The other day I was introduced to a brilliant piece of self-promotion in the course of my work. A man had a small business that he wanted to promote. I don’t know the exact number, but there are probably at least 100,000 other businesses in the United States that do the same type of technical consulting he did. He didn’t want to buy Google or … Continue reading Promoting Your Writing With Search
The stats on my personal blog show that the most viewed posts are my weekly ones where I publish photos that I took during the week with a quote. The themes vary based on activities – vacation, the puppy, my kids, hiking but they generally are the fruits of enjoying life. These posts are short and sweet. But the stats also show that my longer … Continue reading Is Short Form Content What We Want?
There was a carousel in the town I grew up in that held a special attraction for me as a kid. It was originally built in 1909 and had beautifully carved wooden horses big enough that they could create the illusion of really riding. But in addition to that, the ride purveyors had added a chute of rings that riders on outside horses could reach. … Continue reading The Universal You
I’ve recently discovered that there are a lot of parallels between having a new job and a new puppy. Weren’t expecting that combo? Let me explain. Both making doing yoga in the morning hard. And both benefit from a lot of training. In some instances when they get a hold of you just right, both have sharp teeth that bite. Not to mention that both … Continue reading Unlikely Learning Mates
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, … Continue reading Great First Lines
It’s funny the things that I read that stick with me. I’m thinking of a post about 15 years ago from a high school friend on Facebook that said something like, “I notice that there are some people whose only activity here is posting and they don’t spend any time liking or commenting on other people’s stuff.” My friend was a year older than me … Continue reading Do You Like My Writing Or Are We Just Friends?
The other day I landed on a blog post and as I scrolled down to add a comment, I saw that there were already 41 comments. That set me back on my heels. What else could I possibly add to the conversation? Funny how a number can spark self-doubt. It’s like joining a big group of people at a party that have already been talking … Continue reading The Art of the Comment
I was talking with author Lois Roelofs about her newly released book, Marv Taking Charge, and she made the comment that she started blogging back in the day because she was told she needed a platform. As an aside, she said, “Whatever a platform is.” Right – whatever a platform is. Presumably, some sort of online presence so that we can meet and share what … Continue reading Building a Platform
I had a friend who claimed she was clairvoyant. Let’s just say for the sake of this post that she was, because I’m on my way to making a point and you don’t have to have an ability to see the future to know that. And I’d say from my experience that my friend had a gift of extraordinary perception. She saw things differently than … Continue reading The Cat Conundrum
Recently a fellow blogger made an interesting comment. DM from the I also live on a farm blog said that a longtime blogger gave him advice that was something like whether you feel a post is awful or well done, not to dwell, ponder or gloat, but move on to the next post. It made me wonder, how do we recover from our bad posts? … Continue reading How to Recover From a Bad Post
In the summer of 2015, I was pregnant with two projects. The most obvious was my daughter, but I was also about to give birth to a memoir about my father. My father had died in a bike accident the day after I finalized plans to become pregnant by invitro fertilization. His death kicked off an urgency to take the recordings I’d made of my … Continue reading Memoir Writing: Understanding the Why
I started blogging on WordPress because I wanted to practice writing. Although I’ve written and published, mostly technical books but also a memoir about my beloved father, I had a sense that I could hone the skill of putting words together to describe life and myself more adeptly. What I’ve found is that the practice of writing has changed me. Whenever I put life down … Continue reading The Writer’s Mission Statement
Early on in my technical career, I was contracted by Microsoft to write some of their certification exams. When they were releasing a new product, it was a brilliant way to push the technical partners to train and adopt the new product and also convince their customer base that there were partners ready and able to help them implement the new technology. The questions went … Continue reading Writing Outside of the Box
A couple of years ago, there was a spectacular sunrise worth noticing. Anyone who has seen my Instagram feed knows that sunrise posts are one of my staples. But this particular sunrise is memorable because I scooped up my kids who were aged 5 and 1 at the time and took them to the deck upstairs to see it. As soon as took a picture … Continue reading The Power of Awe
The other night my brother, Jay, and I were out to dinner with his wife and another friend. Jay and I were sitting next to each other and my friend said it was funny to watch us with our synchronized big smiles, expressiveness, and gesticulating. We were talking about writing, something neither of us do professionally. My brother is a marketing guru and I’m an … Continue reading Is Being A Writer an Inherited Trait?
We’ve been working hard to mold Wise & Shine into a community for readers and writers. This best of post is intended to provide a peek into the collaborative efforts and other content you may have missed. Please sign up for the newsletter to get information on content and contests. Heads Up Podcast Updates: We’ve decided to provide a little thematic focus to the podcast … Continue reading Best of January
We’ve been working hard to mold Wise & Shine into a community for readers and writers. This best of post is intended to provide a peek into the collaborative efforts and other content you may have missed. Please sign up for the newsletter to get information on content and contests. Cool Projects that Make a Difference The Fulginiti Family Band is donating all proceeds from their … Continue reading Best of December
When Todd Fulginiti recently published a post There is Try: Why Yoda Was Wrong it made me want to know more about whether he’s always been open to trying new things and if there is something or someone that inspires that cycle of resilience. Luckily we were able to talk about all that and more in this latest Wise & Shine podcast: Episode 12: On … Continue reading Podcast Episode 12: On Trying New Things
We’ve been working hard to mold Wise & Shine into a community for readers and writers. This best of post is intended to provide a peek into the collaborative efforts and other content you may have missed. Please sign up for the newsletter to get information on content and contests. Step 9, an audio play written by Edgerton award winning playwright and Wise & Shine … Continue reading Best of November
Recently I woke up early one morning knowing that I had to apologize to a friend. In my tiredness the night before, I had conflated my feelings about two different things going on in my life and unnecessarily laid it at my friend’s door. In my apology, I borrowed some wisdom from my father, “My dad always said it was better to eat crow early … Continue reading Podcast Episode 10: On Step 9, Apologies and Healing
