Google Trends Led Me To Spock

I’ve been reading a lot lately about using Google Trends to inspire your writing, so I thought I’d give it a try. Lo and behold, clicking the links led me to the news that Leonard Nimoy is to reprise his role as Spock in the 2008 Star Trek prequel. That news makes the heart of any confirmed Trekker (or Trekkie) beat a little bit faster. He’ll be sharing the role with Zachary Quinto, according to this story in the Guardian.

I know the franchise has probably passed its sell by date, but it’s been going for decades. Not bad, when you consider that the original series was cancelled after a couple of seasons. I have watched many of the Star Trek series. Some have been better than others, but almost all have retained that fascination with alien worlds which first got me hooked. How do you feel about it?

Exploring The Animal Kingdom

Our first foray into the World of Disney was the Animal Kingdom. We chose it because my daughter loves animals and before this trip was a bit afraid of the other Disney characters.

First, we had to get the tickets. Since we had spent Saturday and Sunday lounging about and recovering from our flight to Miami and drive to Orlando, that meant getting the tickets before going to Disney. Having read all the advice, we decided to get up at 7, get our tickets and be on the road by 8. Ha!

Since we didn’t all manage to get up early, my hubby and I went to the concierge to get the tickets, paid the extortionate amount and went back to the condo to pick up the others. Then we set off, at around 10. We made it to the outskirts of the Animal Kingdom in about 20 minutes, but Disney has its own road system, so it was another 20 minutes before we actually got to the entrance to the car park, paying another $10 for the privilege of parking. (By the way, you can leave the park and return on a day ticket, without having to pay admission or parking charges again).

After parking and getting on the tram, we finally made it to the entrance, where our bags were searched and we discovered that we’d forgotten our hats. My hubby and I opted to do without, but we got hats for my sis and daughter.

Admittedly, we hadn’t chosen the best day. My sister had a 1 pm appointment which she had already pushed back to 2pm, so we charged around like driven people. We picked up Fast Pass tickets for the Kilimanjaro Safari (after some difficulty with one of the tickets), which meant we could come back in an hour and do something else. With limited time, we had to choose wisely, so we lined up for the Wildlife Express train, waited half an hour and then went to the Planet Watch section, where we saw some very docile sheep and farm animals and heard a talk on owls (my daughter loved it). Then we hustled back for the Safari.

It was great. As we jounced around the trails in a jeep, I couldn’t help thinking that I could wait a while before visiting Africa. I saw giraffes, zebras, crocodiles and much more. My daughter loved it. In fact, we all did. Then it was off to the car park to get to my sister’s appointment. But where had we left the car? None of us had taken note of the Disney character or the row number, so I stood with my daughter in the blazing midday sun, while hubby and sis searched the car park for our rental car. We made the appointment, then came back to the park to do the Everest roller coaster ride.

I love speed, so I really enjoyed the twists and turns. At one point, I turned to my sis and said ‘Are we going backwards?’ She gave me a withering look, and said ‘No, we’ve stopped’, just before the roller coaster shot backwards at breakneck speed in the dark. 55 miles an hour feels very fast in something that size.

While we were doing that, the other two attempted to find Nemo (the show was finished) and walked through Dinoworld. We met them at a cunningly disguised Macdonalds with a primeval theme.

Walking around Disney all day was exhausting, and I can see why they had strollers for hire. I can also see why one kid was looking disgruntled while his dad wheeled his mom around. We decided to take the next day off to recover, before going to another Disney theme park – the Magic Kingdom.

Done By Disney

Did I do Disney or did Disney do me? I found myself asking that question a lot during the week that I spent in Orlando visiting various Disneyworld attractions. Even though I knew it would cost a fortune, I was staggered by the ticket prices. A three day pass to three attractions for three adults and one child cost about $900. What’s worse, we got ripped off by the person we bought them from, who should have given us a discount of about $200. And as it turned out, we didn’t even get the right tickets – no water parks included, which we found out when we tried to use the tickets to get into Blizzard Beach.

Once you get into the theme parks, you’re a captive audience, and those running the show take full advantage of it. Ok, so I shouldn’t have forgotten my daughter’s hat. But is that any reason to charge $15 for a $3 cap. I expect to pay a premium, but that was ridiculous. One day we left our sunscreen (my sister and I both thought the other had it) and we had to buy a replacement. Cost at Walmart $4. Cost at the Magic Kingdom $16. And the shop assistant said: ‘You don’t even want to ask about the price of cameras’.

