Staying Writing, Staying Motivated

Writing is an immensely personal venture that brings us closer to ourselves. We often don't know what will come out of our keyboards or pens until it is already on the paper, or sometimes, embarrassingly enough, until it's been published. This will be the case with this particular post. It is not going to see a strong editing hand, or be reworked and reworded for ultimate accessibility and organization. Hell, the spell checker on my copy of Open Office doesn't even work. But I do want to write, and I do want to share it with others.

As I sit on my porch overlooking a good part of the valley that comprises the southern end of Salem Oregon, I'm thinking about my motivation to write and my approach to what I write. Where does my inspiration come from, and where does it go when it's not around? These things would be helpful to know, but I have no idea. Some days I want to write, and it doesn't seem to particularly matter what I write about; I just keep writing and writing. Other days I can barely seem to get anything done. While faux psychologists and lay-shrinks out there would probably point to depression or some other type of mental illness, I don't think it's that simple, or that serious. I think everyone goes through these micro ups-and-downs, these small moments of inspiration, motivation, and drive, and moments where we just don't feel like doing anything, much less trying to produce something of value of others. Keeping motivated and focused is tough with all the distractions that are out there, and let's be honest: freelance writing, especially in the beginning, can seem pretty hopeless after countless hours are spent writing and only a few dollars (or less) have come in.

There are a few things that help keep me motivated, and much of it is perspective. How I feel about myself and my writing career are important. Even if you haven't made a dime yet, it is just as easy to arbitrarily believe you will be successful than to arbitrarily believe you will fail. I can tell you that believing you'll be successful and everything you do is working toward that success is infinitely more valuable that languishing in self-doubt.

Environment plays a huge part in success versus failure in writing. The people I live with, their moods, behaviors, and habits all have an effect on my writing. Be careful as a writer to set aside space, both mental and physical, to get writing and get focused. Other people will have their good days and bad days, and it is good practice to not let it effect you negatively. The closer the person is to you, the more difficult this will be.

These are a few of the most important considerations I have for new writers to be successful, and to stay writing when the chips are down and the paychecks are few and far between. Managing your environment can help keep what is outside of yourself from interferring, and staying positive about the venture of writing can help quell distractions that arise from within. And remember the greatest distraction of all, T.V., has to be set aside for success to happen. This is true of any home business, and really, life in general.

Good Luck, Good Day, and Good Writing!

Roku and Boxee? New things I must know, or old things I should have known about already?!

I know I've been quiet today, I am still working diligently on getting into great paid writing programs and being able to share some great news and help everyone who reads my blog out.  As I was briefly scanning some locally posted writing gigs on Craigslist, I came across this:

"We are looking for a freelance PR person in the Portland area who knows the tech world well. If you have a handle on the iPhone/iPad landscape, can tell the difference between Android and WinMo, and know a bit about internet appliances like Roku and Boxee, then you are a perfect fit. Its only a couple hours here and there probably, but could turn into more in time if you wanted."

I realized that someone is speaking a very foreign language of apps, sites, and services I MAY really benefit from knowing.  What I can gather so far (and this may require revision as I'm about to go to bed and have zero research into the subject) is that this particular job involves posting updates, relevant business correspondence and presence in an online format.  We have WinMo, most likely referring to a Windows mobile sort of platform, a mention of Android which leads me to the mobile device with the same name, and two other names that as of yet have no meaning whatsoever to me, which could be something similar to delicious, reddit, or some other rating and sharing social networking services. 

Could this gig I'm completely unqualified for be a starting place for learning some new skills that could help me find freelance work in the future? ABSOLUTELY.

Being a freelancer is about being flexible, and approaching opportunities in a unique way.  If I were to approach this curious little shout out with the usual "I am very interested in your position for... whatever it is exactly you are talking about" with an attachment with a resume nowhere near resembling what they are looking for, it would be an obvious fail.  But what I can do, is perhaps reply with open ended questions learning more about what exactly they are looking for someone to do for them and the methods they are using to accomplish it.  I may be able to fish out a whole new avenue of online marketing I hadn't known about or I hadn't known how to accomplish.

Food for thought, and the real take home here is even a freelance gig you can't accomplish doesn't mean you won't ever be able to accomplish it.  The beauty of the internet: anyone can become an expert.

