Why I Blog

I've been tagged by danahinders to give five reasons why I blog, so here goes:

Reasons For Blogging

1. I started blogging because I heard it was a good way to bring traffic to your site. That worked well, though it took longer than I thought.
2. Then I found WritingUp and fell in love with the community aspect of blogging. At that point I no longer cared about traffic, I was just having fun.
3. I also blog because it's like an online portfolio, which I have used to show my writing ability to various people.
4. Blogging is a good way of fostering creativity - and of taking a break when I'm mentally exhausted
5. I blog because I get to write in my own voice - which is nice for a change after a day of ghostwriting.

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Whose turn next? How about Inklings, kohuether and merryone?

At The Mercy Of My ISP

While I'm writing this, my internet connection is down - AGAIN! As a freelance writer, I depend on having a reliable internet connection. Most of my work is for websites, so I have to visit clients' websites to see what content exists, and to get a lead on the tone they might expect. This is usually a useful supplement to a client's brief, which is not always as detailed as I might like. In addition, it helps me to see the context in which people will see my writing. The internet is where I do a lot of my research. Not all of it, because then I might be regurgitating the same content as everyone else, but it's certainly where I look up information about subjects I know very little about so I can write a competent article.

I have to visit websites to bid on jobs. IFreelance is my favourite, but I also look at work on Guru (though I rarely bid) and on Deborah Ng's excellent site. Usually, this involves looking at the profiles of project providers, checking out the details of jobs and perhaps doing a quick search to see whether the person who is posting has been mentioned in connection with any scams.

I also like to keep in touch with what's going on in the freelance world. That means visiting other freelancers' sites and blogs to see what they are talking about, and perhaps to participate in the conversation. There are two reasons to do this. The first is to get me out of my work at home bubble; the second is to promote myself by creating links with other relevant freelance professionals.

My email is online, because I couldn't cope with the spam any longer. Even Thunderbird wasn't catching it all, so I moved to Gmail for domains and have not regretted it. (Note to self: the next time you think you should download an email straight away, just DO it!).

Many of my friends are online. Some of them are right here on WritingUp; others are in the many places where I have created profiles. It's nice to have a chat with them from time to time. Usually, this helps me to relax, but I may also learn something useful. Chat with people like gracepub often enough and you are bound to learn something you didn't know that you can put to practical use.

So when my ISP is down, it is a major pain in the behind. It has been down a lot recently. Last week, the ISP that my ISP uses went down for 12 hours; another day it was for four hours. Today, my ISP's DNS thingummy is down. Almost every day, I have to reboot a couple of times, because of some weird thing they have in the system. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but you shouldn't have to restart an 'always on' connection every 12 hours.) Normally, when it's just the ADSL that goes down, I can connect with dialup, but not if it's a DNS problem. Ho hum!

Today was supposed to be a relatively light day. I have a few consumer finance articles to do, a couple of home articles, a business article to start and then a rewrite project for a client and friend. I also have to do an assignment for an online course I'm doing. However, this glitch means that while today will be even lighter than I thought it would be, tomorrow will be difficult, because I will have to add most of today's work to tomorrow's.

In the meantime, every cloud has a silver lining. While I'm waiting for the internet to make a miraculous reappearance so I can post this, I'm going to take some time off, go to lunch with my hubby and enjoy the sunshine.

How Writing Reviews Helped Me

One of the things I did when I started my freelance writing career was to write reviews for consumer sites. I learned a lot from that experience, and I've collected in all in an article entitled What I Learned From Writing Reviews. Here's an excerpt:

On the paid to review sites, what people want most of all is your opinion on a product or service. They want to know how you used it, what worked, what didn’t work and how you felt about it. They also want to know what you get.

What I learned from that experience gave me the blueprint for much of the web content writing I do today.

Read What I Learned From Writing Reviews and see if you agree with me.

Freelance Writing: 2007 Career Goals

Whether you're freelance writing or in any other career, it's important to have goals. They keep you focused and, in the tough times, remind you why you're churning out articles at 1 cent a word. I have a lot of goals for my career - and not all of them involve writing. In talking to a friend recently (more on that another time), I realised one important thing: I was working hard so I didn't have to work so hard."

Setting Career Goals

What I mean by that is that my short term career goal is to make enough money to pay my bills. That's also my medium term goal, with the addition of enough money for holidays and other small extravagances. I also want to improve the pay rate, so I get more money for less writing (who wouldn't?) But the reason I am doing this - and the reason I work at home - is to be able to spend more time with my family and to have a better quality of life. Those are things that I think most people want. (And don't think life is perfect, because there are some family members I can DEFINITELY do without!)

