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August 18, 2006

A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 2:11 pm

Intro

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

That darn imp on my shoulder, the one who got me labeled uncool all through high school is still whispering, talking, shouting really. Now he’s nagging. Go on do it. It’s your blog. You know you want to. It will be more fun than another list. Give folks the value added. Follow your own advice. Put the YOU in what you write.

So here is a story for a Friday written to entertain, amaze, and prove to you that ideas truly are everywhere. [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together.]

Lizzie Leaves Home

Once upon a time, a little girl looked back upon her life and saw that it was filled with memories of Ducky Moments in time. Asking herself, “Where is my Ovary?” practicing How to be Charming, making a List of Hello Kitty Vehicles, and the Four most Influential British Prime Ministers, she found that these things did not fulfill her. Not even making a shrine to the Top 10 Lindsay Lohan Oops Moments could bring her up. She left like she was Falling from the Stairway to Heaven.

Her name was Listless Lizzie. She worked with Darren, the Great Writing Project Guy..

Armed only with 14 Amazing Chuck Norris Facts, she felt she had more than Seven signs that you should move to France - or stay at home.

If only Listless Lizzie had also known Seven Things Not to Do on a Plane.

But no, she knew of lists and nothing more.So she packed her lists:.

Just Visiting: Ten Tips for Being an Unforgettable Houseguest We already knew she was unforgettable.

Amusement Park Rules Rules? She thought those were for other people and listless folks don’t feel amused.

Supid Things You Can Do She brought this because she gets bored easily.

Five Ways to Make Yourself Miserable She heard misery loved company. Perhaps she’d find a friend who’d read this.

Some of the Worst Filler Songs of All Time If push came to shove she might choose death by music.

Why Starting Over is a A Good Thing Because under all, she was an optimist.

So call her Dorothy and send her to OZ , , , she’s got links to go before she gets to go home.

These and a taxi got her to the airport.

Listless Lizzie and Her Lists in Transit

She managed to make through security without many questions though she got some looks the lists she chose to carryon. In fact, young Lizzie was asked to hand over Three Reasons Why I don’t Give Good Comment, the Top Ten Janeane Garofalo Mistakes, Strategies for online reputation monitoring, and the 5 Most Trivial “How to” Searches in Search Engine. Those were considered to be international security risks. So they were kept in the airport from which she was leaving.

As she settled into her seat, the little girl, took out lists she hoped would help her when she landed before she started life as a money mogul. First she read Make People Always Remember You and How I am Going to Get What I Want. Then as the journey wore on she got distracted by what she thought of as The Top Ten Traumas of My Childhood, which morphed into 10 Things I’d Tell My Younger Self and that turned in 9 Weird Words that Amuse Me.

Just then a flight attendent walking by, stopped to ask whether she had seen the new list 5 Ways to get back in your skinny Jeans.

To which our leading lady replied, “Sugar, I never outgrew them.” Then she flashed him a big blue-eyed girlfriend grin, while handing him The Top 10 of Top 10’s, 6 Steps to becoming a techie bride, Top 5 Look-a-Likes, and How to be a Movie Star and/or Cult Leader. All of those years in pubishing had made her a quick judge of what was perfect for any reader. He was like a little boy on his birthday morning.

And she went back to reading her lists for France.

France vc Allemagne: les 6 points forts de chaque pays/the 6 key points for each country She skimmed this one.

10 Ways to Improve Your Golf Game She read this one for a friend.

Top 10 Wine Myths She wanted to know if she’d heard any of them.

Getting Better with Age She had thought this was also about the wine.

Then she settled back to read “10 Rules to Live By.” She knew she would be looking for new neighbors maybe that list would help.

Now, if only she could find a list or two about making money. . .

