How to Write When You Have Nothing to Write

I've been asked before what I do for writer's block and I've said several times that I don't get writer's block. I suppose there should be an asterisk after that sentence because I have had writer's block--but only with certain kinds of writing.

Here at the blog writer's block has never been much of a problem (for better or for worse) and my husband will gripe about how I will sit down and pop out a post in between commercials while we're kicking back in front of the television in the evening.

He's exaggerating, but not by much, and I'm here to explain how it's done. There's no big mystery when it comes to being able to write on demand and here are ten tips for those wondering "What do I say today?"

1. Practice thinking.
Remember that you don't need anything terribly epic to make a good post, life tends to present all sorts of things for your comment, the trick is to have an opinion. Now maybe Andrew and I are strange freaks of nature but you could pretty much ask us our opinion on any subject and we'd be able to talk for longer than you'd care to listen.

The funny thing about blogs is that you can say so much in a blog that you'd never be able to get away with in person. What I mean is this: if you were at a dinner party and someone asked you how you felt about disciplining children and you were to talk about how children nowadays are so rude and impolite and that parents should discipline them better (just hypothetically speaking of course) every woman at the dinner table would hate you because she'd assume you were talking about her child.

However, you could write a post, say exactly the same thing, and while people may disagree with you or tell you you're whacked as soon as you're speaking to a group everyone assumes you're talking about the other guy and there are suddenly a million reasons why whatever you're saying doesn't apply to them and that they're different. It's just human nature.

So my point is, go think about things and formulate some opinions. They may be right, they may be wrong but I bet they'll be interesting and people like reading someone else's opinion--even if it drives them crazy.

2. Learn to look at life in terms of conflict, crisis, resolution.
You have the great formulas of life. Force equals mass times acceleration, volume is height times width times depth and in storytelling it's "story equals conflict, crisis, resolution."

Conflict can be as great as a car wreck or a trip to prison or as small as missing an appointment or fighting with a loved one. As a blogger (or writer) it's your job to see that conflict and exploit it. Heh. Kidding--well, kind of. Just remember that conflict is what drives your writing and only conflict. I don't care if you're the most eloquent person in the world if there is no conflict you're not giving anyone a reason to push their eyes to the next word. Conflict, and only conflict is interesting. It may be sad, it may be funny, it may be ridiculous or ironic but it is the only thing that works so get used to recognizing it.

Also, remember that you might present conflict but too many bloggers forget the last two parts. Your rising action is critical and the crisis should be the high point of emotion and resolution must happen or readers will leave the table still feeling hungry and wondering what it was they just ate. Conflict without resolution is merely whining.

3. Use life markers for ideas.
Old photos, family stories, a journal entry, a souvenir from a trip, a collection you love or a piece of clothing--if you've saved it for a reason there is most likely a story there (unless of course you're just a compulsive hoarder then it may just be a sign of deeper issues). Tell that story and make us care about it the way you do.

Life isn't made up of possessions but stories often are.

4. Go through past posts for ideas.
If you wrote something years ago go back and take another look at it with fresh eyes. Maybe the story has come to a new conclusion, maybe you feel differently about it now, maybe you've learned more since then, maybe there's more to develop. If you haven't wrote in the past, old journal entries or letters can serve the same purpose.

Even if there is nothing more to tell sometimes just going through past writing (especially if you like what you wrote and it's a quality piece) will inspire you to a new thought or a new idea. You might remember a detail you'd forgotten or a way to expand on what you've already done.

Reworking an old post is a good exercise even if you never publish it because it's always helpful to touch up and improve what you've already done for the sake of good writing. And you want to improve your writing, write?

5. Look at your life as if you're a stranger.
This is a helpful exercise for life in general--being able to take an objective assessment of your situation or performance--but it's particularly helpful when writing. Try to look at your home or surroundings with a fresh perspective. Pretend you're a tourist in your life and see what might be interesting then write about it. This can be hard if you've lived in the same place forever but give it a try and imagine what it might be like to see a tornado for the first time (I've never seen one) or to find a snake in your house (haven't had this happen either). What family recipes have you eaten forever that are stale to you but new and interesting to a guest?

Good writing is made of details so learn to see the details of your own life.

6. Use other people's writing to inspire.
Whether it's a fine episode of the Simpsons or Pride and Prejudice with Zombies you can see examples of how one thing can play on another (parody alone has sparked a whole canon of work). Look at what inspires other people's creativity and then put your own personal spin on it. Use it to branch out and continue the story, take a counter approach or see the story from a new perspective.

Reading other blogs is particularly good for this--read something controversial and use it to inspire a rebuttal or a concurring opinion. No one says you have to agree but I would recommend being polite and professional.

But whatever you do make it your own and bring your own life and talents to the task.

7. Make lists.
What are your favorites? Foods, colors, flowers, cars, games, habits? What are your pet peeves, your thrills or your favorite vacation spots? Use lists to spark an idea and run with it. Think of some of your favorite things to do and then write about how to teach someone else to do it. Change a spark plug? Bake a cake? Plant tulip bulbs? If you find it interesting then chances are someone else will too and the process of teaching someone else to do it will be a good experience in organized thinking and as we all know organized thinking leads to organized writing.

8. Keep a notebook on hand at all times.
I would perhaps even extend this to even taking notes in the shower because I actually do some of my best thinking in the shower (assuming no one is pounding on the door saying "Mom! Mom! Mom!" which is about one time out of five).

Keep track of funny things your child (or husband) says, keep track of thoughts you had or ways your day was different from the day before. Write down your reactions to things you heard on the radio (I do this frequently) or plans you have for your week or your life. If you want to know a secret, Moleskines are about the coolest thing in the world anyway. Much cooler than an iPhone. You'll look even cooler with one of those little black notebooks than all the tech gadgets in the world.

Sponsored by Annette Lyon, whose new novel Band of Sisters is now in print.

Blissdom 2010, Rain Forests and Oatmeal

Have you ever been to a conference? You know, where you get to be at a gathering of a million people you probably don't know after traveling far from home to stay in a hotel room where you maybe don't sleep so well? I've been to a few of them and while they're usually informative and helpful I can't wait to get home again to all my familiar comforts.

But going to Nashville for the Blissdom conference last week was different. As in WOW, way better! Why was it so fabulous? I'm glad you asked . . .

1. The Opryland Hotel. Usually these things are held in nice hotels--Hilton, Westin, Sheraton, whatever--and while that's all well and good and probably very historical the Gaylord Opryland was better. The rooms were about the same but the hotel itself was like a day at Disneyland--the 2800 rooms are built around this sprawling complex of waterfalls, ponds, fountains and gardens underneath a glass ceiling so even though it's 50 degrees outside and rain (which it was) you could sit by the waterfall and pretend you're hanging out in a rain forest. With your computer.

Because the whole place had upgraded wifi just for the conference--now when was the last time you sat in a rain forest and Skyped your husband? And for those of you who don't know what Skype is that probably sounds rather suspicious but I guess you'll just have to look it up and trust that this is a clean blog.

There are several restaurants right there on the water and it kind of reminded me of the Blue Bayou restaurant at Pirates of the Caribbean. Only it wasn't completely dark and you didn't have mechanical pirates shooting cannonballs at you and the food was half the price and twice the quality. I didn't say it was exactly like the Blue Bayou--only kind of, in a much better way.

2. Complete with a Tea Party. And speaking of the hotel, as proof that it was quite the attraction guess who else was hanging out at Blissdom? Sarah Palin. Apparently she'd heard about a rather questionable piece I'd written and she wanted to speak to me about it. I told her I'd be happy to meet with her after my panels were finished and to wait for me by the iRobot booth but then she got really nervous and decided to ditch me. At least that's the story that's going around.

