Real Words

Most people don’t have the chance to visit a blog like this one on a daily basis. Instead, they check in now and again to see what’s going on over here and get the latest news. For those people who are interested in knowing what happened here in February, here’s a roundup of the best Real Words posts this month:

First, there were several posts related to Valentine’s Day, love and writing:

• 17 Things to Write for Valentine’s Day. Or really anytime you want to write something for someone you love.
• 20 Great Things About Dating a Writer. Because I think everyone should try it at least once!
• Writers Dating Writers. Because sometimes it’s not all peaches and cream.
• A List Of Ways To Say I Love You.

And then there were some other posts that might interest you:

• Valuing What We Write Well. A recent post about how writers often de-value the writing that comes most easily to them.
• Rituals, Routines and Habits for Writers. Writers should develop routines that keep them writing and being creative.
• Memories of Writing to Pen Pals. Appreciation for the many forms of the written word.
• Revealing Your Writing Rates. Do you? Should you?
• A Writer’s Weekends. Not everyone takes their days off on Saturday and Sunday. Here’s why.
• Hundreds of Resources for Writers. A few links that take you to hundreds more!

Also please check out my RSS feeds.

Which was your favorite Real Words post this month? What would you like to see on the blog in March?

It’s the end of the month so I’ve been taking stock of how my articles are doing on various sites such as HubPages, eHow and Bukisa. I’m reviewing the articles that didn’t really get any web attention so that I can learn why that might be, direct traffic their way and write better articles in the future.

Here’s a look at some of my HubPages articles articles that didn’t get any web attention this month and the reason I think that may be:

• Everyone’s Favorite Holiday Gifts. The reason that this one isn’t getting web attention right now seems obvious – it’s not the season for anyone to be thinking about the holidays! Likewise with my article on Rules of Re-Gifting.
• Small Business Guide: Networking to Help Market Your Small Business. There are a few reasons why this article probably isn’t getting noticed. For one, it’s a really old article from back in 2007. For another, it’s quite a short article. And finally, it offers general thoughts but no real tips or advice so it’s probably not as useful as it could have been.
• Giving to Charity Responsibility. The brevity and general-ness of this article probably also contributes to its lack of traffic. Also, maybe people aren’t looking at giving away money during the recession!
• Door Gate Operating Advice. This is an exaple of a keyword-based article that serves only a small percentage of searches and doesn’t play a big role in what’s going on in the Internet today. It’s an old article and it’s not too surprising that it’s not getting attention. I think it served its purpose in its time and now that time has passed.
• London’s Best Museums. This is a short article on some of London’s best museums. My best guess as to why it isn’t getting traffic is that maybe it’s not comprehensive or detailed enough to interest London visitors.
• Ideas for Getting Free High Speed Internet. I’m not quite sure why this one didn’t see traffic this month since I think it’s a solid article on a good topic related to issues of both technology and personal finance. Maybe there are just too many articles like it out there that are getting hit first?
• 6 Steps To Getting Your Book Reviewed on a Blog. This is another one I’m a bit puzzled by. I think it’s a good topic with some solid advice that is useful to people in this position. Perhaps my keywords aren’t right for attracting attention to this one?

I would love some thoughts from you on why any of these web articles might not be getting attention. Share in the comments!

I am one of those writers who has a difficult time taking my own writing seriously. Sure, I know that I’m good at specific types of writing. But they aren’t the types of writing that my internal censor says are “important” types of writing. As such, I have a tendency to dismiss my own writing work. What comes too easily to us is easy to diminish. This is something that I am actively working on changing as I believe that it is important for all writers to see the value in their own work so that they can continue to contribute positively to the body of writing that is out there in the world.

When I think of how I wanted to be a writer as a kid, when I muse upon those things that I wanted to write when I was young, it is always fiction novels that come to mind. And it’s not just any novels – I wanted to write the kind of novels that were filled with philosophical ideas, novels of the nature of those that made an impact on my own life. I wanted to write the next The Fountainhead, the next Identity …

But the truth of the matter is that fiction writing does not come naturally to me. And the kind of powerful details that I swoon over when reading them in other people’s writing feel forced and dull and  … well, like work … when I try to put them into my own creative writing. But I continue trying to find a voice for myself in fiction because it would feel as if I’d really accomplished something with my writing if I achieved that.

