Tag: busyness

Categories
Blogging Basics

How To Keep Your Blog Alive

Give yourself permission to not blog. Yes, I said it. Going through different seasons in life does correlate to your blogging life. In winter, plants lay cold and dormant waiting for a spring sun to wake them up. But, they do wake up.

Are you feeling guilty because circumstances beyond your control have kept you in a winter holding pattern? Does that still small voice keep telling you, “Your blog is due. Get with it.” And at the end of the day, or a month, there are no words on the page to be published for the world to see. You are not alone.

Spring Time is Coming

As a full-time special-needs mom, blogger, and author, the minutes of my day are consumed with fulfilling my roles. However, in this season, my special needs mom hat has taken on new meaning. My sweet son has iron deficiency anemia and a bad bout of eczema. One of these diagnoses alone is enough to deal with, but both?

Therefore, everything else takes a back seat. My focus is on helping our little guy get well. That voice still calls me to type on the page, and I answer, “Not, now.” What is currently on your plate taking priority over your blogging life? How are you handing your wintertime as the life of a blogger?

Helpful Ways To Keep Your Blog Alive

Finding creative ways to blog or not to blog is possible. Here are few ideas:

  1. Write A Short Blog–Crafting a post of 300 words or more could be the answer to keeping your audience informed and engaged without losing them. My blogs are between 400–600 words. Give yourself permission to write less to keep your blog alive during your winter. Add a few pictures for visual appeal and click publish.
  2. Short Title – A sample title could be: 3 Reasons To _____ or 3 Ways To _____. This type of title helps to keep the post short and yet still deliver valuable content. Check the coschedule.com headline analyzer to keep your title score above 70%.
  3. Offer opportunities to Guest Blog–Send out a call on your social media sites for guest blog submissions. Craft your own submission guidelines to hone in and allow writers to know what blogs you will accept. Don’t know how to craft your own submission guidelines? Read the guidelines of your favorite blogger to get a baseline for your blog. Or click here: Also, offer a deadline to receive the submission. (To become a guest blogger, check out this resource: )
  4. Winter Time Post–Let your readers know of your hiatus and, if you feel comfortable sharing, why. Your readers will appreciate the update and be happy to see your posts again when you start back up. A great title could be: 3 Reasons I Quit Blogging (Temporarily).
  5. Hire Help–Another way to keep your blog alive is to hire help. Many books are created by utilizing a ghostwriter to share your story. Did you know you can also hire a blog writer? You may say, “But I have no money to hire help.” And for the most part, I agree. After looking at the website, www.fivrr.com, you might be pleasantly surprised. For this blog post, I searched for “write blog post.” I found a Canadian writer who has 1154 reviews with an average score of 4.9 out of 5 stars. For $10, they will write a 1000-word blog in a 2-day time-frame. With such high quality reviews and a low cost, this might be just what you need to keep content flowing on your blog.

What do you do when life interferes with your blogging journey? Share your tips below. It could help keep a blog alive.

Evelyn Mann is a mother of a miracle and her story has been featured on WFLA Channel 8, Fox35 Orlando, Inspirational Radio and the Catholic News Agency. A special interview with her son on the Facebook Page, Special Books by Special Kids, has received 1.4M views. Along with giving Samuel lots of hugs and kisses, Evelyn enjoys hot tea, sushi and writing. Visit her at miraclemann.com.

Categories
Mastering Middle Grade

The Writer’s Gift of Intention

Somewhere between Christmas pageant rehearsal, decorating the tree, shopping, and making travel preparations, a still, small voice whispers. The conversation goes something like this:

My Conscience: What about your story? You remember, the one you were over-the-moon excited to write? The story with the characters you loved that you have not touched in a week?

Me: *sigh* I remember.

MC: When are you going to write? You are so close to finishing.

Me: *breaking out in a cold sweat* Not now, conscience. This is not the time.

MC: I know, I know. So…you will write it later, then?

Me: Yes, later. Absolutely. I will finish you later. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.

MC: I get it. Thanks. I’ll look forward to later, then. If it is not too much to ask, I have one quick follow-up question.

Me: Sure.

MC: When, exactly, is later?

The holidays may be a little slow for publishers but for writers, especially those of us young in our journey, they can be a joyous but trying time. We want to use this time for planning, querying, networking, and (of course) writing – but there are about a gazillion competing activities (Christmas party, anyone?) and none of them want to leave room for the other.

So let’s give ourselves the gift of leaving room. Let’s give ourselves the grace we would give a friend. Along with that grace, let us honor the work we’ve already done by planning the work yet to come. The conversation with our conscience could look like this:

Me:  Let’s compromise. I’ll take a few minutes now and make a to-do list, jot down your ideas, and let’s let them soak for a bit. After family has gone home, and I get a little rest, we will get back on our regular writing schedule.

