Archive for October 17, 2007

The psychology of blogging

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You have been blogging for several months or perhaps even years now. And you examine your posts to see how far you’ve been able to stick with your original purpose when first starting. Do you blog according to what you have planned beforehand? Or did you find yourself straying-off topic and blogging about something else – perhaps even on an unrelated topic? Are you inline online? I find myself asking the same questions. Do I serve the purpose I stated earlier when I decided to blog?

Bloggers usually blog with many purposes. The majority of them blog for money by placing advertising in the blog. Some bloggers do so to express their creativity. Others blog because they want to rant about something they can’t say face-to-face or seek feedback and acknowledgment.
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Only as Good as Your Word by Susan Shapiro

Only as Good as Your Word
Did you have someone you looked-up to when you decided to become a writer? Someone who understood your desire to write and nurtured you along the way to become the writer who you are today? I believe all writers had some type of mentoring when they first started to write. Be it their teachers, editors or how-to books written by long gone writers.

This is exactly what the best seller writer, Susan Shapiro wrote in her latest memoir titled, Only as Good as Your Word.
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Where do you get ideas for your characters?

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So, are you planning to write your first fictional piece? Whether it is a short story or novel creating characters for your story is one of the most important requirements. For the new writer, this task is challenging yet it is the most interesting part of creating a believable story. Where do you find your characters and how do you fit them into the story you are creating?
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Resources for Bloggers: Only a click away

Resources for blogger: only a click away
Other than visiting sites of writers online, I am also checking out other bloggers’ sites to read their tips about blogging as well as to seek advice on how to maintain and take care of the technical side of blogging. Since I am using the wordpress.org green widgetize template, I seek blogs that explain how to customize the template to suit my purpose as well as for plugins to simplify the task. I’m also seeking other blog tips in general.

So far I’ve found the following sites to help with the technical side of blogging:
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Flowers: the language of love

Do you have any other interests besides your hobby or hobbies and your 9 to 5 job? What are they – scrapbooking, crafts or photography, etc.? I am sure you have several hobbies or interests you often pursue when you have free time. I am into digital photography and I find flowers are my primary subjects.

I take most of the pictures of flowers at places like the Boston Public Garden. Spring is the best time to take photos of flowers. Oftentimes though, I also find myself crouching on people’s front yards to take close-ups of very pretty flowers. My husband keeps telling me the owner’s will come out in a rage and will charge me to take pictures if they catch me! I hope it will never happens.

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I find myself everywhere during the spring season taking pictures of flowers and when there is nothing else I don’t mind taking pictures of crab apples flowers as well!

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Once I found myself at the food store, like the Stop & Shop (one of the largest ones in New England), taking pictures of the potted plants arranged outside for sale! Oftentimes, the problem when sneaking photos is when I aim the camera lens the wind starts to blow and the plants shake furiously. The images always come out somewhat less than satisfying. My husband says “the spirit of the flower doesn’t like you.” I’ve started to believe him.

When I am done with flower picture taking I will often move to the scenery. My current favorite is the Boston skyline.

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I do take pictures of buildings with steeples. I find old church buildings with fierce gargoyles are one of my favorite subjects.


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Flowers in general bring a therapeutic feeling. It feels very refreshing to look at the blooms close-up and marvel at how wonderful it is when the images are transferred into print.

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I find it is fascinating that the photograph you took actually is a window to the soul. It is supposed to be the eyes are windows to the soul, but the photograph is taken based on how you perceive the objects and take the pictures. I think it is the way your eyes see the object and capture it through the lens of your camera that makes it a window to the soul.

I also like to learn the meaning behind each flower. I would say I love roses of all colors and the meaning behind it. Here is the meaning of roses from the language of flowers:

  • Rose (red) – Love ; I love you
  • Rose (white) – Eternal Love; innocence; heavenly; secrecy and silence
  • Rose (pink) – Perfect happiness; please believe me
  • Rose (yellow) – Friendship; jealousy; try to care
  • Rose (black) – Death
  • Rose (red and white) – Together; unity
  • Rose (thorn less) – Love at first sight
  • Rose (single, full bloom) – I love you; I still love you
  • Rose bud – Beauty and youth; a heart innocent of love
  • Rose bud (red) – Pure and lovely
  • Rose bud (white) – Girlhood
  • Rosebud (moss) – Confessions of love
  • Roses (bouquet of full bloom) – Gratitude
  • Roses (garland or crown of) – Beware of virtue; reward of merit; crown ; symbol of superior merit
  • Roses (musk cluster) – Charming
  • Rose (tea) – I’ll always remember
  • Rose (cabbage) – Ambassador of love
  • Rose (Christmas) – Tranquilize my anxiety; anxiety
  • Rose (damask) – Brilliant complexion
  • Rose (dark crimson) – Mourning
  • Rose (hibiscus) – Delicate beauty
  • Rose leaf – You may hope

I always incorporate roses into my fiction writing as a way to express the character’s feelings. As it well known, flowers bring happiness and also bring good health. It is one of the reasons why flowers become the most chosen and a wonderful gift.

