Inspired by Julie & Julia

Tonight I saw the film Julie & Julia which I had been looking forward to for some time because I'm a great fan of Meryl Streep. It was a delightful film and inspired me to bare my soul. As you know, it's about a writer named Julie who writes a blog about cooking all the recipes from Julia Child's cookbook. She not only shares the process but bares her soul,and shares her trials and tribulations, her successes and fears. From this film, I realized that I have been misusing this space entirely and probably that is the reason that I do not write in it every day. A blog, as I now understand, is about sharing your feelings and writing about the process and not one day goes by that I do not write or think about the process of writing and getting published. Now I'm rewriting SOUTH BEACH STAR, not so much rewriting but adding pages of a faux column called WHAT'S HAPPENING? These are pages similar to my weekly nightlife column called WHAT'S UP? that was published in Wire starting in 1996. I've pulled out old copies of Wire and have been including actual sections of old columns along with fictional sections that correspond with the book. It's quite a catharsis as well as a major flashback to reread these columns. These pages, which look similar to the old column, not only help the book move along but give the reader insight on what the main character's job actually was at the time. The film Julie & Julie was so inspiring that as soon as I left the movie theatre I had to bike to Starbucks and buy the most fattening pastry (a pumpkin cheese muffin) that they had available to eat while writing this. Hopefully, I won't need fattening pastry to keep me writing in the blog daily, but now I know that writing in a blog is about sharing your feelings, the process, the pain, the joy, and the struggle. There is a lot of that to share when writing a book and trying to get published. Sometimes more pain than joy, but if there wasn't joy I wouldn't continue to write. Readers forgive me as I've been merely filling space, sharing little snipets about my process without the emotion or the struggle, and needless to say, without sharing the joy and the pain. Prepare yourself as I'm about to share.