Of course the other story is that the first ever Tea Party convention was held in the room next door to Blissdom which probably explained all the strangely dressed men in colonial garb and tri-cornered hats. It took me a while to put that one together but then I got it. You've never seen such a long line of people all dressed in various forms of the American flag. Hats, shirts, pants, ties--all with the stars and stripes on it and I felt quite under-dressed.

3. Great Swag. In fact I felt kind of sorry for them, standing for hours in line like that while we were having a lot more fun next door. I didn't want to make them feel bad by showing them all the great swag we'd got because even though they'd paid $550 to get in they didn't seem to have much to show for it.

I got this beautiful pair of earrings from The Vintage Pearl, a gorgeous silver necklace especially designed for the conference speakers at Blissdom from Lisa Leonard Designs and two--count them TWO--pairs of socks and a t-shirt from Hanes. Round that out with cute little personalized tags and stickers for my kids from Mabel's Labels, make-up from Cover Girl and two bags of Hershey's fine Bliss chocolates which have pretty much mysteriously disappeared since last Thursday. Hmmmm . . . wonder what happened to those? Great sponsors who deserve a bit of recognition for helping to make Blissdom so memorable and fun. Maybe the Tea Party can get them to sponsor their next convention?

4. Make That the Best Swag EVER. Though I have to admit my favorite, most bestest swag ever was the authentic, genuine, personally autographed Harry Connick Jr. CD!!! I already mentioned how great the concert was and how I'm standing there with his arm around my shoulder feeling rather sheepish but later in my bag I discovered this latest album signed by the Man Himself.

Best song on it? "Besamé Mucho" or maybe "Mona Lisa." Gorgeous stuff.

As promised, here's the picture of meeting Harry from Darcy at My Three Boybarians and since you're probably wondering who those other women are (top row, left to right) me, Harry, Dana Loesch from Mamalogues, Tannis Miller from Redneck Mommy, Lindsey Ferrier from Suburban Turmoil, (bottom row, left to right) Isabel Kallman from Alpha Mom and Catherine Connors from Her Bad Mother. I believe Tannis threatened him with her cane at some point.

5. Other Tasty Things. All the other conferences I've been to serve food that tastes as if it's been sitting at the Quik-E Mart for several years, gathering bacteria and other flavorful additions but it just goes to show you what happens when you do a conference right. The food was quite good, for lunch on Friday (sponsored by Hunt's) celebrity chef George Duran did a cooking demonstration where he prepared an Italian entree of ricotta-stuffed eggplant and after the show we adjourned to one of the restaurants where we were served the dish to try for ourselves.

Now I have to say that while I was watching him up there he pulled out a long, rubbery, shimmering slice of eggplant and I nearly lost it. I've never been a fan of eggplant and he totally lost all credibility the minute I saw that thing come out but by the time I was sitting at the restaurant, plate in front of me, I was completely starving and I decided to be brave. I took a taste and actually it was very good. And when I say good I mean that you couldn't taste any eggplant at all. Whew! I was nervous there. Anyway, it was great and that's how it was the whole time--good food and plenty of in-between treats.

6. Oatmeal? What Oatmeal? In fact, I really have to give Blissdom credit for all that great food. Orville Reddenbacher, Con Agra, Hunt's--some great sponsors that made for tasty vittles. I'd told Andrew before I left that even with their tv dinners the family would probably be eating better than I would, given the history of conference cuisine, but when I saw the first breakfast spread with that glorious heap of eggs and bacon and all sorts of fattening stuff I was in heaven.

And the best part? They had oatmeal but they put the container at the very end of the banquet table so that by the time I got to it I'd already filled my plate with other tasties. Talk about your good planning! If I'd seen the oatmeal at the beginning of the line I would have felt totally guilty and would have had my sad little bowl of healthy stuff but as it was there wasn't anything I could do--forget the oatmeal, I went right for the good stuff. Thanks Blissdom!

7. Have Some Hot Chocolate! Right outside the conference rooms was the ConAgra Foods booth where they had hot chocolate ready and waiting, complete with aerosol whipped cream. Now that's what I'm talking about. I'd finish a session, run out to the lobby, grab some hot chocolate then lusciously thaw in time for the next round. Though one does have to ask who it was who decided that air conditioning was a good idea in the middle of a Tennessee winter?

8. Great Sessions. Of course I'm probably rather biased here but I thought the sessions were great---enough to give you lots to think about but not so many as to overload you with information.

Saturday morning I was on the "Blogging with the Stars" session where Holly Buchanan moderated Tsh Oxenreider, Melissa Michaels, Dana Loesch and me in a panel discussion about how to grow your blog then later that afternoon I lead the final session of "Memoir Writing: The Power and Mystery of Telling Your Story" and had a great time with Catherine Connors, Tannis Miller and Megan Jordan who are all storytellers that know a thing or two about their craft.

I've been told that the sessions are all going to be transcribed and will soon be available for purchase through the Blissdom site for those who might want to hear what went on.

And as a plug--Megan Jordan, Leslie Flinger and I are looking at putting together a similar panel for the upcoming BlogHer conference in New York this summer called "Controversial v. Commercial: A Cage Match Between Your Independent Blogging Goals and Your Professional Blogging Ambitions" and I'd love you forever if you would go to the link and give it a vote--I believe you have to be logged into the BlogHer site to see the voting links at the top of the page. We'd love to see you there!

And finally--the best part about Blissdom (and I know you'd think it was the food given the way I've gone on about it) was meeting great bloggers and kind people. I tried to write down each person I met so I could give you an idea of the people who were there though I probably missed someone important. I'm afraid the people I knew the best I forgot to write down because I already knew them and even now I keep remembering people I'd forgotten but I'd highly recommend visiting each of them on Twitter and Facebook--if you're looking for people to follow and read here is a great place to start.

Aliza Sherman from Babyfruit
Allison Czarnecki from Petite Elefant
Alli Worthington from Blissfully Domestic
Amanda White from Oh Amanda
Amy Johnson from She Wears Many Hats
Amy Clark from Mom Advice
Amy Turn Sharp from Double-vay
Arianne Segerman from To Think Is To Create
Barbara Jones from The One2One Network
Becky Zemansky from The Violet Fig
Casey Mullins from Moosh in Indy
Catherine Connors from Her Bad Mother
Christine McMenemy from A Mommy Story
Christy Matte at Quirky Fusion
Cynthia from Nap Warden
Dana Loesch from Mamalogues
Danielle Smith from Extraordinary Mommy
Darcie Maranich from Such the Spot
Dawn from My Home Sweet Home
Deanna Garrison from Domestic Chicky
Debba Haupert from Girlfriendology
Ellen Seidman from To the Max
Emily Freeman from Chatting at the Sky
Heather Solos from Home Ec 101
Holly Buchanan from Marketing to Women Online
Isabel Kallman from Alpha Mom
Jamie Reeves from Blonde Mom Blog
Janice Croze from 5 Minutes for Mom
Jenn Fowler from Frugal Upstate
Jennifer Schmidt from Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Jenny Viars from Great Little Stories
Jill Anderson from The Diaper Diaries
Jo-lynne Shane from Musings of a Housewife
@justicefergie from Blogalicious Conferences
Katja Presnal from Skimbaco
Katie Howard from Blissfully Domestic
Kim Christopherson from The DIY Dish
Kim Moldofsky from Hormone Colored Days
Kimba Rugh from A Soft Place to Land
Kristi Mendez from Blogger Black Book
Lora Fanning from Vitae Familiae
Laurie Turk from Tip Junkie
Leisa Hammett from LeisaHammett.com
Linda Sellers from Short Pump Preppy
Lisa Leonard from Lisa Leonard Designs
Liz Strauss from Successful Blog
Liza Berry-Kessler from Liza Was Here
Lucretia Pruitt from Geekmommy
Maggie Whitley from Gussy
Malia from Just Malia
Marie LeBaron from Make and Takes
Megan Jordan from Velveteen Mind
Melanie from A Dramatic Mommy
Melanie Nelson from Blogging Basic 101
Melissa Michaels from The Inspired Room
Melissa Stover from A Familiar Path
Melitsa Avila from Play-Activities
Meredith Pelham from Like Merchant Ships
Molly Sandquist from Cooking with Caitlin
Nell Floyd from My 3 Volvo Life
Nicole Bateman from Apron Strings Aflutter
Robin Dance from Pensieve
Sarah Pinnix from Real Life Sarah
Sarah Bane from SaraViola.org
Staci Brown from Simply Staci
Stephanie Precourt from Adventures in Babywearing
Sugar Jones from Sugar Jones TV
Tanis Miller from Attack of the Redneck Mommy
Tsh Oxenreider from Simple Mom
Wendy Piersall from the Sparkplugging network

Sponsored by Dimples and Dandelions

Harry Connick Jr. and the Best Blissdom Yet

Friday night I was one of five hundred women crazy with excitement to see Harry Connick Jr. for a personal concert at the Blissdom conference in Nashville. Go ahead and read that sentence again if you need to, and make sure you're sitting down.

