Hi! ::waves::

I've missed you!! Sorry to have deserted you! My computer deserted me, and the blogger app won't do things the way I like, so my words have remained tucked away in my noggin.

But they will soon be free! Soonish, anyway. 

A new top for my lap.

But don't think I've been resting on my laurels, whatever that means. Because quite the opposite! We have lots of fun things coming up--things you can be part of! Things you'll want to be part of!! 

Stay tuned! 

A hint: 

Still love this logo!

Why I don't post every day.

My friend Pat (Hi Pat!) is a supergreat lady and BFF Jame's mom.

Sometimes, when a blogger she loves takes a break or doesn't post regularly, Pat says, "[Name of blogger] has gone off her blog."

I go off my blog pretty regularly--days pass and I know you miss me. Sorry! I miss you too!

I wish I could post a lovely, witty, clever story daily. Except some days I don't feel lovely or witty, or even especially clever. Sometimes these are days I've "gone off the Adderall." Sometimes I sensory-overloaded the previous day or two, sending my body into a tizzy, because MS is an asshole.*

I never go off the blog because I lack content ideas. Currently, 67 stories live in the blogger draft folder and another million in my brain draft folder--and don't forget pictures on my iPhone demanding words.

I'm unsure how long a blog post takes other folks to write, but for Love of the Leaf? I average four hours for 400-500 words. Four. Hours. Think I'm crazy? Take a look at a post creation, the 5 things about CRA (Star Wars edition), created in the Habanos Cigar Lounge members' room:

3 months (at least): You need to write about the Cigar Rights of America organization, my brain tells me. I promise. With my fingers crossed.

1 hour: Research CRA, reading their website, current national, state, and local issues, previously submitted legislation and results.  Drink Diet Coke, thanks to bartender.

Without you, DC, I am nothing.

1/2 an hour: Make a list of "things," culled from research, that require inclusion for an audience with a slight working knowledge of the organization. Come up with a dozen.

1/2 an hour: Delete extraneous and repetitive topics and pile a couple together, all while eating cookies. Realize there are still seven (items on the list, not cookies).

1/2 an hour: Play Sophie's Choice, trying to determine which points readers should know about most. (Five things is random but it's a manageable number for most topics.)

You guys. I need this. Need it badly or I will die.
Available here.

1/2 an hour, many more cookies: Expand on points, adding details and explanations, along with a brief introduction.

5 minutes: Read post, finding it so boring I nod off. Consume more Diet Coke in huge quantities.

20 minutes: Look at Google images, putting in keywords from the (boring) text. Consider featuring Archer gifs again just because...Archer.

Because Archer.

5 minutes: Re-reread boring text and spot a glimmer of an idea. If only the CRA had a version of the Force to say, "This is not the legislation you are looking for" to the Evil Empire's stormtroopers.

1/2 an hour: Rewrite entire piece with Star Wars extended metaphor. Feel smugly genius throughout revision.

40 minutes: Reread. Feel the opposite of awesome. 700 words. I edit out clutter, helping verbs, prepositional phrases, adverbs, and all the other word detritus, inching closer to (self-imposed) 400-word "5 Things" limit. Hit 500 words. Think about throwing in the towel and saying, "Meh. Good enough."

20 minutes: Pound head on glass table out of frustration, which also dislodges remaining active brain cells. Cut another hundred words.

5 minutes: Valentino reads the piece. A friend (with 90+ books published) says, "Good editors make good writers." True story. Our hero points out a sentence unclear beyond the limits of my brain. He offers suggestions for a funnier turn of phrase, kisses me on the top of the head (as all good editors should), and flees writer central.

15 minutes: Revise again.

Publish blog post.

10 minutes: Reread 500 times and make adjustments.

Post on Facebook.**

Lather, rinse, repeat.


I can do both in the Habanos Members' Room.

*I don't need to hear about how diet soda will make my head explode and/or is giving me MS. I literally have one vice: Diet Coke.

**Do you like our Facebook page yet? You should. We're giving away stuff on there! You like stuff! We like giving stuff!

Where to find more words from Penny World

And! I took a really cool picture for the story!
All by myself!

What's that? You don't think you're getting enough of my magical and wonderful word arrangements?

Then you should go here and check out the first of my weekly columns for iRobusto.com!*



*Valentino would surely like me to tell you** that he's my awesome editor and calls "Bullshit!" when I'm coasting through a writing project rather than giving it my all.

**He's off fishing with Caballero #2 in a state I'd be hard-pressed to find on a map, so he doesn't get the chance to speak for himself for the next week. Wheeee!

From the (Face)Book of Jim

Unless you've been living somewhere other than Penny World (although why would you be anywhere else, since here everything is fun and sparkly. Plus unicorns.)   I wandered away from my sentence again. 

 

So unless you're new, you know how much we adore Jim Robinson, he of Leaf by Oscar and Island Jim fantabulous cigars, as well as the superfantabuloso Leaf and Bean.

Jim and our hero

 

The other day on the facebook,* Jim posted the following missive, which sums up pretty much all that is right with the cigar word.**

 

The only changes I made were adding paragraphing. He said I should change it to make him sound smarter, but I'm ignoring that for three reasons:
 

1. No way would I even attempt to alter his voice. "Find your voice and commit to it," I tell my students.  Jim's writing voice is as open and friendly and honest and awesome as he is. To mess with it would be a crime. 
2. Jim is already wicked smaht, as we say here in New England.

3. I forgot what the other thing was. 

Jim in his shop Leaf and Bean in the Pittsburgh Strip District

 

So with that, please enjoy:
 
All the time as a retailer I am asked what is your favorite cigar. What a question, how do I pick just one. There are so many great manufacturers out there making fabulous cigars, its impossible for me to pick a favorite. My goal is to try them all, yes I have certain tobaccos that I like. But to pick ONE from thousands is impossible for me. And there are so many great masters of the craft, I cannot even start naming names, mostly for the fear I will not mention one of the masters of the craft.

For the most part great cigars are in that $7 - $20 price range. Some below a few higher, but money does not make a cigar taste better to me. I respect a fair number of Master Blenders or as I refer to them the Head Chefs of a fine restaurant who know their ingredients and how to make a great recipe.

I have had fantastic $6.00 cigars, and OK $20.00 cigars. The joy of cigar smoking for me is to experiment, try them, smoke them. I have not in my opinion had a bad cigar yet! Some may not fit my taste profile, but that does not make it bad. Not one, Not one, manufacturer that I know is making a bad cigar. They are making cigars for their market, some markets I fall into, some I don't. Does not make them bad.

We are living in great times, we have choices, It was not that many years ago, that we did not have choices, there was only so many different manufactures to choose from, now every day I am hearing and trying something I never heard of. For me, that is what cigar smoking is all about, always on the quest to try something new, to find that perfect cigar, that perfect cigar that fits my budget.

Not everyone agrees with me, and you know what "Thats OK." That is what is so cool about cigar smoking we don't have to agree. What brings us together is the ritual, the socializing 10 guys and gals around a table will be smoking 10 different cigars and they all at the time think they are smoking the best. Wahoo!

What a country.... For me the quest is on, I am smoking and enjoying and looking for that next great cigar.....

You must have all of these. Go ahead. We'll wait.

So, as Jim would say, "Wahoo!!"

 

*I say this in an ironic way. 

**Imagine one of those Ven Diagrams. One circle says Cigar World and the other says Penny World. That place where it overlaps? And it does overlap. That's a bit of heaven where a handful of people live. It's very nice there, if I do say so myself.