What 4 Months of Blogging Has Taught Me

Another month already! I feel like an ass — the one up top, with the load of someone else’s crap on his back. If that isn’t foreshadowing, I don’t know what is. Before I break it down, check out March’s wrap-up.

Like previous wrap-ups, this is a stream of consciousness on the few topics that have occupied my mind while engaged in the world of blogging this last month, and the lessons I’ve learned.

Blog First for You, then Blog for Them…

It’s all about mentality.

The second I shift from blogging to voice my thoughts, opinions and expertise to blogging because the people demand it, I feel as if a concrete sack has been pinned to my back and I’m being made to scale the mountain. I’m missing the view, the sweat pouring down my face is burning my eyes, so I walk blind.

When I speak for me, my words resonate in other people and a harmonic understanding is created. When I speak for others, everyone loses footing and nothing is heard.

Consistency is the Key, but…I Misplaced the Lock

Consistency is the answer. Quality is good, but not a necessity. Quantity can help, but again, it isn’t necessary.

Being consistent is one of the most confusing aspects of life, let alone blogging. It lives right on the back of change, camouflaged within its spiny shell. It is not about going against change, it is about riding with it — we make stops and detours here and there along the road of change, but when we set off again, it is in the direction we have always been going, and that, is consistency.

I know that I have the key, but sometimes I forget where it goes. Sometimes I try to use it on a door that looks prettier but has nothing to offer once it is opened.

Popular Doesn’t Always Mean Good

If someone talks loud enough and long enough, people begin to listen, no matter what is being said. That isn’t to say that quantity trumps quality, but rather that the definition of quality starts from the mediocre and spans to the phenomenal — it no longer means phenomenal alone. Another words, you can be phenomenal and gain popularity, or you can be mediocre, flaunt it, and achieve popularity just the same — maybe even faster.

Let’s face it, in the world of online social media, the more so called “friends” we have, the easier it is to get the mediocre to enough eyes to have it become popular. There are still many sheep in the world and even times when the herder dawns a wool coat to mask the relentless cold — people see a story with a voting system clung to the side of it and if that thumbs up number is high enough — past their threshold for in-depth speculation — they mindlessly give their vote in an upward motion.

It’s a proven fact: the more people you get to say yes to something, the more people that would have said no will begin to turn around and mosey back over to yes camp. This is the way things are and it makes people with a true voice something special indeed.

Damn, blogging was deep this month

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Feed Reader? Little Orange Button? No Fear, It’s RSS Awareness Day

Really Simple Syndication

Subscribing to the RSS feed of a given website/blog will allow you to automatically receive every new post as soon as it is published, which is very convenient; you don’t even have to visit the website ever again…or at least for weeks at a time. It’s more like a speed reading technique rather than a substitute for swinging by. Us publishers still like it when you visit from time to time, it gives us a chance to show off our new shoes and fancy pants.

RSSDay.org

The folks over at Daily Blog Tips have put together a site dedicated to teaching those who haven’t joined the loop yet what it is all about. Go visit RSSDay.org.

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Can You Take the Struggle Out of the Artist?

I recently asked a good friend, “How do artists make money online?” Her response:

“We don’t make money, we struggle.”

Now, she was being facetious of course, but how many people actually think this way? How many artists live their lives believing the struggle is part of the package? To live a life of penury is to be blessed with the splendor of artistic vision; one who dances with the muse isn’t fully realized until the body fades and the soul rises beyond the stars. Death is the only way to crack the safe.

When we create these mental stigmas, we doom ourselves to perpetuating not only this false pursuit, but also the broader picture of a society that consumes art and culture on a level far greater than ever before, yet feels generally bitter about paying for such consumption.

