Writing To Heal Your Ancestors

Joyce carol Oates, in a reading, once talked about her writing process and spoke about writing to heal one's ancestors.

What an interesting concept. When I read this it stuck. I, too, have written to "heal" my ancestors.

I am the product of stoic Norwegian immigrants, men and women who worked hard when they came to America to create a better life. They didn't complain, they didn't explain - they just kept moving forward. Their lives were filled with secrets, some of which were only found in archives when I started exploring my genealogy. My mother was the product of growing up in my grandmother's home. Did this in any way explain our relationship? One also filled with secrets that would only come to light upon her death?

As a writer I think it is natural that we are always looking for explanations for why people behave the way they do. This allows us to create well rounded and flawed characters. We search for the answers, and many times discover why those closest to us may have reacted or behaved the way they did too. Early in my writing career, I wrote several novels, as yet they are all unpublished, each story explored the relationship of sisters, daughters and mothers. I can see how I was working to heal my ancestors in these works - how I was working to heal myself and find the answers to questions never spoken.

Have you written to heal those who came before you? To heal yourself in some way? To explain how it all came to be?

In my more recent works, I seem to have left my ancestors behind, but do they really ever leave us? 

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D. Jean Quarles is a writer of Women's Fiction and a co-author of a Young Adult Science Fiction Series. Her latest book, Flight from the Water Planet, Book 1 of The Exodus Series was written with coauthor, Austine Etcheverry.

D. Jean loves to tell stories of personal growth – where success has nothing to do with money or fame, but of living life to the fullest. She is also the author of the novels: Rocky's Mountains, Fire in the Hole and, Perception. The Mermaid, an award winning short story was published in the anthology, Tales from a Sweltering City.  

She is a wife, mother, grandmother and business coach. In her free time . . . ha! ha! ha! Anyway, you can find more about D. Jean Quarles, her writing and her books at her website at www.djeanquarles.com

You can also follower her at www.djeanquarles.blogspot.com or on Facebook

What is SEO and SEO Marketing?

What is SEO and SEO Marketing?

If you’re like the majority of people, you may be wondering what SEO is. Well, it’s simply an acronym that stands for ‘search engine optimization.’

According to TechTerm.com, “Just about every Webmaster wants his or her site to appear in the top listings of all the major search engines.” SEO is the means to accomplish this.

SEO marketing is the strategies or techniques used to create visibility and website ranking within the search engines, such as Google and Bing. And, even with Google’s latest update, the Penguin’s SHARING factor, these strategies are still effective, and needed.

Sidetracking just a moment, Google’s latest update takes the ‘social’ element of blog posting to the next level. Along with your SEO tweaks, your content must be SHAREABLE.

Content that others find valuable enough to share, whether informative or entertaining, is what will help get a higher ranking with the search engine.

Okay, back on track now.

Every online marketing strategy includes promotion, and SEO marketing is a promotional tool under the marketing umbrella. The marketing umbrella covers the creation or manufacturing of a product or service, research and development (R&D), distribution, and any other elements needed to get a product from creation to the consumer. Promotion creates visibility, which in turn leads website traffic and customers.

Utilizing online promotion means you will be using the internet and search engines. SEO marketing is the process of getting the search engines to find and rank your website and your content. You obviously want a high ranking so when a searcher (potential customer) types in a search term (keyword), your site may be one of those on that first search engine results page (SERP), or at least within the first few pages.

Another explanation of SEO marketing:
It is basically the steps you take to have Google, Bing, and other search engines find, index, and put your website on one of their first SERPs whenever people use ‘your keyword’ to search for something.

In essence, SEO marketing is kind of a popularity contest.
When you use effective keywords within your website (title and meta tags) and in informative posting content, Google and the other search engines will find, index, and rank you. This allows you to be picked up and shown on the search engines’ results pages for specific search terms. When a ‘searcher’ finds your link on the SERP and clicks on it, you get a link to your site. The more inbound links to your site – relevant to your keywords or not - the more Google and other search engines ‘like you’ and consider you an authority.

Going a bit further, getting links from other sites with the same keywords in their links that you have in yours, is much better. This is considered as a higher ‘ranking vote’ by Google and establishes your site as having more authority. The more ‘link votes’ you get, the more Google will perceive your site as valuable and give you a higher authoritative ranking.

