What Happens When Time Gets Away?

What happens when time gets away from you and obligations you have made as an author are forgotten? Let's face it, we are all busy with life and trying to make our writing life successful. To do this authors may stretch their memory to the max by agreeing to tasks, meetings, reviews, or other business related actions that can clog the calendar. I am convicted of this very thing just this week when I missed posting a book review on a blog tour I promised to participate in.


 Here are a few tips on how to graciously handle being over booked or completely forgetful without ruining your author platform and reputation.

1. Keep good records regarding dates, times, deadlines and obligations that you agree to whether in person or online. Mark them down, put them in your phone, set an alarm, make a list, and do what ever you can to remind yourself of the tasks you have agreed to especially those related to your writing career.
2. Check you list or calendar daily to make sure you have not missed a deadline. Also make a note on which projects or tasks you can begin ahead of time. Guest posts, book reviews, and some types of articles can be submitted or prescheduled on a site before the actual due date.
3. Apologize and be sincere. When you find that you have missed a date, even those done pro bono, be sincere with your apology and offer to reschedule. Everyone misses a deadline especially when it was agreed upon months or weeks in advance and sometimes things get so busy a guest post or review might easily be overlooked but no matter the reason it is a must to apologize.
4. Along with an apology, offer an additional article, post, or review in addition to the one to be rescheduled. Giving more than is expected along with your sincere apology will ensure the other party won't take it as a personal offense. Playing nice with peers and colleagues is imperative to keeping your reputation as an expert and an author intact.
5. Learn to say no when your calendar is too full. Be selective when taking on projects that don't enhance your business or improves your platform to avoid being so busy that you can't get your own writing done.
6. Forgive yourself for being human. Don't dwell on one mistake, rather learn from it and change how you do things in the future. Move on and keep writing. This too

In my own case, I did email an apology immediately when I discovered I was two days late on submitting a book review. I also offered to do an interview or other post on a second day to enhance the book tour for this author. It may be that I am not included in the next tour but an apology will at the least show my integrity. It was my error both in forgetting but also in recording the due date incorrectly and filling my calendar too full, another lesson learned. Details and deadlines matter.


How do you handle missing a due date or forgetting a task you promised to do?


Terri Forehand writes from her home in the hills of Brown County Indiana. She and her husband also run a small quilt shop when she isn't writing, sewing, or working as a nurse.
Visit her website at www.terriforehand.webnode.com or her blog at http://terri-forehand.blogspot.com

4 Major Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Blog Posts

By Karen Cioffi

Writing is a craft, a craft that needs to be learned. With that being said, there are many successful bloggers who had no writing training.

You might consider writing as being doubled sided. There are research papers, resumes, articles for medical and scientific use, business and health content, and even short stories, children’s books, and novels.

To write for these genres, you need to learn the craft of writing. Depending on the genre you write, you need to know how to write dialogue, how to reference quotes in a nonfiction article, and how to write POV (point of view). You should know the difference between a comma and a semi-colon, and how to use each. You get the idea.

On the flip side, there is web writing: blog posts and writing copy. In these niches there aren’t many rules, aside from grabbing the reader and making your content engaging and shareable.

While there aren’t many rules for blogging, there are four mistakes you should avoid:

1. Avoid aiming for perfection.

If you wait for the perfect time, the perfect circumstance, the perfect topic, the perfect anything, you’ll be forever waiting.

While you do need to be a responsible writer and respect your reader by providing quality content and doing the best you can, you shouldn’t wait for everything to be perfect. There’s nothing wrong with learning as you go along.

I love what George Fisher said about perfection: “When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.”

2. Avoid confusing and unfocused content.

The quickest way to lose a reader is to make your content confusing. If you’re topic is ‘allergies,’ don’t go on a rant about the latest clothing styles.

Blogs posts should be in easily digestible pieces of information that are focused. From the title to the concluding paragraph, keep it on topic.

In addition, you want to lead the reader down your post. In the beginning let the reader know what to expect, what’s in it for him. This will motivate him to read on.

3. Don’t write long paragraphs.

We all lead hectic lives. We want to get targeted information as quickly as possible. For this reason, your content needs to be easy to read and written in short paragraphs. This is especially important for skim readers.

Keep your content clean and leave plenty of white space. White space is the space between paragraphs, between words, and such. It’s the blank space on the page.

4. Don’t use grandiloquent language.

Here we go back to the premise that people are in a rush and along with this, most people don’t want to have to look up words to get the gist of the article. This is another quick way to lose a reader.

Keep your writing simple. Write how you would normally speak.

In addition, choose your words with care. C.S. Lewis knew the importance of this when he said, “Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

Following these ‘four mistakes to avoid’ will help you write blog posts that readers will appreciate and will want to share.

Original Article Source: http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/2014/01/4-major-mistakes-to-avoid-when-writing.html

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