More Ezine Information

I've learned that you can only have one account in Ezinearticles.com, but you can have multiple authors under that account. You can use variations on your name such as adding your middle initial etc. You're also allowed to have up to three author information boxes per author on a basic account, so that give you a wide range of websites and blogs you can promote with your articles.

By creating different authors, you can write on multiple topics and your followers can easily find your ezine articles by author instead of having to sort through topics that don't relate to what they're searching for.

Hmm, could this be the reason my writer's muse stepped back for a while? To allow me to learn this before I submitted my next set of articles, which aren't related to the first set?

Where'd My Muse Go?

I woke up about 5 o'clock this morning to an unfamiliar roar. Finally managed to rouse myself out of a sound sleep and realized it was pouring rain. It sounds extremely loud on the tin roof of my mobile home.

It was cold enough that I decided to turn on the furnace. Thinking I'd turned the pilot light out, I opened the front of the furnace to relight it. Huh! I didn't turn it off after all. I started to replace the front of the furnace and managed to drive a splinter of very old paneling into the back of the middle finger of my right hand. Of course it just crumbled when I tried to pull it out. Of all the "modern" remedies and treatments I have on hand, my first and final decision was to go with a method that probably hasn't been used widely since the early 20th century-salted bacon fat. I just cut off a piece of bacon fat and saturated it with salt and attached it to my finger with a bandaid. I'll see in about eight hours if it works like I remember it working for my parents.

I think my writer's muse has been overcome by the beader bug. I've managed to finish four bead patterns this past week including working up three of them. I've put three Christmas ornaments up on The BeadCoop and am preparing to take pictures of the fourth pattern, a brick stitch bracelet. Hopefully I will have that pattern up by days end.

I received an invitation to join Artbead.com blogging for beads program. I've submitted my bead order and hopefully will have some pretties to show on my Beaddoodler blog soon.

I'll be back to writing soon I hope, but my writing is probably going to consist of blogging and making bead patterns for now. Gotta take advantage of the holiday market.

Expert Author??

Wow! I'm stoked, I'm blown away, I'm flattered. What can I say? After nearly three weeks, one article-just one mind you-has been accepted by Ezinearticles.com. For that I got "expert author". Does that mean I'm a real writer? Or just that I can follow the roools. The rules are simple. All you've got to do is read them! First there's the simple common sense ones. DON'T USE ALL CAPS, spell and grammar check your work. Read it out loud or have someone else read it to be sure it "flows" and you didn't leave out a word or use the same word over and over and Don't Plagiarizer.

Then there are the other rules, make the articles between 250 and 400 words. This is not the place to publish one line zingers or a novel. That's about it. Ezine sends out newsletters with tips on how to make your articles better, give you ideas of how to organize your articles etc. It's a really neat place to write for and gets you some publicity and back links to your websites.

Did I mention I'm stoked?

I have three more articles in queue to be published, but they've been overloaded this past month.

Reflection

I think I overdid it last month with all the writing and studying. I haven't accomplished much this month. Well maybe I have. I've averaged writing at least one article or blog post per day, but now I feel like I've hit a brick wall or maybe I've run into a scatter ray, you know one of those sci fi gadgets that scatter your thoughts so that you can't fully grasp one before another one takes its place.

On Arian's Change Secrets today the question was asked "what did you want to be when you grew up". I thought and thought and all I could think of was I wanted to be grown up. Nothing else, just grown up. I'm the youngest of three children and always felt inadequate, or ignorant of just plain stupid. I'm 68 years old now, all my immediate family is gone except my brother and I still feel inadequate around him. Hmm I wonder if I ever did grow up. Why does it matter so much that I don't think the way he does, my priorities aren't the same as his? With my childrens' fathers family and my friends I have always been accepted for what I am. No expectations.

Maybe that's the whole problem. I look a little like my Mother and a lot like my Grandma, so people either expected me to act like them, or were determined I wouldn't grow up to be like them. My family seemed to try to cram me into a mold of the "perfect daughter". I'll never be perfect in anybody else's mind and I'm happy to be me. . .except when I'm around my brother. Why is that? Another puzzling question for which I have no answer.

Importance of Authoritative Backlinks

Over the past few days the 30 day challenge has been focusing on creating authoritative back links. To do this we're told to find forums on the topic of our website and participate. Of course they must be forums that allow a signature line so we can "pimp" our website. We've also learned that it's best if these forums are .gov or .edu sites as they carry more weight with google search engine. Another great backlink is DMOZ. It's the only article directory that is edited by human eyes before a site is listed so it ranks very high with google as an authority.

I have a lot of work to do on my Container Herb Gardening site before it's ready to submit to DMOZ. Not a great deal of information on it yet. Only 2 pages.

I have a hard time focusing on one subject. After 6 or 8 articles on a subject my mind goes blank, but then I can come back to it later and add more information. I'm getting a little bit better since I learned to drain my brain. Once drained I can fill it up again, or at least sort out what's already in there.

I went off chasing another wild hair at the end of last week and have created a second website Guide to Delicious Healthy Eating and have written some articles for it. I've got to quit skipping steps if I intend to establish myself.

Time to go. I've taken on one more responsibility. My 4 year old grand daughter started school this year and her mother also started back to school. Nana gets to play with little Jennie for a while after school 4 days a week. That oughtta' get my creative juices flowing. Nothing like the wonder of a child's mind to spark an old one.