This Social Media Thing-- Carolyn Wilker

I have met many people who are writers, some I know well and have met in person, and others I have never met face-to-face. I read their contributions to our online discussion forum through our Word Guild discussion group.

Later I met Elaine, Janet and Violet, to name a few, at Write! Canada. I continue my connection with them through twitter and facebook as well as private email messages and, in some cases, a phone call.

In Canada, we’re rather spread out geographically, and we’re a good distance, in most cases, from our neighbours south of the border. Online discussions can take us anywhere in the world, depending on who we connect with.

Through the Saturday Snapshot meme on At Home With Books, I’ve become acquainted with Alyce Kreese, a book reviewer from Oregon, as well as fellow writers from Canada, the US, Australia, Scotland, England and Australia. We’re all avid photographers.

I connected with Jill Kemerer through her presence on twitter. I liked what she had to say, and she clicked the follow button for me too. How would I have met all these interesting people otherwise?

I’ve learned that Jill, who writes inspirational romance, enjoys a cup of coffee in the morning and has a good sense of humor. While I have not read any of her books yet, who’s to know that could be in my future? I’ve connected with her on several levels, one having similar concerns as a writer and author.

Why does all this matter? When publishers do less for us as writers, regarding promotion and marketing, we need to do more of it by ourselves, just as business owners must promote their brand. The way to do this, of course, is to engage with people in our target market, those who would read our books, articles and blogs.

As a consumer, I can understand that; I prefer to do business with people I know, wherever possible, whether it’s searching for an editor or speaking coach, even hiring someone to put new shingles on my roof. Alternately, I may act on a friend’s recommendation.

Jill Kemerer wrote in her blog last week, “We already struggle to find time to write; adding all of the social media responsibilities takes even more of our precious minutes away. The tug-of-war between doing what we love, writing, with something that feels vague and at times uncomfortable, social networking, exhausts us.”

Jill considers writing as a business and compares it to a person opening a restaurant because he loves to cook. If no customers come to sit around the tables and taste the food, why bother cooking? It’s like that with writing too. Who will taste the offerings we writers present if we are not known?

We’ve had this discussion on our Word Guild discussion forum too. Many fellow writers agree with Jill; they find it exhausting to cast the net so wide, and a few have given up on social media. While I’m more diligent some days than others, I have often wondered just how much time to spend on it and how long it will take to get results.

For people concerned with return on investment (ROI), know that it takes time. In a seminar I attended more than a year ago, Scott Stratten reminded us to choose two or three social media platforms and do them well, whether it’s twitter, facebook or some other platform. While we may not agree with all of Scott’s methods, there’s one thing we need to remember—the social aspect.

Author of Once Upon a Sandbox

http://carolynwilker.ca/

Have you thought about the finish line? - Nesdoly

TODAY’S SPECIAL: 2 Timothy 4:1-8

TO CHEW ON: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7

“Shortly after noon on July 5, 1997, the doctor told me I had cancer,” writes Larry Crabb in the Introduction to his book Soul Talk. He goes on, “My wife and I cried when the doctor left. He had made no promises. We didn’t know if I’d live or die. It takes a while to realize what life is all about. We don’t ask the hard questions until we have to. That day I had to. …The curtains covering my soul fell back and I began to see what was happening inside. When that occurred, the battle began. But it’s also when life began” (Soul Talk, p. 2).

The “curtains covering my soul” got a definite tug in 2006 – the year my mom died. As I made funeral arrangements then cleaned out her apartment and gave away and sold her things, I began to know at a gut level it would be only a matter of time before the person whose heap of stuff needing to be dealt with was me. And I’d better start living more than ever with those hard questions in mind.

Questions like: Have I discovered what I’m here for? Have I made a difference? What will I be remembered for? If I died today, would I have regrets? What would they be?

Paul was able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge will give to me on that day.”

What about you? Have you begun asking yourself the hard questions? It’s never too soon to begin, so that you can end like Paul did – with no regrets!

PRAYER: Dear God, please keep the light on inside me. Help me live today with the end in mind. Amen.

