Tag: wordpress

Wait for Me

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Would you let me ribbon tie my waiting into your lap?
Take me dripping in mistakes like I got flaws for fragrance
Can you wait for me to get it right?
This belly
filled to the brim with passion
like I got fire clenched in my fists and a furnace in my throat
As if you’d just emerged from the safety of your mother’s womb
would you wait for me
to breathe life into your lungs
to breathe logic into your conscience?
Let kindness touch you gentle,
soft like pillow talk
or whispering prayers in a bowl of incense
Touch me endurance
and I’ll dip my hands into purpose
and feed you hope through a straw
So let the storms begin
let the winds blow
and the nations rage
let the heavens chop off pieces of ice for our tribulation
let hailstones come bungee jumping from the sky to put dents in our joy
and I promise you
if you wait for me
I’ll command my words to stitch you a smile
and in time
we will simmer tragedy
into the polished pillars
of diamonds in the ruff.

Wait for me.

8 Things to Do Before Publishing Your Next Blog Post

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Below are some great links from This Mama Learns Blog to help us become better bloggers! I discovered her on Pinterest yesterday and her blog is super cute! I love the way she has branded her colors and incorporated her images all professional and fun looking. Below are articles I found helpful. Enjoy:

8 Things to Do Before Publishing Your Next Blog Post

You’re running behind on your newly acquired content schedule.

You dash out the last few lines of your next post in a flurry of activity, half an hour after you should have been in bed.

Then you hit Publish.

*yawn* Time for bed.

Okay, you know there are a few things you probably should’ve done first, but you can do it later right?

Umm…

What just happened here? This hypothetical blogger (ok, ok… it was me), just put an arbitrary schedule before producing quality content.

Not cool.

Keep Reading http://thismamalearns.com/8-things-to-do-before-publishing-your-next-blog-post?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare

5 Secrets to Help You Look Like A Pro Blogger (even if you only started, like, yesterday)

No one likes looking like they were born yesterday, right? First impressions count, so when people visit your blog, you want to have your best foot forward.

I made my first blog in 2011. It was about tween fashion (it seemed like a good idea at the time), it was eyes-bleedingly cyan and I think I used Comic Sans. Sounds like a candidate for ugliest website of the year!

Luckily, times have changed and the overall standard of new blogs has greatly improved.

But there are still a few mistakes that new bloggers make that give themselves away. Here are 5 things you can implement on your blog right now to make you look like a pro.

Keep Reading http://thismamalearns.com/how-to-look-pro-blogger

How to Launch Your Blog with a Bang

Ever launched a blog expecting to make a big splash but… nothing happened?

You were sending post after post out into the ether. No readers (not even your mom), no comments, no shares.  Why?

It wasn’t that your content wasn’t good.

And it wasn’t that you weren’t blogging frequently enough.  You were working your fingers to bone every day getting out another post.

Maybe you were even employing a bit of SEO and churning out awkward blog headlines like How to choosing a domain name (did I do that? oops!)

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can launch a successful blog and have readers from day 1.

Keep Reading http://thismamalearns.com/launch-your-blog-with-a-bang

Beginner Bloggers Guide to Networking

Are you holding back from networking with other bloggers because you feel like your blog just isn’t ‘good enough’?

Have you joined a few Facebook groups (like I told you about in this post), but been too shy to speak up because you’re afraid you’ll get laughed at for not knowing the secret blogger handshake?

Do you read blogging tips about how to get more traffic and think YEAH I need to do that, but secretly you’re terrified to have people actually read your blog?

Let me let you in on a little secret:

I’ve SO been there.

