Archive for June 2008

This entry’s prize is from the author: One custom banner for a blog or web site created to the winner’s specs and preferences, valued at $200. Men with Pens ask for a 7 to 10 day turnaround from the point that the winner transmits her/his specs. We’re also giving away two copies of Ricochet Infinity (Windows only). Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 23 to get an entry for a drawing.

My meeting James Chartrand of Men with Pens didn’t go smoothly. We met on Poewar and had a friendly debate about men vs. women bloggers. But as I got to know him, he grew on me. He oozes talent and confidence that many writers don’t have. Sure, his lyrical writing style made me feel insecure at times… so how appropriate that he writes about the topic.

The Fear that Holds Creative Writers Back

Creative writers generally work alone. They write alone, they think up their plot lines alone, they secretively select who they’ll show their work to and don’t really enjoy receiving feedback.

Creative writing is a personal matter, after all. The very action means that we’ve called upon ourselves, our experience, our minds, our skills and parts of our soul to create what we will.

The problem with creative writers is the tendency to think, “I’m not that good.” It’s a rare day when a creative writer stands up tall to proclaim, “I rock. My short stories are awesome. I’m fantastic at this! Wanna read?”

Right. I know. You wouldn’t think of being so bold. You probably say something like, “Oh… It’s really not that good. Kind of silly, even. I could let you see… but…well, okay.”

Not the impression of someone confident in a creation from the heart, is it?

Most creative writers set very high standards for themselves. They do so through comparison. They read the works of others and think, “I wish I could write like that.”

And instead of saying, “I’m going to try to write like that,” they avoid public embarrassment, bow their heads and go back to their solitary work, feeling disheartened.

Not good, that.

We know. We’ve seen it. We recently opened a new creative writing game that lets writers put their talents out there in a collaborative environment. They can practice, learn from others and improve by trying new techniques. Action brings reaction, after all. And a game that uses creative writing is fun.

But some writers, excited as they are to try the game, start to squirm. They create marvelous characters, write a few introductory parts… and start comparing themselves to other writers in the game.

That person writes fantastic dialogue. These two writers have marvelous chemistry. She pens great description. He’s aces at vivid scene settings.

The whisper of fear and self-doubt begins. “I’m not as good as they are.” The hesitations start. The excuses slip. “I’ll just read a bit more… I’m not ready to write yet.”

And another writer slips back into the isolated, lonely world of creative writing, wishing to be better but creating mental obstacles to stay exactly at status quo.

Who says that you’re not good enough? So you’re rusty. So you’re unsure. So you’re new at creative writing. So what?

Writers need to work hard to break the feeling of not being good enough. It’s a fear that we impose on ourselves and one that many of us carry forever. It’s also a fear that holds us back:

• We don’t experiment and try new techniques.
• We don’t learn to adjust and improve our writing.
• We don’t become comfortable with our talents and skills.
• We don’t learn our limits — or push the ones that exist.
• We don’t learn to trust that we can overcome obstacles.

Imagine what would happen if you stood up and said, “You know what? Here. Read it. I don’t care. I love writing and maybe I’m not great now, but I can be and will be. So honestly, truly, genuinely let me know what you think and I’ll work on improving.”

The more that you start putting yourself forth and taking steps forward instead of back, the more your creative writing becomes richer and better. But you have to take that deep breath and try.

And one day, someone will look at your work and sigh, “I wish I could write like that.”

You’ll be able to smile and reply, “You can. Just stop being afraid of what people think.”

About the Author: Want more great creative writing tips? Interested in improving your fiction or getting more solid advice from a pro? Visit James Chartrand’s blog Men with Pens, the Capturing Fantasy blog or hop on over to the hottest new creative writing game on the Internet, Escaping Reality.

The winner of one full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost from the How to Become a Freelance Writer entry is Karen Swim! Congratulations again, Karen. It’s possible to win more than once in the blog entry prizes.

This entry’s prizes are a book by Tara Calishain and AWAI’s Accelerated Six Figure Copywriting program (excellent — I have it… but never had time to finish it). Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 21 to get an entry for a drawing.

I was going to call this “Telling the Violent Truths of the Writing Life,” but Freelance Folder already has dibs on “violent.” Just joking — that’s the name of guest blogger Bob Younce’s excellent series over there.

I met Bob through Poewar. Obviously, John Hewitt of Poewar connected me with a lot of new writer friends. Thank you, John. It only took me a second to consider him a friend. His articles on writing and freelancing — whether on his site or elsewhere — provide a lot of value.

