Lauren Wayne

#NaNoProgMo January 2012: Week 1

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

I told myself I'd be better about making periodic progress posts for NaNoProgMo this time around. Easy enough, considering I haven't been making any progress!

Ok, that's not strictly true: I'm 1 hour into my 15-hour goal. Still, I haven't been working on my writing every day as I've meant to. I think setting my goal so low this month has made me feel like I can get behind, because catching up will be relatively easy. I was hoping I wouldn't take my half-hour a day as a maximum but as a minimum to get my momentum going. Um … yeah … I should have known me better.

Well, there's always next month!

I'm feeling discouraged about my mystery novel, the one I thought was almost finished last NaNoProgMo. I'm having Sam read it through for his second time after major revisions. I thought he might have some thoughts for tightening it up.

Well, be careful what you ask for, because he's only a third or so in, and he's already given me ideas for changing the whole direction of the novel.

I don't want to look a gift ~~horse~~ editor in the mouth, but holy crap. It's enough to make me want to throw in the towel and start a new book. (As if that would be easier.) Here I thought I could get published this year. Whom'm I kidding?

I know in the end it's my book and I can choose to take or leave what I'm given with respect to revisions. That said, I knew there were issues with it that I wanted to resolve. I just thought I could resolve them without rewriting the whole stinking thing. Makes me want to burn it, if indeed, it were on something flammable instead of a glowing screen.

I should, then, be working on the NPN Cloth Diapering book. And I will. Eventually. I guess I'm feeling uninspired in general, and of course NaNoProgMo's supposed to cut through that baloney by saying, "You're waiting for an engraved invitation from your Muse? Get typing, doofus."

I think just writing this is kicking my butt into gear, so yea for a no-progress report!

We'd love to have more of you join us for National Novel Progress Month again this month! Sign up on the linky here. Remember, you can sign up for as little or as much progress as you choose — don't let life stand in the way of following your passion to write.

(I'm one to talk, right?)

How are you all doing? Slogging through or stalling or sprinting ahead?
What do you do with a project when you feel like running screaming from it?

The ambition of a writer who's also a mother

2012-01-04T02:06:00.000-08:00

Up through my twenties, I had very little ambition. I mean, I wanted to be a novelist someday, but it wasn't urgent. I had no drive to make money, or impress people, or achieve much of anything.

For reasons beyond my understanding, that all changed when I started blogging. Mikko was three months old when I started Hobo Mama. Especially as the blog grew, I discovered in myself a passion to make something of myself, to be professional, to be taken seriously as a writer.

And yet, even now, even still, four and a half years later, I wrestle with that tension: ambition vs. motherhood, writing vs. parenting, success vs. fear. It's hard to say which will win, at any given moment and over time.

When I blog and when I work on my novel and other projects, or even when I do the business taxes for our family or work on my sewing, I feel the age-old guilt of a mother otherwise engaged. I am not paying attention to my children. I am devoting myself to something other.

But I also feel the spark of that other within me driving me on, compelling me to create, to do, to pursue. When I let it go for a time, I feel stagnant. But when I fall too headlong into it, it becomes repellant to me — what I become seems repellant to me.

Where does this tension come from?

I have to blame some of it on the inherent misogyny of our culture, that says women are not meant to have ambition, that mothers especially are created to be content with their narrow lot in life, raising other people to pursue dreams instead and watching them flourish. I reject this even as I am steeped in it, like black tea, and cannot scrub the cultural stain of it out of myself as easily as splashing myself with the clear water of more modern thought.

Some of it also is truth: I have children because I want to. I am married because I love my partner. I am part of a real-life community that is important to me. I don't want to sacrifice them all on the altar of my work. I do want time for them, and balance.

But I'm amazed and dismayed at how often I feel sheepish about my ambition, even within myself. I self-published a book of parenting poetry and have hardly promoted it. It was a lark, I've told myself, a print-on-demand experiment. No biggie. But others I talk to speak of it with reverence: "You have your own book," they'll say. And I'll question why I am not as impressed with my successes as they are. In how many ways like this do I sell myself short, see myself as less than, present myself to the world as not to be taken seriously?

Why does the idea of being taken seriously scare me so much?

My husband has given up a lot, and graciously, willingly, to allow me time to write and blog. I have little financially concrete to show for it. He doesn't care, but I'm embarrassed by it. It's culturally acceptable, I know, for a woman to have a hobby that nets her some pin money while the man pulls in the bucks they live on, but this doesn't seem fair to me, or in line with what I want for our partnership.

What is my measure of success when it comes to my blogging or writing? What if in ten years I've earned not a penny more from my writing, but I have a large and caring online community around me still? Is that failure? What if I haven't sold my novels but have enjoyed the writing? Is that humiliation? What will my children think as they grow if I've worked nearly full-time hours on writing and that's the result? Will they be proud regardless? Will I be proud of myself?

For now, I live in the tension. The woman who strives to be professional but dabbles in self-deprecation, the mother who yearns for external success but knows that success can also be measured in diapers changed and bedtime stories read, the writer who puts one word and then another on the screen.

What holds you back from following your ambitions? How do you balance your passions with your responsibilities?

NaNoProgMo: Ready to make some more progress on your novel?

2011-12-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

Hosted by Lauren from LaurenWayne.com / Hobo Mama
and Teresa from Write On, Mom! / Mom Grooves

Well, I don't know about you, but December for me went into a big black hole of holiday festivities. But it's almost the New Year, and you know what that means: time to resolve to start working on your writing again!

I'd like to celebrate what our NaNoProgMos did in November, and invite you to continue making progress with us in January!

Impressive November progress

Here are the writerly participants who joined us for our November journey and their respective daily goals:

1. Lauren @ LaurenWayne. com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per dayVisit
2. Tree @ Mom Grooves . com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit
3. Stephen @ Poptrope . net = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit
4. Zoie @ TouchstoneZ - 30 minutes per dayVisit
5. Moorea@ Mamalady- 30per dayVisit
6. From My Mind to the Page: 1 hr per dayVisit
7. Lisa @ My World Edenwild = 15 min/day or moreVisit
8. Renae - 1 hour per dayVisit

Lauren @ LaurenWayne. com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per dayVisit

Tree @ Mom Grooves . com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit

Stephen @ Poptrope . net = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit

Zoie @ TouchstoneZ - 30 minutes per dayVisit

Moorea@ Mamalady- 30per dayVisit

From My Mind to the Page: 1 hr per dayVisit

Lisa @ My World Edenwild = 15 min/day or moreVisit

Renae - 1 hour per dayVisit

Here are some results and updates from all of us, as I could find them, in order as above:

Lauren @ LaurenWayne. com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per day: 60.25 hours. I made it! I can hardly believe it, but I worked over 60 hours on my mystery novel and the NPN cloth diapering book in November. Here are some posts I wrote about the experience:

Progress on NaNoProgMo: Halfway or two-thirds? — what I learned about faling headlong into the world of my novel, the dearth of description, and the fear of failure
#NaNoProgMo: Stop talking and do it:

I'm 2 hours from the end of my goal on this last day, so barring major malfunctions (pray not), I'm confident I'll complete my 60-hour editing goal for November. It wasn't glamorous, but every day I sat at my computer, and I did it. I put in my time, and I made progress.
…
So, wherever you are in your progress today, I encourage you to figure out what you want — what you really, really want, right now — and do it. One foot in front of the other, in as little or as much time as you can commit, make tangible progress toward your goal.

This is mine, and I'm owning it:

Tree @ Mom Grooves.com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novel: 6.5 hours. Woot!

NaNoProgMo…. How’s your “Prog”?:

I want to encourage everyone participating with us for NaNoProgMo (or anyone who wants to start now!) to pick up your proverbial pen and finish the month writing. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or have not done so far. I doubt anyone can be as far behind as I am, so let’s bring up the rear together!
NaNoProgMo and Beyond!:

I came nowhere near my goal, and that bums me out. However, I’m not one to dwell on the negative and I’m really good at praising the tiniest victory in myself, so I give this month a huge thumbs up. I’ve re-connected with my novel and we’d been estranged for oh so long.
…
What’s pertinent is this. Progress will continue. My novel lives, my writer self lives. Time to settle into the long term care and feeding of both.

I love that last thought! That's what progress is all about — nurturing the writer that you are.

Here's your certificate, Tree!

Stephen @ Poptrope.net = 1 hr. per day finishing novel — how did it go for you, Stephen?

No matter what, you have earned your certificate!

Zoie @ TouchstoneZ - 30 minutes per day — who was also doing NaBloPoMo, where you post on your blog once a day!

Going off Balance on Purpose:

The NaNoProgMo experiment proved to be about half editing and half writing. When I’m tired, I dislike editing with the fire of a thousand suns. And guess what time of night (er, early morning) I was editing? So, if I’m counting hours spent on my book in dog years (which I’m going to because I was a really b*tching during the process) then this puppy far exceeded expectations.

I feel that there’s the possibility of completing this book one day. Although, I’m planning to put it aside for awhile to work on other ideas, I leave it knowing I’m capable of working on it when I want to.
…
I went completely off-balance this month. On purpose. I’ve breathed words, but haven’t lived them enough. I’ve exhaled, but not done enough inhaling. It’s time to return to center, pause and look around, enjoy some deep, full breaths and return to life again.
Lots of good stuff in this post — I recommend a full read, because I was tempted to quote the whole thing.

Grab your certificate, Zoie!

Moorea @ Mamalady- 30 per day

Spread Thin- But Plump with Photos:

In case you didn’t know, I am fervently writing two books: a memoir and how-to. and November is also NaNoProgMo (progress on your book month)- so of course I am doing that, splitting the time between my two books. I will leave out the details there because it is rather bad luck in writing to tell too much about your unfinished manuscripts but I will just say : sleep and potty.

Rock on, Moorea!

From My Mind to the Page: 1 hr per day: 161,000 words written in November and December. Incredible!

THE ICARUS PROJECT: a novel in the works…:

I started writing this story for the 2011 NaNoWriMo…a month of writing frenzy. As the entire NaNoWriMo writing process is dedicated to writing and not editing please bear with typos and potential story inconsistencies…sometimes the characters have a mind to change the story from the beginning to the end.
…
The story is finished…on 21 December…

Such an accomplishment. Hope this helps you celebrate:

Lisa @ My World Edenwild = 15 min/day or more: 7.5 hours. Woohoo!

November Revisited:

November, as I predicted, was a hectic month. I still needed to dedicate a month to working on my novel (as per my “accomplish 2010 list” you will see on my sidebar), and since November is National Novel Writing Month, and Teresa and Lauren came up with National Novel “Progress” Month (NaNoProgMo), I decided I would join in on the novel writing dedication, even though I knew that November was my busy time of year for photography sessions (“busy” meaning that whereas normally I get one photo session per every few months, in November I will get three photo sessions in one week! Just the one week, mind you…).

Happily, I found one Saturday early in the month where I was able to spend about 7 hours reviewing and reworking earlier chapters of my book, fulfilling most of my goal for the challenge, and getting the rest in small intervals, until I got slammed with the photography work. The photography work I am grateful for. …

You win, Lisa!

Renae - 1 hour per day

Adding more tasks to my writerly to-do list.:

Many of us are doing NaBloPoMo. I discovered a fledgling movement to start a National Novel Progress Month. I LOVE this idea. Even though there isn’t much time left in November, I jumped in. I hope the group decides to continue in the upcoming months.
And we're glad you did!
National Blog Post Month ends in less than 60 minutes.:

I’m hoping to participate in National Novel Progress Month for December, and beyond. Even if the group doesn’t tackle the task again, I will absolutely set a goal for myself and track my progress.

Oh. I know one more thing:

BONUS THOUGHT) I will be writing – something, somewhere – tomorrow. Because that’s what I do.

So. That’s it. Congratulations to everyone who finished any of the November writing challenges. And congratulations to everyone who tried.

You're inspiring me, Renae! Here's a big congrats:

November NaNoProgMos: If you have anything to add, let me know! I meant to start this article a bazillion years ago and contact you all personally to find out how things went, but, um, that didn't happen. See above about December re: black hole. I really am super impressed with all that you accomplished and hope you'll keep on making progress!

Join us in January!

I'm heartened and excited by what we accomplished in one short month. I love that we're keeping on keeping on, and seeing those word counts blossom and knowing this truth deep in our bones: We are writers.

Please join us for January 2012 for another round of National Novel Progress Month. Sign up on the linky below and let us know how much time you pledge to spend making progress on your writing.

You choose how much time you spend this month on writing. We find it easiest to pledge an amount per day, though you could break it up differently if you know you have one hour every weekend to devote. Your amount per day can be a fraction of an hour or multiple hours, whatever you find achievable. You are allowed to catch up if you fall behind. And, frankly, you're allowed to fail! Just do your best to make progress, and we'll be alongside doing the same.

Goodies

Progress Certificate
If you rocked it with us in November, download or grab your free progress certificate now! They're featured below your name above, in case you somehow scrolled past and missed them…

Here's a blank one if you didn't sign up on the linky but want your prize!

Or if you let me know, I can make one just for you!

NaNoProgMo Gifts
A huge thank you to Teresa for the amazing gifts from Rock Paper Tree she sent out to every November participant! I know I feel inspired by my writer's crystal and so appreciate the thoughtfulness. Thank you!

Stay tuned for prizes to come…

Progress Meter
Teresa found this excellent free progress ticker source:

Ticker Factory

Here's mine, refreshed & ready to go:

Choose an Exercise Ticker as the type.
Enter your own password/pin, put in Hours for Units, enter your current progress, and put in your target for the whole month (e.g., if you chose 1 hour/day, you'd put 30 hours for the month). Your Message is whatever you want to title your ticker, so put something NaNoProgMo-inspirational!
Pick your ticker & slider designs. Click on the numbers along the bottom to see all the designs available.
On the last screen, you'll get the HTML code to add to your site in a post or a sidebar!
Go back to Ticker Factory daily to update your total, and enjoy seeing your progress!
If you used Ticker Factory last time, just wipe clean your hours and reset your goal, OR make a new ticker — your choice. If you wipe it clean and reset, you might want a screenshot first to save the memory of your progress!

Button
Show off your NaNoProgMo participation with one of our cute buttons! Here are a few options for you:

Blog post size:

200 pixel wide button:

150 pixel wide button:

FAQ

What if it's after January 1, and you still want to join in? Then do it! Any time you spend working on your novel is worth it, right? And I'm sure we'll all still have more work to do in future months, too!

Why January? Why not? If January doesn't work for you, maybe you can catch us in another month soon! But our feeling on writing your novel is that the best time to do it is now.

Why "national"? We're mirroring NaNoWriMo on this one. We welcome everyone from any nation!

Why novel writing? We say novel, but you're free to choose another project if it's on your heart. I just recommend that you don't make it a project you would have done anyway, like how blogging is for me, but to reach into that drawer of abandoned manuscripts and pick one that really needs the love.

What if you get behind? Make up your hours on another day — or just move ahead. Whatever works for you! We know most of us who'll be doing this are parents and writers. We simply want to use the power of community to motivate all of us to take our writing seriously, and have a little fun in the process!

