Is your blog a waste of time?

Blogs have been categorized as:

• Pointless
• Ego-capsules
• Not read by anyone
• Overdone
• Underpaid
• Time wasters
• Not real marketing tools
• Should I go on?

That’s great. Go ahead with your bad self and believe that hooey. But it just occurred to me that my two main writing gigs right now (you know, the ones that are feeding and housing and otherwise gainfully supporting my family) are mine because of this blog.

After seeing/hearing one of the co-founders of gig #1, I wrote a post about my experience sitting in the audience and moving about my life in relation to what she’d spoken about that morning. I emailed her and thanked her and shared the link. The rest, as they say, is in the bank and on my resume.

When I began writing for company #2, the boss checked me out online—which led him here. Which led him to the realization that if I wrote for them the way I write on this blog, they would have writing and content creation and creative vision that completely broke out of the industry standard (in a good way).

What I get from these stories is this: people/companies/industries want to do it differently (or the good ones that are worth working for do anyway). They want to stand out. And they’re looking for something real, that resonates.

In both cases, I didn’t follow some weird, get rich quick gizmo. I was just myself. I was writing the way I wanted to write. The way that I love to write. The way that lights me up. I followed my own trail of happy. Hit my own personal sweet spot. And, kapow, it lit some other people up, too.

Remember when people sent wild and crazy resumes—in video, in varying shapes and sizes, in the guise of a gimmick? (That seems like it was the 80′s, maybe early 90′s? Because in the 80′s I was still a kid…so why would I have known that? Anyway, I digress.)

This is like that-ish. Only better. I say: create a space where you can be YOU. And don’t make it a one time deal like the resume. Keep it going, let it move and ricochet and travel with you. Let them see you write, sing, sculpt, build, sell, help, cook, run—whatever it is that you do in just that you-like way. Let yourself out. Fully.

Wonder if you’re wasting your time.

And then rev up your vacuum—first on the ‘blow out’ setting…until you’re ready to start pulling it all in.

Image credit: pittcaleb

So in love

The summer after my senior year in high school sticks out in my mind. Prominently.

Not because there was a life changing event. Not because I was leaving high school and home and my friends. And not because I was getting ready to go off to college, the east coast and an unknown life.

It was because I was in love and in a deeply committed and satisfying relationship, the kind where you wake up in the morning and remember what you have and what you’re in—and it floods you with warmth and joy and YES! It was because it was one of those rare, extended periods—as in concentrated time, as opposed to 5 minutes bursts that occur every now and then—that I felt so sure, so committed, so ‘in it’.

It was because the relationship I was in was with me.

Not because someone broke up with me or because I couldn’t find anyone to love or to love me. And therein lies the rub. My high school boyfriend wanted to be with me, but I’d broken up with him when I left St. Louis for the summer. He eventually drove all the way to northern Minnesota to be with me, but I said no…again. There was a also a ceramics counselor who fancied himself in love with me, but I wasn’t having that either.

No brag, just fact. (Thanks for that one,  Joe.) My point is that the summer was so memorable because this ‘wanting to be on my own’ was purely voluntary. Chosen.

And I’ve been thinking about that summer. Remembering what it felt like—to be so happy…with just me. And, 19 years later, I’m seeing something I hadn’t noticed before, about why that time was so profound. The something is this: there’s a marked difference between reaching out. And reaching in.

Reaching out:

• Things are beyond your grasp, beyond your control.
• Essentially, they are other. Not you.
• And I don’t believe there can ever be total fusion of the two separate parts. But it’s what we spend endless effort trying to make happen.
• In a relationship, we’re trying to get others to say what we need them to say, to act like we need them to act, to read our minds.
• In the writing, well, it’s kinda the same. And the room for reader interpretation is pretty big, like the penthouse suite.
• I’ve seen too much now to believe that this complete fusion is possible. Cynical? Maybe, but I’m calling ‘em like I see ‘em. So often lately I’ve thought it would happen—with this group or these two people or maybe those three—but, nope.

Reaching in:

• Things are right there, available, customizable, known and understood even before you know and understand.
• Essentially, they are familiar. You.
• And the thought of fusion is actually redundant. We don’t need to spend time to make it happen, we just need to be. There is no separateness.
• In this relationship, it’s private, not on display. And you only have to answer to you. You get to see you.
• In the writing, well, it’s kinda the same. I mean, it’s ALL in there, inside.
• I’ve seen enough now to know that complete fusion exists. I’ve been lucky enough to feel it.

I’m thinking about rekindling this old flame.

