It was a serendipitous moment when I saw a post on Threads last Friday from my editor at Business Insider asking if anyone collected pennies. I knew the last penny had been minted in Philadelphia the day before. And then I remembered my own collection, inherited from my grandparents. I sent her a message and ended up sending the essay later that day. I’d just had another piece, about being a grandma and also having kids in college go live a few days prior.
An interesting tidbit that was edited out of the penny piece involves this anecdote:
One night in the mid-80s, a group of teenagers came into the coffee shop in Running Springs, California, where I worked the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, at 10:45 p.m. They wanted milkshakes, and I’d already cleaned the machine. I told them we don’t usually make shakes that late, but I’d make an exception for them. I was also intimidated and wanted to show them kindness that most people in town didn’t.
I was a teenager myself at the time and so, waiting on kids my own age was always a little intimidating. These kids in particular, happened to be from the infamous, and now defunct, CEDU “school” for troubled teens. In the mid-80s the population of Running Springs was around 3,000 and everyone in town referred to the kids who would occasionally be allowed to leave the grounds as the “CEDU kids.” I don’t think anyone knew back then what a horrific place it was.
Rachel Uchitel spent time at CEDU and talks about her experience on her Miss Understood with Rachel podcast. Netflix’s limited series, Wayward is apparently inspired by CEDU. I’ll be watching and curious to see if they filmed in my home town of Running Springs.
Thanks as always for reading– Oh–and hope you find a lucky penny today!
When one of my favorite editors put out a call for pitches looking for stories about being an ‘old’ parent, I had one of those hold my beer moments as I grabbed for my laptop. Having had my first child at 18 and my last at 38, I am grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences as both a too-young and also ‘old’ mom.
The Cannons – Longwood Gardens – Kennett Square, PA 2008
As a teen mom (decades before the MTV reality show) I lacked patience and life experience among other things.
At one point, I was doing crack-of-dawn surveillance for a PI firm investigating fraudulent Workers Comp cases “down the hill” from the San Bernardino mountains where I lived, and would be back in time for the 3-11 shift waitressing at the local coffee shop. The ends rarely met. It wasn’t unusual to float a check to our local taco joint on ‘my’ weekends.
My three – Lake Worth, FL
“As an old parent, I have stability and a healthy marriage. I stopped working after the birth of my oldest daughter, and was fortunate (thanks to my husband’s job) to be able to transition to full-time stay-at-home mom. I overcompensated for every past mistake, changed almost every diaper, and never missed a thing. Every milestone moment of my daughters’ early lives was a painful reminder of what I’d missed with their brother. We’ve done a lot of healing.”
In belated publishing news, sharing one of my most embarrassing moments in an essay for TODAY.com brought levity and inspired a new passion for pitching essays.
Late last year I was fortunate to connect with an incredible writing teacher, Susan Shapiro, thanks to a comment she left under my post in a private Facebook writers group, Binders Seeking Literary Agents, sharing the aforementioned embarrassing story. It was a cruel but comical twist of fate that the backdrop for my mortifying anecdote was a fancy publishing party in New York. Susan basically said, hey that’s funny, you should write about it.
While I’ve been in the querying trenches for over two years now with my YA novel, Betting on You, my skin has grown thick and I’m keeping busy learning to perfect the art of pitching.
Since reading Sue’s books, The Book Bible and The Byline Bible, I’ve taken two of her classes and highly recommend. She is a generous teacher and the connections I’ve made with editors and fellow writers has been invaluable.
For my fellow peri and menopausal mamas, I hope my story made you laugh and gave some insight into how you can better advocate for yourself.
My Twitter journey began in 2009 when I joined for the purpose of helping promote Womentorz, an exclusive marketplace for female inventors, during the “Momprenuer” (not my favorite term) boom. After a failed audition for Kelly Ripa’s Homemade Millionaire, I learned that I was a natural connector and promotor of people, and found Twitter to be one of the most viable spaces to connect proverbial dots.
Thirteen years and 30,000+ tweets later, I’ve authored a kids book, the first social media guide of its kind, “@Sophie Takes a #Selfie – Rules and Etiquette for Taking Good Care Before You Share”(2014) and was able to get editorial blurbs from Barbara Corcoran and Emme, among other notables, all thanks to Twitter. I’ve also written a debut YA novel, “Betting On You,” inspired by real events, for which I’m currently seeking representation.