Telling the Hard Truths of the Writing Life

It’s easy, if you listen to one element of the Internet writing community, to think that freelance writing consists entirely of days on the beach sipping margaritas and writing for half an hour on your laptop. For anyone who’s been writing for more than a few weeks, though, you know it just isn’t true. Anyone who tells you that it’s possible to make a living in minutes a day is selling something.

Not that selling is bad, mind you; in fact, writers have to do it in order to be successful. But these folks are selling a false idea. In this life, you reap what you sow, plain and simple.

These folks prey on unsuspecting new moms, for example, that want to work from home. They prey on guys tired of their cubicle careers who are looking for a way out. They look for a felt need and offer a fake solution.

At the same time, there are folks on the opposite end of the spectrum. There’s me, for example. If you’ve read much of my writing at all, you know I constantly promote the idea of hard work and, sometimes, long hours. I have probably turned more people away from a writing career than I have recruited, in my time.

I like to think that the realist approach is a good thing, and that it helps folks considering the writing life to count the cost before they get into something they’re not willing to follow through on.

Maybe I’m just trying to keep away the competition. I don’t think that’s it, though.

Here’s the danger that I constantly find myself in, though. I want to be able to encourage writers. I want to cheer them on. I want them to see the same kind of success I’ve had, and the same kind of success Meryl has had right here.

So, those of us honest folk in the Internet writing community wind up saying something like this:

“Freelance writing is hard work. You can make an honest living doing it, and there’s no better life. But you’ve got to work hard and you’ve got to have your wits about you.”

On occasion, I think it’s worth talking about all of the good things in the writing life. I think it’s worth celebrating a success or two, both our own and others’ successes.

Like Meryl, here. She’s been plugging away at this site for the better part of a decade. My goofy little blog has been on the map since February; Meryl’s been here for 8 Februarys.

That says something, folks. It says something about character. It says something about tenacity. It says something about dedication. It’s these characteristics that you’ve got to have to make it as a writer.

So, I celebrate with Meryl. I thank her for her inspiring example. I take a moment away from telling the hard truths of the writing life to tell a pleasant one:

Writing success is possible. Look at Meryl, and at others who have done it. Dream your dream, and dream it big. You can get there, no matter what challenges you face. Stick with it. Be dedicated. And remember: you’re standing on the shoulders of giants.

Thanks, Meryl. Enjoy your vacation, and come back soon.

About the author: Bob Younce is a full-time Internet writer and writing mentor living in Linwood, Michigan. He is dedicated to helping Internet writers to achieve their dreams. Visit Bob at The Writing Journey or follow him on Twitter.

The winner of Seth Godin‘s $800 DVD set from How To Add Colour To A Grey Day entry as selected by Random.org …

Yvonne Russell! Congratulations, Yvonne!

And the winner of the addicting First Class Flurry from Assorted Blogging History Lessons entry as Random.org went to work again…

Karen Swim! Congratulations, Karen!

No, no… I’m not asking you to Google me. You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? Ted Demopoulos contributes this entry and the title fits. I met Ted, I believe, either from doing a book review or commenting on one of his entries that led to doing the book review. It’s a case of the chicken or the egg — but I forget which.

Since then, he invited me to contribute to his book, What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and we’ve gotten to know each other over time. Don’t believe what he says about being the most boring blogger. Not at all, but good publicity!

This entry’s prize are Airport Mania: 2 copies (1 Mac and 1 PC) and one copy of Andy King’s upcoming Website Optimization. Here’s its companion site. Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 20 to get an entry for a drawing. Be sure to include “Mac” or “Win” in your comment so you’re up for the right version of the software.

Google Me!

You’re being googled all the time — hopefully the results are positive.

People google you before they meet with you, they google you before hiring you, they google you if they may be working with you, they google you if you’re dating their sister.

Potential clients always google me, my mailman has googled me, my kid’s teacher and even my wife have googled me! And if people really care or are Internet savvy, they will do more than simple search engine lookups.

What shows up when you google yourself? It’s good to know what others are seeing about you.

If you have a common name and nothing comes up, try what others will try; google your name plus other identifying information. Do you work for IBM? Then googling “yourname IBM” may turn up interesting results. Are you a viola player? Then googling “yourname viola” may be the ticket. Do you live in Fresno? Then googling “yourname Fresno” may work.

So what is your name anyways? If it’s a common name you might change it slightly, for example also use your middle name. Although ‘Ted Demopoulos’ is fairly uncommon, if it were a common name I could choose to use ‘Ted Demetrius Demopoulos’ for my business card, resume, email, and other locations as appropriate, making myself much easier to google.

