WritingThoughts

It really is. Okay to be yourself, I mean.

As a blogger, I find myself subject to all kinds of advice about how I ought to operate this blog.

“You ought to post five times every day.”

“You ought to add XYZ plug-in.”

“You ought to shorten/eliminate your blogroll.”

“You ought to sign up for ZYX affiliate program.”

And on, and on, and on. . .

Most of it is well-meaning, and I appreciate the concern.

In fact, I’ve done my share of dishing out advice here on this blog, and elsewhere on the Internet – all with the best of intentions, of course.

In fact, if I tried to incorporate every single piece of advice that I’ve been given or that I’ve ever read I doubt that I’d ever get anything else done.

Blogging is a great way to learn and gather information and to collaborate with others, but all that information can produce blogging stress if we take it too much to heart.

That’s why I’m declaring today that, despite what all the “advisors” might say, it’s okay to be yourself. It’s okay to make mistakes and to work at your own pace.

It’s okay to be yourself.

Whew!

Pressure off!

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

Image Source: www.stockxpert.com

“Recognition for this blog is overdue.”

At least that’s what I thought about Daily Writing Tips when I was deciding which blog should be this week’s blog “Of Note.”

So, I have a confession to make. I have been reading Daily Writing Tips, and I’ve been enjoying it, AND I haven’t told you all about it. At least not yet.

That’s what this post is for.

Daily Writing Tips is the work of at least four writers: Maeve Maddox, Michael Moser, Colin Galbraith, and Sharon Hurley Hall. There is also an editor: Daniel Scocco.

This blog represents good, basic writing information at its best. If you’re serious about freelance writing (as I am), then I’m sure that you’ll want to review this blog often for the tips and advice that it offers.

Some of my recent favorite posts at Daily Writing Tips include:

• From Sharon Hurley Hall, A Writer’s Bookshelf. What are some basic tools that every writer should own?
• From Ali, Five Words You Can Cut. This one hurt a little bit. I’m sure I use these words all the time.
• Funny Images Conjured up by Web Comments. We all need a good laugh now and then…

The truth is, if you’re a writer, then you’re probably already reading Daily Writing Tips. In case you’re not: I strongly recommend it.

Note: If you’re consistently posting great information and haven’t seen your blog featured in Of Note yet, I apologize. I’ll probably find you soon. I know there are a lot of great blogs out there; I discover more new ones each day. (So many blogs, so little time.)

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

I think it’s been a while since I’ve done a real WAHM Wednesday post.

Well, the wait is over! Today I’m posting on a real WAHM (work-at-home mom) issue for all of you freelance writers who are also WAHMs.

If you have school age children, then you may also be facing what I’m facing right now: the spring crunch.

The spring crunch happens every year, but every year it catches me somewhat by surprise (even though I was expecting it – if that makes sense).

The spring crunch occurs not only because of my busy workload, but also because of the extra assignments and activities that the kids must do to wrap up the school year.

How about you? Are you facing the spring crunch this year? If so, how are you handling it?

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

After a week of using Twitter, I thought that I’d publish my first impressions of the media. (This is NOT my conclusions about whether or not Twitter is useful as a business tool, which I’ll publish later in the month on Business and Blogging. Rather, this is a description of my initial experiences.)

1st Day – My first impression of Twitter was one of complete disorientation. I immediately recognized some familiar names, but for a minute or two, I couldn’t follow any conversations. After publishing my Twitter link on two forums and one of my blogs I have 13 followers and am following 21.

The twitterers seem friendly enough. Lin of Telling It Like It Is sends me a link to a Twitter guide.

2nd Day – Today I am following 28 and have 22 followers. I have found additional twitterers to follow by looking on the profile pages of other twitterers. I asked for a post on business blogging and was sent the link to one.

I have discovered that most twitterers publish links to their blog posts on Twitter. I decide to do the same.

3rd Day – No twittering today, it’s family day.

4th Day – Today I published my Twitter address on WritingThoughts. I am folowing 34, 35 twitterers are following me. I must remember that what I say on Twitter is public.

I look through the list of those that are following me. Most of them are twitterers that I have also chosen to follow. I do see a few names that I don’t recognize. So far, I am spending about a half an hour a day on Twitter.

