Two years ago today, I set off on a mission. It was a mission of writing, a mission of making a living, a mission of blogging. I’m still standing and frankly, I’m a little amazed. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge. I’ve seen jobs come and go. I’ve kicked some clients to the curb and worked desperately to hold on to others.

In my one year anniversary post, I wrote about being amazed at the number of blogs that I thought would be around forever and had already bitten the proverbial dust. Here at the two year mark, I’m no less impressed. If I kick the big boy blogs out of the equation, I can literally count on one hand the blogs I follow that are still up and running from when I started my little Tumblemoose (ad)venture.

I can honestly say that in the last two years, I’ve never given a thought to quitting. Oh, I’ve been dissatisfied, that’s for sure. The thing is, something has always come around to give me new inspiration, new enthusiasm, new reasons to stick around. I think that what keeps me going more than anything else are the great folks that I continue to meet through Tumblemoose. The support and encouragement that I’ve received has been a great source of pride and inspiration for my writing. Truly, without you folks I could not have wound up where I am today.

I can’t say I’m quite as bright-eyed as I was in the beginning. I can say that I’m a lot more savvy. I’m a lot more forgiving of myself and of others. In short, I’ve matured. Matured in my writing, my psyche and all of the other things that really matter.

I’m feeling there is something big right around the corner. I can’t say what it is because I don’t really know. All I can say is that I’ve got this profound sense of peace and security and whatever it is, it’s related to my writing. It will be interesting to see what I have to say in my third year anniversary post.

So, let me take a moment to give a heartfelt thank-you to my readership. You folks are such an important part of what I do here and I’m thankful for every set of eyes that come visit my site. I hope I will continue to earn your trust over the next year. It should be fun.

Finally, I do a lot of writing for Monika over at The Writer’s Manifesto. I post about four articles a month and they are primarily about freelance writing. Feel free to head on over and have a look if you’re so inclined. While you’re there, be sure and check out some of the things by Mark Pepper – but make sure your seat belt is fastened and your flight attendant is in their full, upright and locked position.

A couple of weeks ago I received an assignment to rewrite a couple dozen blog articles. I always find it a bit fascinating to read blog articles that I’ve been asked to rewrite. At first, I wonder why it is that they need to be rewritten. I mean, how did they come to be accepted in the first place? As well, opening each article is kind of like opening Christmas presents in some Bizzaro-World. Each one is filled with all kinds of grammatical stocking stuffers.

I need to preface things by letting you folks know that I am not the world’s best writer. Shocking, I know. For the sake of consistency, I always have a typo or two in darn near everything I write.

After completing this last batch of rewrites, I can honestly say that there must be hope for me and my writing career.

Here are a few of the things to which I was exposed:

The comma fetish – There was a writer who felt the need to use, like, commas for well, everything that could, be considered a, pause in speech. The thing is, by getting rid of the commas the prose was tighter and read better to my inner ears. If it was only a matter of style, I may have let them be. As it was, they were a major distraction so I kicked them to the curb.

Sentence fear – Oh-Em-Gee. There were and-mines everywhere. More buts than a booty convention, too. Why this fear of making a new sentence? It’s easy. At the end of a thought, hit the key with the little dot on it, thusly: . Now, spacebar, spacebar then press and hold the “shift” key as you type the first letter of a brand new, shiny sentence. Some of these run ons were so long, they ended up being parasentences or sentengraphs. Or something.

Informal tone – “Hey, Yippy-skippy here. How’d ya like to know about the seven most awesome dog polishers ever invented?” We all know that my tone on Tumblemoose tends to be a bit on the informal side but when I’m writing blog posts for others, I kick things up a bit. I’m not saying the writing needs to be stiff, I’m saying it needs to be a bit more professional.

Of coarse – Not a typo. One writer started about every third sentence with “Of course”. On occasion, in very specific circumstances this phrase may be warranted. Otherwise it comes off as condescending and arrogant. Of course, I could be wrong about this.

Cutesy cute – That simile that it took hours to come up with? Not cute. Not at all. In fact it is often distracting and amateurish. This goes back to one of the hardest things about being a good writer. Stephen King puts it best in On Writing: Kill your darlings. That’s right. That extremely clever quip or simile needs to go away. I’m talking tone and professionalism.

Format or floormat – When writing blog articles for submission to a client, simple is best. 12 point font, Times New Roman, minimal heading formatting, standard bullets and for most clients, submitting in MS Word or Open Office is expected. If you are serious as a freelance writer, suck it up and quit writing your posts in Notepad. .txt and .rtf are so Web 1.0

It was a definite challenge to bring some of the articles back from the edge of death. As with most writing assignments, I learned a great deal about myself and my writing abilities.

What say you? Have you been in the position of rewriting someone else’s work? How did it go?

Hi folks. Took a week or so off to recharge the ol’ batts. Didja miss me?

Next week will mark two years that Tumblemoose has been around the blogosphere. I have no idea where the time went. It seems like I just wrote my one year anniversary post.

In the two years that I’ve been blogging, I’ve never met one of my online buddies – until last week. I’m certain that geography plays into my isolationist behavior, but I know that there are other factors that are part of the equation. I tend to be not too much of a social creature and I enjoy the solitude of just me and the laptop laying waste to white space.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of folks that frequent my haunts that I would love to get a peek at and even hoist a mug (or shot glass. YOU know who you are).

