That Writer Chick

Guest blogging is a great way to promote you and your brand. Not only can guest blogging boost traffic to your site, it’s the perfect to build relationships with your readers. So, how do you pitch your blog? You want to be guest, right? Then you need to follow some guidelines before you submit! Check these out:

1. Avoid the generic greeting: If you want to be noticed, then sending a mass email out to all bloggers in need of a guest is not the way to go. Address the blog master by their name. Personalize your greeting. Show them you’ve read the blog and tell them why you feel you would be a good contributor for a guest blog spot.
2. Do your homework: Before sending an email out to a blog about why you think you would be a good fit for a guest blog appearance, you have to do some homework. Think about if you are really a good fit. If the blog is about women’s health concerns then it wouldn’t be a good idea to send something in about how you think space travel is the next best thing. It’s over dramatic, I know, but you need make sure that you fit the blog otherwise you’ve wasted your time.
3. Don’t be a menace to society while sending your blogs in the blog-hood: Send your pitch once. Give people time to respond. If you don’t hear back chances are you will, so sit tight. Sometimes over-emailing and over-asking gets annoying. If the blog is popular then it may take some time for the host to get back to you.
4. Don’t get trigger-happy: Follow submission guidelines. Chances are if you don’t follow guidelines then your guest post submission will either be returned or remain unread. There are guidelines for a reason. By not following guidelines, you basically say that the blog is not that important. Be careful what you say through your actions.

Interested in submitting guest blogs check out Cathy Stucker’s Blogger Link Up.Here’s how it works: “you will get an email each Monday, Wednesday and Friday from Blogger Link Up. These emails will list bloggers looking for expert sources, requests for guest posts, bloggers and web masters offering guest posts, and PR reps and others seeking reviews of products. When you see a request that you can fulfill, just respond directly to the requester.”

So, how do you think a guest post could help promote your business? Did I miss anything in the guidelines for submitting a guest post?

I recently read a great blog post that explores how we view ourselves as good or bad writers by Kat Latham. I completely agree that many writers forget why we started writing in the first place. I know I wrote because it just felt good; writing satisfied me in ways that other things did not. Now, I am not saying that other things in my life don’t satisfy me, but perhaps they don’t satisfy me in the way that writing does: free and full of possibility.

Why is it that getting published defines our worth as writers? Whatever happened to writing because we have to? Writing because without it we would just be? I can’t deny that when you get an acceptance there is an overwhelming feeling of self-worth, but for how long does that last until you get another rejection? So what if you are rejected?

I agree with Kat that the goal of your writing should be writing effectively. Are we forgetting that as much as our writing is about us it is also about our reader or our audience? Are your readers satisfied?  Perhaps that should be the most important question when questioning your status as a writer.

I know that when my readers react to my writing, tears or laughs, that I must be doing something right. The point is to go into your writing fearless. Go into your writing as if all you want to do is write the story; all you want to do is speak the stories that live inside of you.  I know that when I write the last thing I think about is how this will make the reader feel because that’s not the point. If you made the decision to write then you have to give into and work at developing your craft: rejection or acceptance.

There’s no point in worrying about a rejection or acceptance before you’ve done this. There’s no point in agreeing that you are bad or good before you’ve let go; given in to the process. So, keep going. Fail better.

How did you feel when you got your first rejection? Did you stop writing or did you pick up the pen again? How do you avoid the emotional trap of rejection?

First, I wanted to thank fellow Montclair Patch blogger Melody Lima for her comment on my recent blog post: “Why Aren’t You Writing?” Melody brought up an excellent point about organization. Where can we write? Where does writing fit in? Is it in the middle of soccer games or homework or full-time jobs? Is it on the bus or train or subway? Is it before we close our eyes for the evening?

In my experience, I write anywhere I can: on the backs of old receipts, in the Notes application of my Blackberry, on a check (don’t tell my Accountant that). Sometimes, I even carry note cards around me or record my ideas on my voice recorder on my smart phone.

I know this doesn’t work for everyone, and I respect that because we all have different lives: some lives are busier than others. I am going to suggest two possible remedies for organization: the Morning Pages and an Artist’s Date by Julia Cameron author of The Artist’s Way.

Julia Cameron’s the Morning Pages are three pages of stream of consciousness done first thing in the morning that help you start the day with your writing in mind.  Cameron says that that Morning Pages are not a form of “high art,” so don’t think you have to write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel first thing in the morning. Truth is, your pages may be “negative, fragmented, repetitive or bland.” But that’s the point! Remember “Worrying about your job, the laundry, the weird look your friend gave you – all that stuff distracts you from your creativity. It eddies through your sub consciousness and muddies your day. Get it on the page first thing in the morning and move on with your day with a freer spirit,” says Cameron.

Cameron also encourages writers to have an “Artist’s Date.” I think this is a great way to spark your imagination and get you to do something with you! Take yourself on a date and go explore something that you are interested in on your own. Make it once a week or more. The bottom line is to allow yourself to become inspired. It doesn’t have to be an over-the-top date. Take a walk around Montclair.  Do you notice something about your town that you didn’t notice before? What did you find?

Try either technique. What worked? What didn’t work?

This is going to be a short blog post and not because I am under deadline. I wanted to ask one important question:

Why aren’t you writing?

I have to say that there are moments when I let my frustration, worry, or that myth about writer’s block get in the way, but shouldn’t that not stop me?

Is it your full-time job, obligations, or the fact that you have no time that keeps you from writing?

