A Review: Blogging for Creatives

A few weeks ago a jiffy bag with an interesting looking book came through my letter box.

I only wish it had arrived 4 years earlier when I, clueless but eager, began this blog.  

‘Blogging for Creatives’ written by Robin Houghton gathers together all the information you need to begin your blog.

It is intelligent and easy to read and best of all it features a diverse range of blogs (including mine!) which are bound to get your creative juices going.

I loved Advanced Style – the photographer, Ari Seth Cohen’s blog, which celebrates the style of older people he photographs on the streets of New York.  The photographs are beautiful and inspiring and might marginally calm your fears about getting old!

Another featured blog, A Perfect Gray, is an interior design blog and is written by a girl on a mission to find the perfect gray wall colour. 
That doesn’t get my pulse racing even though there must be at least 50 shades (teehee) but judging by her number of followers she is not alone in her mission!

Finding your niche is key and makes writing a blog much easier.

Now that I’ve stopped being a full-time Shop Girl I’ve definitely found it harder to update this blog every week.

‘Blogging for Creatives’ leads you through the basic process of setting up your blog from choosing a platform, layout, style and content.  

It also includes some of the slightly technical (but not too technical) things you should know.

One example would be: How to create a decent mailing list. 
I discovered ‘mail chimp’ just a day before I got the book after a lot of wasted time online. (While we’re on the topic, please join my mailing list! Top Right!)

It took me 4 years to create a professional mailing list mostly because it simply hadn’t occurred to me to do one before.

That’s the great thing about this book - it provides you with ideas, suggestions and plenty of useful nuggets that might not have dawned on you otherwise.

Of course you can google every possible component of a blog to know how it works and even with this guide book you are still bound to spend hours working things out online.

The book lists useful websites but if it illustrated every tiny step it would get a bit tedious. This means you still have to commit yourself to hours of exploration.

If you are beginning a blog or have one but feel it isn’t quite up to scratch, then I recommend you buy this book.

I know I’ll be flicking through it again for inspiration and tips I may have missed.

After all, a blog is organic and should be forever developing.    

Blog Workshop

If you need an extra push to begin your blog, I will be running a  
Live Beginners Blog Workshop on Saturday 18th August 
10am-12.30pm  
Fee: £35.00
@ 77 Tower Bridge Road, SE1 4TW
If you've ever fancied a sneak peak at our chandeliers then this is your chance as it will take place in the same shop building which inspired my book 'Shop Girl Diaries'.


E-mail me: emily@emilybenet.com for more details. 

The Millionaire BootCamp for Authors

Recently I attended the Millionaire Bootcamp for Authors.

On occasion it was as silly as its title.

People were sent in to warm us up before each talk.

‘I’m going to make you do things you don’t want to do!’ one woman cried.  

The Black Eyed Peas blasted around the conference room as the woman tried frantically to get us up on stage to dance away our inhibitions.

I love dancing but I was at a loss to see how shaking my booty in front of 500 people was going to help promote my novel.

Perhaps if I’d heard Raymond Aaron earlier I might have run up and initiated a dance off with the less inhibited foreigners already waving their arms about.

Mr Aaron delivered my favourite line of the weekend, ‘If what makes sense to you doesn’t get results, then do what doesn’t make sense to you!’

Along with the energetic line dancing we were also encouraged to massage each other’s shoulders and ‘high five’ at every opportunity.

Inevitably there were grumbles of: ‘We aren’t American.’

So why was I there?

Because experience has taught me that it’s not enough to write a book.

It’s not even enough to get an agent and a publisher.

You have to actually sell your book as well.

I went to the talks because I wanted to improve my chances of earning more than the average writer, which is estimated at £4000 a year.

It was soon obvious that the talks were geared for people writing non-fiction; people who had businesses and people who were in a great hurry to get published and get rich.

The speakers insinuated miracle techniques to write a book in 90 days, or 30 days or in Mr Aaron’s case, just 10 HOURS!

While my new fiction posse rolled their eyes, the rest of the audience jumped up and down with glee.

Speakers offered 60 minutes of great information and then their talks turned to sales pitches which had people sprinting to the back of the room to sign up.

