Do you ever get that feeling where you have loads of things that you want to say, but you physically don’t know how to get the words out?

I had this one night this week. I was lying in bed worrying about something. In my head I had a full on monologue going on, I was ranting and raving in what felt like quite a reasonable and coherent way and yet when I tried to say out loud how I was feeling I just couldn’t – I couldn’t make my mouth open. It felt like there must be a loose connection somewhere between my brain and my tongue, a wiring malfunction.

“Brain to mouth, are you receiving me?”

Radio silence. Quite literally.

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If I had to think quickly about one moment in my life that had changed its course for ever, it would be tempting to focus straight away on the whole ‘pregnant at 16’ thing.

Yeah, I know, having a baby at 17 in the middle of your A-levels is a pretty big deal, (insert subtle link to teenage birth story here), but what about the smaller events, the ones you don’t thing of as being important at the time? I found a photo recently that made me think about one seemingly small decision that ended up having a huge impact on my life.

Belle was just a few weeks old, (I was 24 this time around, still fairly young), and things weren’t going altogether as well as I had hoped. Bee had been a ‘good’ baby in the ‘sleep through the night, be held by anybody’ sense and of course at the time I had smugly put it down to my ‘relaxed parenting style’. Oh how everyone must have laughed when Belle came along. View Post

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Creating a voice for your blogEarlier this week I asked Bee to have a look at a post I was drafting. This is always a little scary for me as she has a bit of an eagle eye for mistakes and isn’t afraid to be critical. As she read I watched her face, trying to spot the bits that made her smile.

“So what do you think?” I asked when she had finished.

“It was fine,” she said.

Fine? Fine?? I don’t want fine. That’s like telling a man who has just confessed to being in love with you that you think he’s ‘nice’. It’s not cool. View Post

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Would you like to make money from your blog? Perhaps you harbour dreams of making the move from amateur blogger to professional writer or journalist?

A while ago I reviewed the expert telephone service from Greatvine, and found it really interesting, so I very happily agreed when they offered me the chance to review their new email expert service.

Because the question and answer are exchanged via email, I thought it would be great to ask a question that you all might be interested in, and to then reproduce the answer in full, so that you can get an idea of exactly what you get for your money.

My expert was Joycellyn Akuffo, a journalist and online business coach, and founder and editor of Mothers Who Work. I asked Joycellyn this:

"Make money from blogging"

Grab that cash

What advice do you have for ‘mummybloggers’ who want to turn their hobby into a job? How can someone go from being a blogger to a paid writer, earning a living while at the same time working flexibly around their family?

The answer came back to me in less than 24 hours, even though it was a weekend, and Joycellyn’s answer was very thorough. I would have perhaps liked to have seen some further sources of information included – it was an email, so it would have been easy to include hyperlinks – but then to be fair my question was fairly broad. I guess too that the experts want to leave scope for further questions!

Here is what Joycellyn said, so you can decide for yourself. Do let me know if you find it useful.

…

Writing and blogging – these days you could be forgiven for thinking that they are all the same. Some bloggers really know their stuff and they have a natural knack of getting the point across to thous ands of people every day or month.

But the two specialties differ, and with it does the training involved or required, and the income can vary too.

Making money from a blog

Let’s start with blogging. First of all a blog can be run by someone who isn’t a writer – most of them are owned by non-professional writers. Some are run by professional writers, journalists and editors.

There are a number of ways to make money from a blog, but they all require one basic thing – traffic and lots of it. So here goes:

1. Search Engine Advertising – this can be using the age-old Google Adsense ads. You would have seen text ads on some blogs, with Google Ads written on them, and sometimes banner ads, again with the Google branding on them. These won’t make you rich, but  if your blog gets lots of traffic, you could probably pay for your hosting or a handbag and shoes three or four times a year. How much you make will depend on the top ic of your blog (these ads are keyword based), and the cost that advertisers are prepared to pay for each click in the sector. Some keywords cost as little as a penny, others cost a couple to a few pounds.

Other search engines like Yahoo and Bing also have their own advertising programmes that basically do the same as Google Adsense.

2. Affiliate Marketing – this is when you promote other people’s products and services on your blog. You can sign up to affiliate platforms like Tradedoubler.com, Affiliatewindow.com and Clickbank.com and start adding links and banners from well-known brands to your website.

These can bring in commission as little as 5% per sale to around 20% per sale. Some schemes (though few and far between these days) will pay per click like Google Adsense, but they are mainly cat per action (this can be per sign-up for surveys, for example, or a purchase).

Many people like promoting relevant products on Amazon th rough their affiliate programme, but like all of these schemes, it won’t make you a millionaire.

3. Direct Advertising – this is when you deal with a brand or company directly. Either you call and speak with their marketing department or they contact you. This form of advertising could be a sponsored post, where they supply you with an article (or you can charge a little extra to write a post yourself).

A lot of advertising agencies do this and will contact blogs offering a pittance to put a post up to see if the blogger will either be too inexperienced to know they are being ripped off, or are too desperate to tell them where to go!

Sponsored ads can bring in from say £50-£500 per post, and will depend on not only your website’s traffic, but also your page rank.