If you have questions to add or suggestions to offer, comment!

Get started!

Sign up on the linky to let us know you're traveling along!

You can include your name (optional) or pseudonym, blog name (optional), time per day or per month you're pledging, and what you're working on (optional). If you have a blog to link to, we'd love to visit you. If you don't, feel free to put in my blog URL as a placeholder.

On January 1, we begin, again.

Let's make some progress, together!

How to support bloggers

2011-12-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Want to make your favorite bloggers happy? There are many ways you can support your must-read bloggers and show you value their writing that won't cost you a penny. There are other ways that cost you some money but are cents well spent.

Is this a self-serving post? Well, as much as I appreciate any support for little ol' me, I also use the techniques below to support my own favorite bloggers! I hope this can be a resource for all of us to spread the love around to the writers we admire.

I'll also include three linkies for anyone who's interested in linking up or supporting those who do:

One for blogs on Kindle
One for blogger-run businesses
One for affiliate links from relevant bloggers

Read on for the linkies and more information!

Comment

This is probably the most important way to show you care — and one of the most natural. If you read a post that resonates with you, say so! If you have a follow-up question, ask it. If you have a different perspective to offer, do so gently. If you have advice to share, most bloggers will appreciate it. There are commenting challenges, such as at Adventures in Mommyhood and IComLeavWe, which makes it fun to join the crowd in commenting. But even apart from those, you can make it your own little mission to spread some comment bliss. Writers love to know there are readers out there.

Email

Even more direct than a comment, sending a note of encouragement and appreciation can mean so much to a blogger.

Promote blogs on your blog

If you have a website, put other bloggers' buttons in your sidebar or on a special page. Add their URLs to your blogroll.

Connect

Follow your favorite bloggers on Facebook, Networked Blogs, Google Friend Connect, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Flickr … wherever you are that they are, too. Interact with them on the sites that are meaningful to you. This is beneficial for you in that you get to build more connections with the writers you like, and it makes your beloved bloggers feel the warmth of your presence.

Social media-ify posts

Pass around the posts you enjoy. Share them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, etc. — whatever will get some more eyes on the article. (This can help build your own community of like-minded folk as well!)

Link back

Write posts building off what someone wrote that interested you. Participate in link-love pursuits like blogging carnivals. Share relevant articles in a link round-up like Sunday Surf. If a subject comes up in a post and you know someone else who wrote about it, link away. Bloggers always appreciate good linkage!

Link up

If bloggers offer a linky for Wordless Wednesday, giveaways, or bloghops, join in! Fill up those linkies and make a blogger feel popular.

Click on their ads

Only if you're interested, of course, but if you see an interesting ad in their sidebar or in their feed, click through and check it out. Those clicks are being tracked by someone, and it can help boost their revenue (as with Adsense) or their reputation with the advertiser.

Review their blogs or products — with Kindle linky!

If bloggers have products online (like a poetry book) or have
their blogs on Kindle, a lovely thing to do is write a nice review (if you like it and it's in a reviewable place). This goes for Etsy and eBay sellers as well, or even places like Yelp or Facebook place reviews if it's a local business. It can take a little time to write something up, but it makes a big difference in alerting other people to what you love about this blog or its related products, and it gives a huge boost to the blogger you're reviewing.

Is your blog on Kindle? I'm making my way through reviewing the blogs I love, and I'm sure others would like to do the same. Link up if you have a blog on Kindle. Put the link directly to your Kindle blog page. (I reserve the right to delete from the linky blogs that would not be of interest to my readers here or at Hobo Mama.)

Become an affiliate

If your favorite bloggers have an affiliate program for something they sell, sign up! Post a button in your sidebar for the product, and include your affiliate link when you write about the item (and you should write about it if you like it!).

Enter their giveaways

As with linkies, bloggers appreciate multiple entries for giveaways they're hosting — and they want their sponsors to feel the love, too. Check out the prizes bloggers you know are offering, and take a minute or two to enter ones you're interested in.

These next ideas require money to participate, but it can still be worth it and not mean a lot (or, in some cases, anything) extra out of your pocket. Read on:

Subscribe to blogs through Kindle

If you have a Kindle and want to keep up with your blogs conveniently, paying 99 cents for a blog will subscribe you, and a portion of that will go back to the blogger you like.

Pay to visit

There are a couple sites that let you "tip" the writers you enjoy. I found out about Kachingle because someone's graciously been Kachingling me. (Who it is is anonymous to me, so thank you, whoever you are!) Basically, it's an online tipping service. You put $5 a month into a blog-reading kitty, and then you divide that $5 among the sites you visit. You can read more about it on Kachingle, add your site if you're interested, and pay in $5 a month if you want to start giving some much-appreciated micropayments back to others. Flattr is a similar version based in Europe that speaks in Euros if that's more comfortable for you.

Donate

Some bloggers have donation buttons set up, through PayPal or other means. If you're willing to give a tip directly, send some money their way. Another idea to support bloggers is by sending them gifts. Sometimes a blogger will put up a book list or other sort of gift registry, but even if they don't, gift certificates or small gifts that show you care are always welcome.

Purchase a blogger's products — with business linky!

Many bloggers are also entrepreneurs in other ways, running their own shops (on Etsy, eBay, Hyena Cart, or their own websites) or selling other products and services (ebooks, patterns, mp3s, courses, podcasts, coaching, etc.). If you're in the market for a product they offer, why not buy directly from them? I did some of my Christmas and baby gift shopping through sellers I know — you get a custom present that way with a personal touch.

If you have an online small business or a product for sale you'd like your readers to support, link up below. (As with the other linkies, I reserve the right to delete listings that are irrelevant to my readers. I'm requiring an email address in case I need to contact you about your entry.) You'll want to include your blog name so people know whom they're supporting, if it's not obvious. If your shop name isn't descriptive, I recommend listing also a little bit of info about what a shopper might find there, to make it easier for people to see at a glance which stores to visit for a particular need. An example: "Hobo Mama - Hobo Depot — walking sticks."

Advertise

If you're one of the businesses featured above, perhaps you'd like to advertise your wares! Many bloggers offer advertising space, and you're almost sure to find rates that fit your budget. If you can't afford any money going out, consider offering to sponsor a giveaway — one product for review, and one as a prize. And, bloggers, another way to support blogging businesspeople is to offer to host giveaways by them!

Buy through affiliate links — with affiliate linky!

Finally, if you're shopping for something online, consider purchasing through a blogger's affiliate link. Nearly all of us shop at Amazon at some time or another, for instance, and many bloggers have Amazon affiliate links. If you buy an item after clicking on a blogger's link, a (minuscule but appreciated) portion of that sale goes from Amazon to the blogger. You're not out anything more by going this route, because the price is the same as if you went directly to the site. To make it easier to find bloggers' affiliate links, I'm offering a linky below for us to click on when we're in the mood to buy something online.

If you are a blogger and want to enter an affiliate link, please read these simple instructions:

Please enter your blog name AND the affiliate link name, such as "Hobo Mama - Amazon." If it's an unfamiliar site or product, you can include more information, such as "Hobo Mama - Hobo Depot - walking sticks."
Feel free to enter multiple times for multiple affiliate links (e.g., Amazon, cloth diaper stores, eBay, books you're promoting, etc.). But please don't enter more than one link from a single store for yourself. In other words, you can enter an Amazon link if someone else has (please do), but don't enter a link for books at Amazon, then one for music at Amazon, then one for car parts at Amazon … you get the picture.
I don't get a whole lot of spam on this blog, but I'm requiring a name and email address to (hopefully) cut down on any spammers of this linky. I apologize for the inconvenience to you legitimate folk.
If you need help editing any entries for any linky, just let me know.
Again, I reserve the right to delete listings that are irrelevant or offensive.

Link up!

What are other ways you support bloggers? What are your favorite ways to give bloggy love? What are your favorite ways to receive it?

When I went looking for a photo to illustrate this post,
I found the amazing top one on Flickr by Lisa Clarke,
who incidentally has her own post on the subject!
That's where I found out about Flattr.
If you know any other services like that, let me know.

Sunday Surf: Mystery plotting, indexing, & Google nonsense

2011-12-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

Links I've read, from Writing Tidbits:

Yea, I’ve gone up in page rank!

I don’t know where else (or why, but whatever) to brag about this. I just got an email from a possibly suspect ad company telling me “because you’re PR 4, we’ll give you this rate, blah blah blah,” and I was like, I’m PR 3 (for www.HoboMama.com). But I went to check — herehttp://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php www.HoboMama.com). But I went to check — here http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php — and I am 4 now! Woohoo!

Yes, this is out of 10, but 4’s pretty good for a blog. Most blogs I read (Hobo Mama included till just recently) are 1-3, and there’s no shame in that. (LaurenWayne.com is a 2, and NaturalParentsNetwork.com is a 3.) It’s just kind of fun to have moved up a notch!

In case you were wondering, Google, which sets the PR algorithms, ranks 10/10. ;)

There’s a PR checker I usually prefer, by the way, because it doesn’t have captcha, but it wasn’t working today so I’m not sure if it’s defunct. In case it works later, it’s here: http://www.page-rank-calculator.com/ A little easier to deal with.

4 DAYS AGO

google page rank blogging

Occupy Google Reader: Changes to the RSS feed irk the ‘sharebros’ - Arts Post - The Washington Post

The protest, organized throughFacebook, brought Google Reader fans — or “sharebros,” as they’re sometimes called — together with signs like “Google: Don’t Mark All as Read,” and “We are the 1000+.” There were 10 protesters total, if you count one protester’s daughter, a toddler.

Funniest & aptest protest ever. ;)

5 DAYS AGO

google reader google rss feeds

So You Want to Write a Book With MS Word

Comprehensive resource of links and tutorials for laying out a book in Word. Doing so is one of the most frustrating experiences, but at least here are some tips.

5 DAYS AGO

publishing self-publishing design layout Word

Official Google Blog: More spring cleaning out of season

Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We’re retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google page and place a Google badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.

On the one hand, what do I care about GFC? It’s just used to boost giveaway sites now as far as I can tell.

On the other hand, how in the world does Google equate GFC with Google+? They’re entirely different models. It’s like saying, “Twitter’s shutting down; go use Facebook instead.” GFC is primarily for public followers on public blogs. G+ is all about using your real name and having circles of friends. I don’t doubt that people are figuring how to use G+ for business, but if you want to keep a separation between your professional & personal life, right now G+ doesn’t offer many options.

Why does Google keep fixing what ain’t broke? And why do they do that to the exclusion of things that are broke, like the Blogger commenting system that users have been complaining about for years? Huh?

via Jennifer

5 DAYS AGO

google google friend connect google+ blogging

Index a Book Using Word and Excel

Sounds like a decent way to work on an index. I need one for the cloth diapering book and am hoping the actual indexing feature in Word will help me out. But if not, this sounds like the way to go.

6 DAYS AGO

index nonfiction writing writing tutorials

How to Make Your WordPress or Blogger Blog DoFollow | DoFollow Blog Directory & Compendium

How to make links in comments “dofollow” on Blogger and WordPress. This can help add comment love to your site; however, it can also open you up to more spam comments.

6 DAYS AGO

blogger wordpress tutorials blogging blogger tutorials wordpress tutorials

Online Stopwatch

In case you’re curious, this is what I use to time my NaNoProgMo hours.

6 DAYS AGO

writing time

Sandra Parshall: Writing — Clues Drive the Mystery Plot

Tips on cluing in readers.

1 WEEK AGO

novel writing mystery novels plotting writing

KILLER HOBBIES: How to Plot a Mystery

Good tips on mystery management, including not naming your characters all the same, keeping the cast down to seven (whoops!), and starting the plotting with the “Let me explain” bit and working backwards. I should have read this a long time ago!

1 WEEK AGO

mystery novels novel writing writing plotting

FeedBurner feed too big? How to fix it

2011-12-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

My recent FeedBurner woe:

Click any image to embiggen.

The past few days, I noticed signs that my RSS feed for Hobo Mama wasn't updating, though it took me awhile to believe it.

I caught glimpses first in CommentLuv entries when I commented on other sites. It kept pulling up my "Gratitude Challenge" post from Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, even though I subsequently posted on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I didn't really think much of it the first few times, or the first couple days — I just used Ping-o-Matic to give my feed a little boost and figured it would fix itself.

But after it had been a week, I noticed the delay wasn't just in CommentLuv. It was in the sidebar widgets on my other sites; it was in Google Reader; and — most obviously, now that I looked for it — the delay was on my feed's page itself.

I went to FeedBurner, through which I burn all my feeds, for the answer. I clicked right through to the humorously named "Troubleshootize" tab, hoping the humor didn't mean they wouldn't take this plight seriously.

Not having the RSS feed update, after all, is death to a blog. Readers who rely on feed readers, email subscriptions, and apps on handheld devices to notify them of new posts will assume that silence means there's no new content. My pageviews and comments would fall off the map, because no one would be seeing the posts I was writing. Indeed, my FeedBurner stats for the past few days were dismal.

Here's what Troubleshootize suggested:

The trouble: Your FeedBurner feed isn't up-to-date with your Original Feed.
The fix: Try pinging FeedBurner using our Ping page. This action tells FeedBurner to go check your feed for updates immediately.

So I tried pinging FeedBurner directly, waited a bit, and checked my feed again. No updates.

Next idea:

The trouble: Invalid characters or XML markup in content items, often introduced by composing your posts in Microsoft Word or embedding JavaScript code in a post.
The fix: Check your feeds for validity problems: Original Feed Validity, FeedBurner Feed Validity. See if any errors are reported, Then, check out this help topic for removing unwanted characters from your posts if mysterious characters seem to be to blame.

Nope, both verifications came back as valid.

This one seemed promising:

The trouble: Your Original Feed is too doggone big! FeedBurner does not process feeds that are larger than 512K. Remember, your feed is an update on your content — not an archive for it — and you should use your publishing tools' controls to make sure your feed doesn't grow like kudzu possessed.
The fix: Follow this help topic to control feed file size with Blogger; other publishing tools have similar controls.

But I couldn't figure out if my feed was too large. The help page suggested going to web-sniffer.net to "look at the report it returns; there should be a value in kilobytes for the size of your feed in an 'uncompressed' format." Well, I looked, and I didn't see any such thing. I had a really hard time locating any other (working) calculators online that would confirm whether my feed was too large or not — and I couldn't even figure out what made it too large. How was I in control of its size? Why wasn't FeedBurner?

I also checked The FeedBurner Status Blog and the help group, but there wasn't anything more helpful than what was in the troubleshooting documentation.

So I moved on to the bottom:

The text:

The Nuclear Option: "Resyncing" your feed
As a last resort with a regular feed or a podcast, you can resync your feed. You should only resync if your feed is more than 1 hour out-of-date and pinging FeedBurner does not update it or your podcast files are not being turned into enclosures by our SmartCast service.

"More than 1 hour"? Mine was a week out-of-date!

After a search to see if anyone reported this "nuclear" approach as destructive, I hesitantly pushed the resync button, then waited.

Nothing. Still not updating, even with a nuclear attack.

All that was left was to return to the "too big" idea.

