Creating a Blog That People Will Love to Read

Starting a blog is not only easy, it can be a fun and creative way for you to share your thoughts, opinions, and expertise on a particular subject. Some people use their blog as a personal journal to share with the world. Others focus on a very specific topic and attract a group of readers who also share an interest in that topic. Whatever reason you choose to begin writing, you can develop a high-traffic web blog that people will enjoy reading on a regular basis.

Before setting everything up, it's important to figure out what topic you want to write about. It's best to stick to a topic you have a sincere interest in. More often than not, people start up a new blog, write every day for about a week, and then give up because the subject matter no longer interests them. Your best bet is to find something you like learning more about, something new you are trying, or anything that you feel passionate about.

Some popular topics include:

Health & fitnessFashionCelebrity gossipSportsFinancialSelf-improvement

Hobbies are great topics also. Are you an avid fisher? Do you make your own clothes? People who share an interest would probably visit a web site dedicated to their hobby quite often. These specific niche type of web sites can develop a loyal following. Once you have a following along with new visitors on a daily basis, you can then consider including advertisements and begin earning income from your blog.

Always write for the readers and not the search engines. While it is important to use keywords in your titles, write because you enjoy writing about your subject. People can see right through filler content. They won't feel the need to read your posts or to leave comments.

Whatever you write about, write posts that offer help or advice. Writing with the intention of helping other people is one of the quickest ways to establish readership. Not only that, your posts are more likely to get linked to and the more one-way links your web site gets from other web site owners, the higher your posts may rank in the search engines.

Finally, be consistent with how often you write. Don't write one or two posts, quit for a couple of months, and then pick up writing again. The readers you did have will think the site has closed down and quit visiting. Not only that, but the search engines will have more content to crawl.

Choose topics you have a personal interest in and write to help your readers. That combination will help you develop many loyal readers.

I've developed many blogs that earn passive income for me on a monthly basis. Learn my exact steps on how to create a money making blog absolutely FREE. Visit http://echpublishing.com/ to learn how.

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The Hope Series

Stories of Hope Series

Living in Poverty - the Trapper and Family

Born high in the mountains of Tennessee
With no running water, or electricity.
Living in rags that her father found in the woods
Was her only salvation, her only goods.
They put her in pampers that they had found
Dirty and filthy and pulled from the ground.
A rock stove and firewood
They would eat when they could.
He did fishing and trapping just to survive.
The closest neighbor was twenty miles away
By the time he walked there he would have to stay.
The neighbor would take all that he trapped
In return give him food, clothing, ammunition and fat.
The neighbor then told him:
This is no way to raise a child.
You've been in the mountains quite a while.
Things have changed drastically
In school is where this child should be.
This child must learn how to read and write
What you're doing to her, just isn't right.
He packed up his knapsack and up the mountain he fled
Putting her with other children, was something he did dread.
He finally got home where his wife and child awaited
He looked at them and then hesitated.
With gleams in their eyes of the goodies he brought.
The child looked in the bag for a doll that she sought.
Not finding the doll in the bag, she turned and walked
From the room looking so sad
She went outside deep in the woods
her head hung down and there she stood.
The tears started to form in her eyes
And then she did cry.
Her father saw this and his heart broke in two
Now he knew what he had to do.
The following morning he went back down the mountain again
To speak to his neighbor, his only friend.
He asked his friend what should I do
My daughter is suffering and feeling blue.
I don't have the money to buy her things, or send her to school
And living in the mountains is not the right tool.
He said: you are a natural born mountain man
And for you I do have a plan.
How would you like to teach others how to survive
And into your mountains they would climb.
You can teach them how to hunt and fish
This is on a city dwellers wish list.
You will get paid for what you love to do
And to your heart you will be true.

Looking at his family and the way they lived
An education for his child he had to give.
His friend set up flyers and posted them all over town
And on the internet this mountain man was found.
He brought his child down from the mountain top
And until she had an education he would not stop.
She stayed with this neighbor and friend
And saw all that she had missed
She was in heaven, she was in bliss.
Her father now made enough to continue her education
And to learn those golden rules, now he knew she had the tools.
She grew up with hope in their heart
And her father and neighbor gave her the start.
Now don't ever think that there is nothing
That you can't do.
With hope in your heart, you can follow through.
HOPE IS THE KEY TO SET OURSELVES FREE.