If you’re creating art for anyone other than the upper-classes of society, then chances are you’re underpaid and are expected to live this struggling life. Once you do produce for the upper-class, believe it or not, you’re often overpaid. There’s a gap at this level in society. The funny thing is, that gap is only seen from the lower end of the spectrum and disappears almost entirely once you cross it. This means the struggle is very well nothing but an illusion.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of times when I have wholeheartedly subscribed to the romantic notion of the artist’s struggle as part of the creative process. But that is my own battle - my own victory. I’ve been down that deep and foggy road. I sleep there sometimes just like you, and despite the cold, I wake with a warmth crawling up my spine and a fire on my breath. These are the personal meditations of an artist and not what society should have come to mark as a physical and economical standard.

So can you take the struggle out of the artist? No, I don’t believe you can. It’s an unavoidable outcome when one seeks answers through abstract questioning and receives only questions in answer. Should society take the struggle out of the artist? Absolutely.

Tomorrow we’ll look at some ways to transcend that romantic notion of the struggling artist, by outlining a plethora of ways an artist can make a lucrative living online. We’ll discover ways to make that gap seem less like the Grand Canyon and more like a puddle you can simply step over.

You can ease your inner self while dressing your outer self in silk. Don’t be fooled into thinking there aren’t two sides of the canvas. You’re an artist, you should already know this.

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Blogging

Do You Write Everyday? How Do You Find New Ideas?

I recently received a very nice email from a reader asking me, among other things, a few questions about writing. I’m not sure if he wants me to use his real name so I’ve decided to call him Michelangelo (after my favorite turtle).

Here is a bit of what he wrote:

“I’m doing a challenge this January where I read a book a month, mostly biographies, and other sorts of stuff — I’m a student, so I have some time. But, I really want to get in the habit of writing. Even if for 5 minutes a day. How do you find so much to talk about on a daily basis?…”

Good question Michelangelo - let us ponder.

Talk

The more conversations I have throughout the day, the more fodder for the writing fire I collect.

People say the weirdest, craziest, funniest, saddest, most inspiring, disgusting, ingenious and stupidest things. You should be around as much as possible to hear them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written about the people I work with. They have no idea how many characters they’ve helped to create - and I’d never tell them. I don’t always use the admirable qualities in a personality.

Think

This is very closely related to conversations, only they’re internal dialogs. Conversations with your own personal muse. Daydreaming.

Most of us usually have a handful of reoccurring daydreams - have you ever written about them?

Read

The more you read, the more you have to talk to others about; the more fuel you acquire for thinking and daydreaming.

  • Books
  • Magazines
  • Blogs
  • Newspapers and News sites
  • Stumbleupon
  • Technorati
  • Billboards, advertisements, brochures

There’s plenty of things to read. In fact, sometimes too much - I have well over 150 feeds in my RSS reader. Sometimes I have to shut it all down and just…

Sleep

Some of my wildest fiction originates from the dreams I have. Even if we can’t remember our dreams, sometimes it’s helpful just to reboot. I often find myself writing the most after a long nights sleep. Plus, sleep is a writers right hand man…or woman, depending on how you roll.

Senses

Pay attention to your surroundings:

  • What does it look like?
  • How does it smell?
  • What can you hear?
  • How does it feel?
  • How does it taste?

This is one of those default “breaking the writers block” tactics - it works. And as a bonus, someone might come across you licking the sidewalk and start an interesting conversation with you. Let me know how that goes.

Shower

Anthony Robbins got it spot on:

“Don’t you ever realize that the most important things come to you when you’re in the shower and there’s no paper and pencil nearby? So I’m in the shower, I’ve got soap in my eyes - I’m just at that moment and all of the sudden, WHAM!…so I jumped out of the shower and I couldn’t find the towel, there’s soap in my eyes, I’m dripping wet, I’m running around naked looking for a piece of paper…I got a pen, found it and started scribbling like crazy. I sit there for the next hour and a half writing. I couldn’t stop writing…”

T.V.

This is probably the only time I’ll be in the pro television camp. You don’t even need to watch a whole show, just five minutes can really get your creative juices flowing.

…just don’t tell yan and Collis Ta’eed - I wouldn’t want them breaking a great resolution.

Don’t forget other media and entertainment as well: movies, home videos, music, video games (Phantom Hourglass and Puzzle Quest is my thing right now), etc.