MORE: 

• Every Christmas, Concordia College in Moorhead Minnesota presents a program of choral music. For years they have performed it against the backdrop of a 20 x 60-foot painted Christmas mural reflecting the year's theme. For many of those years David Hetland designed the stunning murals for those concerts, then supervised the volunteers who painted them. In 2006, at the age of only 59, Hetland died – but not without a sense that he had achieved something of significance.

David Hetland talks about his life and work.

A David Hetland mural

• Gavin MacLeod became famous for playing parts on the Mary Tyler Moore show and the Loveboat series. But now that he’s older, he considers a couple of far less prestigious projects the ones that define what his life is about.

Gavin MacLeod "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry"




If you had to make a 2-minute video like this, what would you say about your life?
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Posting this here today is really cheating. Because I wrote this devotional for a different blog. I started posting some daily quiet time thoughts at the Other Food: daily devo’s blog this January. Based on readings from the Canadian Bible Society, each devotion is divided into the parts you see here. This one will appear February 27th. Why don’t you drop by sometime?

Website: www.violetnesdoly.com
Personal blog promptings
Writerly blog Line upon line
Kids' daily devotions Bible Drive-Thru
A poem portfolio
NEW IN 2010: Other Food: daily devo's

Will Blogs Replace Newspapers and Magazines? - O'Leary

At a number of writers' groups, a real concern is the way newspapers and magazines increasingly want the writer to give up all rights for little or no compensation. That's a real problem for writers who republish their work. For example, my first book, Faith@Science, was entirely republished work, largely from ChristianWeek.

However, I think that blogs are making such a dent in the circulation of print publications that the real question for a writer is how to make money blogging - in which case you may not need to give up any rights. Far from it, you can turn your blog into a book - and then sell your book via the blog, as Canadian blogging queen Kathy Shaidle does.

Here are some thoughts on making money blogging:

1. See if you can get someone to pay you. I get paid to blog at some blogs (Design of Life blog and ID Report). The site sponsors sell books, basically.

There is a natural affinity between non-fiction books and blogging. Authors can use the blog to keep up with news that relates to the topics you write books about. But many book authors or retailers do not have the time. It makes sense to hire the job out to someone who knows the area and writes in an interesting way.

Bear in mind that you will need to agree with the blog's owner about who owns the content you prepare. I make different agreements depending on the type of content.

2. Ask people to donate to your blog. They can do so via PayPal. Kathy Shaidle does that. I don't, but my blogs exist to support my books, and I get royalties.

3. If you blog at Blogger, sign up for Adsense and allow ads on your blog. Blogger's system puts ads on your blog that are relevant to your topics by monitoring key words. Thus, if you wrote about skiing, you'd probably get ads for ski wear. Check my two blogs, The Post-Darwinist (supports By Design or by Chance? )and The Mindful Hack (suppoorts The Spiritual Brain), and see what ads Blogger's software has chosen. Each time I earn over $100, I get a cheque. So far, I've had two of them. No, not a huge amount of money, but why leave money sitting on the table? And as readership grows, the amount tots up faster.

Of course, most blogs, like this one, are a community service. But as blogs increasingly become a major way people get content that they used to buy magazines and newspapers for, we will need to be creative3 in replacing the lost income from print sources

Here are some recent stories I've written at my two blogs, The Post-Darwinist and The Mindful Hack

Insulting Canadianness anyone?

Hate crimes against religions: Wh’s really at risk?

A philosopher faces death via mysticism

Christianity Today features news item on young astronomer denied tenure

What kind of evolution does the Pope support? Is his associate Christoph, Cardinal Schoeborn trying to rehabilitate Teilhard de Chardin?

Toddlers as Neanderthals?: Evolutionary psychology hits the affluent parent set

Fun sendup and straight talk about
evolutionary psychology

Denyse O'Leary

Of Obits and Blogs - Wegner

Sometimes I wonder if my reading habits should be labeled “somewhat askew.” Let me explain: one of the first sections I check in our weekly newspaper is Obituaries. On the odd occasion I purchase one of Vancouver’s daily papers (or take advantage of the free copy at the local coffee shop), I can spend a good cup or two’s worth of time pursuing the death notices.

