Anyone can subscribe to newsletters and follow gurus who offer tips and classes on how to write a blog that will be well-read and generate business. I read any snippets I come across all the time about how to build a better blog, and have purchased and downloaded a few reports offering information I know will increase my productivity and blog writing frequency. But, no matter how much we read or learn about blogging, the true discipline is the writing of the blog itself. Here’s what I’ve found:
Develop a template. Have a beginning, middle, and an end to what you want to say. Maybe you always open with an anecdote or an inspirational quote, followed by a case in point, and then your summary. Keeping the format consistent will allow your readers to know what to expect, keep you on track and make it easy for you when it comes time to write.
Keep a “brainstorm list” handy. Believe it or not, I usually set aside a few hours each week to brainstorm some ideas for blogging, whether they are ideas for my own blog, or the blogs of others for whom I write. This saves me a ton of grief in the long run, especially if I panic and think I have nothing to write about.
Set aside regularly scheduled time to write, write, write. Because I offer writing and admin support services, I have various tasks to juggle and writing can be put on the back burner if I’m not on top of it. After learning the hard way and making myself crazy, I initiated what I now call “Writing Wednesdays” — a little part of my own marketing plan that makes me block out time on that day for writing. I don’t schedule anything else during that time. It’s when I review the ideas I’ve brainstormed, add more content after research and, if I’m particularly productive, knock out several final posts.
There are a ton of other ways to write a blog, ways to stay disciplined and ways to engage readers. What are your best tips for blogging?
I just returned from a five-day trip to Las Vegas where my husband attended a gaming convention. Once again I had the opportunity to attend the Keynote Speaker event, one of my highlights of each trip. Last year, Penn Gillette from the duo Penn & Teller spoke and provided insight into some of the illusions they perform on stage.
Horrible lighting – me and Katty!
This year, on the eve of the political debate, BBC Journalist Katty Kay wowed us with her dynamic energy covering highlights of her career, past and present. I was lucky enough to have her sign my book, take a photo and leave me with so much food for thought it’s hard to know where to begin. You can order Womanomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success here. (By the way, it’s not just for women.)
Us and Penn after the show!
We also saw the Penn & Teller show at the Rio, and met up with Penn afterwards. Wow… he’s tall. He has an arsenal of literary offerings through Amazon, also. Check them out when you search for him online.
And, for those of you who are Nook owners, today’s Free Friday Download:
Michael Baron’s The Journey Home was one of our most popular Free Fridays titles yet. So I’m extra excited to announce today’s selection is his equally-impressive novel, Spinning.
Those who enjoyed the complexity and deeply-felt storytelling in The Journey Home will find the same elements in Spinning. This time, Baron introduces Dylan Hunter—a man in the prime of his life who has everything he’s ever wanted. With a successful career, a string of adoring women and a great group of friends, Dylan is living the high life. Thanks to his golden tongue, he’s able to get himself (and his high-paying clients) out of any tight space, with a little ‘spin.’
Then a former girlfriend comes back into his life, with a 3 year-old daughter in-tow. The girl’s not Dylan’s, but he soon finds his priorities realigned when he becomes her sole guardian. Readers will sympathize with Dylan’s desire to hold on to all of the things his old life afforded, but they’ll keep turning the pages to see if he’ll find peace in this new role he never thought he’d be playing.
From now through October 31, Bucky’s and Yavapai Casinos are sponsoring the Quad City Hunger Challenge, as a way for local businesses to compete for who can collect the most non-perishables to benefit the Yavapai Food Bank. My business is part of the challenge, and I’ve already turned in one bin of food so, happily, I’m well on my way. But, I’m up against some pretty heavy hitters in my category, based on number of employees (and I’m a solo act, here!).
If you think you’ve already “given at the office” I’d like you to dig a little deeper and give just a bit to the food bank, who not only needs food at the holidays, but all year ‘round. The Yavapai Food Bank goes through 25,000 pounds of food per week. Per week! Here are some EASY ways you can take part, and that’s what today’s Three Tip Thursday is all about.
Sign up your own business! It’s free and it’s easy. Click here to sign up. The Food Bank will provide you with a bin when you call them. Then call them when it’s full and keep collecting. This is a GREAT way to offer an incentive to your clients – “bring in 10 cans and receive $5 off your next service,” or something like that. Spread the word. (Even if you belong to a an organization that meets monthly, you can qualify to sign up. This makes great publicity for your business.) www.quadcityhungerchallenge.org.
