Meredith Simonds

Autoglass Solutions, Inc.: Customer Complaint of Arizona-Based Glass Replacement Company

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:00:00 +0000

When I have a bad experience with a checker at the grocery store, I let it go. But when it's numerous episodes with one company that refuses to follow through on its promises -- run by someone who doesn't seem to care -- I cannot let it go and, in this case, must publicly make it known.

In May of 2008, Autoglass Solutions, Inc., -- a glass replacement company based in the Phoenix, Arizona area (Mesa, to be exact) -- called me with an offer that sounded too good to be true. Turns out it, was.

If I replaced my windshield through them, I'd get a $100 rebate check. A few weeks before, a rock had put a big nick in the middle of my windshield, so I needed the work done and I'd used this company before, so I set up an appointment. Me and the Autoglass Solutions representative both spoke with my insurance company that was going to cover the work. Once the work was done, Autoglass Solutions would submit the claim (as they'd done the previous time I'd had my windshield replaced through them).

On May 15, they replaced the windshield at my house. The man who did it made no mention of the rebate when giving me my receipt, so I asked about it. He circled their number on the receipt and said to call if I didn't receive the check within four weeks.

Four weeks come and go, no check. So I call the number and the person I speak with says it takes anywhere from four to six weeks, because they have to wait on my insurance company to pay them.

So I wait another couple of weeks. Still no check. I call in again and this guy tells me he's going to do some research and get back to me. He does. Says he found "my envelope" and that a check is scheduled to go out that Friday.

Monday comes and still no check (local mail here only takes a day). I call in again and am told that the person in charge of doing the checks quit unexpectedly and it will be another couple of weeks before anyone is able to get to it.

So I call in again the next day and ask for a manager. I'm told by Brandy that she is going to do her best to see that my check gets out that Friday (as they only mail their rebate checks on that day of the week). I also speak with Erin, another manager, who assures me all is being done to put me at the top of the list. Certain I cannot trust anything these people are telling me, I ask to speak with the owner and general manager of the company. It's obvious to me these people do not even want to tell me who that is, but I finally learn that her name is April and that she's been on vacation.

Convinced that the owner/GM will be pissed once she finds out what's been going on while she was on vacation, I leave a message for her to call. She doesn't. I call in again and ask for April (owner/GM) by name. She's busy. I call in again and ask for April. She's gone to lunch. I call in again and ask for April. She's gone for the day.

April -- the owner/GM of Autoglass Solutions -- never called, and no rebate check ever came.

In one last-ditch effort, I called the customer service department at Autoglass Solutions. They're much friendlier than those dealing with the rebates, and I thought I might be able to get some answers easier from them, hoping their department was more professional than the other. I speak with Shannon, explain the situation and she says she can get a hold of April and will call me back with info.

Shannon does call me back. She's spoken with April and my check will most certainly be going out that Friday.

That was two weeks ago, and still no check.

So a rebate check that was supposed to arrive four to six weeks after installation of my new windshield still has not arrived nearly 12 weeks later!

I don't have a problem with a rebate taking several months to arrive. In fact, I wouldn't care if it took a year. What I have a problem with is when a company I've done business with repeatedly lies to me, and the owner/general manager doesn't seem to care.

Sure, Autoglass Solutions Inc. does a good job at replacing glass, but they're the most dishonest company I've ever done business with in any industry. I'll never make that mistake again, and hope this experience helps you avoid the same.

UPDATE:

This blog post worked like a charm. A friend of mine read it, and called in to Autoglass Solutions, letting them know she'd seen the blog and voicing her concern that, as a prospective customer herself, she'd now think twice about it. She spoke with the customer service department, and only was she able to learn something I wish I'd known weeks ago. The other "department" they kept transferring me to was a different company altogether. (Though I'm still confused as to how they could simply transfer me instead of me having to call another number altogether.) Mandy, the customer service rep who my friend spoke with, offered to have a manager call her. My friend told her, the person you should be calling is the woman who wrote the blog -- she needs help.

Well, they did call me. Only it wasn't a manager, it was Mandy who told me she was an office manager. She apologized, said they'd fired the other company and would be sending me a $100 check that day.

Only that wasn't the end of -- next thing I know Tony Baker, the owner of The Glass Center is calling me. He says he doesn't want Autoglass Solutions getting a bad rap for something his company has done. Apparently, they're like a telemarketing service. They call me to set up the appointment, and they have Autoglass Solutions fulfill the order. April, who I thought was the owner of Autoglass Solutions, is apparently Tony's daughter. There was some catastrophic incident in the family, and rebate checks were running five months behind. I told him I didn't mind waiting for the rebate; what bothered me was being repeatedly to. His excuse was that the people I spoke with about it -- Brandy and Erin -- are under a lot of pressure and presumably didn't know what else to say.

The good news is I got my $100 check the very next day! The bad news is, I still feel like the whole thing is shady. When I search "The Glass Center Arizona" nothing comes up. And when my friend was on the phone with Mandy, she referred to Erin being there in the office with her -- Erin, the person who presumably works for the other company, The Glass Center.

Regardless, I won't be using this company again. I appreciate the fact that they followed through on the promise. But even if Autoglass Solutions' explanation for all this is legitimate, it was always their customer service department I went through first. Why weren't they more concerned that I, and presumably many others, were calling with the same complaint? Only after threatening them with an online campaign was their promise to me fulfilled.

The Dark Knight at the Drive-In: Heath Ledger's Life After Death

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:38:00 +0000

I've been going to my local drive-in, here in Arizona, on and off for the past 10 years. Usually we get there half an hour or so before the movie starts, and have to squeeze in to whatever spots are left as close to front-and-center as possible. Not the case Friday night. We got there nearly two hours early -- not so much to have our pick of parking spots, but just to make sure we got in.

We were going to see The Dark Knight.