From the help page:

FeedBurner will not process an original feed from your blog if it is greater than 512K in size. (This limitation only applies to the actual size of the feed file itself and does not include any images or media files you may have linked to or embedded in your posts.) To get a feed larger than 512K back down to size on Blogger, you need to add a parameter to the address for your original feed's URL — the one that FeedBurner checks for updates in order to keep your FeedBurner feed current — that tells Blogger to shorten it to a specific number of posts.

Well … OK. I was in fact on Blogger, so maybe that was it.

Here are the steps to shrink your feed size, as per the help file:

In FeedBurner, click "Edit Feed Details…" below your feed's title. It's up at the top of your particular feed's page, above the tabs.

In the Original Feed Address field, change the URL there to the following format: http://myblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=3
(So mine was http://hobomama.blogspot…)

Click Save Feed Details. Wait for FeedBurner to reburn the feed and update.

What confused/concerned me at this point were these notations:

(Note that max-results sets the number of posts you want to have appear in your FeedBurner feed. Any integer value between 1 and 500 is permitted.)

And later:

Bloggers: Do you write lengthy posts and come up against FeedBurner's 512K limit to total feed size? You will want to set max-results to a small number in order to keep the feed file size under control. You may need to experiment with the max-results setting to get the ideal feed size. How to tell the filesize of your feed? Enter its address into www.web-sniffer.net and look at the report it returns; there should be a value in kilobytes for the size of your feed in an "uncompressed" format.

Oh-kaaay. I tried 500 first, then 400, 300, 200 100, then 50, 40, 30 … and then gave up and went with 3. You can experiment as you want, but nothing but 3 worked for me.

What bothered me about this was there was no indication of what the number meant. Were they saying they would look for a maximum of three new posts at a time (every half-hour, as I understand their usual pinging process)? Or did it mean it would slice the archives in my feed to a measly three posts back?

The error I got until I got to 3 was the same every time, telling me my feed size was "larger than 576K," no matter if I had 500 or 10 as the limiting number. Only 3 brought it below this, according to the error message. How did my posts from Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday push it over the edge to such an extreme? It just didn't make sense.

Then there was this:

podcasters: Don't ever want an episode to drop off of your feed? Set this value to 500. (What happens on episode 501? Pandemonium!)

I'm guessing this is some sort of joke, but I don't find weirdness particularly helpful in a help article. I don't even have podcasts, but it's cryptic statements like this that made me wonder if the purpose of the number was to trim my archives to 3 (or whatever number) posts.

Well, here's the good news: Set to 3, my feed refreshed and updated. I almost immediately received an email (I subscribe to my own feed both by email and in a reader, to keep tabs on it for just this reason!) with the last three posts it hadn't mailed out before. Google Reader showed all the recent posts, and I checked the archives to see what the toll had been. My RSS feed in Reader stretched back to September 2009 before I changed the code, and afterwards, it stretched back to … September 2009. (Hobo Mama began in September 2007, by the by.) So, no worries. I just wish the help topic had indicated that!

Besides the shoddy attitude in help, other things that irritated me:

FeedBurner's link (web-sniffer) to determine my feed's size did diddly squat for the purpose.
I received no emailed notice from FeedBurner that there was a problem with my feed. It was up to me to recognize that it wasn't updating, and it took a week for that to sink in. A week with who knows what percentage of my readership bailing!
Even more egregious, there was no indication when I logged into FeedBurner, on my dashboard, or on my feed's page, that there was anything wrong! Until I started typing a new "?max-results=X" code and playing around with what number to put in place of the X, FeedBurner gave me no error message to tell me (a) that there was anything wrong with my feed and (b) what it was! That screen capture at the top of this post is what finally appeared, and here's what it said: "Your feed filesize is larger than 576K. You need to reduce its size in order for FeedBurner to process it. Tips for controlling feed file size with Blogger can be found in Tech Tips on FeedBurner Forums, our support site." Note, no links to the appropriate tips, just a shove to go find them yourself.
As I mentioned before, I also think it's bizarre that feed size isn't something FeedBurner controls for you. Instead of chiding you, "Remember, your feed is an update on your content — not an archive for it — and you should use your publishing tools' controls to make sure your feed doesn't grow like kudzu possessed," why doesn't FeedBurner just make sure that feeds follow its size limitations by imposing them from the start? They handle most of the other inner workings of feed-dom. Why leave this one to the novices?

My advice to you?

Don't let this keep you from using FeedBurner, because it has awesome functionality. But do subscribe to your own feeds and check in on them regularly to be sure they're working and that they look the way you want them to.
If your feed isn't updating, try pinging first.
If that doesn't work, head to resyncing under Troubleshootize, with no fear.
If you're on Blogger and there's still no joy after — oh, I don't know, maybe give it an hour — then Edit Feed Details as in the above steps. You might as well go straight for "max-results=3," though you're free to play around with other numbers if you think you'll get lucky.

So that's my experience with shrinking feed file size and getting a feed to update again. Here's hoping it never gets mysteriously bloated again!

Has this ever happened to you? Is it because I'm too wordy? Is it kind of cool that my wordiness broke FeedBurner? No? Why not? Discuss.

#NaNoProgMo: Stop talking and do it

2011-11-30T05:09:00.000-08:00

Recently my husband was talking with a friend about a direction he wants to take, and the friend said, "If you wanted to do it, you'd be doing it. You wouldn't be talking about it."

This has stuck with me. I might not be properly transcribing the words and tone intended, but this is how it's reverberated in my brain. Applied toward other people, it might come off as a bit harsh, but applied to myself: It's so, so true.

For years, I said, I want to write a novel…someday. When the stars aligned. When I had oodles of free time. When an editor called out of the blue and gave me a contract and an advance, work unseen.

I talked about writing a novel. I wrote plot notes. I brainstormed character names and traits with friends. I subscribed to Writer's Digest
for years and absorbed all the articles. I checked Writer's Market out of the library, repeatedly. I even took a leisurely nine months while Sam concentrated on earning money to try my hand at being a professional novel writer. I did not complete a novel in that time, not even a first draft.

One year, I heard about National Novel Writing Month from a friend's Facebook status update. It was already several days into November, but I was intrigued. Could I do it? I'd give it a shot.

I was cautious about sharing what I was doing. I told people, but not too much. I was afraid to jinx it.

In some ways, this was the worst time to try, finally, to write a novel. I had a young baby and a home business I was heavily involved in and a blog to keep up.

But I wrote that novel, my first to be completed. I stopped talking, and I did it.

In some ways, I feel guilty that I haven't written much about my NaNoProgMo-ing as I've gone through it. In other ways, it feels completely natural now to hold off on bragging about progress until I'm sure I'll make good on my promise. I'm 2 hours from the end of my goal on this last day, so barring major malfunctions (pray not), I'm confident I'll complete my 60-hour editing goal for November. It wasn't glamorous, but every day I sat at my computer, and I did it. I put in my time, and I made progress.

I'm still not done with either project (I'm waiting on a second read-through from Sam of my mystery novel, which incidentally is that first NaNoWriMo one), and I have lots to do still as editor of the NPN cloth diapering book. But I'm feeling more confident that I can continue to do instead of just promise to do.

So, wherever you are in your progress today, I encourage you to figure out what you want — what you really, really want, right now — and do it. One foot in front of the other, in as little or as much time as you can commit, make tangible progress toward your goal. It might be writing a novel. It might be querying magazines, or ramping up your blog. It might be unrelated to writing: pursuing a new relationship, or calling your parents more, or cleaning out the garage, or learning to run.

If you're not making progress but you're still talking about it, you probably don't really want to do it after all. And that's OK, too. Maybe you'll want to later. Maybe you'll realize you never really wanted to and will choose a new dream.

But if you do cling to that dream, stop talking. Start doing. I believe in you.

You have this last day to make progress for NaNoProgMo.
Seize it and all that jazz.
How's your prog? What have you learned about what you want?

How to take a blogging break … but keep your blog going

2011-11-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to welcome Dionna from Code Name: Mama, who has written a guest post about taking a rest from your blog while keeping up your readership.

Lauren's note: When I was expecting Alrik, I was brainstorming ways to continue my blog for the sake of my readers and my advertisers while taking a highly valued babymoon. Now Dionna's in the same boat! For you it might be a vacation or family trip or just some needed time to disconnect from the screen. These are Dionna's ideas for stepping away from the blog but keeping up a basic amount of posting.

New babies, vacations, outside obligations, blogging burn-out. All bloggers need a break sometimes — it can even be healthy to plan a regular break into your annual blogging schedule. If you're worried about losing readers and subscribers during your absence, here are some tips that might help ease your mind.

1. Republish your own guest posts.

Have you had guest posts published at other sites? Run those! Unless you made a deal to the contrary, you still retain the copyright. Just be sure to check the other site's guest post policy to make sure you're within its exclusivity terms.¹ Include a note that it's been republished from a post previously seen on the host blog, with the appropriate link.

2. Repost old posts.

Readership changes from month to month, year to year. If you've been blogging awhile, surely there are old posts you can rerun. If you republish posts from when you were a beginning blogger with less of a following, you may be pleasantly surprised by the increased response to old posts. Include a note again mentioning that it's been republished (and possibly edited) for any hardcore archive delvers among your readers.

3. Book guest posters who will promote their own posts.

If you're going to be AWOL from your blog, you'll likely also be taking a hiatus from social media. Call on guest posters you trust to promote their own posts on their blog, Twitter, and Facebook and to respond to commenters. Don't hesitate to tell them that part of the deal is they need to interact, since you'll be taking a break.

4. Skip regularly scheduled posts.

Do you have a habitual post you put up every week (Wordless Wednesday, recipes on Friday, Sunday Surf)? Skip it, and don't feel guilty AT ALL.

5. Schedule some quick shots.

Try to schedule a few posts ahead, but don't make them be ambitious. There's something to be said for short, 1-2 paragraph posts — think of them as the blogging equivalent to a witty or insightful status update.

6. Warn your readers.

Let your readers know in advance you will be taking a break. Turn it into a post asking for guest posters! Your readers will understand, and they will welcome you back when you return.

Dionna is a lawyer turned work-at-home mama of an amazing son and an incredible new daughter. You can normally find Dionna over at Code Name: Mama where she shares information, resources, and her thoughts on natural parenting, consensual living, eclectic learning, and compassionate advocacy.

Photo courtesy sylvie szafranski on flickr (cc)

1 For example, here is the guest post "exclusivity" policy for Natural Parents Network: "While contributors to Natural Parents Network maintain the copyright to all their work, we ask that you not post your submission anywhere else (including your own blog) whether paid or unpaid, for 90 days after publication on Natural Parents Network. This exclusivity adds value for our readers without our asking you to give us copyright on your work. Similarly, we will wait 90 days to republish any previously published article."^↩

Sunday Surf: Introducing Writing Tidbits

2011-11-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

As with my Sunday Surfs at Hobo Mama, I thought I'd bring you a taste over here. I've been collecting somewhat extravagantly all the writing-relevant links I use and enjoy in a new Tumblr commonplace book: Writing Tidbits: Shared Items on Blogging & Writing.

I often will follow blogging tutorials or use writing resources and then later struggle to remember just where or just what it all was. This is my new attempt at keeping them all cataloged, and searchable by tags.

And here I will disseminate them for you, so far. You might be able to guess the themes of this week's research: securing my passwords and backing up my email, writing a novel synopsis for NaNoProgMo, and, well, figuring out Tumblr!

Famous Authors' Harshest Rejection Letters - Romy Oltuski - Entertainment - The Atlantic

Here — this’ll make us feel better.

10 SECONDS AGO

novel submissions novel writing writing rejections

When Does a Writer Become a Writer? - Betsy Morais - Entertainment - The Atlantic

I remember how decadent and sheepish I felt the first time I answered someone’s question of “What do you do?” with “I’m a writer.” I go back and forth with identifying myself that way — you?

5 MINUTES AGO

writing identity

Query Samples

Sample query letters for romance novels that won agents or editors.

23 HOURS AGO

query novel writing writing novel submissions

Synopsis Samples

Several sample synopses of novels that sold, I believe all romance.

23 HOURS AGO

synopsis novel writing writing novel submissions

Writing a Synopsis

Lots and lots of links on the subject of novel synopses.

23 HOURS AGO

synopsis novel writing writing novel submissions

Format Novel Synopsis

Sample synopsis format. There are a lot of possibilities for formatting, I’ve discovered, but something similar to this seems promising.

23 HOURS AGO

synopsis novel writing writing novel submissions formatting

Synopsis Project

Several selling romance novel synopses.

23 HOURS AGO

synopsis novel writing writing novel submissions

Long Ridge Writers Group

Tips and an example of a mystery novel synopsis (one that sold the book in question). Recommendation of losing subplots when writing the synopsis.

23 HOURS AGO

synopsis writing novel writing novel submissions

Making tags visible when using a Tumblr theme that doesn't show them - Web Applications

I wanted to keep my Tumblr theme but noticed it wasn’t showing tags. This was an easy fix.

I want to use tags to keep track of related tips and articles. This seems like the best type of blog to have such a search function.

2 DAYS AGO

html tags tumblr blogging

IMAP - Gmail Help

Continuing my hacker-proof backup plan, I’ve decided to set up IMAP using Apple Mail 4 in hopes it will sync nicely with my online inbox. (I’ll have to let you know if that’s a big fail.) My fear, see, is that 90% of the email I get is crap and I don’t need it saved in perpetuity. I’d like deletions to be recognized in both my offline and online inbox versions.

If you’d rather do POP, it’s here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12103

2 DAYS AGO

gmail google email backups

Signing in using application-specific passwords - Accounts Help

You might also need this help, particularly if you decide to back up Gmail with a POP or IMAP mail account or use Gmail on your phone. You have to generate a specific, one-use password for some apps and clients.

2 DAYS AGO

backups gmail google email

Getting started with 2-step verification

I’m trying out 2-step verification to help protect my Gmail from hackers. If they hack your account, they’ll delete ALL your email and contacts. Gone. Gmail can retrieve it — maybe, eventually. But if you’re anything like me, your LIFE is in your inbox.

Two-step verification means that whenever you (or anyone) tries to log into your Gmail on an unrecognized computer, Gmail will send a login code to the phone number you put in, either text message or voice call. I’m going to see if it’s annoying. So far, it’s ok, but it’s been only the one day.

(Source: maydela.blogspot.com)

2 DAYS AGO

backups gmail google email

Hacked! - Magazine - The Atlantic

Shannon of Pineapples & Artichokes shared this article with us and the new Gmail 2-step verification process to help stop it from happening.

2 DAYS AGO

gmail backups google

Backups | Backupify

I’m in the process of backing up my “cloud” accounts (Gmail, Blogger, Flickr, etc.) from potential hacking or other data loss. Backupify is a service that lets you back up 3 accounts (I chose Twitter, Facebook fan page, and Google Docs) for free, more for a monthly fee (two tiers). I’ll try it out to see if it’s worth doing more. I’d love to add Blogger, for instance, but I already have some Blogger backup systems in place.