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Using a Journal to Hone Your Writing - Journal Writing Topics

There's nothing like a good book or even reading a good article, either at the beginning or the end of the day, to really inspire you. And inspiration from reading can often lead to writing, which is perhaps why reading and writing often go hand in hand. Take a look inside almost any book on writing, and book authors talk at length about how often they read. One author even suggested reading 1000 words for every word you write.

The best thing to start with on your writing journey is a good writing journal. Laptops are great, but sometimes you will be in a place where you won't want to be lugging around electronics. Writers of all kinds in the 19th century used to have journals called commonplace books - a kind of journal where the writer would place all their musings, little stories, notes, or even pictures they'd drawn of things that inspire them. In fact, the writing journal is an excellent way to store items of a common theme. Journals can be leather-bound, lined or unlined journals, embossed journals, fold-over journals, or even extra-large journals, particularly for a longer story or a 19th century-type commonplace book that could last for years.

Despite modern technology (or maybe helped by it), the art of letter-writing and notetaking will likely never die. Sometimes just putting pen to paper - especially if it's crisp and lovely gold-foil stationery or a delicate thank you note or notecards - is enough to really get you going in the writing process, whether you're writing a note to a friend, or starting a diary, or attempting to write poetry or a story. After all, we never really can run out of things to say, can we? We just need the right writing tools and resources. It all starts with a journal, a great pen, and a sturdy writing surface.

Like many things in life, it's always best to be thorough, to ensure you have all the tools you need for writing, like a nice sturdy surface to write on, such as a lap desk or stationery box, particularly if you happen to be in a place where you can't get a traditional workspace or table to write on. Sometimes the best writing resources can be a lap desk writing set or a writer's box with journals and pens, which some stores offer. Let the writer within you begin, and make sure you have all the tools you need to make a great writing start.

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Writing Prompts - Seven Prompts for Seven Days

Need some writing help? Whether you've been writing for years, or just getting started, chances are you need a little inspiration every now and then. Sometimes, though, we can get so bogged down with what our characters should do next in our fiction writing that we paralyze ourselves, and more importantly, our fingers over the keyboard. That's why these writing prompts were created. Use them to jump-start a stalled project - anything from creative writing to novel writing, to kick off a new story or just to keep your writing muscles flexed in between projects.

And, here are a few writing how-tos:

Take yourself back to your teenage years. What if you could redo (or just relive) those years, but this time, with no fear of getting grounded or hurt? What would you now have the nerve to do? Write 250 words.

Set your timer for 1 minute. Write down everything you can find in a medical lab. When the time is up, write a story using all those words, but make sure your setting is nowhere near a hospital, lab or anything else medical.

Most novels and short stories are written in either first-person (I) or second-person (she). For 250 words (again, about a page), write a story written completely in the seldom-used third-person (you). Trust me, it'll make going back to your She- or I-centered story a piece of cake!

Write what you hope your obituary will say one day. Unlike real-life obituaries, you can say whatever you want (you lived on the moon as a teenager, you went back in time to romance Ava Gardner, etc.) and there's no price per line. Spend 10 minutes on it.

Begin a story where the only characters are ghosts. They can exist on another plane that is populated only by ghosts, or it can be an ethereal existence with no real setting. Maybe they have lived peaceably in a home by themselves, but the home has recently sold and the new live owners are about to move in.

It's a well-known tale that Ernest Hemingway once won a friendly wager with a friend when he crafted a 6-word story. As the legend goes, the complete story was, " For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn." While the veracity of this memory has never been determined one way or another, you can't deny that the example is a complete narrative with a beginning, middle and end. Now's your turn. Write a complete narrative in as few words as possible. Can you beat Hemingway's 6-word winner?

The 1950 Kurosawa film Rashomon is a classic. It illustrates the fluid nature of truth and how unreliable witnesses are. Write a story with four characters retelling an event - a car accident, murder, or robbery - and they all have different recollections. Which one is just remembering incorrectly, and which one has something to hide?

Jenn Maxwell is the author of 101 Writing Prompts, available at http://www.jennmaxwell.net/. The 40-page ebook is packed with enough writing prompts to get you through a year's worth of writer's block. Visit the author's website at http://www.jennmaxwell.net/ for more information on 101 Writing Prompts.

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How to Find Your Voice As a Nonfiction Writer

Often, aspiring writers are concerned about creating a unique voice in their writing. They want to sound like no one else, to express themselves in a way that thousands or even millions of people will find compelling. Maybe it's unrealistic that any of us will truly sound like no one else, but we like to believe that our writing is a true expression of ourselves.