To be found and ranked by Google, you need to add effective and relevant keywords to your site and content, and have SHAREABLE content.

To find effective keywords, you can go to http://googlekeywordtool.com/

Click on the Google Keyword box and it will take you to the Google Adwords search tool.

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children's author and ghostwriter. She is also an author/writer online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing.

Find out more about Karen's online platform classes at:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/ 

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MORE ON MARKETING

Article Marketing – Reprint Strategies Pros and Cons
Creating Images – Simple and Quick

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Veteran's Day 2012

Yesterday was Veteran's Day but today there will be many celebrations across the nation due to the fact that Veteran's Day fell on a Sunday.  I'd like to take a moment to honor those who have served, given their life or survived one thing after another on this day.

My father is a veteran; he served his 20+ years and retired without having had to go to war.  Both my brothers are veterans.  My uncle is a veteran.  I probably can trace veterans back a good ways in my family.  So I pay homage to all those who have served, are still serving or who gave their lives for our freedoms. 

To the veterans in our lives - E :)

How to Avoid Blogger Burnout by VS Grenier

Today, I'm going to share a post I did for the Brand Buzz Network and their mommy blogger members. As writers we also do a lot of blogging, guest posts, social networking, etc. It can be overwhelming at times, stressful...and just plain hard work to sit down and just post away. All of this got me thinking and after reading a few status updates from other writing friends of mine...my little article came to be. I hope you enjoy it and also share some words of inspiration and tips in the comments section below. ~VS Grenier

How to Avoid Blogger Burnout

I’ve noticed lately a few of my blogging friends have been taking some time off from posting to their blogs. A few of them have taken months off with no mention of when they plan to return. It started me thinking about something…blogger burnout.

The first thing you need to consider are the warning signs you’re experiencing blogger burnout. Some of the signs are hard to recognize due to the nature of blogging. To help you identify if you have blogger burnout or on your way to experiencing it, ask yourself these questions. Count up how many you answered ‘yes’ to and then read on.

1. Are you putting up blog posts the day they are due to show up on your blog?
2. Do you have more reviews than you can finish each day, week and/or month?
3. Are you having a hard time finding things to blog about?
4. Do you forget to announce winners of giveaways only a few days after it ends?
5. Are you staying up late or getting up early to get posts up and feel tired because of it?
6. Do you have more than 50 emails still waiting for your reply?

Blogger burnout can happen to the best of us. You may be very organized but still feel the stress of having more on your plate than you can manage. So the question is…What can you do about it? Of course you can take a hiatus from your blog. This may or may not affect your blog readership. But I have a few suggestions to try before you take this step.

1. Take a week vacation from your blog. It is okay to take some time from your blog from time to time. Just don’t make it a habit or do it for too long if you can avoid it. I suggest when you do take a vacation from your blog to plan on taking pictures of some of the things you did while you were away to share with your readers when you return. This not only gives you a break but will also help give you something (or a few things) to post about upon your return.
2. Have one or two days a week where other bloggers can do a guest post on your blog. I find this really helps me and keeps the stress of for topics to write about on my blog daily and weekly.
3. Share other blog posts from blogs you follow. I don’t do this often, but I have a few blogging buddies who once a month or even once a week share blog posts from other blogs. This is easy to do because you only need to share an excerpt or quick reason synopsis of the post with its link.
4. Don’t post daily. Some bloggers feel they have to have a blog post everyday or almost every day of the week. I do try to have at least a new blog post bi-weekly on my blog, but daily is too much for me. At most, I post three times a week. Find what works for and don’t worry what others are doing.
5. Have different types of post for each day of the week. When I first started blogging, I thought I had to stick to my blog them for every post. Then I realized I could do what I want on what day I wanted. I found making a theme schedule for each day of the week helped to give me ideas for posts. Here is my theme schedule: Monday is grammar tips or information about my blog talk radio show (if I have one), Tuesday is when I post a writing tip or an update, Wednesday is for guest posts, Thursday I share reviews or updates on my personal writing/books, Friday is for interviews or show information (if I have a show). I don’t post on Saturday or Sunday.
6. Use article content sites. One of the easiest things to do is use article content sites to find posts for your blog. There are a lot writers out there looking for places to showcase their writing. You can use these articles free and have some great content by professionals on your blog.
7. Schedule your blog posts at least a week ahead of time. I find using my Sunday nights to plan and schedule my blog posts for the week allows me to have more time during the week for other things like my kids and personal writing. If you’re able too, try to schedule two weeks ahead of time or even the whole month!

