Write on the World wins Sigma Tau Delta Individual Blog Award
Guess what, everyone – You are officially reading an award-winning blog! This morning, I found out Write on the World won the Sigma Tau Delta – International English Honor Society Individual Blog Award at the 2012-2013 Convention that took place in Portland, Oregon in March.
Sigma Tau Delta presents awards “annually in the areas of writing, performance, service, and website and blog construction.” According to their website, “individual blogs are judged on creativity, usability of design, and content, as well as how well they support or advance the purposes and principles of Sigma Tau Delta as outlined in the Society’s Constitution.” (more…)
Blogs you should follow, if you’re so inclined
This is me, reading your blog. Only replace the book with a smartphone. (Ha Ha, just kidding. The pickin’s are slim on Zemanta these days. Seriously, what is going on this picture?) | Reader of novels (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hopefully none of you are depending on me for regular blog content this semester. But just in case you are, let me share a few of my favorite blogs with you… something to keep you busy until after I graduate in May. Hopefully after that, I’ll have more time for blogging. I don’t want either of my subscribers to get bored. I’m talking to you, Ryan. You and that other guy. I don’t know his name. (more…)
Because my resume could use another award or two…
My blog was recently nominated for a Liebster Blog Award. Probably because I personally know the blogger who nominated me, and we’ve been sharing strategies for bumping up our readership. At any rate, it looks like fun, so why not?
The Liebster Blog Award
The rules for the Liebster Award are very simple: You are required to thank the person who nominated you, answer the 11 question they have asked you, nominate 11 other people and ask them 11 questions in return. According to the guidelines, the Liebster award should be sent to bloggers with less than 200 followers so that new bloggers can see how awesome they are!
By the way, thanks to Punky Coletta at SlimeGreen for the nomination!
My Questions (more…)
I do my best blogging at the coffee house
The view from my comfy chair at Cafe de Arts in Waukesha, WI proved to be inspiring last weekend.
I love blogging while sitting in a coffee shop. Whenever I meet my writer friend for a day of coffee and writing, I always end up putting my intended work aside to write at least one blog post. At our last session, I ended up writing three different blog posts before the afternoon was done.
Maybe I should just plan on going out to a coffee house once a week to write all of my blog posts. When I blog at home, my blog posts often come out concise, professional, and utterly boring. At the coffee shop, I get creative ideas and write posts I think people might actually want to read (I hope.) (more…)
The Next Big Thing Blog Hop
The Mists of Avalon and similar works by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley have inspired my writing since my high school years. | (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I recently downloaded the Google Reader app to my phone and have been catching up on a ton of awesome blogs that I otherwise wouldn’t have the time to even glance at. One of my favorites is by author Charlotte Rains Dixon who shares tons of writing exercises that I can’t wait to try out. Last week, Charlotte answered a few questions about her current book via The Next Best Thing Blog Hop. I wanted to answer the same questions on my blog, so I asked Charlotte how I could get involved, and here I am today!
As part of the Blog Hop, I get to tag 3 – 5 other bloggers who will hopefully play along. (But I’m okay with them if they don’t, as I know how busy they all are.) Even if they don’t answer the questions, please check out their blogs anyway, as they are some of my personal favorites. I have listed their links at the end of this blog post. (more…)
Do you wanna write a guest post for my blog?
Do I look busy to you? Nah, it’s nothing. Really.
I’m teaching six courses this semester and writing a thesis. So yeah, I’m a little busy right now. I want to keep my blog going too, so I’m wondering: Would any of my writer friends and readers be interested in writing a guest blog post or two this semester?
I’m a starving artist (well, not literally, I just stuffed myself on Chinese food at dinner tonight,) so I can’t afford to pay you. But, if I publish your guest post on my blog, you’ll get a by-line and a link to your blog from mine. So, that’s something, right?
Anyway, if you’re interested, (more…)
What does your nightstand say about you?
My writer friend over at SlimeGreen recently shared a post where she discussed how you can tell a lot about a person from what’s on their nightstand. She shared a pic of her end table, along with an analysis of what her end table says about her. I love this idea, so I’m stealing it. Anyway, here’s a picture of my nightstand. I’m opening myself up to my readers. Please tell me (in the comments below,) what do you think my nightstand says about me?
What does my nightstand say about me?
