In Appreciation

My latest addiction, this great blog is just about cutie-patootie animals. Every day, there’s a new picture to make me smile. I love it.

https://wickedaww.wordpress.com

This one is a fantastic article and I found it thanks to Winter Bayne who’s got an eye sharper than an eagle’s for this sort of thing.

Huge thumbs up to them both!

What about you? What’s your latest find or addictive blog?

P.S. If you’re into books, check out this new post by All About Romance with upcoming beauties to read!

For Authors

This is for those among you who are authors. Positive Writer has this great compilation of fantastic blogs just for you. In fact, they have the top 50 from 2016 with their top posts ready for your inquisitive click.

Here’s the link: http://positivewriter.com/top-50-writing-blogs-for-2016/

And a huge, HUGE thank you to Positive Writer for that awesome gem of a post!

Loads and Loads of News!

All kinds of excellent news in all sorts of interesting blogs! What a great post!

Just Gene'O

Registration is open. If the page displays “Coming Soon” when you visit it, use this linky link.

Registration for the Blogging A to Z April Challenge goes live sometime today.Here’s the registration page in case you want to sit and refresh it until the list appears. I plan to register this a.m., add the art to the at Sourcerer after work tonight, and do the announcement on Thursday.

The 1,000 Voices Speaking for Compassion Facebook group passed 1,000 members sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning. There’s also a WordPress blog for it now, and I have confirmed that there will be a linkup for it on Feb. 20. Not bad at all for two weeks’ worth of bloggers chattering about this on the social media.

My friend Gretchen of Drifting Through My Open Mind published an awesome guest post at Hasty Words last week. She’s also joined

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If we were having coffee…

 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my work load is about to go through the roof and I’m worried about it and I’d tell you our house hasn’t sold and that worries me more than I’d like to admit.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’m actually enjoying editing Amy’s Courage because I’ve added a new character–an adopted dog–that I simply love. My sister was teaching in Mongolia and sent me this picture of a homeless dog she was feeding. 

Her name is Lucy and she’s a stray dog trying to feed her puppies. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. So, I’ve put her in my book where I get to spoil her to my heart’s content.

I’d tell you I’m looking forward to fall. After the winter we just had, it’s insane that I can’t wait for the cold weather again. I probably have penguin DNA or something.

I’d ask you how you’re doing and what you’re reading…

* * *

If we were having coffee is a blog post feature from Just Gene’O. He’s having a linkup today here.

My usual Saturday Post: Posts I loved this Week will be here tomorrow…with a teeny, tiny surprise.

Blogging: Quality or quantity?

When I started blogging, I researched on line to find out what to do and I read that the trick to finding ‘traffic’ was to blog every day. The subject didn’t really matter. I just had to post something on a daily basis. It was all about quantity, not quality.

I’ve been blogging for a bit now but I’m still not certain about that piece of advice. Is it really about frequency of posts? If a blogger posts twice a day do they really get twice the traffic? What about three times a day? What about four? Ten? Wouldn’t there be a point when their followers would get annoyed?

And what about the topic? Does that matter at all? What if I wrote a post about elephant foot-fungus? Would my readers devour the post with glee? Or would they wonder what was wrong with my medication today and scamper off?

Joe Bunting argues for quantity in this post. He not only claims that it’s easier to blog everyday, he adds that your blog will get more ‘love from Google’ if you do.

Jeff Goins goes even further with his post “What you write about doesn’t matter as much as you think”. His position is you have to find your ‘voice’, the rest is inconsequential. Hard to argue with a guy who has as much success as he does.

On a completely different note, does anyone know if elephants even get foot fungus?

Why I love having a blog

Here are my top reasons for having a blog:

7. It helps keep me aware of what’s going on in publishing and writing. Nothing like reading other blogs to know what’s going on.

6. It helps me write better. Posts, by definition are all written–especially for me who can’t take a picture to save my life. That means practice. And that means I become a better writer. Yeey!

5. I get to shout out my two cents about anything. There’s something incredibly satisfying about shouting out my input to the world. I read about it on a blog or a post or a newspaper, chew it over and shout out my opinion on my blog.

4. I can connect with other writers or bloggers or readers. They know what this is like. They understand like few can. Their input and support is like a soothing balm that eases many pains.

3. I can help someone out. I’m just starting out as a blogger and a writer so I can’t pass on years of experience but I can warn others away from the mistakes I’ve already made and I can share what has worked for me.

2. I get followers who’ll leave a comment and/or a ‘like’. That positive feedback is amazing. It not only shuts up that nasty inner critic; it gives me an immediate way to judge how well written or how popular a post was.

