Wednesday Why - Single on Valentine's Day?

Today's Wednesday Why features an article I wrote yesterday, Single on Valentine's Day? Suite 101 has a couple of contests for January up right now, one where you write 14 articles in 14 days (I think my brain would explode...although there are people who write like, 5 articles a day! Crazy!) and a Valentine's Day one. When I first read about the contest, I thought, "What can I write about Valentine's Day? I'm perpetually single." And then I thought, "Wait, I'm single on Valentine's Day. I'm sure other people are, too. I can write about that!"

And thus an article was born.

This one was really fun to write, because basically I just pulled ideas out of my head about what I would like to do on Valentine's Day. Of course, the only one I ever do is the second one. (Apparently, I only befriend people who are in relationships or who hate Valentine's Day. I personally like Valentine's Day, even though I never have a Valentine. I just like to celebrate things, I guess.) Maybe some day I will have enough single friends who don't hate this holiday and will be able to try out a few of these ideas.

(Side note: Ever notice how Valentine's Day is the only holiday that people truly hate? Some people get riled up about it. No other holiday is hated as much as Valentine's Day. I blame marketers. They make people feel bad for not being in a relationship. Jerks. I'd feel bad about not being in a relationship, but I never find anyone who is worth my time and effort, so I'm pretty content with the single life.)

It was nice to write an article without having to research and take notes and all the prep work I usually go through. I basically just wrote, did some keyword research, edited, and published. The only headache was finding the proper category to put it it. (Dear Suite, please make a holiday category. Thanks!) I finally put it under Personal Development because it was the only thing that seemed completely appropriate. Parts of the article could have fit under Entertaining or Dating, but not all of it. But other than that, it was probably the easiest (and most fun!) article to write so far.

In other news, my head has been pounding all day. Nothing is helping. I'm thinking about a brain transplant.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day!

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Things are crap right now. Enjoy my favorite Martin Luther King quote instead of a lengthy, ranty, angry post.

A Productive and Busy Week

This post is going to be all over the place, I fear. I apologize in advance.

So Love of Llanview - bad idea. Not in general. Just for me. Right now. Maybe someday. But the every day aspect of it was just too much for me right now. I canned it at the beginning of the week and managed to write 3 articles for Suite and work a lot on my screenplay. Maybe someday I'll start it back up, but right now, I don't have the energy or devotion to make it successful.

This week was hyper productive for me. I have found that what I need to do is just sit down and force myself to write. I'm a huge procrastinator and I tend to put things off as much as I can. But once I get started, I will get a lot done. It's the getting started part that is hard. But making a plan for what I will do each day helps. And once I get started I don't stop until I have reached whatever the goal is, whether it be an article written and published or a certain number of pages or whatever. Goals and deadlines work for me.

My eye is irritated. This really doesn't have anything to do with anything, other than I need to complain about it for a moment. It started last night, caused me to not get a lot of sleep, and it is still bothering me. Last night it was so red and swollen I was a bit grossed/creeped out. It's better today, but it's still a little red, swollen, and it itches/hurts. I'm trying not to rub it, but it's hard! Oh, I can work this in: If it continues to bother me, I might not be able to get much writing done because I'm sure staring at the computer screen is not going to make it feel better.

It's almost time for One Life to Live, so I must go. Have a lovely weekend!

Wednesday Whys - How to Choose Chicken Eggs for Hatching

I seem to be on a science-y kick lately with my article writing. It's kind of weird because in school I never really liked science. But I always did pretty good in my science classes, so I guess it makes sense if you look at it that way. Today's Wednesday Why features the article "How to Choose Chicken Eggs for Hatching."

On Sunday, I was hyper-productive. (On a weekend! That's even crazier!) I researched, wrote, edited, and published an article. All in one day. Usually it takes me about two days per article, but I was in the zone. Also, I was writing about chickens and if you know me, you know I'm kind of obsessed with chickens.

I started out by just doing some general chicken research. I knew I wanted to write about chickens, but I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to write about them. I think it was also inspired by the fact that in the spring my parents plan on raising chickens. (Yes, I will be there visiting them all the time. I've never known anyone who has actually owned chickens before. I'm so excited!) I had raising chickens on the brain.

I ended up reading a lot about incubating eggs and was going to write about that, but when I started to specifically researching that, I learned that there was actually a lot that went into just choosing the eggs. Who knew? You have to look at the parent chickens, the egg size and shape, and all sorts of things. And I thought to myself, "Hmm, this could be an article all on it's own. And then I could write about incubating them. And then caring for the baby chicks. And then caring for the adults." And suddenly I had four articles I could write. That is definitely a good thing, because sometimes I struggle coming up with ideas, but now I have something to work on while I think about new topics.

