Writer Mentoring Program

I recently had an excellent opportunity. Sharon Hurley Hall, an experienced freelance writer, asked me to be a test subject in a new program she is starting.

I had already learned a lot from reading her blog, so I immediately replied with a "Yes, please," knowing I was sure to learn something good.

The format was easy and flexible. We "met" online, using Google Talk, for 3 sessions, each about 1 to 1-1/2 hours, over the course of a couple of weeks. Before the first session, I sent her an email with a list of specific topics within the broader "freelance writing" theme.

Sharon made good use of the time, having a well-organized list of important points ready to share with me. She was able to go on for some time, filling me with useful tips and suggestions, but was also willing to be interrupted by my many questions.

I got many tips I could have obtained by reading articles, but I also got personalized advice specific to my situation. I showed her links to my writing and she helped me see strong points I hadn't thought to promote, and also suggested ways I could broaden my topic list. She pointed out that I could recoup losses I'd had when I'd written articles that were never published for one reason or another.

When I agreed to test her mentoring program, I thought it would be a chat with several new freelance writers or writer-wannabes, which I thought would be a good opportunity. I was amazed to learn it was just me, and as a result of this one-on-one attention I learned so many things that can help me with my writing career that I can't even count them. Lucky for me, Google Talk keeps a chat log of chats, if you have that option selected, so I can refer back to these sessions anytime.

I would recommend this service to anyone who wants to learn anything that has to do with writing online. Even someone who only wants to blog can learn a lot from her. She knows a lot about many different aspects of making money by writing online. I was especially impressed at how well she organized her thoughts, even when I asked questions that took us down rabbit trails different from the topics I'd originally told her I was interested in. This service will help aspiring writers keep from making costly mistakes, so it's well worth the money you will invest in it.

Anything Worth Saying

I was listening to music on Pandora and a song came on that got me thinking about how I have trouble posting on this blog because I often can't think of anything worth saying.

The following song came on:



You can't link to songs on Pandora, but I found the same song on YouTube so you can hear it sung live if you want. The whole point of the song is that he is asking God to give him words to speak, because he can't think of anything worth saying. Anything Worth Saying is, actually, the title of another album by Aaron Shust.

I guess I should start praying about what to post on this blog.

Maybe I should have given the matter more thought before I named this blog.

There is, apparently, a yellow jacket nest somewhere near my computer workstation. Every day, there are yellow jackets flying around. Last week, one landed on my foot. It climbed down, crawled across 4 of my toes, and kept crawling onto the bottom of my foot, where it went back up the length of my arch and came out again onto my ankle. Giving up hope that it would ever fly off, I grabbed the stack of 6 or so pages that were in the printer, and used the edge to knock him off. He landed on the floor and sat their contemplating life long enough for me to drop the stack of papers onto him and stomp on it.

I have lost track of how many of these guys I've killed in the last week. They're starting to take revenge. I was bit by one on Saturday and it's still bothering me.

A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally severely cut my thumb with a really sharp kitchen knife. I'm still wearing a band-aid. so when I go swimming, I hold my hand out of the water. The easiest way to do this is to keep my hand on the edge of the pool, and somehow, a bee saw it there and decided to attack.

I didn't even see it. It happened so fast, I wasn't sure what had happened. There's still a mark, and it hurt for several hours and then started itching. It's still itching, this is now 3 full days later.

My son was attacked by a swarm of ground bees a couple of weeks ago, too.

I've always been called Beelissa. I mean, it's just a nickname that's used occasionally, but it's stuck with me since I was a child. I thought it was good for an internet username because it's often not already taken (compared to several other choices I've tried that usually already belong to someone else). But if it's going to attract real bees, I might be re-thinking this.

Bee-ware!

A $10 word, even if it isn't the longest English word

Sesquipedalian.

I very clearly remember this from the Word-a-day calendar my boyfriend in college had. This calendar taught us two very interesting words, the meanings of which I still remember.

The words were sesquipedalian and defenestration.

Sesquipedalian means "of or pertaining to a foot and a half," and defenestration means "throwing something out a window."

Of course, words can have more than one meaning. Sesquipedalian has come to mean "given to using long words" or even referring to long words themselves. If you look at the Latin parts you can see where my first definition above came from. Despite opinions to the contrary, sesquipedalian is not the longest word in the English language, though I did find a blog post describing it as a $10 word. Does that mean I can earn $10 by writing about it? This post should be worth $20.

Sesquipedalian came up in a little vocabulary game called Match Up that I have as a widget on my iGoogle page. They give you 2 groups of 5 words and you have to match the synonyms. Each day, a new set of 5 pairs. A computer obviously picks them, because it's pretty obvious, even if you don't know what it means, that sesquipedalian and sesquipedalia have to be synonyms.

Why Grannies Like Linux

New little mini-notebook PCs like the Asus Eee PC are popping up all over. And other budget-priced computers are being sold that cost less because they run some version of Linux, not Windows. And it's not just young people or geeks who are buying them. Grandmothers, apparently, are finding out that they love Linux.

So, I was thinking. My grandmothers are both in heaven now. I remember I was at my grandmother's house the day Windows 95 came out. I had been on vacation and hadn't realized what day it was, but the little podunk newspaper that they publish in this out-of-the-way corner of Indiana had a big ad for Windows 95. My grandmother asked what it was. I wasn't able to explain it to her -- but this was back when home computers weren't as common as they are now.

My children's grandfather has email, and his wife has a separate email address. They know how to use the computer, as do most grandparents nowadays. I'm pretty sure they know what Windows is. Whether they know what Linux is, that's another question.

Some people just want a computer to work. They want it to be able to run programs they can use to do email, surf the web, look at photos, watch videos, play music, write a simple document. They don't care what program it is, as long as it works and they can figure out how to use it easily.

So grandmothers like Linux if it's configured so it's easy to use, as it is on these computers. And the lower cost, saving the licensing fees that are associated with Windows machines, is a big plus to anyone who watches their pennies or just doesn't want to pay a high price for a computer.

Redecorating

I got tired of the way this blog looked, so I redecorated. This is one of the basic themes that comes with Blogger, except I made my own header. I like this much better than the old one, which didn't quite turn out the way I'd envisioned it.

I love creating visual stuff. It's nice to take a break from writing all day and do some visual art instead.

This picture (in the header) reminds me a bit of my Mom. She worked as a secretary to a bank president before she had kids, and I'm sure she typed on a typewriter like this one and I know she had hair like that, only more of a reddish shade (she always called it "strawberry blonde").

This is one of the first things I've made using The Gimp. It wasn't hard at all, mostly. Now if I can just learn how to do vector drawing in it, I'll be all set. In my spare time.

Artwork

I thought I'd create some artwork to decorate my blog.



Enjoy!