Real Words

I just spent some time back at home in Tucson with my family. While I was there, I went to the local independent bookstore (Antigone’s) with my dad and my sister to check out a book reading that was being done by an author named Richard Polsky. I admit that I had never heard of this author before my dad suggested that we go to this book reading. However, based on the reading alone, I am now a fan of his.

Richard Polsky is an author who has spent the last several decades working as an art dealer. His first book was called I Bought Andy Warhol and is all about the art world. He wanted a good piece of art as an investment but it took him twelve years to pick what he wanted. He tells the tale of looking for this piece of artwork and uses that tale as a framework for describing what the art buying / art dealing world is all about.

The book that he was specifically promoting at this particular book event was his new book, I Sold Andy Warhol (too soon). It’s essentially about the fact that he eventually sold his piece and made a pretty penny but that he would’ve made millions more if he’d held off for another couple of years on that sale. In more depth, this book is about what makes art valuable in the art world today. Interesting topics.

What really interested me, however, was not the books or their topics so much as the approach Polsky took to his book reading / book signing event. If you’ve attended many of these things then you know that they typically involve a brief introduction to the author followed by him (or her) reading a passage from the book and then doing a brief Q&A. Polsky threw that plan of attack out the window. Instead, he decided to give us just the briefest overview of what’s in the books and then to tell us what is not in the books.

He described the things that had been taken out of his books by his editors or his legal time or by himself at the last minute due to external circumstances. This was interesting because it gave us listeners a lot more insight into his writing process. It gave us greater insight into the topic that he chose to write about because we learned what can and can’t be talked about in this art world. It showed off a more personal side of the writer than what you normally learn from a standard book reading. And, undoubtedly, it was a great marketing approach because as Polsky said, “you can just read the book to find out what’s in the book” and his approach surely made more people there want to buy the books themselves.

This whole thing not only got me interested in Polsky but also got me interested in the book signing event in general. I am curious now to learn more about how different authors have taken creative approaches to their book reading events. I am interested in coming up with my own creative ideas for book signings that are out of the norm and therefore more interesting to potential readers. Are you aware of any authors that have taken a creative approach to their book signings? If so I’d love to know more about them!!

One of the things that I’ve thought about doing off and on is hiring a social media person. This would be someone who would have the job of doing the social media promotion for all of my work as well as for all of the posts that I do for my clients. It’s a tempting thing to consider doing but in the end I’ve decided that the cons outweigh the pros so I’m not going to do it.

Benefits of Hiring a Social Media Person

There are a lot of good reasons for me to hire a social media person. Doing so could benefit my own blogs as well as increase the traffic that I’m getting for my clients. The core benefits of having someone else do this instead of myself would be:

• That individual would be sole focused on social media promotion. Social media promotion is only one of the tasks that I perform as a blogger. Things I do as a blogger include defining the content, writing the content, adding images and videos to the posts, scheduling the posts, doing internal and external linking and then promoting the posts through various methods. When time gets tight, it’s hard to focus completely on social media. Hiring someone to do that would guarantee that the time and focus was on that regularly.
• It would mean I wouldn’t have to do social media stuff. The truth is that I don’t like doing a lot of social media promotion. There are things that I like using Facebook and Twitter for. I am starting to get into LinkedIn for various uses. However I don’t particularly enjoy the promotion of my own posts on these sites. Hiring someone to do it would mean I wouldn’t have to.
• I’d get an outside opinion on my social media strategy. Working alone means that I end up doing everything on my own and can get really stuck in my own way of doing things. This isn’t as bad with my clients’ blogs because I get their feedback on the social media strategy that I plan out for them. However it can be bad for my own blogs. It would be nice to have that second person giving me suggestions and feedback on how I approach my blog promotion.

I am always on the lookout for new freelance job leads. I like to know what’s being offered and what the average expectations are of the people who are hiring freelance writers and bloggers today. I also like to have a steady stream of new opportunities available to me.

I typically use the same few resources when looking for these job leads. I use Craigslist under both writing jobs and writing gigs. I use Problogger since I’m primarily looking for blogging work. And I use Deb Ng’s daily list of leads. However, I also like to play around with new options for finding work as these options emerge.

One option that’s emerged recently is TwitterJobSearch. Through this site you can enter a keyword for the job that you want to find and it will provide you with a list of such jobs that have been posted to Twitter. You can sort the results by date or relevance.

