Looking for Winter Holiday Pet Story Quotes

Waiting for Santa.

Our pets and the holidays -- is there a better recipe for a cute story?  

As a pet blogger, of course I can't think of one! I'm working on a post on that topic right now for CANIDAE's Responsible Pet Ownership blog. While I adore writing about my dogs, this time around I would love to include you and your pet's special winter holiday memories!

So, do you have a hilarious, heartwarming or just special-to-you winter holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, etc.) memory to share? 

Maybe your pet reacted over a gift, destroyed the tree, had babies, ate the holiday meal -- there are so many possibilities! 

"Oh, I have a story..."

If so, you can take the survey for the article on Survey Monkey (it's just a few simple questions) or just send me a message on my Facebook page. Be sure to include your pet's name and breed, if you know it.

You can also send me a picture of your pet on Facebook, if you have one, to include with the article.

"I'm all ears!"

   You can find the survey here. 

   And my Facebook page here.

"That's a good one -- tell it again!"

   Feel free to share the survey link      
   (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SLC83NP) publicly or with   
   anyone you think might want to take it. Anyone can answer.        

   Taking answers until noon EST on Monday, Dec. 10, 2012. 

Thanks 

and 

Happy Holidays!

Image credits: levork/Flickr.com; AZAdam/Flickr.com; sadiehart/Flickr.com; adrigu/Flickr.com

Free Freelance Writing eBook: Learn how to turn your writing into a business and make more money

Seriously, who doesn't want more money for their writing?

I sure do. And I've made more since reading "Managing a Freelance Writing Business: A Writer's Guide to Building a Strong Business," by Angie Mohr, CA, CMA. I still refer to the tips in this book today. That's why I'm so excited to let you know this ebook is free on Amazon today and tomorrow.

I bought the book and found it to be invaluable. Now you can benefit from it for free.

No, thinking about the business end of our craft isn't what typically drags us to the keyboard, but "Managing a Freelance Writing Business" is filled with tantalizing tips on how to turn one idea--even one article--into multiple revenue streams. More money? Now that's inspiration!

Yay, Bottlenose! Social media app saves drowning writers from a sea of constant status updates

Using the Bottlenose app feels just like this.

Come up for air and enjoy social networking again!

Looking for real-time results on what your network is talking about, but don't want to spend an hour surfing the feed? Same here.

So I checked out Bottlenose, a social media app that reads your Facebook and Twitter feed and lets you know what topics are popular.

How does it do that? With real-time Sonar, an interactive visual way to see your network's trending topics, people and more. It even shows you how these topics relate to each other and lets you click on each topic to really delve into what people are chatting about. Next to the Sonar graph are the related messages in your social sphere.

How does Bottlenose help writers?

In multiple ways--from social to promotion. Now you don't have to waste time finding someone

Keeping Old Writing Clips: Super smart, sweetly nostalgic or just plain old hoarding?

Maybe I should make a clip book like this.

Throwback Thursday

Do you have a massive stack of old clips sitting lonely in a box? I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I do. The frail newspaper could-set-your-house-on-fire kind. Okay, even the xeroxed almost as flammable paper kind, from junior high. The problem is figuring out whether they've outgrown their usefulness, professionally and personally.

It started out innocently enough, even naturally. I wanted to be a journalist growing up, so I saved the yellow copies of my junior high paper and the newspapers from high school. Making a spiffy neon clip book, I proudly showed my work to my college newspaper adviser. It's what I had read writers do.

Identifying interesting interview angles & subjects

Interview, originally uploaded by smiling_da_vinci.

 It would be nice to have instant access to the most famous or obviously newsworthy people on any given subject we're writing. While it doesn't often work that way, freelance journalists can still dig up some interesting people to interview on any given subject. All you need is an angle.

Writing about a movie? Interview real life people who have been in a character's situation or worked in the portrayed profession. Talk to fans.

Political news breaking? Get the opinion of lesser known or retired politicians. Talk to the people who the news will affect. 

Big event? Look for the smaller story within the larger picture. Go after that interview. Here is an excellent recent example by freelance writer Marie Anne St. Jean: "Dogs of the Titanic: a Dozen Aboard, Three Survived."

Freelancer Fantasy: A fiction writing vacation

The perfect writing spot: Decatur Street, New Orleans.