Writer Tip: Date Everything In Your Archive

If you are an article writer or blogger, you know the value of keeping an archive of everything you publish online.  Having a single library (or folder) that contains all of your writing is an invaluable resource when it comes to filling out applications that require a writing sample.  You also never know what may happen to your online content: blogs get hacked, content gets removed or shelfed, a variety of things can cause all your hard work to disappear.  So make sure to back it up!

If you are like me, there's often a number of projects in the works at any given time.  Organizing your writing archive by date can help you keep multiple projects on schedule, and if you don't have a set schedule, at least give you an easy measure of how long a certain piece is taking you.

The article I'm spending the most time on right now is a 1300 word piece about writing, publishing, and marketing e-books.  I started this little ditty 5 days ago.  I know because I named it 1_12_11MarketingEbooks.doc.  I started it assuming I'd give it to Factoidz, in which case I'd be done with it by now.  This article's new home is going to be the inbox of a couple of editors from different websites who are looking for new writers.  The take home lesson here is that it is okay to spend a considerable amount of time on an article that is used as a writing sample.  It is also helpful that I can see when I started the project and know that I should probably finish it up soon!

The way I organize my archive includes a couple of important dates.  The first, as I've already discussed, is the date I started writing it.  The second is the date it gets published, which I put below the title at the top of the document.  This isn't always important, depending on where the article is published, but I'll tell you why I do it.  When an article is posted to Factoidz.com, it must be fresh content (not published anywhere else at the time of submission), and it cannot be published anywhere else for 30 days.  After that, your article is essentially your property again and you can post it to your blog, or anywhere else you'd like to go with it.  

Customizing your Twitter with Themeleon

Going to bed and waking up early is not really part of my nocturnal life plan, but sometimes you gotta make a buck when the writing isn't enough.  Anyway, while I'm off selling firewood out of a pick up truck (I'm only half hick, on my mothers side), I'm sure YOU will be comfortably sitting in front of your laptop, chain smoking cigarettes in your garage (everyone does that right?), and using the knowledge I'm about to bestow.

If you are using Twitter to send article spam to all your lovely followers and followees (or whatever their called), dress up your Twitter page a little with Themeleon.  Not all of their pre-formatted images are spectacular, and many include a lot of obnoxious lens flare effects, but download the plug in and give it a whirl.  Their options are much better than the 15 or so options you get through Twitter, and it will give your page a much more professional look.

Making Money Online: Finding Work From Home Writing and Editing

So Many Websites, Which Ones Actually Pay?
If you are looking to make some money writing online or are looking for a career where business casual is your bathrobe, I'll have some articles coming out in the near future that'll help you get started.  You can be assured that you absolutely will make money writing for the websites I review because I will have made money writing for them myself.

oDesk:  Here are my experiences making money on oDesk to date.  Check out the tips section for how I got the job and strategies to getting that first gig.

Some articles are better than others

As a writer for Factoidz for the last several weeks, I've had an opportunity to make a little money and look at which of my articles are receiving the most attention from readers.  In the process I've learned a couple of things about what it takes to make an article a serious traffic generator.  But here, I'd like to make a few notes on what went wrong with the other articles, pose some questions to my readers, and look into the future a bit.

Problems with article keywords
The first thing that comes to mind when I consider my articles that aren't getting hits is my state of mind when I wrote them.  I usually write all night and I don't think this schedule is really as predictable as waking up every morning for the quality of my writing.  I think the articles that aren't getting traffic are written fairly well, but by the time I was done with them I was exhausted.  This didn't leave me much energy for the last step which is selecting all of my keywords.  The process of choosing keywords is probably just like using the "Labels" box in blogger.  You fill it with enough words that search engines can get a good idea of what your article relates to, but not too many that you get flagged.  By not spending enough time choosing good keywords I was pretty much guaranteed that these articles wouldn't be looked at by very many people.

(Interesting side note: adding words like "Walmart, Martha Stewart, or CNN" just because a lot of people make searches on them may positively effect your ratings.  Another term for this is "Black Hat" SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Black hat tactics try to drive traffic using unrelated but popular keywords to describe their page.  When people search on these unrelated topic, they may happen to click on the article, adding another hit to the counter.  White hat SEO involve honest and legitimate ways to attract people without misleading or violating a search engines Terms of Use.)