Not because it's a Batman movie (loved the first one with Michael Keaton, but never really got into the others), but because it's a Heath Ledger movie. For days we'd been hearing that tickets were selling out all over the country, people lining up for hours just to make the first midnight showing on its opening day, July 18. We didn't want to get there too late only to find it sold out.

Thankfully, there were only four or five cars there when we pulled in around 6:30 p.m. Still, that was way early for any car to be there for a movie that starts at 8:30. For obvious reasons, the drive-in was expecting a big turn-out, handing every car a piece of paper that said we should all park ask close together as possible and, if sitting outside (as most of do), to sit in front of our vehicles, not beside them.

Waiting on the movie to start, we had the luxury of watching the sun set as the lot filled up with cars, most packed with kids despite the suggestions from critics and others alike that this Batman movie wasn't really for children. I'd have to agree. There didn't seem to be anything on the screen that would keep the attention of a small child. Sure, Heath Ledger's make-up was colorful, and he was quite animated, but the dark depths of his performance as the Joker wasn't the kind of over-the-top, more "kid-friendly" approach of Jack Nicholson's take on the role.

Overall, I thought the movie was good, but not one I would characterize as great. I wasn't disappointed, though, because the only thing special about it was the very thing I'd gone there to see -- Heath Ledger's final curtain call. Though Heath will be seen in the movie he was making at the time of death -- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus -- The Dark Knight was the last role he was able to complete.

Of all the reviews I've heard about Ledger's performance, I like this one best -- that of a critic who said something like, he didn't so much play the Joker as disappear into the role. This was before I'd seen the movie, but it made perfect sense after what I'd seen of him in Brokeback Mountain.

Yesterday I told my family I'd gone to see The Dark Knight on opening day. Knowing I'm no big Batman fan it seemed to mystify them why I, or anyeone else, would go just to see Heath Ledger. Frankly, I was never an over-the-top fan when he was alive -- not like Brad Pitt, whose movies I routinely go to every opening night. And the same can probably be said for millions of others who just had to see this Batman movie on its opening weekend.

Though I do believe the media's build-up of Ledger's performance fueled ticket sales (I've been hearing Oscar buzz for weeks), there seems to me a deeper, more profound reason that this movie has just had the biggest three-day opener in U.S. history at $155.3 million!

When someone dies, that's it. You'll never see anything new from them again. Ah, the magic of the movies. Not because we could go back and watch Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain or Monster's Ball -- we've seen that before. In The Dark Knight, he showed us something new. Life after death, so to speak. Not from the perspective of a final role that encapsulates a long career, but from the perspective of a final role that eludes to the career that could have been but never will.

I went to The Dark Knight to see Heath Ledger alive, doing what he loved and what he seemed to live for.

We took our camera to the drive-in with us. I thought I'd get a picture of The Joker on the screen, but I got so engrossed that I forgot. In fact, the only pictures we took were before the movie, watching big fluffly white clouds form "movies" in the sky. People see what they want to in clouds, and that night we saw a form that reminded us of Batman -- The Dark Knight. And yes, we egotistically took it as a sign just for us from Heath Ledger in the heavens above.

Heath Ledger: The Only Part He Couldn't Play

A Blogger's Notebook: Dictating My Way Through Blogger's Block

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:23:00 +0000

If you don't count the words of someone else that I've posted on Word Trips in recent weeks, it's been over a month since I've blogged. Juggling a new full-time writing job and freelance gigs on the weekends has been monopolizing my time and energy for weeks.

Finally I set aside a four-hour block today for blogging only to discover a blogger's worst nightmare. I have nothing to say. At least nothing that I can remember. Every day it seems I see, hear or experience something that I know would make a great blog, and writing it "in the moment" could be done in five or ten minutes. Instead, I procrastinate, making a mental note of the idea for a future blog that instead falls through the crowded cracks in my head. Or I do remember it, but the magic of the moment is gone and it takes an hour for me to recapture it, though never in its original, inspired form.

That's why I started here, in my only blog with no consistent theme or purpose, just a place for those "thoughts that don't fit anywhere else" -- in this case, thoughts of nothing.

I need a game plan. More accurately, a posting plan. When I'm on the road, at work or otherwise indisposed, I need a blogger's notebook. Sure I've handwritten blogs before when my Internet was down, or jotted blog ideas on random pieces of scrap paper, but for a serious case of blogger's block like mine, I'm going to prescribe a daily dose of dedicated dictation.

What is strictly prohibited in this blogger's notebook of mine is staring at blank pages waiting for ideas to come. It is to be grabbed for only at the last possible moment, when an idea is already fully formed, and my head grows impatient with my hand for not scribbling fast enough (though many a cashier has remarked at how quickly I can write a check).

But will it really work, this blogger's notebook of mine? My gut tells me that it doesn't really matter. Just seeing hope on the horizon of the blogosphere is enough to keep me afloat for now, holding on to the faith that one day this tugboat of mine will evolve into a ship.

Opinionated People: "News," Blogs, Me & My Mother

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:06:00 +0000

My mom keeps her TV trained to 24-hour news. At least that's how it seems -- on the television and on her mind. I read the news once or twice a day online, but inevitably she usually knows more about what's going on than me. And though she takes being informed quite seriously, it's how my mother uses that information that defines her.

As mad as she gets about illegal immigration or products from China, from these informed arguments of hers stems a great deal of pride and pleasure.

So when she asked for my ideas on how she could make some extra money online, I told my mom to make the most of these opinions of hers and put them on a blog with Google Adsense. Sure, it's just pennies to start, but with the right hook and perseverance, people are making hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month on blogs. Why shouldn't she be one of them?

Then yesterday she told me she'd been thinking about this idea of mine and decided it wasn't for her. Why? Because she's tired of opinions. She turns on the news, and instead gets commentary. "But Mom," I said, "how can you be tired of opinions? You're the most opinionated person I know." And she replied, "Maybe that's why."

So I'm afraid that my attempt at celebrating what my mom does best has turned into her own persecution of it.

