Hello to all!
Man, breaking a shoulder really does put a dampener on things! I have always wondered how sporting people can get straight back into things after doing something like that. I still don't know. All I know is: A) It is bloody painful; B) it is frustrating C) finding out just how much you used that shoulder beforehand is extremely painful and D) I can't really type one-handed.
This little problem came about courtesy of my delightful husband and our extremely enraging, irritating, perfect escape artist goat, Gypsy. May as well add my brother into the mix; the @$#% gave her to my daughter as a present some 17 years ago. We should never go to hell; that damned goat has created it here on earth.
Gypsy is a feral goat. Well, sort of. My brother breeds them as a business, along with his sheep and cattle. His excuse for giving her to us: Meg needs a pet, blissfully ignoring the fact that the girl(back in those days!) had a couple of pet cows, two dogs, two cats and a guinea pig, which my other brother had supplied, also assorted chickens around the place, supplied by "friends".
Anyway, back to how I got my shoulder broken. Thanks to having a stroke 2 years ago, I am still not very stable on my feet. I am much better than I was, but not brilliant. So when my husband yelled to help him get our escape artist out of the garden, I staggered outside, to see Gypsy almost poking her tongue at him from a palm tree he absolutely loves. It's low-growing, so EVERYTHING loved getting under its leaves. It has a regular community there, including, at different times of the year, some very unfriendly inhabitants.
He dived. She dodged. He zigged, she zagged. This was good fun. For Gypsy anyway. Not for my husband. He was out of breath and red-faced. "Block the bitch!" He roared at me. I attempted to. What I forgot was that that particular area of the yard has a hole where a tree has fallen down and is now covered in grass. Very deceptive. When my foot hit the hole, I tilted and grabbed for something. That something happened to be Gypsy. She bolted and I went down. Straight on my shoulder.
I knew I'd broken it. I had no feeling at all, and nothing in that arm worked. Which wasn't the worst of it. Try imagining explaining how I had done it to some very lovely but bemused nurses and doctors at the hospital. No doubt I kept them in stitches for days.
Gypsy is still alive. While my husband was panicking over what had happened to me, and threatening at the top of his voice to shoot her, the little bitch walked straight up to the gate and stood there, waiting for someone to open it. It took me a while, and the trip to hospital to calm him down, but she is still getting where she should not be.
Whoever decided to name that goat Gypsy should have called her Houdini. Unfortunately as a kid, she was very cute. She still is not very big, but her brain is. That goat can outsmart any human any time she pleases.
So that is why I haven't been here for a while. But I can use my shoulder limitedly again, and my hand does no longer resemble a catcher's mitt.
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
pretty blog
Hello to all!
Okay, you are going to start a blog that hopefully is going to make you some money. What do you want your blog to look like? You want all the bells and whistles first-up? Of course. Everyone does, so if mine is very plain then I won't be able to compete with the big boys.
Not necessarily so. Again, most anyone who has wanted to make some money has had to start at the bottom. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. In my opinion, get the blog up and running before you do anything at all. After all, if you have good content and, even better, something to interest people in buying, hopefully related to your content, and, above all, your blog is easy to move around, that should be all you need for a start.
Many people decide to set up their blog as though it is going to be perfect, and have everything on it. this often gives a 'busy'appearance and potential readers shy away before they read the first page. Grabbing people by the eyeballs can be hard to do, but you will get their attention if you give them what they want to read. Get them first, by using a knack with words.
All these people who encourage you to spend a fortune 'buying' likes and views are not doing you any good, if you have nothing to keep them. On one of my blogs I simply let it do its own thing. The only thing I did was to feed it content almost every day. I simply like connecting with people and it amazed me. It went from 0 to 350 and still growing in less than 3 months. I do very little with it. Occasionally I throw something out of the box on there, which has nothing to do with its main topic. So anyone can do it. The off-the-map topic proves that I am human, and not a bot or someone who is just interested in money.
I really don't think you should go for the jugular at the first. I know, you have to grab your potential sale as soon as they appear on your page. But if they are only browsing, then they will probably run if it looks too obvious what you are after. You have about seven seconds to get their attention, so make sure your first sentence of the content is compelling. If it is, most readers will follow along to the second one to make sure it is interesting. Don't drag it out, get to your speil soon enough, but make it part of the content. Use your second paragraph to grab by starting to sell there. Make the first sentence intriguing but honest.. Personally, I don't see what you can get out of running another product down blatantly, but some sellers do.