2 DAYS AGO

blogger backups blogging twitter gmail google google docs

How to Write a Synopsis for Your Mystery Novel: Special Guest Blogger | Uphill Writing

Helpful tips for creating the dreaded novel synopsis, and I like that it’s particular to mysteries since that’s what I’m struggling with!.

2 DAYS AGO

synopsis novel writing writing

Writers and Financial Woes: What’s Going On – Whatever

Interesting overview of why it’s tough financially to be a (fiction) writer (or artist in general).

6 DAYS AGO

Progress on NaNoProgMo: Halfway or two-thirds?

2011-11-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some things I've learned through National Novel Progress Month:

I have less time to write blogposts.
I seem to be able to do either intense blogging or intense editing, but not both. I'd hoped to do more of a play-by-play as I was going through NaNoProgMo, but all my free time is going toward editing instead. Well, that's as it is.

I don't need to edit two hours a day.
What Zoie of TouchstoneZ wrote in a comment really resonated with me. I'll quote her here, if I may:

Okay, I'm very happy to see we're all behind. Setting the bar high and happy with how we balance it! I love L'Engle's quote about putting two things first. YES! I've learned this month that I do not want to blog every day and I'll be glad when NaBloPoMo is over. And I abhor editing every day, which is partially what I'm doing with the book. But, I must haveto needto write every day. I'm driven to do it and I'm incomplete without it.

I have yet to figure out the balance of writing and the rest of life. I'm failing at it on purpose this month.

Part of this month's experiment has been to go completely off-balance-to dive into my writing so hard that I can never look back and regret not giving myself enough license or time to write. I can point to this month and see what it really is like. And I can know that I'm not happy this way either. There are days when I wish I were choosing something else. It's a huge lesson and if I learn nothing else, it will have been worth it.

I'm realizing that editing two hours a day is more than I need to — if only I hadn't procrastinated the rest of the year (or more). In other words, I could get by and get a novel done rather speedily (on my terms) by editing only 15 minutes a day, as long as I consistently did so. And it would be nice to do things other than edit, such as write blog posts. Which brings me to my next point:

I can enjoy intensively entering into the world of my novel.
Since I do procrastinate the rest of the year, it's important for me to have one month at least where I say, "This is what I am doing this month. All else can go to perdition." I like entering it fully, and I find it easier to keep track of threads of my story when I'm editing for an extended time each day for an intensive month rather than catch as catch can, with long breaks between each session. I love during this time feeling like a writer. But…

At some point, I feel unbalanced if I enter too headlong into novel writing.
I think of my novel all day. Ideas and fragments come into my head. It's hard for me to shake it off when I'm talking to other people, so real does my own story seem to me. I feel like a writer, but kind of like a jerk, too.

On a more pragmatic, novel-centered level:

I did not write any description before now.
During NaNoWriMo, it was write-write-write, don't stop to think. So I wrote the story. Now I'm having to go back and figure out what people look like and write all that down! I feel a little silly shoehorning all that description in, but it needs something.

And on an am-I-a-real-writer? level:

I'm scared of failure.
One thing I don't allow myself to do (much) during NaNoWriMo is fool around by daydreaming about submitting to agents — no goofing off for hours each day making tiered lists of whom to submit to, drafting query letters, researching advances for first novels, etc. (No, I only allowed myself to do that about a single hour a day during NaNoWriMo, ha.) Now that I'm actually in "editing" territory, I'm allowing myself to dream, plan, research, and get pragmatic like that. And I found something out: I'm terrified. I was looking up agents and reading about novel synopses and how to format email queries, and I started physically shaking. Up till now, it's been a lark. I can imagine I'm a good writer, that my novel is publishable, that there are an agent and editor out there waiting for me. Once I start submitting and the rejections roll in? Then it's real, and it will be hard. I didn't realize how much I was holding myself back out of fear.

And that's what I've learned so far from NaNoProgMo.

So: We still have 10 days left, which means one-third of our time! So we are officially two-thirds through — woot!

The goodish news is I am halfway through my pledged time. I think that means I can maybe catch up.

Even if you're not caught up, or you have no intention of doing so, or you're just starting, the point is to keep on keeping on. Let me know if there's any way I can encourage you.

Teresa is generously offering all our participants (all! of! you!) a sweet surprise writerly gift. Stop by the post she wrote and send her your address so she can mail it to you.

How's your progress? What have you learned so far in the successes, the failures, the progressing and halting of this month?

NaNoProgMo…How's your "prog"?

2011-11-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Today I bring you an inspirational guest post from Teresa from Write On, Mom! / Mom Grooves who encourages all us NaNoProgMos to keep on keeping on.

Hosted by Lauren from LaurenWayne.com / Hobo Mama
and Teresa from Write On, Mom! / Mom Grooves

Okay! Time to get serious here. I have barely completed three days of my goal for the past 14 days. The good news is that there are still TWO full weeks left in this wonderful month.

I want to encourage everyone participating with us for NaNoProgMo (or anyone who wants to start now!) to pick up your proverbial pen and finish the month writing. It doesn't matter what you've done or have not done so far. I doubt anyone can be as far behind as I am, so let's bring up the rear together!

I also want to send each of you who are NaNoProgMo-ing a little gift. I don't want to wait until the end of the month. I believe in rewarding artists for the process. So, send me your address and your gift will be in the mail. I'd love for you to have it while there's still at least a week left. Even if you just join up now or if you haven't completed a minute of your goal yet, send me your address and get in on this. Send info to: tree@momgrooves.com

This is about Progress, after all. There is no finish line necessary, no word count to define success or failure. Just progress (which I, personally, will re-define to accomodate exactly as far as I get.)

I do still want to get somewhere.

I could list some pretty fancy "reasons" why I haven't been writing every day. Extremely valid. Extraordinarily compelling. Yes, I have reasons not to write. But I also have one simple, vital reason to write. I'm a writer. It's stamped on my ticket to this incarnation. Writer. Whatever else I might be or do will not change that. It is a "Prime Directive" for my soul.

Honestly, I'm afraid to start. I'm afraid to try and get into it. There's no time. I have no brain anymore. I'm so foggy. Why didn't I write before I had a child?!!!!

Breathe...

Today I will read what I have written so far. Just read it and find my way back into the rhythms of this particular story. There's already a vibration all its own that exists in the pages I have. Every word I write, every chapter, every character I snatch from the ethers and bring into existence creates this almost unbearable joy in me. Sometimes I start and get so excited I have to get up and walk around. Then I tend to eat, probably to try and ground myself. But after that I usually get tired and just stop.

Two weeks left and I will resist the urge to increase my daily goal to 2 hours just to catch up. I'm still aiming for an hour a day.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes and anecdotes from For Writers Only by Sophy Burnham (the book that has been in every bathroom I've had for the past 15 years.)

In ancient times when a singer stood before the banquet table, lyre in his hand, and struck the chord that hushed the assembled guests, what were his first words? "O Muse, fill my mouth with your songs. Make me silver-tongued that my words may pierce the hearts of men..."

Later, college English teachers would tell you that this was no more than a literary tradition, the requisite invocation to the Muse.

But writers know it's real. At some point, consciously or not, we invoke our gods, the daemon of the Greeks, the genius of the Romans, the genie, the Muse, the spirits of past Masters calling to us, called back by their love of words. We invoke the Lady in white, our angels, our guides, asking for the highest levels of creative power.

-from the book by Sophy Burnham

I have to constantly balance "being a writer" with being a wife and mother. It's a matter of putting two different things first, simultaneously.

-Madeleine L'engle

No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanence of what he has written; he may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

-T. S. Eliot

Rainer Maria Rilke left his wife and baby, so much did he need to listen for his inner voice, his Muse. Years later the poet would not even attend his daughter's wedding, and when the newlyweds asked to come visit for a few hours during their honeymoon, he refused. He had no boundaries, apparently, as if he were so open that he became the world around him. He had no way to guard his inner voice.

-from the book by Sophy Burnham

Every day you are afraid. Every day you move through fear to your desk, and as soon as you pick up your pen, or read the sentence left over from the night before, incomplete, needing an adjustment in rhythm - a stronger verb, a slash of color or the taste of bitter herbs - in that moment of solving the problems all fear dissolves. You are writing again.

-from the book by Sophy Burnham

Here is a shout-out to our linkied participants (if you haven't linked up, you can still do so!):

Stephen @ Poptrope.net = 1 hr. per day finishing novel
Zoie @ TouchstoneZ - 30 minutes per day
Moorea@ Mamalady- 30per day
From My Mind to the Page: 1 hr per day
Lisa @ My World Edenwild = 15 min/day or more
Tree @ Mom Grooves.com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novel
Lauren @ LaurenWayne.com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per day

And here are our tickers. (If you want to get one, see how here, or let us know where yours is to grab!) Notice that we are all behind, so don't worry about it — just keep making your progress!

Teresa's Ticker

Lauren's Ticker

Zoie's Ticker

Don't forget to send your address to tree@momgrooves.com!!!

Customize your Facebook links in status updates

2011-11-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice, simple tutorial for how to make the links you put into your Facebook status box look the way you want them to.

I believe it was Kelly of KellyNaturally.com who first clued me in to changing the descriptive text, and she's actually someone I've been talking with recently about frustrating Facebook changes that have restricted our customizations. That said, I hope most or some of the following still work for you (or will in the future)!

(Click images to see them larger.)

When you paste or type a link into the status box, Facebook will try to pull up a title, URL, description, and thumbnail for you. Sometimes this is helpful. Sometimes this is a big bucket of fail.

Randomly, Facebook used to pull the post description from my first comment. I believe this is some weird Blogger–Facebook glitch. It was not ideal.

Since adding my meta keywords and blog description, Facebook now draws from that — in this case, A blog about natural parenting — which is marginally preferable though still off.

But I can change it to be what I want.

Hover your mouse over the description, and you'll see it highlights.

Click it, and now it's editable.

Leave it and add to it, or delete it and start fresh.

Click outside the box to set it.

Other ways to customize:

Customize the status. Delete the link once Facebook has "found" it and pulled up the preview, and then type in your own description/status in the main box. However, just to point out as well, it used to be that the title of my post would show where it says just "Hobo Mama," but again, Facebook is glitching. Because of this, sometimes I leave the full link in the status update box so that people know it's not linking just to my homepage.
Select a thumbnail, or no thumbnail. As you can see, Facebook isn't playing nicely with Blogger right now (or with other blog platforms, either, frankly), so it's pulling up a max of one thumbnail from my posts lately ("1 of 1"). Usually, it would show all possible thumbnails and I could flip through them to choose the one I like best. If having a thumbnail (or the wrong one) would distract, you can click "No Thumbnail" to make it go away.

Note

These customization options work only if you're putting in links manually. They won't take effect or be editable if links are auto-populated on your page or wall (such as from Networked Blogs or similar).

If you have other favorite customizations or reports of FB bugginess (just to commiserate), add them in the comments!

Help me choose a Facebook username!

2011-11-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited that I'm officially over 25 "likes" on my LaurenWayne.com Facebook page. That means … drumroll … I get to choose a custom username!

What I can't figure out is … what should my new URL be?

If you're unfamiliar with usernames for pages, it's the little tag after http://www.facebook.com/ — so, for instance, my Hobo Mama page is http://www.facebook.com/HoboMamaBlog, whereas my Lauren Wayne, author page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lauren-Wayne-author/104277789602502. (Not so pretty.)

LaurenWayne is taken, of course. As is LWayne or anything else intuitive.

So I made a little poll on my page with some other options, and right now it's neck and neck between AuthorLaurenWayne and LaurenWayneOfficial. Unless we count Amanda's contribution…

If you believe in democracy, head on over and cast your vote!

Don't let the terrorists win.

Join us for NaNoProgMo: National Novel Progress Month!

2011-10-31T16:04:00.000-07:00

Introducing National Novel Progress Month, or NaNoProgMo in cool-people terms! This is a joint undertaking of encouragement and motivation by Teresa from Write On, Mom! / Mom Grooves and Lauren from LaurenWayne.com / Hobo Mama.

Maybe you're like us — inspired by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) but unable or unwilling to participate this year in writing a novel from scratch in November.

We'd like to offer you some support as you work on your novel writing in November, in whatever form it takes!

You get to choose how much time you'll spend per day working on your novel's progress.

Then we'll all work in community toward our individual goals!

NaNoProgMo is for you if one or more of these sounds like you:

You have a novel half-started and want to work on finishing it.
You have a novel finished but need to rework and edit sections.
You have research to do for your novel.
You have a novel edited but need to work on polishing or scheduling critiques.
You need a push to start shopping your novel around to agents or editors or looking into self-publishing.
You have another novel task on your plate!

Here's all you need to do to join us:

Sign up on the linky below so we can keep track of all the participants' progress.
Enter your name and the number of hours you'll commit to work on your novel per day. (It can be a fraction of an hour if that's all you have!)
If you don't have your own blog, you can leave the link to one of our blogs in the space where it asks for a link. If you do have a blog, link it up so we can follow your writing online.
As you wish, connect with us:
- on our blogs: Mom Grooves & LaurenWayne.com
- on Facebook: Lauren Wayne, author & Write On, Mom!
- and Twitter: @momgrooves & @Hobo_Mama with the hashtag #NaNoProgMo

Goodies

Progress Meter
You want to keep track of progress, right? Teresa found this excellent free progress ticker source:

Ticker Factory

Here's mine:

Choose an Exercise Ticker as the type.
Enter your own password/pin, put in Hours for Units, enter your current progress, and put in your target for the whole month (e.g., if you chose 1 hour/day, you'd put 30 hours for the month). Your Message is whatever you want to title your ticker, so put something NaNoProgMo-inspirational!
Pick your ticker & slider designs. Click on the numbers along the bottom to see all the designs available.
On the last screen, you'll get the HTML code to add to your site in a post or a sidebar!
Go back to Ticker Factory daily to update your total, and enjoy seeing your progress!

Button
Show off your NaNoProgMo participation with one of our cute buttons! Here are a few options for you:

Blog post size:

200 pixel wide button:

150 pixel wide button:

Check back for other goodies, such as your winner's certificate!

FAQ

What if it's after November 1, and you still want to join in? Then do it! Any time you spend working on your novel is worth it, right? And I'm sure we'll all still have more work to do in future months, too!

Why November? After completing NaNoWriMo for several years in a row, November just seems like it has the most international psychic wellspring of novel-writing motivation! If November doesn't work for you, maybe you can catch us in another month soon! But our feeling on writing your novel is that the best time to do it is now.

Why "national"? We're mirroring NaNoWriMo on this one. With just two of us right now, "national" is a little nod-and-wink. We welcome everyone from any nation!

What if you get behind? Make up your hours on another day — or just move ahead. Whatever works for you! We know most of us who'll be doing this are parents and writers. We simply want to use the power of community to motivate all of us to take our writing seriously, and have a little fun in the process!

If you have questions to add or suggestions to offer, comment!

National Novel Writing Month starts soon!

2011-10-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Who's doing NaNoWriMo this year?

If you want to join the nonsense of writing a whole novel (50,000 words) in November, you can start preparing now if you'd like by working on an outline and research. (No prose must be included in your November word count, but you can do a little work ahead if you're in the mood.)

