It’s taken five months to admit it, but I can no longer keep writing this website. I won’t do away with it, but neither will I regularly add to it.
“Regularly” adding to it hasn’t been my thing lately, as readers have noticed. I’ve been too tired from my part-time retail job and my part-time freelance job, and I’ve had concerns about DF’s health. Recently I gave notice at the retail gig, and I’ve all but closed down my freelance business.
But it’s more than that.
It’s been almost two months since I posted, a fact that shocked me. The last few weeks of summer, such as it was, kept us fairly busy with gardening and preserving the harvest. Work also played a hand in the long gap in writing. So did physical therapy, followed by my joining a gym* to continue to build strength and relieve pain.
Time seemed to blur and days/weeks began to blend. Before I knew it, another week had gone by. And then another. Who let that happen?
Not writing begets more not-writing. I freeze up and don’t know what to write, and then work starts tapping on my shoulder, and it’s time to pick more berries or dehydrate more greens. I’m tired in the evenings and want only to sit in the rocker next to DF’s armchair and read. The fact that people are sending me notes asking if I’m okay made me feel guilty, which caused me to freeze up some more.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying: I apologize for disappearing without even a placeholder “Still here!” kind of blog post.
Fact is, I’m slowly backing away from work. I’m no longer grabbing every available assignment, or constantly looking for ideas to pitch. Not quite ready to retire yet, but I’m realizing more and more that I want time more than I need money.
I subscribe to several writing-focused newsletters whose authors sell courses, books and other products. Sometimes the newsletters include educational or thought-provoking facts, or links to free videos or webinars.
Mostly, though, they sell. Oh, do they sell.
A subject line like “three simple steps that helped John change his life” or “she halved her work hours and quadrupled her income” might lead you to think the newsletter contains valuable advice.
Sometimes it does. Generally speaking, though, the advice is “if you buy my product you can change your life, too.”
This is all smart marketing. I understand that. I just don’t know how/don’t much care to do it myself. My background in print journalism taught me to keep myself strictly out of the story. The new paradigm, however, is to promote one’s “brand,” if not one’s products.
Which brings me to last week’s giveaway.
Apparently there’s a spam template floating around the Internetz. Anyone who blogs has likely seen its spawn, i.e., would-be “comments” that sound a lot like other “comments” you received that day. Or the previous week, or year.
That’s because they’re not comments at all. They’re camel noses.
Folks promoting their websites or who are being paid to promote other people’s websites cut and paste chunks of these templates and mass-mail them to every blog extant. Approve them once and they can get into your tent any time they want in the future.
Or, rather, their spam-mails can. If you’re new to blogging, be really wary about which comments you approve. Should the English seem very clunky or the comment off-topic (or a blatant non sequitur), check the return e-mail address/web page attached to the e-mail. You’ll almost certainly see something like “cheap retro Jordan size 8” or “teeth whitening” or “cheap FIF coins.”
Today I got an e-mail from a really clueless spammer who cut-and-pasted the entire freaking template: 2,828 words. Taken together they look like an English-as-a-second-language version of Mad Libs.
Some people write for love. Others write for money. I say it’s possible to do both, by starting a blog and monetizing it.
Although I dislike that neologism, I do embrace its underpinnings, i.e., that the laborer is worthy of his hire.
This week’s giveaway, an e-book called “How I Make Money Blogging: The Beginner’s Guide to Building a Money-Making Blog,” can kick-start your own efforts to be rewarded for your thoughts.
Some people make a little money blogging. Some make a lot. The book’s author, Crystal Stemberger, is in the latter camp. She really works it, running a handful of sites and also acting as ad-sales goddess, mentor, consultant and freelancer. Apparently she is allergic to sleep, because she recently added yet another specialty: pet-sitting.
Not everybody wants to work 24-7. But if you want to start a blog or if you’ve got a site and want it to start paying its way, this e-book can help. A lot.