That all started when I became a member of the Cancer Victims Society of the world. No, I’m not aware of a formal organization but there’s a bond that automatically enrolls you immediately upon diagnosis. I’d read the obits daily to see if one of my fellow travelers had succumbed. Some days I felt so lousy, I checked to see if I was in there. Years after I was declared cancer-free, the practice, now a way of life, continued. The difference now is in how I read each entry. I wonder if that one knew Christ as Saviour? Or, just think, that one is in the presence of the Lord! Gratitude for life and a driving motivation to live what’s left to the fullest have replaced my angst that I or someone I knew had died.

I rarely read fiction and can’t imagine that I’d ever have the skill or desire to write a mystery or romance. For those reasons I feel disconnected from most Word Guild conversations and activities but I do read the blogs.

Please understand that although I make my living as a writer and researcher, I spend no more time on the computer than I have to. Technology and I have this mutual understanding: you do what you’re supposed to do and I’ll do the same. I sometimes browse radio and newspaper sites just to find out what’s going on around the globe but since I have less than zero desire to surf the net for the sake of surfing, reading blogs has to be meaningful. They must be because I keep going back to them.

But here’s my “somewhat askew” reason and modus operandi. First, I scan the piece to get a “feel” for the conviction of the writer. Sometimes I’m so moved I go back and re-read the piece right away; other times, I don’t. Next I check out the section that reads: Comments. What intrigues me is that except in rare cases, the space always contains the note: Zero Comments. How come? Why do we hesitate to encourage or challenge each other? I know opinions are just that but what’s the point of providing an option if we don’t use it?

Finally, I always go back, re-read the blog, and then mull over what comment I could add. But, and in this I am in unison with my The Word Guild friends and associates; most of the time I don’t say anything either.

As askew as my methods may be, these are the thoughts I’ve pondered this week in anticipation of adding my two cents worth. Any comments?

Linda Wegner

www.wordsofworth.ca

Turning Deadlines into Lifelines

Since publishing my latest book, I seem to have more deadlines than I did when I was writing it. Writing Glorious Autumn Days: Meditations for the Wisdom Years, was the joyful and fun part of the creativity; promoting and selling the book is the work part of the process.

My deadlines include keeping my website up to date. Here I can promote my book and, in order to entice people to visit often, I change various pages to keep it current. Next, I send out review copies of my book to relevant publications and I spend time searching for appropriate magazines and newspapers; my deadline in this instance is to find at least six such publications every couple of weeks. The third deadline I have is to write for this blogspot every few weeks as scheduled, exercising my brain to think of a suitable topic on which to write and making sure that I put it on to the site on time. I also write talks for speaking engagements related to my book.

These are some of my deadlines and, indeed, they could take the life out of me if I let them. However, I prefer to see them as lifelines as they continue to put life into my book. They invite those who read my web pages or reviews to buy my book and read further about God’s love for us and the Divine gift of spiritual life.

Yes, the deadlines are work but they are cause for thanksgiving and, if I see them as such, I can name them lifelines. The word deadline reminds me of the straight line, with its accompanying monotone, on a patient’s bedside monitor that indicates the person’s death. The word lifeline reminds me of the path on which God leads me into spiritual life and light.

At this time of year, I see earth’s creatures all around me meeting their goals, and there is not a hint of death in their activities—all rush toward life. The birds have returned from their winter homes and, in the few short weeks allotted to them, they mate, build nests, lay eggs, hatch and fledge a family, bring them to maturity and prepare them to return to their southern homes. No one makes them do this; they know it has to be done and they do it whole heartedly bringing their lives to fulfillment. For the plants, it is the same thing; they push up from the winter ground as soon as the snow has gone; they bud, blossom, come to fruition and spread their seeds for next year’s cycle of life.

Deadlines suggest anxiety and force; lifelines suggest joy and responsibility. The next time I think of the things I need to get done as deadlines I will make the effort to change their name into lifelines. This will be to my benefit and to God’s glory.