Shakespeare Never Had To Work Like This

How things change. This was what I wrote almost exactly a year ago on another blog:

As I write this, my daughter, T, is desperately trying to get me to play a Santa game [in May!]with her. This consists of emptying the paper recycling bag all over the office floor and handing out bits of paper as presents to everyone here – everyone being my mother, my husband and me. I try not to see the mess on the office floor and concentrate on writing, blogging, commenting and checking my email. But it’s hard. Part of me would love to get on the floor and play. The other part just wants to get this writing done quickly before taking T to playgroup.

When she asks for my attention I feel guilty, even though I know that I spend plenty of time with her – every morning and evening on the three days she goes to preschool; most of all the other days. But it’s hard to resist when she says ‘I want you, Mummy’.

The trouble is, I get very focused on my writing. T is perhaps the only person that can cut through the fog that surrounds me when I’m in the writing zone. Even my husband complains that I don’t hear him speak when I’m in writing mode. But I always hear my daughter – must be a biological thing. And that same biology makes me want to drop everything and go to her, even when it’s not reasonable.

I’m only human, though. Sometimes I wish T would give me the five minutes I need to finish a job quickly, instead of having the same job take half an hour with her on my knee, fighting for possession of the keyboard or asking to go to a children’s website or play a game.

At other times, I remember why I chose to be a WAHM, close my laptop and go off to play. Today looks like one of those days.

One year later, and she’s at school, while I write. Of course, I still have those challenges during the holidays.

Communati – A Better WU

If the seeming demise of WritingUp has left you down, then weep no more! From out of the ashes has arisen a site that will be better, stronger and much more reliable. It’s called Communati and its mission is to take the best from WritingUp and leave the worst.

Here’s what founder Mark Whitbeck has to say:

The philosophy about Communati.com, the way it looks, feels, and works, is to introduce something that is familiar while morphing into something completely new.

The best includes recreating that community aspect; leaving the worst means eliminating those darned trackbacks once and for all.

I signed up for Communati and so far, so good. I have already met a couple of old WU friends there and hope to meet more. So far, I am welcoming Communati with cautious optimism.

Check out my posts there. I’m wahmwriter (couldn’t stay away from writing completely, but wanted more freedom to broaden my horizons).

PS. Did I mention that you get 70 per cent of Adsense revenue?

Test My Podcast

This is something of an experiment. I was trying to create a podcast on my other blog. I have now got this link to my podcast, but it’s not playing. So I’m inviting you all to test it out. See if you can hear anything and then report back. Thanks

Confused Writer At Work

Have I written about mailboxes before? Sometimes as a writer, your assignments seem to blend into one another and it gets difficult to remember when you wrote about a certain topic, or even what you wrote. I know I’ve told the story of choosing our mailbox before, but which blog was it on? While I’m thinking about it, maybe you could tell me your funny stories about mailboxes.

Learning About Blogging

Market research is an essential part of any new venture, whether it’s a new company or a new blog.

When I set up my GetPaidToWrite blog, I knew so much more about what people were looking for than when I first started blogging. I knew more about keywords and more about the type of content they would find interesting.

I’m not saying I always get it right. Some posts are ignored while others seem to strike a chord. However, I think I’ve got a better sense of direction in my blogging life – and I’ve got plans for a few more blogs too.

Promotion Update

Every now and then I Google myself to keep track of how my promotional efforts are going. I was amazed when I did this today, because my self promotional Squidoo lens is at the top of the entries for my name. I did that lens about a month or so ago to collect all the stuff I have knocking around the internet. It makes it easy for me to update the info and easy for people to find me.

In Yahoo and most other search engines, www.doublehdesign.com remains at the top, though in some cases it’s the blog, while in MSN Live it’s my EzineArticles profile that is at the top, probably because I’ve just submitted a new article there.

So what does that tell me?

1. That social promotion will build you links. Check out some of the other Google entries. They are to business networking sites and blogs.

2. That having a website is useful (but then, we knew that already). When people find me on the social sites, they have somewhere to go where they can find more info about me.

3. That you need to keep promoting. I expect that if I run this search again in a few months, one of my other ventures will be at the top of the list while others will have moved.

4. That it takes time for promotion to pay off. When I first launched my site, searching for my name would bring up a lot of items that had no connection with my name. Now, everything on that list is something I have written. Ok, so there are things on sites that I have no affiliation with, there are even a few splogs that have harvested my content, but at least anyone who looks for me can find me. (Actually, that almost lost me a job once – but that’s another story.)

Keep promoting – you never know what will pay off!

Nice Surprise

I had a nice surprise tonight. I’ve been doing some ghostwriting for a magazine. Normally, you don’t see the results of your ghostwriting (at least, not unless you are a good researcher), so I never expected to see what the final product looked like.