My mother is a passionate woman with strong convictions. And though she might hold her tongue to express an opinion she knows may be hurtful to me, I cannot imagine my mom ever telling me a lie. Her positions are quite conservative, and most of them are points on which I disagree. Still, every opinion has validity and the only way for an opinion to fulfill its purpose is to share it with the world.

Incidentally, my mom doesn't read my blogs, and maybe I've just figured out why. She's tired of opinions, and my blogs are full of them.

This post reminds me of another I wrote a few months ago -- Blogging: Documenting the Diversity of Experience. It was my response to a question posed by NPR Blogger Tom Regan -- Is the blogosphere just a lot of sound and fury?

My answer is no, though I used a few more words to say as much:

"What could possibly be wrong with everyone having an equal opportunity to express themselves to the world? It seems to me the ideal way of documenting the diversity of our very existence."

Back To Work: From Freelance Writing to Full-Time

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:41:00 +0000

Ten months ago, I wrote this in my post, Twelve Months Notice:

"I'm sure it's been done before, but it felt revolutionary. After days of rehearsing my speech, yesterday I told the agency for whom I've been writing for nearly eight years that I'm quitting the copywriting business. By this time next year, the only person signing their name to what I write will be Meredith Simonds. And the only voice I'll hear in my head is my own - and maybe the editors who are (fingers crossed) publishing my work."

And today I took a new full-time copywriting job.

Frankly, I have no choice. I completely underestimated my ability to accumulate enough freelance work (with bylines) to support me. As much opportunity as there is on the Internet, the competition is brutal, especially considering that some writers are willing to accept five dollars for 500 words! Granted, I make mere pennies on these blogs of mine through Google AdSense, but at least they're that -- mine.

Actually, I'm excited about this new work. It's for a search engine optimization company. My role will be writing keyword-rich content for client websites. Though I already know something about this type of work, the traffic I get to my own websites -- WritingInTheLight.com and MeredithSimonds.com -- proves I have a lot to learn. And here I am about to get paid to do just that.

If anything, my pledge to free myself from copywriting inspired me to branch out. In 10 months time I not only created this series of 12 blogs that I call Writing In The Light, but I also started writing How To articles for eHow.com (with bylines) and wildlife preservation articles for a green e-newsletter coming soon (bylines too).

After eight years of freelancing, adjusting to a full-time job outside of the house won't be easy. But thanks to that guaranteed paycheck, and what I'll be learning in the process, it's worth an initially scary transition to ultimate financial freedom.

Haunted Hunt: Ghosthunters & Me at the Bird Cage Theater

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:15:00 +0000

When we were in elementary school, my brother and I found a Ouija board in the game cabinet at my grandparents' house in Texas. It must have been Claudia's, my youngest aunt who was the last kid to move out of their house.

My brother and I played it a few times, but only once did it seem to work. I don't remember what it spelled; maybe we were to scared to let it finish. Of course, when you're "playing" it with someone else you can never be sure they're not the one moving it. To this day, though, my brother says it wasn't him, and I know it wasn't me.

Flash forward a few years to my family's creaky old house in Rhode Island. The basement was a playroom of sorts, with a ping-pong table and sitting area, so we spent a lot of time down there.

On one of the shelves in the basement there always sat a silver or brass duck. One day we walked downstairs to discover it sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Even if it had fallen from the shelf, its weight distribution never would have enabled it to land and roll upright. This time we suspected it was my dad's doing, but to this day he insists it wasn't him.

Aside from things I'll sometimes catch in my peripheral vision, I haven't had any paranormal experiences since. Still, I'm captivated by the possibility of ghosts, and only since watching Ghosthunters have I really started to believe. As hard as their team tries to debunk reports of ghost sightings, inevitably there are cases in which debunking is impossible -- not only from their personal experiences, but the audio and visual proof captured on their equipment.

So when I went with my parents and brother to Tombstone, Arizona last month, I took with me some Ghosthunters' techniques, as many places in Tombstone are said to be haunted by ghosts from a past that includes the famous 1880's shootout at the O.K. Corral pitting Doc Holiday and the Earp's against the Clantons and the McLaury's.

One of our stops in Tombstone was the Bird Cage Theater, which was also a saloon, gambling hall and brothel. As we learned before paying $10 each to take the tour, it's reported to be one of the most haunted spots in town.

Camera in hand, I made my way through the self-guided tour -- through the dark auditorium lined with box seats ... past the stage that seems too small for the big production numbers I'd imagined there ... through the backstage area, which is now home to the hearse that carried most everyone in town to their final resting places ... and downstairs to the gambling tables and bedrooms where the ladies entertained the men.

As I made my way through the place, I periodically asked silently the question I've heard the Ghosthunters ask countless times in one form or another -- "Is there anywhere here who would like to communicate?" I snapped pictures here and there, hoping to get home with something captured on film that I couldn't see in front of my face.

No ghosts talked to me that day, and my pictures were disappointing, not only because I didn't capture any ghosts, but because those in the auditorium and of the hearse were too dark to make out any details.

Only after returning back home from our trip did my brother discover that Ghosthunters have actually done an investigation of the Bird Cage Theater before. He watched the episode online and said it seemed to them one of the most of haunted places they've ever been. Last night I watched it too, and have to agree.

Ghosthunters experienced at the Bird Cage Theater:

Two personal experiences of a full-bodied apparition of a woman in a white gown and bonnet disappearing down the stairs
More than 10 different sounds, including cowboy boots shuffling along the floor and a bouncing ball-type sound in the rafters
At least 6 shadows moving across the room
Audio of music playing in the background -- music that those in the room did not hear at the time
Video of an extension cord being unwrapped from around a bell hanging on the wall

Maybe to see, hear or feel a ghostly presence in the Bird Cage Theater, I would need to be there at night, lights out, at 3:00 am or "deadtime" as they call it on Paranormal (another reality ghost show I watch).

Maybe I would need to sit there in silence for hours, waiting for the ghosts to appear instead of trying to conjure them up during a 20-minute tour with dozens of other tourists.

