How to Write Content -- PUNCH THE KEYS!

I promised to tackle the topic of writing content for niche blogs. On the issue of web content, I do know whereof I speak--because I've been working as a freelance article writer for the past year. Before that, I was an English teacher.

What am I an expert in? Not micro-niche blogging. No, not yet--though I plan to be by the end of this year.

I'm an expert in teaching people how to write. I love it. I still hear from students I had back in the mid-90's telling me, "Hey, I wouldn't know how to write if it wasn't for you."

And, in between dabbing at my eyes with a hankie I say, "More correct usage would be, "Were it not for you."

And then they're like, "Erm, yeah, nice having you as my Facebook friend. Catch ya later."

Ah, so lovely to hear from past students.

But about content writing:  did you ever see the movie Finding Forrester?  Gosh, it's gotta be 10 years old now--and it had Sean Connery playing a kind of J.D. Salinger character.  A reclusive author who ends up mentoring a gifted inner city teenager in writing.

And what was Forrester's secret?  Get past writer's anxiety by NOT staring at a blank page:

When Jamal is sitting there just paralyzed by writer's block, Forrester finds one of his old New Yorker articles and tells Jamal simply to type in the very same words until he finds his own.  (In other words, he tells Jamal to begin by plagiarizing.  Gasp.  Oh, the horror.  But wait, please let me finish.)

Jamal summons up his courage and starts in--rather uncertainly at first. Forrester shouts, "PUNCH THE KEYS."  And Jamal does.  And slowly the words become Jamal's own.  He finds, with someone else's words in front of him to inspire and plant ideas, that he is able to find his own words.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of this story:  Jamal, in the end did not plagiarize--he used another author's words to create something new.  (I know some of my readers are going to be all caught up in his typing the famous author's exact words...My point is, that was really, truly only the starting point.)

The staccato sounds of the punched Smith Corona keys fill the apartment as the minutes tick by.

And...finally, Forrester yells triumphantly to his student, "Yes!  Yes!  You the man now, DOG!"

(If you want to see how awkward it is to see Sean Connery trying to use Bronx vernacular in this fashion, then get this movie into your Netflix queue.)

Begin with Someone Else's Words--Just to Prime the Pump

What am I saying here?  Merely this:  if writing articles does not come easily to you, then begin with other writers' words in front of you.  What are you writing about?  Elliptical machines?  Cool.  Then go find someone else online who's written an article that makes YOU want to check out the product(s).  Preferably an article that is broken down neatly into at least five paragraphs.

Now find one more.  Print them both out and set them by your side.  No copying and pasting.  You'll take too many words that are not your own, and you'll get busted for it.  (Take it from me--the gal who's busted many a lazy student.  Plagiarists are hardly ever as clever as they think they are.)

So, with those articles by your side, begin writing your intro.  Don't even worry about a title yet.   Type in one author's intro words--the entire intro paragraph.

Showcase Your Primary Keword Phrase

First thing to address:  how to get YOUR primary keyword phrase to lead off.  How can you change that lead sentence so that your keyword phrase is showcased nicely?

Now look at sentence # 2.  How can you turn that into your own words?  Treat it like a game.  On to the next....  Every one of those sentences should be expressed differently.  I'm not talking about inserting a synonym here and there.  I'm talking about replacing text and making it YOUR WORDS.

Change the Intro, Sentence by Sentence

Now read over your intro.  Does it sound natural?  Does it flow?  Could it use just a bit of humor?  Or something to keep it from being dry as dust?  Then get it in there!  Now it's really your own.

Use a List format to "Frame" the Body

Next thing:  thing how you could take the IDEAS (not the words, the ideas) in front of you in those two articles...and make them into a LIST.  Nothing is as easy to write and as readable as a list.  Plus, when you write a list, it's super-easy to get your keywords in. Here's an example:

Andy Warhol Poster Pick #1:  blah blah blah soup cans
Andy Warhol Poster Pick #2:  Beatles blahbady blah blah silkscreen
Andy Warhol Poster PIck #3:  Marilyn on red, Marilyn on pink...Okay, you get the idea.