My idea of that is it is not playing by the rules. If you think your product is better, then show them by good content that does not simply repeat how bad you think your opposition is. There are rules against this, after all, and it can backfire badly if your client has bought the opposition's first.
Okay, you are going to start a blog that hopefully is going to make you some money. What do you want your blog to look like? You want all the bells and whistles first-up? Of course. Everyone does, so if mine is very plain then I won't be able to compete with the big boys.
Not necessarily so. Again, most anyone who has wanted to make some money has had to start at the bottom. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. In my opinion, get the blog up and running before you do anything at all. After all, if you have good content and, even better, something to interest people in buying, hopefully related to your content, and, above all, your blog is easy to move around, that should be all you need for a start.
Many people decide to set up their blog as though it is going to be perfect, and have everything on it. this often gives a 'busy'appearance and potential readers shy away before they read the first page. Grabbing people by the eyeballs can be hard to do, but you will get their attention if you give them what they want to read. Get them first, by using a knack with words.
All these people who encourage you to spend a fortune 'buying' likes and views are not doing you any good, if you have nothing to keep them. On one of my blogs I simply let it do its own thing. The only thing I did was to feed it content almost every day. I simply like connecting with people and it amazed me. It went from 0 to 350 and still growing in less than 3 months. I do very little with it. Occasionally I throw something out of the box on there, which has nothing to do with its main topic. So anyone can do it. The off-the-map topic proves that I am human, and not a bot or someone who is just interested in money.
I really don't think you should go for the jugular at the first. I know, you have to grab your potential sale as soon as they appear on your page. But if they are only browsing, then they will probably run if it looks too obvious what you are after. You have about seven seconds to get their attention, so make sure your first sentence of the content is compelling. If it is, most readers will follow along to the second one to make sure it is interesting. Don't drag it out, get to your speil soon enough, but make it part of the content. Use your second paragraph to grab by starting to sell there. Make the first sentence intriguing but honest.. Personally, I don't see what you can get out of running another product down blatantly, but some sellers do.
My idea of that is it is not playing by the rules. If you think your product is better, then show them by good content that does not simply repeat how bad you think your opposition is. There are rules against this, after all, and it can backfire badly if your client has bought the opposition's first.
Monday, 4 February 2013
Give back sometimes
Hello to all!
Today, I want to talk about leaving your writing for a while. Many people advocate this, but I really am not sure about doing that. In this crazy world of speed, no one really does have time to put their work away for a week
When you are making a type of living from article writing, you simply do not have the time for really fixing your work. Most probably send the work back as what would be a first draft any other time. This does not do the employer any good at all. Result: You and them end up with substandard work that is luckily accepted most times, but you end up with very little repeat work from this employer.
This attitude is not good. From the employer especially. Okay, you are busy. That's a given. Your work has to be accepted to wherever you want it to be. So you pay someone the lowest rate you can get away with, then swear about the crap you get back and either repeat this cycle or do it yourself. Or maybe you fix it and send it off, but refuse to pay the writer and get rid of them. Plenty more in the pond to fish out and again use.
Finding someone who could be good may be quite simple. The problem is their writing itself. Then why not take even ONE of these writers and try to make them better? At least to your standards anyway? Sure, it's going to take you time, but isn't it going to be worth it? After all, it was often the way the old-fashioned employers went about staffing, and it worked just fine. Workers that they took the time to educate were worth thousands to their business. You don't have to overwork these exclusive writers. You can always outsource other work, or train another one or two as you build up.
I am not advocating you do this. I am simply pointing out something that is going to be to your benefit. No one is ever going to write exactly as you do. That's just not going to happen, unless you have yourself cloned. but this way, your 'permanent' staff can take other work, if you have not much on one day or another. Or you can share this person with your friends. You still have all the perks of not having to buy space and pay insurance for this employee, but you also get their help willingly, which is worth uncounted money to you.
One of the best employers I have ever had worked on this principle. He picked and chose from candidates and worked one -on-one with his choices. They had 10 minutes online with him every day, as well as their work, and he granted this time gratis, in order to help/teach. If he hired three, then three got worked on. He kept a list of the first rejects and went back to them when the first ones were competent to work without his supervision and input.
At the end of 3-6 months, he was ready to let them go, should they want to go. he even helped some get further employment. If they wanted to stay, then they usually were farmed to friends whose work they had unknowingly done during this period. No one was ever abandoned to fend for themselves.