Or maybe next time my family visits the Bird Cage Theater, my brother and I just need to bring our Ouija board.

To see the Ghosthunters episode at the Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone, click the following YouTube links:

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxbdvud1VBg

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlgt5hWtwI

Flagged for Freedom on Juneteenth

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:30:00 +0000

I just spent an hour writing a 250-word sample article for a freelance writing job. I emailed it off only to get a failure notice that it was undeliverable. Apparently this job posting was "flagged" for removal from Craigslist. Some sort of scam I guess. It's frustrating, but not a loss, as I learned something and can at least share it here in my blog:

Juneteenth Celebrates the End of Slavery in America

Abraham Lincoln may have issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, but it wasn�??t until two-and-a-half years later that the slaves in Texas were freed. Still under Confederate control, Texas simply did not have enough Union soldiers to enforce the law. That changed on June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 of his men landed in Galveston, Texas. "In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States," announced General Granger, "all slaves are free."

As news of their freedom spread, so did the rejoicing among African Americans. They celebrated, they prayed and they planned for their futures, whether that meant staying with their former "masters" as free laborers, heading north, or seeking out long-lost family members in neighboring states.

In subsequent years, the African American community observed the significance of June 19 by staging elaborate gatherings with food, song and dance. The focus was always the same �?? not only to reflect on the past, but also to look toward the future of their education and achievement.

Juneteenth is a fusing together of June and 19. Though its observance tapered off considerably during the first half of the 20th century, the Civil Rights movement in the 50�??s and 60�??s re-ignited interest and Juneteenth celebrations have been growing steadily ever since.

Alternately known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, Juneteenth is officially observed in 26 states all over the country. Today, it is the oldest national celebration observing the end of slavery in the United States.

Film Strip: Screenwriting, Diablo Cody & Me

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:24:00 +0000

Now that the writers' strike is over, I can stop using it as an excuse not to write the third draft of my screenplay. No, I'm not a member of the union, just a chronic procrastinator. As much as I hate them, I need deadlines, and I've got them with several upcoming screenplay contests too good to let slip by without an entry:

Scriptapalooza, April 15
Nicholl Fellowship, May 1
Brass Brad Screenwriter Mentorship, May 15
Final Draft's Big Break, June 1
American Zoetrope, August 1
One In Ten, September 1

Who knows. Maybe I'll be the next Diablo Cody. No, I'm not a former stripper, just one of countless writers out there doing whatever it takes to survive until my big break. Aside from the money that might come out of it, I'm not counting on my family to be impressed. We rarely agree on what's a good movie and, as my brother recently put it, "Who do these writers think they are with this strike? What makes them think they're so important?"

I did my best to set him straight: "There would be no movies or television without them."

From there he simply disparaged their talent, essentially saying today's movies suck, "Not that I'm saying I could do any better," he added.

That's the difference between between creative people and critics. Only when you take a chance and express yourself publicly do you develop respect for others who do the same. I go into a movie hoping for the best, but I have a feeling my family goes in expecting the worst.

As someone who's written first and second drafts of two screenplays, I know the kind of courage and commitment it takes to tell a story from an original point of view. That said, I have no idea what it feels like for that to be judged, as no one has yet to read a single word. That will most certainly change before I submit my screenplay to the upcoming contests. No thanks to my brother, though. For the sake of my fragile writer's ego, he'll have to wait until my movie comes out in theaters. I'm hoping by then my skin will be thick enough for me to invite him to the premiere.

The Millionaire Matchmaker's Corruption of Love

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Yesterday I caught the end of Cate Blanchett's "Inside the Actors Studio" interview on the Bravo channel. In talking about the craft of acting with James Lipton and the audience of young actors, it's clear Cate is not the kind of woman to compromise. The choices she makes are for the integrity of her work and the characters she plays -- the same integrity that no doubt informs the choices she makes in her real life too.

Though I was in and out of the room cooking and cleaning on a quasi-lazy Saturday afternoon, I left the TV on to catch snippets here and there of two more hours of "Inside the Actors Studio," this time with Matt Damon and Johnny Depp, repsectively. Then just when I thought I would be treated to a marathon for the rest of the day, I met "The Millionaire Matchmaker."

"The Millionaire Matchmaker" is a woman in L.A. who runs a high-end dating service for millionaires and those who want to date them. Or more precisely, romantically-inept male millionaires and beautiful women lacking in self-respect.

For an example of how the women should dress on a date, the Matchmaker points to a woman in a tight black dress with a plunging neckline, noting that this dress says "touch me" (incidentally, the number one reason I would reject a dress like that on a first date). The Matchmaker goes on to tell any woman with short hair that she needs to get extensions because long hair is what men are asking her for. When one of the women shows up for the group date without the extensions, the Matchmaker goes out of her way to tell the "eligible" bachelor that she's getting them. He jokes that she should leave and come back when she has them. It's beyond me how this short-haired woman had the stomach to stay. The worst, though, was the Matchmaker's reaction to a gorgeous girl with curly-Q cute hair. She needed to straighten it, as men want hair they can run their fingers through. When she shows up for the group date, this girl has obviously tried to straighten her hair, but without success. The Matchmaker compares it to a brillo pad and moves on to the next girl. Maybe trying to overcompensate for the hair she'd been told this man would hate, this girl goes into her power date with the most embarassing over-the-top flirting I have ever seen from such a lovely girl.

Though I don't know if she asks it of everyone, during one interview the Matchmaker asks if this woman would be willing to give up her career to presumably be at the beck and call of her new millionaire honey. More telling, though, is the Matchmaker's later justification for her demands of them: Do you want a man to buy you nice things? Do you want to be able to quit your job? Then this is what you have to do.

The closest Cate Blanchett will ever come to the women on "The Millionaire Matchmaker" is if she were playing one in a movie -- a dark comedy in which an evil genius convinces the world's smartest, most beautiful women that their choices need to change in order to please a man whose money they need to feel loved.