MORE ON THAT IN CHAPTER 2————————————coming soon

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related Articles
301 Links in Story — Chapter 2 Lizzie Meets Fred

The Problem with Writing . . . 25 Things to Know BEFORE You Write for a Living
My Blogging Goal

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60 Comments to “A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1”

  1. August 18th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
    Rico said

    Hi Liz,

    It’s also intriguing to see that a life can be chronicled through a series of links. Now I see where your varied knowledge comes from! :D

  2. August 18th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Rico,
    It’s fun to tell stories. The challenge here is to tell a story that fits this weird conglomeration of links. I had to do some real planning to get this one going. Building the links alone takes forever!

  3. August 18th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
    Shadows Edge said

    Liz, this is priceless! :D Looks like we’ll be linking to yet another of your posts! ;)

  4. August 18th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
    Rick said

    A tour de force, Liz! :-)

    Thank you. I can’t wait for the rest (though I’ll have to).

  5. August 18th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
    MamaDuck said

    WOW!! I love it, how creative!!

  6. August 18th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
    baggage said

    Ok that was hilarious. Thank you for that!!

  7. August 18th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
    Yvonne said

    Thanks for the smile in this early morning, Liz :)

  8. August 18th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
    vaspers the grate said

    3 Reasons Why Lists Backfire:

    (1) too long a list (583 ways to improve your sidebar)

    (two) not enlightening, poorly conceived, bad writing

    (III) list topic not relevant, original, or credible (7 Reasons Why Air is Unnecessary, 4 Painful Aspects of Full Head Transplants, 12 New Users for Soiled Potholders, 7 Most Effective Starve Yourself to Death with Water and Dirt Diet Systems)

  9. August 18th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mama,
    I’ve only gotten started. This is work you know! :)

  10. August 18th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rick,
    I’m about to start Chapter 2 this minute. You won’t have to wait too long. I promise!

  11. August 18th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Thank You Shadows Edge.
    I just couldn’t responde with yet another list. I wanted to give tribute to all of you!

  12. August 18th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
    ME Strauss said

    baggage,
    I’m delighted you’re enjoying. I hope you like what comes next as much. :)

  13. August 18th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yvonne,
    It happened to come at a time when I’d finishe my work and I had the time. I couldn’t help myself. Your smile in the morning is making it worth it.

  14. August 18th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Vaspers,
    I love your III list of why lists are irrelevant. I think you should make a list of them and turn that into a post. I’m still laughing at all of them :)

  15. August 18th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
    Joe said

    Hey Liz,

    How do you do it?

    I did an actual “list” of relevant work at home links (54) for my follow up post and just getting them together took a good amount of time.

    Then came all the compiling, etc before I thought about publishing, that took HOURS.

    Then you go write a story, above an beyond what I did?

  16. August 18th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Joe,
    I AM and alien. :)

  17. August 18th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
    Caryn said

    What! What a fun, creative idea! I think you definitely met your goal. :-)

  18. August 18th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
    Joe said

    Liz, you are “My Favorite Martian” ;-)

  19. August 18th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks Caryn,
    I’ve still got a long way to go to finish the story. :)

  20. August 18th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Aw thanks, Joe!

  21. August 18th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
    Musing said

    What a fun way to share links! Thanks for mentioning mine.

    Had to chuckle, though, when I learned my post was an international risk. This is how threatening I am in real life: I went thru airport security once with a friend. When he made the machine beep they jerked him to the side and scanned every inch of him. When I walked thru it beeped, too, but they took one look at me, waved me on and said, “Must be a hair barrette or something.”

  22. August 18th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Musing!
    Welcome! Thanks for joining in the fun by sharing your story of international espionage. I’m working on Chapter 2 at this very minute. The responsse to Chapter 1 has been very inspiring.

    Hair barette . . .sure. :)

    Liz

  23. August 18th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
    katiebird said

    Bravo!! This is brilliant!

  24. August 18th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Katie,
    Glad you’re enjoying it. I’m just finishing Chapter 2. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun to see where it’s taking me. :)

  25. August 18th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
    vaspers the grate said

    I don’t post no comments at no blogs unless I can think of something completely off the wall and bizarre and disturbing to say.