If you’re interested in this form of making money, you should really create a media pack. This is usually a PDF which you can send out to advertisers when they request it (or when you’re trying to get advertising off your own back), and will contain details about your blog’s traffic stats, the type of people who visit your website, a rate card (cost of advertising) and contact details.

4. Selling Products/Services – if you can sell products or a service (like webinars, membership or other service), you can start to make ‘proper’ money. You will basically be providing something that your website visitors need and want and keep them coming back for more. It doesn’t have to be lots of products or services – sometimes just one or a handful will do the trick.

To move from being a mummyblogger to a money-making mummyblogger, you could use a mix of the above, or option 4. With a product that people want and need, and with enough promotion, your blog could become a business run by you, in your own time, generating the income that you need to sustain the right work-life balance that your family needs.

Writers

Without teaching a chicken to suck eggs, a writer is usually a person who writes books, or may come from say a medical background and is seen as an expert, so starts writing a column or a regular feature for a publication or website. Journalists are sometimes (incorrectly) lumped into the same group – especially freelance journalists, but clearly they come from a media background and have had the training and experience looking for a story and crafting it etc.

Writers of books and novels may not necessarily be trained. Some may have taken a creative writing course, if their interest is in books.

Journalists, like I said earlier are trained. They would usually have done a media writing course, a media law course and have worked on various publications – some have a specialty and some don’t…a journalist is trained to be able to write about any subject, you see.

If you are a blogger who is an expert, you could make money spiriting books. These days, you don’t need a great big publisher to succeed – thanks to Kindle and just having the ability to sell your own ebooks from any website. How much you make really depends on how much interest or need there is for your subject area, and how much promotion you can do. A lot of these types of writers often get a break with one good media push and then they get in a bestseller’s list and start raking in the cash!

Journalists usually pitch an idea to an editor. This is a small proposal of a few paragraphs which details what the article is going to be about, plus an idea of case studies/expert quotes etc.

What they are paid will vary – smaller publications can pay as little as £250 for a 1,000-word article…maybe less if the journalist has less experience. Larger publications like the nationals can pay up to and in excess of £1,000 for an investigative piece or a good celebrity interview. Again, it depends on the experience of the journalist and the editor’s budget.

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You’d think that with the wealth of technology we have at our fingertips nowadays that something as simple as a pen and paper would be practically obsolete. And fountain pens? A relic of the past surely?

Apparently not.

According to the BBC today sales of fountain pens are rising, and Amazon say that sales so far this year are four times that of the same period in 2010. That’s a crazy rise isn’t it? What’s causing this amazing fountain pen resurgence? Are we all sick of gadgets and hankering after the past?

"Fountain pen"

The power of the pen

 

I do wonder if I have been partly responsible for the trend, as I have bought about six fountain pens in the last few months. Everyone in Belle’s class is required to write with a fountain pen, and Belle unfortunately hasn’t quite got the hang of pressing gently and evenly, resulting in a costly number of snapped nibs.

It would seem though that Belle’s school are in a minority, and that most schools no longer insist on children using fountain pens. In fact, one headmaster at a school in Stockport even went so far apparently as to ban GCSE pupils from using fountain pens, as he was worried it would affect their exam performance.

Despite getting through them quicker than Bee gets through crates of Angel Delight, Belle loves using a fountain pen. She happily spends time sat up in bed practising her best handwriting, and her choice of pen seems to give her a sense of importance, that makes her take her work just a little bit more seriously. Her pen gives her gravitas, just as lawyers and doctors using fountain pens inspire an air of authority and confidence.

Is this the power of the pen in action?

What do you think? Do you have a special place in your heart for fountain pens or is this possibly the dullest post you’ve read all week?

Photo credit – Linda Cronin

 

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As a journalist, it’s all too easy to get distracted by research. In my case, this ‘research’ often starts with checking my blog stats and ends with a nice cup of tea, perhaps with a little stop at Amazon along the way.

This can often mean that the actual writing of words takes some time to achieve. Five minutes into a poetry workshop though and we have already launched ourselves into free writing. Free writing is a way to get you started, to simply get the words flowing, whatever they may be, and it’s a useful tool for people who find themselves staring at a blank page, not knowing where to start. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to impress anyone, it doesn’t matter if the words even form proper sentences, you just have to write.

It’s brilliant. In three minutes I have already written these first paragraphs! I feel a bit guilty, as I’m sure I should be writing something a bit more creative, rather than a critique of the class and its techniques, but the horrors of reading aloud to the group don’t apply to this exercise, so I think I can get away with it. View Post

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This evening I’m at a new writing group at The Bristol Folk House called The Steady Table.

The idea behind it is to give people the space and time just to write, be it poetry, short stories, or a J K Rowling style wizardy blockbuster. All you need is a steady table right? The trouble is, I’m so used to ‘making the most’ of every minute, of squeezing every bit of work time out of the day, that the idea of three whole hours just to write creatively is a bit daunting. I feel almost guilty, as though indulging in a passion for fiction is just that, an indulgence.

That’s the point of the group though isn’t it? Expressing your creativity should be a perfectly valid use of time, and we need to accept this, and not be afraid to embrace it. Tonight though, I’m easing myself in gently and writing this post instead. It sort of counts doesn’t it?