What if there really is nothing online about you? From the privacy standpoint, that might be good, but if you’re looking for a job, trying to date, or maybe think you have career, people googling you might wonder why nothing shows up. Are you legit? Do you really exist? Maybe you’re a complete flake or serial murderer?

Fortunately there are several easy and free or cheap ways to establish an effective internet presence. Here are three quick ideas:

• Join LinkedIn.com, a free business networking site, and setup a profile. Google and the other search engines love LinkedIn.
• Leave intelligent comments on blogs in your niche. Make sure the comments are intelligent and add to the conversation, and use your full name so the search engines can find your comment.
• Review books in your professional area on Amazon.com. This is also free, and Amazon will let you create a profile about yourself, and the search engines will index it.

Of course you could also start a Website, even a simple one-pager about yourself, start blogging, or write articles online – Web masters are always looking for content. These techniques are very effective at establishing an effective internet presence, although they take some effort.

Your online presence is only going to become more important. You had best know what shows up when other people google you, and ideally you’ll create positive content using some of the techniques mentioned above to show you in a correct and positive light.

About the author: Ted Demopoulos is the author of the upcoming book Google Me. For a preview, including his free ebook Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life, visit www.EffectiveInternetPresence.com.
For more on Ted, visit his blog, Blogging for Business, home Web site, or (you guessed it) google him

The following games will be discounted this week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. June 16th: 60% off on Toy Bomber

Tue. June 17th: 50% off on Magic Adventure

Wed. June 18th: 60% off on Jack’s Bouncy Qubes

Thu. June 19th: 65% off on Empire of the Gods

Fri. June 20th: 40% off on Bejeweled 2 Deluxe

Sat. June 21st: 60% off on Mutant

Sun. June 22nd: 50% off on Confronter: The Tower of Time

Remember to comment on this week’s post if you want a chance to win prizes. Seth Godin’s DVD set worth $800 is up for grabs!

• Should you sign your blog comments? Or is it redundant?
• “A Small Sheik Escaped” and other Editing Exercises to Energize Your Writing
• 7 Essential Ways to Build Trust in Your Business: I think great service goes a long way. Usually those who care about their customers also do good work.
• Blogger Relations: I don’t need a new best friend.
• Writing the Farewell Symphony: Though I took a break from blogging, I still had to manage the prizes and intros. But what would happen if this place went silent for two weeks?
• The Future of the Future: Good-bye knowledge worker… Hello, knowledge entrepreneur [Link: My sister]
• A Guide to CSS Support in Email: Still difficult to make all email clients happy.
• Newsmap: Visually captures the Google News news aggregator in a treemap.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Ordinary Online Store… Or is it…? (other than not being in English)
• Mind Bluff: Optical illusions, mind games, puzzles, brain teasers, etc.
• 10 Funniest Apple-Ad Parodies
• Office OFFline Web Comic: Funny!

The winners of two full copies of Big Kahuna Reef 2: one for Macs (!) and one for PCs from the Do You Own Your Web Site post as selected by Random.org are…

{eDrum roll}

Travis Vocino for the Mac copy

Paige Eissinger for the Win copy

Congratulations! On with the celebration!

This entry’s prize is one full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost. Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 16 to get an entry for a drawing

I’ve been reading Anne Wayman’s stuff for a long time beginning with her About.com page for writers. Then, I followed her to The Golden Pencil and About Freelance Writing. I don’t know how she finds energy to manage two sites, do her regular writing work, post at least 40 writing gigs every couple of days, and provide sage advice about writing. Whatever she does, I thank her for helping writers.

How to Become a Freelance Writer

People seem fascinated that I earn my living as a freelance writer. They are surprised I don’t write fiction, and often confused when I tell them most of my income comes from ghostwriting. I suspect the picture most people have of freelance writers is someone huddled in a garret (do we have garrets any more?) struggling all night to get some deep fiction down on paper in hopes of a great (name your country) novel.

It’s a lovely fantasy, and so far from my own reality it’s almost laughable. Maybe my story will give you some hints about how to carve out a freelance writing career for yourself.

The family story is I started talking about writing way back in the 6th grade. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the 7th grade typing (yes, typewriters, manual typewriters) class that allowed me to write for the high school newspaper. It was also in high school that I started sneaking off to buy the magazine, Writer’s Market.

It wasn’t until my early thirties that I dared submit something – two articles, one each to Family Circle and Woman’s Day. Both were rejected, as they should have been, but I learned that I could survive rejection. In fact, I posted those two slips to my bedroom wall with pride.