However, if we're honest, we don't have one voice any more than we have one side of ourselves. We act differently in different situations, and speak to our best friend one way and a stranger another. The words we use and our tone of voice change when we address different people. Thus, when we go to find our voice as writers, what we are really looking for is the right voice for the piece. The voice we use is determined by three factors:

--What we want to say

--What effect we want to have on the reader or readers

--Who our readers are

Think about it. Let's say you want to complain about something. You will use different language than if you want to express deep gratitude. If your reader is your best friend, and you want her to feel empathy for you, you will use a different voice than the one you would use if your reader were the customer service representative of a company and you wanted to persuade that individual to replace the company's defective product for free.

Perhaps you want to write about container gardening. Do you want your reader to container garden and learn some basics about how to do it? Or are you simply writing a humorous essay about how you overcame your brown thumb and became overzealous about your bumper crop of parsley?

What effect do you want your writing to have on your reader? Do you want the reader to experience a particular emotion-if so, which one? Do you want the reader to take action? Do you want to persuade your reader to adopt your opinion?

What language will surprise, motivate, or amuse the person who has stumbled across your blog? What idea will grab the attention of your letter's recipient?

We all want to express ourselves, but we also want to be heard. When you use a voice that appeals to your reader and serves the purpose of your writing by transforming that reader into a person who is entertained, intrigued, mesmerized, educated, fascinated, comforted, and so on, you not only get to experience the satisfaction of self-expression, but you also get the satisfaction of having your writing be truly appreciated. Remember, your writing voice shouldn't be determined solely by you and your mood of the moment. Always remember your purpose and your audience.

Nancy Peske is a bestselling author and freelance ghostwriter, developmental editor, and book publishing consultant. She provides helpful information for aspiring authors on her website and blog at http://www.nancypeske.com/

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Tips for Writing Successful Non-Fiction

THOUGHTS IN THE NIGHT
I'm not interested in writers not like myself.

Write fast.

The first draft is the final draft.

Write as you do when you have procrastinated, the deadline is upon you, you must do it now! No time for second drafts.

My most successful stories were written fast, one draft. Example: I wrote a short story a day for 30 days -- 8 were published. The first draft is the final draft. The short story done in from one to three hours, depending upon length. 1000 words an hour.

Five minutes to contemplate story ideas, five minutes to take down ideas about a possible story. 50 minutes to write a thousand- word short story. Three hours for 3000 words.

The easiest stories to write are fiction. And the easiest of these fiction stories is a story which is all dialogue. The first speaker says something threatening or cynical or offhand about the second speaker. The second speaker responds. The first speaker responds to that. The dialogue intensifies, there are insults, tempered by sudden bursts of affection or kindness. The story resolves itself from the writer's unconscious -- and what comes up in the dialogue.

Fiction, in my case, is always done in an ironical tone, tongue-in-cheek, often funny, existential, derived from my past. But not intentionally serious. Minimally controlled.

When I write fiction, I consider it worthless, dangerous, disgusting. I do it easily, it is fun. It is my smoothest writing. It has no importance. It is subversive, mischievous, laughing at the world and myself.

It's easy to publish fiction because people want escape, want to read what they're used to -- fiction writers borrowing from fiction writers, an endless relay of lies.

I'm amused, disgusted, by how easily I do it, how readily it is accepted. It is like going to church, everyone knows the format, it's comfortable, everyone around you knows, expects, the same thing. It is endlessly repeating, brainless, the same story. Requires minimal energy, no thought. Comfortable, and deadly safe, like twilight of sleep. Seemingly harmless. As harmless as a tranquilizer, or one more drink. Choir preaching to the choir. Like a subtle drift to death. Brainless.

Rewriting, the necessity to rewrite, is merely a bad habit. An initial laziness which requires mop-up. A drunk slopping his drink as he goes from the bartender to his seat, only in this case he has to go back, clean up his own, lazy, only-half-there droppings.

A bad habit, developed over countless repetitions of the same mental block/malaise, half-speed, "anything is better than nothing," an accepted escape mechanism unfortunately used in the beginning to "get over the hump," then done again and again, half-assed way of getting something down on paper -- until finally the poor writer can start writing no other way, half-hearted, half-there, sloppiness, laziness, not important -- it can be cleaned up later, put right.

A habit, like a tired housewife putting up with intercourse -- because it is familiar, it might lead to, on occasion, something more interesting.

Merely a habit, a bad habit, an accidental bad solution to the problem -- how to get started?

The difficulty is, like any bad habit, finally it impedes, diminishes, becomes worse.