A question for my readers
One of my articles is about URL redirecting services, and it is here I have a question to pose to my readers.  A URL redirecting or shortening service allows users to create short links of their own to other content on the internet instead of including long hundreds of characters long URLs.  The google URL shortener is called Goog.le and another popular service is Bit.ly.  So aside from the obvious keywords such as "URL shortener", what is the best keyword to use for something like Goog.le or Bit.ly?  Do you leave the period out of the entry (i.e. Bitly instead of Bit.ly)?  That isn't an option with Goog.le; without the period there is no way to tell the difference between the company and it's shortening service.

Onward and upward
Of the little money I have made so far, I see a huge percentage coming from articles that have titles offering advice on how to use some of the major players in social media.  Websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google,  and LinkedIn are becoming more important to nearly ever type of business every day; and writing helpful articles for people to better use these websites can be big bucks if you do it right.  Utilities like URL shorteners are great, but you will have to wait for the nickels and dimes to start rolling in if you write about them before they reach their height of popularity.

Before I leave you, here is some food for thought.  After watching two articles tank and another continue to generate a steady stream of hits, I can't stress enough the importance of choosing an appropriate title and keywords.  My next step is to start using Google Analytics to gather more detailed information on my articles' traffic, and also choose subjects and topics that people will want to read.  Many companies offering freelance gigs will help you out by giving you lists of hot keywords.  Sticking to these lists and writing useful relevant content will almost guarantee you some exposure.  But, as of the time this is written, I cannot locate this supposed list on Factoidz and they have not answered my repeated requests to help me locate this list.  If I find it in the future, you can be assured I will share this secret cleverly hidden in yet another terribly designed website.

Happy keyword hunting, and good posting.

Choosing a Writing Goal Wisely, and a Word on Ethics

After writing a review of some of the myriad websites that claim to pay people to write for them, I have learned that there are, as you can imagine, a ton of them. Most, if not all, for the purposes of making a consequential amount of money are relatively crooked. Writing for these programs is like trying to make your millions in an MLM (Multiple Level Marketing): you work and you work and all your doing is making the guy at the top richer than he already is.

Every freelance writer should keep a product in mind they would like to develop, whether it is a book, an information product, website, or even (though I wouldn't recommend this as a first choice) someone else's product. Somewhere along the line you are going to want your standing in the communities you are active in and all the meticulous SEO and backlinking you have done to culminate into something, and that's where your product comes in. Trust me, all your hard work, all your hours of coffee guzzling and keyboard slapping will NOT pay off if you only have ten cents a month from a WebAnswer to "How to best remove a bandaid". I can, with almost complete certainty, guarantee you it will not happen for you like this.

Blogging and article writing should be the means to getting recognized and connected, not the end itself. Writing, commenting, and networking puts you on the map: a little blot of land in a giant sea of people who aren't you. Some people begin to recognize you as an expert in your field of focus, or at least take notice that you exist and occasionally have something worth saying. These people, your followers on Twitter and fiction writing group on LinkedIn, will help you more later on than you can imagine. Because to those people, what you say has value, and by gaining their respect, you will also have a warm audience to present your product or service to when the time comes.

This is the power of social networking, but do not fall into the errors that so many writers fall into thinking that it is the be-all-end-all of anything, much less a career. And I cannot stress enough that social networking is a tool and NOT A MARKETING PLAN! A marketing plan will involve many circumstances and many people on different levels depending upon the product or service you market. A marketing plan to sell hemp jewelry out of your trunk should vary greatly from a plan to market an information product through affiliates and independent contractors. One effects what people have on their wrist, while another could change the lives of the people who buy your advice or sell your your product. There is a different level of responsibility and impact you have between asking someone to wear your necklace and telling someone what to do to be successful or make money.

I don't want to paint a drearly picture of article writing, but looking to it as an end goal for producing income just isn't realistic. I want you, the writer, the reader, to know that it is important step in establishing oneself as a professional. It also serves as a useful marketing tool in too many ways to consider listing here. But most importantly it is keeping us writing. Good writers must write. A lot. There is simply no replacement for practice and experience. And when it does come time to tackle a bigger hurdle, to mount a bigger project, those who have kept writing in the meantime will have a truly better chance of succeeding in a project that clearly mirrors who they are creatively and professionally.