My name is Mandi. Call me Hamlet.

Now that I've introduced myself, I suppose I should explain what I mean by that.

I'll begin with a confession.  I'm on my way to being an English teacher, and I want to write. Perhaps that's not shocking enough to be called "confessional," but that's as good as it's going to get for now.  I mean, seriously. . .we just met.  On second thought, that combination of education and fiction writing isn't anything snazzy in itself.  Stephen King taught high school English, all the while pounding away furiously on a typewriter in the small laundry room of the house he and his family shared in the days before he was a publishing powerhouse.  Side note:  Check out his On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft if you want to write, know a writer, like writers, or just enjoy running your eyes across letters grouped into words which form sentences.  You'll thank me.  But I digress. . .I was confessing, sort of.

Now, I have never met Mr. King nor have I ever corresponded with him in any manner, but I do much the same as he once did, except at a kitchen table on a Macbook in the spare time that I can eke out between writing papers over literature, learning the theory behind the science/art that is education, and being a single mother.  And this is where the Hamlet part comes in.  I promise I didn't make you do a double take when you read the title of my inaugural post for nothing.  Intrepid Reader, fear not.  I'll make the connection for you.  I don't write post-modern fiction. So back to my reference regarding Shakespeare's Danish prince.

Hamlet: Indecisive and nutty.

Hamlet provides a wealth of material to sort through when you look at him, but one thing for which he's best known is his indecision.  At the beginning of the play, the ghost of his recently dead father, who was king of Denmark, confronts Hamlet with the scandalous truth surrounding his sudden kicking of the bucket.  Royal Dad Ghost reveals it was his own brother who poisoned him before snatching the throne and his dead brother's widow.  Oh, snap!  Drama!  See?  Shakespeare was Jerry Springer before Jerry Springer was cool. . .except Shakespeare was a genius.  Moving on. . . Royal Dad Ghost charges Hamlet with exacting revenge on Creepo Uncle and then disappears.  No advice.  No instructions.  Just a command and *poof* gone.  Hamlet has to map his own course, and the mud begins to thicken immediately.  At one point, he has the opportunity to kill the crown grabber but doesn't because ol' Uncle Dearest is praying and would die forgiven.  Forigven = heaven, and Hamlet is decidedly not down with that.  Hamlet's a bitter chap.  'Tis true.  The play is a tragedy, so pretty much everyone ends up dead by the end.  It's possible, though, that things could have been different had Hamlet pounced on the option of a dead but forgiven uncle.


Here's where I tie in.  I've been pursuing my English degree for a little over two years and have been working on a novel for the past four.  I'm getting incredibly close to finishing it, so naturally I'm interested in what happens after the manuscript is finished.  I'm researching how I can make my work the best it can be, how I can hone my skills as a writer and marketer of my work (both scholastic and creative), and how I can create a platform that will allow people to hear about what I've written.  If they don't hear about it, how can they buy it, read it, fall in love with it, and tell EVERY PERSON THEY KNOW about it?  I have only a finite number of years before I'll have a kid to put through college, folks.  I'd rather write books that people buy than resort to a Kickstarter project, but that's just me.

One of the things I keep hearing as I wade through my research is a term I mentioned above.  Platform. Platform. Platform.  Develop your writer's platform.  Put yourself out there.  Be your own brand.  Network.  Connect.  Blog.  Tweet.  Give me a moment to let my head stop spinning.  Lots of information and not a little insecurity equals a frozen Mandi.  I'm Hamlet.  I know what I should do, but I'm leery of doing it wrong and embarrassing myself far beyond the level I did in seventh grade when, during a school Christmas program, my velvety dress clung to my pantyhose as I got up from where my class sat on the gymnasium floor, and I proceeded to walk out in front of God and everyone to sing with my friends about the Christ child while exposing nearly the entirety of my right thigh and buttock.  I still loathe pantyhose to this day.  I believe this may be why.

The bane of my middle school existence.

Bottom line:  Up to this point, Indecision has sat upon me.  He's a morbidly obese little twerp, and it's nearly impossible to move, let alone breathe, while he's squishing you.  Today, right now, as I type,  I'm evicting him.  I'm starting *drum roll, please* A BLOG!  In the grand scheme of things, this might be relatively tiny, but it's a step.  It's a decision and action upon it.  For whatever reason, Hamlet didn't act when he could have, and he lost the opportunity to achieve what he wanted.

In this little space on the interwebs, I'll be discussing things about both creative and academic writing.  I'll attempt to paint for you a picture of my life among characters, both the basic ones on my keyboard that I use to create and punctuate papers for school as well as the characters, the people, that exist only inside my head for now.  If you know me, like me, loathe me, or happen to have stumbled across this blog while fighting boredom, I hope you'll stick around and join me.