Tag Archives: Writing

Have You Lost Your Writing Mojo?

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It’s been six months now since I lost my writing Mojo, and so far I haven’t had any luck in getting it back.

It’s not that I have any shortage of ideas on what to write about, but I do have only short time periods in the morning and lunchtime in which to write, plus a longer spell in the evening, and I know that if I don’t complete an article in one session, the impetus will disappear and it’s always a struggle to finish it.

I have lost count of the number of great articles that I have written in my head, and which I haven’t had time to write down, and so they have been consigned to the virtual scrapheap for eternity.

One big problem is that I need to earn more online, since my full time day job just provides for us to live, but not for us to be able to take a vacation, like seeing my daughters once a year (they live in Florida and we live in the UK).  So it’s not enough to just spend time writing what comes into my head, I need to try and focus on writing about topics where I might be able to earn a few pennies, which makes it harder.

One place where I have written consistently for the last 5 years is Squidoo, and in 2012 my traffic and earnings there were growing nicely over previous years.  However, changes at both Squidoo and on Google resulted in huge traffic drops in November, and since then it’s just been a downhill slide, with traffic stalling, sales and earnings declining, and no signs that anything is going to change at any time soon.

Once popular pages on Google still seem to be popular if I do a search, but the number of visitors has lowered, and there doesn’t seem to be a magic solution for trying to get that traffic back.

Squidoo have also been trying to combat those members who have been cheating to try and gain more than their rightful portion of the shared revenue, and while they have had some success here, they are relying on automated filters to check pages, rather than using the human eye, which can spot spam or plagiarised work easily, and as a result not only have many poor quality pages slipped through, many high quality ones have been flagged, and it’s often taken the creator hours of editing to try and find out what has tripped the filters and how to get a page to re-publish.

This has resulted in a lot of stress for those who write on Squidoo, and when you go to make a change to a page and don’t know whether you will be able to re-publish it or not, you lose a lot of the enthusiasm that comes with writing.  We all know that stress is a killer, and right now the Squidoo stress has pretty much killed my writing mojo!.

So what do I do about it?

One solution is to do like a number of other lensmasters (authors on Squidoo) have done, and that is to stop writing on Squidoo, and to write elsewhere, maybe on their own sites where they have more control.

I did try this last week, writing 5 articles and trying to ve-vitalise my Blogger site, but this resulted in very little traffic, which is one reason I abandoned writing there in the first place.

Focusing on one site and trying to get visitors/subscribers is a good solution, and this is what I think I am going to try.

The problem is…

The problem is that when people started blogging they used to have a single blog where they would write about anything and everything.  The current approach is to have multiple blogs instead, where each one has a set focus.   Since my blogs are self hosted registered domains, and they already have many articles that are on a wide variety of topics, it’s not easy to change over without starting afresh, which I am rather reluctant to do.

Why is my traffic so low?

There are multiple reasons, such as writing on topics that are already well covered, so your content gets buried.  Not using the right keywords or keyword density is another.  Lack of promotion to social media sites can make a difference, as can over promotion (spamming).  It’s also important to write regularly on a site, so that visitors/subscribers know to keep coming back to it.

I therefore made my decision to try and revitalise this site, which I originally created for Debbie and I to write on, however she lost her mojo ages ago, and now it’s just up to me to try and make a success of it.  I think a new layout, and definitely new regular fresh content ought to count for something.

So wish me luck, and if you do like what you read here, please help by sharing posts, as this will help enormously in helping me to feel good about writing once more.

Another Writing Milestone Is Imminent

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Just over 2 years ago on 12th January 2010 I joined the many other writers on a site called Associated Content where I hoped to find new friends and to expand my writing exposure to new eyes, as well as to boost my earnings.

Today, if all goes well, I should reach the covetted level of Clout 10, which means that I have had over 330,000 page views on 707 articles, and reached the top of the ladder.

Since joining Associated Content the site has undergone a lot of changes, being taken over by Yahoo!, and finally after a year of changes and countless problems if looks like they are heading in the right direction again.

In the last two years I have written about many topics, including my favorite Travel and Humor ones, but also Religion and Politics, which have never really interested me much in the past, but which in the last few years have prompted me to write more about them.

I hope that you have time to browse through my articles, which you can find on the now renamed Yahoo Contributor Network, and I have to commemorate reaching this goal I have created a page on Squidoo about Tony Payne On Yahoo Voices, which lists all my articles as well as giving some good writing tips and ways in which writing on Yahoo has helped me with ideas for creating lenses on Squidoo.