Just Write

If you’ve done everything and you still can’t seem to come up with a topic, just write. Anything. It doesn’t have to make sense and it doesn’t even have to be in any known language.

However you find new ideas, just remember not to destroy your motivation before it has a chance to fly. You’re not too unexperienced to write, too young to write, too old to write, or too stupid to write. You just need to pick up the pen.

Do you write everyday? How do you find new ideas?

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Does Your Blog Have a Voice or Are You Just a Mime, Mimicking the Shapes of Others?

There is no new thing under the sun…

Let us marinate for a second on a quote that has been around for centuries and very often regurgitated in some form or another by many people, including U.S. presidents:

“That thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.” Eccles. 1:9

Whether you subscribe to the origins of this quote or not is beside the point. It brings up an interesting question: If there is nothing new under the sun, how can I be original; how do I develop a unique voice?

Let’s imagine that there is a word called “originality” and that this word exists within this “no new thing under the sun” kind of world; it must stand to reason that it has its proper place or it wouldn’t exist. Therefore, originality is separate from “new things” and is akin to voice. We can say that despite there never being anything new, there are many voices we can give to this infinite and always present ocean of possibilities. Perhaps it can be related to the difference between the human body and the soul (whatever that may mean to you).

Without delving deeper into the mist, let’s just stop here and say: Originality, and therefore voice, exists in a world where there is nothing new under the sun.

With that being said, how do we harness this unique and marvelously original voice we all possess?

Question yourself

There are some key things you can ask yourself to determine whether or not you’re living up to your own expectations:

  1. Who am I writing for? Who is my audience?
    You must get to know your audience.
  2. Do I provide value?
    Providing value is key to the health and longevity of both your writing and blogging ventures; everything from productivity blogs that help us eliminate the nonsense, to fantasy novels that delight our imaginations and spark our creativity.
  3. What do I do differently than others?
    Do you release your novels as free podcasts first? Have you decided not to use AdSense on your blog? ;o)
  4. Do I have memorable personality triggers?
    Do you mention dogs in everything you write? Do you post anime pictures with every blog entry? What makes someone say “Oh yeah, I know who that is.”
  5. Would I read my own writing?
    If you can’t stomach proof reading your own stuff because it bores the crap out of you, you’re doing something wrong.

Elements of voice

Personality

We all have distinctive quirks and idiosyncrasies. They’re a cumulation of social interactions with our close peer groups, our families and the locale in which we live. Use that to your advantage. Don’t forget that just because you and your friends refer to beautiful women as “dimes”, doesn’t mean everyone else does.

Spelling & Grammar

Boring, right? Yeah, it can be sometimes, but isn’t it so much easier to read something that actually makes sense on a consistent basis? Don’t we relate quality and usefulness to well edited and worded writing? There’s a reason we pay editors to go over our books before printing.

If you take the time to work on this, you begin to gain confidence in your writing and it resonates through your words.

Visual Elements

  • Typography - Bold, italic, cursive, pencil, pen, font, etc.
  • Layout - Double-spaced, single spaced, to blockquote or not to blockquote, line-spacing, etc.
  • Images - Do you scribble little stick figures for every blog post? YouTube videos? Stunning photography?

All of these and more contribute to your collective voice. Don’t get tied up and not write because you can’t decide whether red or green text looks better, but don’t neglect it either.

Developing your voice

 

Reading as Much as Possible

Don’t limit yourself to just one or two genres; venture outside of your comfort zone. It helps you develop a wider range of abilities. Study what makes other people stand out to you. Ask the questions above about the people you admire and see what you come up with.

Write from Your Passions

If you don’t love it, it probably won’t last, and if it does, it isn’t going to be very unique. Stop writing what you think other people want to hear, and start writing what makes you come alive inside and simply tailor that to your audience.

Write from Your Experience

The things we experience and the way we view them are unique to each individual. Always remember that you are an authority on your own experience. Don’t let anybody ever tell you differently.

Become Your Nemesis

If you’re a soul-hardened atheist, write from the perspective of a desert-wandering mystic. If you’re a rich aristocrat, become a lowly beggar sleeping in the gutters and living amongst the dregs of society.

