SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

How to keep writing even when your brain is mush, your fingers are numb, and your eyes are bleary…me, right now. Two cups of coffee later… it’s still me.

You Threw Off My Groove

It’s been a dead couple of weeks, inspirationally speaking. Do you know what I mean? I’m used to the day or so like that every now and then, but I can usually get excited about blogging by stopping to plan, getting some titles and outlines and series ideas together. Once I have a page or two of notes, I’m ready to write again.

Usually. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh yeah.

Tuesday. 6:30 a.m. I'm sitting at Bread Co in Eureka, drinking coffee I didn't make, eating a chocolate pastry (of this variety), checking email, writing... The wi-fi is zipping along and I just got a response from a good blogging job Read the rest of this entry »

{from 14 April 2009} Last night we had a date night at the Park Board meeting... and took Zeke along, just for good measure. The ladies did the grandmotherly ooh-aah, the men cleared their throats, and we got down to business. Park business.

I did some work with Mara and Robbie yesterday, trying to deal with the whining and slow obedience. My mom's voice rings in my ears: "Late obedience is disobedience." Times like these... I wish I could call her and do my own whining, though I know she would tell me, in her own gentle Mom way, to get off my duffer and get to work so my children know how to obey. (I've never used the term duffer before and I bet it doesn't mean what I just used it to mean.) And she would be right; that's what I need to do. Mara is already responding better, less of the whining, more of the quick obedience. She catches on and knows when she can push me and when she can't. It's my fault there's anytime that she feels like it's okay to push Mommy.

Robbie takes more repetition, partially because he is younger and partially because he is just kind of hard-headed like me. He understands, he knows the lines, he just decides that it's worth it to cross them. Eventually he will change his mind when he sees that I'm serious and that the line - whatever it is - is not moving to accomodate him. But he will test it out for a while first.

Today is Joe's day off and Zeke's one-week-old mark. I love Joe's day off.

I love being a Mom. I love these children so much, I love the challenge and joy of raising them. I love their faces and personalities and snuggles.

I love being a wife. I can't imagine life without Joe. I can barely remember life before Joe. I love laughing, learning, sharing, overcoming, dreaming with him. I love how we push each other on, inspire each other to be better, depend on each other, help and respect and cherish and adore each other. I love being his queen.

I love being the manager of this household. I love being a modern homemaker. I love the creativity required, the planning and organization, how it all calls upon me to use my resources well, to think and create and envision and do. I love the tangible results of the smallest efforts, the shine of clean windows, the stack of folded laundry, the smell of a minty clean house.

I love being a writer. I love observing myself and others, identifying problems, analyzing the cause, and finding solutions. I love telling stories. I love helping people, young moms and wives like me, succeed in their work as wife, mom, homemaker, entrepreneur, etc. I love teaching and sharing what I've learned and what has helped me succeed. I even love the feeling that I don't know enough to share or write, because it keeps me learning and fresh and hopeful through the inadequacy. I love finding freedom for myself through truth and then offering that up to others, challenging people to move past the old, helping them see what is possible.

All things are possible.

Image courtesy of aWee.

Everybody has a blog, so make yours better...