Here's my news: After three years in a row of writing a novel in a month, I'm going to sit this November out.

I've officially written too many novels now — but have yet to finish the dang things!

So my November is going to be dedicated to my own private NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month. If you want to join me, we could make it a bit more, um, national.

I hope you'll hold me accountable to editing, and I'd be glad to give you pep talks on writing. I'm planning to work out some sort of schedule for my editing so I know how much I'm required to do each day to make sure I finish by the end of the month.

(Of course, further editing might require further months, but I'm hoping I can get the bulk done while properly motivated!)

Who's in for NaNoWriMo? Does anyone want to edit a previously finished work alongside me instead?

Meta description + meta keyword for Blogger templates

2011-10-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Jorje had a good blogging question today. I thought I'd post the answer for anyone else looking to improve SEO (search engine optimization).

For those on Blogger, … they posted this this morning:

Please recheck your XML template, and fill meta description + meta keyword with your blog description and keyword, it's very important to promote your blog :)

Jorje wanted to know where to find the meta tags.

Head to your template!

(Click on any image to see it larger.)

Go to Design --> Edit HTML.

Before working on your template, Download Full Template to save a backup. That way, you can revert to your previous version if something goes horribly wrong.

You make your changes in the big text box, and click Save Template when you're done.

Here's where to go if you're in the new Blogger interface:

Go to Template --> Edit HTML.

You will now get a warning that you should do no such thing:

Again, back up your template before proceeding.

Then you'll be in the same sort of window:

Now that you know where to go, here's what you do once you get there.

Here's where I move to the tutorial I found on BloggerTricks:

"Adding meta tags to blogger(blogspot) blogs,websites-SEO"

You can tell it's an SEO-focused site from that weird title…

You can pop on over to read the whole article, but I'll sum up the main points here, using another site of theirs, plus another one I found, that helped me.

1. First go to Free Online Meta Tags Generator Tool.

Fill in your information there (title, description, your blog's keywords, etc.) and receive the code you'll need. Here's how it looks when I filled it in for Hobo Mama:

The code in the bottom box is what you copy and paste.

2. Add the above code to your template.

Do a find/search for this code string in your template:
<b:include data="blog" name="all-head-content">

Paste the meta tags code you generated just after that line in your template.

3. Save your template.

Reference the above "Edit HTML" screenshots to see where.

4. Analyze your meta tags.

Use this free online analyzer tool:
Free Metatags Analyzer

Simply fill in your site's URL in the box and ask for the analysis.

It will flag errors, tell you whether you have too many or too few keywords, give a percentage of relevancy of your keywords to your page's content, and offer a few other tips on improving your SEO (making search engines happy).

If you need to make any changes to your meta tags after the analysis, you can just find them in your template and make them from there, or erase and start over from step 1.

Further discussion: Have you ever meta tag you didn't like?

How to create footnotes in Blogger

2011-08-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

By popular demand …

Even though there's no built-in way to create footnotes in Blogger, it's easy enough to code linked footnotes into a post in HTML view. Here's how I do it.

What it looks like for readers

This is my post text with a linked footnote at the end.¹

When readers click on the footnote number, it jumps them down to the footnote. Clicking an arrow after the footnote conveniently jumps them back up to where they left off.

Footnotes are a great solution for tangential or additional text, such as caveats, resource citations, or pointless jokes. (I especially prefer the latter.) Readers can choose whether to continue reading the main text, or be delightfully distracted down to your bonus offerings, and then back up again when they're ready to resume.

The HTML code for you

You must enter this code in "Edit HTML" view in Blogger. (I have a tutorial explaining the difference between Edit HTML and Compose if you're not familiar with the two.)

Code to put in the text where you want the footnote's number to appear:

<a href="#1" name="top1">1</a>

All right, which is easier for you? I pasted it above so you can see it easily, but here's the same code in a grab box for easier copying/pasting. Take your pick!

Code to place at the bottom of your post:

<hr width="80%">


<a name="1">1 </a>FOOTNOTE<a href="#top1">↩</a>

Obviously, replace "FOOTNOTE" with the actual footnote!

Explanation of the codes

These footnotes work through a simplistic process of "name" URLs that reference each other. You tag each part of the footnote with a name. The footnote number in the text is named "top1," and the footnote number at the bottom of the post is named "1."

Then the paired URLs send readers back and forth between these "names" through the href codes. Telling the URL to go to href="#1" sends it to the post's URL but with #1 appended. That # sign tells the code to look for a name that matches what's after the #, and it finds it in our footnote named "1."

Multiple footnotes

If you want multiple footnotes, you simply need to paste the following parts of the codes again, substituting the numbers you need for the word "NUMBER."

Code to put in the text where you want another footnote's number to appear:

<a href="#NUMBER" name="topNUMBER">NUMBER</a>

That's three replacements at the top, if you're counting.

Code to place at the bottom of your post for multiple footnotes:

You want to add in this line after your first footnote line as many times as you need it.

<a name="NUMBER">NUMBER </a>FOOTNOTE<a href="#topNUMBER">↩</a>

Again, replace the three instances of "NUMBER" with the number you're on.

Here's a grab code for 5 footnotes:

Styling your footnotes

Obviously, you can feel free to alter these codes cosmetically to suit your blog. This is just what I came up with. The basic structure is the "name" links, and the rest is decoration.

I used a "sup" command to make the footnote numbers superscript in the text, added an "hr" line at the bottom to separate the footnotes from the post's text, made the footnote font "x-small" in size, and used a little superscripted ↩ symbol for returning to the text location. Any of those elements could be changed as you wish. For instance, you could have your footnotes appear in a different font face or color, or change how you separate off your footnote area. If you want to copy mine as is, I don't mind, though I'd love any shout-outs to this post you'd care to give!

Tips

I keep these codes handy in a text file on my desktop, so I can easily copy and paste them into a post when I need a footnote.

The biggest warning I can offer is NEVER switch back to Compose view once you've inserted the footnote code in Edit HTML. Sorry to semi-shout, but this will mess your code up, yo.

Here's, again, the tutorial on using Edit HTML vs. Compose. If you're comfortable crafting a post solely in Edit HTML view, then just do that, and you're golden. If you prefer Compose or like to switch between the two, you'll need to add your footnotes at the very end in HTML view, and then hit publish. If you need to get back into that same post to edit, you'll need to do so in HTML view again. Blogger has a usually helpful little thing where it "remembers" what view you used last time — if it was Compose, you might need to start (or edit) a new (different or throwaway) post in Edit HTML, and then open the one with the footnotes.

Also, these footnotes won't work on the main page of your blog, only on the specific post pages, unless you alter the URLs to have the post page URLs within the code (i.e., not just href="#1" but href="http://www.laurenwayne.com/2010/10/how-to-make-blog-button-grab-box.html#1" or whatever your specific URL is). This is because the generic href="#1" is looking for the "name" tags on the current page only. I figure most people are used to clicking over into a blog post for footnotes — I have to when I'm reading posts in a reader, for instance.

Occasionally, even if you're diligent about opening posts only in Edit HTML, Blogger will "helpfully" fill in a placeholder URL in front of your # commands when you reopen a post to edit it. In that case, either delete the nonsense URL Blogger has inserted, or replace it with the post's URL if you know it. That will keep the footnotes intact in the future.

Thoughts? Questions? What fanciness do you use for footnotes in Blogger?

1 This is my sample footnote. You can click the little arrow at the end of this footnote to get back to where you were.^↩

Writing contest for NPN cloth diapering book! The deadline approaches.

2011-04-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

Are you a writer who also happens to love cloth diapers? Woot!

We need your high-quality and informative writing for the upcoming Natural Parents Network book, The Natural Parent's Guide to Cloth Diapering!

Submissions are due April 30.

We hope this book will be like a Cloth Diapers 101 class for anyone interested in finding out more about the subject — as well as an advanced course for those with particular questions and troubleshooting needs.

We invite you to submit one or more chapters having to do with any aspect of cloth diapering.

Please, as you're submitting, remember that this will be a chapter in a printed book. We want your best writing — please edit any blog posts to fit into a book's format and style, and please be thorough in what information you give. We want NPN's guide to be the "last word" in cloth diapering, and we will be judging submissions based on quality of writing and completeness of information.

Available Chapters

Why cloth diaper?

Environmental impacts
Budgetary impacts
Health impacts
Effect on toilet independence
The cuteness & coziness factors

Prefolds, fitteds, flats, & diaper covers

Materials/styles available
Advantages and disadvantages
Folding techniques
Care and laundering

All-in-ones & all-in-twos

Materials/styles available
Advantages and disadvantages
Care and laundering

Pocket diapers & inserts

Materials/styles available
Advantages and disadvantages
Care and laundering

Troubleshooting

Leaking
Nighttime cloth diapering
Sizing problems
Storage & diapering setup
Smell (of diapers and of diaper pail)
Cloth diapering a newborn
Cloth diapering a preemie
Cloth diapering a toddler or older child
Diaper rash
Diaper-frendly clothing choices

Care & laundering

Basic washing routine
Detergents and additives
Drying
Stains
Stripping
Shared laundry
Hand laundering
Caring for wool

Budget-friendly cloth diapering

Number of diapers needed
Affordable options
Used diapers
Diaper swaps
Making your own
Reuse & resale

Encouraging reluctant users

Dads or non-adapting family members
Babysitters
Daycare

Traveling with cloth diapers

Using a cloth diaper service

Cloth diapering with elimination communication

Diapering multiple kids

Overview of helpful diapering accessories

Cloth wipes
Cloth wipe solutions
Diaper sprayers
Diaper pails
Wet bags
Lanolin & wool cleansers
Pins & Snappis

If you would like to suggest a different chapter or sub-chapter idea, let us know: Books {at} NaturalParentsNetwork {dot} com.

How to Submit

Please submit your chapter(s) by April 30:

Send each chapter as a separate entry to Books {at} NaturalParentsNetwork {dot} com.
Fill out the contest submission form for each chapter you submit so we can keep track of all entries.

Once judging is complete, we will contact the winners whose chapters and bylines will appear in the book.

Other Contributions

We are also looking for:

Your photos of all things cloth diapering
Your favorite resources for cloth diapering

Good luck! We're excited to read your writing and thrilled to be offering this book to spread the love of fluff.

(See the original contest post for full details.)

Blogging and taxes

2011-04-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year for U.S. citizens — tax time! Bloggers are kind of a special lot when it comes to taxes, which can make figuring out how to file tricky.

I've recently read some good articles about bloggers and taxes:

Blogs and Taxes - What Bloggers Need to Report as Income from The WiC Project
Taxes 2011: Mrs. CPA Answers Your Questions Regarding Blogging and Taxes from Mom In The City
All About Sweepstakes Taxes (you'll see why this is relevant when we get into giveaway wins and product review items below)

I'm combining what I've read there with my own experience doing our family's taxes (currently an online sales business as well as my income, such as it is, from blogging), and managing the Natural Parents Network finances, to write about some of the special situations affecting bloggers:

Click any link to jump to that topic.

Business vs. hobby
Business structure (sole proprietorship being the easiest to handle)
Reporting goods received as income (including review products and giveaway wins)
How to report conference swag or sponsored trips
Doing your own recording and reporting, and minimum income required to report (unless you make a lot or are directly employed by a company, no one's sending you an easy-to-handle form such as a 1099 or W-2, so you're on your own)
Deductions for bloggers
Cash accounting vs. accrual and what makes sense for you
Estimated taxes and the penalty for not paying them
Business licensing in your local area
Sales taxes on items you sell (such as in an Etsy shop) to supplement your blogging income
Amending your return to include unreported income or deductions

Please, please take what I'm about to say seriously: I am not a tax expert. I am not an accountant or tax professional of any kind. I was an English major, for crying out loud. Please use the information in this article solely as a springboard for you to do your own research regarding your specific tax situation. If you're fortunate enough to have a CPA or other expert to turn to, perfect. If you don't, you can call the IRS directly to ask any specific questions or go in person to a local Taxpayer Assistance Center. You can also use IRS.gov to find specific tax forms, publications, and regulations.

All right, caveats out of the way, here's what I've learned:

Is blogging a business for me or a hobby?

This is more than a personal call — this goes to whether the IRS classifies you as a business or hobby, based on the way you're conducting your blog and on the profit or loss you've accrued.

You need to make a profit in at least three out of five years to qualify as a business — and to take business deductions.

There are other factors the IRS looks at to determine hobby vs. business, including:

How much time do you dedicate to blogging?
Do you depend on the income generated?
Are you, in general, moving from loss status to profit status in your blogging business?

Keep good records, and try to turn a profit!

More information on reporting as a hobby can be found in the articles I linked to up top and at IRS.gov.

^{back to list ↩}

Am I a sole proprietor, or should I be something fancier?

For my purposes, I like keeping things simple. If you're the only blogger in your business, you automatically start out as a sole proprietor, but from there you can choose more complicated business structures as you need to or prefer.

For instance, if you and a friend start a website together, you're now at least a general partnership, and in some states without community property laws, even taking on board a spouse into your business will change it into a partnership.

You could also choose to "upgrade" to a limited liability company (LLC) or even incorporate. The perceived advantages of an LLC are having an easier time attracting investors (investors? for a blog?) and a limiting of personal liability (ah — it's in the name!). Say you write something inflammatory or harmful (tax advice?) and someone decides to sue you — the idea is that an LLC might help protect your personal assets. However, the IRS and lawyers are pretty good at "piercing the veil" of one-person LLCs to find the renamed sole proprietor behind them, so don't count on it.

Talk with some financial advisors if you think that upgrading your business structure is right for you. If you do nothing, you can just stay a sole proprietor and enjoy the convenience of less paperwork.

^{back to list ↩}

Do I have to report goods I've received in giveaways or for review?

Yes. Oh, I know, it's horrible, but all those freebies you're getting? Are not freebies. They're income.

And this is true whether your blogging is a business or a hobby. Contest wins are "other income," and products for review are goods given to you as a barter and must be reported as well. This is true, as well, if you barter with a local company to blog for them in exchange for free services, such as a natural health blogger writing an article about an acupuncture service in exchange for free appointments. You need to report the fair market value of the item or service, which you can usually determine from the company's website or online stores; record this amount and any substantiating proof (such as a screenshot of the online price).

My understanding is that if you give away the item immediately or after testing, you don't have to report it as income, but you will need to if you're taking a charitable deduction.

Since you're paying income tax on any freebies you're receiving, About.com has a good tip:

Before deciding whether or not to submit an entry for sweepstakes, ask yourself these questions:

Would I really enjoy the prize?

Would it make a great gift for a loved one?

If I saw the prize offered in a store for a 70% discount, would I buy it?

^{back to list ↩}

How do I report conference swag or sponsored trips?

Mrs. CPA had some good advice on this topic. Conference swag is in the same boat as giveaway wins — reportable as income. (So don't scoop it up unless you really want it!)

If a company directly gives you a freebie like a plane ride (the airline) or a hotel stay (the hotel itself), it's income. However, if a PR agency is an intermediary in setting up a trip or event for bloggers, it's likely not income.