Careful to make sure you are not going over board on the keyword usage--but how could it be any easier to get your lean, mean search-engine-movers in there?

Use your printed out articles to create a list of tips or recommendations or reminders, or whatever is appropriate.  Now read those articles to get the gist--and turn them face-down when you're done.

See what I'm onto here?  Not for one moment is this about plagiarism.  This is the time-honored practice known as RESEARCH.  (Albeit in a scaled-down way that Mrs. Finkelstein from 9th-grade English might not recognize as research.)

Flesh Out Your List (No Peeking!)

For each bulleted or numbered list item, write in the text.  You have evaluated and synthesized the information and now you are recreating it.  (Oh, we educators do love to use such words! So satisfying to think our students are synthesizing rather than just taking it all in, y'know.)


Think "Friendly Call to Action," NOT "In Conclusion..."

When you get to your conclusion, remember you are generally going to be dealing with a resource box of some sort.  The part where you'll point someone where you want them to go.  A product link or your own website or blog maybe....

How can you make it really conversational as you sort of sum up the little journey you and the reader have just taken and call them to do something about it.  No "in conclusion" OR "to sum up."  Uh-uh.  Yaaaaaaawwwwwwn.  Whatever the teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have done in that droning voice...don't do that.  Bueller?  Bueller?  You can do better than that.  You can keep it lively and lovely--just the way you would do if you were sitting down and chatting with your valued reader.

In the end, you'll want to have that call to action--but not in an obvious, brow-beating kind of way.  Just like, hey so much more than I can cram into this little overview.  But I've got loads of stuff to tell you about XXX widgets, and here's where you can go to get the full scoop.

Or, if it's content for your actual website, a final caution, reminder, product recommendation, whatever--followed by product links that make it very easy to DO something about all of that great info.

Make Headline-Writing into a Game

Now walk away from it. Do something else as you mull over what a GREAT title would be for your little gem of an article. Ask family members, give it some thought as you cook dinner or exercise.  Let your mind just play with it a bit.

Think in terms of two parts: a hook and a (partial) explanation. Both should have some punch...and sound 1) worthwhile and 2) somehow both straightforward AND exciting/entertaining.

"How to Write Content -- PUNCH THE KEYS." Well, obviously it got you to read on, right? There should be a promise packed into your headline. The person who reads this is going to be changed in some way. (Improved, that is). Smarter, richer, more capable, SOMETHING.

If you read this article (to continue my self-promoting example) you will learn how to write content. And hey, I'm promising you, it pretty much boils down to punching those keys, baby. Did I deliver? I hope so. If I didn't feel free to hold my feet to the fire (politely of course).

Pretty simple, right?

No blank page to stare at, no crumpled papers thrown across the room (where they miss the waste basket, because you never WERE any good at basketball).

Just a crutch to help you as you find your own words.  And, in the end, a piece of valuable, readable, practical, actionable information.  And when you've fleshed out your site with five good keyword-optimized articles--AND done your bit on EzineArticles to promote--leave a comment here.  And I will be sure to tell you (though not as awkwardly as Sean Connery):  "Yes!  Yes!  You the man now, DOG!"

My Cheap New Laptop Parade

On to Niche Blog Number 3 here at 100Blogsin365Days.  I was enjoying art posters a whole lot with the Andy Warhol Poster Party, and I was tempted to make #3 another art poster review site.  Maybe it'll be next...

For this one, I got to thinking some more about the imminent return of the college students to campus--and this blasted recession.  And how many of those college students (and their parents) must be looking earnestly for cheap, full-featured student laptops.  It would be nice to have a higher-ticket item among my early blogs.  The more variety I have in price points, the better I can test what works.  (At least, so my common sense tells me.) 

I scurried on over to my beloved Market Samurai keyword software, and (without much hope of finding a good domain in this high-competition niche) stumbled across "cheap new laptop." 