    Or something funny.

    Blogs are slow chat rooms.

  26. August 18th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Blogs are slow chat rooms, Vaspers. With a posting at the top. :)

    You seem to do a great job at finding the great comment to post. :)

  27. August 19th, 2006 at 8:02 am
    Rico said

    I’ve still got a long way to go to finish the story.

  28. August 19th, 2006 at 8:10 am
    ME Strauss said

    I sure do, Rico. I sure do. :) Chapter 2 in a few minutes.

  29. August 19th, 2006 at 8:22 am
    Rico said

    Whoops, the phrase “I sure hope you do” was supposed to be below. Sorry. :D

  30. August 19th, 2006 at 8:24 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rico,
    I’m looking it over right now!

  31. August 19th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
    WAHM Connections - WAHM Resources » Lists - Mindboggling Story of Lists said

    […] Liz Strauss took this list thing of Problogger’s Darren Rowse very seriously… then put her own indelible touch to this blogging project. Creating a cool story of a chick name Lizzie, the links take on a life of their own. This is a must read - here is part one and two… subscribe to make sure you’re around for the rest of the story of links. […]

  32. August 20th, 2006 at 6:35 am
    Ray Dotson said

    Liz, this is absolutely incredible. I love it! And thanks for the link!

  33. August 20th, 2006 at 6:37 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Ray!
    Welcome. I hope you’ll hang in for the whole story. It’s really turning out to be quite something. 301 links is more than I thought. :)

  34. August 20th, 2006 at 7:13 am
    Speedlinking - 21 August 2006 said

    […] Liz has taken the links from our group writing project and is making a story out of it (definitely in the ‘fun’ box). […]

  35. August 20th, 2006 at 8:41 am
    Doug Karr said

    I did a test of using a 101 list and haven’t seen the benefits that some bloggers speak about:
    http://www.douglaskarr.com/2006/08/16/101-questions/

    I suppose that one of the benefits of lists is that you are giving someone instruction on concise bullets with an expectation of how many steps it takes to complete. For our busy world, sometimes that’s just what we need.

    I’ve got a couple lists (outside the 101) that are simple check-off lists for bloggers or Wordpress users. I think folks have liked them because they are easy to remember, easy to follow, and simple.

    I would love for you to follow up with some information on what the impact of this post was with respect to organic search results.

    Very creative. Thanks!
    Doug

  36. August 20th, 2006 at 8:49 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Doug,
    I have quite a few checklists that are of the nature you describe and I use them myself. I think that people find them useful and they’re very popular on the blog. They also get good Google traffic.

    I’ve never taken seriously the 101 thing, because I could never come up with a serious situation in which as a customer or a marketer that I would actually search in that fashion, nor could I ever find a person who said they would either.

    I wonder if you have misunderstood the purpose of this post. It is solely here to do three things:
    1. to entertain my readers
    2. to give links to all who participated in Darren’s writing project.
    3. to challenge myself to see whether I could make even reasonably coherent fiction from such a wildly random list of lists, i.e. just for fun.

    I had no real belief that anyone would ever search for this.

    If folks do, I’m happy to tell you what they search for that gets them here. :)

    smiles,
    Liz

  37. August 20th, 2006 at 9:43 am
    John T P said

    Liz, all I can say is this is wonderful. I had a good time reading your story :-)

    I am excited to see how you will fit my list in your wonderful story :-)

  38. August 20th, 2006 at 10:04 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi John,
    Thank you for your support. I really need it at this point. :)

    Lizzie is a hard one to keep in one place for very long and these lists are quite the challenge to get into a story form.

    Who would’ve guessed this would be how I’d be spending my weekend?

    PS. I’m looking forward to finding out how I’ll fit your list and all of the others into the story too! :)

  39. August 21st, 2006 at 3:19 pm
    Ruth said

    Wow Liz, what a job you did here. Congrats.
    I was even lucky enough to get a website up in the 301 listing.