Let’s say Delta Airlines wants to foster blogger goodwill and they fly 10 bloggers somewhere in the continental US and have them report back on their experience. That’s taxable. You can figure out what the cost of that flight would be. It was free to you and the company providing the service donated it. Let’s say you are invited to the Grand Canyon. The PR agency pays the airlines for your ticket, the limo company for your ride to and from the airport, and the cost of your meals and hotel stay. The Grand Canyon pays the PR agency – a deduction and income – and the PR agency pays the vendors – a deduction and income. You just happen to be the recipient of the income and deduction circle that all gets reported by someone else. Basically if someone donates their product or service directly to you, that’s taxable. If they pay someone else to provide a service to you, that’s probably not taxable. You got value out of the transaction, but it is being reported as income somewhere.

Again, see the Mrs. CPA article for further clarification, and contact a tax expert if you need additional help figuring out your liability.

^{back to list ↩}

Do I have to report income if I don't receive a report of payments made to me? Do I have to report income only over a certain amount?

You have to report all income. There's no dollar minimum below which the IRS doesn't care, a piece of misinformation that is sometimes thrown around online.

Companies, such as affiliate companies, ad networks, clients for whom you've done contract writing, or online selling venues, are not required to report your particular earnings until they reach a certain dollar threshold. But you are still required to report said earnings.

This is true of giveaway wins and review products, as well — whether it's a tube of toothpaste or a dishwasher, you have to report it.

So keep good records of all your income, since no one else is likely doing it for you.

^{back to list ↩}

What can I deduct to offset my taxes?

If you're operating as a business, you can deduct expenses that are ordinary and necessary to your business of blogging.

Some potential deductions for bloggers and writers could include:

Web hosting fees for your blog (deduct any fees for personal sites on the same host)
Payments to a web designer for your blog template
Office supplies for running your blog (notebook and pen to scribble ideas, for instance)
Computer equipment and software (only the business portion — see below)
Office furniture used for business (again, only the business portion. I'd be wary about deducting a dining room set just because you blog at the dining table, though — check with an accountant first)
Home office — but only if you use it exclusively and regularly for business. If you use it for any personal activity, your deductions will be thrown out, and the IRS is very strict about this. For instance, if your children also play in there, or it's a spare bedroom that's occasionally used as a guest room, it's no longer exclusive. (Tough noogies, I know; we've never had a big enough place to justify setting aside a space exclusively for business!)
Transportation or mileage to an alternate place of business, such as bus fare to a coffee shop to write or mileage to the library to check out books for a review you're writing (keep a mileage log)
Meals with fellow bloggers or interview subjects (there are special rules for reporting such expenses, so keep a record of the people you were meeting with and for what business purpose)
Conference fees
Postage you paid to ship giveaway wins
Business cards
Online advertisements
Swag you've produced, such as a t-shirt with your blog's logo you're intending to give away or sell
Accounting fees you've paid for filing your business taxes (business portion only, so get an itemized bill)

Be sure you subtract the cost of any personal use of the items or services you're deducting. In some cases, you'll need to provide proof of business use — for a computer that's used for both personal and business use, for instance, you'll need to keep a log of your time spent on business vs. personal activity, and you can deduct only the business portion of your expenses.

Some expenses that won't hold up in IRS court?

Jammies disguised as a work uniform (no one's making you wear such fashionable duds)
Commuting from home to an outside office, if you do all your blogging work in an external office
The cost of coffee in exchange for internet access at a coffee shop (sooo tempting given the rising cost of lattes, I know) — you could, however, deduct the actual amount you pay for internet access specifically, such as at a for-pay wireless hotspot
Putting a magnetic sign or bumper sticker on your car to advertise your web address and pretending all your mileage is now for business (sad but true)
Hiring your three-year-old to fetch a cold drink as you feverishly write — but you can employ your children as young as seven years old, if you have age-appropriate and business-related tasks for them! You'd better believe we're waiting for that magic number…

There are way too many rules to go into about how, why, and whether you can report various expenses, so be sure to do your own research or ask a professional for further advice, and keep careful records and receipts to help prove your case.

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Should I use cash or accrual accounting?

I'll make this one easy for you, since I might have scared you away with the word "accrual" — most bloggers will use cash accounting. The only reason you might use accrual is if you're primarily or heavily a seller and have a lot of inventory or gross receipts (or expect to have). And it's generally best to pick one method and stick with it, IRS-red-flag-wise.

Here's an explanation from NOLO of the differences between the two methods. Cash is probably what you would naturally gravitate toward, because it's typically a little easier to understand. You report an expense when you pay it, and you report income when you receive it. So, if you do a writing job for someone in December but don't get paid till January, you'd report it as income for the following year. If you're participating in an affiliate program but haven't met the minimum payout yet, you don't have to report the income until whenever it finally crosses into your bank account. If you win a giveaway but the prize never arrives, you don't have to count it as income at all.

Accrual accounting is for businesses that report expenses and income as they are billed, rather than as they are paid. We'll just assume that's not the method for you and move on.

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Do I need to pay estimated taxes?

If you're self-employed — which is probably the case for your blogging business — there's no parent company to withhold taxes from your paycheck each period. The government doesn't so much like this and wants businesses to make payments at least quarterly based on what the estimated yearly tax bill will be so they keep their budgets going year-round. (Let's ignore the recent federal budgeting fiascos for the purposes of this post…)

The IRS says that everyone who expects to owe $1,000 or more in taxes for the year must make estimated tax payments. This is after subtracting withholding and refundable credits. Publication 505 will walk you through it more thoroughly and give you some examples.

One problem is that you need to figure your other income, as well as your spouse's income if you're married filing jointly, into the mix, when determining whether you will owe $1,000 or more in taxes. In other words, it's not if you'll owe $1,000 in taxes on your blogging earnings, but overall.

If you do not pay estimated taxes at all, or do not pay them on time each quarter, and the IRS determines you were supposed to have, you will be hit with an underpayment penalty (currently 4%) when you file your annual return.

If in doubt, consult a professional or let tax software walk you through whether you need to file estimated payments and how much each one should be. If you or your spouse have additional employment income, I believe you can also increase your withholdings on a W-4 to cover the amount of blogging income you're bringing in. Again, check with a professional to go over your specific situation.

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Do I need a business license?

Short answer: Quite possibly. Slightly longer answer: You'll have to check with your state as well as your county or city.

In Washington state, for instance, which has no state income tax, much of the tax revenue is gleaned from our very high sales tax rate (9.5% currently in Seattle) as well as — and here's the rub for us business owners — business excise taxes. Because they need us to file our excise taxes at least annually (some businesses must file more often), they're very strict about making sure we're all licensed and registered with the state so they know where to mail our tax returns to, you see? The city of Seattle is the same way, and if someone lives in Washington but outside Seattle limits, it would be the county or another city calling the shots. So, in Washington, I have to get a master business license with the state, which among other things, registers our DBA (doing business as) name (if you plan to do business in the name of your blog, this is a good idea). I wouldn't have to file it otherwise until I grossed $12,000 or more a year (and believe me, as a blogger, I am currently not). This license doesn't expire. But then I also have to be licensed with the city of Seattle, and that must be renewed annually. The state license starts at $15, plus a $5 fee for each DBA/trade name. Seattle licenses cost $90 annually but only if you gross over a certain amount, so for most bloggers' purposes, it would be $45.

I'm just putting these out there as examples, though. I'm looking into the state licensing laws for my business partner's state for NPN, and they're completely different. In her state, only corporations and certain limited liability structures file a business license or taxes (as far as I can tell!), so the only needed registration with the state is for the DBA name. Since for NPN's purposes, we're a partnership, I'll be registering that for us. But if you're a sole proprietor, you might not need to. And I need to check with the specific local government offices (county or city) to determine what our registration requirements are there.

My point is — it depends on your state and on your business situation. The Small Business Administration has a good starting point for finding each state's requirements. You can also go to your state's Secretary of State or Department of Revenue webpage or simply run a Google search for "[Blank] state business license" and see what you find out. You can then find the contact information you need to call and speak with an actual person to confirm your responsibilities.

Now, if you're incorporating, hiring employees, or selling merchandise? That's a whole different ballgame, and you will definitely need some sort of registration then. We'll assume most bloggers are not doing the first two, but some might be doing the last. See below for more.

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What if I sell items online?

Then, unless you are ever so lucky as to live in a state with no sales tax (we really should have settled in Oregon instead…sigh), you will need to collect sales tax for any in-state sales. In other words, if you live in, say, Massachusetts and you sell something to someone whose shipping address is also in Massachusetts, you'll be required to collect sales tax on that sale.

Even if you don't collect the sales tax from the customer, you're still liable for reporting and remitting the sales tax amount to your state. This is where some online seller types get tripped up, thinking that if they never collect the tax because the site won't allow them to, a la Amazon, that they have no responsibility to hand over the tax to the state. The state strongly disagrees with this view. (Etsy does allow you to collect sales tax, by the by, as does eBay, so make sure you tweak your settings correctly.)

You'll also need to keep a thorough record of all your sales along with shipment addresses and postage purchases so you can prove your interstate deduction on all of your out-of-state sales. In other words, if you grossed $200 in sales but only one sale for $5 was to an in-state customer, if you're audited the state will want you to prove that the other $195 went out of state. (They would like more money from you rather than less, dontcha see.)

Now, if you're selling through a venue where you don't handle the money directly, such as through affiliate links or a book you wrote that's listed on Amazon, in that case the selling company is responsible for collecting the sales tax (in these two examples, the store giving you the affiliate links or Amazon selling the book for you). Just be absolutely sure this is true for you before you neglect to collect and file customer sales tax.

So if you're selling products, whether through your website directly or through an external venue, find out whether you're responsible for collecting sales tax, file the necessary paperwork with your state, and keep detailed records of every sale.

State sales tax issues can get complicated and are very state-particular, particularly with the new laws to recoup lost revenue on online sales, so contact your state's Department of Revenue or Secretary of State for further help on getting set up to collect and remit sales tax. Someone there can help walk you through the necessary steps. They want to help you…give them your money.

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What if you filed "wrong"?

Let's say all this advice is coming too late for you — you're one of those responsible people who files before the last possible second (ahem) or never takes an extension (cough). You can always file an amendment of your tax return.

You have to download the form and send it through snail mail (sigh), and the earlier the better to avoid interest and penalties on any amount you owe.

I am not not not going to tell you not to amend your tax return if you left off income you were supposed to have reported or whatever else. That said, maybe the information above is what will help you in future years to document your income and expenses carefully throughout the year and file correctly at tax time — and win your case if ever you're audited (heaven forfend).

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Any corrections, questions, or additions? Leave 'em in the comments. CPAs especially welcome to chime in.

Best wishes to all bloggers with your taxes and future accounting — and may your business of blogging be a profitable one so that you owe lots and lots! (Or something like that…)

Accounting photo courtesy of Vangelis Thomaidis on stock.xchng

The most important tasks for bloggers — and what is not important?

2011-04-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Simple Blogging: Less Computer Time, Better Blogging, an ebook by Rachel Meeks of Small Notebook (and — full warning — I went ahead and signed up for the affiliate account, because I am an affiliate junky).

Even before downloading it, I had started thinking about what's essential for bloggers to do, and what can be trimmed. Part of this is in preparation for nesting and my babymoon period. Part of this is my general drive to simplify clutter out of my life. Part of this is my knowledge that sabbath rests are necessary to my wellbeing. Part of this is a long time coming, just because I've been feeling overwhelmed by how much time blogging takes up for me.

This article by Melodie — "My Kids Have Taught Me That It’s Time To Stop Blogging" — when she reluctantly yet joyfully decided to step away from Breastfeeding Moms Unite! was also a catalyst. Blogging is not a job for me in the sense that I earn much money from it. For the amount of time I put into it, I've calculated that I'm earning about 40 cents an hour. Hmm. Forty cents for an hour I could be spending writing my novels, caring for my home, helping my husband in our family business (which makes considerably more per hour), or, not to be all maudlin about it, enjoying my kid's (and, soon, kids') fleeting and precious childhood.

Now, blogging has become a passion of mine, and I recognize that the point of blogging does not have to rest on earnings. I so very much enjoy the community that has surrounded me in this blogging journey, and a lot of what I do as a blogger is with the intent of giving back to that community, and that makes me happy. That said, when I'm feeling stressed and on edge and staying up till 5 in the morning to finish linking up Wordless Wednesday posts for two sites or beating myself up because I have yet to finish a product review I've had three months to write and still don't really feel like doing or hiding fitfully from the overflowing email inbox that's overwhelming me with Tasks To Do, I have to ask myself: Is this what I'm actually passionate about?

So I thought I'd ask YOU — fellow blog readers, fellow blog authors — what you consider to be the essentials of blogging, and what a blogger can let slide.

I put together a little poll to select and then rank and then compare basic blogging tasks:

Content: frequently updated vs. meaningful (not that they have to be in conflict, but I think many of us would agree we can choose one or the other — not Amber, of course)
Posting schedules: Does consistency matter? What about having expected weekly or monthly memes (e.g., Wordless Wednesday)?
Courtesy/interaction with readers: How important is it to reply to comments and emails?
Courtesy/interaction with other bloggers: How important is it to comment on other blogs and promote other bloggers' posts?
Social media interaction: How important is it to have an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, or similar platform?
Writing opportunities: How meaningful is it for bloggers to provide blog carnivals, book deals, and other outlets for fellow writers?
Product reviews and giveaways: Love 'em? Hate 'em? Indifferent?

I'm going to assume that most of us would love for bloggers (themselves or others) to do all these things, and to do them well — but I'm also going to assume that for most of us (all of us?), that's an impossible task — particularly if, as parenting bloggers, we are also, you know, parents. So we have to choose what to keep and what to let go.

You can answer this poll from the perspective of a reader or a writer or both.

All of the questions are optional, so if you don't feel like doing the whole survey, it will still let you submit your answers. Feel free to choose what types of questions appeal to you.

There's also a space at the end to add your own thoughts — or, if you're not a survey person at all, feel free to just pop them into the comments on this post. This isn't even including incidentals like site design, putting images into posts, plugging a site on blogrolls and other linkups, attending blogging conferences, or starting ever more websites (ahem). If I left something off you think is crucial (or just expected of bloggers), be sure to make a note.

The above is a snazzy pop-up version of the survey, since I couldn't get the form version to embed correctly. If, say, you're on a phone, and you want a plain link, here you go: http://hobomama.polldaddy.com/s/blogging-survey

Let me know what you think: What should bloggers do better, and what can bloggers let go?

Disclosure: Simple Blogging links are affiliate links.
I try to seek out only products I think you would find relevant and useful.
If I don't like a product, I won't be recommending it to you.
See my full disclosure policy here.

Poem-a-Day Challenge begins, no April Fooling!

2011-04-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

Oh, me, oh, my! How did I forget that this is the first day of the 2011 PAD Challenge?

Who's with me?

The object of the game is to write a poem each day in the month of April. Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides will provide a daily prompt to put you in the mood.

And I'm not even bitter that none of my poems won any recognition last year. No, not a bit. Ok, a bit.

But, the good news is, I used last year's PAD Challenge to fill out my goal of writing more parenting poetry.