And I think that’s a mistake. Perhaps not a complete mistake. I do enjoy working on my fiction pieces in a weird kind of way. I really like the challenge of the work. I feel like I really stretch myself in new ways when I make the effort to expand my abilities with creative writing. I think that there is value in this process and maybe there will one day be value in a finished product that comes out of it.

But I am learning to find value in the types of writing that also come more easily to me. I am a highly prolific blog writer and article writer. I can tackle most topics with ease, enjoy researching them and find it fascinating to put information together into a concise article. I am a decent book-length non-fiction writer. I am fairly well organized and I can cull information from various sources and the work comes out complete. I often dismiss these talents in discussions about my writing because they come too naturally and therefore don’t seem enough like “work” to be of real value. But I think this is a myth. And I am trying to stop believing in it.

In the past few years I’ve really started to rely on rituals and habits to keep myself going with my writing over time. It’s so easy to just write when I feel like writing and then to not write when I don’t feel like it but doing so results in long periods of lack of productivity about which I often feel disappointed. Having writing routines and rituals helps me to continue working through the times when I don’t necessarily feel like it.

But rituals are even more important to me than the mere fact that they make me productive. It’s more about the feeling of consistency in my life that exists because of the fact that I have these writing routines. Whether I am at home or on vacation, whether I’m healthy or sick, whether I’m excited about life or having a rough time … I have these things that I can rely on to remind me that I’m still doing okay on a day to day basis, still writing and still living.

Here are some of the rituals that I use regularly:

• Daily journal. I am a big fan of the daily written journal. I have kept one off and on since I was a kid and I keep one consistently now. Another version of this that I know a lot of writers use is the “morning pages” ritual created by Julia Cameron of The Artists Way.
• Artists Way exercises. Speaking of the Artists Way, I have all of Julia Cameron’s books and I do the exercises out of them on a near-daily basis. It keeps me feeling creative.
• Morning reading. I take a little bit of time in the morning to do some inspirational reading. Often this reading is from selections on books about creativity from authors like Susan Magmussen and SARK.
• Quick daily description. I’m trying out a routine right now in which I stay in bed in the morning and jot a quick description of what I see around me before I get up. The setting is basically always the same but I describe it a little bit differently each time. I’m hoping this will improve my attention to detail and my way with description.
• Daily, weekly, monthly writing goal lists. I think lists are a great habit to have. I keep different lists for my daily To Dos, my weekly projects and my monthly writing goals.
• Collage art. I think all writers should also have rituals that have nothing to do with words. For me it’s regularly making collage art and scrapbooking photos.
• Yoga, walking and other physical stuff. I do this stuff regularly and I think it gives my mind the space for better writing.

What routines, rituals and habits do you have that you think help your writing?

I’ve been lucky to be included in a lot of really great blog carnivals this week. Take a look:

My Writing Posts:

• My post on Reasons to Date a Writer was part of the Everything Worth Reading Carnival. Cool posts from that carnival include those on public speaking, love poems, blogging and stress.
• My Thoughts on Revealing your Writing Rates were included in the Make Money Blogging Carnival along with a whole slew of others posts on important blogging topics such as google adsense, word press, site indexing, niche marketing, keywords, Twitter and other social media. This same post was included in the carnival of struggling bumbling newbies.
• My opinion on A Writer’s Weekends was part of the business freelance writing carnival along with posts on article writing, book writing and marketing, doing reviews, building a portfolio and even some thoughts on defamation.
• My links to Hundreds of Resources for Writers were included on the Free the Internet carnival. Other interesting posts there were on blogging, eHow, search engine optimization, meta tags, web hosting and web traffic.

My Posts on Freelance Taxes:

• My Freelance Tax Writeoff Tips were included on a huge carnival of government and money under the tax situation alongside other tax topics such as tax software reviews, tax preparation, tax filing and tax refunds.
• My Freelancer’s Guide to Important Tax Deductions was in the Working at Home Blog Carnival. It was featured in the business section of the blog carnival along with some great posts on IT careers during the recession, budgeting software, passive income, marketing optimism and entrepreneurs. This carnival also had posts on many other topics including home organization, investment, filing taxes, choosing good opportunities, setting goals, business book writing and marketing, article writing, email interviews, health care, Roth IRAs, productivity , frontier living, making money online (and getting paid), computer inventions, teleseminars and even VoIP (a topic I used to write about).

Other Posts:

• My Ideas for Sticking to a Personal Budget were featured in the budgeting section of a personal finance carnival along with posts on the economy, scholarships and tracking living expenses. This money blog carnival also had posts on economics, financial planning, home financing, income, debt and spending.