Here are the main stats on what would become my primary keyword for CheapNewLaptop.org.  (Note the wonderful LACK of hyphens.  I'm seeing that my hyphenated portable-car-heater.com (#33)  is lagging behind the non-hyphenated andywarholposter.net (#21) in the rankings.  Even though it's already had time to get more traction. I think it's that crusty old Google turning its nose up at my spammy-looking hyphens.  (Thanks for the good info, my fellow Wealthy Affiliate members.  Oh, and thanks to PotPie Girl also for her research on hyphens in exact-match domain names!)

Oh yes, those stats....

118 searches per day
49 SEOT (expected traffic for top-ranking result)
SEO Competition:  8660
Adwords Cost per Click Rate:  $2.94

Competition, upon scrutiny, looked manageable.  The term yields 8 PPC ads in Google, which is quite fine.  (The advice I've gotten is to make sure there are at least 6 Google ads--less than that shows it's probably not a very commercially viable choice.)

My next step is to choose secondary and tertiary keywords.  Traffic and competition point me to "very cheap laptops" and "best laptop prices."  I'll structure the site around full exploitation of those words--hopefully with some pretty informative content.

"Fringe words," that I will use as blog post keywords are "cheap gaming laptop" and "cheap refurbished laptop"?  Gee, do you see a theme emerging? :-)

Okay, enough of that boring mush of statistical pablum.  Let's retrace some site-building steps. 

I'm beginning to get better at this stuff.  No apologies for the fact that my websites look, um, pretty much the same--with only different color palettes, videos, and images.  Once you learn how the interface works and exactly how much space you have to work with in the content area, why repeat the learning curve over and over again?

And it's not as though a typical site visitor is going to KNOW every one of my sites looks like a painted-over carbon copy of the last.  So yes, if you're following, you're noticing that they are not very original.  So be it--the only thing that needs to be original is the content.

First is the actual setup.  I get the domain names at Namecheap.com, because I heard that makes it easier to flip the sites later.  I then point the domains (a very simple thing to do) over to Hostmonster.com, my tried-and-true host of four years.

Once the domains have been successfully pointed, I install Wordpress through the SimpleScripts installer on Hostmonster.  (Much nicer than Fantastico, by the way.)

Since Hostmonster has such a wonderful file manager built into its CPanel, I no longer mess around with individually adding themes and plugins.  I just copy everything in my plugin folder and plunk it right into the appropriate folder in the waiting-to-be-developed Wordpress installation.

Then I go into the new WP site, change the password, activate the plugins, integrate with a new Google Analytics profile, add some pinging destinations to my MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer, delete the installed content, and tweak the settings.  (Most important is to change the permalinks to "custom" and enter the appropriate code for your hyphenated post titles to display.  Feel free to email me at Felicity@100blogsin365days.com if you want to know more about how to do this little step.

I add a relevant video to the sidebar in my Blogging Success Theme (a discontinued iThemes premium theme).  Then I begin tackling the content.

I'll blog about that next.  If you like what you're reading and find it informative, would you do me a favor and give me a "follow" in the sidebar on the right?  I'd surely appreciate it!  Knowing I have readers gives me that extra little accountability spur. 

My Own Private Poster Party -- An Andy Warhol Fest

Site #2 is up and awaiting indexing:  Andy Warhol Poster Party  

Check it out--I'd love to have you pay me a visit.  And I promise to respond to all comments posted here regarding site build, site content, site indexing, WP plugins, etc.

Time to retrace my steps and outline some of what I did to build this site.  I found some goodies I'm eager to share, but it won't make a whole lot of sense unless I walk through the process with you.

Oh heck!  I'm just going to have to cheat a bit and talk about Animoto.  (Yeah, I'm an affiliate--I became one once I saw my first video.  It's that rockin' vid on the homepage of the Andy poster site.)  Here's my official Animoto affiliate image.  Nice, isn't it?  $30 for an annual membership--and I swear making a professional-looking video takes all of 5 minutes.  If that.


So first of all--how did I choose AndyWarholPoster.net? 