I have tried to use this tool to find blogging jobs and it doesn’t seem to be particularly useful. I’ve entered “blog”, “blogger” and “blogging” as my keywords and yet most of the jobs that come up don’t seem directly relevant to hiring a blogger. However, I’ve seen more success for general writing jobs when typing in either “writing” or “writers”.

I’m curious - is anyone else out there using TwitterJobSearch to find freelance writing / blogging jobs? Has it been successful for you? Is it any better than searching Twitter directly?

Yesterday I attended a free class by the SBA which was all about the other free small business resources that exist in my city. I learned about a lot of great resources but the one that I think is going to be the best one for me is the public library. Of course, I did already know that I could get some free stuff from the library (like books) since I use my library regularly. What I didn’t know was that there is a lot of free information on the line that I can access through the library which I can’t actually access through the Internet.

The main thing that I learned is that my public library system subscribes to numerous databases that would cost me a fortune to sign up for on my own. These are databases like LexisNexis (which I used during my brief stint in law school) and databases to help you find certain companies or suppliers. There are also databases here filled with journals. I’m so excited about this for my online writing work.

The one thing that I dislike most about writing online is that so much of the information that I write about is something I read online elsewhere and am repeating. Sure, I provide my own take on it. I try really hard to do outside research and to interview people to get a new perspective on these re-hashed topics. But the truth of the matter is that, beyond what I share of my own experiences, you can get most of the information that I provide somewhere else on the web.

What I’m hoping is that having access to these databases will change that. I feel like I’ll be able to do much more comprehensive research into scholarly levels of a topic. I could do that before by actually going to the library but I rarely do that because of the time it takes. Now that I’ve discovered that my library card gives me online access to these databanks, I’m going to be able to do that level of in-depth research at home. I think it’s going to benefit my clients and make my writing a lot more interesting.

Yay for San Francisco’s Public Library system!

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 am someone who believes in the power of keeping a journal. I got my first diary when I was about ten years old and have kept one fairly steadily since that time. Although I’ve gone through bouts of not writing for awhile, I always return to keeping a journal because I believe that it benefits me immensely as both a writer and an individual.

Some of the top benefits that I’ve experienced as a result of keeping a journal:

• The many benefits of a daily routine. I believe that having daily rituals helps us to get up and get going in the morning. My morning routine starts my day off right and helps me feel like I’m on track with things. Journaling is one part of that routine for me.
• The power of self-reflection. I think that all people, particularly writers, need time to reflect on life and on themselves every single day. It’s hard to do that when we have so many obligations and distractions, Journaling returns us to ourselves day in and day out.
• Unjudged writing practice. I am trying to get in the habit of not judging any of my writing but rather just letting it happen. This isn’t always easy but I’m able to do it with my journal. As a writer, I think this daily period of unjudged writing time is important.
• A collection of my thoughts. It’s been important for me to have this collection of my thoughts. There are memories that I forget but can then access again in my journals. There are patterns of behavior that I only see when I re-read my journals. There are characters and projects that I thought of in passing that I revive when reminded of them by my journals.

I’m not the only one who believes that a journal offers many benefits. Take a look at some thoughts other people have posted on the benefits of journaling:

• 7 Benefits of Journaling. Thoughts on how journaling helps you to identify, preserve and explore your ideas.
• And another 7 benefits of journaling - this one as it specifically applies to writers.
• The Benefits of Journaling as outlined by two women who created their own powerful journal for others to use.
• Uses and benefits of journaling - this is an academic article on the topic.
• Health Benefits of Journaling (including the benefit of stress management)
• And the ultimate post on the topic - 100 benefits of journaling.

Surely we can all get something out of journaling. Do you journal? Does it help your writing? What has been the great benefit?

I have always loved memoirs. I like personal stories that share insight into the different ways that people live. Memoirs work better for me than biographies or autobiographies because they are more poetic and usually more personal. I don’t care about the facts and stats of someone’s life; I care about their thoughts and passions. Memoirs give me insight into those things. Great memoirs that really resonate with me also give me new insight into myself.

One memoir writer that I just recently discovered is Sue William Silverman. Her first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, is the story of her years growing up in a childhood where she experienced sexual abuse. Her second memoir, Love Sick, is about her struggle with sex addiction which resulted from this abuse. I haven’t read her first book yet but recently finished Love Sick and definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topics of abuse, addiction and relationships.

