6 Articles I Barely Shared On Social Media

As both a deeply private person and a writer trying to build her portfolio, I've written a lot of pieces that I didn't share when they came out. Though I was proud of many of them, they weren't immediately available online and I forgot or the topics were personal enough that I could risk offending someone or there was some sort of error (from me or the editor) that overshadowed the awesomeness of the piece. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, most of those errors have been fixed after the fact, but it was far enough after publication that I forgot to publicize the piece. Yikes. Anyhow, here's a short and strange look into my portfolio.

1. When "My $5,000 Wedding Budget" was published on Debt.com, we had gone a few hundred dollars over budget. I also don't like to admit that wedding planning triggered panic attacks, or that I think the modern obsession with weddings can turn the celebration into a pageant and that icks me out.
2. I profiled winemaker Randall Grahm for VinePair, and forgot to send the article to him for several weeks. He's an odd but interesting bird, and I got to learn about viticulture. Wine is cool.
3. This article on the geeky side of clarification in cocktails for Tales of the Cocktail came out a couple weeks after the third death in our family in ten weeks. Big, huge, sloppy thanks to the editors for their flexibility and generosity. I was too shellshocked to do anything other than read over it and file it away for later.
4. Sometimes I write about agriculture. FarmLife magazine is super cool, but the full issues don't go online for a bit. My first feature for them focused on a pair of brothers farming up in Quebec.
5. For the first few months of the year, my main coping mechanism was compartmentalization. Though many of y'all may not believe it, I wrote an article about the history of the Cosmopolitan for mental_floss.
6. People get real snarky about recommendations for starting a home bar. Really, people get snarky over booze recommendations in general because they're based on opinion. There's no hard and fast rules, guys, mmkay? Drink what you like. Here's my take for mental_floss.

This post topic was inspired by the suggestion to blog about 5 things you know. This month, I'm attempting to blog my way forward by writing every day as part of Blog Like Crazy.

This week in freelancing

When I woke up Monday morning, I thought that everything would be different. It was my first day as a full-time freelance writer, and I was certain that I would wake up with all the energy and inspiration to take the publishing world by storm.

Instead, I slept in. If my sleep schedule -- I do my best work between 3 -11 p.m. -- and money worries were factored out, it would have been one of the least stressful non-vacation weeks on record. But even with those two things factored in, it's still been an incredibly productive week. Here's roughly how it went:

Monday Pitched two articles, outlined one, wrote a guest post about bourbon,  itemized my to-do list, cooked, cleaned a bit, and napped.

Tuesday Drafted two previously outlined articles, checked a couple things off my to-do list, tutored and got a pitch rejected. Tuesday evening, a friend and I went to a cocktail reception at Flip Burger at the Summit. We sat with Laura from Alabama Graffiti (Hey, Laura!), and enjoyed salty turkey sliders, blue cheese-y butcher sliders, and stack sliders. To compliment the food, we sipped on extremely raspberry-y Flip Mules.

Wednesday Found out that Adam passed the bar (!!!), napped, celebrated, finished an article about salt and amari for mental_floss, and tutored.

Thursday Put together a budget to find an income goal, freaked out about money, took a nap to deflect the fear, woke up to find I have media credentials for Tales of the Cocktail, and rewrote the intro to an upcoming article for Birmingham magazine.

Friday Friday afternoon, I sat down with a friend to talk about freelancing. What followed was a discussion about fear, change, and growth that has shifted the focus of my writing. More on that another time. I also finished the Birmingham magazine article, pitched mental_floss for May and celebrated my mom's pending retirement and Véro's wedding.

This week was full, and I'm excited to take today off.