I’d also discovered that while I’m a darn good worker, I’m a lousy employee. I hate the structure and the interruptions and all the office politics. I want to get my work done and go home. So I kept writing and submitting and trying different jobs. I finally landed a freelance job as a tech writer. I hadn’t done any tech writing, but by this time I did have a computer (an Apple II+ with a CP/M card, WordStar, and two single-sided drives!) and convinced someone I could explain how to hook up and use a computer. I did, and parlayed that into a staff tech writing job.

During the tech writing gig, I gathered together three others and we began to write third party software manuals. I also submitted my first piece to Hazelden, the drug and alcohol recovery publisher, and it was accepted! I can remember sitting at my desk hardly breathing.

I’d love to tell you my freelancing was profitable from then on. It wasn’t. A lot of that had to do with personal issues of self-worth, which is why I’m always telling my readers to consider charging more. But even though my view of myself was shaky at best, I kept writing and I kept telling people I was a writer. I stumbled into my first ghostwriting job — I said “yes,” rather than the truth which might have been something like, “I don’t know how, but let’s try it,” and it worked. I was referred to my second ghostwriting job.

I began to write for what’s now About.com and eventually figured out how much to charge for ghostwriting. (A lot!) I blog because it helps me find clients. I qualify my clients carefully and generally now make a pretty fine living.

There are three secrets to a successful writing career:

1. Write
2. Rewrite
3. Market

It really is that simple – not easy, but simple. Go for it if it’s something you want. I give away a free booklet that goes into a few more details at www.aboutfreelancewriting.com and talk about freelance writing almost every day at www.thegoldenpencil.com.

About the author: Anne Wayman is a freelance writer, grandmother, cat lover and gardener. Her websites and blogs are at: www.thegoldenpencil.com, www.writingwithvision.com, www.aboutfreelancewriting.com, and www.powerfullyrecovered.com.

Time machine, time travel, and 20 kids sneak on the time machine after Grandpa told them to leave the machine alone. The kids don’t listen and find themselves spread across different centuries messing with history. Poor Grandpa has to go to their locations, remove what’s the kids brought from our time, put things back in place, and find the kids. That’s the set up for The Clumsys Wonderful and original idea. Clumsy execution.

I love history and the story integrates a lot of history in a sensible way. However, I can’t say the same for the game experience. As soon as I arrive on the first scene in Troy, the graphics quality disappoints. However, let it slide and keep on playing in hopes things improve.

Because of the low quality graphics, the hidden objects (past and present) barely show up. While experience players complain that hidden object games get too easy, finding them in The Clumsys is too hard. In the mode where you must remove all modern toys and objects, the game says to find and remove objects that don’t belong. No list. We need a list because it’s not obvious which items belong and don’t belong in the scene.

It takes too long to figure out what to do when finding items and then moving them to the right spot. For example, the first one I see is a helmet. Well, the scene has two helmets on the scene — one I don’t notice for a long time. So the game doesn’t cooperate when I click the helmet (wrong helmet). I finally find another helmet and figure out how to handle this game mode.

Grandpa can search for the kids and objects using a variety of search modes. Players also find gadgets to assemble and use to find the kids. Another original feature. When finishing a scene, the game has a short history lesson (Shh, don’t tell the kids!). It doesn’t affect the game player if you skip the lesson.

The Clumsys lasts for a long time. But I can hardly play for long because the scenes tire my eyes. The blurriness and many small-sized objects don’t help.

I want this game to succeed as it offers an original story and idea, but the graphics quality doesn’t compare to today’s hidden object games. The game feels disorganized. If the developers come out with a sequel to The Clumsys (and it sounds like they will), I hope they improve the game and its graphics quality as I think they have a hit with their idea.

-Gulp- Did I mention the thought of jumping out of a plane frightens me? We raised over $5000 in prizes for the 8th blog birthday bash and I promised to jump out of a plane if that happened. Am working on scheduling it — trying for June 22. If anyone has any fear pills for sale, let me know.

Skydive Dallas (not really in Dallas, but no one has heard of Whitehurst, TX) takes about an hour to get there. So I need to plan at least a half a day. With baseball and other kids’ activities, it can be tricky.

But this post holds me to it. I will do it. At least, I’ll have at least one interesting story for my grandkids.

Today is my wedding anniversary. So Happy Anniversary, Paul!

Voting is open for the Zeebys’ People’s Choice Awards. On Thursday, July 24, 2008 at the Casual Connect Conference in Seattle, the Zeebys Awards will announce the winners. Lifetime Networks will record and broadcast the show on its Web site, myLifetime.com.

Joel Brodie, CEO of Gamezebo and founder of the Zeebys says that casual games is a $2.25 billion dollar a-year industry. The theme of this year’s Zeebys is “Casual Games Giving Back,” with 100% of all ticket sales benefiting the Zeebys’ official charity partner, Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. Starlight is a nonprofit dedicated to helping seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities. Tickets for the Zeebys Award Show cost $20.

