Real Words

There is a webinar coming up soon that caught my eye and I figured it might also interest some of the folks who read my blog. It’s all about how to get the best incoming links to your website or blog. This is a topic that you might think that you already know something about but there are two good reasons that the webinar could be worth checking out anyway:

1. Things change fast on the web. The best ways to get high-quality incoming links are not the same today as they were one or two years ago. It’s important to have the most updated information.
2. Refreshers are always helpful. Even if you really do know all of this stuff, it’s helpful to have your mind refreshed about it. It’s like a little poke that says “oh yeah, that’s what I should be doing” and it motivates you to re-focus your efforts on correctly building new incoming links.

A lot of people have commented on the article that I wrote here awhile back giving 20 good reasons to date a writer. The article was recently noticed by Examiner.com writer Melinda Maddison who writes a column about dating over 40. She reprinted some of the article along with her own thoughts comments. She has some neat things to say so I thought others might want to check it out.

Other blogs that have linked to this article include The Shared Journey, Write it Anyway, The Creative Penn, Beyond the Rhetoric, Eyeweekly.com, Fiction Scribe and eek - even HoustonMassageParlors.net!! Thanks all.

I received an email last week letting me know that this blog had been included in a list of the 30 Finest Creative Writing Blogs of 2009 that was published by the Online Colleges and Universities website. (Scroll down past the featured schools list on that page to see the list.) I enjoy their site, which often features terrific writing tips an resources, so it made me happy to see that this blog was included there.

I was also happy to see myself in some great company. Here’s a look at the other 29 blogs that were included on their list (in alphabetical order):

1. · Advanced Fiction Writing Blog
2. · Apostrophe Abuse
3. · Becoming a Fiction Writer
4. · Becoming a Writer – Seriously
5. · Blue Pencil Editing
6. · Cheryl Rainfield
7. · Fiction Writers Review
8. · Future Perfect Publishing
9. · Gareth Powell
10. · Inkygirl
11. · Internet Writing Workshop
12. · Jeremiah Tolbert
13. · John Baker
14. · Men with Pens
15. · Mike’s Writing Workshop
16. · Neil Gaiman
17. · Paperback Writer
18. · Renegade Writer
19. · SF Signal
20. · The Orwell Prize
21. · The Poetry Blog
22. · The Urban Muse
23. · Thursdaybram
24. · Tom Conoboy
25. · Working Girl
26. · Write Anything
27. · Write to Done
28. · Writing for the Web
29. · Writing Words

My big writing project for 2010 is to go through all of the old writing that I’ve been meaning to go through for years. I have tons of projects that relate to this. I’ve got old files on my computer that need to be organized, some of which can be deleted and others that can be re-worked into new articles. I have an entire box of old scraps of writing that date back more than ten years. I have several poetry and fiction projects that were started and have been ignored. It’s my goal to go through these, save the stuff I’m actually going to use, mine some insights wherever I can and then toss the rest. The goal here is to clear out the old writing (either by using it or tossing it) in order to make room for new writing.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s not easy to accomplish this task (which is why I’ve been starting and stopping it and putting it off for so long). But I think I’ve found a system that works for me. Here it is:

Identify all of the writing to go through

The first step for me had to be to get organized enough to know what I wanted to look through. Then I needed to prioritize. The main things I want to look through are computer files, that box of writing and my unfinished projects. I prioritized them in that order.

Define clear goals for what to do with the writing

My biggest problem with going through my writing has always been that I don’t really know what to do with it as I’m going through it. Sure, there are some scraps that I clearly just need to toss but mostly there’s a bunch of stuff that may or may not be useful to me in some form. Defining exactly what I’m looking for as I go through my writing makes it a lot easier to actually sort through it. For me, the goals are:

• Repurpose any work that can be used somewhere else. This goal needed to be even clearer so I had to set specific things that I was looking for such as writing to use in my personal blogs, writing to repurpose for clients, writing to turn into magazine articles for specific magazines … By defining this, I am able to do a much better job of organizing existing writing for new uses.
• Look for any insights into myself. Much of my writing, especially on those scraps of paper, reminds me of things about myself that I had forgotten. That’s why it’s so hard to get rid of some of it. What I’m doing is setting aside anything that provides specific insight and then journalling about it now before I get rid of those original pieces of writing.
• Save any great lines. Usually there are only one or two great lines of writing in a whole stack of papers. I’m learning to look for those and then set them aside while getting rid of the rest of the writing junk that is there.

This blog has been quiet for what I feel is way too long. However what I actually know is that it’s been quiet for exactly the right amount of time. The thing about the writing process, when writing is what you do with your life, is that you can’t force it. I do believe that you need to keep on writing all of the time, even when you don’t really feel like it. However I don’t really believe that you can impose a structure on your writing when it’s just not working. At least that is how it’s been in my life. Structure works most of the time. And then there are times when the writing just doesn’t do what you want it to do. I have still been writing all of these months - journaling, writing for my clients - but the writing that I wanted to do on my blogs just didn’t happen. I could force it but there seemed to be little point in doing so. I needed time off to breathe, re-think, re-work, realign myself with my real goals. You can’t force that. You can’t make it come faster than it’s going to come. At least, that’s my opinion insofar as writing that means something personal to me. I could easily just have written posts for the sake of writing them but that wasn’t ever supposed to be the point of this blog.

I am happy to say, however, that I’ve worked out what the point of it is supposed to be and what goals I really want to achieve with it. One of those goals is that I want it to be a place where I write for fun, for pleasure, and not because I feel obligated to. At the same time I don’t want to go months without writing unless I happen to hit another one of those fallow periods when there is nothing to be done but to wait until the writing makes sense again. Having just moved out of one of those periods, I don’t see that happening again. So I am recommitting, slowly, to making sure to post here at least once per week. Maybe more but certainly no less.

