Blog Day Planner

It is really moving into the holiday season rapidly. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving already, so happy Thanksgiving to all my readers. I'm a vegetarian, so if I eat turkey it will be tofu turkey. However, I think Cephas and I will probably enjoy some conventional meal with salad, potatoes, corn, you know..nothing fancy since we won't be dining with family. Lots of dessert will be on our plate, I am believing though since Cephas mentioned it. I go for the carrot cake. Cephas likes cheesecake and banana pudding, among other things.

We are stranded in Alexandria, Virginia since our 3000 mile trip across country to meet with the Undersecretary of Agriculture two weeks ago has left us an unwitting new residents here. Until we find an apartment or place of dwelling, we are staying at the hotel 1973 Dodge Tradesman van parked in Walmart, where we towed her last week. The timing chain went out.

I have been pouting a lot and focusing on survival and personal needs, so my blogs have been ignored a bit. No worry, I am coming back and getting it together. I'll try to remember my own motto, to keep it simple!

Meanwhile, hug your family for us and enjoy them. Anyone who is spending Thanksgiving with loved ones is blessed. Cephas and I send love to all our family and friends. Think of us here in Alexandria searching for the connection to our new life.

I will come back with creative new ideas for the Blog Day Planner after the holiday tomorrow.

The Midnight Writer

Today I am recovering from a trip to Reno/Sparks, and naturally I am sitting at Starbucks to write. Maybe I should buy stock in the company.

With two thousand five hundred miles to travel in ten days, it is going to be a challenge to keep up to the writing tasks until I get to Washington DC. Hopefully, we'll (my husband Cephas and I) find a nice studio apartment where I can kick back and get some work done. Of course, I'll be juggling my freelance writing and marketing with our political action and peace ambassador work. Then there's the novel in the works.

It is going to be an awesome season for us with so many new and exciting adventures!

Here's the highlights for today.

1. Finish research and first draft for travel article about a trip to Montana that was a great adventure. This is number one! It absolutely takes precedence over everything else and it absolutely must be finished tonight and emailed tomorrow morning. Check out the site where I hope to be a regular "contributor"at Northwest.com.
2. Send an update email to the Editor at Northwest.com so he knows the article is progressing and that I haven't dropped off the face of the planet.
3. Outline ideas for Blog U Back and prepare my first feature article on a couple of bloggers and their site Trapped in The Office.
4. Email Katy at Trapped in The Office with a list of ideas or a couple links to put in the feature article she will be writing about me on her site.
5. Blogsvertise- correct yesterday's article which did not pass the muster of Admin. Rewrite and resubmit. After Midnight is fine. Write the new article for Blogsvertise that is floating in the work queue for me.
6. Middle East Peace blog at Today-write one post. Write one gold article from my stash. That will give me some coffee money.
7. Social Spark- write for the two advertisers who put a request in my profile section and submit for approval.

Drive two hundred miles. Do some hiking or take a long walk in the wilds of Nevada. You never know, I might find a story lurking there.

That is all folks!!!!

Trying to keep it simple, but it is hard to do when success work starts happening! Smile. I am happy about all this in my life, just so you know.

The Midnight Writer

I have discovered a handy tool to write on my blogs while offline. The program is called Live Writer. It imports the style of weblogs selected so posts can be viewed offline as they will appear on the actual blog when it is live online. Once published, there is a choice to save a draft copy of new posts into Live Writer or to just publish and delete. Usually, it is a good idea to keep a month long archive of your posts in all the blogs being published by Live Writer. This practice allows for monthly monitoring, cross referencing among blogs and editing.

If you have tried it yet, I strongly recommend it for active writers who travel that may find themselves without a wi-fi hot spot or other internet connection. Enjoy and keep on blogging.

The Midnight Writer

Each time I use the internet to work on blogging or freelance writing or internet marketing, I am "getting in the groove" of using this new focus tool, the Blog Day Planner.

