May 17, 2012

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4 Shortcuts to Save Blogging Time

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You know those weeks where you’re running around so much you barely have time to breath, much less blog? Where dinner consists of a Luna bar and a banana hastily consumed on the way to the subway? This is going to be one of those weeks for me, so you probably won’t hear much on this blog or if you email me (don’t worry, I’m not dying, I just have a crazy few days coming up). I had this outline saved, so this seems like a good time to use it.

1. Don’t moderate comments. Sounds risky, I know, but I tried it when I went on vacation, and it worked out great. No one left offensive or inappropriate comments, and readers didn’t have to wait three days for me to slog through my email and approve their comments. Of course, the feasibility of this one will depend on the nature of your blog and the number of comments you get. I’ve decided to leave my settings the way they are to make it easier for everyone, but if it becomes a problem, I would not hesitate to moderate again.
2. Bookmark interesting articles for later. I could spend hours blog-hopping, commenting, and reading posts about a myriad of topics, but it won’t improve my output as a writer or blogger. I try to keep the mindless surfing to a minimum by saving articles that look interesting in my delicious links. I can include these in a future blog post or read them later as a reward for finishing a task.
3. Write posts in advance. On days like today when I’m rushing out the door, I don’t have time to wrack my brain for blog post ideas (my muse doesn’t work on demand; she’s fickle like that). You can write a few posts at once when you have the time, and then spread them out for posting later on.
4. Post via email. Yes, I know that all you WordPress users can publish things years into the future, but Blogger users cannot. I get around this by saving drafts in my email folder, then pressing send when I want to publish. Blogger has more detailed instructions on publishing via email here.

What’s your time-saving secret weapon when it comes to blogging? Leave a comment, and tell us about it!

Filed Under: blogging

5 Things to Change to Save Yourself from Burn Out

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Last November’s post about beating burnout out was so popular that I wrote a similar post for the 9-5 (or 9-whenever) crowd at Brazen Careerist, where I’m now a regular contributor. Some of my career-related rants may not be applicable to Urban Muse readers, so I won’t shamelessly plug every post, but I think we could all use a little help to stay this side of sane. I give you: 5 Things to Change to Save Yourself from Burn Out.

Filed Under: balance, career writing

5 Q’s with Kristina Grish

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Kristina Grish was featured in the new book Time to Write and has contributed to Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, and Men’s Health. She’s also written a few books of her own, including The Joy of Text: Dating, Mating and Techno-Relating. Here’s what she had to say about writing…

Urban Muse: Tell us about your first big writing clip.
Kristina: Before I decided to write full-time, I was a fashion director and stylist. But my friend was an editor for Teen Vogue, so she assigned me a Q&A with a Nike footwear designer who was super hot, because I had such a specific knowledge of the market – and, well, he was super hot. I was single and he was newly married – although we didn’t know about his nuptials at the time. I think I talked to him about shoes for 1/16 of the afternoon we spent together – and then I took him shopping. It was such a fantastic afternoon. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on an interview and not on a blind date!

UM: Do you have any tips for dealing with rejection?
K: It sounds cliche, but: try, try again. I’ve actually found that if you pitch 10 unusable ideas to the same editor in a really fun and friendly manner, you’ll end up building rapport – and eventually landing a small story out of friendship, pity, or both. It’s a foot in the door, that then leads to drinks, which then leads to bigger stories, and so on. I have more than a few half-cocked pitches to thank for some of my best magazine introductions.

UM: What is the best advice you ever got about writing?
K: This is such a hard question, because I don’t think I’ve ever received a lot of advice about conceptual writing. But I did have an AP english teacher who was intent on making sure we mastered the transitional sentence. She taught us the importance of repetition and flow, and it’s always stuck with me. That, and how to use semi-colons. God, I love a man who knows how to properly use semi-colons. I think it’s so sexy.

I will say, however, that a lot of people insist that you find a writing niche and stick with it – and make sure you spend years developing a platform for magazine work or books. And I’ve jumped categories so much that I really refuse to buy it. I know it makes an agent’s or editor’s job easier, but a good writer can write about fruit flies for 1500 words and make them sexy, funny, or interesting. It’s all about turning a phrase.

UM: What are some of your favorite books or book authors?
K: Lorrie Moore, Jonathan Safran Foeur, Rick Moody. I also like Amy Hempel, Miranda July. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” made me cry for days – no joke, DAYS. While Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s “I Am Not Myself These Days” made me laugh harder than I have in years. I actually wrote Josh my first, and likely my last, piece of fan mail ever. It’s weird as a writer to send another writer an email, but I had to love him up.

UM: Any new projects in the works?
K: Right now, I’m writing for a handful of magazines, wrapping up my blog for womenshealthmag.com about my first year of marriage (“Wedlocked”), and brainstorming like hell for a new book concept. I’ve had a lot of health issues lately, and so health/wellness is very top of mind. I’m too scared to memoir it though; it’s a tricky genre, in which I’m lately hesitant to tread.

Thanks, Kristina!

P.S. This next week is going to be really hectic for me, so I’m skipping 5 Q’s next week. Check out the archives if you’re curious.

Filed Under: writers on writing

Advanced Search Tips for Bloggers and Writers

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By now, even second graders how to do a simple Google search. But search engines offer way more options beyond that. Here are a few that I’ve recently discovered…

Search within a certain domain. This will come in handy if you’ve written a bunch of articles for X website, but you forgot to bookmark them. Click on advanced search from the Google homepage, do a quick search for your byline and you’ll have a list of all your clips from your chosen domain (or enter your search term with site:XX.com). Say you want to write a query for Y website, but they don’t have a search function (shame on them) and you can’t remember if they’ve covered your topic already. Try a few different keyword phrases to see what the website has covered in the past so your query letter doesn’t overlap with their archives.

Show cached pages. A kind reader shared this tip with me when I thought I’d lost a bunch of clips, because the website disbanded. Turns out that all I had to do was click on the word “cached” and I could pull up an older version of the article so I could see the clip. Then I copied the cached into a word doc, fixed the formatting, and converted to a PDF.

Use Google’s keyword tool. This one is intended for use with Google adwords, but you can also use it to find related words and phrases for titling blog posts. For instance, if I enter the phrase “freelance writing” and sort by February search volume, the tool tells me that the most popular related phrases were “freelance writing jobs,” “freelance business writing,” and “freelance magazine writing.” Obviously, there’s a lot of competition for those phrases, so something slightly further down the list (like “freelance writing resources”) might be a good term to use so I’ll show up in more organic searches. A few weeks ago, I compiled a list of crazy keywords that showed up my Statcounter.

Update: Sign up for Google alerts. This one comes courtesy of Beth and her fabulous writing blog. Google alerts are fabulous, not just to see if anyone is misusing your work, but also to stay current in whatever your writing specialty is. Say your niche is medical writing, and you’re especially interested in new treatments for adolescent depression. Set up a Google alert for a few related phrases (using quotes so you won’t get a ton of miscellaneous results), and you’ll get emails whenever a new study or article hits the web.

I admit it… I’m not the most tech-savvy person, so this will be old news for some of you. Anyone have any search tips they’d like to add?

Filed Under: google, internet searches, search tips
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