1. Produce longer content. Numbered lists, short posts with big photos, a little linking and one-sentence reviews with the embedded YouTube videos: short content. I (obviously) produce posts like this. I do lots of numbered lists here. I do quite a few shorter posts over at my other site. But I try to balance the little stuff, the shallow stuff, with some big, deep, heavy, valuable, longer content. Actual articles, with good quotations and relevant research cited, or with a logical outline and argument, development of an idea longer than one paragraph. You know. Stuff like that. Like those essays you had to write in college. Opening paragraph with thesis, main idea, supporting ideas, evidence, refutation of opposing ideas, summary, conclusion… Yikes. Seems like a lot, and sometimes it is. But if you think about it and give yourself time to do a bit of brainstorming and researching, and you’re used to popping out regular (shorter) posts, you can do longer posts as well. Just think of them as a series presented in a single post… might help.
2. Link within context. Don’t make a big deal out of your links and don’t link to irrelevant junk that you haven’t really looked over yourself. Link through the appropriate (couple of) words within the related sentence and move on. If people like what you’re writing about, are interested, and want to read more, they’ll follow. If not, being flashy and obvious isn’t going to convince them. And if visitors try a link or two and find them to be boring or broken, well, you’ll have a lot of work to convince them to try again.
3. Use professional pictures. Or at least professional-looking pictures. There are thousands available with Creative Commons Licenses, many of them taken by actual professional photographers. Some are taken by talented people who just like to take photos and let other people use them. With that great a wealth of photos around, there’s no excuse for using sloppy looking photos or graphics with your posts. And as far as using your own, that’s great if you know how to make them look decent as well. Crop the unnecessary edges, lighten or darken if needed, fix the red-eye. Don’t get too crazy happy with the effects, with one caveat: turning a not-so-great photo into black and white will not make it a better photo, but it will make lots of people think it is a better photo. Just so you know.
4. Give proper credit. For photos, for research, for data, for statistics, for opinions, for graphics, for videos, for music, for articles, for ideas. Sure, not all of that stuff is copyrighted and you could probably get away with using and not crediting more obscure items, but it would still be 1) unprofessional, 2) stupid, and 3) just wrong. So don’t do it. Give credit where credit is due.
5. Take one idea further. Instead of trying to promote fifteen ideas in one post or article, grab one idea - the one that is most exciting to you as you are writing - and just expand it. Write about it. Look at it from every angle. Give examples. Give illustrations. Draw a graph. Do some research. Brainstorm. Get deeper with one idea. By the way, since I just preached about giving proper credit, I want to come clean that this idea of taking one idea further came from a post I read several months ago. I just spent ten minutes searching for it and can’t find it… it was a guest post on a productivity blog, but that’s all I can remember except for the (well-developed, single) idea of the article. So, to the writer of that article, my apologies for lack of specific credit. If I find it, I’ll come add it.
6. Use recurring themes. You don’t have to use memes or join groups, though that’s a good way to get a recurring theme going. Come up with your own, something in keeping with the focus of your blog (you do know what that is, don’t you?). People like what’s familiar and they like knowing what to expect. If you have a great post every Monday about, um, meringue pies, then you will get a following who come to your blog simply because they know and love the Monday Meringue Pie Post.
7. Pick a side. Don’t be wishy-washy. Say what you mean, say it clearly enough that people know what you mean, and then back yourself up. Accept that there are enough people with enough diversity accessing the internet that you are guaranteed to displease someone, somewhere, on something you say. That’s okay. You don’t need to be mean, rude, disparaging, or get personal: you do need to be honest and have integrity. I’m drawn to writers who are honest even when I disagree with what they say. I just like the honesty and the willingness to put a view out there even though they know they’ll end up with lots of negative comments or questions simply because they stated their opinion strongly. I don’t like pandering. Nobody does.
8. Be professional. As mentioned above, don’t be “mean, rude, disparaging, or get personal”; it is unprofessional, impolite, and juvenile. If you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to learn how to express yourself without using profanity, personal attacks, and/or inappropriate expressions. Sure, everybody is going to differ a bit on what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and obviously the focus, content, and audience will differ from blog to blog. But you know when you’re crossing a line, and so do your readers. When your writing is emotionally fueled, free from all logic, and backed up by evidence that is personal and subjective, you’re probably deep into unprofessional territory.
9. Use a consistent format. Set your standards for your paragraph headings, image sizes, links, quotations and block quotations, and other little niceties of blog posting. Once you’ve decided on what you like, stick with it. It’s annoying when the format of posts across a single blog keeps changing, annoying enough to make me quit reading.
10. Throw in some extras. Give people good resources that you’ve found. Offer tips. Offer ideas. Offer the research sites for further investigation into the subject you’ve just posted about. Offer the sites you’ve found that present completely opposing views. Go a bit above and beyond in what you write about, how you write, and how you respond to your readers. “Extras” can be as particular and personal as you want them to be. They don’t necessarily have to be products, or freebies, though of course people like those, too. Just take what you’re doing, and then take it a little further. Do that consistently. People will come to quality.