In the Fuse nightclub at the Opryland Hotel we crowded around the eye-level stage with only a velvet rope between me and the man my college roommate used to swoon over nineteen years ago (she's the one who first introduced me to the tunes of Mr. Harry-Met-Sally). We stood in front of the stage area, waiting for about forty minutes with colored spot lights blinding us intermittently, eating too many bacon-wrapped scallops from the h'ors d'oeuvre table and smelling the acrid yet thrilling odor of the fog machines--and I would have waited all night if I'd had too.

Mr. Connick followed his four band members onto the tiny wooden stage where they performed four, count them FOUR, songs in the most glorious, rich and tasty jazz I've ever heard. Now I've loved jazz ever since I became an adult and discovered its power and technicality but this was something I'd never heard. If you want details I'd say it was Dixie but that's like trying to describe the performance by saying he sang in English.

I'd never heard jazz live before and I can tell you I'd have stood there as long as they were willing to play--each note was like the perfect lemonade, balanced and sweet and full of energy and I'd defy you to have listened and not moved with the beat. We're so proud of our digital accomplishments, of the clarity of MP3, of the ability to share and spread music until we can't get away from it but there has be a distinction between our normal, plastic music and the notes they were creating. While the songs were well known and the tunes familiar, plucking those vibrations myself straight from the strings and reeds that produced them was the difference between eating canned, processed corn and harvesting a summer cob straight from the field. Yes it was sweet!

I was in awe and I'd love to have a recording of the performance but it wouldn't be the same. A copy wouldn't convey that connection to the band, the joy of the sound or the energy of their movements. It might give you an idea of what they played but not what they created.

Anyway . . . before the performance Mr. Connick spoke about how he appreciates things like community and people who get things done. How he admires the women in his life and how important it is to do whatever you can to help others within your own sphere. He's been active in rebuilding his hometown of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and he and Branford Marsallis have created what they call the Musicians' Village which is a complex for aspiring performers including housing and support for their education and success. So far they've been able to build eighty homes and do their little part to rebuild and make the world better and you have to admire not only the results of their efforts but the desire to help others that got them there.

So the message that accompanied these glorious melodies? Don't be discouraged in trying to do good things and look around to see what you too can do to make a difference whether it's on a small scale in your own home or in eighty homes--it's not so much the size or amount as it is the fact that something good gets done, which is a hopeful and appropriate message in a time when it's often easy to get discouraged and hopeless for the future. I appreciated that these five men took the time to share a little something with us, something I'll never forget and that made my life just a tiny bit better.

I was impressed but you can see it for yourselves--thanks to Cooking with Caitlin and SouthernPlate.com here are clips of both the speech and the final number. Wish you could have been there. Both clips were filmed from the opposite side of the room from me--I was in front of the saxophonist and loving every minute.

After the performance he stayed to shake hands and take photos--I hadn't intended on saying hello but I was feeling particularly brave after the performance and when I walked up to him I was a little shocked to realize I was a good inch taller than him in my towering heels. They spun me around to get in the photo and I nearly toppled over on those shaky shoes when he put his arm around me on my shoulder. I guess they expected me to smile for the camera but I think I gave them a good deer-in-the-headlights face (or moose if you prefer) so who knows how the shot turned out. I'll have to figure out who has it . . .

P.S. The photos were taken by Dawn at My Home Sweet Home whose Flickr stream you can see here, some rights reserved. Her pictures of the conference are wonderful, she's a talented photographer!

Sponsored by Beau-Coup for unique baby shower favors.

Notice Anything?

So what do you think? It's a different look--I figured after nearly two and a half years it was time for a bit of a face lift.

Special credits go first to Cynthia at NW Designs for putting it all together. She was extremely patient with me as I completely messed up on things like centering and justification and probably deserves a medal.

And further credit goes to Randa Clay who designed the logo for me. I've worked with her before and love her designs. If you go to her portfolio page you'll see my beloved Quillish logo for quillish.com that I've had big plans for but never been able to use. Isn't it a great name and a great logo? Love that orange.

Anyway, if you'd like a button here's what it looks like:


And here's the code:

<a href='http://scribbit.blogspot.com'><img alt='Scribbit' class='alignnone size-full' height='111' src='http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/amitton/screenshot_02-1.jpg' title='Scribbit' width='150'/></a>

It goes with anything and is oh so stylish!

And I forgot to mention--when I started Scribbit I used a pen name. Call it newbie paranoia but I thought it would be safer and then by the time I figured out that I was probably being overly cautious it was too much of a pain to change it. But I finally got around to changing everything over to my real last name which is what you'll now see on my Twitter and Facebook pages and everything associated with my blog. So if you're confused as to why you're suddenly seeing "Michelle Mitton" you're not alone. I've received several worried emails about my marital state so I thought it might need a tiny explanation.

Not to worry, we're still married.

Blissdom 2010

I'm starting to get excited for this year's Blissdom conference in Nashville next month--making plans and anticipating what fun it'll be to get Outside for a couple days and learn new things.

Are you going? I sure hope you are because I'm looking forward to meeting some of my fine blogging friends. Even more than I'm looking forward to seeing Tennessee for the first time, even more than staying in the amazing Gaylord Opryland Hotel (with the indoor gardens--have you seen it??) and even more than I'm looking forward to sharing the podium with some of the greatest bloggers out there.

Because I'll be speaking at two separate conference sessions, both on Saturday. First, I'll be there at the 10 am for "Blogging with the Stars" where Holly Buchanan will be talking about how four bloggers--me being one of them--got to where they're at. It ought to be very helpful, not only because Holly has effective insights into blogging but because Tsh Oxenreider, Dana Loesch and Melissa Michaels will be there as well. I'm hoping to learn from it myself.

Then I'll be at the 3:30 session, "Memoir Writing: The Power and Mystery of Telling Our Stories" where Megan Jordan, Catherine Connors, Tanis Miller and I will be talking about how blogging can contribute to your writing in other genres--the marriage between blogging and writing your memoir, the problems that can arise and the benefits from trying a new medium. It ought to be a great session as well.

So if you haven't yet decided to go I hope you'll come and if you're planning on being there I hope we can meet up. My flight gets into Nashville Thursday evening and I'd like to plan some fun get-togethers on Friday and more on Saturday evening. Drop me an email if you have the time.

***

Congratulations to Marie of Toronto, Canada for winning the How Fast Time Flies digital scrapbooking giveaway last weekend.

Sponsored by Beau-Coup for unique baby shower favors.

Brought to You by the Trolls of the World

Two and a half years ago my nephew Alex who was autistic ran away from his home and drowned in a lake in his neighborhood. I've mentioned in two different posts that he passed away but I didn't really talk about it out of respect to my sister, Carinne, and her family's privacy.

