Posted on April 20, 2008
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Image: kk+
When too much is not
enough: optimized balance

Recently a reader on Problogger posed some interesting questions on optimized publishing, in particular - how do you know when you’ve posted enough? and what’s the best strategy for generating traffic, without jeopardizing quality content?

One of the sweet things about blogging is that there are no universally correct answers to how much content is right? If you utilize your blog as an online diary, chances are, you’re not considering your audience or search engine optimization. If however, you’re aspiring to maintain problogger status two things must be factored into account before publishing a post:

• optimizing copy length and quality for search engines
• optimizing copy length and quality for reader experience

Jeopardize one, and it will be detrimental to your business. Optimization is a way of providing customer service and satisfaction, and search engines seek to provide this for the customers utilizing their search tools. We, as online publishers, must view the reader and the search engine as our customers and aim to please both!

It’s worth investing some time considering the following points before you hit the ‘publish’ button because, Read more

Posted on March 29, 2008
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Creative twist: journal for unparalleled discovery

Journal writing is one of the most powerful and easily accessible tools we have to heal, expand and transform our lives. Creative journaling goes way beyond recording day to day events, it opens the gate to unparalleled discovery.

A creative journal is a place for self-reflection, self-expression and self-exploration. Free from rules it is a space to make observation of the world around us and a potent place to develop a voice and position from which to write. Structuring ourselves to write regularly in an uncensored space we tap what author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron refers to as a ‘vein of gold’, creative juices that propel our work into infinite dimensions.

Writers resource

As the cornerstone of our New Journaling Bookshelf, “The Many Faces of Journaling” explores such a wide variety of topics and methods, there’s literally several “somethings for everyone.” The bountiful examples range from poignant to whimsical to startling to insightful. By the time you finsih reading this book, you’ll be itching to grab a pen and paper and start writing our your views of your life and the world iin general! Check this resource

Participate in an online Artist’s Way group at Paper Art Studio

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Posted on March 29, 2008
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… cultivate write habits

“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle

Jessica Gregson, whose debut novel The Angel Makers, published by PaperBooks, reveals the top tips required to be a successful writer and novelist.

• Don’t be superstitious - develop the ability to write anywhere, under any conditions. Having a writing ritual can be an excuse not to get anything done.

• Don’t edit as you go - it’s a sure fire way never to finish anything. When writing I tend to save each day’s work in a new document, which helps me resist the temptation to go back over what I read the day before.

• Set concrete goals and time limits. Writing’s a job like any other and requires concentration and discipline. Deadlines help concentrate the mind.

• Keep rejection in perspective (there’s likely to be a lot of it). Trust your own judgement, and remember that the opinions of the people you’re submitting your work to may carry more weight than others, but in terms of the quality of your writing, their opinions are no more right than anyone else’s.

Jessica stumbled upon the inspiration for The Angel Makers in 2000 when she came across Read more

Posted on March 28, 2008
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Common freelance career killers and how to get past them!

Working freelance requires commitment, dedication and courage. Early in my freelance career, I wrote dozens of articles and feature pieces, but never sent any to an editor for fear they weren’t good enough.

I would get disillusioned if my work was rejected, running back to a ‘regular’ job, and quite often, working away from an office, I’d get lazy or easily distracted.

And although I work differently today, from my own past experience and that of other artists, I discovered four habits that can break a freelance career.

Lack of discipline - A writer must everyday write!

If you were to undertake a survey you would find that writers successful in their field, have a tendency to write everyday. Regardless of whether it’s for work or pleasure - they write. It’s like body building or maintaining fitness, if you want to tone and remain toned, you have to discipline yourself to daily exercise.

A creative journal is a valuable tool for developing a ‘unique voice’; exercising writers muscles; and creating the write habit of regularity and routine … without the two ‘R’s, a freelance career will die pretty quickly or never get launched.

I write on average between 2000 to 5000 words every day. Some of this is for commissioned assignments much of it is observational writing ie. I capture the movement of the world around me, particularly nature; or I capture the nature of my thoughts.

Practice will of course improve writing skills, but daily writing does much more than that - it stimulates creative juices, that’s why veteran writers continue the practice. Daily writing gets us into the habit of turning up at the page, and breaks the ideology that we must be in a particular mood, state of mind, or special place, to be able to capture words.

I have had many people comment on the quality and quantity of work I produce - the key is discipline. But not discipline in the sense that it’s a hard slog. Regular writing, particularly creative journaling is fun.