Write a check made payable to the Yavapai Food Bank. Monetary donations are just as valuable, and readily accepted as the food items. Deliver your check to me and I’ll be sure to add it to my quota.
Host a gathering of friends for dinner, yoga, running or scrapbooking… or ask all your co-workers to bring 5 or more items each Friday until October 31. Call me or email me and I’ll come pick them up from you.
How is it that I get so behind with my posting every week? Anyone else have this problem?? Here it is Friday and my poor little posts have been ignored until now. For some reason I never run out of stuff to say when it comes to book recommendations, though. Every year, I try to read as many books as my age. (Yes, I am over 21.) One of my friends thought that idea was very Laura Bush. Hmmm… you know who you are. (I had the idea first, though.) Back to it…
I blasted through a few business reads last week, including the Barefoot Executive – genius! Carrie Wilkerson was practical, funny and realistic in her approach to helping others define and execute their passions. Using my Nook I highlighted a ton of sites, sources and things to do while reading this one. (While not technically a memoir, business books are a form of non-fiction that could relate to real-life and personal experiences.)
I also read a B&N Free Friday download: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. I know, right? Aside from the fact that the cover is adorable, turns out I learned more about snails than I ever thought I would — for instance, a teensy, tiny snail has… oh… 2500 teeth. No kidding. The storyteller is a woman who was bedridden with a form of fibromyalgia, reducing her to constant bed rest over many years; during this time, she observes the antics of the creatures in her terrarium. Interesting… intriguing… a quick read, but not fast paced and not for everyone. I wouldn’t throw it out. But I might adopt a snail.
Please submit your story to the Prescott Memoir Project if you are a resident of Prescott! email me for more details!
Today’s Free Friday Download on the Nook.
“Frank Deford is not just an immensely talented sportswriter, he’s an immensely talented American writer. The Entitled is his wise and pleasurable portrait of a Willy Loman-like baseball manager finally getting his chance in the Bigs late in his career.”
-David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize-winning Author
Award-winning sports writer Frank Deford has covered every angle in athletics during his 50 year career. In today’s Free Friday’s selection, The Entitled, Deford turns his considerable talents to a fictional tale that mirrors the fascinating complexities of modern day Major League Baseball.
Howie Traveler never made it as a player—his one major league hit and .091 batting average attest to that. He was cursed with that worst of professional maladies, the ill fortune of ‘almost.’
Now after years of struggling up the coaching ladder, Howie’s finally been given his shot: as manager of the Cleveland Indians. But America’s pastime has changed. Whether Howie can spot a small flaw in a batter’s swing won’t matter if he can’t manage his superstar outfielder Jay Alcazar, a slugger with enormous talent (and an ego to match).
No crisis on the field fazes Jay and no woman off the field ever rejects him. But one night at the hotel Howie sees something at Jay’s door he wishes he hadn’t…and it leaves Howie with an impossible choice.
Deford’s richly detailed, page-turning tale takes you deep into America’s game. From the dugouts to the tabloid scandals, from the lights of the field to the glare of the media, The Entitled is the great novel of baseball’s modern era.
Summer is a great time to catch up on that reading that you’ve been meaning to do without feeling guilty that there’s no time. For many of us, e-readers have saved the day; we can pack a boatload of books onto one small device. Right now I’m reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a re-read for me since I first read it in college. This time, I actually had to put it down; the story so descriptive and tragic, the character development spot-on. It gave me the chills. If you’ve not read the story about the Kansas slayings, brace yourself.
Have you re-read any books lately? What favorites would you always go back to? The July issue of The Writer Magazine says this about re-reading a favorite or a classic: “Only when we go back to it, days or years or decades later, do we discover its hidden charms.”
I’ve only had a few recommendations this month, and always welcome your suggestions on any great books you may have come across. Now, I don’t want to be your dumping ground for every book you’ve read. I mean, we all have enough books, right? It’s easy for us to plow through books and just pass them on to our friends and family; I’m interested in the ones that really inspired, made an impact, would really make it on your list of Top 100 books. As hard as it is for me to give away books to make room for more, I did some shelf-cleaning a few weeks back and asked myself the question every time I deliberated keeping a certain book: “Would I want to give this book to someone, or would I want to recommend this book to someone?” There’s a difference, you know. Don’t we all just feel a little more special when someone knows us enough to say, “I have the perfect book for you to read.” What’s your perfect book?