But I'm afraid my wanting to spare her further pain wasn't shared by everyone here in our little community--the local media covered the tragedy by leaving out important facts and then using words which hinted at parental negligence. They even went so far as to say that police were investigating and were thinking of pressing charges--none of it true.

Of course those of us who knew the family were shocked. The news didn't mention that he was severely autistic and generally incapable of communication, that he was a very strong and large seven year old boy who was attracted to water and repeatedly escaped from his house so he wore an electronic monitoring bracelet because of his parents' fears of just such an event occurring. Anyone who knew them knew of their love and care, it was an accident and the family deserved compassion and comfort but instead they were being accused of being bad parents.

No one from the media made any attempt to find out their story, reports kept being broadcast that hinted that there was some kind of a police investigation going on. Of course it was all untrue, it was just a high-tech rumor mill, but then the letters to the editor started coming. People who had heard the news reports made assumptions and judgments then began making accusations. A few wrote scathing letters demanding that the police press charges and saying horrible things which we desperately tried to keep from my sister and her family while they were planning for Alex's funeral.

It was bad enough that the newspaper printed these inflammatory letters in an effort to sell papers (which is one of the main reasons I cannot tolerate the Anchorage Daily News and will hold a vicious grudge against them until the day I die) but we were completely shocked that people in our community would say such horrid things and jump to such conclusions without giving another human being the benefit of the doubt.

I've seen this happen a couple of times to other unfortunate families, my sister's situation wasn't an isolated case. A single African American mother who worked full time reported her two sons missing. People thought they knew all about her, some started pointing fingers, making suggestions about what had happened until the two little boys were found in a nearby pond and it was determined it had all been an accident. About the same time Alex died a single father dropped his teenage daughter off at a party where she was shot and killed. Again, letters to the editor came out condemning this man for his bad parenting and holding him responsible for what had happened to his daughter.

I've been thinking about these things after the post I wrote last Monday. I had worried that writing about my son and our worries was a little too personal but then I thought that it might be a good thing to share if it helped others going through the same thing and to let people know we're certainly not perfect over here and I have all sorts of struggles. So I published and held my breath and I was touched by how kind the responses were.

But then I got a comment that was like a sock in the gut. Instead of merely disagreeing with my points on parenting an anonymous commenter attacked my son and then us as parents. At first I let the comment stand for a while out of shock and there were some of you who were very kind about supporting us (thanks Carinne for sticking up for me) but I finally decided it was better to take the post down. I didn't want my son to read what had been written about him and I decided that maybe I'd been too open with things--that by being too open I was now being punished.

Carinne and I spoke about the experience and we both wondered why people do this kind of thing? Even if people think these nasty things what propels them to put pen to paper and air their opinions to the world? I've never been attacked face-to-face so why is it that people feel free to write things that they'd never say in person?

My personal opinion is that somewhere in them is a bit of common decency that holds them back from saying things like this to someone's face but once that face-to-face contact is removed the person on the other end is just an anonymous, amorphous entity without feelings and suddenly they're free to take their best shot. It's like being in a car, separated from the other cars you are free to say things to the other drivers you'd never say to them if they were standing in front of you though even that bit of social courtesy is being eroded as well.

Of course I still think there's a bit of something there that tells them that what they're doing is wrong because why else would they be so cowardly as to remain anonymous? If they thought that they were helping or serving or constructively criticizing they'd leave their name as proof but none of them ever do. They leave the note and slink away, finding satisfaction in throwing the rock then hiding like some truant schoolchild.

What is wrong with people that they can't feel sympathy for another person, especially one who is struggling with a child or who has lost a child? Are they so scared that something might happen to their own children that they search around for ways to show how the other parents did something wrong that caused events to turn out badly? Maybe they think that if they can find a reason why another mother messed up, that it's somehow her fault, then it can't happen to them.

I've had plenty of nasty comments here over the years and each one kind of shocks me. Being judgmental and critical may be a natural human trait but how did we come so far as to lose that little voice inside that says, "Keep your feelings to yourself. Not only is that other person a human being with feelings who deserves compassion but it's wrong to say hurtful things. It doesn't matter that you think you're right."

Well whatever prompts these people to act that way, the problem is just getting worse. There are so many online venues available now that trolls don't need to hide under bridges any more, they're coming out into the daylight to feed which means that it's just going to be that much more important for the rest of us to do everything we can to make sure courtesy and compassion still have a place in the world--it's going to be up to us to make the difference.

Sponsored by Pak Naks--decorate your stuff!

Are Product Reviews and Blogging a Rotten Mix?

I don't want to go back and talk about the FTC's new rules about blogging, it seems pretty cut and dried that if you're going to do product reviews on your blog you'll have to make sure you tell everyone what you're doing. Not a big deal, most of the people I know are doing this already and are doing it honestly.

But what I've been thinking about more and more is product reviews in general. I've been doing them for two and a half years now and my feelings over that period have changed quite a bit.

At first I was all giggly that someone would send me something and ask my opinion on it. Me! Who can't get anyone to listen to me when I say something as simple as "Where is your coat?" or "Did you make your bed?"

I decided that I wanted not to do reviews so much as giveaways (though that may just semantics) where instead of offering an opinion on how it worked for me I would be able to give stuff away. It just seemed more fun that way and frankly I don't need that much "stuff." But the biggest reason I did it was to boost my traffic on weekends, which are traditionally the slowest time for blog traffic. It worked like a charm, that first summer I went from getting three or four hundred visitors a day to thirteen or fourteen hundred. [Said in a squeaky old man voice] "Back in those days that was a lot of traffic!"

Weekends were my biggest draw and I thought my evil plan was working very well, thank you very much, but then things began to happen. Other people started asking how to get into the racket (which I was happy to share info on, plenty of fun to go around) and then I started getting a little pickier. I didn't want to do just any giveaways and I began turning people down. I started to worry about what to do if I didn't like something that was offered and I started getting stuck in the middle between making sure the sponsors shipped out their stuff on time and the winners who would sometimes say "Where is my stuff? I haven't got it yet."

With all this talk about the new FTC rules I've heard a lot of people say, "But I already let people know when I get free stuff and mombloggers are already an honest group--why is the FTC getting involved?" and while I agree I've noticed a few disturbing trends that I'm not entirely comfortable with.

1. Product reviews are becoming ineffective.
I've wondered if the days of blogging product reviews are limited--or at least limited for all but the very highest tier of bloggers, i.e. those that see enough traffic to make the whole thing cost-effective because product reviews are becoming so common their power is diluted. You know how I said that I got such a burst of traffic when I first did giveaways? Well while after a year my overall traffic had increased and caught up to what it was on weekends but the weekend giveaways didn't grow likewise, that traffic stayed stagnant and now my week day posts are by far more popular (which is typical of blogging traffic).

Readers have so many things pitched to them that they're starting to tune a lot of it all out the way you tune out commercials on television and radio or ads in a newspaper. They're demanding better and better stuff and some have stopped entering giveaways all together because they've entered every contest they've seen for a year and still haven't won one stinkin' thing so why bother to continue?

Right now companies are experimenting with reaching out to mombloggers but I think that it won't take too many years before they figure out how to do it smarter--i.e. demand that momblogs tell them specifics about their readership and traffic and limit their offers to those that make it cost effective. That doesn't necessarily mean those with the biggest reader base, someone might have a very loyal following that is smaller but more focused on a particular topic, but I do think they're going to figure things out in another year or two or five and the market will naturally adjust.

Which leads me to point number two . . .

2. Blogs should not be judged by what they review or give away.
In fact that's completely backwards of how it's supposed to work--blogs judging products.

