon, but first I'm aiming to sell out my Berlin erotica writing workshop. Everything else happens after that.

My essay on Kim Kardashian West's White House meeting with Trump and slut-shaming

This is my month of Medium, where I aim to post 30 essays or articles, which averages out to once a day. I can't commit to once a day because I'll be in Berlin for part of the trip and attempting to be offline, but I'm pretty sure I can do 30, especially given all the ideas floating around in my mind. Today's post is about Kim Kardashian's recent White House visit to meet with President Trump about prison reform. Specifically, it's about all the people who slut-shame her and act like because she's a "porn star" she can't have opinions. If you like the piece, please consider sharing and/or clapping (holding down the hands button at the left of the essay for 1-50 times), which helps it get viewed by more people.



Also, to be forthright about my writing rejections, this essay got three of them from the places I submitted it to starting Thursday morning around six a.m. Two rejections via email, one from an editor I'd never worked with and one from an editor I have, both asking me to pitch again. The third outlet I didn't get a response from, but I submitted it as a pitch late Thursday, around five p.m., after the first rejection, and said I'd shop it around if I didn't hear back by Friday at 5 p.m. So then I decided to post it on Medium since its timeliness is waning.

How to use your professional jealousy to advance your career

I wrote about how I overcome professional jealousy and why it's so alluring over at Medium. If you like it, please consider holding down the clap button at the left of the piece for 1-50 claps, which helps more people see the essay and helps me get paid. It's also an examination of the new memoir Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Franchesca Ramsey, which I highly recommend.



Specifically, I focus on a chapter Ramsey wrote (I'm 99.99% sure) about Julia Allison. If you know who she is, I think you'll enjoy the essay, and if you don't, the below Wired cover is a clue, and you can find out more in the essay.



I discuss the folly of professional jealousy and the damage it can do to career advancement, so I'll add a little context. I'm typing this at 3:20 a.m. when I should be sleeping. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, especially in the years since October 2011 when I got laid off from my magazine job and have been forced to learn how to be self-employed. My business has grossed six figures the last two years (emphasis on grossed because I invest tens of thousands of dollars back into it and am investing even more this year), but I work hard for every dollar.

There's a lot of trial and error, usually more misses than hits, and, for me, the sense that I can never relax or let go. I'm starting retirement savings in my forties and have zero guarantee of future income. So while it may look like I'm a version of "successful," and I would say I feel somewhat successful, it's an ephemeral feeling. It's why I gobble up NPR's How I Built This with Guy Raz podcast and am reading books by the likes of Barbara Corcoran. Professional jealousy is really a time waster when you consider how many tasks go into building a business (yes, even "passive income" like book royalties). I spent part of Memorial Day making lists of which photos I have handy to post on the Best Women's Erotica Instagram account and drafting a so-long-they-may-not-read-it-all email to the authors in the next volume in the series (speaking of which, the deadline for the Volume 5 call for submissions is August 1, 2018, which will be here very soon). Most days my first waking thought is about my to-do list. So the idea that anyone would be jealous of my career seems laughable to me most days, because "success" doesn't always feel incredible and amazing. It's nice when I get a big (for me) royalty check, but I'm always aware that the next one could be half or a third or a tenth of that, or nothing. That keeps me in check and buckled down focusing on the next task or project or pitch (while also, of course, taking the time to promote the books and articles that are already out so that more people can hear about them, because that's part of this job too).

You can also follow me on Medium for essays several times a week, sometimes about books, sometimes about writing and publishing, sometimes on technology or travel or whatever I'm thinking about at the moment.

New by me: Facebook's marketing problem when it comes to sex

This morning I was fired up and wrote a Medium essay/rant, "Facebook Has a Marketing Problem, and It's Spelled S-E-X."



You can see by the responses that I'm not the only one. If you read it, you'll learn I actually respect their decision to refuse adult product ads (though it's frustrating as an erotica editor). However, I'm specifically calling them out on sending me emails and courting my ad dollars on my page, when they will never accept said ads. To me, that's a bad user experience and bad business.

