It’s hard to keep up with reading all of the blogs that we’d like to read on a regular basis so I wouldn’t be offended if you failed to check out everything I wrote here on Real Words in the month of January.
For those of you who want to know what you missed out on, these were the “best of the best” posts this month:
- Expose Yourself to Other Forms of Creativity. This is something that I think is really important to do so I wrote a bit about the topic.
- 18 of a writer’s favorite writing quotes. Just a collection of quotes on writing and creativity that I find to be inspiring as a writer.
- Googling Yourself as an Author. My thoughts on why writers should regularly Google themselves and what I found when I did that recently.
- Tips for writing blogs / articles on a timely basis. Thoughts on what web writers can do to remember to write on the topics of the day.
I’d love to hear from any readers out there - what were your favorite Real Words posts in January 2009?
One of the things that writers need to do if they are going to be good at their craft is to face themselves honestly. This sounds like an easy task but those of us who have tried doing it know that it’s one of the most difficult things to do in life. It’s also one of the most worthwhile - not only because you start to create better writing once you’ve carefully examined yourself but also because you start to live a more authentic and open life.
In the spirit of this, I just thought I’d share a quote that I came across recently while going through some things. I can’t find the full piece of writing that it came from but I have a note on back of the photo I wrote it on that it is an excerpt from In the Museum of the Lord of Shame by Gary Rosenthal. It goes as follows:
“And so, when we get close
To the wound, when we cross
The border into Egypt
And begin to get close
To where the secrets are buried,
Our nervous system hears a voice
And the voice says,
“You don’t really want to go down there”
And you really don’t,
Anymore than Orpheus wanted to go down
The Dark staircase
Where cobwebs pulse
Like trampolines
Upon which the hosts of houseflies
Try to leap out of this world.
But what you need
To reclaim
Lives down there
South
Of your predictable borders
Where the soul is
Encrusted in Salt
From the tears we’ve yet to shed.”
Be brave as a writer and brave as a person; go deep down into yourself and see what there is to see there. And then come back and share it with the world since who you are is completely unique and who we are can benefit from reading about your experience.
A quick pat-on-the-back to myself and the other writers over at The Money Saving Blog because that blog was named by the Times Online as one of the top 20 British personal finance blogs. It’s a UK-based blog that’s all about how to live frugally. And it’s a blog that I regularly write for.
Most of what I write for this site is tips-based articles on how to save money on different things. I’ve written recently about saving money for Valentine’s Day, saving money on groceries and saving money using a barter system.
I also just started writing a personal finance advice column for this site which is a really fun way to write on a topic that I think is really important. So far I’ve answered the question of how to stay fit while living on a budget. Of course, it’s pretty easy here in San Francisco where all you need to do is walk up some hills on your way to wherever you’re going but there are lots of other things that you can do as well and I had fun exploring those things in that advice column response.
I’m not the only writer for this blog and other posts on the site also got attention in the article but I just wanted to point it out since I received the link about it.
I recently posted an article here with my top 18 favorite writing quotes of the moment, something I did because I believe that great quotes can be one of the most inspiring things for writers to read. A comment was left on the post by Greg Babic, an Australian author who has written a variety of different articles, short stories and books.
One of those books is a book called Words to Inspire Writers. This is a calendar-like collection of quotes that are designed to inspire writers in their craft and in their lives. I hadn’t heard of this book until Greg left his comment here which makes me really excited that he did indeed leave the comment. A quick scan of his blog informed me that this book is actually available online for free!
The book is filled with all different kinds of quotes from all different types of people. I’ll pull the three quotes that are written under the date of my own birthday as an example but you can check out the whole free book here.
People who know me from either of my blogs may know that I really enjoy participating in blog carnivals. This is where you submit a favorite post from your blog to a theme-based collection of other blog posts. It’s a great way to see what other bloggers are writing about, get exposed to writing on the web that you hadn’t seen before and get some perspective on a theme that you sometimes write about.
A post here from Real Words about the hassles of travel and travel writing has been included this week in a blog carnival over at Everything Worth Reading. This carnival includes a really diverse range of different topics and there are some great writers included here.