Now that I'm working on the marketing end of things and reaching out to bloggers the same way marketing people have reached out to me I'm a little more cognizant of blog statistics. I've seen how blogs can be selected for product reviews and frankly, just because you're giving things away doesn't mean you have good content, a large readership or a blog that will be around for the long haul. It just means that you got someone's notice for one reason or another.

Maybe your content fit the product, maybe they found you through dumb luck, maybe through the friend of a friend, whatever, but I don't like the way that product reviews have become a blogging status symbol as if you're only a quality blog or a blog worthy of notice if you've got products flowing to your door. In fact, I find that often the exact opposite is true, that those blogs who have the best writing and quality content are usually those who shy away from reviews. Doesn't mean they never do them, it's just not their bread and butter. Or Wonder Bread and Land o' Lakes in product placement terms.

I've had readers tell me specifically that they skip my giveaways (even my husband has told me that) and I have to say I don't like reading reviews myself. They're usually boring. They're usually very flat copy wrapped up as a glorified advertisement--not that there's anything wrong with advertising, which is one of the major arteries of capitalism (Long live capitalism!)

But the blogs I love the most generally don't do reviews and don't need to--they've got other things to say.

3. Product reviews are inherently biased.
I've said it too. "My reviews are completely my own opinion, nobody has got me in their pocket and I'm open and above-board." However . . . I have seen things that make me think otherwise and even make me question my own integrity.

Oh not that I think anyone is guilty of any great sham out there, mombloggers are generally great and good and nice, but here's an example: I got some toys from a company about a year ago, some paint-ball guns. I gave them to my boys to try them out and within five minutes they came back saying the guns were junk. They didn't shoot properly, they were weak and generally poor quality.

I emailed the company telling them my objections and they thanked me for my opinion and I never wrote the post. I didn't give away any of their guns because I couldn't in good conscience encourage people to buy the product. So I guess I got points for not scamming you all but then was it wrong not to write about my experience? My policy has been not to write about stuff I don't like but then I go to the other extreme and only post on products I do like--like that quilt company I mentioned this weekend. Them I liked.

But the crux of the issue is that mombloggers (including me) are too nice to want to crush a company with a bad review so instead we don't write them at all. There's a whole mountain of negative posts on rejected products out there that you'll never read because we don't want to make someone cry by saying that they're selling junk.

Do readers deserve to find out what they should avoid? I think so. That's what Consumer Reports offers and it seems pretty honest. Me? I don't know that I'm at that level and I don't know that any momblogger can be until we're doing the same thing Consumer Reports does: buying all of the products we review ourselves rather than receiving them for free. Bias gone, problem solved. But is there bias? You bet there is.

I subscribed to one particular blog that I liked quite a bit (no names, thank you) and I saw that on her own in a post she slammed Crocs. She said they were ugly and a definite fashion "don't." I chuckled because, frankly, I too dislike the shoes and I gave her the mental thumbs up. But wouldn't you know it, just a month or two later there she was on her blog, pushing Crocs, because the company had offered her the shoes and now she was a spokesman. Forget that she'd said she didn't like them before, forget that the shoes she was selling were completely hideous (one of their uglier styles), the point is she was there with a smile saying in a very ambiguous way how comfortable they were, skirting all around the issue of her real opinion that that those shoes should never come in contact with anyone's feet unless it was a choice between wearing those plastic "Holy Mary Jane Monsters, Batman!" and a pair of trash bags.

I unsubscribed and stopped visiting which may seem unfair but the obvious bias turned me off. Maybe she legitimately changed her mind or had a reason why things were now different but I had a hard time reconciling the change in position enough to continue reading.

And while that's a bit extreme I see a lot of bloggers pushing products and we're generally doing it because we're being offered free stuff, not because we bought the products ourselves and want to share our happiness with you. There's nothing wrong with making money or getting something for free but I'm human and it will always influence my opinion. Anything I get for free I feel more favorable toward than something I have to pay for, right?

I've seen the Frigidaire campaign offering moms new appliances and I can't agree with it because not only has my experience with Frigidaire been anything but happy, but when I posted about my dissatisfaction I got enough comments from readers sharing their experiences with the company that led me to believe I'm not alone and that the only reason I got my money refunded in the end was because I had a platform on which to rant.

But boy . . . if they came knocking on my door to offer me all new Frigidaire appliances the temptation to put all my experience aside and "give them another chance" would perhaps be more than I could bear. I'm glad they didn't come knocking. (What would have kept me strong is remembering how the Frigidaire stuff broke down . . . I've had good luck with my Amanas and wouldn't want to trade them in).

Try as we might, we mombloggers are too nice to give readers the bad reviews and we're such novices and amateurs in the media that the thrill of getting something for free makes us cut companies all sorts of slack. We end up pushing all sorts of things we'd probably never push to our friends in real life on our own.

So maybe the FTC is smarter than us all and is trying to give us a hint that we need to start looking at ourselves a bit more closely and thinking about that undercurrent of motives. I know I am and I'm seriously considering getting out of the giveaway business for good.

But then it's hard to stop . . . I love getting so much free stuff!

***

No snow yet . . . but you can still enter this month's Write-Away Contest. It's going to leave you shaking in your boots.

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What Does the FTC's New Ruling Mean for Bloggers?

Did you hear about the FTC sticking its nose into the blogosphere? Well for those who may not have access to the 81-page document or who may not have access to an attorney to decipher it for you I'm coming to your aid.

I put my in-house counsel on the case and here's what he says, take it as one legal opinion (though not advice) and use it as you will.

***

Michelle and I were watching TV the other night and saw a commercial for one of the hundreds of CSI wanna-be shows. This one was about a blogger who had been murdered. Michelle looked at me and said, “We’ve made it to the big time when crime shows are about killing bloggers.”

Big time is right. Bloggers are now regulated by the Federal Trade Commission which just came out with a new law (effective on December 1, 2009 – Merry Christmas!) that cover those free products bloggers receive with no strings attached. Here’s the what it means for you:

• If you buy a product on your own and you write about it, then you don’t have any worries.


• If you get a free product and write about it, but the product doesn’t cost much, you rarely receive free products, and don’t have a wide readership, then you probably don’t have anything to worry about.


• If you get a free product and write about and regularly receive such products and have a wide readership and the item is used by your targeted audience, then you should disclose who sent you the product and that you got it for free.


• If BMW send you a free car with the hopes that you’ll write about it on your blog, then I would say that you must disclose the goodness of BMW.


• If someone pays you to write about the product, then absolutely you should disclose the payment.

What sort of disclosure is required? Something like this:

• "The ABC company sent me this new magic thing-a-ma-bob the other day for free. I’ve been using it and absolutely love it."


• "ABC COMPANY GAVE THIS TO ME." (LAWYERS LOVE ALL CAPS EVEN THOUGH IT’S HARD TO READ AND IS INTERPRETED AS SHOUTING).


• "Per 16 C.F.R. Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising I am required to notify you that I received the product from ABC Company without any payment or obligation or otherwise." (This one will really make the lawyers happy but will be totally overlooked by all your readers).

The main thing to remember is to disclose how things work between you and the company AND MAKE THE DISCLOSURE CONSPICUOUS.

One other thing: you need to be really careful when you make any sort of statement about results of using products such as “I lost 200 lbs using this product.” Get legal advice on this one.

Another thing: it would be a good idea to send an email copy of your post to the company that sent you the product. They’re now required to monitor these posts.

*Now my disclaimer: This is not legal advice. I’m not your lawyer and you should seek legal advice on this matter because I know all of you have personal attorneys that are at your beck and call since you’re making millions from blogging.

Oh, if you don’t like obeying the law a good act of civil disobedience can’t hurt you, ie: Ghandi.

If you want to read all 81 pages of the new law, here’s the link: FTC Blogger Guidelines.

***

Update to add: Congratulations to Laura from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for winning this weekend's Shabby Apple Fitness Wear Giveaway! No excuses not to exercise now!