Though there are moments when I think that will be impossible. Those are the moments when I’m standing alone in big, flat, open spaces with nowhere to hide. When there is a blank screen in front of me. When the idea of writing a book is dangled. When I feel like being loud, out loud, aloud and allowed. When I don’t want to be alone. When I want someone to read and love what I’ve written. When I’m looking out.

But, I gotta say, this remembered love affair has been peeking at me lately, from around random corners. It’s most abundantly felt when I’m writing, or in a groove with my work in general. It’s certainly there when I’m running et al. Sometimes it just appears and fills me up and says, “Remember how good this feels? How whole? How peaceful? How utterly painless?”

And I remember how alive I was during the relationship, over the course of that summer. By no means a hermit, hiding, sad or scared—but a good friend, an adventurer, a happy spirit, a big punch of delight, a live-er. Because I had everything I needed.

It’s that remembering that makes me want it back. Makes me want to call it and say, ‘Hey, it’s me…I was thinking we should see each other, even if it’s just for lunch.” Even though I know we’re going to end up in bed together.

And even though I’m still, out of habit, looking out—I’m clearly thinking, Nah, I’d rather stay in.

Image: Tony the Misfit

Blogging: And why you should really read your own

You know that post I wrote yesterday? The one where I talked about how I’m training for everything? Well, all of your wonderful comments have made it impossible for me to stop thinking about it.

And then two other things happened:

1. I lost my internet connection at my studio yesterday (still don’t have it) and spent hours trying to make it work, getting a new modem, being rude to people and just being generally pissed off. Oh, and working on things that didn’t need the internet. (Yes. I found a couple. They were under some long forgotten rocks.)
2. I had to go to the doctor. In the manner of: ‘I need you to squeeze me in, Doc.’ ‘Okay, come at 10, but we won’t actually see you until 12—and you can’t complain because we’re squeezing you in, you’re in pain and you will wait—and we know it.’

Suffice it to say, I lost some time doing what I was ‘supposed’ to be doing. And I didn’t like it. But then I thought, if I’m training for everything, then these two things—being offline and sitting at the doctor’s office—were either part of the training or what I’m training for…or both.

My first instinct was to be entirely pissed off at everything and everybody. I yelled at the Comcast lady. Okay, that’s a lie. I yelled at three Comcast ladies.

But as I sit here, managing to get all of the work done that I needed to get done after all—maybe even more expeditiously since time seems so precious—I’m thinking about taking some of my own advice.

I mean, just an hour or so after publishing that post, I was in the throes of being taken totally off-track by ‘life’ (as it were) and I forgot about my training, forgot that I was prepared, forgot what ‘everything’ applied to.

And after a couple of your comments came in telling me that what I wrote was ‘exactly what I needed to hear’…I thought, Huh. Maybe I should read that post. Maybe I should, gasp, listen.

What a novel idea.

And so I did. And I realized I was much better prepared for things not going as I wanted them to than I was giving myself credit for, certainly much better than I was behaving.

Which only goes to show you, the power of blogs absolutely extends beyond the writer and to the readers—and I mean way beyond and way to.

And…it was really nice spending time on the other side of the screen with you all.

Image credit: websuccessdiva

Writing with brains in our hearts, writing with brains in our guts

This, I’m guessing, is not news to you: When your heart breaks, you actually feel the pain in your chest. And when you are in love, your heart swells, pounds, aches…to burst—the physical sensation is acute. And when you’re nervous or excited or you just have a ‘feeling’ about something…you actually ‘feel it’ in your gut. And while any of those (and any number of other) scenarios are happening, your head churns—analyzing, dissecting, scrutinizing, breaking it down.

This, however might be news to you: Apparently, the heart has its own independent nervous system with at least forty thousand cells that are the same as the ones found in parts of the brain. (Though I think I’ve met a few people with far less.) And the gut has a brain, known as the enteric nervous system (ENS), that lives in the lining of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon.

Yes, people, we have three brains.

A few years ago, I heard a lecture about this phenomenon. And I have to say, it blew my mind a little. Because, for the most part, I’d been encouraged to think things through logically (follow your head) and not rely so much on my feelings (not your heart). I’d rarely followed that advice, mind you (I think Cancers are incapable)—but now I was I learning that the source of these irresistible, and often overpowering, feelings of the heart and the gut are actually of the brain.

And while my brain was a little taken aback by the competition and the being-put-in-its-place-ness of this information, my heart and my gut sounded off a loud, ‘ah HA!’ They knew they’d been right and worthy and valuable all along. Of course.