But what does this have to do with writing? Well, Silverman’s most recent book is all about the art of writing a memoir. The book is called Fearless Confessions and it looks like it’s a great book for people who are interested in learning to write their own memoirs but who aren’t quite sure how to go about it (or who simply need a bit of inspiration for that). I haven’t actually read the book yet but I’m awaiting my copy of it in the mail and will return here with a full review once I’ve read it.

The reason that I wanted to bring it up now, though, is because Silverman is currently in the midst of a blog tour. Fearless Confessions is being reviewed, discussed and given away on different blogs all throughout the month. I love following blog tours and I think that this memoir looks really good so I wanted to share that information with others. The details for that tour are here. If you check it out, do come back and let me know what you think!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an SBA class on the topic of blogging for businesses. The class was geared towards people who own a small business (or who want to) and who were seeking information on how to use a blog to benefit that business. I attended the class as someone who blogs for businesses professionally.

You may be wondering (as a couple of other people there did) why I was bothering to take a basic business blogging class when I do this for a living. The answer is a simple one - I want to learn who my clients are. I work with people who own a business but who don’t necessarily know how to launch, promote and utilize a blog. I interact with them online but that interaction is limited. Most of them just give their blog to me and then let me run with it. I thought it would be great to meet some people who are in the same position as my clients in order to get a better viewpoint on what they might need from someone like me.

Here’s what I learned from this class:

• The primary thing that blog clients need is information. I forget that not everyone knows how to set up a blog or what a Twitter account is. I think that my clients could benefit from learning what the different options are for blogging / social media. I have been thinking for awhile about adding blog consulting to the list of services that I provide - essentially teaching business owners the basics of blogging and guiding them through content creation. I think that this would be a big benefit to certain clients.
• I know more about blogging than I sometimes think that I know. I often feel inferior to major bloggers who blog daily about blogging and social media. (I’m thinking of people like Darren Rowse.) I blog about a variety of different topics and don’t focus specifically on what’s going on with web writing and social media. What I learned from my participation in the class is that I actually do know a lot compared to the average person and that I can benefit others by sharing what I know.
• I don’t know as much as I need to know about blogging and social media. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about some new sites and tools that I’m not using yet. I learned why it might be better to use bit.ly for URL shortening than the programs I’ve been using (primarily because it offers web analytics information that I didn’t know about before). I also learned about xeesm.com where I can create a contact and links sheet to share with others through a single URL. More importantly, this class reminded me that there are a lot of aspects of blogging that I’m familiar with but that I’m not implementing on my personal blogs (despite that I do them for clients). I want to get back on track with developing and promoting my own blogs. To do that, I need to create a small business plan for my blogs. This goes along with what I recently mentioned which is that my number one writing goal right now is to get organized.

The class was informative and helpful for me as a blogger. I got to meet some great people and had some ideas spurred that I think are going to be really inspirational this week for my own blogging goals. Great stuff. And kudos to the teacher of the class - Carlos R. Hernandez. Check out his blog / site on social media and Web 2.0 topics.

Question for other bloggers and web writers - do you attend classes and networking events around blogging? What has been your experience with that so far?

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.

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I got a last-minute invitation to go camping and decided to work my schedule out in order to make that happen. I finished up all of the month’s work early and let everyone know that I would be gone. Then some things happened and the person that I was supposed to go camping with couldn’t go after all. I was bummed out about it for a little while but then I just let it go.

I think that I normally would’ve just returned to my standard routine but I’d already gotten it in my head that I needed this break from the Internet world. So, I decided to keep the computer off even though I was here at home. I didn’t contact my clients to let them know I was around. I didn’t sign back on to my social networking sites. I just pretended that I was still camping.

I managed to get a bunch of projects done around the house that I’d been working on for awhile. More importantly, I feel like the break helped me to get more solidly on track with some of my writing goals. With pen and paper in hand, I mapped out a daily and monthly work schedule that is more in line with my goals for work right now.

I also re-instituted my morning writing routine. I used to haev a solid routine that included some inspirational and educational reading, a little bit of blogging and journaling and some non-writing stuff like yoga. I’d gotten off track with that and was able to resume it in the past week. The lack of computer distractions helped me just sit still and be with myself. All in all, this vacation was good for my writing self even though it wasn’t what I’d planned on.