So this was what I had in mind when setting my goals for 2007. My perfect day would involve about four hours of writing for others, about two hours of teaching and about one hour of dealing with the other writers I work with. I would do this Monday to Friday and on weekends I would spend a couple hours a day working on my own stuff. I would be able to spend every evening playing with my daughter, and I wouldn't get stressed.

Living The Perfect Writing Day

Someone suggested that I try living (and writing) that way now instead of thinking about all the things that get in the way. So I tried it yesterday - and guess what? Yesterday I did as much writing in four and a half hours as I had done the previous day. I spent two hours on a new course, spent an hour on some admin - and took the rest of the day off to spend with my daughter. And I didn't get stressed even once. I'm going to try this for a couple of weeks and see if it works. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I'm curious - how do you plan to change your writing life this year?

Freelance Writing Motivation

It's hard to maintain your motivation with freelance writing sometimes. Take today. I am nearing the end of a long assignment for a discerning client (no, you did not hear me say picky). The articles are on mortgages and there are more than 140 of them. I have 26 more to write. But those 26 are the ones with the difficult keyword phrases, which must be used exactly as written. (Ever try to make a sentence with six nouns and no verb?)

Freelance Writing Originality

Freelance writing assignments often ask you to be original. This person wants original content, but there is only so much to say about this subject - and I have already said it 120 times in different ways. I'm quite proud of myself - but I am also discouraged by the thought of the last few articles. Every original thought on this subject has already left my brain and been put on paper. The last 26 will be more difficult than the other 120.

Freelance Writing Discipline

This is when you really need discipline as a freelance writer. I have to force myself to write through the inertia. I need to go back to the sources I have used before (press releases, websites and occasionally my ex-IFA husband) and mine them for new information. But most of all, I have to write - even if I don't feel like it. I may be living my dream, but it's not always easy.

Read Of The Day: The One Minute Writing Lesson

Freelance Writing And Promotion - My Master List

Trick Falls asked for a list of blogs, lenses and websites. I do a lot of promotion, so it took me a while to collate this. In fact, I'm still not sure that I've got everything. There are many article directories that I submitted only a few articles to and many social bookmarking sites that have fallen by the wayside. Anyway, here's the list so far.

Websites
http://www.doublehdesign.com
http://www.sharonhurleyhall.com

Blogs
http://www.writingup.com/blog/sharon_hurley_hall
http://www.doublehdesign.com/blog
http://wn.goldenprose.com/?q=blog/50
http://blog.myspace.com/sharonhurleyhall
http://www.blogchex.com/writinglife
http://www.inspiredauthor.com/blog_v2/blogs/index.php/freelance
http://getpaidtowriteandblog.blogspot.com/
http://bloggerparty.com/blog/sharonhh

Sporadic/inactive blogs
http://bb.goldenprose.net/blog/2
http://itmightbeverse.blogspot.com/

Profiles
http://www.myspace.com/sharonhurleyhall
http://www.ryze.com/go/SharonHH
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=7633856
http://rappinhood.stumbleupon.com/
http://www.ifreelance.com/provider/detail.aspx?providerid=9879
http://selfpublishing.lifetips.com/expert-guru/1068-sharon-hurley-hall.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert_bio=Sharon_Hurley_Hall

Lenses/hubs
http://hubpages.com/profile/rappinhood
http://www.squidoo.com/freelanceinspiration/
http://www.squidoo.com/siteonsteroids/

Books
http://todaybooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=145
http://todaybooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=142

Newsletter
http://www.sharonhurleyhall.com/?p=27

Other stuff
http://s.hurleyhall.googlepages.com/home

Freelance Writing Friends - A Big Thank You

What do you do as a freelance writer when you are in danger of missing a deadline? I have to say that I don't usually miss deadlines - it's bad for business. But this week, I was let down on a job, which left me with too much work to do to meet one of my writing deadlines. I could have pouted and cried (and maybe I did inside) but that wasn't going to help me meet the deadline. So instead of wallowing in my distress I asked for help. And I got it. That's why I'd like to thank marleymauve and kohuether, who helped me out of a really tight spot - and burned the midnight oil to do it.

And this is part of the power of WritingUp. Those of us who have been here for a while (and maybe those who are new) have found a supportive community. I have met other people who are doing the same thing I am doing - building a freelance writing career. WritingUp is a great place to talk about things that matter to you with other people who also care about those things. And it's a great place to make friends and meet people who offer help and mean it.

One To Read: How Blogging Helps Writers