And I was able to collect those poems, and more from my journey as a parent so far, into a book of parenting poetry: Poetry of a Hobo Mama: The First Three Years.

Which makes me very, very happy I participated last year.

This year, my goal is to concentrate on chronicling some of the thoughts and emotions I've had during this pregnancy so far. Yep, working on that next book of parenting poetry! Even if I work on it only once a year…

Join me!

Photo courtesy surrealmuse on flickr (cc)

How to purge your email inbox

2011-03-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

I am NOT an expert on reducing email clutter and controlling what comes in each day. Best to start with a caveat. That said, I recently cleared my personal Gmail account from over 2,000 unread messages (you read that correctly) to 42.

Here are a few of the tips and tricks that I sometimes follow to help me keep a handle on inbox overload (some of which I should really attend to more often!).

For this purpose, I'm going to assume you use Gmail or will consider using it after I tell you about some of the clutter-busting features. However, a lot of the tips can be easily applied to other email clients.

Keep it from coming into your inbox in the first place.

Are you subscribed to umpteen email newsletters and mailing lists that you don't pay any attention to? If the last time you used a newsletter coupon from an online store was a year ago, would it be better to unsubscribe from the store's mailing list and simply go check a coupon site (like RetailMeNot, my personal favorite) when you need to?

Send it straight to archives.

Maybe you want to keep receiving a newsletter or other frequent mailing — but you don't want to have to see it. You'll feel better if you know it's there and can find it by keyword, but you don't want to have to click "archive" on each newsletter. If you have Gmail, you can set up filters to send select messages straight to your archives, and potentially into a specific folder/label of your choosing.

Click images to see them larger.

Up at the top of your Gmail screen, there's a tiny link next to the search box that says "Create a filter." Fill in one or more of the search options and click "Test Search" to make sure it's finding what you want filtered (and not what you don't want — you can use quotes to find phrases and negatives to exclude words or phrases in your search terms if you need to). Once you're happy, click "Next Step" and then select "Skip the Inbox" (and, if you want "Apply the label"). If you dislike having unread messages in your folders, you can also choose "Mark as read." (Personally, I've just hidden my unread word counts, a feature in Labs under Settings.) Creating multiple filters takes awhile (it's more work than unsubscribing, for instance), but it can be worth taking the time now to free you up in the future.

Get rid of emails older than 6 months.

You can choose your own figure in place of "6 months" — longer if you're gun shy, and shorter if you're determined to go minimalist. (I set my limit at a month, and it needed to fit all on one screen.) Plus, you can choose whether you delete the emails or do something less drastic like mark them as read or archive them out of your inbox. You're very, very, very unlikely to do something in response to an email you received even a few weeks ago if you haven't by now. Save yourself the guilt and the potential for bother.

Here are what I think are definite candidates for deletion (for sure if it's old and some as they come in to keep clutter at bay):

Any email containing coupons or deals that will certainly have expired by now
E-newsletters you haven't read yet
Notifications from your bank, credit cards, and the like, telling you you have a message or a new statement in your account without any further actual information in the body of the email
Duplicates of anything, like a reminder to respond to an invitation from a year ago (and, yeah, the invitation, too)
Notices that someone's following you on Twitter or friending you on Facebook
Pleas to take a survey or leave feedback
Anything making you feel guilty or sad. (This might be an archive situation rather than full delete, but it's worth considering.)
Reminders to do something you've remembered (such as from an online calendar or bill-pay service)
Email forwards from your mom (She'll send them again — don't worry.)

These are emails you might want to save but out of your inbox:

Anything personal written directly to you (aw! how rare!)
Anything you might want to reference later for your own reasons
Anything that's needed for tax purposes or other official business

I think it's valid to archive things that are old (or that will be pushed to another page in your inbox, even), because I know I'm unlikely to scan through hundreds or thousands of emails looking for one in particular. I'm much more likely to use the search function to locate something if it's not on the first page of my inbox. Might as well just archive the rest, then!

Subscribe to RSS feeds instead.

This is a tricky one, because (a) much depends on your own reading habits and (b) your feed reader might be as bloated and unmanageable as mine. (Purging your reader's another post!) But if you find, like me, that you do almost all your online reading on blogs and websites directly and almost none out of email links, it might be better to unsubscribe from your email lists and find an alternative. For instance, companies that send out newsletters often have blogs you could subscribe to just as easily, or perhaps a Facebook page you could "like" to get notice of current sales and coupons. Your local newspaper could email you a daily summary of the headlines — or you could just visit their site to find them on your own as you wish. One of the newsletters I subscribe to but rarely get around to clicking the links on is from Writer's Digest — when I do click a link, I notice it goes to that author's blog. Why don't I just subscribe to the blogs that interest me, then? I'll have a better chance of reading it once in awhile that way.

Have some stock answers handy.

Do you get or send the same emails time and again? I've found having a pre-formulated template can cut down on the amount of time I have to think about responding, which makes my responses faster (and gets those emails out of my inbox). You can craft a stock email in a number of ways: in a saved file in a simple text / text edit program, in your drafts in your email (just leave it there and copy and paste when you need it), or under Settings --> Labs --> Canned Responses (select Enable). I like to leave CAPS notes for elements I need to personalize (e.g., "Hi, PERSONNAME!"). I have canned responses waiting for customer service emails for our business (such as for people who can't locate their packages or want to return something), and for my blogging (Carnival of Natural Parenting editing emails and giveaway prize announcements, for instance). As long as it's not something that requires a completely personal touch, no one will be offended. (I wouldn't recommend creating one to respond to your mom, for instance, unless it's "What a funny email forward! I've never seen that one before.")

Archive any email where you're waiting for a response.

Unless you need to have it sitting in your inbox staring at you for another reason, trust that it will pop back up if a response is sent to you and you have to take a turn again.

Go radical with a zero inbox.

I read about the "Inbox Zero" idea awhile ago, but I've never trained myself to implement the system. The general idea is that you look at each email once, deal with it right then, and move on with your life. You have to set up a system of filters and archived labels or folders so that nothing stays in your inbox (such as "Read If Bored" for newsletters or "Deal With Today" for urgent messages). By the end of each day, you should have completely cleared your inbox (kind of like FlyLady's kitchen-sink philosophy).

The problem I have with this is that I'm very much trained as an out-of-sight/out-of-mind sort of person. Even the second page of my inbox might as well be Siberia for the chances I'll ever get there. I would have to be very, very diligent in retraining myself for this to work — teaching myself to check the urgent folders each day. I'm wondering if I should try it for a month in one of my inboxes to see if I can handle it or not.

Regardless, I like the general ideas behind it — that you have to be active about dealing with emails as they come in. You waste time and frustrate yourself looking at an email twenty times rather than just dealing with it then. (Much like FlyLady's "Do It Now" principle. I am a FlyLady dropout, but I can still hear her voice in my head…)

For instance, I get a lot of affiliate emails in my blogging inbox telling me what sales and deals I could promote for my affiliate brands — many more notices than I can do anything with. I make sure to label them all with a special label. That way, I can archive them immediately and when I have time and the desire, I can go through my label to find relevant posts. It can also help me in deleting old posts — anything under that label that's more than a couple months old is now outdated and can be safely expunged.

Use Priority Inbox to help you, well, prioritize.

Gmail has a feature now called "Priority Inbox" to help you automatically filter the urgent messages to the top. I appreciate it, because emails that aren't so important (newsletters, mailing lists) sink to the bottom and stay there if I need them later. I try to check the bottom of my inbox, titled "Everything else," at least a couple times a day to see if anything important got caught down there, and to clean out the really unimportant stuff. But it's the top section, "Important and unread," that I use the most. I like having this tiered system.

The only problem for me is the middle section, which is "Starred" emails that are either unimportant or important but read, I totally ignore. It's like the Scary Guilt Horror section of my inbox, so I keep hiding from it. I know this is psychological. To deal with this, in my personal inbox, I now have no emails in the Starred section. Anything I know I want to deal with urgently I just keep marked as unread and important (and starred if I really want to emphasize it).

Consolidate your inboxes.

I admit I have a personal inbox and a blogging inbox, but I actually have used this tip to help me keep things manageable. You don't want to be checking and managing numerous email inboxes every day; something's bound to get lost in the shuffle (if only your peace of mind). Gmail allows you to forward email into or out of an account (under Settings --> Forwarding). Your domain host will allow you to forward email sent to you at a domain name (such as mail {at} laurenwayne.com) to an address of your choosing. I have email coming to me at mail {at} hobomama.com, mail {at} laurenwayne.com, lauren {at} naturalparentsnetwork.com, etc. — but they all go to one Gmail account.

To keep things organized, you can go to Settings --> Accounts and Import and add addresses you send mail from. For instance, in my hobomama {at} gmail account, I can send mail as lauren {at} naturalparentsnetwork. That way, if someone writes to my NPN address and I hit reply, my Gmail settings mean that it will reply from that address.

So that's how I've begun the great email purging, and how I intend to move on from here. I have yet to tackle my blogging inbox, so I'll let you know how it goes.

If you wrote me several months ago and haven't heard back from me? Oops, sorry. And now it's likely your message will get caught in my decluttering. If it's really important, email me back and I'll mark it as important and unread … again.

Ah, well, progress, not perfection! (Darn, that FlyLady is catchy.)

What are your inbox-purging or email-handling tips? I can use more!

Image courtesy Agne Kveselyte on stock.xchng

How to add "Read More" jump tags in Blogger

2011-02-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

My new favorite thing in Blogger? Adding "read more" tags to posts. I'd seen this feature on WordPress and other blogs before but hadn't realized it was a Blogger feature, too. I think it's been here for donkey's years, but I was slow to catch on to the benefits!

Here's a little tutorial that will explain "read more" links and let you know why and how you should add them!

What's a "read more" tag?

First things first! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take a look at my Hobo Mama homepage (for I have not performed the same editing wonders on this site yet!).

(Click on images to see them larger.)

The "read more" link is at the bottom of the post that's been truncated. When you click on it, it links to the original article URL plus the #more tag at the end — in this case, this link: http://www.hobomama.com/2011/02/fat-and-pregnant-heartbeat-video.html#more. So if you're reading from a page and choose to "read more," you will get popped into the article at the point where you left off. On the other hand, if you click on the URL as a whole from another source (in a blog reader or from a Tweet, for instance), you'll see that the "more" tag is undetectable when the post is expanded (try it here: http://www.hobomama.com/2011/02/fat-and-pregnant-heartbeat-video.html). Then it simply shows you the post as a whole, and the "more" coding is invisible.

Other examples of a "read more" link at work can be seen in non-Blogger applications such as our WordPress-based Natural Parents Network homepage, which has a sort of magazine/excerpt vibe to it. You get a digest version of all the current posts and can click on the "Read More…" links if you're interested to, well, read more.

Why do I want "read more" tags?

Scanning and searching is easier

The biggest reason is to make pages that encompass a lot of posts less cumbersome for readers to scroll through and find what they want. This is true for your home page as well as any category/label search pages.

For instance, I've recently gone back and added in "more" tags on all my posts tagged with Elimination Communication on Hobo Mama. If you look at the category page for elimination communication now —

http://www.hobomama.com/search/label/elimination%20communication
— you can easily scroll through 19 partial posts on the subject and decide whether each article is really what you're looking for. (I'm guilty of popping labels onto posts that are only distantly related in some convoluted way in my mind….)

By contrast, I went to a label where I hadn't yet added jump tags, and only six posts loaded, in their entirety. That makes it a lot harder for readers looking for a particular article to comb through your category tags, particularly if you have a lot of articles shuffled into a particular category. They have to keep clicking on "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page, again and again and again, in the hopes of finding the one article they're looking for.

I was going to show you the difference between the two ("read more" tags vs. no "read more" tags), but I plan to change all mine over as I have time. The best method I can think of, if you don't have "read more" tags yourself and you're on Blogger, is to load your own homepage or a category page and see how clunky it is to wade through it all.

More information, less space

The other benefit, and it's related, is that you can show highlights from more articles on a single page. For instance, I used to have to keep my Hobo Mama homepage at a maximum of four posts (under Settings --> Formatting --> "Show at most X posts on the main page"). My posts tend to be long and have a lot of images, so it took too long to load more than that and sometimes the multiple javascripts would interfere with certain browsers.

With the "read more" jump tags, however, I can keep each individual post down to a manageable excerpt size and therefore safely and conveniently show more total posts on a page at once, making it more likely that a visitor will see something enticing.

How do I get me some of that sweet "read more" action?

So you're convinced! Now, how to add in those "read more" tags to your own posts? Fortunately, it's easy!

(Click on images to see them larger.)

It's easiest to do in "Compose" mode¹, because there's a little icon right there to press! As you can see in the top row of this screenshot, the icon looks like a page that's been ripped in half, symbolizing that a portion of the post is before the jump and a portion after.

Once you click the icon, this gray-with-black-dotted line pops into your post to show you where the jump will fall. You can delete it or copy and paste it elsewhere if you change your mind.

Alternatively, if you're in Edit HTML mode¹ (I tend to write in HTML view, so I think that's why I didn't notice the "read more" icon for so long!), you can type in the HTML code for a jump yourself:



Just copy and paste that HTML coding tidbit wherever you want your jump link to appear.

To make things easier on me, I actually created a draft post with just that code in it that I saved with a date in the future so it's always at the top of my drafts list. Then, whenever I need the "read more" code, I can just open the draft and copy and paste. Another option I just thought of is to add it to your Post Template box, which makes things even easier in the long run as you're composing new posts in Edit HTML view. Simply go to Settings --> Formatting --> Post Template, paste it in and save your settings. I pasted in   so it wouldn't be at the very top. Then the coding will show up in every new post — just make sure to move it where you want to before you publish a post!

Jump around!

A couple final notes:

I've heard that some older or nonstandard Blogger templates don't work automatically with the "read more" tags, so you might have to update or tweak your template in that case. My Hobo Mama template was automatically outfitted with the functionality and worked with no further fiddling on my part, but this template is not working. However, I want to upgrade my template here, anyway, so I'll deal with that later. If you're also having problems, let me know and I'll try to help you out!

Since you can't conveniently add custom excerpts yet for articles in Blogger the way you can in WordPress (see this link as an example of a string of posts in WordPress that mostly have handcrafted excerpts along with selected featured images), you might want to hone your skills at writing opening paragraphs that can function as an overarching preview for the article to come. I know I'm guilty of rambling on for awhile at the beginning of my posts (it's fun!) before getting to the point. But if you know that your before-the-jump paragraphs are all readers will see to choose whether or not to click and read further, you might find yourself making sure those opening paragraphs are concise and tempting enough to lure readers in further. Along the same lines, you might want any opening images to be pertinent, since whatever is up at the top is what will show. (Of course, you choose where the jump goes, so you can ultimately arrange it however you'd like!)

Rest assured, too, that anyone clicking on a URL from another source (such as Twitter or Facebook) or following your feed in a reader or email subscription will see the full post. These "read more" tags don't affect anyone clicking on a regular post link, only people browsing your home site or a category search page. To my point of view, those are exactly the times you want readers exposed to a wide variety of articles, so that's perfect for my needs.