 And every course, however expensive it was at the beginning, was inevitably reduced to £1,997.

I didn’t part with my overdraft that weekend, but I did get a lot out of the talks.

I met some wonderful people, got some great tips and I left with my mind buzzing.

 ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,’ Einstein said.

Well now I've got a fantastic plan of action.

Unfortunately it’s written on the outside of my box and until I break out I won't be able to read it. 
Perhaps I have to 'high five' my way out... 

My Short Story 'Five Pounds Short' Gets Published!

My husband is forever getting parcels in the post and I, who love getting post, have to content myself with the pizza menus and the dull letters addressed to ‘Dear Homeowner’.

However today, it was my turn.

Someone had sent me a book!

The title excited me, ‘Barcelona to Bihar – stories that travel with you’

It was obviously someone who knew I’d lived in Barcelona and had seen it and thought of me.

But who?

And then I opened the book and discovered my name was printed inside it!

At the beginning of the year my short story ‘Five Pound Short’ made the Top 20 of the Earlyworks Press short story competition and the result is this beautiful anthology in my hands.

It contains 20 short stories that take you across the world and offer you hours of escapism.

This is what the editor said about it:

‘Taking in letters from Africa, from the Solomon Islands and from previous centuries; witnessing potentially murderous mountaintop encounters with goats and even trolls, navigating a European tunnel, an English bell tower and a social divide wider than the Australian outback, the mind of the reader must twist and turn, encompassing many miles and many moods, before coming home with a view from another planet as to what it might mean to be human.’ – Kay Green, editor.   

I only have 20 books to sell so if you would like one for you or perhaps as a gift to someone else, don't leave it too late!  

The anthology costs £8.99 (including post to UK) and you can pay via paypal 

Delivery Options

With UK delivery£8.99 GBP With Europe delivery£10.45 GBP Outside Europe£11.45 GBP

Thank you!

   

'Waterloo' - a 24hr Short Story Challenge @Stokeylitfest

Over the weekend I took on the 24 hr short story challenge organised by Storytails at Stoke Newington Literary Festival 2012

The criteria was as follows. 

The timeline of the story must be: 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week The relationship must be one of: love, hate, or part of a celebration. The setting must take place entirely in: 1 room, 1 city or 1 train

All stories must include a pen.

I really liked the idea of someone being stuck in a toilet, but who and why? And then I walked down a street adorned with bunting and I had an idea!

LISTEN HERE to my Jubilee inspired comedy 'Waterloo' 

Podcast Powered By Podbean

If you would prefer to read the story, leave a comment and I'll send you a PDF! 

Missing Cows and the Pepperoni Mystery

Beautiful Goats. No Cows.

I just spent three weeks in Italy and not once did I see a cow.

Not one cow!

We drove through Tuscany and the most we saw was a herd of goats.

Beautiful, tan-coloured goats but no substitute for a cow.

I’m concerned the cows have been put aside in boxes and the land entirely given over to the whims of the free range grape.

The wine did taste very happy.

It made me very happy at least, until it made me sad and then I mourned the missing cows.

The real concern however was the lack of Pepperoni on my pizza.

I opted for a ‘Rustica’, confident that I understood the ingredients it promised.

Aglio (garlic) Cipolla (onion) Caperes (capers) Pepperone (Do I really need to translate?)

But when it arrived I was shocked to find there was nothing on it!

Well there was garlic and onions and capers – but come on, they weren’t the reasons I chose the pizza. It was about as exciting as a Margerita!

It was all made worse by my husband’s choice of a ‘Disco’ which was one whole meaty pizza covered by another whole meaty pizza.

I was supposed to be on holiday not Vegan bootcamp!

I got up to review the menu and found that I hadn’t been seeing things. It definitely said ‘Peperone’.

So I pointed this out to the waitress who responded as expected, ‘Aaaaah! Peperone! Peperonci!’

Which I imagine was a bit like saying, ‘Ah, You say pot-ay-to, I say po-tah-to!’

Relieved the spiciness was on its way I settled back to watch my husband take on the challenge of 2 pizzas in 1.