Is It Cold in Here or Is It Just Me?

This past week I was talking with my favorite blogging buddy, Susan from Food Blogga (who incidentally, is an amazing cook and a truly wonderful person, her blog is a must-read) and we were discussing with a bit of confusion and "how-did-this-happen?" the ways that blogging has changed.

I know that makes us sound like a couple of old ladies, with our surgical stockings, shawls and pill boxes, sitting on the front porch and croaking about the good ol' days but it really has changed, even in just the past year. I've heard what's happening being discussed in various places with complaints about lower traffic and fewer links and there are a few ideas about why but the only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that the blogging world is different than what it was only a mere 365 days ago.

Has the blog world become diluted?
What I mean by this is that are there now so many blogs out there that no one has time to read them? It seems to me that people are more guarded with adding a new blog to their already-lengthy list of reads and with the number of people who have jumped into blogging even in the past year I've wondered if it hasn't made it more difficult, not only for new blogs to get noticed, but for established blogs to get new readers.

Producers v. consumers
Another aspect of this is that there are two sides to blogging: the consumers and the producers. It's much easier to find time to do one or the other and harder to balance both. Therefore, if more people are crossing over from being consumers of blogs to producers of blogs as they too start up their blogs does it leave fewer readers out there? I've wondered.

Other social media
One thing Susan brought up is the advent of new sites such as Twitter. When Twitter was released it received so much attention as the newest great thing and has everyone jumping on its bandwagon. I read all over the place about how it was supposed to enhance blogs and improve visibility but I'm not sure I've bought into that and it certainly hasn't been my experience.

Susan said she's heard several times from various sources, "I'm too busy to read blogs, I'm always on Twitter." Instead of supplementing the information blogs produce has Twitter undermined them? Don't get me wrong, blogs are here to stay in whatever form they eventually inhabit but nonetheless I think Twitter, rather than strengthening blogs, has taken readers and taken time. Can you hear that sucking sound? That's the sound of each minute you spend on Twitter going down the Twitter black hole, never to return. And the casualty? Your blog.

I've thought similar things about Facebook. I just don't have the time to maintain a Facebook page, a blog and a family (not to mention those stupid tweets) and some in the industry would have you believe that you need to be using Facebook all the time to fully promote your blog but to me this is the age-old issue of splitting your time between two projects. If you try it, neither will be successful so you must choose one or the other. I myself choose blogging over Facebook but I'm quite sure not everyone feels the same as I do. Has Facebook taken readers away from the blogosphere the same as Twitter?

Blogging etiquette has changed
Of course my opinion on this is from a very sheltered niche in the blogosphere. Momblogs are notoriously social and groupish and prone to link to each other to share help and ideas. It's just who we are.

I've noticed, however, that other niches aren't so kind. Food blogs, craft blogs, tech blogs, home and entertaining blogs--I've visited them all and left plenty of comments and thoughts (not just the "me too" kind) but can only think of two--count them two--bloggers from any of these niches that has ever responded. Not that I'm bitter.

If I link to one of their posts it will go unnoticed, if I send traffic their way I won't expect any acknowledgment--just silence. I'm not sure why this is, it must be just the nature of these other special interest blogs, but as these other niches grow I think it's had an overall effect on the blogging world in general, even seeping into this little corner of the blogosphere, and not necessarily in a good way.

It seems more and more blogs link to other blogs less and less. Maybe they think readers are tired of hearing about the same old haunts or that a certain blog is too big to need a link or maybe they're just too lazy to go to the effort of creating a link but for whatever reason it seems the linking has decreased which of course affects us all through the magic of Google and its mysterious ranking system. Of course to be honest I've seen myself falling into this trap too--as my writing career grows and my family responsibilities fluctuate I have less time to devote to blogging kindnesses but often those are the lifelines of the blogging world.

I think, too, that many blogs focus too much on perfection, whether through perfect photo layouts and editorial staffs, and not enough on creating a conversation. If I want to talk to a wall I'll read a magazine. Who wants to read a blog where the writer is hidden behind the impenetrable silk curtain with perfect lighting and composition? Of course there are always exceptions but it seems to be a growing trend to be more like a full-blown publication, silent and perfect, rather than a human being with thoughts and feelings and mistakes.

So I'd just end by suggesting that maybe in the rush to build and grow your site that there are some things that shouldn't be overlooked: don't get too enamored with the latest social twit thing out there, it may just take too much time away from the real project, and don't forget what makes blogs great. People and ideas--not just words.

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Things I've Learned about Blogging

I'm coming up on some anniversaries here--I've got a birthday around the corner, I just had a wedding anniversary and then I've been blogging for four years now which kind of puts me in the running for bloggers' social security.

So being all introspective and everything I'm compiling a few things I've picked up over the past four years. Because four years in blogging time is pretty much close to an eternity and what good is all that time if you can't share a bit of it?

1. Bloggers are usually very nice people. In fact, surprisingly so. They're usually willing to answer questions and help out others in the medium and considering that we're talking pretty much total strangers here it kind of puts your faith back in humanity. I mean, if you can get a cross section of the world online and the majority you run across are generally nice and polite then doesn't that say something about the world in total?

2. There are waves of bloggers. When blogging first started you had the Techie Pioneers who blazed the trails followed by the Creative Practical types who figured they'd better give it a try because it seemed fun and it might have a future. Then there were the Me Too's! who heard about blogging on every street corner and finally decided they should see what all the fuss was about followed by the Entrepreneurials who smelled money in the air (though ironically enough to really make that money you had to be at the first or second wave). As more people pick up blogging it changes to mold to the whim of the masses. It sure has been interesting to watch . . .

3. And likewise there are waves of audiences. Or maybe a better way to put it is that audiences rotate. Someone finds your blog and they follow it for a while--how long it is I'm not entirely sure, it's hard to say--then they get to the point where they've seen enough of a blog that they get bored. Then a new set of readers move in and the cycle starts again. You see this with other media as well--magazines, television shows, whatever. There might be a core of hard core fans but generally the majority are a shifting mass that rotate through the cycle of lurking, commenting, devouring, burning out, dropping out.

4. Frequency of posting is more important than you think. In the past I thought that however often you post really doesn't matter--you decide it for yourself and follow your own pace. But now I'm not so sure it's not one of the more critical choices a blogger can make. First, if you're in blogging to improve your writing your frequency of posting will make a huge difference in how quickly your skills improve. It's the difference between exercising once a week and exercising every day. Conventional wisdom in the blogging world has suggested that more is better--up to a certain point at least--and that keeping readers happy with a steady stream of material is the key to success (if "success" is what you're after).

However, as I mentioned in point #3, readers can be a fickle group. They come, they sample, they return for another snack but feed them too richly too often and they get lardy and complacent. If your content is the equivalent of three full buffets a day then your readers will begin to take it for granted and expect more and more to satiate their appetites. You always want them to come to you hungry, right?

So my point is, somewhere out there is a scale that says "on this side you're giving them too much, they're getting fat" and "on this side you're starving them" and you've got to figure out where that point is and balance it against your abilities to produce. I'm not sure I've made the right calls when it comes to this issue. In fact, I'm quite sure I've been very selfish and have considered only my own wants and needs and have probably paid the price because of it.

5. There are only three reasons people read blogs. Education, entertainment or friendship. If you want to be a good blogger then you have to provide at least one of these things but preferrably two or three. I have about 200 blogs in my feed list that I read and the ones on the list are there because of one of three reasons: They teach me something (whether it's about food, crafts, parenting or another culture), they entertain me (usually by making me laugh) or they've been able to create a bond with me where I'm interested in what they're going to say simply because I like them as a person and care about their life.

If a blog can't provide one of these things it won't draw readers.