People who come to check out this blog are probably mostly interested in the thoughts that I share on writing. Hopefully if you’re a regular here you’ve already subscribed to the RSS feed for this blog. That’s terrific and I’m glad. If you do like my writing, you may also be interested in subscribing to some of the other RSS feeds for my work. Those feeds include:

• San Francisco is Sexy. This is my local San Francisco blog about everything sexy that’s happening in San Francisco. If you’re interested in the city and have a bit of a risque side then you might like the posts on this RSS feed.
• Hub Pages. I have written over 350 articles for HubPages over the past two years and continue writing there regularly. I love to explore a diverse range of different topics over on this site including personal finance, health, relationships, technology, web stuff and travel pieces.
• Bukisa articles. As I mentioned yesterday on this blog, I just started writing articles on Bukisa. I haven’t yet decided what topics I plan to focus on here but the first article that you’ll find there is on freelance tax deductions.
• Money Saving Blog. I’m not the only author on this personal finance blog but I do contribute money-saving ideas here on a regular basis and also do a weekly money-saving advice column on the site.

Hopefully you’ll like what you see here. Feel free to send me some info on any feeds that you have for writing sites as I’m always interested in connecting with new writers and bloggers whose work I’m not already familiar with!

As a freelancer, I really enjoy writing for sites that allow you to create your own content and then earn money from the revenue that you generate from the site that you’re writing for. My favorite of these sites has always been HubPages where I have contributed articles regularly for two years.

Through that site I am able to earn ongoing passive income in the form of Google Adsense earnings as well as Kontera Publishers earnings, both of which add a nice little chunk of change to my standard freelance income. I’m happy with HubPages and don’t plan to stop working there anytime soon.

However, I do think it’s worth it to branch out and try new sites that operate in the same manner. Some of the ones that I’ve tried in the past turned out not to generate very much income and mostly seemed to be a waste of time (other than assisting in boosting my portfolio). But a few (eHow is one example) have panned out over time.

The one that I’ve just started trying now is Bukisa. Like other sites of its kind, you write the content that interests you and upload it to your profile on the site. You then promote those articles to gain traffic and increase your revenue. The difference with this site as compared to other sites seems to be in the social networking aspect of the site. The goal here is to add people to your Bukisa network so that the articles that they write can also generate money for you. There’s no cost to join so it seems like an interesting way for web writers and bloggers to support each other’s work. It’s a cool idea and one I’m interested in trying out.

If you’re also interested in trying to combine the power of social networking with the poewr of content writing then maybe you’ll try it out as well. Of course, I’d love it if you’d join my Bukisa network, but even if you don’t I’d be curious to hear what your experience with the site is. And you might be interested in my first article there anyway – it’s about the tips that I know of for getting freelance tax deductions.

Leave your thoughts in the comments – I really want to know what other people are thinking of the Bukisa site!

Bachelor’s Degree Online doesn’t sound like a site that I would have any particular reason to write about here on this blog about my writing life. However, sometimes things surprise you. This site about college education also has a blog and this blog has a lot of really useful resources for writers that may be worth taking a moment to check out, particularly if you are someone who writes for the web.

Some examples of the resources that they have on the site include:

• 100 Free and Useful Open Courseware Classes for Web Workers. This is a list of classes that aer available for web writers interested in improving their work on the web. In addition to writing and communications classes, it may be beneficial to take classes in entrepreneurship, marketing, copyright law and various aspects of technology and Internet design.
• 100 Free Open Courses to be your own Financial Advisor. This is something that all freelance writers can benefit from learning a little bit more about isn’t it? And there has got to be at least one course in this list that would be of benefit to you particularly the ones that fall under the categories of entrepreneurship and taxes.
• 100 Tips, Tools and Resources for Taking your Book Club to the Next Level. Most writers are also readers and many of them join book clubs. If you fit that bill then maybe you’re ready to take a step up with your book club.
• 100 Sites With Free Literature Downloads. Maybe you’re not a book club person but you are someone who likes to download books online. Here are one hundred places where you can do that at no cost. Get classics, textbooks and even children’s books here!
• 50 Useful Google Apps for Writers. Did you even know that there were that many Google applications that writers might find useful? There are tools for websites and blogs, communication with others, online marketing, organization and more.