    Now, would it be etiquitted :)… for me to post these 301 links on my site? It’s a fairly new site,

    Ruth,

  40. August 21st, 2006 at 4:04 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Ruth,
    Thank you. The story is not even half over. So there’s not nearly 301 links there — yet. :)

    I’m not sure what you’re asking in your question. Email me at lizsun 2 at gmail dot com.

  41. August 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm
    Ruth said

    Hi Liz,
    Thanks for your input and help. I truly do appreciate it…especially coming from you.

    Ruth

  42. August 21st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Ruth,
    I’m happy to help anytime. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any more questions.

  43. August 22nd, 2006 at 9:02 pm
    Trevor Hampel » 301 lists become a story said

    […] Liz Strauss on her Successful Blog has started writing a story called A List Becomes 301 Links in Story . So far she has published 4 chapters. […]

  44. August 23rd, 2006 at 8:36 pm
    chartreuse (BETA) » Blog Archive » The Late Wednesday But Really For Thursday Morning Remix (’On Purpose’ Edition) said

    […] This Paris Hilton story inadvertently got me thinking about this story. Maybe it was the part about restaurants. […]

  45. August 26th, 2006 at 11:46 am
    And You Retire » 301 Reasons to Read Lists said

    […] Well, I’ve been enjoying Liz Strauss’s version of a summary of all the lists .. (and a few around the ‘net surfing around the sites themselves) .. but Darren Rowse finally had them sorted out into nice and neat categories and finally made this into an “ORDERED LIST” (pun). Here are the categories: […]

  46. September 2nd, 2006 at 6:38 am
    freshblogger.com » Blog Archive » Blogging List Turned into a Story said

    […] I couldn’t resist linking to this one. Liz at Successful Blog has written a story featuring posts from Darren’s Group List Writing Project. This is both creative and funny and well worth taking the time to read. Check it out. […]

  47. September 15th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in Story — Chapter 2 Lizzie Meets Fred said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  48. September 15th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 3 Lizzie Reaches the Paris Hilton said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  49. September 15th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 5 Lizzie, Americans, and French Bread said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  50. September 15th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 6 Intrigue and Romance said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  51. September 15th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 7 Lizzie, Rue Dante, and Who Hal Is said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  52. September 15th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 8 Lizzie, Amanda, Arianna, David, and Jeremy said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  53. September 15th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 9 The Lists of 10 and the CanCan said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  54. September 15th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
    Successful Blog - 301 Links in a Story — Chapter 10 The Lost 18 Hours, The Prep, and the Final Round said

    […] [For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ] […]

  55. August 13th, 2007 at 10:08 am
    Writing Challenge: Joanna’s Thematic Link Post! - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    […] Go on, make my life miserable . . . the more who participate, the more work I’ll have to do. Rally a crowd. I’m up for it now. Nothing can be as hard as the 10 Chapter saga of A List Becomes 301 Links in Story. […]

  56. August 24th, 2007 at 8:43 am
    The Famous Joanna Thematic Link Posts Back to Challenge Me! - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    […] Now my challenge, should decide I wish to keep blogging here, is to do as I promised — write a story post linking all of these thematic link posts together in the tradition of 301 Link Posts in a Story. […]

  57. August 30th, 2007 at 10:02 am
    Liz’s Thematic Links Story: Lorelle’s Blogging Birthday Quest - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    […] Related A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 […]

  58. August 30th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
    GP said

    count on our liz to once again prove, we’re all connected…

    gp in montana

  59. August 30th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Oh GP!
    I’m a master at pointing out the obvious!! :)

  60. September 12th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
    Blog Libs Stories — Aren’t You Brilliant?!! - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    […] Related Liz’s Thematic Links Story: Lorelle’s Blogging Birthday Quest A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 […]

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