If you want to make sure that the "read more" tag doesn't put extra spaces and line breaks into your post, simply don't add them in! You can smush the "read more" coding right up against any other words or html, without any extra spaces or line breaks around it, and the break will happen there as planned.

Enjoy your "read more" tags — your readers will!

1 If you need a simple mini-course on the difference between Compose and Edit HTML view in Blogger, see my tutorial "How to edit HTML in Blogger."^↩

Google Reader shared items: Your public feed for reading recommendations

2011-01-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

Do you want an easy way to share blog posts and online articles with your friends and readers?

Google Reader has a way to share items and create a public feed with all your reading recommendations.

I first heard about this idea from Paige of Baby Dust Diaries, in a footnote on her Sunday Surf. (If she has an awesome, longer tutorial somewhere I'm missing, she or someone can let me know!)

In this how-to, I'll pass on what I learned from Paige and teach you how to set up your own Shared Items feed in Google Reader, add to it easily from Google Reader, and publish the feed to your blog.

In a future how-to, I'll talk about some further Google Reader goodies, including a way to add items to your shared feed from outside Reader, and even if you're not subscribed to a feed for an article you want to reference. I'll also talk about how to show off a public feed on your blog or other site.

Absolute basics

You need to have a Google Reader account and be subscribed to your favorite blogs. I'm going to skip ahead at this point and assume you've got that part figured out, but if you need help, let me know and I can do a separate tutorial!

Add to your shared items

(Click on any image to see it larger.)

Whenever you open an article in Google Reader and scroll to the end, you'll see these options. The two relevant ones are "Share" and "Share with note."

To add an article to your shared items, simply click on either share option.

"Share" will add it automatically to your shared items. The little feed icon will turn orange.

"Share with note" lets you add a comment to your item. A box pops up like so:

You type in your comment and click "Post Item."

(Notice you could also add a note but uncheck "Add to shared items," if you wanted a private note to yourself.)

"Your shared items" in Reader

(Remember, click on any image to see it larger.)

To see the items you've shared, go to "Your stuff" in the left sidebar. If there's a plus-sign (+) next to "Your stuff," click on it to show the drop-down menu. Select "Shared Items." If you want to see only the items you've left notes on, click on "Notes."

You can see an article I shared and the note I wrote to go along with it in the blue box ("I want to live in a treehouse!").

(In case you're wondering, I blurred out my feeds because I give them weird names ;) and, yes, I have more than 1,000 unread items, which means I've broken the Google counters.)

How to unshare an item

If you want to take back your share, look at the bottom of the post where the orange icon is. The word will now say "Unshare," so just click it again to remove it from your shared items.

If you wrote a note, click "Delete" next to the little trash can instead (the icon that used to be a pencil and paper).

(Look at the picture above to see both the "Unshare" and "Delete" icons.)

Make your shared items public!

So now you've shared them, but who's seeing them? We have to go mess with the settings to make sure it's all the people you want!

The link for Sharing Settings is http://www.google.com/reader/view/#friends-manager-page. It's linked on various pages, such as toward the top of "Shared items" and "People you follow."

You can also navigate there (it's a little hard to find, but in case they change that link!) by going this route:

Click "Settings" in the top right header, and wait for the drop-down menu. Select "Reader settings."

(Remember, click on any image to see it larger.)

Click the tab that reads "Folders and Tags." There you can see the message next to "Your shared items," "Shared items can be configured on the sharing settings page," and "sharing settings" is linked. Ta-da!

The top option lets you choose whether your shared items are "Protected" (you choose which groups can view them, based on your Google Contacts) or "Public" (open to anyone online). You can also see whose recommendations you're following, and who's following yours, and you can search for new public shared item feeds to track.

Set your style

Now that you have a public feed, you also get to style your Shared Items page, on the same "Shared settings" page. There are four (rather limited) options, so choose whichever one makes you happiest.

You can also choose a custom URL (such as http://www.google.com/reader/shared/hobomama), which makes it easier to tell friends about your new public feed.

We'll talk more about emailing the link below, and we'll get into adding a clip to your blog in a future installment, but feel free to play around!

Your public feed

Now when you click either on "Preview your shared items page in a new window" or paste or type that new URL into a window, you will see what your public sees.

Reader pulls information from your Google profile (such as your name and links to other public accounts), so make sure your Google profile is displaying information the way you want it.

Share your shared items!

Now you can hand out the URL of your public feed (e.g., http://www.google.com/reader/shared/hobomama) to let people know to follow along or subscribe.

People can also follow you in Google Reader by entering your name under "Find more people" on the "Sharing settings" page. They'll then click on "People you follow" in the left sidebar to see your shared items mingled with the items of other public feeds.

In "Sharing settings," there are two opportunities to email a link to your shared feed to your friends. They don't even need a Google account (just internet access) to view your shared items feed. If they do have a Google account, you could recommend that they follow you in Reader.

Have fun and start sharing!

And stay tuned for advanced Google Reader goodies!

Incidentally, feel free to follow my shared items public feed! I share articles about parenting, blogging, and writing, along with other fun tidbits, such as about treehouse living. You can also follow me in Google Reader by entering "Lauren Wayne" under "Find more people" on the "Sharing settings" page and finding my cute little face.

Choosing who can comment in Blogger: Allowing the option of name and URL

2011-01-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

Dionna of Code Name: Mama and I are writing a few blogging tutorials of particular use for our Carnival of Natural Parenting participants. This topic is loosely related to the carnival, because certain options allow for easier commenting on Blogger blogs.

Do you want to adjust your comment settings in Blogger to determine which readers can comment?

Choosing what permissions to grant commenters (from requiring registration to allowing anonymous commenters) can affect how easy it is for people to comment — and, therefore, how likely readers will be to convert to commenters. Specifically, you might receive more comments if you allow commenters to type in their own name and URL or comment anonymously, because it can be appealing for certain commenters.

Everything has its pros and cons, of course, which we'll cover in a bit. For now, here's where you find the options, what they mean, and what they look like in action.

The four commenting permission options in Blogger

Blogger has four permissions options for its commenting system. Go to your Dashboard, then choose the Settings tab, then Comments. (There's a main tab labeled "Comments," as well, but we want the sub-tab under Settings.)

Look for "Who Can Comment?"

Here are the options. Start from the bottom up to go from most restrictive to least:

"Only members of this blog" — Commenters have to be contributors or administrators of the blog and must be logged in to Blogger to comment.
"Users with Google Accounts" — This is the default for Blogger. Anyone commenting must have a Google account and sign in to Google.
"Registered Users - Includes OpenID" — This opens up commenting to people who don't have a Google/Blogger account but still requires that they identify themselves in some way by logging in with an outside account. This expands the accounts commenters can sign in, in addition to Google, with LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, and AIM. Commenters choose their preferred account, enter their URL or username, and then OpenID takes them to a separate page to authorize with their password.
"Anyone - Includes Anonymous Users" — This is the most open of all the commenting options, and is the only one that allows for Name and URL entry. It also is the only one that allows anonymous commenters.

Once you decide which option you prefer, select the little circle next to your choice. Then scroll to the end of the page and make sure to click Save Settings.

Here's what they look like in action, both from the perspective of the commenter, and what a comment looks like live when it's published. Then we'll talk a little bit more about why you might choose each of the four options.

What the commenting options look like

Here is what each option looks like, first from the commenter's perspective on the comment form, and then live once published. (Your comment form might look different, depending on which form option you chose, but the permissions options will be the same.) In these examples with the comment form, I've selected option #4 up above, allowing all users, including name/URL and anonymous. If you've selected a more limited option, you simply won't see the extra options on the comment form, and Blogger will give a special message if only Google accounts are permitted to let commenters know that anonymous comments are not allowed.

The first option is to use a Blogger/Google account. (This is the only option you'll see for #1 and #2 in the permissions options above, and this option will remain visible for #3 and #4.) Commenters can sign in on the comment form; if they're already signed in, their Google profile name will already show up in place of the username/password sign-in section and they can opt to sign out if desired.

Live, the comment will show the display name they chose for their Google/Blogger profile, as well as any avatar they uploaded, and it will link to the profile. The profile can then direct a reader to the commenter's blog and other information. Here's what it looks like in action:

I was hovering my mouse over the link, so the linked profile is shown in the bar along the bottom.

As mentioned before, OpenID allows commenters to sign in with LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, or AIM. (This corresponds to permissions option #3 as well as #4 from above.)

Here's what an OpenID comment looks like online:

You can see the OpenID icon next to the person's name, and that their registered website is linked up.

This is the Name/URL option. Entering a URL is optional. Therefore, a person can comment, for all intents and purposes, anonymously using this option by entering a name (or pseudonym) in the Name field but no URL below. (This you will see only with permissions option #4 above.)

This is what name and URL look like published. The name for the commenter shows whatever the commenter has entered in the Name field, there's no avatar associated, and the linked site is whatever was entered into the URL field. Again, commenters can choose not to enter a URL, in which case the name would show up without any link, similar to Anonymous below.

This is the completely Anonymous option. No information is taken from the commenter at all. (This also you will see only with permissions option #4.)

This is what an anonymous comment looks like. As you can see, there's no linking at all, and it's fully anonymous. Name/URL comments without a URL will look the same, with whatever name was entered into the Name field in place of "Anonymous."

Pros and cons of the four options

You have to consider your own comment policy when choosing your permissions options. How open or restricted do you want your blog to be to commenters?

I'll go through each of the four options and describe why you might choose each.

"Only members of this blog" — This would be useful, as far as I can see, only on a private or semi-private group blog — for instance, if you started a blog so that a group could share ideas with each other, or if your family had a blog where each member could post pictures and updates but you weren't inviting public exposure. You will obviously limit the comments you receive, because no uninvited outsiders can comment at all. This can be useful if you want to keep discussion limited to team members.
"Users with Google Accounts" — This is a good option if you want to have a safeguard up for who can comment. It's likely to keep the laziest spammers and trolls away, because it requires signing into an established Google account. However, it doesn't guarantee that you as the blogger will know where commenters are coming from; Google profiles can be marked as hidden. For commenters who have their own sites, it doesn't give as much instant gratification in terms of linking to their blogs, because it's a two-step process: Click on profile link, then click on the website from the profile (if linked there). Google profiles aren't that customizable, either. A plus for commenters is that many, many people have Google accounts now, so it's likely they'll already be signed in to one, making commenting straightforward. It will, however, exclude anyone who doesn't have a Google account and doesn't want to create one, or who doesn't want the Google account publicized, even with a hidden profile.
"Registered Users - Includes OpenID" — OpenID allows bloggers from other platforms to log in as authorized users and leave a comment. This will give some traceability to comments, which again reduces the likelihood of spam or troll comments. A downside for commenters is that OpenID isn't as readily understood as the other commenting options. Because it goes to an extra page for logging in, there can be fear (sometimes justifiable) that a comment draft will be lost before the log-in process is completed (or if it cannot be completed, due to a mistyped password or the like). It also doesn't allow for personalized avatars next to the commenter's name, just the default OpenID icon.
"Anyone - Includes Anonymous Users" — This, the most open of all the commenting options, will greatly please bloggers who wish to have a clear link to their own website, and will also relieve genuine commenters who don't have a handy account to log into to comment. However, it also opens you up to the most troll and spam comments, due to the ease of the anonymous functions. See below for some further thoughts on this. Some blogs might be conducive to supporting anonymous commenters, such as if you regularly write about sensitive subjects and wish for there to be frank conversation, if you want numbers of commenters over quality of discussion, or if you want ease of quick and repeated commenting, such as for a giveaway site. (Again, setting your comment policy will help you determine your own goals.) You will probably attract the most commenters with this option, because it allows for the easiest commenting and the most possibilities for commenters to choose from.

Here's my opining on the four options. I used to allow #3, the Registered Users option with OpenID. However, I eventually switched to #4, for the purpose of allowing Name/URL comments. However, I dislike that I can't turn off anonymous comments separately. I feel like there should be an option before #4 that allows a WordPress-like comment option (name and email address required, with URL as an optional field), but no anonymous users. Sure, trolls and the like could still enter a fake or unused email address and a pseudonym (or "anonymous"), but at least they'd be traceable to some extent, and the accountability would, I think, cut down on the nasties.

I'd also like to be able to track and manage IP addresses from commenters, so that I can block repeat offenders, whitelist the good guys, and identify problem commenters from the back end.

(As we're making our wish lists, take a second to vote on Blogger ideas you like best, and let's cross our fingers they're implemented soon!)

If you are in the same boat of wanting to open your blog to the most commenters you can but would rather avoid spam and trolls, there are a few actions you can take, in rough order from most difficult to easiest:

Switch to WordPress or an alternate blogging platform. This isn't a sarcastic joke; I know people who have switched for the comments alone. For me personally, it's not worth it. I'm comfortable with Blogger — to the extent that I switched this blog from WordPress. But switching to WordPress would indeed give you WordPress-like commenting features!
Install an alternative commenting system. The two I know of for Blogger are Disqus and IntenseDebate. I went back and forth on the idea of one or the other, and even tried them out on a test blog, but they both had their drawbacks as well. Also, you'll want to be fairly confident with fooling around with your template's html and other settings if you want to install outside comments (which means you're probably not reading my tutorials, see?). For now, I'm sitting tight and waiting for Blogger to improve…
Heighten your moderation of comments in Blogger. The good news is, Blogger has finally implemented a spam filter, so many spam comments are indeed caught in that net now (not all, but the most obvious and offensive ones generally are). You can add to your defenses by going to Dashboard --> Settings --> Comments again and scroll down to the sections marked "Comment moderation" and "Show word verification for comments?" I'll go through these options more thoroughly in a future post, but for now, just know that you can choose whether comments post automatically, or whether you get to review them ahead of time (either in email or in your main Comments tab). Know, too, that you can at any time delete a comment that doesn't square with your policy, and you can mark spam comments as such to improve the filtering over time. For word verification, you can choose whether commenters must type in a random "word" to comment, as seen in the comment form screenshots above. This greatly cuts down on the amount of automated robo-spam. You can also turn off comments entirely on certain posts, such as after a determined number of days or if you're receiving more spam than usual on particular posts. There are pros and cons to all these comment moderation choices, so I'll discuss that in more detail later. Basically, the fewer restrictions you have, the easier it is for people to comment, and the more freely they are likely to comment. This includes genuine readers with insightful things to say — and spammers selling you their latest pills, as well as mean anonymous types swooping in to flame you and scurry. It depends, again, on how open you wish to be, what environment you want to cultivate on your blog, and how hands-on you want to be about your comment moderating.

So, those are the current options Blogger has for allowing types of comments. Here's hoping for even more options in the future!

What commenting options have you enabled on your blog, whether on Blogger or another platform? What commenting options make you most likely to comment?

Lauren Wayne

#NaNoProgMo January 2012: Week 1

The ambition of a writer who's also a mother

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Progress on NaNoProgMo: Halfway or two-thirds?

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At some point, I feel unbalanced if I enter too headlong into novel writing.

I did not write any description before now.

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NaNoProgMo…How's your "prog"?

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