• List 20 blog url's on google to have cache updated.



• Test these 20 url's to view cache status in the follow up to this post.



• Enter five blog url's on a second search engine, such as "yahoo."

Special note from google:

When entering url on google's enter url page, a paragraph explaining the process appears as quoted below on their website:

"Please note: Only the top-level page from a host is necessary; you do not need to submit each individual page. Our crawler, Googlebot, will be able to find the rest. Google updates its index on a regular basis, so updated or outdated link submissions are not necessary. Dead links will 'fade out' of our index on our next crawl when we update our entire index. "

2. Change the url listing for The Midnight Writer blog on all blogs and websites, as well as pay to blog companies like Social Spark, Smorty, and Pay Per Post. Yesterday I purchased the domain name, so the url has changed. Blogspot will forward visitors to the previous http://themidnightwriter1.blogspot.com/ to the new domain name http://www.themidnightwriter.org/

That is quite an assignment, so I may not complete much else today. The main goal is to update links, increase search engine rankings, write and get freelance writing assignments!

Written by The Midnight Writer

The path to becoming a professional blogger or freelance writer is paved with paper remnants of many lists, ideas and thoughts. This brainstorming frenzy ends up in the trash can as accumulated scraps of paper that is soon forgotten. All the effort that produced those original ideas is forgotten along with the scrap pile.

Out of necessity, I searched for a better way to organize all this material. The scrap heap is not the place for most good brainstorming ideas. These are treasures and need to be treated as such. The idea of a Blog Day Planner emerged.

With a list like the sample below, it became a daily struggle just to know where to begin.

1. Write ten blog posts on ten different blogs.
2. Load affiliate codes for Amazon in all ten blogs.
3. Edit five blog posts on http://themidnightwriter.squarespace.com/
4. Spellcheck today's blog entries.
5. Advertise on two blog promotion sites.
6. Change the template on my freelance journal.
7. Create domain names for my five new blogs, find a provider, buy the names and set the domain router.
8. Warm up the computer then go for that coffee.
9. Call website host to renew subscription.
10. List ten topics with variety to write about in blogs.
11. Research for today's topics.
12. Check email for freelance and blogging job offers.

Tasks, assignments, lots to remember.

How do you keep it all together as a freelance writer and blogger?

She's A Maniac!!! say my friends.

Take a moment to focus.

Watch the video to see how some people handle their workload.

Keep a Blog Day Planner to Help Stay Focused.

In the planning stages, I realized that I needed to keep all the information from lists, thoughts, ideas, projects, appointments, finances in one place online.

Keep in mind that your day planner blog can be set to private.

Everything will be at your fingertips online where most freelance writing and blogging takes place.

Voila!

Simplicity!

Turn on the computer.

Brew the coffee.

Open Blog Day Planner.

Review notes from yesterday and formualte the plan for today.

Keep it online and interactive as a reference blog to help focus advertising and marketing.

Use it as a tool for other writers and bloggers.

Brainstorming complete.

Now it's time to act.

I created the blog after several months of thought.

After a good night's sleep, get some exercise and stretch that body. Take in some morning fresh air to clear the cobwebs from your brain. Next, brew your favorite coffee, pull up a comfy chair, turn on the computer and read your Blog Day Planner.

Go over the list of ideas, tasks and assignments, phone calls to make, topics to cover, and all things necessary for today's blogging or freelance writing. As a freelance writer, the day is your own. Remember that focus and organization will keep you motivated to perform your work on a professional level. More will be accomplished to allow time for the other roles in your life.

The sun is shining outside as the afternoon wanes, and it is real tempting to want to turn off the computer and put away those old "dusty" research books that you pulled out of Grandpa's den for that special project. Resist the temptation! Finish the day's work so you will enjoy the rewards awaiting a job well done.

Now put away those slippers and grab those dancing shoes.

Flashdancing is on for tonight!

The Midnight Writer