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Writing YEAH! 10 WHOLE NEW Reasons to Get Jazzed About Writing

September 6, 2006 by Liz

Writing in Times of Cabin Fever

Power Writing Series Logo

Artists, designers, painters, woodworkers, crafters . . . all of us who put our hands in our heads . . .

First we learn the habits and tools of what we do.
Then we take on the values they represent.

The real tools of writing are thoughts and ideas.
The real values are the relationships we make with them.
–ME Strauss

We call the time cabin fever. It’s the end of Chicago winter — no sun, not much sunshine in people. Everyone’s tired of being cooped up. One dismal Sunday last March, I wrote Writing–Ugh! 10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing.

Jazz helps when you’ve got cabin fever.

Then it was over. The sun finally came, and we wrote. We wrote through spring tulips, young love, and baseball season. We wrote through summer vacations, the World Cup, and fireworks. We got into some serious writing.

Like everyone who’s been busy writing, I didn’t stop to notice much. Until today, now I’m jazzed all over again!

YEAH! Now I’ve got . . .

10 WHOLE NEW Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

The original 10 reason still hold fast. Writing is a phenomenal tool. What I’ve discovered are new reasons are about how writing has made a difference in our lives.

Here’s what I see and why I’m jazzed all over again.

    1. Writing has given us a place we can meet. We talk about writing — in public now. Think back a few months, a few years, talking about writing was something that got left behind in school and in writers’ groups, or it was the private venue of folks who worked in intellectual property. Now it’s become the conversation of regular people.

    2. Writing has led us to read more. In order to write, we read. Many of us read more than we ever did before. We read to find out what folks write about. We read to find ideas. We read to find out our own thoughts. We read more than we would if we didn’t write.

    3. Writing leads us to read like writers. “If it’s in print, it must be true.” Remember that? Writing takes the shine off the coin and the glamour off the print. We’re not so quick to be taken in by words that “look” good. We’re separating fact from opinion more quickly and more accurately, and letting folks know when they get mixed up about them.

    4. Writing has brought more of us to care about how we write. Good enough isn’t the standard any more. What once was a “have to” has become a “want to.” We’re learning to write for ourselves and our readers, not for our job roles and our teachers’ approval.

    5. Wrting is making us better communicators. People talk back and push ideas forward. We’re having conversations we never would have had were we not writing. Each communication offers a secret something new that adds to what we already know about writing and people.

    6. Writing builds confidence and expertise. Every piece we write is just that much better than the last — over time it shows. Go back and look. Have you stopped to see how much better your writing is since you started? . . . how much more you know? Other folks have. That’s why they read what you write.

    7. Writing allows us to think more deeply — a crucial skill. People don’t spend time typing “small talk.” Only weather folks type about the weather, and when they do, they’re not having casual conversation. We organize our thoughts before we publish them. We consider the world differently in search of ideas and points of view to write about. We think about the folks who will read what we write. We no longer think on the surface of ideas. We’re learning to push past sound-bytes and infosnacks, so that readers have something to respond to.

    8. Writing can make us better listeners and better people. We’re finding out people say the same things in different ways. Writing is the best way to learn that different doesn’t mean wrong, and letting go is the first step in learning. Sometimes folks send our message back in entirely new ways — they hear something valuable, but not what we said. We learn to listen to them and to ourselves as well.

    9. Writing is contagious, builds relationships, and changes lives. Writing great content still means search engine ranking and link popularity. It also means people — real human beings. People come who take an interest in the writer. Writing begets writing. Conversations lead to conversations. Relationships grow between like minds, and people meet. How many folks have you written to in the last week? How many of those people will you meet in your life? How many folks have you met that you trust?

    10. Writing can break down walls and build communities. Corporations are finding that customers write. Big companies are taking down their brick walls to listen and starting to write back to us. Walls are falling down all over the Internet. Communities are replacing them. There were 456 comments from people across the world who were talking to each other about their favorite neighborhood. Enough said.

You might find other ways on the Internet to communicate — podcasting, video — but they’re not the same.