Last spring, one of my favorite writers let me know that he and his wife would be visiting Alaska in the summer. Since he’s one of my favorite peeps and since I’m proud of my state (except the freakin’ weather) I offered to show him around and at a minimum to meet with him.

I received an email from him a bit later outlining the dates they would be in Alaska and we agreed to meet in Seward. Seward is one of my favorite places in Alaska. It’s right on the ocean and when the weather is good, there isn’t a more beautiful place in Alaska. Even when the weather is rainy and miserable, Seward just can’t be beat.

It was a Maddy week and she loves Seward like I do so we made a little trip of it. We left early Sunday morning and headed south. It’s a beautiful two hour drive from Anchorage.

Wildlife count: 1 pod of beluga whales, numerous bald eagles, some jellyfish and two dead porcupines (which fascinated Maddy even more than the whales did).

We were to meet my friend for lunch at about noon. I was excited to be meeting him and his wife. I wasn’t nervous at all. Everything about it felt “right.” When I stepped out of the car, I heard Wayne call out. I grinned, waved and walked right on over and gave him a big hug. No formal handshake here, folks.

You see, Wayne Long and I have a connection. I think it has been there since we first discovered each other. Long time readers will recognize Wayne from his thoughtful and striking comments that he leaves as he frequents the Tumblemoose site.

Lunch was great and our time was too damned short. Maddy was enthralled by Wayne and his gracious and lovely wife. I could see why Maddy was taken with him. Wayne is a big, gentle, bear of a man. Soft spoken and kind eyes that reveal the depth of the man.

We chatted about life, writing, his HAM radio shenanigans and how great it was to connect.

The good-byes were brief and a bit sad. It was amazing. I spent two hours with Wayne yet when we left, I felt as if we had been friends for years.

I’m happy that my first in person meeting with an online friend went so well. It has set a very high standard, though. I hope that in the future I can meet more of my online buddies.

I’m curious to know of your experiences. How many of you have met someone in person that you originally met online? (Craigslist doesn’t count but if you want to privately email me with all the juicy details then I’m all ears)

This is another is a series of #TWEET books that I’m doing for Teresa Morrow of Key Business Partners. I’m particularly pleased to have reviewed this book because titling is something near and dear to my heart. Without blowing me own horn too much, I think I’ve been blessed with the titling gift. I don’t spend hours agonizing over titles for my posts or for my short fiction. In fact, often a title will float into my head and I’ll build a story or a post around that title.

#Book Titletweet follows the format of the other books I’ve reviewed. It is a relatively short E-book where the information is presented in 140 character tweet form. At first blush, you would tend to think that there could not possibly be much in the way of valuable information with such tight constraints. Actually, just the opposite is true. By getting rid of all of the extra words and fluff, the meat of the matter is laid out in all of its brilliant glory.

The author of this book is Roger C Parker. Here is a little about him:

Roger C. Parker is a “32 Million Dollar Author,” book coach, and online writing resource. His 38 books have sold 1.6 million copies in 35 languages around the world. About his ‘Looking Good in Print’ the New York Times said, “…the one to buy when you’re buying only one!”

Roger has interviewed hundreds of successfully branded authors. He distils his experience in this book and shares what he learns at Published & Profitable, and on his Writing Tips blog.

I think that makes him fairly qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject.

Otherwise:

#BOOKTITLEtweet’ stimulates a new way of thinking about titles and outlines a process for choosing perfect titles and subject lines.

Concise and to the point, this book helps business professionals reap maximum value for the time and money they invest in creating and distributing their message. Its tested process for effective title selection is invaluable for business professionals who know that writing can build their brand and position them as thought leaders. If you are an author, an entrepreneur, or an information marketer, you will find that this gem of a book sparks your creativity and provides new directions for effective writing.

‘#BOOKTITLEtweet’ gets you to rethink the importance of titles and see the central value of the title in all your written projects. It demonstrates the importance of market research and early feedback in title selection. By focusing on the power of a title, it gives you a head start on a broad range of writing projects and helps you to examine them in the context of the needs and interests of your readers.

In this book he shows you how to take a fresh look at titles and re-examine their effectiveness. The hundreds of examples he provides will inspire you to recognize good titles when you see them, and apply their lessons to your own projects.

‘#BOOKTITLEtweet’ coaches you to welcome writing projects, and optimize your written communication to maximize the value of your time, your money, and your brand.

I think it’s well worth a look. Pick up your copy here.

On several occasions I’ve posted about my love for Smashwords.com I’ve several E-books published over there and just this last week, one of them topped the 1000 downloads mark.  The others that I have there are doing pretty well, too and overall Smashwords has exposed me to about 3000 folks who have downloaded one E-book or another of mine.  Heck, the last time I  was exposed to 3000 folks I got a public indecency charge. (pending)

If you have an E-book and you’ve been wondering where to publish the thing, look no further.  Seriously, Smashwords is the way to go.  Do you have a collection of short stories or flash fiction that you’ve been waiting to publish?  Get off your duff and get on over to Smashwords.  The sign up is free.  The process is straightforward and easy as pie.

Take my word for it, just this once.  This Saturday afternoon, you could be emailing all your buddies about having your E-Book published.