Okay, I reread the assignment and watched to tape all over again…a few times. I also snuck over to Group A to”pay back” Mary & Helga. Oh, and I got some sleep, too.
Just a few thoughts before I tackle part two of this past week’s assignment: Those headline templates are part of the reason I was going long. Your system is much simpler and stream-lined. How do you use the materials I referenced above? And yes, Copyblogger has felt a bit off for the last 6 months or so. I think they are just strained by rolling out all of these new products. Demian can be genius…or not…as witnessed by the April Fool. Jerod is more of a consistent hitter, but I think he is also being pulled for the New Rainmaker.
And speaking of being “off,” here is my still-rough-draft-but-submitted anyway entry in last December’s Copyblogger Essay Contest.
To be fair, my entry headline was: Why Is it Important to Be Earnest in Creating Your Online Authority?
Much better was the headline I created for my post about the contest before my submission.
How Can 250 Words Lead to Ultimate Online Authority?
As a bonus, take a look at the bottom of “And the Winner Is…Not Me,” and you will find a list of some of the other entrants with links to their entries. And Jerod WAS kind enough to check out my post and leave a detailed comment.
I give an analysis as does he on the failures involved with my entry. It really needs to be split apart. I’d already shed off a couple of skins at that point. I got interrupted in my final day of editing and hit the send button because I didn’t know if I’d be back home in time before the deadline. It was a Hail Mary Pass…my only hope was for others to suck worse.
What I needed to do was separate the guru story from the Oscar Wilde one. 250 words can only support one controlling image/metaphor. That would give me space to rework the ending to close the chosen loop.
This blog was begun the night I was sent home from work with a concussion. Two years ago this month, in fact. It was begun as an experiment. Many of the posts were way out there on purpose. I wanted to see what kind of audience response I would get. I wanted to figure out what I wanted to write about and what an audience would want to hear from me.
These are far and beyond the most popular posts on the blog in order of popularity:
How Can You Afford To Live in Hawaii? How Can I Afford Not To?
Cooing for Coco Puffs at Liliha Bakery
Shave Ice Is Nice, But Halo Halo Is Da Bomb (dot) Com
So surprisingly, it’s travel, food, and lifestyle stories. Not new media or writing. Aside from technical difficulties, it’s one of my problems in relaunching the site on self-hosted. I feel I need to be clearer on the next step.
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” ~Emily Dickinson Lori Sailiata