Two weeks into my 50-day social media break, I no longer find myself going to Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ out of reflex. It took two weeks, but it’s gone now. And in its place, there’s a sense of peace between my writing time and time spent online again. It’s nice checking email in the morning […]
The Web’s Effect on Writing
Yesterday, I read this article on Lifehacker about how surfing the Web at work can make people more productive. I wasn’t surprised to hear this. While I work at a desk with a great view of a lake and have everything I need to do my job as a technical writer, aspects of my job […]
A Week without Social Media
A week ago, I decided to give up social media for 50 days. A few days ago, I read an article about a writer talking about how he lived without Facebook and Twitter for 2 weeks. (The thing that hit me was how he mentioned “Lived…without”–Implying that social media has become something vital to our […]
Kicking the Social Media Habit
I never tried a cigarette, but I have friends and family who smoked. When they quit, they all mentioned how much of a habit reaching for a cigarette was. Just BOOM! they reached out for something that was no longer there. I mentioned yesterday that I’m taking a 50-day break from social media. Sunday night […]
The 50 Day Social Media Break
When I read Monica Valentinelli’s Hunting Down the Value of Social Media entry and the followup: The Results of My 100 Day Social Media Blackout, I wondered if I could go without Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for even a month. I’ve fasted and taken other challenges in my time, but as hard as some of […]
Google Plus for Writers
Yesterday, I mentioned some of my initial thoughts about Google+. So far, I like it. I have friends who don’t; I have friends who like it but won’t use it because it’s yet another social network. I get all that–I feel the same way myself about many things I’m told I should use as a […]
Initial Thoughts about Google+
The first thing I noticed about Google+ when I received an invite and checked it out: no Farmville, Mob Wars, or other games filling people’s feeds! The second thing I noticed: “Aside from no Farmville, this is almost exactly like Facebook.” The third thing I noticed: I was wrong about Google+ being almost exactly like […]
Writing About Writing
Over at Chuck Wendig’s Terribleminds, the talk today is about blogging about writing. Should writers blog about writing? Does the world really need another writing blog? Some writers say no; others say yes. Why I Blog? I started The Juggling Writer to keep writing even more on my mind than it already is. While I’ve […]
The Benefits of Sequential Content
I’ve always been obsessed with the structure of things. When I was younger and shoved into learning disability classes for dyslexia, something clicked: I saw the importance of being able to string words together. By becoming fixated on syntax — from the way letters went together to form words to how words went together to […]
Head Over to Social Media Examiner
I recently wrote about a LinkedIn traffic trick that helped get more traffic from my LinkedIn profile to The Juggling Writer and my other sites. In the last paragraph of the entry, I mentioned that I answer questions on LinkedIn when I feel I can help somebody or add to the conversation. I recently answered […]
The Effects of Hurrying
As a writer, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes worry about people’s lack of focus. People seem to rush about in a blur — I hear more and more people say they don’t have time to read. I see people reply tl;dr (short for “too long; didn’t read”) in comments on blogs […]
LinkedIn Traffic Trick
I recently did one little thing that increased traffic from LinkedIn to my websites almost three fold: I customized my link descriptions. Before and After My link descriptions used to read “Personal Website” and “Blog” — the standard LinkedIn defaults (along with “Company Website”). Also, I never used the third slot LinkedIn allows for links […]
Open Camp Day 1 (Morning Recap)
I’m attending Open Camp this weekend. While people who read The Juggling Writer regularly may wonder what a recap about a conference focusing on Web technology has to do with writing, so far every panel discussion I’ve listened to has offered things I can do and use as a writer to get what I write […]