An Ode to a Spell Checker

The new site is about 90% ready, and the launch is in one week. And there will be some new posts over there, waiting for you. I have a couple of really great posts planned, including a possible series. While you’re waiting for all of that, here’s something chuckle-worthy. I didn’t write it. Wish I did, though.

Ode to the Spell Check

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It cam with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew!

Overcoming Rejection

Before I became a writer, I had never been turned down for a job. If I applied, I got the call back. Without fail. Granted, they weren’t the best jobs. But I got them.

This is something that I’ve had to adjust to as a freelance writer, where, more often than not, I don’t get the job. I was

Don't let rejection keep you from writing.

turned down for two positions before I got into the companies I am currently writing for. And now that I’m trying to build my career, I am again running into a lot of rejection. In the past few weeks, I have applied for several private client positions, and haven’t heard back on anything.

I think learning to not let this rejection get to me is one of the biggest things I have gotten from this career. My first couple rejections stung. Now, I just let it go, and apply for the next one. I’ve put together a decent resume, and I’m building a better supply of writing examples to choose from. I’ve learned to pick out a good writing opportunity, and just skim past the questionable or ridiculously low-paying job posts.

One of the best things we can do as writers is to learn to distance ourselves from our work. When I was a cook, for example, I didn’t get upset if someone set food back. Usually. It’s the same idea here. Your work is not who you are. If you don’t get the job, move on. Apply to something else. There will always be a better opportunity. If you have submitted a query to a magazine or other print format and it is rejected, send it out again to someone else.

Building this attitude is especially difficult when you are working for yourself. There is no one else to fall back on. You alone are responsible for your success. You have put time and effort into whatever it is you are sending into the world, whether it be a query letter, and article, or your resume and application. Being rejected, or even just never hearing back, can feel like a personal attack. It isn’t. The people who looked at your work see the work of hundreds of other writers as well. They don’t make it personal. The best thing that you can do is to take a moment to accept the rejection, and then get back out there and try, try again.

Climbing Up and Down the Ladder

Imagine a ladder.

There.

This ladder represents language, and word choices.  At the bottom, there are specific names — Rubbermaid bowl, Epson 3-way printer, Sony TV, James Harrison. One step up from that are “harsh” words — duck, chair, knife, and so forth.  Tangible items.  At the top of the ladder, there are loftier word choices — Heaven, freedom, distraction. There are rungs between these two extremes, becoming more concrete with each downward step. For example:

Heaven–>Sweet–>Candy–>Chocolate–>Chocolate bar–> Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups.

I moved from a lofty idea down to a specific.

This is called the Ladder of Abstraction. There are two ways to use this writer’s tool. When writing, especially in non-fiction formats, it is best to use as many specifics as possible. This gives your writing a very powerful feel. You are not a floppy writer. You know what you are talking about. Use that expertise, and let others know you have it. Which would you rather read?

The dog came to its owner.

The large black lab, Buddy, came rushing towards his surprised owner, tail wagging and mud flying.

See what I mean? The second option gives life and personality to what could have been a very boring read.

The second way to use the ladder of abstraction is to scale up and down the rungs throughout your writing. This can either happen gracefully:

Heaven, through its promises of eternity, has turned us all into backstabbing hypocrites. Knives, guns, and curses where we should see bibles and hymns.

Or not so gracefully:

Life is a series of twists and turns. He dreamed of peace and love, of freedom, but was faced with the cold reality of the smoking rubble where his city once stood. Torn and raveged bodies littered the streets.

These short passages both wander the ladder, making them more effective. If I had written them all on one level or the other, they would not be nearly as compelling. In the second passage, making the sudden transition between peace and love to death and bombed remnants will encourage the reader to take notice. They weren’t expecting that turn of events.

I challenge you to take a few extra minute today, or over the weekend, to experiment with this a bit. See how the ladder can improve your writing. Play for a while, and have some fun. Let me know how it goes.

SMX West- And Why You Should Care

SMX (Search Marketing Expo) West is going on right now. It’s basically a big convention, filled with the biggest names in the Search Engine world.  There are conference sessions, an expo center, and lots of activities planned for guests. Check out the SMX website, and tell me this doesn’t look like a really cool event.

So what does this mean for you? Let me tell you. Events like this are a great way to keep an ear to the ground for the new and exciting developments in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optomization (SEO). And that is the part that matters to us writers. I’m sure you all know what SEO is, but just in case– It’s little “tricks” that writers and website owners can use to be noticed by search engines. Things like using keywords. Tricks is the wrong word. But you know what I mean.

Like me, you’re probably sitting at home during SMX West. Luckily for us, Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone is there. And she is taking notes.

Lisa is liveblogging the whole event on the Outspoken Media blog. Not only is she blogging about her experiences, she is typing in all of the important information from the sessions she attends. And I recommend you all head over there to read it.  A lot of it might not apply to our writing, but it will definitely apply to how we market our writing, and ourselves, online.

More Than Just a Writer

When I first started researching freelance writing, it seemed like such a perfect fit. Writing has always come easy for me, and it’s something that I love to do. And there aren’t many things better than getting paid for doing what you love.

Freelance writing meant writing. That’s it, right? Have the title and keywords handed to me, and I just have to put it all together in about 500 words. Sure. Sometimes that is the case. But I’m learning now that a freelance writer is way more than just a writer.

It started when I joined eHow. It wasn’t hard to write random articles explaining how to do easy things. But, surprise, no one was reading them. And then I learned that keywords aren’t just for those other sites I write for. I began researching keyword use- how to find them, how they work, and how to better use them. This began leading me down the path of Search Engine Optimization. Now, that’s a cool idea. Little tricks to make it easier for people (and Google) to find my writing. So, now I’ve added more skills I need to work on.

One of the companies I write for recently had us using basic link tags in our articles. WHOA! Hold on! I need to know this too? It was definitely a challenge at first, and I had a lot of questions, mostly about spaces. Once I got it figured out though, it was pretty easy. And that got me thinking. Maybe this was something else I needed to learn. Programing is a good thing to know, as I’m coming to understand. There is a lot more a writer can do when they have at least a basic working knowledge of xhtml and css.

And finally, we get to blogging. I had a personal blog before I started writing as a freelancer. It turns out, though, that there is a lot to learn there, too. All of the SEO and programing comes into play here, too. On top of that, I need to learn how to write great titles, bring people to my site, and keep them there long enough for them to read some stuff. So we’re now adding in a little bit of social marketing. Oh, and if I want to make money off my blog? That’s even more to learn.

As it turns out, there is a lot more to writing than just, you know, writing. A good freelance writer can do a lot of things. I am working on learning all of these skills. It’s going to be a long process, and probably not a particularly easy one. But I know that it will make me a better writer, and a better freelancer, in the long run.

What skills have you had to learn since starting your career? Which ones do you still want to learn?