Ten minutes later the Chef turned up with my pizza, all smiles and eager to please.

I thanked him graciously before looking down at my plate to find that now added to the garlic, onion and capers was chopped YELLOW PEPPERS!

Really? Would someone really love yellow peppers that much to insist on having them added after?

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

It turns out Pepperoni is a corruption of Peperoni, the plural of Peperone, the Italian word for pepper, NOT SAUSAGE.

If you want Pepperoni then ask for Salamino Picante.

And that, dear readers, is about as educational as this blog gets.

Now, would someone like to tell me where those cows went?

The Second Draft

I was desperate to finish the 2nd draft of my novel before our honeymoon this May.

It’s a honeymoon so delayed that we’ll be celebrating our 1^st year anniversary while we’re away.

We’re going on a road trip through Italy and I can’t wait.

I actually wrote a blog before this one but it was a gloomy read.

At the time I had 5 chapters left to edit and I was grinding my teeth and staring out of the window dreaming of escape.

Not even my word count, a glorious 103, 660 words, could excite me.

The sludge of sentences blurred before me as I consumed an ocean of tea and coffee, and the occasional multi-vitamin which rather than boost my energy left me wanting.

If only we remembered during our darkest moods that the feeling can’t last forever!

A few hours later I was feeling much more positive and the blog post I’d written was made redundant.

It felt strange to finish the 2^nd Draft. It feels significant.

At 308 pages, it’s my longest piece of work.

Each time I finish a stage I gain a slightly deeper understanding of what I’m trying to do.

My husband gave me the beautiful quill in the picture when I told him I’d completed the challenge.

I won’t be writing the 3^rd Draft with it but I'll definitely be writing a dedication to him in a published copy one day; without his support I’d still be a long way off.

Next step?

We wait...

Distance from the novel will be useful.

For three weeks I’ll try to forget about what I’ve written.

With a bit of luck, when I come back, I’ll find it has matured in my absence and is far better than I thought it was.

But much more likely, I’ll be embarking on a fresh draft with renewed energy.

The funny thing is I already miss working on it.

WRITING TO MUSIC

It's been really interesting to discover that I'm not the only writer who listens to a song on repeat when they write. I only do it when I'm stuck and unmotivated. Below are two of the songs that got me through the last 5 chapters! They're both in Spanish and I think you'll probably either love them or hate them! Post your music choices!

A Mail Obsession

'Every click is a sentence not written. Life is short.

Make it count.'

Click got a bit of an addiction click click

You might click have it too.

The obsession with checking for e-mails.

Stopping every few minutes to refresh your phone, just in case...

Just in case of what?

I’m a daydreamer click click

I like to indulge in imagining what my next book cover might look like, the book launch, the dress I’ll wear for it, the interviews, seeing my book in the window of a real, physical book shop...

Click click click

I generate energy from these little daydreams which keeps me writing the next word, one after the hundredth thousand other... all screaming for my attention.

When I click on my e-mail I’m hoping for some life-changing news that will validate my work and let me breathe a sigh of relief because I’m suddenly closer to achieving my goals.

It has happened to me twice before, e-mails which have arrived out of the blue and made my mouth drop open and my heart start racing.

The first was from a publisher, which led to the publication of my book.

The second from a literary agent, which led to nothing, since she wanted me to write Young Adult novels and I wasn’t so sure.

But did they really come from nowhere?

Were they really quite so random?

The truth is I approached the publisher first and as for the literary agent, she specifically contacted me after I won an award for my blog.

Basically, if you want the good news you have to do some work!

Checking for e-mails is so much easier than working on my book but it doesn’t amount to anything.

No amount of clicking, be it updating my facebook status, twitter feed or checking my e-mails will bring me any closer to completing the task at hand.

Without a book, what use is a publisher or an agent to me anyway?

My phone is perfectly capable of updating me by itself so I should get let it get on with its job while I get on with mine.

If there’s wonderful news (or more likely, spam mail) I’ll hear its gentle click click alert sound.

And only then will I let it interrupt me.

And only, then if I’ve finished my sentence.