This week’s Free Fridays selection is the first book in Lory S. Kaufman’s inventive Verona Trilogy, The Lens and the Looker.
It’s the 24th century, and humans, with the help of artificial intelligences (A.I.s) have finally created the perfect society. To make equally perfect citizens for this world, the elders have created History Camps: full-sized recreations of cities from Earth’s distant pasts. Here teens live the way their ancestors did, doing the same dirty jobs and experiencing the same degradations. History Camps teach youths not to repeat the mistakes that almost caused the planet to die. But not everything goes to plan.
Fans of speculative adventure, like The Hunger Games and The Giver, will love The Lens and the Looker.
Continue the Verona Trilogy adventure with The Bronze and the Brimstone, and keep your eyes peeled for the third book, coming sometime this fall …
For some of us business owners or writers trying to promote a project, we have information coming at us at 1,000 miles an hour. What do we do when it all gets to be too much? It’s easy to just keep plugging away on the treadmill until we completely wear ourselves out, which, in the end we know isn’t the best course of action. Sometimes it takes just a change-up to put everything in perspective. Here are my tips for recharging those batteries.
Take a breather. Right now, I’m working from a location away from my office. It’s in a community where the views are vast and any type of city sound is almost non-existent. Just being in a different location gives me the ability to “step back and away” literally because I am away from where I normally work. I have a writer friend who does much of her writing at the mall; it’s where she can find inspiration for characters and takes her away from the demands of an active household, even if temporary.
Never stop learning. To some of us, this might just seem like more work, but it’s often true that learning something new whether it be about business, writing or a favorite hobby, the challenge of a concept not previously explored keeps us on our toes, and motivates us to keep going.
Enlist some help or ask for some flexibility. No one wants to say no to commitments we’ve made to clients and friends. Sometimes, though, all it takes is asking for just a little more time on a project. The few times where I’ve had to tell someone that I’ve double-booked, or underestimated how long it would take me to complete a project, I have found my clients to be much more receptive about my honesty than my own self-imposed stress to get it done. If that’s absolutely not possible, maybe outsourcing a part of the project will let you get ahead in other areas.
What about you? What are the best tips you have for recharging those batteries when it gets to be too much?
This past summer, some of you read my “Building a Better Business While Building a Better Bod” blog. In it, I paralleled ways to build my business while motivating myself to exercise and eat better. Would making myself FEEL better actually have an impact on my business? Turns out, it did (for the most part); at least during the time I was tracking my results. In that time, I put myself out there, tried some new things, overcame a few fears and felt pretty good, in general.
However, I also wrote a confession that, while my initial intentions were good, some things don’t always go as planned. Does this sound familiar? Schedules don’t always mesh. Interruptions will always occur. And life just happens, preventing a planned day to become a completely different event. Some days it’s easier to “pick up right where you left off” and other days it’s like, “Why did I even try?” Either way, it’s okay. (It took me a long time to realize that!) It doesn’t hurt to give yourself permission to be human every once in a while.
I’m not very patient. Like many of you, I want results now. I refuse to understand why things can’t be done more quickly. As a result, I do either one of two things: (1) become completely frustrated that it’s not getting done quickly; or (2) abandon the effort altogether!
With so many changes that have occurred for our family over the past six months ( all good), I am realizing that just because something can’t be done quickly doesn’t mean that it won’t be done at all. In work and in life. And, while a marketing calendar doesn’t help with all of life’s challenges, it does do an effective job at planning my work day in my home office.
I especially like Marketing-Mentor’s new downloadable calendar that plunks right into your existing online calendar so you can sync what you have scheduled for real life with what you have scheduled for work. Now, I have a much more effective schedule for my work, and I don’t beat myself up if some of my tasks can’t be done that day. Sometimes we just run out of time. In those cases, I just drag and drop that task to the next day, and make time for something else. How easy is that?
Over the weekend, I decided I would venture into some new areas with my business and with my fitness routine. Come Monday (today), time to make it happen.
For fitness I decided to try Zumba Dance – the class is on Tuesday / Thursday, so stay tuned to find out more when I blog about Day 9. This takes some major “psyching-up” — remember the whole swimming thing?? For business, I decided to repurpose some of this content into a profitable product.
Since Zumba isn’t scheduled for today (but I did make the point to plan for it), let’s talk business and how I’ll repurpose these posts, and how you can repurpose your posts also.