I can conclude that flowers are the language of love.

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How to turn your blog to be more reader friendly

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I am so busy writing my blog five days out of every week since August that I’ve neglected to dress my blog for success. Since I started blogging on writing, writing tips, reviewing books and more, I have always become entangled on the technical side of setting up the wordpress theme to make sure it will be more presentable to you – the reader. If it was a house, I must admit it is still a mess, and I’m unable to tidy-up the guest room.

Now that readers have stumbled upon my site I still haven’t spruced-up the layout so they will be comfortable and enjoy their visit. Please forgive me, but even if I am familiar with the computer scripts, the technical sides of blogging just wears my brain out. There are so many themes; so many plugins and widgets to chose, yet so little time to peruse them all.

Do I have a choice? Can I just blog without taking care of the technical issues? The answer is a big fat NO! I forgot that when I decided to set up my blog, I am also responsible for the layout, the widgets and security so that when my guests come for a visit they feel safe and don’t receive a big fat pulsing headache when viewing the layout. So, I have to drag myself to tidy-up the layout.

In order to make the blog more reader friendly, I have installed several plugins for my wordpress green theme. Here are several of the tasks recently performed:
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Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life

Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life

Do you like the Peanuts characters? How about the one and only Snoopy, the beagle owned by Charlie Brown? If you do, and you are a new writer, the book titled Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life is worth reading.

This hardcover book is edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz (Charles Schulz’s son) and features 32 essays by famous writers. They include essays by Danielle Steel, Clive Cussler, Sidney Sheldon, Cherie Carter-Scott, Thomas McGuane, Leslie Dixon, Oakley Hall, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Fannie Flagg, John Leggett, Dominick Dunne, William F. Buckely, Jr., David Michaelis, Frances Weaver, Herbert Gold, Sue Grafton, Jay Conrad Levinson, Barnaby Conrad, Elizabeth George, Budd Schulberg, Monte Schulz, A. Scot Berg, Sol Stein, Ed McBain, Jack Canfield, Shelly Lowenkopf, Ray Bradbury, Charles Champlin, Lair Koeing, Julia Child, Elmore Leonard and J.F. Freedman.
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How emotions play roles in your writing

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Most of the writing I have read mentions how emotions help to create believable characters for your fiction or memoir. Yet there are no articles that focus on the writer’s emotions and how it influences the writing process. This article is written for you, the new writer. Did you have the day where you were so fired up to write your creative writing or any type of writing? You can’t wait to get started and your ideas just flow like water. What kinds of emotions do you have when you are motivated to write? Do you feel happy, sad or angry? Then, there was the day when you just don’t feel like writing? You tried to coax yourself to start your writing yet, you just stared at an empty screen or a blank piece of paper for a long time. Again, when you have this moment, what emotions do you experience? Do you feel bored?
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Writer’s Resources on the net

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The Internet makes writing seem much easier these days. Blogging about your hobbies or interests becomes one of the must do type of activities for bloggers. Writing is one of them. Everyone has their own blog to express their interests, business and experiences in getting into networking. It is an exciting activity nevertheless. I enjoy writing for my blog as much as I enjoy reading other’s writing on their sites.

While looking for a websites for ideas and inspiration for my writing, I found several that have encouraged me to keep the writing momentum going. I would like to share them with you.

    1. Writer’s Break – For writers. Articles on fiction, nonfiction, freelance writing, author interviews. This site has many how to articles for writing fiction and nonfiction. Jen Minar is the managing editor and a freelance writer based in Washington D.C. The articles written in this site are really helpful for a writer like me and I hope it will help you too.

    2. Quotable Online – if you’re looking for inspiring quotes for your writing, this site has tremendous content in their database. It is over 25,000 quotes! I like the writing quotes and it give me all the motivation I need to inspire me to write.

    3. Reader’s Digest – This is one of my favorite magazines to read whenever I have the time. Their site has archived many articles to help you get ideas for your writing.

    4. Writer’s Digest Blogs – Writer’s Digest provides blogs on their site. Check it out. There is a lot of information available – especially from the editor’s blog. I always read their blogs when I need to find some info about getting publish. They also update the contest page frequently.

    5. Fiction Writing – This site has a lot of advice on writing fiction and writing in general. I find the content to be very informative and I hope it will help you too.

Writing can be very daunting at times. It is best to find and read other sites to refresh your ideas and then get back to your writing. There are so many resources on the net and the five sites on my today list is only a fraction of it.

Happy writing!

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Turning your memories into memoir


Being a writer is not a career choice – it is a lifestyle – so I’ve heard. If you need a 9 to 5 job to make a living, being a writer is not a choice, not to mention when you graduate with your first degree to prepare you to enter the workforce and get paid, yet, you choose to become a writer for other reasons. This is one of my life stories. It is one of the happiest memories in my life and now here I am trying to relive it again.

Everyone has experienced events in their life that are shaped into happy or sad memories. Do you remember your first puppy love? Your first success in something you loved to do? Why not turn it into a memoir?
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