6. There is a blogging life expectancy. I've watched other blogs pretty carefully over the years and it seems there are stages that all bloggers seem to go through. The first is childhood where you're completely unsure of what you're doing, you can hardly find your way around your template, you're making faux pas right and left but don't even realize it.

Then you get past that and you're into adolescence where blogging is completely addicting. You spend too much time on the computer (at least you have that suspicion), you start to realize how big the blogosphere is and how much there is to learn and you're desperate to jump in and find your place. You start telling everyone that you've got a blog and you're having lots of fun.

Then when you hit blogging adulthood you realize how much time it takes to maintain your new hobby. You wonder if there is more to life than just the blog thing and if you shouldn't be focusing on something else. The workload of keeping things up and commenting hits you and you get very tired.

Finally, of course, is senior citizen status where you've been around long enough to generate some respect simply because you haven't succumbed to death yet. You've set rules for yourself and stick to them out of a sense of self-preservation and reality. You wonder how much longer you have left . . .

My point is, a blog's death can occur at any time along this time line but I've seen it commonly hit at about the 1-year mark. Something about blogging a year tends to make people stop and wonder why they're doing it and if it's not time to move on because that's usually when their blog hits adulthood and is fully grown. So if you're coming up on one year and are feeling that burn out it's not just you . . . it's pretty common.

7. The beauty of the medium is immediacy. But the best posts are those that can sit a bit. Back to the feeding-your-audience metaphor: while I can appreciate the wonders of fast food and have spent more than my share of calories on the joys of onion rings and strawberry milk shakes I do get a better meal from restaurants that take their time to let things braise and simmer and roast. Likewise, while blogging is about "now" and "what next?" I consistently find that the best writing happens when posts are allowed to set, solidify and mellow in between edits.

I know it's hip to think that just slapping words on the page and serving them up in their natural, raw, gritty state is the "real" way to write and to show one's true emotions but it's really a bunch of bologne (okay, perhaps I've taken the food thing too far). It's as I've heard time and time again . . . anyone can write but real writers edit.

8. Having a goal is everything. Of course this is true with everything in life, if you want to be successful then you have to have a plan where you want to go. Even if your plan is just to enjoy yourself you won't fully realize this goal unless you first formulate it.

People get into blogging for all sorts of reasons, none of which are necessarily wrong, but if your goal is to make money you are so completely in the wrong line of work. Not only is it highly unrealistic to think that you'll be able to get into the upper echelon that can make a living in such a volatile field (it's too determined by luck and genius to provide even modest incomes to the majority) but if you're in it first for the money then everything you do will have that shadow of motive behind it which cannot be hidden from your audience. They will eventually figure it out and it will turn them off.

Making money from blogging is completely fine--I personally say "Woo hoo!" every time I see a check with my name on it--but you'd better have a goal and it better be something other than that check if you want to find satisfaction in the job.

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Maybe More Volcanoes Are What I Need . . .

This winter has been fun and it's been hard. While the snow is slipping beautifully into spring and I've got all the daylight my soul could crave blogging has been difficult.

Not that I haven't got plenty of things to write (I will write forever) I've just had a hard time wanting to keep up with it. I guess if I had to describe the feeling, it's as if I'd "lost all my starch" as my Mom used to say.

It's a combination of things: too many self-doubts (the "why did I ever think I could write?" syndrome) along with a few recent disappointments as well as having so many other wonderful things happening that I feel rather lethargic when it comes to thinking about my blogging future.

Twelve hundred posts, four years and to simply walk away seems unthinkable though I find myself wanting to do just that. I've never been so tempted to shut things down and run off, skipping merrily into the sunset which is why I suppose it's a good thing I can't just walk away. I've worked Scribbit into a business complete with business obligations so even though I may feel like pulling the plug I can't. Not yet . . .

Which is probably a good thing and will keep me from doing anything too rash.

Do you ever get in moods like that? Like the time I was up studying at 2 am in college and got my friend to give me a haircut right then? I needed a pick me up, some change, some excitement and a haircut seemed like a good idea at the time. Hey, it could have been worse, I could have got a tattoo, right?

When I get tired or low I tend to get desperate. Maybe that's all this is, just a mood, which will soon pass and it'll be business as usual. I really hope so because blogging has been so wonderful I'd hate to have it gone from my life.

Well enough introspection. I'm never good at naval gazing anyway . . . so I'll leave you with a link that is truly amazing. An underwater volcano near Tonga erupted yesterday and footage of the eruption can be found at the Guardian. It's the most spectacular thing I've seen in quite a while.

Maybe I should bag the blog and become a vulcanologist. If nothing else wouldn't it be cool to be able to say at a party, "Hey, I'm a vulcanologist"?

How to Be a More Efficient Blogger

One of the things people will often ask me about blogging is how I find the time to do it at all. And while it's true that my children are old enough to be in school, giving me four or five hours of uninterrupted blogging each day, I've learned over the last four years that there are certain tricks for stretching the time I spend to make it more productive.

So what's my secret? My biggest trick is to have a blogging schedule--both for my day and my week. That's it. Having a schedule helps me know where I should be then gives me the time to get there and ever since I've started following it I've not only found myself to be more productive but less moody about the ups and downs of blogging.

Here's my schedule, take it for what it's worth and maybe it might be worth something to you.

Daily Duties
Every day I spend an hour from 6-7 am looking through emails and again when I get back from taking my children to school (about 8:15 am) I check my emails to see if there's anything that needs to be dealt with immediately. Sometimes I'll answer a few comments that need a word right then or I'll jump into the comments on the day's post myself but I try not to get too involved at that time--just a peak and a glance.

After that I jump into my Google Feed Reader to check my RSS feeds. I keep up with over 300 blogs and news sites broken down into "News," "Blogging," "Craft Blogs," "Food Blogs," and "Mom Blogs" and I crank through them, reading to see what's going on. If I come across something that I just HAVE to comment on or that I really like I'll right-click on it and open it in a new tab (Firefox is great that way) but I won't look at it until I've gone through all my feeds.

Once I get through all the feeds I then look at the tabs I opened. If a comment is warranted I'll say something but if it's just a post that I really like it gets some special treatment. First, I give it the "thumbs up" in Stumbleupon. Often in the morning I'm the first to give it a stumble in which case I get to submit it but whatever the case is I make sure I give it a thumbs up.

After that if it's really good then I'll tag it in Del.icio.us to save for later--which might be a link in a future post at Scribbit or maybe just for future reference for myself. But then after that, if it's really really really good then I'll take it to the next step and give it a Tweet.

At this point in the day I open up Twitter and I look in to see what people are saying. I might join in a conversation or two if it's interesting but then when I find that I've run out of things to say (and usually I'm not too chatty on Twitter) I'll mention two or three--four tops--of the good links I found in my feeds, making sure to mention what the link is about or where it came from if space permits.

I do this each weekday morning and not only does it keep me up to date with my enormous feed pile but it keeps me active in social media. However, after an hour of this reading, sorting and tweeting I cut it off and leave. Twitter is one of those things that can suck your soul dry if you allow it to so I'm solid on my limits--one hour and one hour only. Anything beyond that and I'm grounded for the weekend so I'm careful not to go past my time limit. There are times when I'll jump back in for a moment or two later in the day but I try to keep that to no more than a couple minutes and to have a specific purpose in mind when I do it.

Each evening I go back through my emails, check them a final time and prepare the last details for the next day's post. But between the consistency of my mornings and evenings my schedule changes according to the day of the week.

Monday Is Blog Housekeeping Day
This means I do everything required for keeping my blog organized and up-to-date. I spend an hour or two backing up my previous week's posts in Word docs, saving my blog's xml file as a backup, updating my blog indexes, updating my "Site of the Week" feature, finding and notifying the weekend's giveaway winner, weeding out the expired contests listed at the Scribbit Message Board and sending out renewal notices for any ads that might be expiring.