Keep Reading http://thismamalearns.com/beginner-bloggers-guide-to-networking

8 Ways to Avoid Stress

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  1. Take some time to sit quietly and appreciate everything that you have. Happiness is not in having more physical wealth but having less wants.
  1. Stop trying to change things that are beyond your control. Sometimes stress comes from not being able to alter those things outside of our control but trying to anyway. Stop that. You’re just going against the grain and you’re not going to win.
  1. Forgive yourself. If you make a mistake, get back up and forgive the less mature version of yourself who made it. Peace cannot exist around you if it does not first exist inside of you.
  1. Forgive those who hurt you the most. After you forgive yourself, forgive others. Instead of seeing what they did to cause you hurt, try and see them through the eyes of mercy. Sometimes people have been hurt and they pass that hurt on, try to see that. Look at them with the eyes of love instead of revenge. Excess pain is just baggage and in the words of Toni Morrison, “If you wanna fly, you gotta give up the stuff that weighs you down.”
  1. Learn to create balance in your life. Being busy is no excuse for surrendering your peace. We like to use the “I’m too busy” for everything but it just ends up being an excuse. Take breaks. Go on vacation. Date. Take some time to actually smell the flowers. In the words of Lena Horne, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
  1. In times of pressure, seek to be calm and centered instead of frustrated and angry. The calm person is the most productive person and makes the best decisions. Quick story. When I returned from a road trip last month, I thought I lost my USB or better yet, left it in Chicago, a 13 hour away drive from home. Upon realization that I’d lost the drive with all of my files and manuscript revisions (which I’d unwisely not saved anywhere else), I was actually too tired to worry about it! I literally put my worrying off. My exact words were, “I don’t have the energy to worry about this right now.” I didn’t even look for the drive. A few days went by and I knew that at some point I had to try and find it. Those things on that drive were very important after all. On the third or fourth day, I sat down in my chair and searched the place I last remembered it and found it. Just like that. By choosing to be calm and not worry instead of frenzied and out of control, I was capable of thinking clearly about where I’d last had it. I also learned a very valuable lesson. In remembering everything has a purpose, I understood that I should never save important files in just one spot.
  1. Don’t compare yourself to others, it’s the easiest way to fail. It is also the easiest way to cling to your fears. Sometimes you can be so sure something is for you until you look at how others are doing it, saying it, or have done or said it. Own what you know to be true and perfect being you. People don’t want to see how you can do something the same as others are doing it. They wanna see how you can do it differently.
  1. Speaking of comparisons, be true to yourself. Stop worrying about being accepted by others. This too can cause unnecessary stresses. Don’t dilute your light for something superficial. The light bulb may shine bright now, but it is in no comparison to the sun.

Meet a Book Reviewer

Wow, I’m truly honored! Special thank you to Linda for introducing me!

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I’m writing this quick post to introduce you all to Yecheilyah Ysrayl, a book review blogger, author, and all-round nice gal here on WordPress. It’s not just because she reviewed my novelette, All Good Stories, and gave it 5 stars, I’m writing about her because she gives great (and helpful) reviews. In a market so full, it’s hard to choose what to read, isn’t it? We really need reviews these days that go beyond the minimalistic, “I liked it,” to know what we’re investing our money in. Because money doesn’t grow on trees. Neither do books anymore, for that matter. (Sorry for the cheesy joke, I’ve been watching too much Stephen Colbert.)

If you’d like to check out Yecheilyah’s reviews, you can find a great example by clicking here. (Spoiler alert: it’s mine. It’s a really fantastic review!)

And even more importantly, if you’d like her to review YOUR…

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7 Tips for Making Time to Write

Great tips on making time to write.

Yesterday, even though I was tuned into the blog, I didn’t do much of anything outside of revise my novel! I’m excited at how the true story is unfolding (the one you don’t usually see under the first draft) and felt really accomplished afterward. I was busy, sure, and there were a million and one things to do but I made time.

The point: The greatest investment you can make with your writing is not money, it is time.

Your Peace

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The only time anything negative possesses power over us is when we weaken ourselves. Indeed, darkness will be there lets face it, just as the sun rises it also sets. Still, light prevails and if you’re looking closely enough you’ll see that sometimes growth comes from knowing tomorrow’s peace begins with today. Everything is energy and as positive energy is higher than negative energy, a stress-free life begins with operating outside of that negative space. As such one can then use and control the positivity and live with daily productivity, growth and advancement. To control energy. It means that you have the power to change everything around you, for every situation that wishes to show its face today also has a solution. If we’re willing to look close enough we can see the purpose. Yes, its hard but beneath the surface is a purpose and that purpose is to cultivate something in you. If we choose to look close enough, we can discover what that is. If we choose to endure. If we choose light even when it’s lonely. Even when it’s difficult, and even when it’s painful. If we choose to command our peace to be still.