What great “top 100 lists”. Another one to check out is:

• 100 Fun and Useful Search Engines For Writers. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to stick with Google. There are specific search engines for writers who specialize in certain topics such as business, medicine, technology or academics. There are also search engines great for doing different kinds of research like looking up people or going through certain publications.

If I ever make another Top 100 Lists of 100 Resources for Writers then I’ll be sure to include some of these on that list.

And although it’s not related to this college education site at all, a little fun fact about me is that I completed most of my bachelor’s degree online so I’m definitely a support of online education. I don’t think my degree itself was necessarily beneficial to my career but the practice of working full time online certainly prepared me for my job!

I recently updated my website to include information for my clients on my standard blogging rates. One of the things that I have noticed to be true for most freelance writers who have a blog is that they don’t reveal their own writing rates on their blog. For the most part, this doesn’t bother me. However, I do wonder why freelancers don’t reveal their rates on their own websites more often.

Reasons that it doesn’t bother me that freelance bloggers don’t write about their rates:

• Money is really a private issue. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business what you earn. I think that freelancers should have the right to keep their incomes to themselves in the interest of privacy.
• Rates vary a lot from location to location. One reason that I think it would be good if freelancers shared information on how much they earn is that it would help to set a more standard industry rate for our writing. However, I also know that pay rates where I live (San Francisco) are considerably higher than pay rates in places with a lower cost of living so it may not really benefit freelancers to know what others are earning.
• Rates fluctuate a lot. I have standard rates for my writing and blogging services. However, I also know that my rates can vary a lot depending on the nature of the job. Jobs that don’t require as much research or time investment can be done at a lower rate than my standard per-piece rate since I’ll still meet my hourly rate goals. I also offer discounts for working with specific clients including local businesses and artists. And admittedly, rates sometimes fluctuate with how badly we need work to pay our immediate bills.
• There are ethical concerns. As a blogger, you have to recognize that your readers can be impacted by what you write. If you’re advertising rates that are much higher or much lower than theirs, this can cause them to question their own rates, something that a blogger perhaps shouldn’t be influencing.

However, I do think that there can be value for freelance writers in revealing their rates. Some reasons I believe this include:

• It helps you get really clear about your rates. You have to really set clear rates before you advertise them which assists you in determining what you’re worth. Once these rates are advertised, it’s easier to stick to them to keep in line with your financial goals as a freelancer.
• It makes it easy for clients to tell if they want to hire you. Many clients don’t want to hire you if you’re too expensive. Why waste your time with them? Having your rates on your website eliminate a lot of unnecessary back and forth conversation about jobs that you’re not going to take anyway. However, I do think it’s important to state in any applications if your rates are negotiable or if you offer any discounts.

So that’s where I stand on that. What do you think? Should writers reveal their rates on their websites or save that for email communication with potential clients? Should bloggers write about their rates on their blogs?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Writers love to get creative with words so in the spirit of the holidays, let’s look at a bunch of different ways to say I Love You. I’m not talking about different actions that you can take or loving gifts you can give or things you can write for Valentine’s Day. I’ve covered those in other posts. I’m talking about playing with language and the use of synonyms and adjectives to creatively say “I love you”.

• I love you.
• I’m enamored of you.
• I adore you.
• I’m passionate about you.
• I’m in love with you.
• I get excited by you.
• I feel deeply about you.
• I have a lot of affection for you.
• I’m feeling amorous towards you.
• I’m absolutely enchanted by you.
• I’m head over heels for you.
• I get turned on by you.
• I feel attached to you.
• I relish being with you.
• I cherish you.
• I worship you.
• I feel warm and fuzzy inside because of you.
• I’m mad for you.
• I’m truly delighted by you.
• I have a hankering for your love.
• I’m ardently interested in you.
• I feel intrigued by you.
• I admire you.
• I feel the earth shake because of you.
• I am drawn to you.
• I am captivated by you.
• I have fallen for you.
• I long for you.
• I yearn for you.
• I delight in you.
• I have it bad for you.
• I give my heart to you.
• I treasure you.
• I think the world of you.
• I value you.
• I’m smitten with you.
• I, like, totally dig you.
• I’m hot for you.
• I’m nuts about you.
• I’m wild for you.
• I’m really serious about you.
• I have intense emotions about you.
• I take you into my heart.
• I’m crazy about you.
• There are no words to describe how much I care about you.

Of course, writers are picky about their words. Not all of these things specifically mean “I love you”. Make sure that you use the words you really mean with the people you love today!

What’s the most creative way that you know of to say “I Love You”?