 

Article Publishing Summary 12th June 2011

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This is a summary of my publishing activity during the last week, as well as the status of my lenses on Squidoo and my reviews on Best Reviewer.

I have spent time in the last few weeks working on my new site Squidblogs, a place that Squidoo lensmasters can use to promote their lenses, and I have been working on some new Squidoo lenses in connection with this.

I have also been working on Redgage and Twitter, with a formula to use both of these together to increase earnings, as well as to get more back links to articles.

I hope you will take a look at them and also hope that you enjoy them.

Yahoo Contributor Network

These are the articles that I published in the last week on YCN:

 

You can Click Here to see all of my articles on Yahoo Contributor Network, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Squidoo

These are my Top 5 ranked lenses on Squidoo:

I also recently created the following lenses on Squidoo:

Squidblogs is a new site that I have been developing, where lensmasters can write about their lenses to promote them.  With Squidoo having eliminated the Squidcast function in the past few weeks, Squidblogs ought to come more into it’s own, as the demand for places where lensmasters can promote their lenses increases.

Best Reviewer

Best-Reviewer allows you to create review lists and to get paid using Google Adsense Revenue Sharing.

These are the most recent Best Reviews that I have created:

If you yould like to create reviews of your own and earn through Google Adsense, it’s very easy, and many reviews only take 5 minutes to create. Click HERE for more information.

Article Publishing Summary 5th June 2011

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This is a summary of my publishing activity during the last week, as well as the status of my lenses on Squidoo and my reviews on Best Reviewer.

I hope you will take a look at them and also hope that you enjoy them.

Yahoo Contributor Network

I didn’t actually publish anything here in the last week, because I was working on other projects, which took priority.

You can Click Here to see all of my articles on Yahoo Contributor Network, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Squidoo

These are my Top 5 ranked lenses on Squidoo:

I also recently created the following lenses on Squidoo:

Squidblogs is a new site that I have been developing, where lensmasters can write about their lenses to promote them.  With Squidoo having eliminated the Squidcast function in the past few weeks, Squidblogs ought to come more into it’s own, as the demand for places where lensmasters can promote their lenses increases.

Best Reviewer

Best-Reviewer allows you to create review lists and to get paid using Google Adsense Revenue Sharing.

These are the most recent Best Reviews that I have created:

If you yould like to create reviews of your own and earn through Google Adsense, it’s very easy, and many reviews only take 5 minutes to create. Click HERE for more information.

Article Publishing Summary 23rd May 2011

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This is a summary of my publishing activity during the last week, as well as the status of my lenses on Squidoo and my reviews on Best Reviewer.

I hope you will take a look at them and also hope that you enjoy them.

Yahoo Contributor Network

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

  • The Day We Almost Won the Lottery

    Buying a lottery ticket can be an exciting experience, one that is filled with the anticipation of how your life could change if you won the jackpot. This is a story about how we almost won the lottery.
  • Could These Chinese Villagers Be Descendants of Roman Legionnaires?

    There are stories of a Roman Legion led my Marcus Crassus that was defeated in what is now Iran in 53BC. Is it possible that survivors made their way to China and settled there. People in one village have Caucasian DNA as well as Caucasian features.
  • What Happens when a Cop Steps Out of Bounds

    Police Officers are expected to respect the law like everyone else, and to help prevent crime, but sometimes they misuse their powers when something happens in their personal life. This is one of those stories.
  • Should Having Children Be Something You Earn and Not a Right?

    Society today has created groups of people who have children because they are careless as well as those who have children purely to get additional child benefits. Is our future one where being a parent might be a status that you have to earn.
  • White Tiger on the Loose a Local Offbeat News Story

    Reports that a white tiger has been spotted on the outskirts of the city you live in are not what you want to hear on the news. This is what happened in our city this weekend, but as usual things are not always what they seem in this offbeat news story.

 My traffic on Yahoo Contributor Network has really taken a dive lately, which is one reason why I quit publishing my News From A Weird World series last week.  I hope to restart this if my article popularity picks up, but writing has to be worth the effort in any case, unless it’s just for my benefit to document things of course.

You can also Click Here to see my latest articles up to date, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Squidoo

These are my Top 5 ranked lenses on Squidoo:

I also recently created the following lenses on Squidoo:

 

Best Reviewer

Best-Reviewer allows you to create review lists and to get paid using Google Adsense Revenue Sharing.