MC: Let the ideas ‘soak?’ Like a Christmas turkey brine type of soak, or a hot buttered dinner roll sort of soak?

Me: Take your pick. I’ll see you bright and early January 2.

As you can probably guess, I am eager to get back to my normal writing routine, but I’m also excited about the celebration and rejuvenation that the Christmas season brings. My goal is to use this time to live life well and fully, so I can bring my most creative self back to the keyboard in the new year.

My intention for 2019 is to give myself the gift of a schedule, with set times for quiet, writing, work and play. What does your new year writing intention look like?

Kell McKinney earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and an M.S. in documentary studies from the University of North Texas. She’s a part-time copywriter, double-time mom and wife, and spends every free minute writing and/or hunting for her car keys. Connect with her on Twitter @Kell_McK or kellmckinney.com.

Categories
Time Management

Tackling Time Management

When I was first asked to be a contributing writer to a new column on time management, at first I groaned a little inside. Me, a super creative, “big idea,” not-that-organized, hate-the-business-end author, short on “time” and not that strong on “management” – more or less like most of us I’m guessing – I was being asked to write about time management!

Still, since I do have a lot of experience juggling a full-time author/ speaker/ book coach business with a marketing director career and blended family of five kids and two grandkids…and since I figured it would help me to help you on this subject, of course I couldn’t’ say no!

If you are a writer who often feels overwhelmed, can’t get everything done in a day, or are losing your “joy” in the busyness of it all, then you’re in the right place! Here are few basic practical pointers – things that have helped me along the way – that I hope will help you get started in better managing your time:

Have a Plan.

Wherever you are on your journey, you need to stop in your tracks and if you haven’t already done so, WRITE DOWN YOUR PLAN (write out your vision, mission, goals and action steps to carry out those goals). Write your plan for one year with 3-5 major “big goals”, 10 goals to accomplish those goals, and action step lists per quarter, month, week and day, being realistic yet aiming high with those lists. If you want a good guide to do this read The Success Principles by Jack Canfield (author of Chicken Soup for the Soul). I’ve heard him speak and he is a great example of how to achieve success by following a plan.

Schedule Your Writing Time.

To write my last novel while juggling all of my other “jobs” and life in general, I scheduled a block of writing time every day (except Sunday) from 7 am to 1 pm. Everything else – cell phone, emails, social media, even all of the people in my life – were turned off, put on hold or put aside. The ONLY THING I allowed myself to do during that time was write. I figured I could usually knock out an average of three pages every two hours – so that meant writing 9-10 pages every day.

If you’re working 6 days a week writing 10 pages a day, or 60 pages a week, you can complete a 300-page novel in five short weeks! (I know this is not feasible for those working day jobs but it should give you hope that if you schedule time and stick to it, you can get that book of yours done in a matter of months.) After the writing was complete, I spent the same blocked-off time in editing until it was good to go!

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

I had a student in my writing class at Cecil College in Maryland named Faith. She was writing a memoir and she was a great student. But I’ll never forget the first class she took (I was actually speaking about time management!). During a break, Faith came up to me and asked, “are you still considered a real writer if you don’t write every day?” I answered, “of course!” and encouraged her to do what worked for her. She broke down in tears of relief. I came to find she was holding back for years on writing her book because she was afraid she wasn’t a “real” writer!

Be Realistic.

There are only so many hours in a day. I usually try to pack in way too many things – I usually have high expectations of myself and others…but often that leads only to disappointment, resentments and frustration. Don’t make promises or to-do lists you can’t possibly keep.

Trust God’s Timing.

Sure you have to do the work here on earth but always try to be where your feet are (stay in today) and do what you can, then let the rest go or give it to God in faith that He has a plan for you too!

Finally, like life, time management is all about balance. My next blog post will be about priorities and choices. Stay tuned!

Michele Chynoweth is the award-winning author of The Faithful One, The Peace Maker and The Runaway Prophet, contemporary suspense/romance novels based on Old Testament stories in the Bible that get across God’s messages to today’s readers through edgy, fast-paced fiction. Michele is also an inspirational speaker, college instructor on book writing, publishing and marketing, and book coach/editor who helps writers become successful authors. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she and her husband have a blended family of five children.

Social Media/Website Links:

Website: michelechynoweth.com
Blog: michelechynoweth1.wordpress.com
Facebook Author Page: ModernDayBibleStories
Twitter: AuthorMichele
You Tube: MicheleChynoweth