Well, because I have college-aged progeny, I'm well aware that it's just a matter of weeks before the college kids will be adorning the walls of their dorm rooms and apartment spaces. 

My daughter (or one of her peers...can't quite remember now) made a comment to me about the quest for unusual--and cheap--posters.  The best thing is to avoid the stock college bookstore selections and do some searching online.  Stuff that's a little off the beaten path.  She said she wouldn't do Warhol this year because "everyone does Warhol."

Hmmmm...marketing mind snaps into action.  Everybody does Warhol.  Translation:  good traffic likely on Warhol posters.  Time to get on Market Samurai and test that theory.

Secondary translation:  Every college student likes to feel they're expressing themselves in highly individual ways.  Not cool to have soup cans on the wall.  It's like...oh, look how much I know about Pop Art.  I'm a COLLEGE STUDENT after all.

No, the mission is to go with Warhol and take advantage of that traffic.  (If I can get ranked quickly, that is!).  And then to make the focus, "Hey, here's some Warhol that's really kind of unusual.  Warhol you may never have seen before.  Edgy, boundary-pushing Warhol."

And you don't have to look very hard for that.  My goodness, the man was prolific--and joyfully experimental at every phase of his career.

Oh yes, and quotable too.  Let's not forget the Andy Warhol quotes posters.  They make for nice groupings over the sofa or bed.

So, I rigged up the site using the same old template I'm going to use for each of my sites.  A good basic 2-column premium theme by iThemes.  (Blogging Success, which they have now discontinued--but which makes things like header loading and homepage video embedding nice and quick.)

Installed the same plugins I'll be using across my 100 blogs as well.  I used the File Manager of Hostmonster (I've been a customer of for 4 years now and for which I have nothing but praise) to install those files.

I just went into the File Manager, selected all of my plugins from portablecarheater.com, and moved them to andywarholposter.net.  Took all of 5 seconds.  That's what I'll do every time going forward.

I created a new file for all the andywarholposter stuff.  And an image file within that folder.

I did my header in Photoshop.  A quick search on Velvet Underground font yielded a free font that was pretty close.  I'm keeping headers simple:  3 elements are typography, one single relevant image, and the lower text for the full domain name. 

I created a Feedburner feed.  I want Google on my side in everything, you know.  Let's hope they return the love by indexing me very, very soon!

I created a new Google Analytics profile for the site and entered the UA number in my Google Analytics plug-in.

I created my Animoto video with a bunch of the poster images I planned to showcase.  Oh, I had such fun with that!  My kids watched me do it and then spent much of the rest of the afternoon creating their own videos and uploading to YouTube.

I wrote content.  And wrote and wrote.  And pasted and pasted affiliate code from AllPosters.  Hard work--but fun.

This time I was smarter about EzineArticles, and I submitted an article for my primary keyword before even finishing all of the initial site content.  Gosh, it takes those folks awhile.  Don't they know how much value my content is adding to their site?  Sheesh. 

Once the content was created, the next order of business was to do everything possible to get indexed.  Submitted to feedest and feedage (That's my PotPieGirl habit now.)  Did a Digg submission.  Used MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer plugin to ping my content.  Tweeted very prettily also.

Once I'm indexed, I'll begin the bookmarking submissions and blog commenting.  And a service I've joined called 3-Way Links.  We'll see--they were offering a $7 intro subscription (for the first month, that is) to get the link-building going efficiently.  I'll report back on that later--but supposedly it's not all that hard to get ranked #1 for an exact-match domain when you've got 3-Way Links or Neurolinker helping you out.

I think I'm beginning to get past some of that paralyzing perfectionism.  Yay!  I'm having fun.  Thanks, Andy (may you rest in peace).  You're way cool, and I enjoyed spending the last 24 hours with you.  Now make me some money.  You always were one to appreciate the convergence of art and cashflow.

Researching Random Products: Where to Begin???

One of my Wealthy Affiliate colleagues asked me today how I was tackling the product research on my "micro niche" blogs.  Great question.  I'll do my best to answer.

