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Sparkle (1)
Sometimes a topic needs its own post to be explored. Other times, it can be fun to get a whole Blogging & Social Media meal via small bites of posts and news stories. I've compiled a meal of words and ideas below; at least one has to resonate with you. Consider this the online equivalent of a dinner party and jump into the course topics you wish to discuss within the comment section.
Appetizers: NaNoWriMo
In addition to NaBloPoMo, November is the month for NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. Participants attempt to write an entire novel in a month. And no, they don't all end up languishing in a drawer: Erin Morgenstern started her lauded novel, The Night Circus, as a NaNoWriMo project.
Plenty of bloggers are trying their luck at NaNoWriMo, such as Be Nice or Leave who wrote about starting the project last week. She admits: "I got so excited to write the dang thing and become a novelist that I forgot I HAD TO WRITE THE GODDAMMED WORDS EVERYDAY. LIKE EVERYDAY. LIKE 1700 OF THEM."
Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? Tell us in the comment section about your project and how you're doing with writing daily.
Salad Course: Author Bio
The author bio. The blogger bio. Frankly, everyone who does any type of writing should have one, and if you're not filling out your profile on BlogHer and using what amounts to a signature on your posts, you're missing out on some traffic.
But what to put in your bio -- that's the question. I actually have two: a long version -- by which I mean two or three sentences -- and a short version that boils down the most important points into the smallest amount of words. I can cut-and-paste the correct version whenever I'm given the parameters of the bio.
Write it Sideways has a great post about writing your bio, especially one that can go on a query letter to an agent as well as your blog's "about me" page.
Anyone have a good bio that they want to post below as an example?
Main Dish: Blog Pitching Symbols
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, but since it's a good, juicy, meat-and-potatoes sort of dish, I thought it should definitely be the main course.
What do you think about the Blog Pitching Symbol: a widget you can place on your blog's side bar to say whether or not you accept pitches? There are two versions; one that says that you accept pitches and you can list the types of products you review, and one that says that you don't accept pitches and leaves a space for you to include why.
While I'm sometimes annoyed by the amount of spam-like PR pitches I get, I don't think this is necessary going to solve it. I would hazard a guess that PR-representatives often don't stop by the blog at all, but instead collect lists of bloggers and blast them indiscriminately. I personally don't accept pitches, wrote that in my "about me" page, and simply delete PR-looking emails without opening.
At the same time, I think it can be interesting to readers to see exactly where you stand on pitches and product reviews.
What is your take? Would you use a widget like this on your blog?
Dessert: Lessons Learned from Stopping Blogging
Maija's Mommy Moments has a great post about what happened when she stopped blogging, tweeting, and commenting for a few weeks. I'll give you a hint: the world didn't stop spinning. But she does make some great points within the post; namely,
I would be a very self-centred person to think that your life is interrupted even for one minute by the thought of not having something from me in your inbox every single day. Though I’d really like to think this is the case, I have the proof now that it just isn’t.
And that’s okay.
It’s okay because it humanized the whole social media thing for me a bit, by reminding me that people come and go in our lives and while friendships may begin by connections I’ve made through these virtual pages it takes so much more than a daily
