It’s time for the ultimate mash-up, in the truest sense of the word.  I’ve met so many wonderful writers and bloggers on my Happiness Project journey and I wanted to show my vast love and appreciation for each of you.  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so in the following post, might I recommend how we can each collaborate together to create a superpower of literary merit.  Let the mash-ups begin!

Example of a literary mash-up.

This whole blogging/writing quest I’m on began with the simple click to a Freshly Pressed blog by Kristen Lamb.  Kristen blogs about social media, author platforms, writing tips, procrastination pixies, and twitter.  Her best selling book, We Are Not Alone, is essentially her years of hard work and love of writing all combined to help make YOU a better writer, and maybe a PUBLISHED writer!  I do not claim to have the writing chops that Kristen does, so my mash-up suggestion to her is that she re-publish her book and call it We Are Not Alone:  Kristen’s Watching; she could add in hundreds, probably thousands of quotes and comments by her readers on how they’re progressing in their writing and editing endeavors only to feel her experienced eyes drawing flies on their pages and pulling that lever on their office chair to make them bump way down and have to start over.  Sounds like a great boot camp right?  And then when you complete her book and your own writing piece, she will appear before you in a sparkly pink dress and tell you that you’ve earned the right to now call your blog Fairy Rainbow Glitter Dreams if you really want to.

Margaret Reyes Dempsey is another published author I know.  Her book, The Benefector, is already quite a suspenseful read, but I know she too has toyed with the idea of a re-write/re-publish version in which The Benefactor is actually a champion wrestler.  Since I’m convinced that Madge (my nickname for her) and I are roommates in a parallel world, I too needed a wrestling name.  I decided on Pain Austen (instead of “Jane” Austen, get it?)  I would like to go on the record as saying The Benefactor vs. Pain Austen would be a gripping read.  Chapter after chapter of roommate wrestlers arguing over the proper way to brew tea, the exact amount of days one may go before changing into clean pajamas, and how much meat (or meat product in theory) is too much for a toddler going on twenty-something?

Writing from Portland, Oregon, my friend Mark details life as a freelance writer.  Always keeping me up to date on Portland quirks and never failing to bring a laugh, I think we have a lot in common.  My suggestion for a mash-up would be Tales from the Pacific Midwest:  From Farmland to Freelance.  It’s the story of two struggling writers who have to overcome regional obstacles like cheese factories at every off road stop and hippy bicyclists demanding strangers to recycle.  Upon completion of the book, you get a mail in rebate for one Voodoo Donut and one glass of milk from a happy Wisconsin cow!

Shhh!  Be quiet, we’re about to intrude on my pal, Hack, from over at The Hack Novelist.  He’s editing.  He needs to focus.  My simple mash-up would be The Happiness Hack Novel Project where two writers ignore everyone and drink their usual coffees (Eh-hem, Hack will have a regular black coffee with dash of cinnamon/world peace in it, and I’d like a green tea latte).  Page after page of fantastic, caffeinated ideas will emit themselves in this book, which may never get finished, but when we die, we’ll have a whole folder of material you can read at our funerals, and subsequent memorials, scholarship fund banquets, and inaugural addresses because we’re kind of a big deal, duh!

My final mash-up for today would be to work with Charles from Mostly Bright Ideas.  I’m incessantly envious over his ability to tell stories.  I would want a job as his assistant or a mini byline in one of his books:  Jess Witkins, Extraordinary Reader.  We could potentially co-author a book called Double Stuff Oreos for the Author’s Soul, in which we each chronicle the sometimes absurd, sometimes genuine moments of our family histories.  He could write about the time he begged to help his dad hose off the driveway and ended up spraying water all over his father, and I could write about the time my dad left me for dead in a snowbank.  Happy times, you know?  Good ol’ published nostalgia!

So that concludes this week’s Writer Wannabe Mash-up!  Send all query letters to Jess Witkins, 1111 Daydreamer Drive, Wishful Thinking, WI. I’ll have to limit my projects to five a week, but sit tight, there’s more to come!

Who are the authors/bloggers you are inspired by?  I’m sure I’ve missed many and I always love a new read!  Happy writing!