The article itself was pretty easy to write. I took tons of notes in an organized manner (That never happens! Go me!) and it wasn't really a complicated topic, so I had no trouble turning my notes into a nice article. And again, it was very informative to me and that always makes writing more interesting.

This week I will be concentrating on the rest of the chicken articles and my screenplay, which I had a major breakthrough on Sunday night at 2 AM when I couldn't sleep and instead wrote for an hour. Sunday was clearly a good writing day for me. Perhaps I should work on weekends more often...

Wednesday Whys - Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable?

Welcome to the first Wednesday Why! The article I picked for today is Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable? which I wrote for Suite 101.

I actually didn't intend to write this article, exactly. I decided I wanted to write about different types of tomatoes, but do you know how many different types there are? A lot. So I knew I was going to have to narrow it down, but I didn't know exactly how I wanted to accomplish that. So I was thinking about tomatoes, and somehow, the question of whether a tomato was really a fruit or a vegetable popped into my head, and I thought, "Hey, there's probably a good article in that!" And there was.

It was really interesting researching this question, and finding out what exactly defined something as a fruit or a vegetable. And I had no idea that there was once a Supreme Court case about this very question. Or how many vegetables are actually botanically classified as fruit. One of the things I try to focus on when choosing article topics is finding something that interests me, because if I'm interested in a topic, I know that I will write better and that will make it more interesting for other people.

Of my two articles on Suite (the other one, my first, is How to Choose the Right Belt for Women), the tomato one is almost three times as popular. I guess a lot of people have this question too. I also got my first (and only!) comment on this article. That was a serious ego boost. Nothing like having someone else tell you you did good!

What I learned from this article (besides whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable) is that in order to want to write, I need to pick topics that either interest me or that I learn something from. I really enjoyed writing this article - more than the belt one. Not that I'm not interested in belts (Look in my closet. I have a whole box of belts!), but they are more an every day part of my life. Tomatoes are something I don't know that much about, except that they are pretty tasty.

I will definitely be keeping this in mind when I pick topics from now on. Pick something new and interesting that teaches me something.

So I'm kind of crazy...

I decided to start another blog. (In addition to this one...I'm not giving up here yet!) But I started a One Life to Live blog - For the Love of Llanview. I recently got really into the show, and I have yet to find any community, blog, or website about the show that I really like. So what's the solution? Start my own!

So far just three posts, but since I just started it on Sunday, I feel like I'm off to a decent start. (I was going to say good, but let's not jump the gun here.) It was fun to watch the episode today and then sit down and write about what I thought about it, and my opinions on the characters and what they do. Let's hope other people think so too!

At the very least, this will be a good way to make sure I am writing every day, and thinking about writing, and thinking about what I can do to make that site better, since One Life to Live airs five days a week, and I plan to have a reaction post each day. And hopefully that will rub off on the rest of my life, here, over at Suite 101, and with writing in general.

If you want to check it, go to http://loveofllanview.blogspot.com. Let me know what you think.

Here's to 2010!

I have great hope for 2010.

2009 is done. It wasn't the best year ever. It probably wasn't the worst year ever, but at times, it definitely felt like it. I don't believe in regrets, or dwelling on the past, or in focusing on negative things. I prefer to look forward, stay positive, and believe that things will get better.

I also don't believe in making New Year Resolutions, but I do want to set myself some goals.

1. Maintain a blog. And look, I'm starting a day early! But I want to actually post regularly. Not every day, because I can assure you that will not happen, but at least twice a week. Part of the way I'm going to ensure that happens is by having a weekly feature called Wednesday Whys. It will be posted every Wednesday (obviously!) and in it I will talk about one article posted the week before and discuss why I wrote it, what interested me about the topic, and anything else relevant.

2. Write at least two articles a week. I don't think this will be a problem, and if it goes well, I'll definitely increase it. After all, what is the point of having a goal if it doesn't lead to more ambitious goals?

3. Set up a writing schedule. I understand that in order to be successful writer, I need to treat it like going to the office job and actually schedule times to write. I'm a huge procrastinator, and I know if I don't do this, I will put everything off until the very last minute. That does not lead to quality writing. Google Calendar is going to be my new best friend.

Three goals may not seem like a lot, but did I mention I'm a procrastinator? If I give myself too much to do, I'll never get around to doing any of it. I plan on checking in at the end of January to see how I am doing - and I already scheduled it in to my Google Calendar.

I hope everyone has a happy, healthy, amazing, fabulous, and successful 2010!