This man taught me much. for the year or so I spent with him, I enjoyed his stern, gentle tone and teaching habits. I figured he'd been in the game for 30 years, he should know what he was talking about. Now, I try to model myself on him and another female mentor who was similar but a little more expecting of me. From both I learnt many things and that caring about strangers is one of them. Not being able to see your writers does not mean that you do not have to care about them, or just see them as dollar-signs.
They are, at the bottom, people with feelings and dreams. Just like us, in fact.
Next time, I will look at the argument from the other side: the employee's side.
Today, I want to talk about leaving your writing for a while. Many people advocate this, but I really am not sure about doing that. In this crazy world of speed, no one really does have time to put their work away for a week
When you are making a type of living from article writing, you simply do not have the time for really fixing your work. Most probably send the work back as what would be a first draft any other time. This does not do the employer any good at all. Result: You and them end up with substandard work that is luckily accepted most times, but you end up with very little repeat work from this employer.
This attitude is not good. From the employer especially. Okay, you are busy. That's a given. Your work has to be accepted to wherever you want it to be. So you pay someone the lowest rate you can get away with, then swear about the crap you get back and either repeat this cycle or do it yourself. Or maybe you fix it and send it off, but refuse to pay the writer and get rid of them. Plenty more in the pond to fish out and again use.
Finding someone who could be good may be quite simple. The problem is their writing itself. Then why not take even ONE of these writers and try to make them better? At least to your standards anyway? Sure, it's going to take you time, but isn't it going to be worth it? After all, it was often the way the old-fashioned employers went about staffing, and it worked just fine. Workers that they took the time to educate were worth thousands to their business. You don't have to overwork these exclusive writers. You can always outsource other work, or train another one or two as you build up.
I am not advocating you do this. I am simply pointing out something that is going to be to your benefit. No one is ever going to write exactly as you do. That's just not going to happen, unless you have yourself cloned. but this way, your 'permanent' staff can take other work, if you have not much on one day or another. Or you can share this person with your friends. You still have all the perks of not having to buy space and pay insurance for this employee, but you also get their help willingly, which is worth uncounted money to you.
One of the best employers I have ever had worked on this principle. He picked and chose from candidates and worked one -on-one with his choices. They had 10 minutes online with him every day, as well as their work, and he granted this time gratis, in order to help/teach. If he hired three, then three got worked on. He kept a list of the first rejects and went back to them when the first ones were competent to work without his supervision and input.
At the end of 3-6 months, he was ready to let them go, should they want to go. he even helped some get further employment. If they wanted to stay, then they usually were farmed to friends whose work they had unknowingly done during this period. No one was ever abandoned to fend for themselves.
This man taught me much. for the year or so I spent with him, I enjoyed his stern, gentle tone and teaching habits. I figured he'd been in the game for 30 years, he should know what he was talking about. Now, I try to model myself on him and another female mentor who was similar but a little more expecting of me. From both I learnt many things and that caring about strangers is one of them. Not being able to see your writers does not mean that you do not have to care about them, or just see them as dollar-signs.
They are, at the bottom, people with feelings and dreams. Just like us, in fact.
Next time, I will look at the argument from the other side: the employee's side.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
back to basics
Hello to all!
Okay, we've left the path on a couple of occasions recently. And this is not a problem. After all, if you want to involve people in your blog, then you have to share bits and pieces completely out of the box from time to time. this makes them feel you are real and not a machine spitting out facts and figures all the time. :)
But ALWAYS come back to your original topic soon. Don't keep wandering off on your own tangent, especially if you plan to make some money from your blog. Do that, sure, but keep the main idea in mind. Even better, try to link it to your personal happenings or events.
Right, so back to starting a blog. Or doing some writing. Maybe even publishing(gasp! shock!) something that may make you some money.
Let me deviate a little( yeah, again!). I've been looking for some ebooks that can help people who have a book or a long article ready to publish, but are terrified to approach Amazon and the Kindle. Well, there are other places that you can try. I looked at one yesterday and I don't mind the look of it at all. Have any of you heard of or looked at something called Smashwords.com?
If you haven't, then I strongly suggest you take a look at it. It is not so complicated as the kindle to start with, and another thing that interests me is you can publish something that has lower words than the Kindle likes. I saw one one there that only had 880 words. 880 words? Do you honestly say that some people paid for THAT? No, I did not. It was free. But it was there. That's what I am trying to say.