And finally, the bad habit of the writer knowing he will re-write, thus can be sloppy on the first draft, becomes worse and more powerful, until the writer spends more and more time re-writing timid, lazy, uninspired, no-heart writing, until it becomes a necessity to rewrite a dozen times because each rewrite is weakened by the expectation, thus necessity, of re-writing again, again, again.

I have no interest in talking to escape writers -- science-fiction, romance, mysteries, detective novels -- fiction.

Lies borrowed from liars, borrowed endlessly from endless generations of liars -- fiction.

I have no interest in talking to writers who feel real life, their life, their experiences, is uninteresting, boring, useless. If they think so, I agree with them. Odds are they're right. They shouldn't attempt to be a writer. They have nothing to offer. They should be lawyers or brick layers or chicken farmers.

They shouldn't write about their own lives, because they are boring. And they shouldn't write fiction, that is, lies, because there are more than enough lies already.

I'm interested only in talking to writers very much like myself. And only if they are 18 to 30. After 30, a few. But mostly no, they're lost. Like trying to cure an alcoholic. But a few, maybe. Late bloomers. Still innocent, by accident.

Actually, the only writers I'm mildly interested in talking to -- writers very much like myself -- don't need me to talk to them.

They, like me when I was young, are inspired, unconscious-gifted, by the great autobiographical writers they read: Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, D. H. Lawrence, Theodore Dreiser, Somerset Maughm. Maughm only in one book, "Of Human Bondage." Roth, Mailer, Bellow, Agee, Burroughs, Jack London, Orwell, Conroy, Kerowac, Melville, James T. Farrell.

"All great fiction is autobiographical since authors write most effectively about what they know." Judith S. Baughman.

"Write what you know, not what you read." Grant Flint.

Great writers illuminate life. Hack writers facilitate escape from life. Commercial writing is first cousin to booze, over-eating, cocaine. Temporary escape. Life then worse.

Literature begins when the young writer is inspired by true-life, autobiographical novels, is inspired to say, "I could do that! I have to tell my life!"

I'm interested only in those writers.
The hour is up. 1000 words. No, that's fiction. Only 925.

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Letter Writing: Confrontational Letter Writing Defined

'Confrontational letter writing' is a distinct form of letter writing.

A confrontational letter is a letter that confronts a situation, a problem or dispute. It seeks a specific objective from the recipient that will not usually be granted without resistance.

The writer wants a certain objective and the recipient of the letter will not grant that objective unless convincingly persuaded that he should.

It is not a cheery letter exchanging pleasantries. It is starkly confrontational and directly confronts an issue and seeks to elicit from the recipient of the letter a favorable response. In most instances the recipient is not eager to provide the objective being requested.

Usually there are two basic situations where such a letter emerges:

The First Situation: An individual has received an important and serious letter from another individual, a government, a regulator/authority, a lawyer, a bank, a corporation, an institution, etc. - a letter which contains a demand of some sort.

The individual needs to effectively confront and respond to that letter. He needs a well-written persuasive letter that forcefully confronts that party with his own position and attempts to persuade that party to either moderate, post-pone or abandon the demand.

The Second Situation: An individual has a serious situation or problem and wants to confront and persuade a 3rd party - another individual, the government, regulator/authority, a lawyer, a bank, a corporation, an institution etc. to do something - to agree to his request for some sort of action or forbearance.

In order to accomplish this goal the individual needs a well-written persuasive letter that persuades the recipient to agree to his request.

These letters are confrontational letters. Letters that confront a serious problematic situation and attempts to resolve the problem exclusively through the use of letters.

To be effective this form of letter writing must usually be restricted exclusively to letter writing and not be augmented by verbal confrontation. This is because in many instances verbal confrontation gives a distinct and unfair advantage to the recipient of the letter.

'Confrontational letter writing' is a distinct form of letter writing and to increase the chances of success it necessarily needs to be written by a writer who is experienced in writing such letters. This is not the sort of exercise that can usually be effectively conducted by a novice or the average layman - expertise and experience is essential.

The professionals most adept at writing confrontational letters are lawyers who have had extensive experience in this type of writing. Many of the skills required to be a successful confrontational letter writer are those same skills that make for an effective court room litigator or negotiator.

While general advice can be given as to how best to write and structure confrontational letters - there is no substitute for experience. A novice confronted with an urgent need to send an effective confrontational letter should seek professional assistance.

Richard F. Vero, B.A., LL.B. Former corporate executive, lawyer and consumer advocate - specializing in confrontational letters. Owner of http://www.letterwritingetc.com/

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