Hope Writes

Things Change

Posted by Hope

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a bit! I’ve been doing a lot of re-prioritizing and figuring out where to go and what to do. Plus I’ve been busy with personal stuff, so all of this left little time for blogging here.

I’ve made a huge, life-altering decision for myself in the last few days. It is something that is going to be wonderful and exciting, but I don’t want to share it here just yet. It won’t affect my writing, but I will have to say good-bye to some things I’ve been doing to make time for this.

If you’re scratching your head and wondering what in the world I could be talking about…well, you know what they say about curiosity!

For now, I want to leave you with this thought: If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, DO IT NOW! Don’t wait. Don’t put it off. You might not have another tomorrow. So go for your dreams TODAY!

(I’m sure I’ll share more later, but for now that’s it.)

Popularity: 12% [?]

Win A Book

Posted by Hope

My bosom buddy is hosting a contest on her blog right now. She’s giving away a copy of A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words: Image-Driven Story Prompts and Exercises for Writers. If she weren’t my bestest friend in the whole wide world, and if she hadn’t already sent me a boat-load of writer books when she cleaned off her shelf, I would leave a comment to enter the contest, too. But that would be kinda greedy, wouldn’t it?

Go put your name in the hat!

**Updated**I can’t believe I forgot to add the link! *smacks forehead* You still have time to get your name in the hat. Click on the link above to enter Angela’s contest.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Need A Little Boost?

Posted by Hope

I thought I’d share another personal blog of mine, for those of you who don’t already know about it. I have a self-improvement blog, called Nurtured Soul. Check it out, if you’re need some motivation, or a little mental pick-me-up: http://www.nurturedsoul.com.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Hope Writes Featured On WritingThoughts.com

Posted by Hope

What a nice surprise! Laura, over at WritingThoughts.com featured Hope Writes on her blog today. Thanks Laura!

If you haven’t discovered Writing Thoughts yet, it’s another great writing blog to add to your reading list. Check it out today: http://www.writingthoughts.com/

Popularity: 18% [?]

Looking For A Recurring Income Opportunity?

Posted by Hope

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to put my Self-Improvement PLR membership site up for sale. If you’re a writer looking for a monthly recurring income, this could be just what you need.

I launched this website at the end of July 2007 and it has done very well since then. My 30-day stats this month show an income of $450+ (after PayPal fees). This is with MINIMAL advertising. So if you know your stuff and have time to market this website, you have a huge income potential.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Twitter VS Pownce: Do You Pownce?

Posted by Hope

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Pownce is a social networking tool, similar to Twitter but a little more sleek. It is free to use. All you have to do is sign up for your account. You can upgrade to Pro for $20/year if you choose.

I’ve been using Twitter for a while, but have increasingly grown “out of like” with it. When I originally joined, I didn’t have a plan for using Twitter. I just signed up for an account and started adding folks at random.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 35% [?]

Goal #1 for 2008…DONE!

Posted by Hope

Isn’t it an amazing feeling when you can check something off your TO DO list? I did just that late yesterday evening and I feel absolutely ecstatic!

Normally, I set a pretty large list of goals for myself every year. I pull out all the stops and set all sorts of goals for my writing and personal life. But it always seems that I never quite accomplish them all. In fact, a few weeks ago when I sat down for my annual goal setting day, I realized that I didn’t accomplish a single goal I set for myself last year!

The problem wasn’t that I don’t work hard. It wasn’t that I’m unmotivated. The problem was that I wrote down a bunch of goals that were so large and time-consuming that I became overwhelmed and dropped them all.

This year I decided to do things different. Like Dr. Phil says, what I’ve been doing ain’t workin’ for me. So I knew I had to shake things up a bit.

That’s why I didn’t go through the process of setting a bunch of goals for this year. Instead, I’m taking it one step at a time.

My first goal for the year was to complete a book that I’ve been working on for a few years. Actually, the book was finished early last year. But then I put it aside and didn’t follow through with editing and publishing it.

