Writing and Stuff by Anthony Chatfield

It’s that time of the year again, which means I’m about to commit to NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month event that kicks off in November. Usually around the end of September each year, I get very excited and start going on at length about what I’m going to write about, how it will be written, how you can keep up with the writing, etc.

This year, I’m going to minimize all that excitement, because I don’t want to jinx it. I’ve only completed a novel once – in 2007. In 2006, I got to 26,000 words and last year I only made it to 15,000. So, what exactly is it that slows me down in that awful 10,000-30,000 range?

My Novels and their Foibles

It depends really – last year I was just really busy. I write for a living, so spending another hour a day writing, while seemingly not that bad, was just too much. Plus it was November and things are always busy in November.

Second, I tend not to plan my novels ahead of time. I never paid this any mind before because I didn’t plan anything I wrote ahead of time. Now, I write all day and I tend to write a lot of eBooks for my clients, so I’ve come to realize just how much more effective I write when I have a very detailed plan to work from.

Finally, I occasionally start to dislike the novel I write. I don’t know why and it doesn’t always happen, but it’s happened at least once before. I think I’m overly ambitious and when I can’t do all the things I had in mind within 50,000 words and 4 weeks, I get frustrated.

The Solution

So, this year, I’m going at it in a different way. I’m going to start outlining the thing in a couple of days – probably when the forums go up on October 1st. Then, I’m going to not write about it here at all. I’ll just write the novel, not think about it at all and be 100% okay if the thing makes absolutely no sense when I hit 50,000 words. Finally, I’m going to actually have an ending in mind and attempt to get there. The 50,000 word count is extremely short, and even in ‘07 when I made it, the book wasn’t really done yet – so this time around, I’m going to stretch things out a bit and see what comes of it.

All I can do now is hope that I don’t get inundated with work like last year. Thankfully there’s no WoW expansion this fall.

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo, novel writing, writing a book

So, I’ve been trying, to little avail, to use Twitter in recent months to do some basic networking and marketing. I know it can work because I’ve written about it a few times in the last year or so and seen the results of dedicated marketing only through Twitter. It’s pretty awesome when it does work – but I haven’t hit the magic formula yet.

Here’s the problem – I can’t get myself to post 20 times a day. I see people doing it and I’m sure they’re getting a lot out of those posts, but wow – really? Who has Twitter open all the time and who has something valuable to say that often. I’m probably just opening myself to a slew of responses about how many ways there are to use Twitter, and don’t get me wrong – I love it. I find all sorts of cool stuff on there when I’m reading other tweets and I’ve gotten some good answers at times when I need quick help. But, enticing people to click on links is harder and harder these days with all the marketing being done out there.

My bread and butter seems to be article marketing – that stuff is gold and I’ve been racking them up of late. In August I had one article that I posted on the 22nd get 1000 views and 545 clicks. That was only 10 days. Anyways, I’m realizing that this post has minimal value other than me complaining about Twitter and bragging about my articles. It’s getting to that time of the day again – time to go find some dinner. Maybe tomorrow I’ll work on analyzing exactly why I can’t do well on Twitter and then maybe…you know, fix it.

As always, any Twitter experts are welcome…no, encouraged, to leave their comments and suggestions. I enjoy tweeting a little too much to give up just yet.

Marketing Projects article marketing, ezine articles, internet marketing, social network marketing, twitter

It’s one of those days that tend to pop up when I’ve been doing just a little bit too much work. After a dismal August in which it seemed like the entire content writing market had completely dried up, September has been anything but. Old clients that I hadn’t heard from in a while came knocking and now I have plenty of work to get me through the month (and a bit beyond).

It’s exactly what I wanted, but to be honest, I rather liked having all that free time to tweak with some Internet Marketing ideas I had and to try some other fun stuff on the side. So, I’m trying to keep up with those plans without letting it all get the best of me.

Anyways, the goal was to get a new set of PC related PLR articles up today as well as some for Christmas and Mafia Wars. I got my topics and my research done, but time is running short and the brain is drying up. So, hopefully tomorrow or Thursday, I’ll have three brand new sets of PLR up and ready over at ArtisanPLR.

PLR Content Artisan PLR, internet marketing, PLR Content, side projects

So, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this site for a while now. I even bought a new domain name (anthonychatfield.com), but I took a look back through the old web stats and it seems like it would be a bit of a waste to move everything over when I have a decent page rank and a whole lot of links (however old they may be). So, I’m going to stick with the good old goofy domain name and see what can be done with it.

Up to now, it’s been a jumble of just about everything you can imagine having to do with me. I’m going to give it a bit of a jump start in the coming weeks, mainly because I’ve been spending so much time lately working on my career and all things writing.

Hopefully I can offer some halfway decent insights about writing, freelancing, and marketing in general (at least from my semi-newbie point of view).

Observations and Thoughts freelance writing, Freelancing

I have yet another new website up and running now – it’s at www.ArtisanPLR.com and it’s home to a ton of PLR articles that I’ve been working on. I’m hoping to get it a nice kick in the backside in the weeks to come, so if you know anyone that needs content for their marketing campaign (or have any PLR topic requests), let me know. It’s just getting started, but expect big things from this new venture.

Cool Stuff links, self promotion