by Tris Hussey on December 19, 2009 · 4 comments
in About the book, Cool tools, Create Your Own Blog, Daddy Wears Slippers to Work, Featured, Mind Mapping, Teaching, Technology, Tips and Tricks, Using WordPress
Remember those days in high school when you were learning how to write term papers? My very well-meaning teachers tried to get us to use notecards and create outlines, anything to help us write better organized papers with the correct citation in the bibliography.
And I hated and chafed at every, single moment of it. While having notecards is actually a good organizational tool, my nascent writer’s brain couldn’t latch on to them as anything more than a royal pain. Even then, and probably more so than now, my chaotic, in-the-data-cloud [...]
Tagged as:
Mind Mapping,
Teaching,
Technology,
Writing,
writing tips
Today was the big craft fair. I knew I would be there all day and that while I would have my laptop and would want to get work done, the key would be if I could get work done.
Being disconnected from the net, I expected that.
Not having ready access to power at the table, well I wasn’t really expecting that, but I could manage.
After the table was ready and the doors opened, I opened up this machine, set up for maximum battery efficiency, and …
I wrote.
A lot.
I pushed a long [...]
Tagged as:
Writing
What does your workspace look like? No, not the color or how many file cabinets you have, but how is your laptop or monitor positioned? What does your neck feel like at the end of the day? How about your arms, wrists, fingers? Having had my own brushes with carpal tunnel problems, not to mention a long standing back injury, I am always trying to find newer and better ways to layout my workspace.
Lifehacker has some simple (and inexpensive) ideas for getting your workspace up to snuff. Your first step [...]
Tagged as:
ergonomics,
Writing,
writing tips
In case you’re wondering what I’ve been up to lately I can sum it up in one word: editing. My editors at Pearson have been awesome (I think I’ve said this before, but I don’t think I can say it enough frankly) making suggestions that will make this book much, much better than the one I wrote in the initial (submitted) drafts.
What all these suggestions have meant in reality is that I’ve rewritten large segments of several chapters. The biggest change from the initial outline has been splitting chapter 1 [...]
Tagged as:
Writing
This is an excerpt from “Chapter 3: Writing & Creating a conversation”, that I’m using as an example for the book on writing your first post…
So your first post. The “Hello world, here I am. Time to listen up” statement.
Uh huh.
Right.
Chances are your first post will suck. Oh yeah, pretty much guaranteed, you’re going to look at it in month or so and die a little inside. You’ll want to delete it. Expunge this dreck from the world.
Don’t.
Your first post is something of a birthday statement. It’s what you’re going [...]
Tagged as:
Blogging 101,
blogging tips,
book excerpt,
Writing,
writing tips
I’m working on Chapter 3 right now. I’m doing the “author review” or AR, which means that the chapter has had its technical review (it passed) and content review, and it’s been send back to me to do final edits before it is prepared for publication. As it happens , chapter 3 is all about writing blog posts. Not just the technical stuff, but also the art and craft of writing. Where does inspiration come from? What is your writing “voice”? All those fun, easy topics (yeah right). I have [...]
Tagged as:
Blogging,
bookcast,
inspiration,
podcast,
Pomplamoose,
Writing
If you’ve been playing along at home, you might be wondering how the old book is doing. Since I finished the “writing” part of the book a little while ago, the next question is when you’ll have it in your hot little hands.
If everything goes as planned, it looks like end of November.
Yep.
Guess what my family is getting for Christmas!
When I started writing this book, I started with a mind map. Which is standard for me, actually–or at least it was. Back then, I wrote everything in Word, but I planned documents in a mind map. The map here is a section of the mind map that became this book. Yeah looks a little crazy, doesn’t it? Honestly it was the best way I knew how to put my ideas into some kind of order. Then, however, I had to put it into Word. Even if I wrote sections [...]
Tagged as:
mac writing apps,
scrivener,
ulysses,
writng
A friend of mine here in Vancouver wrote a really insightful post about social media here in Vancouver. While the larger point of the post is more of a social commentary, there is a part that applies here:
In FACT, I should be MORE relevant. Why? Because I care about social media for two reasons — it’s social, and it’s media. I’m reaching out. For me, being READ is more important than selling adspace, even when I’m killing myself trying to just get by, let alone pay down debt. I don’t [...]
Believe it or not I’m more than halfway done with the book!
Yes, I know I haven’t been very chatty of late, nor have I been “on track” (much to my editor’s dismay), but I’m only three chapters away from being done.
Right now I’ve hit Chapter 8: Portfolio blog and I’m at a bit of a cross-roads as I see it.
This is how I’ve introduced the chapter:
Portfolio blog:When I was first working on the outline for this book, I put the various chapters in place to (somewhat) build upon each other. [...]
Tagged as:
artist blogs,
Portfolio blogs
Tris Hussey is a writer, teacher, blogger, and speaker on all facets of Internet life, WordPress, and social media. If you are interested in having Tris speak, teach, lead a workshop or consult for you, feel free to email tris [at] trishussey [dot] com.
