Reassessment of Goals in the Life as a Writer

Summer is winding down and the cold days will be here soon enough.  This is a sad time for me as I love the warm days with flip flops between my toes and the warmth on my skin.  Sigh. As the days get shorter and colder, there will be less time outdoors and more time indoors.

Which means more time to write.

Not that I have not been writing, but I will probably write more as winter approaches.  Many of you may have noticed all of the guest posts here lately. There are many reasons for this.

Value of Guest Posts

While I have discussed the value of guest posts previously, I want to mention some more reasons I have done this lately.

• Time to enjoy summer activities
• Time to submit guest posts on other sites
• Exposure to me AND the guest blogger
• Creating a stronger community
• AND...

Juggling Your Writing Priorities

During this time, I also did some juggling and reassessing my writing goals.  There is a time in every freelance writer's life where things get shuffled, priorities change, a reassessment of goals needs to be down.  A cleaning up house, if you will.  It was that time for me.

Stopped writing for eHow and Bukisa

There was some changes with eHow and they are now solely a part of Demand Studios.  I am not sure I will be writing for them - atleast not for now.

I also deleted my account at Bukisa since that really was not earning me squat.  I picked up an account a HubPages, and put the few Bukisa articles on Suite 101 and HubPages, wherever it was more appropriate.

Started writing for HubPages

There are a few things I really love about HubPages.  The ability to write about a variety of topics, the forums are great, and the high page ranking of the site.  There are a few ways to make money with Hubs, including Google Adsense, eBay, and Amazon.

There is a great tutorial on the promotion of your Hub. It has a lot of information and gives you ideas on how to promote you hubs.

If you are interested it writing for HubPages, it is a great place to let your creative juices flow as the topics are diverse.

Began simmer mode with additional blog

I created my Love Musings blog a while ago, but I have not done too much with it.  But, I am not giving up on.  I just want to put some energy into article writing.

I also decided to make my blog, Inspired to Write, a priority.  My traffic is increasing and I now have a PR of 3!

Juggling the right balls

So right now, the balls up in the air are:

• Suite 101
• HubPages
• Inspired to Write
• Love Musings

Time Spent as a Writer in Non-Writing Activities

Social Media. As a writer and a blogger, some of your time is spent promoting your writing and blogs.

My Twitter profile and Facebook Fan Page automatically update every time I write a blog post.  But, this does not cover the time I spend promoting my other articles.

Article marketing is a whole other ball of wax. The typical way I promote articles is through Twitter and Facebook.  I use this sparingly depending on the article and the social media site.  Facebook is a different audience than Twitter. It is important in social media to not have one continuous self-promotional broadcast that eventually people will just turn off.

So I share only what I think is relevant, quality and appropriate to the audience. The last thing I am interested in is annoying people!

A new site I discovered is She Told Me.  I have not too much with this site yet.  But, it is a Digg-like site where you can promote yours and other peoples articles.  It seems promising, but I have not fully dived in yet!

Getting Involved in the Community. This is another non-writing activity that I have been spending more time doing.  You can not live in a bubble as an online writer.  I mean you can. but people may not notice you as much if you never make an appearance.  It is important to take the time and see what is going on in the community.  Make comments, respond to comments, read other people's blogs and ideas.  Get involved in the writing and blogging community!

Focusing on What you Enjoy

I chopped down my list of writing sites because I want to focus on what I enjoy.  Suite 101 (especially with their new editorial  changes) is a great way for me to focus on writing about one nice that I love - travel.  While HubPages gives me opportunities to write about different topics.  I do have so many interests, it is nice to have a place to write about them!

The bottom line is as a writer, you do not want to get stagnant, bored, overwhelmed, or lose interest in your work.  So, occassionally all writers will have to reassess goals.  This is simply the life of a writer.

Tagged as: article writing, freelance writing, HubPages, writing goals, writing tips