Blogger burnout is a real thing and can happen without you realizing it. If you start feeling like you don’t want to blog anymore, take a week off and then use my suggestions above to help get you back into blogging with less stress.


 About VS Grenier:
When she isn't busy talking with authors and illustrator on her radio shows, working for Stories for Children Publishing, Brand Buzz Network or Halo Publishing, and spending time with her children; award-winning author and editor VS Grenier is busy writing adventures in the World of Ink. Learn more at http://vsgrenier.com or http://worldofinknetwork.com

Poetry for Christmas (again)

Is it too early to start thinking of Christmas?  Not really if you want to send personalised greeting to family, friends and colleagues - now is the perfect time to begin planning your greetings.  Are poetry and Christmas at odds?  Of course not, especially if you avoid the syrupy cutesy cards you pay huge $ for and choose a beautiful book full of real, award winning poetry. Instead of a card that will end up as landfill, you'll give a gift and card in one that people will keep.  My co-author Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I have pulled together just such a book, and you can order them, with their beautiful full-color cover by prize wining water-colourist Vicki Thomas, for only $3 each.  That's less than the cost of a card (only $75 for 25 of the most memorable holiday greetings you've ever sent to your family, friends, and colleagues), and will make a significantly more powerful impression, especially if you write a personal note inside.  The book was a USA Book News finliast and a Military Writers Society of America Silver Award Winner.  To order, just send an email to HoJoNews@aol.com with HOLIDAY ORDER in the subject line, and Carolyn will make direct payment arrangements with you. Or you can drop by Amazon (click on book cover above) and buy the books individually for $6.95.  Here's a sample:

Silent Symphony

Though it’s calm in the dark room

where you sit on Christmas eve

reaching for familiarity

I’ll take you down

to that imperfect place

of tone and sound

beyond culture’s skin, language

hard wired clickity clack

auditory parasite

multiples of frequencies

simple-ratio harmonies or complex

carols of memory

down there

in the consonance of memory

walking the cobblestones of imagination

your black heart finds light

melodic intervals

of sensation more pervasive than chance

open your ears into the silence

 a symphony

vibrating  the universe of your illusory body.

Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena at http://www.magdalenaball.com

 

Making Money as a Writer

Unless your name is Grisham or Steele or Rowling, you may not be making much, if any, money writing books. Authors must be prolific, and have excellent marketing skills or someone to do that for them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make money as a writer.

Freelance writers who write newspaper and magazine articles can develop a nice income by treating their writing as a full-time job. You must constantly be putting out queries, doing interviews, and writing articles. I have been a freelance writer, and although I didn’t work at it full-time, I managed to bring in extra money to contribute to the household income.

My money-making “job” now is mainly freelance editing. Again, I’m not working at it full-time, as I’m still trying to be an author as well. Editing takes knowledge and experience and a certain skill. Not everyone can jump into this field. It also takes time to build a clientele. I worked at acquiring clients for several years before they started coming to me. I love this work, and I love helping other writers improve their manuscripts.

Another thing I do to earn extra “pin money” is teach classes in beginning fiction and memoir writing. After I took a university course in fiction writing, I wanted to share what I had learned with my fellow writers in my community. So, with great trepidation and my heart pounding like a drum, I put a notice in the newspaper, sent e-mails to all my writing acquaintances and started a class. I had ten students in that first eight-week session, and about half of them followed me through that year and the next.I found I also loved doing these classes and sharing what I know with others.

I remember there was a book out a number of years ago titled Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow. I’ve found that is true. But it takes patience and perseverance. It doesn’t happen overnight.

What do you do to earn money writing?

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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in Northwest Washington. Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, and the sequel, Follow the Dream, has recently won the national WILLA Award. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of Northwest Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing and edits, blogs, and is working on the next books in her “Dare to Dream” series.     

Flash Fiction Anthology, Possibilities, Goes Live!

Flash Fiction Anthology, Possibilities, Goes Live!