Writing is interactive, individual and social, makes a person think first and filter out thoughts that don’t matter. What I realized today is the greatest way that writing is changing us.

We’re becoming literate people who know more about ourselves, the world, and each other.

Now . . . . I’m even more jazzed about writing than I was last March.

Can you blame me?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Blog Basics, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog_promotion, business, personal-branding, power_writing_for_everyone, promotion, survival_kit, writer's_block

A Page for New Bloggers

April 20, 2006 by Liz

New Addition

Customer Think Logo

There’s a new addition to the Successful Blog family.

No, it’s not a little baby blog . . . it’s a new page in the sidebar called New Blogger page. I’ve cleverly named it that because it’s intended for those who are new to blogging. Tricky, don’t you think?

The new page has a short description of Successful Blog and links to the key posts and series bloggers getting started would want to access first.

The rest of you can feel safe. I didn’t name names about who misbehaves. I figured new bloggers will find that part out soon enough. . . . Possibly in the comments to this very post. 🙂

If you don’t know whether you’re a new blogger, please email me at lizsun2@gmail.com. I’ll do my best to help you figure it out.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Business Life, Community, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Community, New_Blogger_Page, new_bloggers, survival_kit

MUST HAVE: Content Theft Series

April 18, 2006 by Liz

This is more than a GREAT FIND. It’s a MUST HAVE. It’s going straight into the survival kit. Lorelle from WordPress has put together an amazing series of documents replete with facts on copyright and intellectual property that every blogger should have at his or her fingertips.

Great Find: What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content by Lorrell at WordPress
Type of Article: series on content theft
Permalink: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/
Target Audience: Anyone who puts content on the Internet

Content: Lorrell at WordPress, one of my personal heroes and a highly respected web journalist, did extensive research to pull together a series of three documents on what to do when you find yourself in the unhappy situation of having your content stolen, hijacked from your blog or website. The series goes deep with uncountable links and resources. Her advice is straightforward and crystal clear. The series covers the topic completely. I’ll let her describe it.

This is the first of three articles. This article covers tips, information and resources to help you deal with copyright infringement, the theft of your blog or website content. The second article includes helpful links and resources for finding stolen content and copyright infringements. The last article in the series examines the growing trends in content theft such as image hotlinking, website hijacking, and abusive use of feeds to replace original content without permission, as well as other copyright infringements on the rise.

Lorrell takes you through each part with step-by-step advice and sends you to the experts for more information. I’ve taken classes on copyright that didn’t cover the subject nearly this well.

Do yourself and your content the favor of checking this out. Click the screenshot to get started.

What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content?

Part 2: Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements

Part 3: The Growing Trends in Content Theft

I need to write a poem to Lorrell at WordPress like I did for Improbulus.

Some of you must have had experience with content theft already. What happened? What did you do about it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, content_theft, copyright, image_hotlinking, Lorrell_at_WordPress, survival_kit, website_hijacking

Writing Ugh! 10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

March 26, 2006 by Liz

Writing Is Easy When It’s Over

Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

—Gene Fowler, Screenwriter, Director, Author

Let’s face it. Everyone can think of things we’d rather do than write. Writing is work, even when it comes easily. We have to get the words down in the right order. We have to check that they’re all there and spelled correctly. We have to make sure that they make sense to people who aren’t us. Those are a lot of things to do when we might be doing something more fun, such as having a life.

Why do I write?

I just can’t let opportunities fly right by me.

10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

Why do folks write? They know that words have power. That a word well-placed and well-written can bring visibility and attention to them, their business and their brand. They know that writing is an incredible tool that reaches farther than other forms of conversation do. Even video, well-done, is written first.

We write because writing is power. Here are 10 reasons to get jazzed about writing.

1. In today’s universe, writing is your voice. Not to write is close to having laryngitis. The ability to write is critical. You learn it same way you learn to play the guitar–by practice. If you want to communicate when the spotlight falls your way, you need to be writing “solos” now.

2. Writing can reach an unlimited audience. More people can access what you have to say when they can read it. Your audience can read what you write on their own terms, in their own time frame.

