In a not unusual occurrence these days, I reported a story (this one was for the Dallas Morning News) but ever-shrinking space in newspapers meant it never saw ink. Which is particularly ironic in regards to the back story on doing that story, which involved a weekend getaway with friends and my car broken down on a country road.

I went to see, Jen Yates, who writes the ever-brilliant Cake Wrecks blog. She was in town promoting her new book, which you should buy. It includes some old favorites but also lots of never-before-seen wrecks. Buy it through this website and I make a few pennies on the sale. Nothin' wrong with that. I don't shill what I don't genuinely love and I genuinely love the blog and the book.

So anyway, since I went to the book signing and wrote the story that never ran, I decided to air it here, along with an e-mail interview I did with Jen.

A Cake Wrecks book is icing on Jen Yates' cake

Nobody is more surprised than Jen Yates by the success of her Cake Wrecks blog.

It all started when her husband John signed them both up for a cake decorating class as Christmas present. “He thought it was one night, but it was 16 weeks,” said Yates, speaking before a standing room-crowd at Legacy Books in Plano on Saturday. “Sixteen weeks of togetherness,” she added with a grin.

In May 2008, a friend e-mailed Yates, who lives in Orlando, Fla., the first Cake Wreck photo (“…Under Neat that….”) A few hours later, Yates launched the blog she thought would entertain just family and friends. By July, she had hundreds of visitors daily. Within months, book publishers were contacting her. She turned them down. “I said, ‘You guys are really desperate.’”

Finally, though, she agreed. Now Cake Wrecks (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $12.99) is in book stores and the blog gets about 75,000 views and 50 submissions daily. Although, Yates says, “not all of them are carrot-jockey quality.” And that made her fans laugh.

Cake Wrecks fans know their Wrecks and most have a favorite.

“The Darth Vader baby shower cake,” said Rachael Hilst of Carrolton, who purchased two books for Yates to sign—one to keep and one for a friend.

“I like the misspellings,” said Jessa Waterman of Frisco, who wore a Cake Wrecks “I want sprinkles,” T-shirt.

Stephanie Ellis of Denton is partial to “mini hot dog riding a poo wave" because it was her submission, photographed at her local Kroger. That was a good week, she said. First her Wreck was accepted, then her boyfriend Kyle Bradbury—also at the event—proposed.

Though technical difficulties at Legacy killed her slide show, Yates wasn’t rattled. “I’m here, you’re here, there’s cake here, so we’ve got a party,” she said, and instead took questions from the crowd, proving to be as funny in person as on her blog.

She cited photo cakes as a trend on the wane. “I think people realized it’s a little odd eating someone’s face.” She reported that, “Some bakeries have told me they flat-out refuse to make cupcake cakes now.” She said she sometimes hears from moms who confess that they’re disappointed when their child’s birthday cake comes out perfect. And advising the betrothed couple on avoiding a wedding cake wreck, she said they should have it delivered early and, “Don’t have your Aunt Nancy give it a whirl.”

Before people lined up for autographs and some chocolate cake supplied by Bronwen Weber at Frosted Art Bakery, it was time for the cupcake contest—miniature “Wreckplicas” on cupcakes. From about 15 entries, Yates selected three finalists. The winner, chosen by audience applause, was “Push, Olivia Push,” the site’s first censored cake, complete with little fondant censorship bars. All finalists received carrot-jockey necklaces and the winner, professional baker Nicole Honsaker of Keller, also went home with a Cake Wrecks apron.

...

....OK, here's where things tail off in this story, 'cause it then went on to talk about Jen's husband falling horribly ill and being hospitalized in Dallas. It was pretty scary at first and they were stuck here while he got back on his feet. But all is well now and they were able to reschedule tour dates they'd canceled.

E-interview with Jen Yates

You’re hilarious--do you write all your own material?

Aw, thanks! Yep, everything with my name on it is all me. (I occasionally have my husband John or my sister-in-law Anne Marie guest post.)

Do you have an all-time favorite Wreck, and/or a favorite Wreck theme?

There are too many fabulous Wrecks to have just one favorite, but I especially love the misunderstandings (like the flash drive cake) and the Beyond Bizarre category. Trying to understand just why someone would put little plastic babies on icing carrots can hurt your brain, but it's also guaranteed to tickle your funny bone.

Do you think you're seen everything a Wreck can be or are you still sometimes surprised?

Every time I think I've seen the creepiest, ugliest, or most ridiculous cake imaginable, I get one even worse - or better, depending on your perspective. So yes, I still get surprised! That's part of the fun of writing Cake Wrecks; I never know what to expect in the inbox each morning.

Do you ever hear from the bakers whose Wrecks are featured?

Not very often, no. We've had a handful of bakers ask us to remove something they made - which we always do - but of those only two or three were particularly nasty about it. Most bakers seem to have a sense of humor about Cake Wrecks, and these days we actually get quite a few of them submitting their own cakes!