WAHM Articles is a niche article database; I've only been a member for a week and only have two articles on the site, but I've been chosen for the weekly Author Spotlight. That's a warm fuzzy feeling.

Or you can go straight to my articles there. Thank you, Denise.

If you are a WAHM, this site is a great resource. The articles cover everything from Affiliate Marketing to Homeschooling to Love and Romance, Press Releases, and Time Management. If you are a writer specializing in WAHM topics, this is a database worth being part of. It reaches a targeted audience; if that's the same target you're after, half the work is already done.

You can read the submission guidelines, or start reading articles.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. Mark Twain

Update (Monday): 5 minutes stretching; 40 minutes cardio (walk through town with one kid in the stroller & one in the carrier).

On Writing:
It takes a certain amount of audacity to be a writer. You have to overcome the tendency toward self-degradation. Who I am that I have anything worthwhile to say? Why should people pay attention to me? Well, maybe they shouldn't, but nobody else is writing what I'm thinking. Maybe they're thinking it, too. Maybe I'm not original or wise or witty. But I'm the only one willing to put it on paper and judge what it's worth. Once that's done, once it is written, we can all disregard it as we please. But I can't disregard it until it is written.

On Saying No: (from Alexandra Stoddard's book Making Choices).

Nothing materializes without a program. ...The essence of no is to have priorities and keep them in order.

No has a negative ring to many, but if we don't look at it clearly and use it, we will lose the opportunity to discipline ourselves, to manage our own affairs.

No saves you from the dangerous myth that you're indispensable.

No is not negative; it actively leads to the positive. My own struggle to accept certain restrictions on my time, energy, and money have helped me reach my goals.

Tip: Write something today. Say no to something you normally say yes to today.

“Use now and then a little Exercise a quarter of an Hour before Meals, as to swing a Weight, or swing your Arms about with a small Weight in each Hand; to leap, or the like, for that stirs the Muscles of the Breast.” Benjamin Franklin

Update (Wednesday): 20 minutes cardio (walking in park); 5 minutes stretch/abs.

Using the opportunities you have helps you to do something that otherwise you would find excuses not to do. That is most possibly the wordiest sentence possible and says the least but I am using a really loud keyboard right now and just typing more words than necessary because I like the sound it makes. Clack clack clatter.

Okay. Let's try it again. I think what I want to say is this: You can either find a way to make do with what you have and reach your goal regardless of your circumstances, or you can make excuses and stay where you are, which is not where you want to be.

As Steven Pressfield says in his book The War of Art , "Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop." (By the by, there are 118 customer reviews at Amazon on this book. Is that normal? 118? Wow.)

Resources: Go to your local library or bookstore and check out a copy of Pressfield's book. It's a great, creative kick-in-the-pants, and though it addresses the "creative life" most directly, the principles apply to any endeavor.

If you are a graphic designer or photographer, check out TheCreativeForum.com, which is "a Web-based community for the creative professional that will allow graphic designers, art directors, commercial photographers and other commercial artists to exchange creative ideas via posting of images and work samples for discussion and critique." There you have it.

If you're a writer, read this excellent article from Write to Done - which I don't know much about, but I'm impressed with what I've seen; I think it's a good find - on establishing the daily habit of writing. (It comes from the Zen Habits blogger, Leo Babauta, so it's got to be good.)

Tip: It's more important to be diligent in the small things, everyday, than to kill yourself trying to accomplish that one big thing. The small things add up to big things. Pick something you've been slacking on (time with your spouse, exercise, calling a friend, reading, cooking a good meal) and be diligent and excellent at that small thing. There will be big results. It's just a matter of time + diligence.

Teach the wise, and they will be wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn more. Proverbs 9:9