First, I decide what the primary, secondary, and tertiary words will be for my site.  These three words will form the backbone of the featured site content (i.e., the Wordpress pages).  The primary keyword has to meet some hard-and-fast criteria (and the secondary and tertiary keywords should come as close as possible to those criteria as well).  For those of you who are interested and know the keyword research acronyms, it goes like this:  (For those of you who don't give a fig, just skip over this next eye glaze opp.)

• At least 49 SEOT (essentially, the number of daily visitors you can expect for the exact-match phrase)
• Less than 10,000 SEOC.  (Okay, I fudge a little if the SEOT is really good and the competition is like 11 or 12K)  But I really do NOT want to make my job of ranking any harder than it needs to be.
• AWCPC (Adwords Cost Per Click) of at least .85
• At least 9 or 10 Adwords advertisers appearing for the keyword when entered into Google.
• Competition analysis in Market Samurai (my preferred keyword research tool) showing a lot of green in the competition graph.  (I'll talk about this more another time.  I don't want to get bogged down in PageRank discussion right now.)

In the case of the portable car heater site, the primary keyword was, duhhhh, portable car heater.  The secondary is heated car seat covers.  The tertiary is electric garage heaters.

Are all three of these, technically speaking, actually portable car heaters?  Noooooooo.  (I could have done actual product brand names, and most product reviewers do--it was just slim pickings to try that with this particular product niche.)

But if you think outside the box a bit, it actually works....and thinking outside the box helped me shape my site in a way that reflected the highest-traffic relevant keywords I found.  Here's my thinking:

Someone whose heater is broken is not going to get by with just the little thing you plug into the lighter socket.  They'll be looking for auxiliary devices that don't cost an arm and a leg.  At least...I think so.  I HAVE been in that position before.  But it was before the Internet...so maybe I just would have gone and poured myself a stiff drink and waited for spring. 

As for the actual research, now that I have my keywords, I do pretty much the same thing I do when I get hired to write articles.  I go and grab whatever info I can find around the Web that looks helpful for each featured content page.   Then I paste the salient points in no particular order into a Word document.  I stare at it trying to figure out what's most important and what I'd be interested in knowing if I were a potential buyer.  I try to figure out how I can make jargon understandable and boring product features talk easier for a casual reader to absorb.  Ultimately, all of it gets distilled into my own words.  And, since there's a lot of bad writing out there on the Web, that part just feels like editing, compressing, and re-shaping.

There's lots of good stuff on Yahoo Answers and Answerbag.  Yahoo Answers in particular helped me a lot with this site.  I saw how many people were going to the site asking if those little car heaters worked.  They were mostly being told, no, just get your heater fixed.  So, I took a spin on that....saying hey, I know you don't want to just be told to get your heater fixed. You're not dumb.  You'd fix it right now if you could.  So let's examine what these devices can and can't do for you.

Then, for details, you can go right into Amazon user reviews.  After all, the buyer is going to go right there anyway, right?  If you can't recommend products that have high star ratings, I think it's important to be able to explain why.  It's also important to tell your buyer when you've spotted some products that ought to be avoided.  Or that have safety issues.

Scribd.com has some very informative documents posted by people trying to build a little street cred in their field.  Not a bad place to look.  

Wikipedia was good for getting an overview of how infrared heaters work.  (This was the only part of the site that involved a technology discussion at all.  I don't mind that--I like learning something new.  And in this blog, I found out that infrared heat actually has healing effects upon the human body.  Cool.)  Anyway, I felt it was worth explaining the technology.  Otherwise, people probably wouldn't believe it uses 50% less electricity than the old-fashioned kind of space heater.

One last thing.  On Yahoo Answers, some people recommended specialty sites for the products.  So, I did go and check out a couple of specialty automotive sites in this case.  I found out some do-it-yourself installation steps for the one device that wasn't just a an easy plug-in.