*looks doubtful*

The group is great – a fascinating, diverse mix of people, including a man called John who eats pizza with a spoon* – and I’m sure that I’m going to enjoy the time out once I get over the fact that I’m allowed to write made up stories. Seriously – fiction – what’s that about? You’re allowed to tell actual lies!

I love the idea of going somewhere different, somewhere special to write. If you’re the type of person who can work on their own, there are of course loads of options available – forums, online groups and flexible distance learning creative writing courses – but I work from home all week. Coming out is a treat.

On my way over in the car I did think up an idea for a story, just in case they wouldn’t let me sit down without a synopsis, but I haven’t quite got around to writing any of it down yet. I have had a cup of tea and a very nice chocolate brownie though. It would seem there are some things I feel less guilty indulging in.

If you’d like to join me to do some scribbling on a Tuesday evening,  follow The Steady Table on twitter.

*John eyes me curiously when I look up from my typing and ask if he spells his name with an ‘h’.

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I’ve hit a wall.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I wrote anything and now I don’t know where to begin. It has become a thing, a chore, a nag at the back of my head – ‘you really should write a blog post you know…’

Yes I know, thank you brain for your ever helpful input.

You know when you leave the washing up for too long and you get to the point where you’re having to butter bread with the back of a spoon because all the knives are dirty? You know you should just wash up, but somehow you can’t. You’ve left it too long and it’s become too much. It almost feels like it would be easier to just sweep all the dirty dishes into the bin and start again with new ones.

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Last week I had a bit of a recycling frenzy. All my boxes were already out on the pavement, and the lorry was due any minute, but suddenly it felt like a Very Good Idea Indeed to see how much paper I could get rid of. I even fell down the stairs a little bit in my excitement, but no one saw that, so we’ll brush over it and move on.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve used my new-found writing career as an excuse to buy and hoard magazines, believing I will spend hours reading and gaining inspiration. Of course it doesn’t happen, because most of the magazines out there are utter shite, full of make-up ads and air-brushed models that make me feel like I should be fasting or sticking my fingers down my throat, so instead I line my study with shelves full of useful boxes of unread magazines, just in case.

“Blimey, this one likes her reading doesn’t she?” I heard one of the recycling collectors say to his mate as they heaved box after box of my old glossy magazines into their van.

Not anymore. Now my shelves are clear, and I can eat guilt free.

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There comes a point in the life of blog where the initial excitement wears a bit thin and you start to think about what it means to actually send your thoughts out into the world all on their own, where the ‘Yay! People are reading my blog!’ turns into a ‘Bugger, people are actually reading my blog.’

When you’re sat at home by yourself with nothing but a laptop, a selection of bad nineties music and a packet of bourbons for company, you forget sometimes that a world exists outside the front door. You forget that the words you write are potentially going to be read by thousands of people. Ok, maybe hundreds. Or tens at least.

For some people, it’s the thought of strangers reading that is uncomfortable, the idea that someone you’ve never met, on the other side of the world, gets to peek into your mind and learn all sorts of things about the way you think.

For me it’s more the people I know. The collection of family, friends, colleagues, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends’ girlfriends… I know I have at least one of each among my readers…

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Today my blog is one year old.

For twelve whole months now I have been sharing some of the random thoughts that pass through my mind, amusing you with my dating horror stories, revealing my selfish attitude to parenting, and revolting you with my talk of smear tests.

During the year, my blog has been looked at 61,153 times, produced 165 posts (not including this one), attracted 3,270 comments and won one actual real life award. Generally I’m pretty pleased with how it has gone, especially as I started it on a bit of a whim, never having read a blog before, and with no real idea of what I wanted or hoped to achieve.

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About a month ago I posted a couple of attempts at some fiction writing, which my number one fan Brian very much enjoyed. So much so that he has been working on his own part of the story on his blog, Extremely Average. I did promise Brian I would write some more, and he has been very patient, but I have kept him in suspense long enough.

Please bear in mind this is just a first draft, so obviously I need to cut about 70% of it and change all the words, but apart from that… It carries on (vaguely) from where the last post stopped, and finishes rather suddenly due to my having a bit of a headache and quite wanting to go and have a little lie down. All constructive criticism very welcome.

…

As they approached the source of the noise Beatrice broke into a trot. She moved gracefully – she was much more elegant than Amy ever imagined a camel would be.

Amy hung back though, hesitant about what they might find, not sure if she wanted to bring a baby into their lives. She’d known Beatrice less than an hour and it really felt too soon to be starting a family.

She remembered feeling the same nervous dread when her Dad had taken her to meet her brother Dan for the first time. She was five when he’d been conceived, and had been quite happy as an only child. The arrival of an extra person in her carefully ordered world wasn’t something she was looking forward to, particularly when she had only recently finished rearranging all her dolls alphabetically. She needn’t have worried of course, she had fallen in love with Dan the moment she saw him – lying in his plastic box at the Farnham Centre, wearing the tiny brown hat with the puppy ears that she’s picked out for him the month before at Mr Panther’s Baby Emporium.

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