U-Turning Back Toward My Voice

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:16:00 +0000

"We have learned to say what is expected of us and not to offend."

These words were embedded in a recent daily entry of Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef. I was reminded that just the opposite was once one of my greatest strengths.

I grew up with parents who argued often, neither of whom was ever afraid to say what was on their minds, regardless of the consequences. I learned to do the same, though with the kind of censorship that ultimately comes between a child and her parents. I was typically shy in school, but always did well academically, especially my senior year. I carried that confidence into college, where I never hestitated to share my opinion with my peers or my professors. My sorority sisters loved that about me, often deferring to me as some sort of moral compass for the group.

I don't have to hunt too hard for the u-turn in the road that changed all that.

My senior year, I started using heavy drugs. Not only did I lose my moral compass along the way, but also the confidence that had thus carried me through my young adult life. Though I cleaned up my act a few months after college graduation, I was left with a filmy residence. I was nervous around everyone, more withdrawn than ever. I stopped speaking my mind. In fact, I stopped speaking at all.

So it's no surprise that my primary personal relationship since then has been with someone equally afraid of the consequences of saying the wrong thing, especially to their family members who hold a grudge and cast you out for speaking the truth that they will never face.

It's been a long road back to my fearless-speaking self. I suppose this blog, and the 11 others that I call my "Network of Expression," is a reflection of that -- the ultimate act of taking back my voice. Slowly but surely, my blogosphere presence is spilling over into real life, and those closest to me are starting to notice. "I need to find the courage to be that honest," I've heard in recent day.

The speedometer may not even register my speed, but my u-turn back to myself is complete.

Related Blog: From the Perspective of a Drug Addict

New Year's Resolution: Policing the Process of Perfection

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:54:00 +0000

I do my Spring cleaning in January. It's the only time of year when I feel naturally compelled to delve into the dark, dusty spaces that have been collecting clutter for months. As usual, I have underestimated the time and energy it's going to take for me to finish. My home office took several hours stretched over two days. It feels good surrounded by a new arrangement of things in here as I start blogging again for the New Year. But now all the discarded clutter from this room is sitting out in the hallway, waiting for space in the storage closet that I've committed myself to cleaning out this afternoon. In fact, most of the house is a cluttered mess, as I've been neglecting my usual tidying-up of every room at the end of the day -- "policing" as I was raised to call it -- in favor of perfecting one room at a time.

Apparently I use the same philosophy of perfection in my work.

I have 12 blogs on various topics, three of which still say "coming soon." I posted that three months ago. Before starting on those three, I had wanted to establish a routine with the nine others I'd already started. Once I'd perfected them (i.e., started posting to each one more than once a week), I'd be ready to move on to the others. That hasn't happened. I didn't post at all to Greenlight News throughout the month of December, and it's one of my most popolar blogs! I'd been wanting the next post to be about my opposition to nuclear energy, so I put it off, waiting until I had enough time to do the research and make my argument as "perfectly" as possible.

When cleaning out my home office, what took the most time was weeding through and organizing my books. I have two or three hundred, mostly on writing, the environment, animals, health and the metaphysical. I have yet to read the vast majority of them, and pulled out a couple I wanted to start right away, one of which is Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Shaef. It's one of those books divided into 365 entries for every calendar day of the year. If it hadn't been Janaury 1, I probably would have shelved it again, as I never feel right starting a book in the middle. Instead, I turned to the first entry entitled "Rushing/Frenzy." Here is some of what it says:

"We women who do too much find the ending of an old year and the beginning of a new year to be a difficult time. There is always the temptation to try to 'tidy up' all our loose ends as the old year closes. We fall into the trap of believing that it is possible to get our entire life 'caught up' before starting a new year, and we are determined to do it."

But for me that's not a feeling reserved for once a year. I play catch up at the end of every week, always disappointed in my mis-management of time when I fail to mark every to-do off my list. In hindsight, what's always most disappointing of all is that I set myself up for failure, planning to accomplish more than is humanly possible: "Let me notice today how many times I use work as an excuse for inhuman behavior," reads the last line of today's meditation.

I've heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I want to stop striving for a sense of completion in areas of my life that are fluid, not finite. In 2008, I resolve to focus on my process, not my result.

Scripted TV Addict Suffers Writers Strike Withdrawal

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:38:00 +0000

I'm not one of those people who gets so busy during the holidays that I don't have time to watch "my shows." On the contrary, the more busy and stressed I am during the day, the more I look forward to escaping into the lives of my fictional friends at night. The only way I make it through the repeats in December is knowing I'll have fresh fare in the New Year ... that is, until now.

Until the Writers' Strike ends, I'm stuck with repeats of "Brothers & Sisters," "Two and a Half Men" and "Rules of Engagement." And there are only three episodes left of "Samantha Who?" with new ones scheduled to air in January. I've also heard "Men in Trees" still has a few more episodes up its sleeve, but I doubt it's enough to carry me through to the end of the season.

For weeks I cursed CBS for holding off on "The New Adventures of Old Christine" until midseason, but now I'm thanking them. Eight new episodes start airing in February.

Sure, I could start feeling sorry for my scripted TV-addicted self, but I don't want my withdrawals to be in vain. As much as it would break my heart to never see new episodes of my favorite shows again, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the writers. After all, the drama, comedy and characters I love wouldn't exist without them.

Don't you get it, studios? Without the writers, there's nothing to act, tape, promote, broadcast or repeat. Shouldn't that make them the most powerful players in town?

Apparently the big wigs find comfort (and dollar signs) in pumping out reality television shows, as they're produced without Writers' Guild members. I'm the biggest reality-TV fan I know, never missing an episode of "The Amazing Race," "America's Next Top Model," "Project Runway," "Top Chef" or "Survivor." But I pick-and-choose my reality TV based on subject and quality, not because it was scraped from the bottom of the barrel to become the only thing on.

