Blog Day Planner

It sounds like we're getting ready to eat dinner, doesn't it?

That's almost true. I want to talk about prioritizing the servings on your freelance plate of work in your to do lists. How does that relate to eating dinner? If you prioritize and plan effectively, your freelance work will provide the maximum return in finances for your efforts.

And that means, you'll have larger portions to serve on your dinner plate! One of the places that people tend to cut corners when they are starting out in business as freelancers or independent marketers is in the "food allotment" column of their budget ledgers. With proper planning and follow through, income will increase and this column allowance will grow because there will be ample finances to cover the other expenses that keep you in business.

So go ahead! Plan a dinner out with that someone special! Pick up the tab with your smart planner funds and enjoy the delicious taste of wise freelancedom!

After your enjoyable dinner, come back for part one of Freelance Portions 101.

The Midnight Writer

The daffodils are in bloom so that has got to be a sure sign that spring is finally enduring. Yeah! I’m so relieved to be finished with all those blizzards and hail storms but I’m not sure if the high winds are finished for this season. I know the rain has just begun, and in some parts of the country, that is a good thing because certain states really need the water levels to rise.

Either way, I’m ready to start this week off running like the title of this post says. There is a lot of catch up on my to do list. So swing the flags and signal the take off, here I go. Are you ready to play catch up on all those belated spring tasks that you put off?

My goal for this week first and foremost is to achieve the number of posts per blog for all my major blogs, domain blogs and Entrecard listed blogs. That is a total of 12 blogs so let’s do the run down on totals then I can zero in on the particulars.

The main blogs are Mountain Spirit Productions, The Midnight Writer, Blog Day Planner, The Midnight Writers Journal, The Midnight Writer’s Freelance Quest, The Midnight Writers Cafe, The Midnight Writers Secret Portal, Keep It Simple, The Making of a Walking, One Tin Soldier, and Midnight Revelry. Now that’s quite a line up.

Do you have more than one blog? Are you ready to set weekly goals for number of posts to write per week?

This is the first step in organizing your work week if you are a freelance writer to help set the intention and focus for your work week. It is so easy to let it get away from you, I know. There are more tasks than planning and writing involved in the freelance blogging business, as you probably know. I am involved in social networking, ghost blogging, writing on client’s blogs and writing content so I have more than my blogs to schedule in to the day planner. However, this area is the crux of my personal network so I need to build it.

Are you a blogger for fun or profit? Do you maintain more than one blog? Would you share some of your ideas on blog management and advertising and how you come up with ideas for your posts? I would love to have some guest writers on here to share with my readers. If you are interested, just email themidnightwriter1@gmail.com

and I’ll send you an invitation.

In the interest of sticking to my motto “Keep It Simple”, I’ll finish by listing the weekly line up for posts. At the end of the week, I’ll do my best to come back and review how you and I did. You will have to send me your comments in order to participate in this one.

Mountain Spirit Productions- it’s the domain blog and host for all of our network for the Midnight Writer- goal is 5 posts this week. I’m basing the 5 posts on a Monday through Friday schedule.

The Midnight Writer org – a main domain blog. Goal 5 posts.

Blog Day Planner – the second main domain blog. Goal 5.

The Midnight Writer’s Journal – this one is way behind. 5 posts with two reviews on the Midnight Special Spotlight.

The Midnight Writer’s Freelance Quest- 5 posts

The Midnight Writer’s Cafe - my Smorty blog- aiming for page rank and pages cached – 7 posts

Keep It Simple – 3 posts with follow up on previous posts.

Midnight Revelry- 3 posts and a review on Blog Day Planner. Buy the domain this week by Friday.

The Midnight Writer’s Secret Portal – 3 posts with a review on Blog Day Planner.

The Midnight Writers Blogs- 10 posts to update reviews and progress reports on all blogs and to publish news on our network and social networking. Two posts about affiliate marketing and a sponsor.

One Tin Soldier – 5 posts with rainbow gathering updates and follow up on some of our story lines.

If you are following any of these blogs on Entrecard, you will be able to track the progress because you’ll notice the new posts every day when you click on the widget. That should make you smile. I know I click on blogs hoping to see something new.

This brings the total to 59 posts and that is a lot of work.

Flash dancing is not my only form of exercise in between all the freelance writing assignments that I do each day. Bicycling is another favorite old hobby and sport of mine. It's been a little while since I've taken a bicycle ride, but lately my husband and I have been considering becoming much more active.

When I resume by blog daily planning, an exercise routine and something health related is going to become an integral part of this focus process.

I left my last bicycle in a friend's garage, so I better pull it out and check the bicycle components. A few repairs should get my legs cycling up and down the hillsides again.

The new mountain bikes have special tubes to be thorn resistant and durable on rough terrain. I grew up in the era of those heavy thick tired bikes where your legs did all the work. I'll be taking mountain roads and trails with no trouble. The sage cycles are sleek and efficient and functional.

Direct Bicycle Parts has all the accessories and miscellaneous equipment that I'll need for those great excursions mountain biking in the scenic wilderness. With my new wireless connection, I can rest in the tall forests and write under tree on a rest break. I'm so excited. I'm making a list to buy a helmet, riding shoes, riding clothes, my first aid kit, and emergency supply bag. I can even find the eyewear to keep dust out of my eyes and a headset to listen to some tunes while I pump those pedals. All this is available in one place. Great!

You want to join me on a mountain bike trip?

Finally! We made it out of Alexandria, Virginia and are heading westbound all the way to California as I write this. Well, not exactly as I write this. We stopped at a truck stop so I could do more of my traditional after midnight writing. I am a traveler by day and a writer by night. You can read all about our departure from Alexandria on this page. While you're there, take a peek at some new photos I uploaded and a small story about some of our ocean adventures, complete with pictures of Cephas.