Why is it that when you get good ideas you just stop at that good idea? Why don’t you write it down at that moment? Why aren’t you blogging or writing your book? Why aren’t you journalling or reflecting on writing in your journal? Why aren’t you doing what you love?

Tell me, why aren’t you writing?

With writing comes many disappointments, many rejections and many people telling that you aren’t good enough. If you love writing, if you need writing to survive then what does it matter if you are disappointed some of the time? Stop being afraid of your writing. Stop being afraid of rejection.

Don’t take rejection as a sign of your worth; it’s just one part of the writing process. The other parts of writing you own: the slow entry of words dancing through your skull. You are the first person to come up with that idea, with that image, with that lovely way of talking about love.

Look into the shiny, bright eyed face of your writing and say: I am not afraid of you and the rejection you bring. Say to your writing that you are here to stay. Your writing will just have to get used to it. Come together with your writing under the darkness of shade, between the sheets, in the cupped hand of lips.

Sit with your writing and talk to it.Tell your writing that you know there will be ups and downs; that things will not always be perfect. Look into the eyes of your writing and hold its hand. Tell it that you are here for it as long as it takes.  Embrace and love one another. You both could be happy.

Tell your writing that everything will be OK. Talk to it about the first time you had sex or the first time you fell in love. Tell your writing that it arouses you and that it is the only one. Hold its face between your hands and say, “It’s OK if we are rejected by the world.”

Even if you were both full of disappointments and wild mess, it’s all going to be just fine. Remember you are both finding out who each other are; you are both becoming truly yourselves together. There is no need to fear.

So, take another deep breath and deal with rejection. It’s going to be fine. And, no, you shouldn’t stop submitting and drafting and falling into your writing head first. Who says you can’t? Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t be afraid of you. You will begin to learn who you are, who your writing is and who you are together. That is part of the writing process no one cares to tell us about. We find out the hard way.

Keep your writing close to you. Hold it to your breast. Tell it everything. Don’t run from it. Smile at it like you are about to kiss it, slowly.

I write because I have no choice but to write. Writing is physically part of me; it is part of me in ways that allow me to be me. When I think about not writing, I think about dying. The writing speaks to me in a secret language that I only know. I translate that language. Writing tells me to write and to talk to the world about who I am and what I believe in, what I struggle to know, and what I hope my memory will reveal to you (my dear reader).

Like Pablo Neruda, writing came to me. I don’t know how or why or when. But it came to me dressed in the only pretty face it had: in long swooping capital letters and synonyms and homonyms. It came to me in the moment that I wanted to seek out who I was, really. As I type, almost tripping on my fingers and backspacing, retyping not revising, I think about my first kiss or when I fell in love in the moments of the page and the person and I want to write about that too.

I think about writing because I have to think about writing. I have no choice but to love in the moment all the words that try to speak to me. I write my conversation with the universe as it happens and as I remember it to be. When I am alone, I think writing is my partner. I think of writing as the best way to live; as the chance to be me in the way that I know how to be.

Why should writing be a question? Why should writing be a chore? I want to tell the stories of my life everyday. I want to speak to people as if they hear me beside them. I want to walk in front of the air and show my voice: sweet, scared, even shit-faced.

I did not find writing. Writing found me. When I think about its laugh or the way it holds me in the night when no one is there to touch me, or the way it doesn’t shame me, how it accepts me when I’m fat or thin or happy or depressed, I know that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. And in those brief spaces where I wonder if I am doing the right thing, when my manuscript is rejected for the fifth time, I know that there will be many more disappointments and its OK. It is OK because this is where I am supposed to be: writing.

Why must you write?

Reflections allow us to keep records of our past, present and future. They are the small the key that fits into almost any door. The true gifts from our reflections are the small spaces that we think about: those spaces that seem to be non-important. Reflection is not just journalling but thinking about life from a different perspective. Thinking about life from all angles, inlcuding the angles that we believe are ridiculous.

Reflection can bring you out of the wilderness and encourage exploration of all the wild in your wilderness; the friction between your inner and outer worlds. Sometimes, I try different ways to reflect like pretending I am an animal and writing from that perspective. Sort of like Annie Dillards short story “Living Like Weasels.”

What can we learn from our reflections? What can our reflections teach us about ourselves? What are we teaching ourseves about our reflections?

When we swim deep into the murkiness of what just happened, how often do we get see ourselves in the way that we should be seeing?

Perhaps that is where the reflection begins? In the unknown? It is as if we see the world in one shade and then suddenly through the act of reflection and questioning everything seems so different and unexpected.

Reflecting can open the first door to a new story; it can make us fall in love with ideas; reflection can push us into ourselves. Why not feel your heart beating and then let your heart tell you what the words are?

Your writing can take leap of faith through reflection.

Even as I write this, I begin to drift off and think about first loves and first kisses. I think about my youth and wonder if everything I ever did was a mistake. I think about my love and how is hazel eyes blur in the morning deep under my lips.

It is in these moments when your story begins to show itself all bright and glowy. Now, I am not focusing on reflection being that this is the week that most New Year’s resolutions will come to fruition and die out all in the same hour. I am not talking about revising my life or reworking my ideas. I am speaking of that great thing that happens when you least expect it: the story. The budding story that comes during reflection.

Check out more about writing and reflection as well as some lovely exercises to get you reflecting and writing today at: The Reflective Writer

Thank you to all following my blog and wishing you a warm holiday with your friends and family!

Best wishes from LK