4. What’s in a name?

What is your real name?! Give me a name. Any name. Please?

I know I am going to piss off some people with this response, but this is one of the questions I can’t answer. I want to keep my name private.

BUT here’s a hint: there are several pictures on my blog where my name is written clear as day. If you can find those then you’ll have your answer

Of course, if God decides to bless me with a book deal in the future, then obviously the cat will be out of the bag and the entire world will know all about me. Until that time, you all will just have to call me MM.

5. Blogging on the Interwebs.

How’d you get into blogging? How did you come up with your name?

In summer 2008, I was laying on our tattered couch in our empty living room bored out of my mind watching mindless television. To cure the boredom, Mr. Mojito broached the subject of starting a blog since I had been anonymously stalking other blogs (cough, cough…Blue-Eyed Bride…cough, cough) for months. I laughed him off and said his idea was stupid. As I continued to twiddle my thumbs while staring at the ceiling in our living room, I started to put some serious thought into his suggestion.

After an hour I decided to take the leap. Knowing nothing about blogging, I chose the Blogging for Idiots route and signed up on Blogger. How hard can this whole thing be, right?

Wrong.

Then came the hard part. What do I call my home on the Interwebs?

Mr. Mojito suggested I call my blog Make Mine a Mojito since I have a deep affection for rum, lime, and mint. At first I hated the name. Then it grew on me. Before I went to bed that night, I had a tagline that played on the mojito theme as well as a blog penname.

My first posts focused primarily on home décor and renovation. I had no idea what I wanted my blog to be about. After some trial and error, I decided to throw the rules out the window and post about whatever the hell I wanted.

I never looked back…

How do you feel about the fact that your blog has such a large following? When you started writing the blog, did you ever imagine so many people would read it? Did you work at getting a large following or did it happen naturally? Do you ever wish you didn’t have so many readers? Perhaps when people leave rude, anonymous comments?

I am honestly speechless that so many people read my rants, ramblings, and raves on a daily basis. I am actually a very boring person that lives in sweat pants, drives a rusted car, and works with people who eat their toenails. I never thought anyone would find my life interesting. AT ALL.

My readers make this blog worth it. Every day they never cease to amaze me.

I have no idea how people find my blog or continue to read it (if you’d like to leave me a comment with your thoughts about how you found my blog or why you read, I’d love to read them). I guess I could say it happened naturally. I started commenting on blogs I connected with, and the next thing I knew people were commenting on my blog. It was a surreal moment to receive my first blog comment that wasn’t Mr. Mojito.

My blog following wasn’t instantaneous. It took a LONG time for me to have any sort of continued readership. There are several bloggers that I consider dear friends that were the first to read my blog. I will be forever grateful for them for their support of me and my writing.

I’m going to hold off on answering the anonymous blog commenters and trolls question for a future post because I feel that question deserves its own topic

How did you develop personal relationships with other fabulous bloggers? Did you know them before you started blogging?

In a nutshell: Commenting.

When I started blogging, those I now consider my best friends were nothing but faceless names on the Internet. I didn’t know any of them personally when I published my first blog post.

Initially, I found blogs I connected with and started commenting. Commenting morphed into sporadic emailing which morphed into constant emailing which morphed into phone calls which morphed into meeting in person over coffee or sangria which morphed into friendship.

How did you go about creating your own website? Any sites you can recommend that would help in setting up your own blog?

Nina was actually the first of my blog friends to take the leap. I’d been considering getting my own domain for months before I actually bit the bullet. Nina gave me the final push to purchase my own .com and hosting service.

GoDaddy.com and BSP eHosting are the companies I used to set up my blog. I also purchased the Thesis Theme for WordPress (which I later customized for my liking) as the template for my blog.

Did you make your own blog header and buttons on the side? If so, did you use Photoshop?

I DID create my own blog header, though Nina added the text using Photoshop. Basically I found pictures of mojitos I liked and created a mosaic with them. I sent that mosaic to Nina and she added the final punch with the text. Nina also created my signature (complete with lime slice).

What was the hardest part about moving from Blogger to Wordpress? Which do you prefer? Or pros and cons of each.

This is such a hard question. Wordpress is awesome because you can customize your website to anything you want. I like how it has separate pages to distinguish content. I like how clean my blog appears (I hate clutter).

But Wordpress isn’t always user friendly. If the user has programming knowledge then using Wordpress is a walk in the park. Most people don’t have this knowledge. I sure didn’t when I switched over, and I’m an engineer!

Ami at EAD was a LIFESAVER. She is a WIZ at Wordpress and helped immensely in creating this site.

Blogger is great for people that know nothing about HTML and coding. It’s easy to use, easy to post, easy to upload pictures, etc.

Wordpress is none of these things. BUT once I got used to it, I found value in it. Now, I’ll never go back to Blogger.

6. SIBU: Truth or Fiction?

Is Reid a real person? Do Kate and Kellen actually exist? If Reid is a real person, is he actually famous or in the movie business in some way? How much of Attison is reflected in you? How does Mr. M feel about the story knowing that it’s mostly autobiographical?

Without going into too much detail, I will say there are parts of SIBU taken directly from my life (scenes, situations, and conversations). Even some of the characters are mirror images of people from my life.

Vague? Yeah, I know that was a bullshit answer.

How about this…

-Mr. Mojito is not Reid.
-Kate and Kellen DO exist. I am still friends with them today.
-The “real” Reid is not a famous actor. I have to plead the 5th on the remaining questions regarding Reid. (Still friends?)
-I do NOT own the Tiffany key pendant though I wish I did and that it was sitting pretty on my neck.
-I was in a sorority. In fact, I was president of said sorority.
-Susan’s Bakery was modeled after Society Bakery in Dallas.
-Montgomery Park is real.
-Attison IS me, from her appearance to her mannerisms. I poured my soul into her character.

Also, Mr. M is 100% supportive of me and this story. He knows all about my past before we started dating. Besides, he ended up with the girl, right?

Are your planning on getting SIBU published?

I have no plans to publish SIBU. It was simply something I enjoyed writing. Honestly, after taking several writing classes, SIBU would NEVER be considered good enough to publish. BUT I love it anyway.

Are you going to write a sequel or add more to the story line?

Right now I have no plans to write a sequel, though if there is a big interest, I wouldn’t be opposed to writing some scenes that take place in the future. (Leave me a comment on SIBU if this is something you’d enjoy.)

Do you plan on writing another book?

YES! I am writing one right now that I hope to submit to agents later this year.

Would you ever consider writing a story based on a plot that someone gave you (not really ghostwriting because it’d be under your name but similar) or even co-writing a story?

Sure. Why the heck not? Got a good idea? Email me!

Do you have a weekly writing schedule? How do you carve out time to write during your busy week?

I spend every weekend during the day holed up in Starbucks pounding away at my computer. The baristas know me by name. It’s actually rather sad.

Devoting time to writing is hard, but I love it so much I make the time. It also helps that Mr. Mojito is in school for his MBA so he is usually there with me doing homework.

Did you always feel like you wanted to be a writer?

No, not at all. Blogging brought out my creative side, and I’ve embraced it with open arms.

Tagged as: Ask Me Anything