Challenge yourself. Become what you hate, fear, loath and misunderstand. You’ll find new ways of looking at the world…a new voice will sing in your ears.

Fear is Your Ally

Fear is a funny thing. It can alter, stifle, and end our lives on one end of the spectrum; yet on the other, it can be our biggest motivator and the greatest indicator that we are following the right path.

Every piece of prose that has struck a chord deep within your heart, moved you beyond words, and transported your mind through dreams you previously thought inaccessible, has boiling within its core, one form of fear or another.

When your hands are shaking and your heart is a caged beast thunderously screaming to be set free, keep writing. You’re on the right track. Soon you’ll be addicted to that feeling.

Never Become Complacent

If it isn’t challenging, it’s boring. Useless repetition. And very soon, you will quit. Everything in life is either growing or standing still. If you’re standing still, you might as well be dead, because you will be soon.

If you’ve come to a point where you feel secure and don’t want to jeopardize that, just remember :

“Life is perverse in the sense that, the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.” - Brian Tracy

So seek opportunity and leave complacency in the dust.

Benefits of having a unique voice

  • You’ll achieve “leader” status much quicker.
  • People will look up to you and often cherish your opinion.
  • Your blog, website and/or books will quickly become an authority in your given field.
  • People will remember you when they need your specialties.
  • You’ll radiate confidence by knowing you’ve said what you needed to say and you did it with style.

Remember, leaders have a strong, unique voice; followers are left scrounging for originality while drowning in the bowl of those they admire. Take a deep breath and let your voice ring loud and true.

How did you find your voice? Or have you? How do you keep it fresh and vibrant?

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Coding

How Do Artists Make Money Online?

Yesterday we discussed the artist’s struggle and today, if you’re ready to give up the notion that one must struggle, and always struggle, to be an artist worth a shit, then lets discuss some incredible ways to make a healthy living by harnessing the online world.

  1. Create a website to offer your services and display your work. If you’re a designer and not a coder you can either follow a tutorial and learn, hire someone to put up your site - PSD2HTML is a great way to go, or if you’re low on cash, team up with a coder. Offer to design something for them in exchange for coding your site.
  2. Seriously consider attaching a blog to that new website. This is a great way to display, market and discuss your art. Creating a community based around your creative process not only inspires yourself and others, but also is a way to archive your art in order to use as a portfolio for any future clients.
  3. Offer free tutorials on your website (Photoshop, illustration, photography, etc.) and monetize it by putting up ads such as AdSense, Chitika, etc.
  4. Offer paid tutorials like CartoonSmart.
  5. Create a monster package of high resolution Photoshop brushes and offer them on your site. You could create a package of lower quality brushes which you offer for free and charge for the high res upgrade. If you’re really determined, you could even write your own Photoshop plugins.
  6. Post your services:
    • Elance
    • Freelancers Network
    • Freelance Switch
    • Guru
    • Get a Freelancer
  7. Participate in contests:
    • SitePoint
    • Worth1000
    • Threadless
    • Photoshop Talent
    • Photoshop Contest
  8. Offer gifts such as t-shirts, calendars, mugs, bumper stickers, etc., as well as ebook and printed book covers with your artwork on a print-on-demand basis. This is a great option because it doesn’t require you to stock any products.
    • CafePress
    • Lulu
    • PrintMojo (not print-on-demand) *thanks Rodney
    • Zazzle
    • Spreadshirt
    • Printfection
  9. Sell your illustrations, photographs and flash animations through stock, auction and store-front websites:
    • iStockphoto
    • Shutterstock
    • ShutterPoint
    • CartoonStock
    • FlashDen
    • Ebay
    • Etsy
  10. Create a unique, funny, link bait-y/viral image or brochure promoting yourself and/or your services. Something like gapingvoid for instance.
  11. Write about your artistic process and offer to guest post on other relevant blogs and websites to promote your services.
  12. Find websites and companies who sell products or services that look like, or correspond to your artistic style and offer to revamp their image.
  13. Contact video podcasters and offer to design a logo or intro segment for their show in exchange for money and/or a link back to your website.