5th day – I have minimal Twitter use today due to my workload. Still, I now have 38 followers, 34 are following me.

6th day – I have inspired a blog post today. Grant Griffiths of Home Office Warrior publishes The twitter Tools of a Home Office Warrior in answer to one of my questions. I’m now following 48, 47 are following me.

I notice that some of my initial followers have dropped me. Presumably my tweets are too boring?

7th Day – I had a long conversation on Twitter with James Chartand of Men with Pens today. The fact that every single twitterer sees a different slice of Twitter finally sinks in. I am following 52, I have 53 followers. Tomorrow I will make the time to customize my settings.

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

This is the business side of freelance writing that we don’t like to talk about very often.

We should talk about it, though. Talking about it can be the difference between success and failure.

The truth is: freelance writing is risky. Any time you accept a project, there’s risk associated with that project.

We’ve all read the “horror story” posts where a writer does a huge amount of work. When the writer submits the work and asks for payment, the client vanishes.

Would a contract help in such situations?

As a writer, can you afford to have a contract drawn up? As a writer, can you afford not to have a contract?

This is the topic being discussed at my latest blogging gig. Here’s the post: Do You Need a Contract For Freelance Work?

Why not join the discussion?

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

Years ago, I remember tagging along behind my manager as neophyte technical writer while she met with a consultant.

That was the question that she asked, “How many pages should a writer produce in an eight hour day?”

To better put the matter in context, we were writing technical manuals at the time. Each manual was several hundred pages long and required extensive research and revision.

We were also using the technology of the time.

I still remember the consultant’s answer, “A writer should be able to produce four pages that are ready for the printing press every day.”

I thought is might be interesting to bring the same question into today’s writing environment.

With the original question in mind, I’m throwing the question back out to my blog readers for a new answer. If we can consider a page to be about 400 words, the how many finished pages do you think that a writer should be able to produce in a day?

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

I’ve joined Twitter as an experiment to see if it can be of any use for business. You can read all about it here: Can Twitter Be Used For Business?

Since I kept reading all of these posts from bloggers who claimed to be getting business use out of Twitter, last week I decided to find out for myself whether or not the tool could be of any business use. (Here’s another post about Twitter and business.)

As a result of the experiment, I’ll be twittering for a short time almost every day over the course of the next month, or so. I’ll keep track of my impressions and let you know what I think of it at the end of the experiment. I’ll also post a summary of the experiment over at the Business and Blogging blog.

In the meantime, if you want to follow me, you can find me here: TXWriter.

(If you missed the last time that I gave out my social media information, here it is again: StumbleUpon: TXWriter, Sk*rt: TXWriter, Facebook: use Laura [at symbol] writingthoughts [dot] com. I think those are the only ones that I really use, although I do have profiles elsewhere.)

Do you use Twitter already? What are you impressions of it? 

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

One of the common perceptions around the blogosphere is that you have to post every day, sometimes multiple times a day, in order to attract readers.

If you’ve been reading WritingThoughts for a while, then you know that I like to take a look at the “popular” blogs on Technorati from time to time. I find it helpful to analyze what they’re doing and look for trends.

I decided to take a look at the posting frequency of the popular blogs. I found that most did indeed follow the model of posting often (sometimes very often). I also noticed that many of those same blogs have a large paid writing staff supporting them.

A few successful blogs, however, don’t fit into the mold.

Two popular blogs (according to Technorati) that don’t seem to post every day (as far as I can tell):

1. A List Apart #40 on Technorati
2. Zen Habits | Simple Productivity #58 on Technorati

Some of these blogs are great. Others I’m actually not very familiar with. My point is that it is possible to achieve some degree of blogging success without posting every day.

Some of my favorite bloggers who don’t post every day include:

1. Randa Clay Design
2. Copywriter Underground
3. Michael A. Stelzner’s Writing White Papers
4. Telling It Like It Is

(Actually, I could make the above list go on and on and on...)

I think that this is an important point, because there seems to be a lot of hastily composed content on the web that really isn’t helping anybody. I wonder if some of it was written to meet an artificial daily deadline?

