Blog - Writing

Make Use Of has an excellent post this week on the 9 Types of Facebook Status updates that your friends will like, explaining how to generate conversation. We covered several of these topics in detail a couple of years ago in our series, Types of Blog Posts.  This is very good information for promoting a blog for your website, a Facebook page, or Twitter feed - particularly for your business.

But all of this got me thinking. About 2 1/2 years ago, Miley Cyrus took a break from Twitter, partially because she felt she had stopped living for moments and started living for people.  She got over that at some point, apparently because she's back on Twitter, but I've seen comments from friends on both Facebook and Twitter from people who have confessed that instead of really experiencing some incident in their lives, they found th few themselves distracted by how to explain the moment in a 140-character Tweet, or a short Facebook update. 

If you've ever found yourself in the position of being the family photographer, you might be able to appreciate those rare family gatherings when you leave the camera in the case, and just sit around and have a conversation.  I've found recently that I have benefitted greatly from not really posting updates to my own social networking profiles for a few days at a time, and just enjoying reading, liking, and occasionally commenting on other people's updates and photos.  It has helped me on my offline (sometimes known as my "real life"), too.  I'm rediscovering the joy of just enjoying, as Miley said, the "moments," instead of focusing on trying to capture everything I find funny or interesting in a photo or one-liner to post somewhere.

Taking these brief social-media breaks has helped me rediscover my own voice, and remember what is most important - actually LIVING my life, not just logging it. 

How do you maintain that important balance of staying involved with your online friends while still enjoying personal contact with your family and friends off line?

Here's a little trip down memory lane, when Miley Cyrus was younger...and wiser?

We're all about online writing this week, and have covered the art of writing, citizen journalism, poetry, and fiction. Let's finish up by discussing nonfiction.  The Freelance Sprout has a general list of the most common types of nonfiction writing:

• Feature
• Analysis
• How-to
• Investigation
• Inspirational
• Interview
• Memoir
• Creative Nonfiction
• List

Blogging is a good venue for nonfiction writing, because of its flexibility, and access to promotion through the search engines and social networks.  If you are writing within your area of expertise, starting your own niche blog or website to showcase your talent might be a very good option. 

If you are interested in writing more general "how-to" articles or posts, site like eHow,  WikiHow, or How Stuff Works might be good places to share your knowledge.

If you're a road warrior, and like to write about your travels, consider travel writing. We covered citizen journalism earlier this week, but another avenue to explore related to journalism is news analysis and/or punditry.  If you are a photographer, your photography skills can also be put to use in any of these venues.

Well, folks, that about wraps it up for the week.  I'd love to hear what other ideas you, as our readers, have for posting and publishing your writing online.  Feel free to comment below or e-mail me.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.
 

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself." - Jim Rohn

We're discussing writing online this week, and have covered the art of writing, citizen journalism, and poetry.  Today, let's talk about fiction.  

As we've mentioned a couple of other times in this series, if you're a writer, you're going to need a place to post your writing online.  This can be on your own blog, or on a site for writers, like Author's Den, or Writing.com.  These sites are great for peer-review and for providing resources for improving your writing, and getting your writing published.  For additional resources for becoming a better fiction writer, see the Fiction Factor.

What kind of fiction does well online?  If you can dream it up, there's a market for it.  For some ideas, see Exploring the Different Types of Fiction on Dummies.com.  There's romance, mystery, adventure, science fiction, and much more.  There's also pulp fiction, and also fan fiction, for those hoping to fund their fiction-writing hobby.  Why is fiction so popular online?  Probably because it's always been popular.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

One industry that has received a boost from the web is the self-publishing (sometimes called "vanity publishing") industry.  In self-publishing, you're usually responsible for promoting your own work, but this can be done more easily these days through social networking.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.
 

This week, we are talking about online writing, and discussing resources and ideas for those wanting to write and be read.  Today is for those of you who are good at poetry, or who, like me, aren't necessarily good at it, but maybe enjoy giving it a try now and then, anyway. 

As we mentioned on Monday, it's a good idea to centralize your writing, if possible in one place (as I've done with mine), then link to it, or cross-post from there.  You can do this on your own blog, or on any number of online poetry publishing sites, such as Lulu Poetry, or All Poetry.  One thing that might be helpful about a site that is specifically for publishing poetry is the peer-review process.  The down-side is that most of your readers are going to be poets who are likely to be more interested in getting you to read their stuff than in reading yours.

An increasing number of resources are available to poets, aspiring poets, and lovers of poetry online.  The Library of Congress has an impressive list of poetry resources, here, as does Poets.org.

For those wanting to fund your poetic hobby, "commissioned poetry," or writing poetry for events like weddings and memorials, can be a good way to do this.  For examples of how some poets are doing this, search "commissioned poetry."  You might also consider publishing your own greeting cards, on a site like Cafe Press.

Also on the WebRev Blog:

• Where to Find Writing Inspiration
• You might want to add these to your RSS Feed: Writing Tips and Resources

 Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.
 

As we are discussing this week, a lot of aspiring writers are discovering that the Internet is a good place to publish and be read.  One way some are doing this is to participate is "citizen journalism," which includes (according to USC Annenberg):

1. Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community)
2. Independent news and information Websites (Consumer Reports, the Drudge Report)
3. Full-fledged participatory news sites (NowPublic, Third Report, OhmyNews, DigitalJournal.com, GroundReport)
4. Collaborative and contributory media sites (Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Newsvine)
5. Other kinds of "thin media." (mailing lists, email newsletters)
6. Personal broadcasting sites (video broadcast sites such as KenRadio).

A good example of a Citizen Journalism website is DigitalJournal.com, where contributors are paid according to the number of hits received.  Examiner.com is another great example - this is a global website which caters to local audiences.  SourceWatch has a rather comprehensive listing of many of the currently-active citizen journalism websites.

About.com has good suggestions and resources for how to get involved in citizen journalism, here.

Also see:  The pros and cons of 'citizen journalism'

 Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.
 

A lot of aspiring writers are discovering that the Internet is a good place to publish and be read.  The web has changed the publishing industry dramatically - for the worse or better, depending on your perspective.  It is now easier than ever for writers to get their work "out there."  Some feel that this is a good thing, because it has increased the variety of work and styles readily available; others feel this is a bad thing, because the overall "quality" (again, depending on your perspective) may have been reduced because the writers and public, rather than "professionals" are now the primary filters of what becomes popular.

Regardless of how you feel about the benefits or damages that the web has done to the publishing industry, the fact remains that the web is here to stay, and the changes are probably irrevocable.  So, if you're a writer, or an aspiring writer, how can you use the web to get your work read? Today, we're going to focus on those who write for writing's sake - who write more as a hobby, rather than as a potential (paid) career.  We'll focus on paid writing later in the week.

You need a place to "post," (or "store") your writing, so you can link to it from other places.

One option is to set up a blog.  For you WebRevelation folks, you might think about asking Tim to set you up with a blog as part of your website. There are also free blogging options available through many platforms, including Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and others.

Another option is a Facebook profile or page.  If your writing is mostly meant to be read by friends and family, you can use the "notes" feature on your Facebook profile.  If you want to branch out a bit, you can set up a Facebook page.  (Also see: Facebook Profile? Group? Fan Page?)

There are also websites that are by and for authors, such as Author's Den, or Lulu Poetry.  While the traffic you're likely to drawn within these websites will mostly be from other authors who are more interested in getting you to read their stuff than in reading yours, you will have the advantage of peer-reviews and still have a good place to post your work, to link to from other places, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

 Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.