Lo and behold, I had an email tonight with a link to the magazine, and lo and beholder (yes, I know that’s not a phrase), I was credited as a contributor on the masthead page. I am happy.

I Love My New Widget

I’m falling in love with widgets. I’ve already got two on this blog and now here’s one more I like – the Wink widget:

#wink_widget { background: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #a0a0a0; color: #000000; width: 170px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana,arial,helvetica,Trebuchet MS,sans-serif; overflow:hidden; text-align: left;}
#wink_widget * { border: 0px; margin: 0px; }
#wink_widget img { border: 0px; position:relative; }
#wink_widget a:link { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:none;}
#wink_widget a:visited { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:none;}
#wink_widget a:hover { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:underline;}
#wink_widget a:active { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:underline;}
#wink_widget_winkme a:link { color: #478ac5; }
#wink_widget_winkme a:visited { color: #478ac5; }
#wink_widget_winkme a:hover { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:underline; }
#wink_widget_winkme a:active { color: #478ac5; text-decoration:underline; }
#wink_widget_body { width: 166px; }
#wink_widget .wink_widget_body { margin: 0px 1px; overflow: hidden;}
#wink_widget h3.wink_widget_body { padding-left: 3px; width: 163px; padding-bottom: 3px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; }
#wink_widget h4.wink_widget_body { width: 161px; padding: 4px 5px 2px 0; text-align: right; font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; }
#wink_widget_winkme { width: 170px; height:24px; border:1px solid #ccc; border-width:1px 0;}
#wink_widget_search { margin-top: 2px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid; width: 110px; font-size: 10px; color: grey; }
#wink_widget_submit { margin-top: 2px; border: 2px outset; width: 50px; background-color: #ccc; font-size: 11px; font-weight:bold; color: #3d709c; }
#wink_widget_feed { z-index: 3; background: #fff; color: black; width: 300px; border: 1px solid #478ac5; }
#wink_widget_fimg { z-index: 4; }
#wink_widget_feed_data { padding: 5px; }
#wink_widget_logo { vertical-align: bottom; border: 0px; }
#wink_widget_winkmecount { color: #000; }
#wink_widget .wink_widget_bbottom { border-bottom: 1px dotted #ccc; }
#wink_widget .wink_widget_site { white-space: nowrap; padding: 4px 3px 4px 8px; margin-right: 10px; }
#wink_widget .wink_widget_mytags { padding: 4px 3px 4px 8px; margin-right: 10px; }

where i’m at…

people search by

make your own Wink Widget!

I’ve left it plain for now but plan to play around with fonts and colours. What do you think?

Don’t Get Paid To Write

Ever wondered exactly what all those web content clients really want? Well, this spoof Craigslist ad will tell you.

It starts off:

Are you young (inexperienced), motivated (willing to do anything for a byline) and creative (full of ideas I can steal for fun and profit)?

Here’s some of the brief for writers:

You will be expected to produce 300- to 500-word articles, each hour on the hour, 10 times a day, seven days a week, 53 weeks a year (that’s one extra week, in case it happens to be a leap year) on a subject that you have expertise in (tying your shoes, breathing, astrophysics, general wankery, etc.) … Compensation: $1,000 per article (Note: the preceding dollar amount employs British-style punctuation, so the comma is actually a decimal point. I know, you went into writing because you aren’t very good at math. It pays a dollar an article… which is why you should have tried harder at learning the multiplication table, or whatever.)

It ends with:

Please send your CV and a 500-word sample article on a subject that interests you (which you agree to let us, that is me, post up–without paying you–whether or not you are hired).

Read the full ad here (for as long as it stays up).

How To Get Your Site Listed On Google

Here’s a blast from the past – a post I wrote on promoting with article marketing. I put it here in case any new writers are looking for ways to build a portfolio and promote themselves.

I have nothing to gain from this recommendation. Ezinearticles doesn’t even have an affiliate program for the main site (though they do sell a product that gives article production secrets (aff).

This is a site that features free to reprint content for websites, ezines and email newsletters. I use it mostly as an author. Creating an account with ezinearticles is as simple as filling out the one page signup form and replying to the confirmation email. That gives you a basic membership which allows you to submit up to 10 articles (again on a one-page form). Each article is vetted by an editor and then uploaded. You can create a brief bio of yourself and can put a resource box with a link to your site.

This site is fantastic – a week after uploading my first article I was able to find my site on Google – and is a must if you want to get your name known and build traffic to your website. There are two additional levels of membership: Basic Plus (up to 25 submissions) and Platinum (unlimited submissions).

Other features on the site include a weblog and members forum (which isn’t accessible from the members’ site for some obscure reason). As a publisher, you can link to the articles, pick up rss feeds in various categories and make use of the content.

I have found several of my articles reprinted on other sites with a link both to ezinearticles and to my own site – a win-win situation as far as I’m concerned.