Follow That Car

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:43:00 +0000

On a recent drive out to my parents' house, I noticed a white van behind me on the freeway, a few cars back in the other lane. When it passed me, I saw the logo on the side -- a bunch of balloons and the name of the company, "Bubbles of Joy." As the van pulled ahead of me and into my lane, I was transfixed on the pink balloon graphic on the back.

In October, I posted "My Pink Bubble Balloon" in my Thank You, Please blog. It was about a different drive of mine on the freeway when I was feeling low about my life and spotting a pink balloon bouncing along the road reminded me of the "pink bubble technique" for sending my goals out into the universe to create my own reality.

So struck by this synchronicity, I watched "Bubbles of Joy" exit the freeway only to realize too late that it was my exit too.

Why?

Maybe, subconsciously, I'm so convinced that my goals are going to elude me that I veer off course just when things are starting to go my way. Or maybe I focus so much on the goals themselves that I miss the critical turns that are going to get me there.

After turning around and taking my exit, I hoped I'd catch a break and find the van just pulling out of a gas station, or poking along in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the one-lane road to my parents house. No such luck. I never saw "Bubbles of Joy" again, so I'll never know how parallel our journeys really were.

What if I had made the right turn, and followed that pink bubble of mine all the way to my parents' neighborhood? Certainly I would have seen it as a sign that I was on the right track. Instead, I missed my exit, a sign that tells me this:

If I'm going to set my goals aloft into the universe, I need to trust that my pink bubbles know where they're going, and follow them unswervingly at every turn.

Within Striking Distance

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:00:00 +0000

This week, The Writer's Guild of America went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers. The writers want higher royalties for DVD sales and compensation for the streaming of content over the Internet, among other things. The media has been all over this story, so I've learned a lot about this profession I hope one day soon to call my own:

There are 12,000 members of the Guild, 48% of whom (at least on the West Coast) are unemployed
Working writers in Hollywood earn an average of $200,000 a year
The six major studios must pay a minimum of $106,000 for an original screenplay, though major studio releases and "name" screenwriters can earn between $1 and $4 million
Networks must pay a minimum of $20,956 for a teleplay for a prime-time comedy and $30,823 for a prime-time drama

I've been planning to enter my first screenwriting contest this month. But the Guild has said any non-Guild writers who write during the strike will be banned forever from Guild membership. Plus, the Guild has a notice on their website urging people to report any Guild members who cross the picket line. I've been searching online for a few days now to see what the concesus is on entering screenwriting contests during the strike. I turned up nothing on the subject, but concluded it must be okay as I discovered that the Writers Guild of America East has a screenwriting contest advertised on its website.

The clock just struck 11:11. In my family, that's the luckiest time of day to make a wish, especially this day of 11/11. Lately, I've been wishing to sell my screenplay for $1 million. Today I wished for the writers to get what they want, and for this strike to be over. What's the point of winning a screenplay contest if I can't talk to any of the agents or studios about selling my work? And how long can the writers go without income? My mom thought the union members got some sort of compensation similar to unemployment, but my research shows the best they can do is apply for an interest-free loan through the Guild, and only if they meet eligibility requirements.

Of course, it's not just the writers out of work from this strike. It's the actors. It's the production crews. Ellen DeGeneres has said one of her reasons for crossing the picket line and hosting her show without writers is for the rest of her production crew who would also be out of work. But the Writers Guild makes a good point -- Ellen's staff is no more important than that of David Letterman or Desperate Housewives, two among many shows that have shut down production in support of the writers, but at the expense of staff jobs.

In Ellen's defense, her show is like that of other syndicated daytime talk shows like Oprah and Martha Stewart, in that they're required by contractual commitments to provide original programming on a daily basis.

There are no winners in this strike, only in its aftermath, though we have no way of knowing how long we'll have to wait for that. Everything I've read stresses how united the writers are in this effort, suggesting to me they're not going to budge. The last strike 20 years ago lasted five months. If this one goes that long, or longer, I guess the best I can hope for is making a "career" out of winning screenplay contests, and for more of my guilty-pleasure-during-times-like-these -- unscripted reality television shows.

The Absurdity of It All

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:14:00 +0000

I just posted the following quote in my Word Trips blog:

"Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible."

Sharon Schuster said that, whose identity I do not know. I just have it scrawled on an index card, maybe from an Oprah Magazine I read years ago. I've tried searching online, but there's no details of Sharon Schuster's existence, only quote pages like mine revering the 10 words she strung together in the most empowering sentence I've ever read.

Wherever you are, Sharon Schuster, there's just one thing I'd like to know. Did you do it? Did you attempt the absurd and achieve the impossible? Or maybe that's a dangerous question. If you didn't, what does that mean for me?

I stumbled onto "Tori & Dean Inn Love" the other night, a reality show on the Oxygen channel documenting Tori Spelling and her husband's business ventures. Normally I would have channel-surfed right past it, but I'd heard their bed and breakfast in Fallbrook was threatened by the California wildfires, and I wanted to see it. The way they work reminds me of myself -- more ideas than they have the time or energy to expertly execute, stressing themselves out to the point of frustration and exhaustion (though it's worth noting they parent their infant son Liam with effortless ease, much like I do my own babies, otherwise known as two dogs and a cat).

Is it absurd for me to attempt to run 12 quality (and ultimately lucrative) blogs? Probably, considering what I'm learning about blogging as I go. According to the blogger guru at ProBlogger.net, I should be posting just about every day ... on every single one of them!

Is it absurd for me to attempt to win the screenplay contests I'm entering over the next two months? And, to go one step further, is it absurd for me attempt to sell said screenplay for one million dollars?

Or is it absurd for me to attempt to write a series of children's books about birds that someone actually wants to publish ... with my amateur illustrations?

For the answer, I'm going to refer to my dictionary.

Absurd: Contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish.

Sounds like a yes, which is good for me, as it will be my honor to achieve impossibilities.