The Zeebys reward the best in casual games as voted by the general public. From now through July 5, 2008, everyone may vote for the best casual games of 2007 by visiting http://www.zeebys.com/vote-2.php. There are two types of Zeebys Awards:

1. The People’s Choice Awards, which represent the best casual games of the year as voted by the people.
2. The Craft Awards, which reward excellence in game design itself as voted by peers in the Casual Games Association.

Nominations for the People’s Choice Awards have been chosen by members of the Casual Games Association, the largest membership-based association within the casual games industry. New People’s Choice categories to vote for this year include

• Best Hidden Object/Adventure
• Time Management
• Web Game

New Craft Award categories include Best Mobile, Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA), and Social Networking Game. For more about the Zeebys, visit www.zeebys.com.

We haven’t forgotten to announce the winner for the prize with Do You Own Your Web Site? entry. One commenter is on vacation and we’re waiting for him to let us know what computer he has.

This entry’s prize is a full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review. This only comes for Windows PCs, not Macs. You have until June 14 to contribute a valuable 30+ word comment.

I met Janet Lee Johnson in 2004 under unusual circumstances as she’ll explain here. Though the reason for our initial meeting is long past, we stay in touch. I enjoy having discussions with her and exchanging ideas. It’s not often you meet someone who puts fun in work and marketing. Most companies still do thing traditionally… read: boring. Not Janet.

Assorted Blogging History Lessons

… History is a fun subject, now that I no longer have to pass any tests. I couldn’t think of a better subject for my guest post for her blog’s 8th birthday celebration (congratulations meryl.net!) than to relate a little of the history that Meryl and I share from what some might call the ugly teenage years of blogging.

In fact, this post might be called “Sordid History Lessons,” had Meryl not been quite so sweet about our initial meeting.

I met Meryl in late 2004 while serving as VP Marketing for Marqui, a CMS startup out of Vancouver, BC, bent on moving into the US.

I was the lone marketing person there at the time (we were a bootstrapped startup with fewer than 25 employees) and we desperately needed to get into the awareness, minds and (we hoped) hearts of developers.

In August of 2004, a group of Marqui advisors, including Marc Canter, were brainstorming about breaking through the cluttered CMS space and into developer awareness when someone had the auspicious idea of paying developer-centric bloggers to blog about us.

Marc was tasked with coming up with the program and a short-list of bloggers who had the developer community’s ear. He did so, and Meryl was one of the first he identified to be a part of our “paybloggers program.”

My job was to manage the program, give the bloggers something to talk about every week, in case they needed it, and generally provide any support they needed. Oh, and run the rest of Marqui’s marketing at the same time.

Mine was a rough entry into the blogosphere when I started seeing emails pass amongst those chosen to blaze new ground and blog for us – these people were wicked writers! And back then the blogosphere was a lot more like the “wild, wild west” than it is today. These people had opinions, they weren’t afraid to leverage the pulpits they’d spent time nurturing, and I’d just better get used to it.

Our terms?

n exchange for $800/mo., we asked our bloggers to link to our site once a week, to state clearly that they were being paid to write about Marqui (we provided “blogger flags” to select from) and write whatever they wanted to about us.

We’d promised not to censor anything, and we didn’t. We promised to publish everything, and we did. We got trashed, we got praised, we became the poster child (no pun intended) of an ethical debate — should bloggers actually get paid to post?

The jury is still out on that question. In fact, we found that the best way to engage in the discussion was to do it ourselves, and I started blogging immediately as the debate began to rage — to give our perspective, straight from the horse’s mouth.

And while I nursed my initial wounds and bruises from our many detractors, and while my skin became thicker and hair grayer, and while I was finding my voice in my initial, tentative posts I found there were many wonderful, decent people “out there” too.

And Meryl was a pioneer for me in that role. She was not brash. She did not bully. She actually tried to write about the product. She selected the “sensible lady” as her blog flag… I’ve always pictured her that way. Smiling with a confident — yet gentle — look in her eyes.

Hers was a welcome, guiding hand and wisdom from the blogosphere that I will always appreciate, and I will never, ever forget.

About the author
Janet Johnson calls herself a bridge: turns out after 24 years in the business, she is a technologist for marketers, and a marketer for technologists. She is in her bliss when collaborating on projects that bring social media into organizations. She lives in Portland, Oregon, blogs here, and follows Meryl on Twitter from here. Her Facebook page is largely neglected, as she lives in the moment when not tackling strategic issues.