Lately my mind has been wistfully conjuring images myself typing away as indifferent strangers pass by with unknown purpose, shrouded in the mystique of a locale that thrives on its crush of humanity.

Now that would be a proper writing vacation.

Cowboy Up: Find a home for those rejections

Writers get rejections. It's inevitable and what you do after receiving these disheartening emails often decides whether you can make a living as a writer or not.

What do working writers do? They cowboy/girl up and get creative.

Because we have bills to pay.

You probably do too, so take a look at the rejection and decide if the piece is salvageable. Give it an honest once over and decide if it is publishable. Is it out of date? Have too many errors? Need fixed?

Is it worth fixing?

Yes? Then look for other--preferably paying--avenues of publication. Find websites, blogs, trade magazines, newspapers, contests, etc that accept that type of content and send it off

Infographic: Top 5 Twitter Mistakes Writers Make

Fail whale moments for freelancers.

Freelancing Fail Whale

What writer doesn't look back on their first few days of tweets and cringe? I sure do. Here's a chance to look back and laugh at the mistakes we made before getting the hang of the Twitterverse. For new tweeps, take this as an opportunity to shorten your learning curve.

*Infographic after the article.

5. Irrelevance & Obscurity

Twitter isn't the social network to go to the artsy outfield. If you aren't tweeting something relevant or current, you aren't going to be relevant to the medium. Attention spans are short and no one is going to follow your storyline 140 characters at a time. There could be 50 tweets in between each one. Who could keep up with that? So save your novel excerpts for your blog or website, where they'll be

The Spirit of Writing Goals Trump Actionable Lists

The spirit of my goals are my 2012 writing goals.

I'm going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom for a moment and state that nebulous aspirations are just as--if not more--important to writing goals than yearly navigational checklists. (Gasp!)

That's right. 

Because I believe that you need to know what state of being you want to be in, or view your work from, before you know in which direction to head. And all that comes before envisioning all the little steps (or epic leaps) it's going to take to get you there.

The spirit of your writing and the manner you embark upon doing it should matter. That should be the way in which your proceed, the momentum that carries you towards your goals--be it successfully starting a new

Late Nights, QuarkXPress & Conquering Evil Macs: College newspapers are freelancing bootcamps

Huge boxing gloves + deadline = true story

Throwback Thursday

I know, I know. You're thinking writing for a college newspaper is an obvious way to prepare for a freelance writing career. Of course it is--but not in the ways you think. The skills you gain go beyond learning how to write a lede, interview sources or design a page. What is really going on is on-the-fly training that will help you learn to take only the work you want, what elements are important and how to handle difficult clients.

What do you really want to write?

Eagerness is the bane of many budding journalists. It's nothing to agree to cover a concert, interview the student body president and profile the basketball team's star player--all for the next issue. The problem is finding the time to cover everything and turn in a quality article.

The paper has to be put to bed, whether you've gotten any sleep or not. A deadline is a deadline. So those hours you spent at the student union watching jumbo boxing instead of

Writing Life

Writing Without Glasses? Not So Much... 

Vanity can be the bane of productivity. In order to be a productive freelance writer, actually seeing what is on the computer screen is vital to submitting any writing. 

Pretty simple, right? Yeah, well, not if you normally wear contacts and abhor eyeglasses. I get excellent points for toddling off periodically and purchasing contacts. The plan always is to buy glasses sometime...later. 

Sooner would have been better. Falling asleep on the couch typically involves taking out my contacts and giving them a good saline rinse. Except when I woke up this morning I discovered the saline was empty. An attempt to put on my trusty taped glasses resulted in a lens falling into the sink drain.  

After a lengthy rescue effort (involving pink straws, electrical tape and a tea spoon) I was able to put them on. And couldn't read a thing. Eight years of violent wear and tear had finally finished them. 

Now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure I was subconsciously trying to annihilate those glasses. I've always hated how they looked and reacted to my sensitive skin. Crimes committed against my eye wear were many. They've been slept on, stepped on, crushed between bed and wall, dropped down many holes, imprisoned in sofa cushions and tortured by my puppy's teeth.

Anyways, back to writing productivity. It was well after 4 p.m. when I managed to secure contact solution. A whole day of writing literally down the drain. As a writer I back up my work, buy duplicate office supplies, have a home phone in case the cell doesn't work and even have a backup computer. None of which matters if I can't see to actually use any of it. 

Photo by mexcast / flickr