Disneyed

Back in the UK, there was a series of ads for a fizzy drink with the tagline: ‘you know when you’ve been Tangoed’. A big orange guy would slap you around the face – this was the Tango hit. Visiting Disney is a bit like that. It is fun, exhilarating and supremely commercial. I’m still collecting my scrambled thoughts, but I plan a series of posts on this over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I would like to thank my guest posters over on Get Paid To Write Online. I hope you checked out their posts in the last week.

Popular Writing Posts

The new Get Paid To Write has been up and running for a couple of weeks now. I’ve put a lot of what I’ve learned doing this blog and others into practice, and so far it’s working well. I’m trying to keep the content up, too. Here are some of the most popular posts on that blog:

Adapting Your Writing Style
Successful Freelancing Habits
Writers, You Need To Get Out More
Get Paid Like A Writer?
Weekends: Work Or Wind Down?
The Joys Of Juggling
Is Your Writing Client Your Boss?
A Freelance Writing Journey

Over Blogged?

When I started this blog in November 2005, I could never have imagined that it would be the start of a blogging mania. Over the next couple of months, I joined WritingUp, BloggerParty, WriteNiche, Blogcharm and Blogchex. I also started a blog at SharonHurleyHall.com. Then I realised I was struggling to keep up. Blogcharm was the first to go, swiftly followed by Blogchex (it still exists, but I don’t post there). BloggerParty I kept as a moneymaker, and WriteNiche because I liked it.

WritingUp lasted for far longer, and when it went, I replaced it with a Blogger blog, which has now become GetPaidToWrite. I have also started two new blogs on Blog.com and on Communati. That makes about seven more or less active blogs, plus a few more on Blogger.

Am I the only one who lets blogging get out of hand in this way? Is this normal? I know that the more blogs I have, the less I post to each of them and the harder it is to sustain quality. This is my first blog and it remains dear to me for that reason. I also have a couple more on that list that I love for different reasons. Whether I can sustain this many blogs remains to be seen. How many blogs do you have – and which ones are close to your heart?

The Magic Of WordPress

Last year when I was going to be on the road for a while, I experimented with having a guest poster. My sis is a great web copywriter and she did some fantastic posts for two of my blogs. On my mentoring blog, she did a series of posts on copywriting and on this one, she shared some of her poetry. This year, she’s otherwise engaged, so I’ve had to ask someone else.

Luckily I have made some good writing friends who will be holding the fort over on Get Paid To Write. I always enjoy their blogs, and I am privileged that they will be sharing their expertise on my blog.

For this blog, I’m going to make use of the wonderful future posting feature in WordPress. That means that I can type this on Sunday afternoon and not have it appear till the following Friday. It’s great – all you have to do is edit the timestamp, hit publish and hey presto, your blog post waits to be delivered at the scheduled time. Magic!

Of Terriers And Toddlers

What’s your favorite kind of dog? I’ve been reading about the Boston Terrier. It’s one of those dogs with a face best described as ‘jolie laide’ – in other words, it won’t win any modeling contests, but is appealing all the same.

According to this Boston Terriers Dog Guide Article they are stubborn and strong willed (kind of like my four year old). They are also intelligent, loving and fun to be with (also like my four year old).

Actually, the more I look into their personality, the more I think that they are like young children. They learn by doing, you need to be patient with them and they love to have a job to do. (Do I need to say it again?)

Terriers are agile and it can be a challenge to get them trained (there’s that toddler analogy again). Once they are trained, they are great to be with. They love people and children. I have a theory about that.

What’s Your Creative Process?

I meet every two weeks or so with a group of writers. Some of us are published, some are not, but we all get a lot out of it. We meet to support and critique each others’ writing and last week it was my turn to put a poem forward.

What I realised during the Q and A is that a lot of my writing, especially my poetry, is written quickly. It is often scribbled hastily at 2am so I won’t forget it. I rarely change much when I read it in the morning. So when people ask me questions about what I was thinking or trying to achieve with a particular line or turn of phrase, it is hard to answer.

That’s because in most cases, I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling. Sometimes poems almost write themselves. I lie awake for an hour thinking about something, but the words come of their own volition. Only later do I do any crafting and that is usually about removing something that jars.

Am I the only one with this unplanned, inconvenient inspiration? What’s your creative process when you write?

Social Blogging

I love the social communities for bloggers. They are so much more fun than MySpace. You get to show off your posts, connect with others who blog about the same things, find new blogs and make new friends.

Although some people list all their sites, I usually concentrate on this one and Get Paid To Write. Here are my favourite ones (feel free to join my communities or add me as a contact:

BlogCatalog
MyBlogLog
BumpZee

I am also a member of TheGoodBlogs and SpicyPage.

So, is there anything I’m missing? Are you a member of another blog network that is good for networking and traffic? If you are, tell me about it. I would love to know.