A couple of the other things that can be expected on the blog here in the months to come:

• The posts will be focused on writing, my writing projects, my experiences as a writer. Posts on anything else will not be posted here but on my other personal blog, Diary of a Smart Chick.There will be some posts that are about writing in general (top ten lists, links to other writers, etc.) but most will be first person tales about what it’s like to actually live as a working writer and blogger.
• Any photos shown on the blog will either be mine or will let you know who they belong to. I have historically used random google images on all of my blog posts. However in keeping with the spirit of real creativity and the rights that belong to the people who are posting creative works online, I want to make sure that any photos I use either belong to me or link you back to the person they belong to.

I wanted to share a great link today. oDesk (a terrific resource) has posted a new set of 40 Freelance Writing Blogs to follow. They don’t just list them either - they give a really great breakdown of who each blog author is, why the blog is a great read and what specific pieces to check out on the blog.

I personally haven’t checked out all of these blogs yet but many of them are ones that I’m already following. Out of the ones that I am familiar with from the forty on the list, my top ten favorites are:

1. All Freelance Writing.
2. Bizzia.
3. Freelance Writing Jobs Network.
4. Get Paid to Write Online.
5. Men with Pens.
6. Poe War.
7. The Renegade Writer Blog.
8. Thursday Bram.
9. The Urban Muse.
10. Write to Done.

Which is your favorite freelance writing blog?

I recently got inspired to update my website with new content. The old website described all of my different work as a writer including what it means to me to be a writer. However, the truth of the matter is that I don’t do much freelance writing work these days. Although I do a little bit of it, my main focus is on blogging for businesses. The new content on the website reflects this (although there are a couple of pages available with information about my other writing).

I’ve never known quite how I want to organize the information in my website so I’ve played around a lot with it. For now, I’m happy with what I’ve put together here. I feel like it conveys what I do an why clients need it, presents a solid portfolio and offers information on services and rates. However, it’s always hard to know if you’re conveying things the way that you want to when you work for yourself and don’t get feedback from others.

So, I’m putting it out there. If anyone else who is familiar with blogging and writing wants to check out my website and offer some thoughts on it then I’d love to hear them! The site is www.kathrynvercillo.com.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve started writing blog posts over at Scribophile which is a really great community for writers. I’ll be writing on some of the same topics that I write on here but expanding on them over there. Mostly I’ll be writing about the writing life and how to manage it.

My first post over there is on the topic of How to Stay Creative when you Write for a Living. I find that it’s really tough to maintain creativity in my work since I write all day long. It’s even tougher to find ways to be creative in non-work writing. However, I think it’s important to do so and I’ve learned some tricks over the years which I’ve shared in that article.

Would love to know if anyone else here is using Scribophile!

Once again, life has happened and I have found it difficult to update this blog as regularly as I would like to. My goal here has generally been that I’d like to have daily posts on the topic of my writing life and what it means to be a writer. However, I seem to be stuck in this cycle where I fall behind and then I feel bad about falling behind which makes me disinclined to write more so I put off doing a new post even longer.

I’m a little bit embarassed about this. I would never let it happen on a blog that I do for my clients. I haven’t let it happen much on my other blog, Diary of a Smart Chick, which is a collection of thoughts about (and links to) the topics of my current writing projects. And yet it consistently happens here.

So, I want to make a commitment to writing for this blog on a regular basis. I won’t say daily because that might be too much but I want to get at least 3 posts up per week here. I have some exciting things planned for this blog in terms of some guest visitors, reviews and giveaways so I really don’t want to let things slide.

Here it is then - my commitment to this blog for my readers as well as for myself. I want to be present here on this blog so that it can become the kin of active conversational community that I know it has the potential to become. And I want to commit to it because this part of my writing life is important to me even though I let other things crowd in on it all of the time.

I would love to hear your thoughts about how to best make a commitment to your own blog when you write full-time for others professionally. Please share!

I’ve mentioned here a few times that I’m working on establishing and accomplishing a series of new writing goals. Those included:

• Cataloguing my work
• Getting published in more print magazines
• Finishing a personal book
• Doing more collaborative projects

I’ve added a few more goals to that list:

• Submitting work to anthologies
• Setting and achieving some clear goals for my 3 personal blogs
• Creating and executing a plan for more active promotion of my Hubs

Taking a look at my list, I’ve figured out that there is one specific writing goal that needs to come before everything else: getting organized!

I tend to be basically good at getting naturally organized. My freelance finances are in order. I’ve got my client’s files in good shape. None of that is a problem. However, I need more organization as it relates to these specific goals because there are areas where I’ve let things go. So, my specific goals for getting organized include:

• Doing my planning on paper. Several of these goals require creating action plans. I like to do those in my head but I’m actually going to do them on paper.
• Collecting all of my creative writing. I have poems, stories, essays and books that are written and half-written. They are in journals, on scraps of paper, on various computer files and who knows where else. Before I can reasonably submit work to anthologies and magazines, I need to be able to see what I have. This means learning about good methods of organizing this stuff and then going through the process of organizing it. That’s the big goal as far as this goes.
• Deleting all unnecessary files. I back things up all of the time and I have multiple copies of several things that I didn’t need to save in the first place. I want to get to where I only have what I really need again.

So, I’m still working on the bigger goals but I’m focusing right now on the small organizational goals that I believe will put me in a better place for meeting the big goals in the end.