Proper Pinning: How not to irritate your followers on Pinterest
Pinterest featue in Metro – 27th February 2012 (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I kinda love Pinterest. I have tried a ton of new DIY projects and even make my own homemade laundry detergent now on a regular basis. But Pinterest can be as annoying as it is helpful when pinners fail to pin properly. To combat this problem, I have compiled a short quick-list of tips for properly sharing articles on Pinterest to avoid irritating your followers:
1. Link to the individual blog post, not the blog’s index page. (more…)
Writing prompt: Pick an object
You never know when the inspiration for your next great story might lurk somewhere in the depths of a random drawer. | (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you’re a teacher or student (or both, like me,) your head is probably about to explode from all of the recent end-of-year academic activities. So, for today’s Wednesday Writing Prompt, I thought it might be appropriate to pick something fun and light to write about. Of course, if you’re in the mood for deep and dark, you could probably take it that way too. Here goes:
Without looking, reach into a drawer, any drawer, in the room in which you are right this moment. (If you’re in a public place or someone else’s home, you may want to ask for permission first.) Pull out the first item you can get your hands on. Remember, don’t look in the drawer or look for a particular item. Instead, I want you to grab one random item (more…)
Write On the World Presents: Top 7 Spam Comments
Dear Spammer, I am not interested in buying Viagra or advertising it for you in my blog comments. | viagra is a commercial produced medicine containing Sildenafil citrate, which is used to treat male erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you have a blog, you’ve probably gotten at least one ridiculous spam comment on one of your posts. You know what I’m talking about… those comments that were obviously written by some online Viagra salesperson in Southeast Asia who is sitting at a laptop filtering their spammy comments through Yahoo Babelfish before posting. And what about those comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the post you’ve written? Do these spammers really think we’re this stupid?
Luckily, I use Akismet on my blog, so I don’t have to read too many of those spammy comments. The ones that do occasionally slip through the spam filter are generally pretty funny. Check out this list of the top 7 ridiculous spam comments received on my blog, and you’ll see what I mean: (more…)
4 Tips for writing a “Pinworthy” DIY blog post
Has this ever happened to you? You find an interesting recipe or craft project on Pinterest that you want to check out only to click through and find the blog post is missing one or more essential elements required for you to actually be able to bake the goody or make the craft yourself. Or maybe everything is there, but it’s so disorganized, you immediately give up figuring it out and move on. You return to Pinterest without repinning the post. And that blogger just lost an excellent opportunity to see her blog post “go viral.”
If you’re like me, it probably only takes you a few seconds to look over a blog post and decide if you want to repin it. A few minutes ago, I found a blog post on making a “relax bottle” (aka “mind jar“) for counting down a child’s timeout minutes. I love the idea, the pictures are great… but I got to the blog post and couldn’t immediately figure out if the bottles are made using supplies I might already have on hand. And, where are the instructions? There are tons of great pictures, but the how-to part is all over the place. I still wanted to do this project, but I had to go look elsewhere for better instructions. (more…)
Can you do me a huge favor?
Would you mind taking a quick survey about a blog?
Earlier this semester, I wrote a blog post about the new blogs that my Communication Technologies students were creating. Well, they’ve been hard at work blogging all semester, and now they are looking for some feedback on their blogs. Each student has created an online survey asking for feedback on their individual blogs, and we are looking for willing respondents to take a look at one or more of the blogs and then take the survey. (more…)
What went down on Wednesday?
Image via Wikipedia
Seriously cheesy title today. Seriously. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I won’t let it happen again.
Well, I’m not making any promises.
OK, “So, what did go down on Wednesday anyway?” you’re probably wondering. (Or maybe not, maybe I’ve already lost you.) I teach 2 courses on Wednesdays; Communication Technologies and Business Communication. And, I thought Comm Tech was fun yesterday. I mean, sure it could have gone a bit more smoothly, but this is the first time I’m teaching this course, and I still have a lot of kinks to work out. (more…)
Too busy to blog
Endless grading of term papers (Photo credit: joguldi)
It happens to the best of us. We want to write more often, but life somehow gets in the way. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got so many different projects in the works, I can’t seem to focus on any of them. And, I’m spending so much time worrying about getting my final project and paper written for one course, and my mid-term paper written for another, I have very little time left to write something I actually want to write.
Yes, here I am, complaining once again. *sigh* (more…)
I think I might be a blogger finally
Image via Wikipedia
Blogging. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard. But, I tried and tried to start blogs in the past, and they never seemed to go anywhere. Take for instance the blog I started for my now-defunct online bookstore (I still take special orders if you’re looking for anything in particular.)
The blog is still there, I could always pick it up again. My plan for that blog was to post book reviews of all the books I was reading, use those as my blog posts, and tie it in with books for sale on my website. Unfortunatly, I needed to work at a job that was actually paying and just didn’t have the time it takes to keep an online business up and running. That blog quickly fell by the wayside, along with my poor bookstore. In fact, I have an ever-growing stack of books next to my desk just waiting for me to review. And that’s nothing on the stack of books I’ve had to return to the library in the meantime. (more…)