The reason I point out this point is that a dear mentor of mine always said you do not have to have a set amount of words to ePublish. Say what you want to say as concisely and interestingly as possible, tidy it up, add an introduction(not too long) or a table of contents(always a good idea) and a conclusion and that is it. Of course you need to have enough to ensure that people who are thinking of reading the eBook/ article can download/ read a snippet without grabbing a heap of your TOC or your dedications( actually, another point my mentor makes is: Put all but your TOC at the back of your book, so they do not annoy people who are interested in your information. Dedications, author bio, any of that can go there, instead of perhaps boring the life out of your readers. Even put your request for reviews there. Having put that at the back when your reader has just finished the book, they may be inclined to give you a review then and there, instead of maybe bookmarking it and forgetting totally.
I digress, helpfully, I hope. Back to Smashwords.com. There are 3 books by Mark Coker the founder, that you can download for free that explain about Smashwords and what it can do for you. Yes, I said FREE. I've been greedy and downloaded all 3 of them, in order to read them in sequence. so far, what I have read has been good and very helpful. I've been probably like a lot of you and bought and downloaded a pile of How-To books about getting my books on Kindle. Guess what? I've decided I'll get a very nice young man to edit and publish my book for me after all! It may not be cheaper, but at least I will not have to face that paralysing fear that has grabbed me every time I look at my Kindle account :).
Of course, you may be more courageous than I am, or probably ever am going to be. But I do urge you to just take a quick look at Smashwords.com. It really is worth it, and I said a while ago that I was not going to recommend something that I hadn't read/reviewed/tried. :)
Okay, we've left the path on a couple of occasions recently. And this is not a problem. After all, if you want to involve people in your blog, then you have to share bits and pieces completely out of the box from time to time. this makes them feel you are real and not a machine spitting out facts and figures all the time. :)
But ALWAYS come back to your original topic soon. Don't keep wandering off on your own tangent, especially if you plan to make some money from your blog. Do that, sure, but keep the main idea in mind. Even better, try to link it to your personal happenings or events.
Right, so back to starting a blog. Or doing some writing. Maybe even publishing(gasp! shock!) something that may make you some money.
Let me deviate a little( yeah, again!). I've been looking for some ebooks that can help people who have a book or a long article ready to publish, but are terrified to approach Amazon and the Kindle. Well, there are other places that you can try. I looked at one yesterday and I don't mind the look of it at all. Have any of you heard of or looked at something called Smashwords.com?
If you haven't, then I strongly suggest you take a look at it. It is not so complicated as the kindle to start with, and another thing that interests me is you can publish something that has lower words than the Kindle likes. I saw one one there that only had 880 words. 880 words? Do you honestly say that some people paid for THAT? No, I did not. It was free. But it was there. That's what I am trying to say.
The reason I point out this point is that a dear mentor of mine always said you do not have to have a set amount of words to ePublish. Say what you want to say as concisely and interestingly as possible, tidy it up, add an introduction(not too long) or a table of contents(always a good idea) and a conclusion and that is it. Of course you need to have enough to ensure that people who are thinking of reading the eBook/ article can download/ read a snippet without grabbing a heap of your TOC or your dedications( actually, another point my mentor makes is: Put all but your TOC at the back of your book, so they do not annoy people who are interested in your information. Dedications, author bio, any of that can go there, instead of perhaps boring the life out of your readers. Even put your request for reviews there. Having put that at the back when your reader has just finished the book, they may be inclined to give you a review then and there, instead of maybe bookmarking it and forgetting totally.
I digress, helpfully, I hope. Back to Smashwords.com. There are 3 books by Mark Coker the founder, that you can download for free that explain about Smashwords and what it can do for you. Yes, I said FREE. I've been greedy and downloaded all 3 of them, in order to read them in sequence. so far, what I have read has been good and very helpful. I've been probably like a lot of you and bought and downloaded a pile of How-To books about getting my books on Kindle. Guess what? I've decided I'll get a very nice young man to edit and publish my book for me after all! It may not be cheaper, but at least I will not have to face that paralysing fear that has grabbed me every time I look at my Kindle account :).
Of course, you may be more courageous than I am, or probably ever am going to be. But I do urge you to just take a quick look at Smashwords.com. It really is worth it, and I said a while ago that I was not going to recommend something that I hadn't read/reviewed/tried. :)
Friday, 1 February 2013
post-cyclone
Hello to all!