My favorite posts from this carnival were, not surprisingly, the posts about writing. These included thoughts on journal writing and blogging, tips on how to write a short story, a review of a short story collection by Miranda July, and several samples from fiction writing.
The writing posts weren’t the only interesting reads from this blog carnival though. There was also a lot of great social commentary on topics including video games, the elderly, penny dishes, Somali pirates, lithium, driver’s license renewal, frugal living and trips to the fertility clinic.
In addition to these posts, there were some posts that were just plain fun to read like the one on a run-in with a sexy cop, the one debating the merits of the window seat vs the aisle seat and thoughts on the importance of holding on to your dreams and living life fully.
Great stuff!
And this isn’t even the only blog carnival I’ve participated in lately. A selection from my other blog, San Francisco is Sexy, was also just included in a blog carnival.
Happy reading!
I’m home in bed with a cold today. It’s rainy out and I’ll probably spend most of the day reading and napping. For many writers, this is the ideal way to spend a day (other than the whole having a cold part). We love to read. And we love to find just those words and phrases that inspire us to improve our own writing.
I’ve collected quotes from other writers for a long time now and I have a big collection on a lot of different topics that inspire me in my own writing and my own life. Here are 18 of my favorite writing quotes and creativity quotes:
- ” There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.” - Martha Graham. This is part of a longer quote; a lengthier version is included on the home page of my website because I think that this is one of the key things a writer should always remember - stay true to yourself even when the writing doesn’t come easily or starts to feel routine.
- “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” - Audre Lorde. In the same vein as the Martha Graham quote, this reminds us that we must say what we must say.
- “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.” -Abraham Maslow. One final way of saying that you’ve got to stay true to what you really are, this time from someone known from the field of psychology rather than writing.
- “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” -Vita Sackville-West. A beautiful way of writing about the importance of writing!
- “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov. And a beautiful way of showing how to be descriptive in your writing! Read the rest of this entry…
I used to have an entire living room filled with books. Hundreds of books. And then it came time to move to a smaller place and I realized what many people realize when they move - books are heavy! I also realized that it was completely unnecessary to keep books laying around that I really wasn’t going to read ever again. And that caused me to further realize that it was really unnecessary to purchase most of the books that I bought.
At that time, I sold off most of my books, gave a bunch of the rest away and kept only the few that I really do read again now and then. I started getting all of my books from the local library and returning them when my three weeks were up. But somehow, I slowly gained a new collection of books.
It’s something that happens as a writer. People give me books as gifts (and I’m not complaining about that because I almost always love the books that other people pick out for me). And, over time, I started seeing a book here or there in the store that I’d buy on impulse since I didn’t want to wait to order it from the local library. So I ended up with a new stack of books. And since I’ve been de-cluttering my whole house lately, I decided that it was time to get rid of these books.
For the most part, I listed them on Amazon for sale and got rid of them quickly. I was able to get a little bit of money back and to give discounted books to others who wanted them. But there are some books I have that just aren’t worth selling on Amazon because they don’t have a lot of value - the cost of shipping would be more than its worth to get rid of the book.
Trying to figure out what to do about this, I stumbled across several online sites where people trade books. You list the books that you have available and people can order them from you at no charge. You pay shipping but you can send them media mail so it’s only about $2. You get rid of the book. In exchange, you get credits on the site which means that you can then order new books at no cost.
At first, I didn’t think that this was something that I wanted to do since the entire purpose of getting rid of my books was to clear up the space they were taking up in my home. But then I started thinking about the fact that there are certain books that I do want to refer to again and again. Books filled with writing exercises, creativity lessons and DIY projects are books that it makes more sense to keep than to keep trying to get from the library again and again.
So, I listed a bunch of my books on one of the Paperback Swap sites (which, incidentally, takes more than just paperbacks) and I started getting rid of them. Now I have credits on the site that let me get those books that are actually valuable to me to keep around. It’s a really great program. And since most of the writers I know are readers who have way too many books, I think it’s something that would be valuable for a lot of the people that I know to look into!