2015 Update: The statistics and information presented here are from 2008. A similar look at blogs might yield different results today.

Here at WritingThoughts I try to post about three times a week. I try to provide content that is helpful, or at least, that will stimulate discussion. To me, that’s more important than having something new up every single day. (I hope that you agree.)

How often do you post?

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

I was conducting research for some projects yesterday when I realized that most of the search results that I was getting were not helping me at all.

Either the headline itself was misleading, or article was actually on the topic — but the content was too broad and the article contained no new information.

The articles that I was finding through the search engine were just like this packing box — they looked like they might have something good inside, but when you opened the package all you found inside was foam.

After a while, I started to recognize which sites were not helpful and I started to avoid opening articles from those sites.

(Isn’t this the exact opposite of how we want people to react to our content?)

Now, I realize that some of the search results were probably from individuals or organizations who paid to have their sites listed at the top of the search engine results. Still, I believe that some of the results were organic to the search engine.

Why? Because, in the end, a search engine can’t really make the distinction between whether an article is useful or just appears to be useful. It takes a human to really make that distinction accurately.

The experience really hit home to me, because as a writer I know that it’s very possible to focus on creating just the right headline, just the right formatting, and just the right number of catchy phrases — and totally forget to focus on the topic at hand.

(I know that I’ve published posts on the importance of headlines and formatting myself. I still believe that they do have some importance, but they should never be the main focus of our efforts.)

My husband and I have a phrase for things that look nice, but have no real value – “All form and no function.”

I believe that, as writers, we have the responsibility to make sure that our content is as useful as it appears to be.

Today, I’m challenging myself (and you) to write content that has both form and function.

Will you take me up on the challenge?

Contents (c) Copyright 2008, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved

By Dana Hanley

I have always wanted to write. Not necessarily professionally, nor as a dependable income, but as a creative outlet and means of sharing my thoughts. I used to fill notebooks with half-written essays, outlines of research articles and openings to stories and an occasional poem scratched in between.

Then I discovered blogging. For me, it was the perfect outlet. I could write on my terms, not worrying about publishability, nor who would be interested in what I had to say. I needed only to write it, and those interested would eventually find me. In two hours, I could write a good post from beginning to end, publish it and have immediate feedback. I had the opportunity to write about exactly what I wanted in the way I wanted and interact directly with my audience. My ideas did not have to be completed in a single entry, but could develop over time, through comments or through subsequent posts.

These connections also brought me something else I had never expected. After several rejection slips, an editor finally wrote me back asking for published clips. Not having any, I invited him to review my blog. It seemed a terribly unprofessional way to demonstrate my writing ability, and an editor of a larger magazine probably would have deleted the email when they read the disclaimer about possible typos since it was just a personal blog. But he didn’t and was impressed with my blog, bringing me my first offer to write for print. Through my blog I have also received invitations to contribute to a few books and have made contact with established authors whose experience I hope to draw from in future.

After a flurry of queries and proposals sent off over a year ago, I have allowed most of my projects to begin collecting dust. My notebooks sit virtually untouched. In fact, the last thing I wrote in them was notes I took during a public hearing. For publication on my blog.

As much as I love blogging, however, I still have a desire to write more for more traditional media. I enjoy writing magazine articles and I have some plans for a book. Striking a balance has not been easy, especially since I have been etching out the time I do spend on writing between raising and homeschooling four children. Thus far, my blogging has led to all of my opportunities for print, and I wonder how much more powerful that could potentially become as my blog grows. I also have begun to look at my blog as my education as a writer. I am making contacts, trying out ideas and seeing the kinds of responses I get to different types of stories and different writing styles. I am developing a stronger voice as a blogger, and I am acquiring a larger base of knowledge through each post I research.

At the moment, I am hoping this will come together when I decide to begin writing my first book. But I also look ahead to that with some reservation. Because I know when that time comes, I will be making a choice to pursue one form of writing and not the other. I know I will likely still blog, but I also know it won’t be the same. After all, there are only so many hours in the day.

Dana Hanley is a homeschooling mother of four, writing mostly after bedtime for her blog Principled Discovery.