These are the most recent Best Reviews that I have created:

 

If you yould like to create reviews of your own and earn through Google Adsense, it’s very easy, and many reviews only take 5 minutes to create.  Click HERE for more information.

Article Publishing Summary 16th May 2011

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This is a summary of my publishing activity during the last week, as well as the status of my lenses on Squidoo and my reviews on Best Reviewer.

I have felt pretty drained both mentally and physically in the last week, and so the number of articles I have written is less than normal.  I also had a stressful time trying to book flights and accomodation in Florida for our summer trip, but now that these are done, I can hopefully relax a bit.

I write on a number of topics, usually it depends on what comes into my head on any given day, so it could be a travel story, memoirs from my life, something from the daily news, or even a poem inspired by something.

I hope you will take a look at them and also enjoy them.

Yahoo Contributor Network

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

 My traffic on Yahoo Contributor Network has really taken a dive lately, which is one reason why I quit publishing my News From A Weird World series last week.  I hope to restart this if my article popularity picks up, but writing has to be worth the effort in any case, unless it’s just for my benefit to document things of course.

You can also Click Here to see my latest articles up to date, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Squidoo

These are my Top 5 ranked lenses on Squidoo:

I also recently created the following lenses on Squidoo:

 

Best Reviewer

Best-Reviewer allows you to create review lists and to get paid using Google Adsense Revenue Sharing.

These are the most recent Best Reviews that I have created:

 

If you yould like to create reviews of your own and earn through Google Adsense, it’s very easy, and many reviews only take 5 minutes to create.  Click HERE for more information.

Article Publishing Summary 9th May 2011

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This is a summary of my publishing activity during the last week, as well as the status of my lenses on Squidoo and my reviews on Best Reviewer.

I write on a number of topics, usually it depends on what comes into my head on any given day, so it could be a travel story, memoirs from my life, something from the daily news, or even a poem inspired by something.

During the month of April I wrote fewer articles than usual on the Yahoo Contributor Network, because of the A-Z April Blogging Challenge, and I have instead been busy writing articles on our blog here.  The challenge is now over (I completed it successfully) and it’s time to see what project takes my fancy in May.

I hope you will take a look at them and also enjoy them.

Yahoo Contributor Network

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

  • News from a Weird World : Offbeat News 4 May 2011

    In News From A Weird World this week, you can find the following stories: Australian learners go for world record, Nude cyclist arrested, Deaf men stabbed in bar, How not to deal with noisy neighbors, When paying your respects isn’t safe and more.
  • An Evil Monster Could Live on My Street How Would I Know
    Where do criminals hide? It’s not always where you would expect, therefore can the Pakistani government be criticised for not knowing that Osama Bin Laden was living where he was, right under their noses.

 

You can also Click Here to see my latest articles up to date, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Squidoo

These are my Top 5 ranked lenses on Squidoo:

I also recently created the following lenses on Squidoo:

 

Best Reviewer

Best-Reviewer allows you to create review lists and to get paid using Google Adsense Revenue Sharing.

These are the most recent Best Reviews that I have created:

 

If you yould like to create reviews of your own and earn through Google Adsense, it’s very easy, and many reviews only take 5 minutes to create.  Click HERE for more information.

Oh Dear My Muse Has Left Me

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It’s something that all writers have to face sooner or later, that day when they wake up and try to write an article, but no topic comes to them, and the words refuse to flow.  It’s called Writers Block, or in other words My Muse Has Left Me.

It’s on days like this you realize that your muse has taken a break, and if you are like me and have tried to force an article out of yourself, it almost always doesn’t work, especially if it’s a topic that requires research and your mind keeps wandering.

There are several solutions to this, and ideally the option to take is to just break from forcing yourself to write for anything from a few hours to a few days.  Get out and have some fresh air, play a video game, watch a movie, spend time with the kids, but don’t try and force an article or chapter of a book, it’s just not worth it.

Unfortunately, life is not always that simple, and you might be faced with trying to write one or more articles on that day, to meet a quota or a personal goal.

In that case, my solution is usually to take what I call the “Seinfeld Approach“, which is named after the popular sitcom that was written about absolutely nothing.

To apply the Seinfeld Approach, just begin writing an article, like I have done here, since my muse failed to come up with a topic for an article that was related to the letter “O” (Oh Dear).