Using all three brains

When we write, or create in any way, we access all three points. Though some more than others, right? It’s clear to me when I’m writing primarily with my head as opposed to my heart or as opposed to my gut—I can see pretty clearly how that collaborative scale is tips. Can you?

Because they’re all necessary. In their own ways, the head, heart and gut work together to help us birth ideas and form words. Perhaps our head brain gives us organization, spelling and analysis. Our heart brain coats and stuffs our writing with feeling and consciousness. And our gut brain gives us drive and serves as a compass, pointing us in the direction we need to go.

And so it is that our readers don’t just read our words. But they feel them too. We make them cry and fume and crack up. And we guide them to motivation and change, deep realization and action.

The connector

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but I’m very aware of how often I use the word ‘and’. I start sentences and paragraphs with it all the time, regardless of whether it’s ‘right’ or not. I pop it in often when I write here on this blog. Sometimes, my head brain wants me to simmer down and chides me for this conjunctive enthusiasm—but my heart brain tells me, passionately, that it feels right to use it and my gut brain tells me, pointedly, to go with it.

It’s how I talk, it’s how I write and, I think, it’s how I connect my three brains: head and heart and gut.

Image credit: helgasm

Uphill sprints

Over the last few weeks I’ve received quite a few ‘how’ questions from readers and clients.

• How do you get it all done?
• How do you write every day?
• How do you deal with writer’s block?
• How do you get new clients?
• How do you grow your business?

There are more….but they don’t really matter. I mean, they matter, but the details don’t – because these questions are all basically asking the same thing: “how do I/you/we keep going when it gets hard”.

Of course, I can only answer how I do it, how I make it through adversity, through the uphill climbs. I can’t possibly answer that for you.

But, I’ve been thinking about this a lot – my answers to these how questions, and found some insight this morning on my run.

I have a love/hate relationship with my usual loop – because the first 3 miles or so are just excruciating. For the most part, they are flat and straight. There isn’t even an ocean view. These miles are treacherous and hard. And seemingly endless.

All of this contributes to the fact that by the time I get to the first hill (straight up past the lighthouse), I’m thrilled – for the novelty, the challenge, the difference, the ocean. But that doesn’t make the hill easy.

And while I was noticing this, I was also busy running up the hill. Not jogging, but running, sprinting. That steady pace I’d survived through for the first three miles was gone. The harder it got, the steeper it got, the harder I pushed and the faster I ran.

Et voilá. That’s my answer.

The uphills are going to come, right? There’s nothing we can do about them. And they’re going to be what they’re going to be:

• A 50 page website that needs to be written
• A month’s worth of blog posts
• An ebook you want to create and all the trappings that go with it (here’s how you do it, by the way affiliate link)
• Finding new clients
• Reaching out to a site with a guest post
• Getting out of bed
• Eating well
• Exercising
• I could go on and on and on…

The point is this: writing a blog post means writing 400 +/- words. It doesn’t matter if you take a month to do this or twenty minutes; it’s still 400 words that must be written. How quickly, efficiently, and well you complete the task is up to you.

How do I do it? Apparently, I look forward to the hills and then I sprint up and over them. Though sometimes I gather hardship, piling it as high as I can.  And then, I stand at the bottom and freak out for a bit and complain and talk about my plans. I do this until the hill is a mountain. ‘Cause I like a challenge. And because I find easy to be excruciatingly boring.

image credit: Stiphy

Reason #4343 to hire a copywriter: Seeing eye to eye

One of the best things about walking out from behind your computer screen and going to conferences is meeting people that heretofore you only knew as an avatar.

Let me fill you in on something. No one looks like their avatar. Some look worse, some look better (Oh! How my fingers ache to put examples behind those statements!) and they’re all decidedly warmer. But, no one looks like you think they will.

Case in point, Steve Sherlock came to find me at SOBCon. There were big hugs, “I’m so glad to finally meet you”s, and on and on. And then there was my realization that he was roughly 8 feet tall. And that I’m not (I forget this fact a lot – sort of like a chihuahua). He noticed too, saying, “Wow, from your Twitter avatar, I thought you’d be much taller!”

“She’s larger than life,” said my dear friend Andi. God bless ‘er.

This ‘in person’ thing is the only time I don’t like being short – ’cause otherwise, I really like it:

• I curl up in chairs easily.
• My feet have never hung off the end of a bed or stuck out of the covers.
• I can be carried easily in cases of emergency (or passion).
• Falling down hurts less.
• I’m afraid of heights.