Another thing I dislike intensely is the amount of things that go wrong AFTER we are told that everything will be back to normal the moment the clouds disperse/ the rain quite/the sun comes out/ you name it. very irritating indeed.
Like the last few days for instance. The rain went on Friday. It immediately got blazing hot. Then it got smelly. So what? That's fairly normal for my part of the country. What is NOT, however, is the sudden downtime of not the power( that's already been there, done that!) but communication tools. Not all of them true, but the one I use most every day for my business.
Living in the country like I do, and hating physical writing, (since my stroke I do not write copperplate any more and that infuriates me, as rightly or wrongly I was PROUD of that!) I missed my computer's access to the outside world something chronic. Not being able to talk to one of my sisters, my remaining brother or sick friends was the most irritating thing that has happened in a long time.
My grown daughter, who does her own thing usually, nearly went stir-crazy. Imagine being in the same house as this usually placid person of 30 years(she'll kill me for that!) with no phone access at all. No Facebook, no nothing. Her father did not help either. He hates Facebook with a passion, and most everything that is not still two tins tied together with a string to talk through( no use using smoke signals either. He panics at the first smell of a cigarette or a fire), so he invented every way he could to add to her misery. I was sure I has going to have plenty of blood and bone for the garden. Mainly his.
Anyway, we have survived. But, honestly, you would think the biggest communications system in the country could have warned us somehow. At the end of my road, there are two elderly people who have medical problems. One relies on the phone. The other needs it. When your road is washed out, your power is not brilliant, and your communications are down, you need more than smoke signals. I have no problem walking the half a kilometre up and the same coming home three or four times a day to check on them( after all, my so-called retired horses could do with Jenny Craig nowadays!), so why not ride once or twice? My husband and my daughter were also delighted to do the same( good way to lose weight), but really. Thank God there was nothing wrong with them each time, apart from sheer frustration, but what if there had been? Both of them are large people and walking over a kilometre with one of them parked on my shoulder was not going to be anyone's idea of fun. As both of them are beautiful people, but absolutely petrified of horses, that wouldn't work either.
Sometimes, I wish these giants would take a little more care of the old and less able.
Another thing I dislike intensely is the amount of things that go wrong AFTER we are told that everything will be back to normal the moment the clouds disperse/ the rain quite/the sun comes out/ you name it. very irritating indeed.
Like the last few days for instance. The rain went on Friday. It immediately got blazing hot. Then it got smelly. So what? That's fairly normal for my part of the country. What is NOT, however, is the sudden downtime of not the power( that's already been there, done that!) but communication tools. Not all of them true, but the one I use most every day for my business.
Living in the country like I do, and hating physical writing, (since my stroke I do not write copperplate any more and that infuriates me, as rightly or wrongly I was PROUD of that!) I missed my computer's access to the outside world something chronic. Not being able to talk to one of my sisters, my remaining brother or sick friends was the most irritating thing that has happened in a long time.
My grown daughter, who does her own thing usually, nearly went stir-crazy. Imagine being in the same house as this usually placid person of 30 years(she'll kill me for that!) with no phone access at all. No Facebook, no nothing. Her father did not help either. He hates Facebook with a passion, and most everything that is not still two tins tied together with a string to talk through( no use using smoke signals either. He panics at the first smell of a cigarette or a fire), so he invented every way he could to add to her misery. I was sure I has going to have plenty of blood and bone for the garden. Mainly his.
Anyway, we have survived. But, honestly, you would think the biggest communications system in the country could have warned us somehow. At the end of my road, there are two elderly people who have medical problems. One relies on the phone. The other needs it. When your road is washed out, your power is not brilliant, and your communications are down, you need more than smoke signals. I have no problem walking the half a kilometre up and the same coming home three or four times a day to check on them( after all, my so-called retired horses could do with Jenny Craig nowadays!), so why not ride once or twice? My husband and my daughter were also delighted to do the same( good way to lose weight), but really. Thank God there was nothing wrong with them each time, apart from sheer frustration, but what if there had been? Both of them are large people and walking over a kilometre with one of them parked on my shoulder was not going to be anyone's idea of fun. As both of them are beautiful people, but absolutely petrified of horses, that wouldn't work either.
Sometimes, I wish these giants would take a little more care of the old and less able.
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