One of the things that I’ve noticed on most of the blogs and article-hosting sites (such as HubPages) that I read is that online authors tend to be really good about posting on topics that are related to the day or month of the post itself. The obvious example is that there are lots of blog posts and articles about Christmas each December. However, you’ll also see this all throughout the rest of the year when people write on everything from summer vacations to taxes. And you’ll see it in relation to social and political events as well (for example, how many blogs talked about the inauguration this week even if they weren’t political blogs?!)
I’m the first to admit that I’m not particularly good about this. I do tend to hit the major holidays with some timely posts although that’s due more to the fact that those topics are on my mind at the time of the writing than through any real planning of my own. But despite my own lacking in this area, I can definitely see some benefits to writing on timely topics.
Some of the benefits I see in regards to writing on seasonal or otherwise timely topics include:
- There’s always something to write about. It seems like you always have topics to choose from when planning your blog writing around a calendar.
- You’re writing about the stuff that’s on your readers’ minds. This means that they’re going to automatically feel a connection with you that you can then build upon.
- You’ll probably do better in search engine searches. I’m not actually sure if this is true but I would imagine that the hot topics of the day are the ones that people are looking up in online searches.
So, if you see the benefit of writing on timely topics, how can you structure your writing so that this is how it ends up happening? Here are some tips that I think benefit the writer who wants to blog on the topics of the day:
- Keep a calendar handy. Whether you use a wall calendar or a desk calendar or the calendar on your iPhone or the Google calendar, you should have some system for keeping track of all of the things that you’ll want to be writing about on a timely basis.
- Strongly consider using the Google calendar. As just mentioned, the calendar itself is what’s important but something like a Google calendar is particularly great because you can color code the different things that are on there (so you can have holidays in one color and social or political issues in another color). It just keeps things better organized.
- Keep track of all of the major holidays that you might want to write about. A basic wall calendar will provide you with this information.
- Think about adding in some of the funky holidays as well. Use a calendar such as the bizarre calendar here to find some of the strange holidays. Specifically calendar all of those that are even remotely relevant to the topic of your blog (official pen day for writers, for example) but also calendar any that you just think you’d like to mention. There’s always a creative way to tie them in.
- Block off some room at the start of each season on the calendar. Make a list of all of the posts that are relevant to that season (graduations in the spring, summer travel, etc.)
- Think about any other annual or seasonal events that really interest you or that get a lot of attention from the readers of your blog. Film events, political events and other social events are all fair game for timely topics to write on.
- Pay attention to other blogs. You’ll notice when everyone’s blogging about the same thing and that can remind you that it’s time for you to start blogging about that as well.
- Brainstorm a list of topic ideas for various holidays, events and seasons. It’s a good idea to keep these lists handy so that you can access them at the right time each year and not have to struggle to think about what you should be writing.
- In terms of content, remember that you really only need to loosely tie the holiday or timely topic into the post. The focus should still be on writing whatever the content of your blog is. So if you’ve got a writing blog then you can do holiday posts on “great gifts for writers” and summer posts on “where writers most want to travel”.
That’s my two cents on the topic anyway. I’d love to know what other writers think about the importance (or lack thereof) on posting topics that are relevant to the day/season that we’re writing in.
Just a really quick note to let you know that the Real Words blog can now be found on Facebook. You can follow that link or check out the links in the widget that is posted at the bottom of the right hand side of the page here. Any feedback that people have on the use of Facebook for writing blogs would be appreciated here!
Just a quick note to point out that my recent post here about old projects vs. new projects as included in a great blog carnival roundup of posts about writing. This is a great writing roundup because of the fact that includes information for all different types of writers. This blog carnival offers encouragement for writers, general freelance information, plot ideas, thoughts on poetry, musings about inspiration and copywriting tips. Additionally, there are several links to stuff for people who write short stories including the how to of short story writing, the use of language in short story writing, information on short story review writing and even a sample short story. Out of all of the links here, my two favorite articles to read were an article on learning to be brief in our writing (via Tao of Simplicity) and an article that looks at writing within relationships. Thanks to the blog carnival host for including Real Words along with these other great blog posts!