But, when I’m talking to a peer and I have to look up at them to converse, a power imbalance ensues. And, unless the tall person gets off on intimidation and lording over others or unless the short person thinks of themself as unworthy and, well, small – I don’t think it’s comfortable for either party.

Personally, I simply won’t stand for it. I want to look into your eyes, not up your nose. So I did this (see below) and it was caught on camera and tweeted by Steve Woodruff.

@Swoodruff: Julie @writingroads strategy for having face time with tall people

(Ignore the face I’m making in this photo, I’ve run through every word I know and I can’t find one that causes that face.)

See, it’s like I told you the other day, I’m not above stepping on things to get what I need.

The Power of the copywriter

Good copywriters solve problems. If your competition or your dream clients are ‘taller’ or ‘shorter’ than you, copywriters and content creators (and social media strategists) should be able to figure out a way to get you to eye level, to position your message and brand in a way that creates a natural conversation, connection and relationship.

Interruption marketing just isn’t cutting it anymore. It’s done from a perspective where the company is decidedly bigger or smaller than their customer, and therefore, has to scream to get their attention. Interruption tactics include:

• TV commercials
• Radio commercials
• Let’s face it: all commercials
• Blinking, obnoxious ‘BUY THIS’ windows that open when you’re just trying to read a post
• Pushing your products on people
• Not listening, just talking/yelling/shouting
• Taking, sucking and bogarting the energy

As opposed to relationship, or relational or human, marketing. Blogging and social media tools can be used quite effectively as a means to this relationship building, by the way.

• Meeting people where they are.
• Listening to what clients and customers need.
• Solving their problems.
• Not pushing your product on them.
• Giving, not taking.
• Being a real person.
• Building a relationship of trust.

All difficult things to do when you’re staring into someone’s belly button.

So, a bird flew into my studio…

Nope, not the beginning of a bad joke – it actually happened. And I wrote about it, of course.

Copyblogger got the post…and I’d love for you to fly on over there and check it out…it’s right up the Writing Roads blog-alley, promise.

Rapid hearts

We were a Tupperware family. Pastel and tinted. Yellow, green, blue, pink and white containers of all sizes filled our shelves and fridge. The big, square one stored the gum and candy packed for the long drive to northern Wisconsin every summer for family camp – and then held the one of a kind smell of Big Red, Coffee Nibs and Minocqua Maple Fudge inside it’s rubbery plastic walls all year, no matter what else we put in it. I would lift its lid at will to remember my summer.

There was another container that didn’t carry such happy memories. It was the Mother Bowl. It was HUGE, yellow and I could have comfortably sat in it until age 8. (Go ahead, Leslie, make the short joke…).

My brother apparently had something wrong with his heart (he’s totally fine now, as far as I know). My old and addled mind only remembers that he went to my grandpa’s cardiologist to get it checked out – and he had to run on a treadmill. They found that he had something called WPW, which apparently translated to ‘rapid heartbeat’. It would go like this: he would be playing basketball in our driveway with his friends, and then suddenly, he’d run in to the kitchen, grab the Mother Bowl, fill it with ice and water and plunge his face into it. And then he’d stand on his head.

Apparently, shock therapy was the remedy du jour.

When I was in high school, I started getting anxiety attacks. I thought I was dying and I was too scared for a while to ask anyone if I was – scared that the answer was yes. My way out of them, when they hit me, was to move. I had to bust my body out of the terrifying static that was paralyzing my limbs, eyes, ears, brain.

And it recently occurred to me that I, and maybe you?, were taught that when things really got going, when our hearts were racing and our minds were burning and our bodies were firing with energy – that the thing to do was jump off the track, get out, make it stop at all costs.

I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have someone grab my little scared hand, or better yet – for a magnificent voice deep inside me to grab my attention, and say, “Don’t go. Stay with it, ride it. Because this is the road to the next thing. This is the good part.”

Image credit: EraPhernalia Vintage

Our web connection, my blog setup and your blog writing

Our Web Connection

They don’t call this a web for nuthin’. We’re all connected, sometimes in strange ways, by its invisible strings.

Seriously, the number of times that I write something, then read another post and blink with surprise that my message is right there on someone else’s blog wrapped up in different words – is astounding. The reverse is also true, just look at the comments in my posts – it seems at least once a day someone links me to a brilliant post they wrote that connects right in or exclaims, ‘I was just thinking/writing/talking about this!”

I absolutely love this. To me, it’s like the air around us is ripe with these ideas and we’re all just plucking them off the tree and making them ours. To share this brain and thought process with so many other people is like getting to swim in that pool with the pods in it in Cocoon – I think it actually feeds us and makes us better. Sometimes it even glows.

