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

Xenophobia produces poor journalism, writing

That is an obvious statement, perhaps, but think about it. How true could the reporting of xenophobe be if they are writing from a skewed lens of unfounded fear or suspicion of the strange or foreign, especially in regards to people? Even the form of uncritical stereotyping renders their writing dishonest. Maybe not intentionally so, but still inaccurate.

Pinning My Writing Inspirations on Pinterest

Pinterest is a magical tool for visually inspiring writers.  I know I said that before in January, but thought it was worth stressing again. The photo pinning social network can be used to create topic boards on all the topics you like to write about, but it's more than that. If you just use the site to pin things you like--and create niche topic boards for these pictures--it hones in on things you really love.

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.

Joke Time! Writing humor and gags worth a giggle

Writing can be serious business. So today I want to lighten the mood by sharing a few of my favorite writing jokes and gag gifts.

Sadistic Mouse

Want to keep a writer productive? Gift them this chocolate bar ice cream sandwich mouse, from Amazon. Tell them they can have the real thing when they make deadline. We really will work for food--if it's yummy enough!

Exception to the Rule

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."