A Website on the World Wide Web with writing by Laura Jayne Martin

Photo by Wesley Kirk http://www.flickr.com/photos/thevisionbeautiful/

A less detailed explanation is available here. My doctor recommends you read both to be safe.

I wanted to create something like ABC’s The View, but without Barbara Walters. Also, instead of five nettling women—it would just be my view.

Furthermore, it would be online instead of on television.  I didn’t want to risk anything after the DTV switch.

I come from a long line of writers.  I’m told that both my grandfathers had checkbooks, and while I’m too young to remember—I’m certain they had occasion to write in them.  My mother recently wrote this letter to the Commissioner of Jurors: “No, thanks!”  My father once wrote a letter and put it in a bottle.  He drove to the Jersey shore and threw it into the ocean.  Later, he would discover there was only one set of footprints on the beach because Jesus carried him.  My younger sister wrote an unsuccessful graphic novel depicting these events.  My older sister is adapting it for a children’s book.  I wish her well.

The ingredients for this website are as follows:

1. One Original Flavor Blog by Me
2. One Compendium of Writing with assorted longer works by Me (Most are meant to be funny.)¹
3. Candy, specifically a photo of candy by S.Y. Sakata from Madrid, Spain 2009
4. Equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and green Chartreuse
5. Twitter updates by J Leon Lascoff²
6. And more!

William Faulkner used an Underwood five (pictured above).  I’ve always thought that he had too many letters in his last name. Regardless, I like to think of myself as a younger, thinner, non-alcoholic, less male, unprofessional, Northern, de-mustachioed, futuristic version of William Faulkner (without all the critical acclaim).  No one else had made this comparison…yet.

You might want to ask me why am I writing this blog when there are so many other blogs that have already been blogged?  You won’t be able to ask me though, unless you know me personally.  Or you could leave that question in the “comments” area, I suppose. Or I could just answer it here, so you do not need to go to the trouble.

The answer: I prefer people judge me when I am not in the room.  I want you to think about me, hard.  Whenever you visit this website, I want you to read my sentences one after the next in the order they appear, until the bottom of the screen appears.  Then I want you to stop.  You are free to mentally compliment or insult me at that time.

In exchange, I make many promises to you.  The one I will keep is to never write about my pet dog, though I own one.  She has her own story to tell someday. I have a premonition someone will say I just broke my only promise, so now I offer a bonus promise: I will never become the human man named Michael Showalter³.

Cordially,

Laura Jayne Martin

1. All of it is meant to be funny but I am hedging my bets.

2. I tweet under the nom de plume J. Leon Lascoff, hold this in strict confidence

3.Michael Showalter is a scumbag.