So, I was not shocked when I woke up this morning and saw Chris Brogan’s post on the necessity of purpose and focus for your blog, when I was sitting here with the guts of a post with a similar vein. My post is about my blog and about yours…

My Blog Setup

Well, really my whole site. Way back when I started my copywriting business, I thought it was all about the website – so I got one. And I loved it. When I quickly discovered the world of blogging, I dove in full force – for my clients – helping them write and leverage this platform for their own businesses. But I didn’t blog for myself.

Eventually, the uber-talented illustrator, Elizabeth Whelan – after hearing me go on and on about what blogging could do for a shared client we had, asked me where my blog was. Uh, er, um, well… She told me she wouldn’t speak to me again until my blog was up and running. THANK YOU, Elizabeth. I pulled a WordPress blog onto the writingroads.com site and my life hasn’t been the same since.

And then, recently, I’ve been finding myself in another one of these ‘do as I say, not as I do’ situations. I’m telling people left and right…

• to just build a blog, not a traditional website
• and add static pages
• for SEO purposes
• for ease of use, content management
• for UI (user interface) or VEO (visitor enhanced optimization)
• to use plugins for expansion and growth
• to maximize sidebar real estate

And the whole time, I’m eyeballing my blog with a sideways glance. The cobbler has no shoes, the therapist’s family is full of nutjobs, and yes, the blogger’s blog is out of whack.

So, finally, with the help of the lovely, Shauna Callaghan, I’ve redone my site – the right way. You might not even notice, because it’s likely you didn’t ever click on those typewriter keys up above that shot you over to the ‘web’site and off the blog. But now when you click on them, they keep you here whilst showcasing my work and services. And www.writingroads.com gets you here now as well (no more need for writingroads.com/blog). Ahhh…c’est fini! (besides the incessant tweaking I’m doing). My wish is that it’s easier now for visitors to know who I am and what I do…

What does your blog/site need? How can you tweak it so to perform better?

Your Blog Writing

The other thing on my mind is your blog. This morning, when I tweeted CB’s post about blog focus and purpose, I added this: “(and if you need help focusing/purposing, call me)” – and several people responded with messages that looked something like, “Please help me!!!” in varying degrees of agony.

So, I thought it was worth putting it out there, but this time here: I help you figure out the blogosphere by helping you answer these questions:

• What is my blog’s purpose?
• What is my blog’s theme?
• How do I define and rein in my scope?
• What do I write about?
• How do I write it?
• How do I focus my content and outreach?
• Should I talk to other bloggers?
• Which ones?
• How do I do that?
• What plugins do I need?
• What is a plugin?
• Do I need to use Twitter and Facebook?
• How do I ______? (fill in the blank)
• …and on and on.

Let me know if you need help…after all, with the way this web connectivity thing is going, you were probably just thinking about all of this anyway…

Image credit: Jeff Smallwood

Writing is a verb.

Having no idea that it was the title of what looks to be a cheesey self-help book, my beloved friend Susan, the shepherd, said this to me the other day: Love is a Verb.

“People can say they have a feeling, they can talk about it until they’re blue in the face (I love you. I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about you.), but it’s not real unless they deliver some action with it,” she said.

It’s true, you know. Think about it.

And then, think about this: writing’s the same. Yes, writing is also a verb.

On a fairly regular basis, I get emails, tweets or comments from people asking how I manage to run my business (ie. write and and concept/run social media strategies for a living) and write this blog every day. The real question is: how can I not?

Writing helps me:

• Clear my head
• Analyze past events
• Plan for what’s next
• Emote
• Energize
• Decompress
• Create
• Laugh
• Connect
• Communicate
• Hone my skills
• Cry
• Share
• Build my business

‘Writing is a VERB’ means that you can’t just talk about it. You also have to do it. Otherwise all of that talk means nothing. Or rather it means that you want to be writer or a ______ (fill in the blank), that you think about being a writer or a _______, but you don’t seem to have the balls to jump in. Or you’re too scared or too busy or too something. (and believe me, I have things like this too)

Does that sound harsh? It’s not really meant to – it’s just meant to remind us all that the means to the ends lie in the action.

This verb concept is a powerful reminder. A reminder not to be passive, but to go forth and DO.

What do you need to verbitize today?

Image credit: Arenamontanus

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Also, if you feel like hearing me wax poetic-ish on Blogging for Business and why writing is sooo important (and a bit on the Dragon Tattoo Campaign), the radio interview I did for Bonnie Marcus’ Head Over Heels show last week is live and ready for listening!