Inspiration for work is often backed up in my mind, before I reach the page, as soon as I pick up a pen, words start spewing onto the paper with very little effort. I don’t have to sit and ponder too much, on what I want to write or how I should write it. Regular daily writing creates a habit similar to auto pilot - you pick up the pen and the words start to flow.

In the beginning it doesn’t much matter what you write as you practice, start by writing the ‘crap’ out of your head. Even if you have to sit for an hour and write - “I have nothing in my head to write about - gosh this sucks”, just practice moving your hand and putting words on the page. I write two to three pages of ‘crap’ every morning before the real juices flow. It’s like removing the scum from the top of a stew, and during the act of removing - you develop ‘write’ habits.

Habit develops from doing the same thing repeatitively - practice, practice and more practice. But forget about the ideology that practice makes perfect, throw that notion out the door. There is no such thing as perfect. Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes quantity, and over time quantity becomes quality. Quantity and quality are what a freelance writer requires to survive - not perfection. This brings us to our next freelance career killer …

Perfectionism - You’ll never get it write!

Perfectionism can be listed with other forms of addiction and self-abuse. Perfectionism does not produce good work, interesting work or uniqueness - most often it produces the opposite; it can place us in a state of paralysis, because the fear around not getting it right, or not being good enough, means we either never get started or we never finish.

Competitiveness is a relative - feeling that we have to do better or be better than everyone else, is a companion to the dis-ease of perfectionsism. If we combine competitiveness and perfectionism, it is almost sure to cripple our creative nature and ensures that our freelance career does not blossom in an enjoyable way.

Freelance work is inspiring, light and fun, that’s why so many creatives choose to do it, but if we become a slave to perfectionism there is nothing enjoyable about freelancing.

When writers nurture this dis-ease they very rarely succeed because perfectionists tend to get trapped in the habit of never starting, never finishing or never submitting. Instead they can waste endless hours and creative energy constantly criticising their work, or comparing themselves to others.

Underneath the mask of perfectionism hides the pain of fear - fear of criticism, fear of failure, fear of never being good enough.

If you fall into this category - let it go, because the reality is this: we will never be good enough, smart enough or better than everyone else: someone will always appear better in our eyes. As artists, we are bound to receive criticism - deal with it! Take the constructive criticism and use it to learn, change and develop as a writer and let the rest wash over you. If need be, buy some thick skin.

Lack of confidence - Write to feel good about Self!

This obstacle is a natural feeling when we launch into something new - it comes from lack of experience and time. Remember when we first started driving a car? Not sure about you, but I didn’t feel to damn confident, however time and practice behind that wheel, has me looking - dare I say it - like a pro!

The wonderful thing is this: as we overcome the first two career killers - lack of discipline and perfectionism, our confidence will begin to flourish. Confidence definitely arrives over time and with practice; the more we discipline ourselves to write daily the more confident we become at our craft and the more willing we become to test the waters outside our square.

There is a correlation between practice and achieving goals, when it comes to building confidence and self-esteem: set small, achievable and measurable goals eg. today I will spend one hour researching my topic and then write a 500 word summary on what I discovered.

It’s also a great practice to investigate classes, workshops or local writers groups, get involved in anything that supports you as an artist and helps nurture your talent. If you find a writers group too competitive, leave it: remember career killer number two; there’s better places to invest your time and energy. As artists we need to surround ourselves with people and events that support and nurture: it’s our priority to take care of Self.

Lack of commitment - Make the write choice!

Make the decision to commit to your success - you deserve it. Commit to a number of hours each day for both personal and career development.

Personal development may be daily exercise, meditation or yoga. Perhaps you might like to join a 12 step program to deal with that perfectionism! Personal or spiritual development is the core to success in all areas of our life. If we don’t sit well within, we have difficulty in the outside world. When we have trouble dealing with our life’s circumstances - it’s pretty difficult to feel inspired to achieve in our career.

It helps to feel content and at peace in our ’self’ or ‘being’, it gives us the courage and strength required as writers, to reveal our work in what can be described as an intimate way. It takes a lot of courage and commitment both to self and our career to hang our laundry in public places - so to speak!

Then of course we make the commitment to our career. One of the freelance writers I employed for a special publication, commits a percentage of her earnings toward re-investing in her career. She does this by way of books, courses, workshops, and travel to venues to listen to topical speakers. This is a good practice to follow.