Monday morning is also the day I meet with my business partner via Skype for one hour about our latest project we're working on. The great thing about this day's schedule is that it keeps me on track with my housekeeping issues so that it never becomes an insurmountable task.

Tuesday and Wednesday Are Writing Days
While my mornings for these days are the same as Monday, once I've turned off Twitter I immediately turn my efforts to writing 3-4 posts. Sometimes I write posts of the same kind--say four recipes for the coming month or 4 of my Wednesday crafts--and sometimes I write three consecutive days' posts for variety but I don't labor over each post, I try to write as quickly and effortlessly as possible and I refrain from worrying about sticking in photos or links.

If I'm not in the mood to write I'll start by re-reading some of my favorite posts to get me in the mood but I don't usually have to struggle with what to write because I keep a schedule of the month's posts. I've already got the topics assigned so all I have to do is get the words out of me.

Thursday Is R&D Day
After my regular morning routine on Thursdays I go shopping for our week's groceries (life can't be all blogging now can it?) which takes up most of my morning and the afternoon is taken up with children, homework, piano lessons, fixing dinner and other normal stuff but in the evening I spend my time learning new stuff.

This might be figuring out Twitter (that was my assignment last fall) or it might be figuring out Wordpress (another assignment for my new project) or it might be researching any number of things I don't know how to do. It's basically my time to increase my understanding of the latest and greatest out there--and with one evening a week for reading up on it I no longer have an excuse for not knowing what something is.

Occasionally I'll spend a Thursday writing a guest post or planning my next month's posts. It used to be a day where I'd work on finding sponsors (when I was first starting out in this area) but now it's generally an evening to do the things I need to to promote Scribbit and keep it going forward.

Friday? Time to Play
Friday mornings finds me cleaning my house, doing laundry, watering plants and changing sheets but after I've got my morning blog list finished and my chores done I use any extra time to go back through my posts from the past seven days and pay visits to those who were so kind as to comment or visit my site.

Now I have to admit that sometimes I don't find time to do this--Andrew and I often go out Friday nights so I'm not around to pay those visits but if I don't have time on Fridays then I'll do it on Saturday but so far this little schedule has allowed me to go through all the comments I've received for several months now and it feels good. Before I followed my schedule visiting my favorite blogs was always the thing that fell to the bottom of my "to do" list and it left me feeling not only unconnected but guilty. Now not only do I have time every day to read my favorite blogs through RSS feeds but I have time to pay the return visit and connect more deeply with the bloggers I enjoy.

Saturdays are a catch up day for anything that didn't get quite finished during the week for whatever reason but Sundays I take off. You've got to have some rest in life right?

So there it is, it may sound a bit strict or even obsessive but it's amazing how just knowing what I should be doing to stay on track helps me keep on track. A little structure is an amazing thing.

Sponsored by Dimples and Dandelions for the Serena and Lily Bedding Collection and Beauty Products Compared for finding the best wrinkle creams.

Technorati tags: blogging, efficiency

Anchorage Area Blogger Meet Up

Are you in the Anchorage area and would like to meet some of the bloggers sharing this hearty Alaskan winter?

Plan to meet at Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge on Thursday February 26th from 10-11 am for some decadent hot chocolate and fun conversation--come as a blogger or come out of curiosity, either way I'd love to see you there! Pass the word . . .

Sponsored by Pink and Blue: for unique baby gifts to make them "ooh" and "ahh" and by Greeting of Grace where you can find beautiful pressed flowers.

Technorati tags: Anchorage, Alaska, blogging

Five Reasons Why Mom Blogs Are the Blogs to Watch

Continuing with my week of relaxation here is another post that previously appeared as a guest post back in May that I'm reposting this week while I'm enjoying the sun and sand of Alaska in December . . .

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In the Wall Street Journal's April 10th issue Sue Shellenbarger interviewed Heather Armstrong (known to millions of fascinated fans as Dooce) and a gasp of surprise went up from print media around the country (even my hometown paper The Anchorage Daily News picked the article up off the AP wire).

But I'm here to tell you that there's nothing surprising about Dooce's super-stardom and in fact not only is it to be expected but other mom blogs are following in her wake. Mom blogs as a group are poised to become the next big "It" when it comes to the internet--they're gathering power like no other blogging niche and will only get bigger and better. Here's why:

1. Moms can blog at home. You don't need a PhD, an office or a small business loan to start up a blog and this especially appeals to mothers who are looking for ways to bring in extra income while they're at home with their children. It's a job that they can do while the kids are napping or away at school and allows women like me who have left the work force to raise a family to feel part of the tech age--always a benefit when your days are filled with diapers, dishes and drool.

Mom bloggers don't have to leave their day jobs, they don't have to make enough to live off of--all they need is a little extra to pay for soccer lessons or a family vacation.

2. Moms need the sociality of the net. I couldn't possibly count the number of days that I've spent without the live interaction of another adult (except maybe the clerk at the grocery store). Women want--no we crave and demand--social interaction and for those of us whose office is our home the internet and blogging opens up a new world of friendship, debate, learning and conversation. No longer do we have to pretend to hold conversations with Steve on Blues Clues just to talk to another adult, now we can blog. Women need to read about other moms' struggles and disasters--it's how we feel that maybe our own traumas aren't so bad--and there are more and more moms daily that are discovering how the world of mom blogs helps them feel connected to other women.

3. Moms have a wealth of material to use. Tech blogs are just about technology, celebrity blogs are strictly about celebs but a mom blog could focus on parenting, protecting the environment, politics, crafts, food, homeschooling, gardening, household products, design, travel or just funny stories.

They're usually written with an emotion and personality which connects with readers in ways that other niches often can't and they speak about subjects that naturally carry strong emotions: home, family, marriage, children, the environment--all of which encourage dedicated readers. A blog about the latest techy gadget, while interesting, doesn't carry the emotional weight that a post about home and family does. While other bloggers may sneer over moms posting stories about life with little ones and the oddities of every day life there have been plenty of writers from Erma Bombeck to Dave Barry to Jerry Seinfeld that have built careers on noticing life's quirks and inconsistencies and mom blogs are cashing in on this.

4. Moms are record keepers. Blog means "web-log" and most blogs are started as online journals. Moms naturally tend to be the record keepers for their families whether it's a newsletter, scrapbook or photo album and more and more women are turning to blogs as an easy way to keep their family's diary. Staying in touch with Grandma, recording a child's growth, these are the reasons women are turning to blogs and even though 99% of them will never see traffic outside of their family those who blog read other blogs. And who are they going to read? I'll give you a hint: it's not Tech Crunch.

5. Mom blogs wield economic power. In Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point he writes of the importance of mavens--those who are trusted for their opinions and who pass along information on what products, services and ideas are the best--and mom blogs are the maven nesting grounds. Moms want to know which products work and which don't; they want to give an opinion on what's worked for them and share their experiences with others and advertisers are just beginning to discover this advertising pot of gold.

Because women are generally the buyers for their homes in everything from clothing to food to minivans mom blogs talk about things that can be bought and sold, products that can be promoted and services that most households need. Proctor and Gamble, Sony or General Electric can throw up their logos on PerezHilton and that might make them look rather hip but if they can get Dooce to say she liked their stuff that's when the sales start rolling in. You've heard "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"? Well she who does the shopping then blogs about it rules the net.

Mom blogs are growing and it's not going to be too long before Dooce stops being an anomaly in the blogosphere and becomes the matriarch of mom blogs everywhere.

***

Congratulations to Jill at The Diaper Diaries for winning this weekend's giveaway, and congratulations to Ryan in Anchorage, Alaska who won the Horizon Hobby mini remote controlled helicopter from the week before. This next giveaway will have three winners and it's a great package--think "healthy."

Sponsored by Dimples and Dandelions--for the Serena and Lily Bedding Collection for Children.

Technorati tags: blogging, writing