3. Writing allows you to think before you speak. One beauty of writing is that you can edit before people hear what you say. The uhs and ums, the wild digressions, and off-base thinking can stay a secret between you and your delete key. You end up looking smarter, and your audience ends up thinking you are too. That’s power.

4. Writing lasts to become an asset. The words you craft today will still be available to you again and again. One investment pays you back with many returns. You can repurpose your writing to fit new situations. You can make it last to serve you and your business as long as you need it to.

5. Writing is free promotion. Offer quality, relevant content to an audience who needs it, and they’ll be coming back to see you again. Your name, your business, and your brand will gain a following from the writing that you did.

6. Writing increases the visibility of your brand. Writing great content means search engine ranking and link popularity. Whether you’re looking for a new job or promoting your business, high visibility is currency in the knowledge universe. Employers and clients are using search engines to check out relationships. You do it. Don’t you?

7. Writing lets people know you as an individual. You become the one and only you. If I never wrote a word on this blog, how would you know who I am? Need I go on?

8. Writing forces you to think through ideas. When you leave your ideas in your head, it’s easy to think you know them inside out. Often after writing something, we know it better than before we started.

9. Writing lets you define the big idea of your brand. Whatever subject you write about will soon become what you are thought of as an expert on.

10. Writing is networking with content. Writing opens doors. People read and answer back. All people tend to see others who think like they do as being smart. Some of those readers will become friends and business contacts.

I can think of so many reasons to write, and I get jazzed about the doors that each piece I write might be opening. Now as I finish this post, I have one more page in my archives. It’s like one more dollar in my promotional bank account. I can repurpose it and use it again and again. People can read it whenever they want to find out more about who I am.

Funny . . . . I’m even more jazzed about writing now, than I was when I started this post.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: bc, blog_promotion, business, drops_of_blood_form_on_your_forehead, increasing_readership, personal-branding, power_writing_for_everyone, promotion, survival_kit, writer's_block

Great Find: 13 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

March 20, 2006 by Liz

It seems that great minds are beating my mind to places I keep planning to go. I had thoughts on doing a post on parts that seem to be missing from blogs that I visit. Just as I’m getting ready to write that reminder post, SOB John P. Thomas sent me a link to this post he wrote.

Great Find: Common Weblogging Mistakes by John P. Thomas
Type of article: Blogging basics–mistakes and missed opportunities
Permalink: http://www.johntp.com/2006/03/19/common-weblogging-mistakes/
Target Audience: Bloggers setting up their first blog

Content: John uses 13 bullet points to list the most common mistakes folks make in setting up their first blog. He discusses two types of problems–leaving out important parts of a reader-friendly blog and basic practices that work to the blog owner’s advantage, things that first-time bloggers might not know. His writing is crisp, clear, and easy to follow. I recommend John’s post for any new blogger. To check it out, click this screenshot.

Common Webloggin Mistakes Screenshot

Thanks, John, for sharing your work with us.
–Me “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog_basics, blog_mistakes, blog_promotion, john_P_Thomas, survival_kit, weblogging_mistakes

Great Find: How to Create an RSS Feed

March 17, 2006 by Liz

I didn’t find this Mark Wade at the R Web Designs blog did, and he has a fine write up on it. Click Mark’s logo R Web Designs logo to read his analysis and to see his fabulous blog.

Great Find: The Robin Good’s How to Create a RSS Feed from Any Web Page
Type of article: Blogging basics how-to article
Permalink:http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/03/09/how_to_create_a_rss.htm

Target Audience:All web users who want to know more about RSS feeds
Content: Robin Good points out that at some moment in the future you might want to follow the updating of a web page that doesn’t have an RSS feed.He answers the question, Can you create one? with a resounding YES!. Click Robin’s logo to access the article.

Robin Good Logo

Thank you, Mark for finding this page. Thank you, Robin for writing it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, blog_basics, blog_promotion, Mark_Wade, R_Web_Designs, Robin_Good, RSS_feeds, survival_kit

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