Late yesterday afternoon I put the final finishing touches on it and sent it off to two trusted allies. I am eagerly awaiting their comments and thoughts on it. Once I get those, I’ll be sending it to the publisher (I’m self-publishing this one). So stay tuned for more news on this to follow soon.

See, sometimes when things don’t work for you, you have to try something different. Now that I’ve finished my first goal, I’ve set my second goal. When I complete that, I’ll set another, and another…

Do you have a special goal-setting process? What does it involve?

Popularity: 37% [?]

New Things You Might Have Missed

Posted by Hope

I’ve been tweaking my blog for a few weeks now, in an effort to make it both more useable and user-friendly. Even though I liked the previous theme I was using, it began to feel very crowded and ugly. Here are some of the changes made so far:

1. Reduced Adsense ads. This was one of the things that caused my last theme to look overcrowded. I like to use images in some of my blog posts, but that mixed with Adsense ads in single posts just wasn’t cutting it. The combination was causing a very ugly single post with the text all squished out of whack, so that’s gone now.
2. Sponsor ads in sidebar. I still have a spot or two open right now, so if you’re interested click here for more information on getting your ad on Hope Writes.
3. Added a Print This Post plugin. I absolutely love this plugin and am so happy to have stumbled across it on another blog. I don’t know about you, but when I find a meaty article on a blog, I like to print it out for further perusal offline. This plugin basically strips all the extraneous matter from the post, leaving you with just the article, as well as full links. If you’ve ever printed something, only to realize months later when you read it that you don’t have a clue what the underlined text was linked to, you know how important a printable feature like this can be!
4. Added a Poll plugin. Another terrific feature I love on blogs is a poll. I enjoy voting in and reading polls, so I thought why not add one of my own to this blog? My goal is to switch out the polls every month. Jump in and cast your vote on the latest poll today! (Hint: Look in the right sidebar ==>)
5. Added new Social Bookmarking plugin. I’ve played around with a few different social bookmarking plugins but none of them grabbed me until I saw Courtney’s. I like this one much better because it’s more simplified. When you place your pointer over the I Love Social Bookmarking text, a horizontal menu will pop up. You can then click on either of your favorite social bookmarking venues to quickly and easily bookmark a post. Neat, huh?
6. Removed some external links. I love swapping links with others. But lately my links list seemed to take on a life of its own. So I pared it down tremendously and plan on adding a links page instead, to share some of my most favorite links.
7. Added a new RSS feed link. Until a couple of months ago I didn’t fully understand the importance of RSS feeds. Since then, I’ve switched my feed to Feedburner and added a button at the top of the sidebar. (Feel free to sign up.) I’ll be adding a sign-up form shortly for those who prefer to get updates via email. (Makes it so much easier than trying to subscribe to a bunch of RSS feeds!)

So there you have it. Those are just a few changes I’ve made over the last few weeks. I love writing but most of all I love helping others. I want my blog to be inviting, but I also want you to enjoy yourself when you’re here.

How often do you tweak your blog? What changes have you made?

Popularity: 18% [?]

What Do You Want To Know?

Posted by Hope

As we round out this year and head into 2008, I thought I’d take a moment to find out what’s on your mind. If you have a question about writing, I’d love to help you out with it. Leave your question in the comments below or email them to me at hopewilbanks@gmail.com. I’ll answer your questions in detail in future posts. (If you prefer your name not to be used with your question, just let me know and I’ll keep you anonymous.)

So what’s on your mind? What questions do you have? What are you interested in learning more about? Talk to me!

Popularity: 29% [?]

Announcement: Weight Loss Niche Article Directory

Posted by Hope

Are you in the weight loss niche? Do you enjoy writing articles about weight loss and dieting? I launched a new article directory this week just for you!

YourEasyWeightLoss.com is accepting original articles NOW. We are proud to bring you an article directory that is tightly focused in the weight loss niche. Our goal is to create a wonderful community of writers within this niche, thus bringing you highly targeted traffic to your websites as well.

To sign up for your free account and start submitting your original weight loss and diet articles, go to: http://www.youreasyweightloss.com/signup.php

Popularity: 15% [?]

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