The major reason for poor income lies in the fact that artists generally never promote themselves. It can be difficult sometimes to put yourself out there, but this is where the internet shines. For those of you that may be a bit timid, most of the above suggestions don’t even require you to ever leave your dungeon. However, the more you network, the more your name becomes a recognizable entity.

If you focus on adding one of these methods a week, in a few months you’ll have quite a few revenue streams and all you have to do then is focus on creating. And that’s what you should be focusing on, right? Get out there and do it.

Are you an artist? What are some ways you promote yourself online? How do you bring in the dough?

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Simple Guide to Styling Blockquotes Within Your Posts for Those with Limited Technical Skills

For this, there is only one file you will be working with:

  1. style.css

You can find this in your WordPress admin under Presentation > Theme Editor - listed on the right hand side.

Open up your style.css file and look for the following:

blockquote {
padding-left: 10px;
border-left: 5px solid #ddd;
color: #666;
}

The red part is what you’re looking for, the middle is what we will change to suit our style (if you can’t find it, then create it).

Styling Blockquotes

Here’s a bunch you can either use as is, or tweak to fit your template:

Style #1

blockquote {
padding-left: 10px;
border-left: 5px solid #ddd;
color: #666;
}

Example:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur mattis, orci vitae adipiscing venenatis, erat metus faucibus est, sed convallis nulla leo ac metus.”

Style #2

blockquote {
font-family: ‘Times New Roman’, Times, Serif;
padding: 10px;
color: #666;
font-style: italic;
border-top: 1px solid #ddd;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
}

Example:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur mattis, orci vitae adipiscing venenatis, erat metus faucibus est, sed convallis nulla leo ac metus.”

Style #3

blockquote {
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
color: red;
}

Example:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur mattis, orci vitae adipiscing venenatis, erat metus faucibus est, sed convallis nulla leo ac metus.”

Style #4

blockquote {
border: 3px dotted #ddd;
padding: 10px;
font-style: italic;
color: #666;
}

Example:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur mattis, orci vitae adipiscing venenatis, erat metus faucibus est, sed convallis nulla leo ac metus.”

Now, whenever you wrap something in a <blockquote> tag, it will display accordingly.

See you soon for part seven of “Stylizing Your Content”.

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Walking Home Last Night, A Banana Fell on My Head

…that’s one scary banana.

Dangling, Hanging or Unattached Participles - A Writers Worst Nightmare

This is a surprisingly common and extremely flagrant grammatical mistake that has infected the pages of blogs, websites and just about every article containing the written word. I know I’ve made the mistake plenty of times. I also know it makes you look dumb when someone points it out.

People will appreciate and subscribe to your blog, buy your product or read your books if you take the time to avoid silly grammatical errors. So lets try to fix this nuisance by being a bit more perceptive with regards to our writing.

What’s a participle?

A participle is a verbal. A verb form that is not limited by a subject. In other words, it’s the form of a verb, but it’s not a verb itself; it’s an adjective. They almost always end in -ing, -ed or -en. There are three kinds of participles: present participle, past participle and perfect participle. For now, and for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll keep it simple and leave the in-depth definition to someone else.

What’s a dangling participle?

Dangling participles occur where the phrase that begins a sentence does not belong, or was not intended to modify, the clause that follows. They just don’t make sense together.

“Walking home last night, a banana fell on my head.”

That sentence may sound correct, and you definitely know what the writer meant to convey - Last night a banana fell on my head while I was walking home. But, the meaning behind what is actually written is entirely different. No one wants a walking banana to fall on their head. In fact I don’t even want a banana that walks, let alone having it fall on my head.

How can I fix this?

Comb your writing for words that end in -ing, -ed or -en, and make sure your opening phrase is always modifying what follows next. If it doesn’t, you have a suicidal participle - dangling, hanging and unattached. ;o)

What’s your biggest writing pet peeve?

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