Wild for Natalie Goldberg

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:31:00 +0000

I just finished Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. I'm astounded, overwhelmed by the simplicity of it all. Be lazy. Don't explain. Do writing practice. It's the writing practice that trips me up. No, all of it does. I try to be perfect all the time. What am I trying to say? That I'm perfect, or the truth? I doubt too many first thoughts. Is it Anne Lamott who taught me that -- "first thoughts"? Why aren't they ever good enough? Will I really have the courage to type this verbatim from my notebook? My first thought is no. Does that mean I should honor it? The no? The first thought? Back to Natalie Goldberg. She's a writer's writer. I feel like a better writer just having read what she's written. One thought, then the next. Fearless. "I'm afraid and that's okay," is my first thought instead. Push through the fear. Tell the truth. Make mistakes. Show off my imperfections. Make them stick.

Yes, that is verbatim from what I wrote in my notebook last night. Uncensored, though I did add a comma here and a question mark there. Is that cheating? Only according to the "Monopoly of Perfection" in my own wild mind.

I was lying down when I closed the cover on the last page. I laid the book across my chest, folded my hands on top and willed my heart to breathe in every word:

"Watch your use of the word because. Writers don't need to explain things. They need to state them.... Writing is the practice of asserting yourself.... Just state it as it is and be fearless."

"The reader steps away and says she is pretty. The writer just stays with the eyes, the lips, the chin, and makes no judgments."

"Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down."

"Jack Kornfield, a vipassana meditation teacher, said last week up at Lama, 'You meditate by yourself but not for yourself. You meditate for everyone.' This is how we should write."

And I've never read an "About the Author" page that made so much sense with the rest of the book -- 13 words that barely make two lines.

"Natalie Goldberg is a writer and teacher. She lives in northern New Mexico."

Virginia Woolf Haunts the Blogosphere

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:07:00 +0000

Part II of "Blogging: Documenting the Diversity of Experience"

"One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more."

Michael Skube of the L.A. Times wrote that recently in an opinion piece of his own. NPR blogger Tom Regan responded, to which I posted my thoughts, then wrote my own blog of response that you can read here.

Simply stated, my view is this:

As a means of expressing personal opinion, blogging should be celebrated, not criticized.

I think Virginia Woolf would agree.

"You can say in this shape what you cannot with equal fitness say in any other."

Virginia Woolf wrote that of essays in her own 1905 essay "The Decay of Essay-writing." Could blogging be the essay's 21st-century rebirth?

Of the essay, Woolf attributed its popularity to the "the spread of education and the necessity which haunts us to impart what we have acquired." I feel that haunting every time I make a connection in my head that tells my gut to tell the world, of which this blog is a perfect example.

"Almost all essays begin with a capital I," Woolf writes. "'I think,' 'I feel' -- and when you have said that, it is clear that you are not writing history or philosophy or biography or anything but an essay, which may be brilliant or profound, which may deal with the immortality of the soul, or the rheumatism in your left shoulder, but is primarily an expression of personal opinion."

So who would you rather take writing advice from?

There's Michael Skube, the op-ed writer who criticizes other op-ed writers who publish their thoughts in a blog instead of a newspaper, suggesting the blogger "put oneself in the background."

Then there's Virginia Woolf, the celebrated 20th-century English novelist and essayist who left us with this suggestion:

"If they would write of themselves - such writing would have its own permanent value."

Fired Into the Channel of Directional Flow

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:20:00 +0000

Yesterday I addressed an issue with The Business Oracle, this time regarding the recent one-year's notice I gave to the agency for whom I've been copywriting for the past eight years. Though I don't recall exactly what I said when asking for guidance in how to prepare and proceed in my work between now and then, I'm certain I used the words "channel," "flow" and "decision," three words I remember so well only because the oracle mentioned them all.

I'd just had an especially energizing meditation session, which is the only way I can explain how I was able to intuitively draw from the bag of sphericals (numbered glass marbles) a number that brought me to tears for its sychronicity:

Number 31: Fired.

"It's time to fire yourself from some job or responsibility that is no longer satisfying," it said. "Your inner wisdom is telling you to act before someone else's outer wisdom makes the decision for you." It was that coupled with the Henry David Thoreau quote that sent chills through my body: "Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows."

Then I looked at my second sphericle, and shook my head in disbelief:

Number 33: Decision. "You have done all the investigation that can be done," it said. "Those factors that are still unknown will become evident after the decision is made and action taken."

For weeks I've been putting off the building of WritingIntheLight.com, as well as the re-working of MeredithSimonds.com. I've had ideas about the format and content of each, but have been doubting my readiness to commit to these projects. Plus once I'm done with these website, the next logical step is promotion which means I'll be actively inviting people to read what I've written. I think the only reason I've been able to be so candid is that I don't believe anyone is actually reading my blogs yet (with the exception of Greenlight News and The Freelance Observor).

Only my third sphericle surprised me.

Number 15: Team. "Any accomplishment that we can realize on our own is usually trivial," it said. "No matter how brilliant the idea, a team is required to make it happen. Work is an act of co-creation."

Though I write alone, it's not my dream to send my words into a vacuum. It's time for me to assemble a team of readers whose response to my creative endeavor -- this "Network of Expression" I'm building -- will inspire them to pass it on.

I read somewhere recently that the average number of readers for any 1 blog is just 1 person. With my team, I'll be able to multiply that by a million ... a million times faster than by myself.

Related Blog: Balancing My Creative Endeavors

Blogging: Documenting the Diversity of Experience

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:47:00 +0000

"Is the Blogosphere Just a Lot of Sound and Fury?"

That's the question National Public Radio's own news blogger, Tom Regan, asked of readers Monday on the NPR website -- a question inspired by a recent op-ed article in the L.A. Times by Michael Skube entitled "Blogs: All the Noise That Fits." Its tagline pretty much sums up what Skube thinks of the kind of writing you're reading right now:

"The hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-finding of reporters."