Commit to your career by investing time, money and energy into obtaining further knowledge and skills. Also think of areas outside of writing that will enhance your career, for example: page layout and design; image manipulation; or photography. Don’t be afraid to cross pollinate, the rewards are astounding on both a personal and professional level.

Perhaps the best advise is make the leap - don’t wait for conditions to be right, go ahead and get started; believe in yourself, in your success and don’t be afraid to take risks.

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Posted on March 27, 2008
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Write from within

Cambodia has some of the most intriguing, prehistoric jungle. I stood beneath roots that spanned the height of three story houses, then atop of this a tree that blows open the most vivid imagination. Equally fascinating is the ancient world buried beneath this jungle, its secrets held captive by these towering forms.

I spent an amazing amount of time exploring, wandering, sitting, contemplating and writing with both pen and camera. And I had the pleasure of stumbling across other artists tucked away from the world, in the bowels of this vast and truly remarkable landscape, writing with ink, brush and paint.

These artists were both locals and travellers like myself, all of us with similar goal in mind: to sit still enough, quiet enough, long enough, to capture a sense and feel for the stories hidden within Read more

Posted on March 24, 2008
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Creative Drought

For many, writing is a process that is quite magical, and there is a feeling of disillusionment when the magical becomes mundane. Creating for a living is not the same as creating out of passion.

Whether for work or study, intensive writing can suck the passion out of our soul. I much prefer the enchantment, fluidity and surprise that creativity brings when there is no pre-determined outcome or product in mind. Free from desired outcome the mind becomes a clear channel, a pure vessel for creative flow.

Creative non-fiction is a favourite genre, but it’s easy to reach a point where you feel like you’ve sucked the memory well dry of experience - both past and present. Sometimes I can feel as though I have reflected upon everything that can possibly be reflected upon!

During these times of creative drought, there are two things that help me - the first requires play. It is important for creative people to take time out to have fun, walk, wander, go see things that inspire like art exhibitions, a human circus, 3D documentaries, mountains, beach, bush, botanic gardens.

I love collecting shells at a secluded beach, and taking my camera out for photographic dates with nature. Both photograph and shell collections sit close to where I work and act like a portal to imagination, inspiration and creative energy.

The second thing I do, is remind myself that, like the cycle of seasons, creative passion comes back! Passion for creating, regardless of the medium we work with or in, always returns and, often after drought, the creative energy has doubled.

The creative forces of nature, like tidal patterns of the ocean and cycles of the moon, remind me of this ebb and flow. Resisting the ebb impedes the flow of new beginning.

I find that silence is valuable during drought - periods of meditation create a great space for the muses of new beginning, they are drawn to a quite and open mind. Zen masters remind us that life should always be approached with a “beginner’s mind”, for a beginner is open to discovering all possibilities.

Meditation, contemplation, reflection - perhaps three of the greatest tools for an artist. Contemplating what I would like to leave behind if I was soon to depart from this planet also inspires me to think beyond the limits I tend to subconsciously set for myself.

If this were your last week of life what would you notice about your world?

A year leading up to his death, 80 year old poet, William Stafford, started getting up at 4, and in the quiet, dark hours of the morning, in long hand, he penned his observations of the simple and small things in life. He wrote in a voice that carried a sense of morning meditation.

It is unsure as to whether Stafford knew of his approaching death but, wrote author of Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller, “the poems written during those final days have the quality of “last words”: stripped of artifice, speaking from a self that wants us to pay attention - not to abstract ideas and philosophies, not to idle worries or regrets, but to the world as it unfolds before us, every minute, every day. And as I read these poems, I’m thinking that all of our writing, perhaps, could be written with this kind of disposition: with the tenor of last words, the essays we would leave behind if no further writing were possible.”

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

William Stafford - You Reading This, Be Ready

 
Stafford lead an interesting life. One of the most striking features of his career is that he began publishing his poetry only later in life. His first major collection Traveling Through the Dark was published when he was 48 years old. It won the National Book Award the following year in 1963.

Stafford kept a journal for 50 years, and during this time composed 22,000 poems of which approximately 3000 were published. He had a quiet daily ritual of writing, that focused on the ordinary.

“I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”

 
I have found that keeping a journal - not now and then, but daily, has become my preventative medicine against creative drought. Through the meditative art of contemplation and reflection that journalling evokes, it appeared that Stafford maintained a connection with the ‘hidden river’ of his life and avoided creative drought - 22,000 remarkable poems is a major accomplishment!

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