All right, I'll give you a sneek preview!








The Midnight Writer

Happy New Year to all you Entrecard droppers out there and to all my readers. Thanks for visiting my site. I pray each of you will have a prosperous New Year filled with joy and safety and peace. Share the love that is so needed around the world. Support all the humanitarian sites that you are able that offer to feed and clothe the needy. Just a reminder, that to change the world means to start where you live.

Thank you top Ten Entrecard Droppers

1. Learning How to Make Money Online - 11

2. My Life - 6

3. Article Marketing Methods - 6

4. Personal Budgeting Doesn't Have to be Difficult -4

5. Politics 2000 -2

6. Losing It- Getting Fit -2

7. -Chopsticks- The One and Only Original Chopsticks Blogger -

8. Zental Floss -1

9. Margie and Edna's Basement -1

10. Kolkatta -1

My goals this year are to increase my personal drops, reviews and comments on other people's sites. I am making a goal to set aside a time each week to read my favorite blogs like I would read a good book and to visit new blogs.

My New Year's resolution for Entrecard are to steadily increase my weekly drops and return regularly to the sites that I visit to make at least ten "Top Ten Entrecard Visitors Lists" somewhere in the blogosphere. It is my hope to encourage others to share in the practice of recognizing those visitors who faithfully visit our blogs. Hopefully, my top ten will include visitors who stopped by more than once or twice.

Another resolution is to establish the practice of buying at least two ads per week per blog. I also intend to recognize my sponsors who host the ads for my blog on their blog and to recognize those who purchase ads from me.

Happy New Year Every One!
And please find a designated driver.

The Midnight Writer

As noted in my focus sheet for November, I/you need to increase blog performance. This is an intentional act, not a passive one as I have learned in November. I allowed other events to hinder this blog’s progress. Now that is not a failure, rather it is a learning point.

Did you meet your daily or weekly blog posting goals?

What are your plans for this month?

Post your feedback right here, on Blog Day Planner, and please remember to include a link back to one of your blogs or articles or one of your websites.

What should I do this month?

Reset the intention to increase blog performance.

What does that mean exactly, when I say “increase blog performance”?

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

Cephas and I want to add a little fun and interaction to our blogs. Coming up with ideas is not a challenge. Deciding which ideas to implement, how to present those ideas, and on which blogs to use them is the challenging part.

Here is one idea that we thought would be fun to implement as a test run of the whole concept of special blog interaction special features.

For those who read our blogs, you know that we travel extensively. Due to our travels, we thought it would be fun to feature a "Where are we now?" and let our readers enter locations based on clues of our whereabouts. It's kind of like "Where's Waldo?"

Anyway, I am into feedback on this one. Give me a few days to develop this idea then I'll post the complete information and instructions on how to play "Where are we now?"

And why should this matter to you? Why would you want to play this game?

Because it will be chock full of goodies and blogging awards, like cool blog awards and reciprocal links, some free advertising on our sites. You get the idea.

Remember, it's all about you, and your ranking in the blogosphere in the wide world of cyber action.

If you are interested in playing the game, yet to be named, leave a comment below or email themidnightwriter1@gmail.com.

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

Day Two for my Blog Day Planner begins with the sight of Starbucks and the pleasant aroma of fresh brewed coffee. After two hours work, I added a scrumptous pastry on the side to go with a coffee refill. MMMmmm....Delicious.

1. Review yesterday's list.


2. Check freelance and blogging emails for updates or job offers.


3. Make business phone calls relevant to internet work.


4. Study Scriptlance, which is a new freelance job opportunity site that I joined just a few days ago. Scriptlance also has an affiliate marketing program which I also joined. My affiliate url is in the text codes highlighted above.


5. Load the Scriptlance banner into three more blog sites as a sidebar widget.


6. Apply for two job offers through Scriptlance.


7. Edit the first blog post at Blog Day Planner.


8. Edit my profile to fine tune it for a portfolio and resume. Include experience, writing style, references and examples of my work in the profile.


9. Write a post on 1TinSoldier. Edit the sidebar ads and include a link to Blog Day Planner in my link section.


10. Write a post about Scriptlance on one blog. Include affiliate text links.


11. Write a debut article for new blogs on some other blogs. Be sure to introduce Dear Diary, Daily Blog Life, Midnight Velocity, Midnight Revelry, Lost At Sea.


12. Add text links for other personal blogs and websites and for my affiliate programs into one article on five blogs today.


13. Create two articles using top keywords with hyperlinks to my affiliate programs.


14. Create one new blog today.


15. Write an article on Dear Diary.


16. Create a list of names and ideas for ten niche blogs. This should be repeated once a month.


17. Develop an outline for two niche blogs.


18. Update my website, change the profile, and add writing links and samples.


19. Create a static page for Blog Day Planner with the introduction appearing at the beginning.

If you're not too tired from last night's Flashdance, then consider a walk in the scenic outdoors and enjoy the fall leaves turning. The crisp night air might inspire some Harvest stories.

See you tomorrow for a follow up on today's work. Meanwhile, happy blogging and freelance writing.

The Midnight Writer

Follow Up

In checking my emails, I found a message from Freelance Writers Info in response to an application that I filed just three days ago on September 27th. The company sent me a file titled "Writers Pack" zipped neatly as an attachment. Unfortunately for me, I don 't have compatible software loaded on my computer to open and read the file.

The good news is that posting my portfolio on some Freelance Writng job sites is receiving a fast response. I am interested in studying the trend to see what can be learned that might help other freelance writers and bloggers.

From what I can gather, I am considered to be a hired writer for this company. The message reads, "Many thanks for your kind enquiry and welcome to the Delegate2 group of writers."

Follow List:

1. Download software to read multiple word files.