WritingThoughts

Why No Resolutions?

It’s that time of the year again. The time when everyone posts a long (or not so long) list of New Year’s Resolutions to their blog.

Well, you won’t see that here. Are you wondering why?

Here are a few of the reasons why I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions any more.

Five from the WritingThoughts Archives

Sometimes it’s nice to sit back and share past material with the readers. This is one of those times.

I like to share past posts for a couple of reasons. First of all, readers may have missed the posts the first time around. Secondly, a second reading often brings a fresh perspective.

Today, I thought I’d share some of my favorite WritingThoughts posts from 2011. I think you’ll agree, there’s some really useful stuff here.

Tips for Writing a Winning Tutorial

Tutorials, or “how to” articles, are still very popular online. While there are some bad tutorials out there, there are also some great ones. Their popularity is just one reason that writers should be interested in tutorials. The other reason is that writing a tutorial usually pays more than writing a less detailed piece.

In general, the more technical and specific the tutorial, the higher the pay. In this post, I’ll give you a few tips to help you write a winning tutorial.

What Can You Learn from Your SUCCESS?

We like to focus on failure. We often tell ourselves that we should learn from our mistakes (and indeed we should), but if we stop there we’re not doing ourselves any favors.

You see, while we don’t want to repeat our mistakes we definitely DO want to repeat our successes. But we can’t do that unless we understand what went right. In this post, I identify five questions you should ask yourself when a writing project goes right.

In Defense of Blogging Reciprocity

Recently I read a comment from a social media specialist that mentioned wishing that blogging reciprocity would no longer be as important in 2012 as it has been in the past.

Blogging reciprocity, in case you were wondering, refers to the practice of visiting the blogs of your commenters and repaying a comment left on your blog by leaving a comment on their blog.

While I can see the social media specialist’s point, I have a different view of reciprocity.

Book Review: Online Community Management for Dummies

What exactly is an online community manager?

Before reading Deb Ng’s new book, Online Community Management for Dummies I really didn’t know. In fact, my original notions about the job (someone who plays a marketing role and may help with social media or online forums) fell far short of the truth.

Before I go any further, let me get the disclosures out of the way.

Social Media Changes–Too Much Too Fast?

Are rapid-fire social media changes making you tired? If you’re like me, you wish the big social media platforms (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter) would stop changing things. Of course, they won’t because they’re all in competition with each other.

I wondered how the social media changes were affecting other freelancers, so I asked my Twitter and Google+ friends to answer the following question:

How Blogging Makes Me a Better Writer

There’s been a lot of talk about blogging lately. Some online personalities have stated publicly that as social media becomes more mature and starts to offer more features, there’s little reason to continue with their own blog.

Others haven’t made any such statement, but have constructively abandoned their own blog (not posting for weeks or, in some cases months) while keeping up with a steady social media presence.

Do Freelance Writers Need a Google+ Business Page?

Yesterday, I created a Google+ page for this blog and then I created one for my freelance writing business. The whole process took less than ten minutes–but right now, they are only shells. It will take some work to add content and value.

If I could do it that quickly, you could too. But should you?

So, do freelance writers need a business page? I’ll examine that issue from the freelance writing perspective in this post.

Even More Helpful Tips for Writers

Are you looking for information about writing and other writing-related tips? You’ve come to the right place! I’ve packed this blog with writing information.

However, some of you may not be aware that I write on other blogs. Yet, some of those other posts also contain information that might be useful to writers. So today, I thought I’d share them with you.

Here are some links to some of my writing-related posts. Enjoy!