You will soon find that if you begin to write about how you don’t know what to write about, and that you really ought to be writing about this or that or the other topic, that before you know it you have a full blown article that actually talks about having nothing to write about.

Sometimes my inner poet picks up on this and sends me a rhyme, which I publish and then all the other writers that I know comment back and say that they understand and have exactly the same problems.  Well it’s good to know that you are not alone, and that you have friends.

A good example of this is my 101st article on Yahoo Contributor Network entitled Brain Dead Again which is a poem that begins like this:

I want to write a poem
It will be Article 101
I just published the 100th
But another just won’t come

I’ve tried to think of this and that
Of words that fit and rhyme
But all the time my brain just spins
And I’m running out of time

It’s quite a fun poem if you have time to read the full article.

Of course if you write about nothing and nobody reads it or comments on it, maybe it’s time to switch careers…

Another thing that you can do, is to do like I did one day last year when I was struggling to write something.  I wrote an article entitled What Shall I Write About Today, which commented on the articles that I had been writing about in the previous few days, and what I really would like to be writing about, but it really was about nothing.

So what is your muse doing today?  Are you managing to write anything, or are you stuck in a rut (good name for an “I don’t know what to write about story”) like I was.

I don’t know about you, but I just started writing about nothing and now I have today’s article completed.

B Is For Brain Tumor

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B Is For Brain Tumor

As many of our online friends have been aware, Debbie has not been well since the middle of 2010, and eventually after months of waiting, in the first week of January she managed to get an MRI.

Three days later the phone rang, and I went with her to the hospital, where we found that not only did she have a Brain Tumor, it was a large one.

She was admitted to hospital the same day, and they were able to remove it successfully.  

We are also fortunate in that it was not malignant, and she is now recovering really well.

Debbie created a lens about this, which you can find on Squidoo, and which tell the story of everything that led up to finding that she had a tumor, and everything that has happened since.

Her lens not only won a much coveted Purple Star award on Squidoo, on 29th March 2011 it was awarded Lens Of The Day, which is not bad considering that there are more than 1 1/2 million lenses on Squidoo.

B Is Also For Best Reviewer

Best Reviewer is a Google Adsense Revenue Sharing site that was created in 2010.

There are a number of  Adsense Revenue Sharing sites, which allow you to create articles and to share in the advertising revenue that is generated from clicks on adverts when pages from teh site are displayed.

What makes Best Reviewer unique is that instead of writing articles or just posting links to articles, it provides a form that allows you to create reviews in the form “Top 5 Movies” or “Top 10 Basketball Players” etc.

Each of the entries in the review can also be a link, which can point to an article, or even to an affiliate link (for example Amazon).

I created a lens about this on Squidoo if you would like further information on Best Reviewer.  I love the fact that I can create reviews in 5 minutes, and that it gives me “Do Follow” links to my articles.

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please can you help promote awareness that “Off The Record” exists by sharing this post with your friends.  We love Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg etc.

Where You Can Find My Articles

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If you enjoy reading things that I have written, whether it’s my lenses on Squidoo, my regular articles on Yahoo Contributor Network, or my jokes and humor on The Laughline, it’s likely that you might not have come across all of these main places where you can find my content.

I thought therefore, that it was time to list the main places where you can find my work, should you have the time and the desire to read more.

Squidoo is where you will find over 100 pages on topics that I find of interest, from Humor to Travel, Celebrities and Entertainment, History, Poetry and a few other things in between.  Squidoo lenses are colorful and have a lot of different sections, including pictures, videos, and lists of related items, so they are often a lot more interesting to read than articles which are pure text.

Yahoo Contributor Network (formerly Associated Content) is where you will find most of my published articles, well over 600 of them in fact.  YCN articles are pure text, but here you can find some of my more interesting written works, as well as some slideshows that feature many photographs from my travels.

Many of the photographs in my slideshows are of the historic city of Southampton, which is where we now live, and I also have a prize winning lens on Squidoo about Bournemouth which is the seaside town where I grew up.

I hope you enjoy my writing, and that you also have time to explore other works of mine that you have not come across before.

Finally, if you enjoy a good laugh, my other site The Laughline has thousands of Jokes, Funny Pictures and Videos that are guaranteed to make you smile.  Never forget that smiling helps keep the wrinkles at bay, so for the sake of your health if nothing else, you ought to drop in and read a few good jokes!