I let Amazon do some of my work for me.  I got a plug-in called ReviewAzon.  A paid plug-in, but I'll be using it across so many sites, I believe it'll be well worth it for the time it saves me in listing the products.  ReviewAzon pulls info about the product right into the site.  That way, it'll always show an up-to-date Amazon price.

So that's just a bit about how the research is done (and how the field of research is limited...which is, for me, the most important part!)

My next task--and the part I'm still learning--is building the traffic.  As I mentioned, I want to get this thing set up so that I don't have to do much for it once it's launched.  Sure, I'm happy to water my little seedling and pull up some weeks.  But I want that seedling to be hardy enough to put down a good root system even if I'm not standing over it saying, "Come on, little seedling.  Grow...spread your roots...put out blossoms."

I still have a whole lot to learn.  But now, at least, I know what to do if my car heater breaks and my garage is freezing cold.

Why 100 Blogs in a Year?

Great question?  What exactly is it that I think I'm going to accomplish by putting myself on a schedule to pump out a couple of Wordpress blogs per week?

Well, the story goes something like this....

A few months ago I plunged wholeheartedly into the Wealthy Affiliate University community.  One of the smarter things I've done for myself since making the decision to work 100% from home.  I figured, at the very least, I'd get some great training in all things SEO--which would make me more marketable as a contractor (web content writer).

I was determined NOT to spend money or get talked into any get-rich-quick schemes.  I really didn't need to worry, however, because the people at Wealthy Affiliate are all pretty like-minded.  There is an ethos there of learning from the ground up.  Of treating the internet affiliate business as a craft and a daily discipline.  High class bunch--my peers there pretty much blew me away with their willingness to critique and encourage and share ideas.

Anyway, as the days went by, and as I continued to immerse myself in the training and learn to blast out keyword-optimized articles, I just felt something was...kind of missing.

I racked my brain.  What more could I want?

I was learning a free (albeit labor-intensive) way to promote interesting products, software packages, and books online.

A few sales were dribbling in (which, I have to say, was more fun than a day at the beach).

I could give it as much time as I had available--once I'd done my client work.

And I was involved in a community (one of the things most of us work-at-home types really miss after awhile).

I wanted real estate.  My own.  I'm just that way.  If I'm going to work hard, I don't want it to be as a squatter on someone else's ranch.

I remembered some videos I had watched...some free tutorials that I had seen promoted by one of the very nice people on the Warrior Forum (one of the bigger Internet Marketing community sites).  This low-key guy with a Scandinavian accent and a thing for mini-blogs, was showing how to crank those babies out.  I was fascinated.

My problem has always been that, when faces with a universe of possibilities, I just shut down.  Well, here's Steven saying, "Don't even chase after it unless it's low-hanging fruit.  Do this, then this, then that.  And if the keyword doesn't meet your criteria, it's a dog.  Move on to the next idea."

I had kind of put Steven and his method on the back burner while I dreamed of the riches one might make off of ebooks through Clickbank.  After awhile, though, I realized that I don't feel comfortable promoting something that I haven't actually read.  And I could go broke trying to read each ebook for each new campaign. I have a few campaigns still out there on some Clickbank ebooks I like--but more and more, I was seeing products as the way to go.

Whether the analogy is "scraps," or "low-hanging fruit," it certainly doesn't sound too glamorous.  That's okay.  I remember years ago (back in the late 80's) reading the book Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis.  His point was, people are carving out lavish fiefdoms for themselves and literally burning money--all because of the "scraps" they were able to grab.  Nothing wrong with scraps.   The question is, just how many scraps can you get?

Which, for internet purposes, is where traffic comes in.  And the question, is it possible to just get small sites up and running, do the promotion work, and then leave them alone to amass all of the appropriate scraps?

Steven was saying yes, absolutely.  He'd done it with well over 150 product sites--and he was still (apparently) having a pretty good time cranking them out.  Sure, it gets a little boring sometimes, he admitted in one tutorial I watched.  But I could see that Steven enjoyed the variety--and the research victories.