Personally, I’ve always preferred quality over quantity when it comes to followers, and have worked hard to cultivate genuine connections. Twitter has been the least problematic from a mental health standpoint, even during the most chaotic times. I realize this is not the case for everyone for a variety of reasons, including the personal choices we make while using an app that has been likened to people walking down the street shouting their random thoughts and beliefs in various states of happiness and rage. If you’re looking for a fight, it’s not hard to find a mob to join. No matter what you’re looking for- support, laughs, friends, the next great book, recipes, causes, or those timeline cleansing animal photos, Twitter has it all.
Elon Musk had this to say about his plans for Twitter and free speech:
While all of this sounds great, I, like many others, worry about what this means for people’s freedom to use the platform to attack and threaten users, and also spread damaging misinformation. Regardless, I will continue to use Twitter the way I’ve been using it since the beginning- to connect with likeminded people and also learn from people I might not always agree with.
I will stay because, as a writer who dreams of becoming a traditionally published author, I’ve worked too hard to carve out my humble little corner of cyberspace. These days, agents and publishing houses want to see that you know your way around social media and self promotion. The bigger following you have the better.
gramMarch is coming… Will you accept the challenge?
The gramMarch Challenge is grammatically fresh and easily the coolest thing you can do to up your language game throughout the month of March and beyond. Heather Shotke, educator, USC alum and brainiac behind this original idea, has brilliantly combined fun and learning for the digital generation.
This March will mark the 3rd annual kick-off of this incredible event with Muscatel Middle School and students from other districts. Spread the word so we can get as many schools involved as possible!
Last year was a blast!
The gramMarch Challenge is open to anyone! Additional information can be found at http://www.grammarch.org.
The more schools that participate the more *fun it will be! *Heather will send lots of cool gramMarch swag (e.g., stickers, posters, t-shirts)!
…I am. You should totally try it. In fact, I double dog dare you. It’s been the most mindfully merry week of this year.
One week ago today I decided to take a break from all things social… media that is. I deleted every social app from my phone as an experiment to see how my brain might feel different without the distraction. The result is remarkable. More about that in a minute.
As I may have mentioned previously and will reiterate now, I am a self-admitted over-thinker, lover of all things potentially analyzed. I like to figure things out, ‘get to the bottom of it’ a friend once told me. It is a blessing and a curse. So, no surprise to folks who know me personally, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how thankful I am to have been able to put a little book out into the world that I hope on some level will make a difference in the way young people, and all of us, communicate with one another.
I talk in my book about the importance of balance. Balance can be tough to achieve when you are your own one woman marketing operation, along with being an Actual Housewife in New Jersey (winks) and mom. The FOMO struggle is real people! There is this feeling of needing to “stay relevant”, or of not wanting to miss an opportunity to be noticed by the “right people” or to discuss subjects which I am passionate about. The biggest worry? Setting a good example for my kids.
Realization: “Sophie” is timeless. She is not going anywhere – she’s just getting started. No need to panic (as I calmly wonder if there’s a snowball’s chance in hell the book made it into Kelly Ripa’s hands via her assistant).
Then comes the awareness that there is a different manuscript full of characters that have been patiently awaiting my return for over two years now. Their whispering has become louder and more persistent as of late. Many of the writers I speak to who are self-published struggle with the same issue – how to effectively market and sell your book while managing your time wisely enough to sit down and just. write.
So, after (almost) seven days of self-imposed social detoxification – true confession – I checked in less than a handful of times, not from my phone – here’s what I know:
I miss Facebook the least. I miss Twitter the most. My brain feels relaxed in the most literal sense. I am sleeping better at night and not feeling compelled to look at the phone immediately upon opening my eyes in the morning. There has been a thoughtful un-cluttering.
It is easy to become caught up in feeling the need to capture all of the moments and share them, rather than being truly present to experience them. This is no newsflash, but we see so many people’s lives – the minutiae of it all – played out in our respective news feeds on a daily basis. Think about it. Think about all of the information we’re exposed to on any given day that is completely, all the way unnecessary for us to know, not to mention irrelevant to our own lives. We all know far too much about each other.
Frankly, I’d like to recapture a shred of mystery – you know, go a little retro like this far out Christmas post card via my Grandparents – Studio City, CA circa 1952.
Jennifer J. Cannon 