It seems to me Skube is stating the obvious. I don't blog to report the news, because that's not where the need lies. There's already countless online outlets doing just that, and exceptionally well -- on the scene, in the newsroom, fielding calls from sources.

The need lies in personalizing the news to make sense of it all. After all, reading a dozen news stories is no substitute for making connections among them, informed by personal opinion.

As for the "patient fact-finding of reporters," please count this blogger among them. Every opinion I hold in my daily life is built on a set of facts I've discovered throughout my lifetime -- from animal welfare to environmental responsibility. I approach my writing the same way, fact-finding my way to reasonable conclusions.

In fact, it's because I am so meticulous with my research (and, of course, because this isn't a full-time paid job) that my blogs are fewer and further between than I'd like them to be, specficially for The Freelance Observor and Greenlight News. Some bloggers suggest "co-op" blogging, in which several bloggers contribute to the same blog, each specializing in a particular area and, thus, increasing its volume and potential impact. However, that doesn't fit into the personal "blogging vision" I have for my new website. WritingIntheLight.com will be a collection of at least a dozen blogs with a dozen different purposes that collectively serve as a reflection of one writer's journey -- through the news, through relationships and through myself.

But this blogging vision of mine is best expressed by my response to Tom Regan's question on his NPR news blog:

"What could possibly be wrong with everyone having an equal opportunity to express themselves to the world? It seems to me the ideal way of documenting the diversity of our very existence."

12 Months Notice

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:42:00 +0000

I'm sure it's been done before, but it felt revolutionary. After days of rehearsing my speech, yesterday I told the agency for whom I've been writing for nearly eight years that I'm quitting the copywriting business. By this time next year, the only person signing their name to what I write will be Meredith Simonds. And the only voice I'll hear in my head is my own - and maybe the editors who are (fingers crossed) publishing my work.

Within just a couple of hours of my heart-pounding, revelatory announcement, I received an email from a college student asking me for advice on how to build her copywriting portfolio.

There must be synchronicity in there somewhere: the day I quit the copywriting business, someone asks me for advice on how to break in.

My first career goal was teaching, a dream I remember having way back in elementary school. When I told my parents what I wanted to be when I grew up, you'd think I'd told them I wanted to be a professional breather.

"Oh, you don't want to be a teacher," they said. "It doesn't pay anything."

Fast forward 25 years, and the greatest struggle I know is financial.

One of the most fundamental lessons I've learned in my recent search for enlightenment is this: the money will come when I'm fulfilling my purpose. So maybe this college student's question of me is the sign I needed to see for doing what I've always dreamt of - helping people learn, about the world and about themselves - through my writing and through the creativity workshops that have been bouncing around in my head for months.

(I've also learned we choose our parents for what we can learn from them. So thanks, Mom and Dad, for teaching me I need to listen to what I want, not what others want for me.)

Though ideally heard as a child, Deepak Chopra's following words in the The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success are some of the most reassuring I've read as an adult:

"I never, ever want you to worry about making a living. If you're unable to make a living when you grow up, I'll provide for you, so don't worry about that. I don't want you to focus on doing well in school. I don't want you to focus on getting the best grades or going to the best colleges. What I really want you to focus on is asking yourself how you can serve humanity, and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent and no else has it."

And as his children's lives have proven, it worked.

"They ended up going to the best schools, getting the best grades, and even in college, they are unique in that they are financially self-sufficient, because they are focused on what they are here to give."

What am I here to give?

Over the next 12 months, I'm going to find out.

Networks of Expression

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:26:00 +0000

For more months than I can count, I bought several domain names on a wide range of topics with the full intention of turning them into websites on everything from veganism to celebrity. To date, I haven't found (i.e., created) the time, motivation or commitment to do so, and won't. (In fact, all these domain names are up for sale at GoDaddy.com if you're interested.)

That's not to say I'm giving up on expressing myself online about what interests me. But instead of devoting countless hours to building and maintaining one website after another, I'm only going to build and maintain one - WritingIntheLight.com. It's a writing project I like to call my "network of expression," featuring links to at least a dozen blogs I'm currently creating - links that will be labeled as "Channels of Change" - not only for what they mean to those who read them but also (and most importantly) for what they mean to me.

I've read more than once (though cannot recall a single source) that teaching and learning are one in the same. I didn't fully grasp what that meant until starting this series of blogs. You don't know how well you really understand something - be it a news story or even your own thoughts - until you try to communicate it to others. Nine times out of ten, I have to go back and dig deeper - for the facts I missed or the ideas I have yet to fully develop. And whether it's one person who reads what I've written, or one million, what matters the most is that it was written at all. Not for you, but for me to better understand my exposure to, and experiences with, this world that each of us perceive a little (or a lot) differently than anyone else.

Though it's my deepest desire that this writing project will inspire change in the areas closest to my heart - from the way we treat animals, to the way we treat ourselves - it's also my hope that this "network of expression" somehow inspires others to create or continue networks of their own - be they in the form of writing, art, children, gardening, dance, music or any unique combination of venues that resonate with the expression of you.

Balancing My Creative Endeavors

meredith@meredithsimonds.com (Meredith Simonds) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 01:11:00 +0000

Today I used my time waiting on a slow printer to consult The Business Oracle Sphericles: Your Intuitive Guide To Enlightened Business Behavior. With a business issue in mind, I drew three glass marbles from a bag, all marked with numbers that correspond to words of empowerment defined within The Business Oracle. The business issue I chose: the challenge of balancing all of my creative endeavors. The words of wisdom I received: strategy, inspiration and power.

Strategy says I'm on the right track and that my "vision is worthy." I need only verbalize my intentions for each of my creative endeavors. (Done.)

Inspriation says it's not hard. "To breathe in," inspire means - we have no choice. All I need do is observe what genuinely interests me, without pretense or attention to fame, fortune or sense of accomplishment.

Finally, power says I'm responsible for it - the power of my work, and that the time for my work is now: "The highest power is that which creates love in all its forms."

I'm finally veering off into the world only I know, and inviting every other world to join me.