I enjoy variety and research victories too.  In fact, it's safe to say that there's a big part of me that lives for those things.  Even if it's all about scraps and portable car heaters and the like.

Speaking of portable car heaters, that's what the first niche blog is about.  (Now that I've signed up for an actual mentored program with Steven, who is giving me very intelligent and timely feedback).  I have no particular affinity for the things, but I had fun writing about them--and imagining people shivering in their cars this winter and saying, "I can't wait to get home and Google 'portable car heater," so I can make it through this winter and save to get the damn heater fixed!"  And then they get home, and guess who's got herself ranked right up there in one of the top 5 or 6 spots.  Yes, my 15 minutes of low-hanging-fruit fame.  (Chuckle)

How much is each niche blog likely to earn?  An amount that some people would probably look down upon...we're talking maybe $5-$7 a day once I've promoted it.  It's peanuts, I know.  But not when you think about 100 of my babies out there helping me out.

So yeah, $5 a day.  Times 100.  That is my goal.

And I like building blogs.  I like Wordpress.  So why not?  Wish me luck, okay?  I'll keep you posted.  The next one is going to be a little less prosaic.  Modern art theme in the pipeline.  Stay tuned!

Oh, and if you're interested in checking out Steven's site, you can find it at http://SuperSimpleBlogging.com.  He's cool--and so are his video tutorials

First Blog Link

I'll say more about it shortly, but I suppose I might as well get the link up for Darling Little Product Blog #1.  On the unlikely topic of the Portable Car Heater!  (Wish I'd had one of these back in the day, when my only transportation was a decrepit Hyundai Excel whose heater core had been bypassed.  When there was winter precip, I just didn't go out.)

And So it Begins....100 Blogs in a Year

Perfectionism.  It'll kill ya.  The very first blog I ever set up was, in tribute to the poet T.S. Eliot, titled, "Visions and Revisions."  Umm, turned out to be sadly prophetic.  I ended up doing so many revisions to my vision on just the very first post that nothing ever did get published on that poetically titled platform.

Sigh.  Adoring T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is well and good.  But Prufrock should not be anyone's role model.  "I grow old, I grow old--I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled...."  And "Do I dare disturb the universe?"

I don't know why I have so often found myself paralyzed by perfectionism--but there you have it.  It's my own personal demon.  A demon that sometimes feels like a muse--because, I admit, there are times when that push to be perfect leads to some stellar results.

But here's where I find myself right now, as I celebrate the 21st birthday of my oldest child, sign divorce papers from a 20-year marriage, and prepare to turn 45.  And as I reflect on too many ideas and inspirations that have been silenced by anxious perfectionism. 

I am looking for my own success on my own terms.  And it is a success that includes the following:

• Enough income to support myself and my kids.

• A home-based business success that might serve as a role model to my children--particularly my daughters.

• Enough variety to satisfy my very restless mind.

• The sense of accomplishment that comes from having built something of value--something that provides ongoing residual income.  (Truth be told, I am moving toward that particular goal in the realm of actual physical real estate too.  More and more, I see brick-and-mortar real estate as having lots and lots in common with "virtual real estate."  And it's a good time to invest in both!)

I have a writing business, and it's not going too badly.  But I get to the end of a full day of writing for other people--and I think to myself, "Wow, I'm pretty sure my brainpower just helped other people become more successful."  And I have nothing against helping other people with their success--but you see, it's hard work for not very much money.

I'd rather do the work and let it make ME money.  And I know I can do it.

So, to that end, I've been very patiently researching for months now how to pull this off.  That's where perfectionism can come in handy (sort of).  Because I count the cost and research my projects very carefully before I just jump in.

So here''s the thing: I know full well there's nothing original about my goals.  The only thing that's original here is my particular mix of talents.  I can write, code, teach myself just about anything, slap up websites, and schmooze.  Tirelessly, I might add.  And with the patience of a woman who has raised four children.

In the next blog, I'll tell you where my zeal has led me--and what my preparation has been for this "100 blogs in 365 days" project. Stay tuned!  And thanks for reading.

~ Felicity