A friend (and passionate Cake Wrecks fan) wonders if your hostility towards cupcake cakes is due to some childhood birthday party trauma.

Hah! Well, if so then I've managed to repress it pretty well. ;) Besides, cupcake cakes are a relatively new creation, aren't they? Before I started Cake Wrecks I'd never even heard of them. No, my disdain for CCCs is easily explained: they're ugly, messy, and, you know, pure evil. Obviously.

(BTW, the same friend suggests that your next book should be Make Wrecks, a cookbook showing step-by-step instructions for reproducing the “more terrifying” cakes in your collection. )

Whoah there, I'm not so sure we should be encouraging the Wreckerators! Heh. Although, a lot of readers do recreate their favorite Wrecks, and send me the pictures. You can't ask for sweeter fan mail than that!

Labels: blogging, blogs, cake wrecks, dallas, jen yates, legacy books, naked mohawk baby carrot-jockeys, plano

As many of you know, my old Flyover America gig with World Hum succumbed to the economy. But the good news is, Jenna Schnuer and I, with the addition of Matt Villano, have launched Flyover America independently.

Y'all know I haven't been a good little blogger here for a while. That's because I've been two-timing you. My energy has been going into Flyover America ... and that is likely to continue, though I will turn up here sometimes.

So please, drop in on Flyover America, bookmark it, join the conversation. K? And we'll meet here again down the road. Promise.

Labels: blogging, blogs, self-promotion, travel, travel in america

Flyover America has taken off!

My new blog, with my buddy Jenna Schnuer (of the Haiku Diaries) went live today on the excellent travel site, World Hum (part of the Travel Channel). Please visit soon and often!

Labels: blogging, blogs, travel

If you're a Notifylist subscriber, you'll have to find another way to learn of my blog updates. (Or not, as is too often the case.) I give up. Notifylist sucks and I'm tired of wasting time sending notifications out to neverneverland. I have much better ways to waste time.

I highly recommend Google Reader for all your blog needs. Or you can subscribe to my blog updates on my MySpace page.

Labels: blogging, blogs, google

Blogger Emily Gould recently published an essay in the New York Times Magazine about being an extremely self-disclosing blogger, about blogging nastily on Gawker and about how this affected her life. (Not in a positive fashion, ultimately.)

I read the whole thing, long as it is, and found it compelling because I blog, because I am conflicted about the nasty blogs (like Jezebel, which is published by the Gawker people) and because I am slightly repelled by the TMI in some blogs.

Honestly—y’all don’t know from TMI here. Or if you do think you get TMI here, then you’re exceedingly sensitive. I used to subscribe to one MySpace blog—consistently the most popular on the site—that I finally unsubscribed to after a discussion of the blogger's most private of private bits. Yeah, that's TMI for me. As I promised when I launched this blog: You will never hear about my sex life or private bits here. I'm featureless as Barbie as far as you're concerned.

Part of Gould’s story involved blogging about her boyfriend, who took offense at one of her posts. She argued freedom of expression and he gave in, but the relationship didn't last.

Tom knows that if I plan to discuss him in any way that might risk his privacy or dignity, I'll run the post by him for approval. (Jack, however, has to live with whatever I feel like writing about him.) I don't think he's ever refused to let me write something and if he ever does, I'll respect that. I play fast and loose with my own privacy but with no one else's. Except Jack. But he gave up his privacy the first time he licked his ass in public. (Hm, right after I finished typing that sentence, he got up and left the room. Maybe I underestimated his sensitivity.)

Anyway, Gould’s NYT article got a large and vitriolic response. Among the 1,200-plus comments:

stop polluting ,find another job

Dear Emily,
What a sorry little cyberworld you chose to live in. Do you have a real life as well? or is this all you have? You are just a stupid little girl. Go watch the sun set and grow up!

I expect more from the New York Times. This article was nothing more than the ramblings of a moronic juvenile who calls herself a writer. I hope that the New York Times is not paying her for this piece. I long for the days when writers were people who had something to say.

Wow. People took all that time to read what she had to say, go online, and insult her. Shouldn’t they be outside watching the sun set or something?

As with so many other aspects of modern life, we seem to be deeply conflicted about blogging. I’m supposed to feel a little bit ashamed of this hobby. I’m a little sheepish when I mention it to people.

Yet millions of people read blogs and, although tech review blogs top most lists, snotty and TMI blogs tend to be very widely read. (What was Sex and the City but a pre-blogging blog?)

People enjoy voyeurism but when they feel shame about that, they lash out at the exhibitionist instead of kicking their own curious asses.

