The Lousypoet

So I’m currently awful at Twitter. I admit it, I’m a hardcore lurker. I rarely raise my head from the muck to draw any attention. This isn’t such a great idea to get others to follow you, or to show a publisher that you can build some kind of personal hype machine around your book, but seeing as how publication is quite some ways away, I’m not going to stress over it.

That said, Twitter can provide some links with great insight into writing in general, using Twitter, and just generally making yourself known on the web. In that spirit, here’s four links I found interesting today;

Cheryl Klein posted four techniques to get to the emotional heart of your story. It’s quick, to the point, and extremely useful.

Jo-Lynne writes a great article giving seven ways to be worth following on Twitter.

Following this link will give you some great tips on being creative.

Finally, if you want to get more interactive on Twitter, this link will give you some great points.

So I was directed to a blog by Raghul. I really connected with the sentiment of his blog’s byline. It says;

In this changing world…. I am reading, observing and thinking a lot. All my views are written here, I am just trying to write something interesting…..

I totally get where this guy is coming from. Oh, to just be able to write something interesting. But on his blog Cacography, Raghul does manage to do just that. He has some interesting posts about technology, curses on local royal families and even what a great view he has from his office window! Go give his site a look!

When you have kids with special needs, it’s hard for both parents to have carreers that take them out of the home. That’s why it’s been so important for us to find Ways of making money at home.

There are quite a few blogs out there that can provide some really great advice and guidance. I found Lisa’s blog and she’s got lots of different means of creating income streams and traffic for websites. What I also liked about her blog was that it’s also her personal blogging space, which helped make it feel a little more personal. All too often, blogs with advice on making money at home can seem cold or too much like a gimmick filled sales pitch. Finding a blog where there are some good pieces of advice but you can also read about how Lisa’s cats gave birth to kittens just makes it all so much more real. Check this one out!

I won’t lie to you, sometimes when I post a link to a blog here, it’s because the link was suggested to me by a link exchange program. In return for my recommendation, I too receive a link to my site. I will put this into context though by telling you that I do not just mindlessly recommend every blog that is presented to me. I visit every single one; spend some time and read the entries. If there’s nothing I enjoy or think is of any worth, I refuse the link request. In the end, that might mean less reciprocal links for me, but it at least means I retain a level of integrity.

The site I’m directing you to today is NOT one of those sites. I found this while doing a Google search for making money with blogs. Reading some of the lengthy articles on this site gave me a reason to pause and evaluate what I’m doing here with the Lousy Poet. And not only that, it gave me some insight into myself and some of my motivations. This is a great site, with some very insightful content on blogging, making money with blogs, but even more than that, personal development.

The site is by Steve Pavlina and I have to say his writing is powerful, accessible and interesting. I know after reading just a few things on his site, that I’m going to be returning again and again. In the mean time, you can check out his articles on Making money with your blog and How to build a high traffic website. I don’t think either will disappoint.

So while trolling the net, I found this article that was a blogger’s entry into a Mother’s day contest. The challenge was to write about the best thing about being a Mom. I really liked her answer. She acknowledges all the usual answers as being incorrect, and in the end surmises that the greatest thing about being a mom is witnessing the evolution of a person. It was a really cool thought. You should check out her wording, it’s far more eloquent than I.

Also take a look around her blog, “The Best Is Yet To Come.” She’s obviously a very proud mom who is dedicating herself to helping other mothers as well. There’s a lot of personal and unique content that is worth giving a read.

So you should know by now that I’ma fan of finding blogs. I particularly love it when the blog allows me to experience life in other parts of the world. My own travel experience is limited to the North American continent, so I really haven’t ventured out into the world a whole lot. So when I find a blog from somewhere in the world, I’m really interested to see how people live, what kinds of things they think about, etc.

So that brings me to the blog for today, Dreamlover. It’s author, Ivy soraya, lives in Indonesia. She really talks about a lot of different things, including how to get passports, and even trying out the latest fad in bras! I like how open she is about things.

If you’re looking for a window into the daily life and thoughts of a girl from Indonesia, go check out Dreamlover now!

The web is forever a tangled mess that one can imagine a jungle explore with machete in hand, hacking away at the dens foliage trying to find some ancient depository of wealth and/pr knowledge. Tonight, I’m sending you out to check out Essence For Better life…(UNIQUE ICON) .

I don’t often directly quote from sites I mention, but I want to post this. Underneath the blog title, the blog author has written;

“About Me, Myself and I- This is my blog, my story in life; what I think, see and mostly what I feel inside… one is {I} am living in real world! Thanks for stopping by, feel free to laugh, cry and criticize me.”

I just love that line, “my story in life.” (this is a bit off topic, but that was one thing I always loved about Final Fantasy X, how Tidus was told, “This is your story…” But I digress!) There’s lots of different and interesting articles to check out on this guy’s site. Go give Essence For Better life…(UNIQUE ICON) a visit!

We’ve all heard how the internet and other forms of communication are shrinking the world. Well, I think blogs are shrinking the distances between people. Through blogs, we have a window into someone else’s life. We can share their hopes, dreams, fears, loves, hates, and all other facets of their lives. I find it fascinating, and naturally, I’m one of those people that does it as well. So this morning I bring you a link to Yoshiro. It really is a blog that follows the life of its creator. And the fact that they’re in the phillipines only demonstrates how blogs bridge distances.

And hey, any blog that has some toy reviews is okay by me!

Let’s face it, we could all use a few extra bucks, right? Whether it’s to feed your blogging habit by paying for your domain and hosting, or it’s to buy a little something for yourself off of Ebay, the simple fact is that a little extra is always a good thing.

But trying to find bloggers that are really open about how they go about making money online is more than a little difficult. All too often the promise of revealing secrets and tips degrades into just another affiliate program that you need to spend a fortune in advertising to get people to visit your site and to click on your affiliate links; let alone actually getting them to buy something!

A blog I found that has some good advice for working online is Something Useful. The blogger over there is very open about the fact that he is trying to make some money using his blog, and he feels quite strongly about being open about how he’s doing it. I can really appreciate that kind of honesty. If only others who were successful freely shared their information.

So another site I want to pass along. I’ve been looking for simplified advice on things like getting more exposure for this blog. One site I came across is Not Guru, which offers practical tips for mom & pop businesses. It gives really down to earth explanations about net techniques that might otherwise be quite complex.

Reading the site actually made me aware of a new scam known as click-jacking that makes users think they are clicking on benign links when in reality they are surrendering control of components of their computer such as their web cam. Thanks to Not Guru’s simple explanation, which included a handy video, I was able to get a good idea of what this involve, how to protect myself, and what kind of impact the market’s response to this might be.

Check this site out. I found it really useful!