Storyteller: Jenny Lawson aka The Bloggess

1. Blogging since? 2006. But I didn’t start “The bloggess” until 2007. “The bloggess” was a late bloomer.

2. Why do you tell stories on your blog? Because I kept getting arrested for spray-painting them on the sides of trains. Plus the trains would pull away before I had a chance to finish or spell-check. Honestly, I’ve always written. I think it’s a product of my anxiety disorder. I was too painfully shy to talk so I let everything out on paper. Diaries, journals, short stories, terrible poetry, notes on napkins. Blogging was just a natural way of doing what I was already doing. I still write in journals and on notebooks though.

3. How do you fill your days? I get my 9 year old up and off to summer camp and then I spend the day writing. I also spend a lot of time reading, which seems a bit self-indulgent and lazy but I chalk it up to “research” and I punch anyone who questions me about “wasting” time reading. I also surf the net too much and I dress the cats up in clothes occasionally. Then when my daughter gets home we play games or watch tv. This month we’re watching all of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. That girl has great taste.

4. If you had a million dollars… I’d slap it to the ground. I have no reason to have a million dollars so if I suddenly found myself holding that much money I’d assume that I blacked out and robbed a bank. I can’t go back to prison.

5. Tell me a secret? This is a trick question, right? I’m a blogger and a memoirist so I don’t really have secrets. But lemme think… Okay, here’s a strange one. When I was a kid I heard voices at night after everyone was asleep. Every night. My sister shared my room but said she couldn’t hear them but I always did. I don’t know what they were saying but it was a muffled man and woman speaking monotone from far off. It sounded as if the news was on in the next room, but we only had one tv and my parents turned it off each night. I still don’t know what that was about. It stopped after a few years.

6. Anything you want others to know? That it’s going to be okay.

Find Jenny on Twitter @TheBloggess and read her stories on her blog, The Bloggess. You can also purchase her book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, (and you should because it’s awesome). Thanks, Jenny! Find all the Storytellers here.