If you like the piece, please click the hands on the left and "clap" for it by holding it down for 1 to 50 claps. The more claps it gets, the more people who see it, and the more I get paid. I'm being told that someone from Facebook will be checking it out, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why I don't post many personal updates on social media these days

You can read all about my transformation from incessant social media oversharer to middle-aged social media observer over at Ravishly. I love writing for them and encourage you to bookmarked them; they're one of my favorite sites to read. This is an essay I've been mulling over and tinkering with for months and Monday I got so sick of my procrastinating I just wrapped it up. It wound up being longer than I'd planned, and feels a little vulnerable to write because it's such a stark contrast to the old me, but it felt incredible to hit send. I've got to do more of that rather than overthinking, which is all too easy for me most days.

Baring my soul about trying to get pregnant at 40 (plus advice for those like me whose writing gets rejected)

Last year was a wonderful one for me in terms of writing for new markets; I broke into a lot of publications I'd wanted to write for, ranging from print ones like The New York Times and O, The Oprah Magazine to online publications such as DailyWorth and The Kernel. I believe the total was between 12-15, but life got busy and I never wound up doing a post rounding those up, so I can't say precisely. I can tell you that every time, it felt like a giant victory, like I'd cracked a code I'd been trying to analyze and solve. Each of those victories in turn spurred me on to keep pitching, keep brainstorming and keep writing.

I've decided to continue my goal of writing for 12 new publications a year in 2016. So far, I'm on track, aided by a very personal essay up now at Ravishly, a site I encourage you to bookmark, entitled "Trying to Get Pregnant at 40 Is The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done."



I wanted to share a little backstory and encouragement: I originally wrote this for a prompt (though I don't remember the exact wording) for The Mix, Hearst's series of daily prompts for their assorted sites, and it was rejected. I submitted it to a dream publication, one I've wanted to write for for years. The day I met with my publisher and heard that Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 would be happening, I got an email saying this dream publication wanted to publish the piece, with some edits. I was over the moon!

Long story short, that publication wound up not wanting the essay. Was I upset? Of course. Who wouldn't be? But I decided that the topic is too important to me to simply shove the essay aside and move on to the next one. Ravishly was another dream publication, so I sent it to them, and they said yes. They've even sponsored the post on Facebook, which makes me happy not because I get paid more, but because it shows they believe in my essay and believe that it will resonate with their readers, which I certainly hope it does.

Especially when you're writing about your most intimate thoughts, it can be daunting to keep submitting, to not give up even when you have no guarantee you'll be successful. Part of why I pushed myself is that I'll be launching a blog dedicated to this topic soon, because having a baby is uppermost on my mind these days and what I'm devoting myself to in 2016, so it seemed natural to write about it on a regular basis. That it's also something on the minds of other people I know, largely but not exclusively women, has been borne out by the feedback I've received, which has been encouraging and thoughtful and full of resources I hadn't come across before. I'm thrilled that I stuck with this essay, because as it turns out, the reactions on Facebook have been priceless.

For some reason, I actually held off on posting it there for a few days because this is a topic that makes me nervous. I worry about being judged or scolded or railroaded into trying every old wives tale remedy or potion. I worry about judging myself for having waited so long, for procrastinating on charting, for not having unlimited financial resources to try any medical means necessary of getting pregnant...really, there's no shortage of reasons I judge myself for not being a mom yet. But I've come to realize that it's okay to have those worries and fears, and that releasing them into the world simply makes me feel better. It doesn't erase them, but it eases them, and also gives me new insights and information I didn't have before. I now have a research list of methods and supplements and reading about fertility that I only got from friends because they'd read my piece.

It's perhaps a circuitous way of sharing, in some ways; I do talk to my friends who are moms about fertility but often I can be my most raw and real on the page. Yes, writing is my job, but it's also my calling. It's how I figure out what I'm doing and feeling and where I want to go next.

I share all that by way of encouragement for any writers who are reading this and feeling stuck or frustrated or unsure. If you're struggling with rejection, no that nobody likes rejection, but it's an inevitable fact of writing, and sometimes a given piece just hasn't found the right home yet, and sometimes, it takes time to match a piece of writing with its intended audience. There's nothing wrong with using trial and error, and taking those rejections as learning opportunities and chances to spread your wings, and your words.