The easiest and most obvious plan is to put all the posts into a document, do some editing and make the information available as a downloadable e-book. Snippets of my revelations along the way can easily be turned into tweets and mini-posts. And, by combining a few posts here and there, a batch of articles can be crafted. These repurposing ideas will take some time, but that’s what this journey of discovery is all about.
(Now, even if you’re not interested in the business part of all this, you can still journal your experiences along the way and share with me what you are learning as we go along.)
Since Mondays are one of my “jog” days, I stuck with the plan. I’d really like to be more of a runner — some days are better than others! Today, I listened to some more motivational audios on my MP3. (I love learning while I’m exercising – is there a better way to time manage?!) Even though it’s comforting (and tempting) to use the same route when walking or running, this adventure is all about shaking it up and doing things differently. What’s that common saying? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Hello! I changed my route and discovered some new scenery in my neighborhood, which gave me different milestones to gauge my distance, and fresh perspectives on my thinking. As long as I keep moving and keep tracking my progress I don’t see how I can fail in this little project of mine. Any feedback and tips that you’re implementing to change up your routine?
Building a Better Business While Building a Better Bod!
Day 5: Prepping and Planning to Stay on Course
With the weekend coming up, I always strive to finish what’s on my desk so I don’t have anything hanging over my head in the next few days. It’s just much nicer to come into the office on Monday morning with a clear head and a clear desk. I’ve been keeping that discipline in mind lately and, coincidentally, I’m sleeping much better! Just digging in and “getting it done” will help you, too, feel like you don’t have much to worry about during your down time. I read this somewhere, and I love it… “if we work as hard every day as we do the day before we’re going on vacation…” you get it!
For my a.m. exercise, I did a little walk/jog; the weather was SO windy it was a struggle to move forward. Here’s another revelation: when things don’t always go as planned, just “keep moving forward” and be happy that you did SOMETHING, instead of nothing at all. Overall, five days in, I’m feeling little lighter and looking forward to the weekend. Which means… planning ahead in this area also.
With a few upcoming celebrations this weekend, I want to make sure I make it a priority to “eat healthy first thing in the morning.” When you start out healthy, it sets the mind for keeping it in check, or at least you can say, “Well, I did eat a healthy breakfast!” One of my go-to plans is to limit my carbs. I’ve found that if I limit carbs when I’m going out to dinner or when I’m on vacation, I feel more in control. You never know what’s in that breadbasket, or that pasta. So, I go for a burger without the bun, a few less chips than normal (I LOVE CHIPS!) and protein in between to keep me full. Just knowing that I have to be accountable will (hopefully) do the trick. Check in with me later to find out!
Building a Better Business by Building a Better Body!
Day 1
“If you don’t take care of yourself first, you can’t take care of those people and things that matter the most to you.” I don’t think that’s an exact quote, and I’m not sure who said it, but I like it. So, today I decided to put fitness first and hope that the rest of my business life will fall into place. As an added motivator, I’m attending a wedding in 30 days – here’s my test to see if I can shed a few pounds, grow my business, and in general, keep my commitment to myself.
This morning, in honor of my friends who just completed the San Diego Rock and Roll ½ Marathon yesterday, I donned my running shoes and took off for a huff-and-puff jog/walk combo in my neighborhood before the sun laid out its plan to heat the day. It was a little balmy and humid, but I persisted, doing extra hills and listening to some business audios on my ipod. : ) I was able to clear my head and plan my day while taking in some extra motivation through my audio. I came back to my office feeling refreshed and ready to charge ahead with some new Ideas and a renewed feeling of fitness.
Food wise… coffee and a protein shake. So far, so good. It’s the after hours and mid-day snack attacks that are primarily to blame for my not achieving any pound-shed. Let’s see if this morning’s turn of events make a difference. Any suggestions for sticking with this plan?
Tomorrow… weights and swimming – how will that tie in with my business growth? Check in tomorrow to find out.
I blasted through a few business reads last week, including the 
the fact that the cover is adorable, turns out I learned more about snails than I ever thought I would — for instance, a teensy, tiny snail has… oh… 2500 teeth. No kidding. The storyteller is a woman who was bedridden with a form of fibromyalgia, reducing her to constant bed rest over many years; during this time, she observes the antics of the creatures in her terrarium. Interesting… intriguing… a quick read, but not fast paced and not for everyone. I wouldn’t throw it out. But I might adopt a snail.
Versatility: The Blog 