When I was at the newspaper, my personal essays elicited far greater response than any of my straight features stories. Although Paula LaRoque (hisssssssssssssss) never missed an opportunity to chastise me for using self-referential pronouns, readers seemed to enjoy those articles. What a shocker it was for me when I went freelance and editors started specifically requesting first-person from me. You mean … somebody really does care about me? But LaRoque told me again and again that NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK!

And now, personal blogging is called a form of self-medication in research discussed in this Scientific American article

This is interesting but not surprising. Now-classic research by psychologist James Pennebaker at UT found that student who wrote on personal topics, even if no one ever reads what they wrote, got sick less frequently than control groups. In other words, self-disclosure is good for you.

However, the term "self-medicating" seems patronizing in this context. Is anything pleasurable to be considered self-medication? I don’t really feel like I’m medicating anything. I’m just having fun and doing what I do. Or maybe I have hydergraphia, which the article defines as “an uncontrollable urge to write.” Sure, let’s pathologize a perfectly respectable passion.

In her essay, Emily Gould was hard on herself for the degree to which she exposed herself to the world. To some extent, her excessive self-disclosure may have been a function of her youth. In your 20s, one tends to believe one’s every thought worthy of broadcast. Blogging and other forms of online disclosure are just the newest form of youthful indiscretion.

But that so many people read Gould's essay and then beat her up for it is confusing.

Maybe it’s not those of us who enjoy publicly expressing our thoughts who need a life. Maybe the people who really need to get out more are the ones who waste energy hating us.

P.S. Read Gould's thoughtful responses to her readers questions and criticisms.

Labels: blogging, blogs, emily gould, new york times, self-disclosure, TMI, writing

Sexually active male students in pink panties

And now, birthday weekend festivities begin. Next time you see me, I will have entered a new decade. Unless you see me tonight at the AllGood Cafe, for Black and Blue. Right, JWoiten?

Labels: blogging, blogs, dallas, google, google searches, music, nightlife cross dressers in saris

To quote a friend, “not saying ‘I told you so’ is extremely overrated. I think we should be able to say it as often as we like. It's like a polite smack upside the head.”

So when I saw The Dallas Morning News quoted this LA Times online feature about the yuckiness that is Dr. Phil, I felt free to holler “I told you so” at my morning paper.

I’m pleased the LA Times mentions our book, however I did write to the paper pointing out that we did not say Dr. Phil had an affair with a 19-year-old patient, as alleged in this feature. In fact, we stuck to the official story, that the unethical dual relationship was because Phil hired this young woman to work in his biofeedback lab. Allegations of sexual impropriety were made by the tabloids, quoting unnamed sources.

Here’s a sobering thought—this Wall Street Journal financial columnist says these days, we’re better off investing in food than in investments. He suggests stockpiling non-perishables, since the cost of food is rising so fast. Woe is me, the sky is falling…

But not that fast, according to another WSJ writer, who points out that as much as we whine about poverty, we do all have iPods, DVD players and flat-screen TVs. (Actually, we don’t have a flat-screen TV and our iPods are second generation clunkers, though they work reasonably well.)

I read this WSJ article, The Do-It-Yourself Tax Cut, with interest. Here the writer suggests numerous ways you can save money with lifestyle changes. I got to be both smug and bummed, since Tom and I do most of the things suggested here and still, as Tom likes to say, we can’t afford our modest lifestyle. At least it’s reassuring that the rest of the country is catching up to us. We don’t feel like have-nots anymore. We feel like everybody else.

Apropos to nothing, we gave stinky Jack a bath in the driveway last night. What a crazy ordeal that was. We tranquilized him (it's gotta be done) and muzzled him and he still went apeshit. He didn’t mind the soap and water as much as the brushing (attempts) of his hairy ass. We finally had to give up on the brushing. He smells a lot better but his hair is a mess. World’s most exhausting canine….

And now, I must whine. Inappropriately. Much as I’m enjoying my adventures in blogging, I admit to being a tad discouraged these days. My readership numbers are stagnant. The freewheeling discussions we enjoyed in MySpace don’t happen here. Many of my frequent commenters have fallen silent, even those who complained about MySpace. Sigh. I still enjoy the exercise but it was more fun when I didn’t feel like I was talking to three people.

The most successful blogs in the blogosphere focus on one topic and I’m considering that—although I haven’t yet decided what that topic should be. Writing? Jack? Money or lack thereof?

Labels: blogging, blogs, celebrities, dog training, dogs, dr. phil, eating, economy, food, griping, headlines, money, whining, writing

I think notifylist is having problems. I'm not getting notifications nor are others. Oh, it's a cold world out here. If you signed up and didn't get a confirmation e-mail, you aren't signed up. And if you haven't gotten a million notifications today, you aren't getting the notifications.

My blog reading hygiene has greatly improved since I downloaded and started using Google Reader. I highly recommend it.

Labels: blogs, internet, reader