1. It’s fun. Designing a header, making posts, putting pictures on line, reading other posts, it’s really, really fun.

Now, if you have a blog and are wondering about how to make it better…I can recommend this particular post. Not only is blog is highly recommended, the author runs a course on blogging that’s free. Free is my favourite price. 🙂

If, on the other hand, you don’t have a blog but are considering getting one, here‘s a great article on why writers benefit from one by Carole Jelen that might help you make up your mind.

That inner critic

That inner critic is quite the beast. It’ll take a glowing review and whisper doubt into your mind. “Maybe they were just being nice. Maybe they just wanted to give a good review to increase their blog ratings. Maybe…”

Like most writers, I too suffer from that inner critic. I’ve doubted my writing and wondered what the heck I was doing trying to complete a book, trying to compete with professionals, trying to compete with those who have editors, agents and a team of other professionals at their side.

One of the solutions for that nasty inner critic is to find intrinsic motivation. Easier said than done.

I read this post by Judy Mollen Walters and found not only a connection but solace.

“…even after you’ve “made it,” even after you’ve reached bestseller status or people clamor to have you speak at their events, you continue to have that pesky fragility. You still wonder: Is this book—my first or third or tenth—is it really, truly good enough? And sometimes you let it slip—like these authors did, the way they did—that you are really insecure, like everyone else.”

That made me feel better because if the ‘Greats’ can self-doubt, then I’m not that far off base.

And I’d like to echo Ms. Walters’ lovely parting message:

“So to all authors I say: Be kind to yourselves. Keep going. Ignore your writer fragile ego as best you can. Find people to validate you. Find happiness in the small moments when the writing seems on target. And believe.”

Stop doing list

I really think Dr. Diane MacKinnon is onto something in her post: ‘ Stop doing List’. It’s a post on things she wants to change but, instead of saying ‘I’m going to do this’ she’s mentioning what she’s going to stop doing.

The stop-doing list comes from this post by Danielle LaPorte and the idea that what you stop doing is just as important as what you start doing. That makes sense, you can’t add, until you subtract. I need to make room in my life for chosen behaviours by taking away things that I don’t want to do.

For example, I’d like to stop trying to please others, or watching TV or eating what’s on my plate simply because it’s there or worrying about what might happen…

Doesn’t it sound delicious? A worry-free life, a guilt-free day, more time to write…the possibilities are endless.

5 Tips to write a great blog post

I liked the title of this post even before I read it because I blog on a daily basis and I’m always happy to find new ways to create better posts.

Glad Doggett wrote the post and, as promised, it contains easy tips for a better post. All you have to do is answer those five questions.

But maybe answering questions isn’t for you. Well, here‘s another format for you. This time, Rachel Sprung has 5 steps. I thought they were pretty good, easy to follow and broad enough for any blog.

Though there’s something to be said for inspiration and going with your gut, I like the idea of having a goal for my posts and keeping a focus for my blog. In my goal to be a professional writer, I want a blog that remains professional, elegant and keeps writing as a focus.

(credit: roflzoo.com)

Most of the time.

 

 

Dialogue tags

He said, she said…dialogue tags. We put them in during dialogues to tell the reader who is talking. Easy right? Hm. Not so much.

If you repeat them too often, it sounds monotonous and pretty artificial. That’s bad. If you don’t put them in, no one has any idea who’s talking any more. You’ll lose your reader and that’s bad too.

It’s tricky.

To try and avoid repetition, I once tried to replace the famous ‘said’ with something more…flowery. I got horrid things like: ‘sarcastically rebutted’. It wasn’t pretty. So, I started reading and seeing what the pros did.

Some work it in. Watch.

Here’s an example with the tags.

‘”Have you seen the man who works on the third floor? Who is he?” Anna asked sipping her coke.

“I have no idea,” Michael said, seating back on his chair and scratching his nose.’

Here’s an example without the tags.

‘Anna sipped her coke. “Have you seen the man who works on the third floor? How is he?”

“Michael sat back on his chair and scratched his nose with gusto. “I have no idea.”‘

In the second example. We know who’s speaking, even if the writer doesn’t actually say it.

Did my example help or make things worse? No worries, here come the experts! 🙂

Jodie Llewellyn has a great post about dialogue and tags here.

Here are three other great links about dialogue how-to’s and questions I never dared to ask; scary things like hyphens, comas and ellipses.

http://www.youngwritersonline.net/showthread.php?t=20

http://jordanmccollum.com/2009/05/verbs-dialogue-tags-stop-smiling-words/

http://clevergirlhelps.tumblr.com/post/61370173627/how-to-write-dialogue