Guest Posts

Guest Posts:

City Mama

I wasn’t born in the eighties, but it was the decade of Dallas and the DeLorean where I drew many of the things that make me who I am today.

Back when Michael Jackson was a God instead of a monster, and Madonna was a vixen rather than a mommy turned author, I could barely imagine that the little me wandering through the yuppie years would one day be holding hands with his own offspring as we toured a brave new world that made the bleeding edge technology of the fax machine look like the near obsolescence of my grandma’s rotary phone….

Copyblogger

I’m a writer.  I spent over three decades unaware of this essential truth, but I’m ready to atone for my ignorance.

For some reason, it never mattered that I’d been reading at least a book a week since my eyes could string the syllables together.

I could never be a writer…

Remarkablogger

Three months back, I found myself deep in the middling of a great in between.  I’d finished a draft of my first novel, had a few things lying on an agent’s desk awaiting judgement, and was searching for a way to sharpen my voice.

The daily exercise of maintaining a blog, I believed, would both afford me challenge and improve my writing.  When we wish to lose the soft stuff which gathers around our middles, we should be prepared to put our back to floor, for sit-ups every morning…

Up and Coming Blogger

The perfect post is rarely finished, even after we’ve pressed “publish,” or moved on to an outline for the following day.  The best posts leave our readers with something to think on, question, or respond to.  We must never think of our comment area as the downstairs basement where we never go unless we have a leaky pipe.  It’s should be the lounge where we gather, lean back on our sofas, and watch the world as it’s passing by the tiny window over our heads…

Write to Done

I love flowers.  They feed the soul like little else, stirring several of our senses in a single second.  Language is landscape, filling the white space of an empty page; our ideas seeds we plant, our words the blossoms in spring time.

I worked in a flower shop for a dozen years, back in the first few chapters of my adult autobiography.  Then, I arranged flowers into the perfect bouquet; peeling petals, laying layers, and designing displays to halt the heartbeat.  Now, I do this with words…

Linker’s Blog

There are a million different designs, holding over a hundred million active blogs.  Despite the endless things which make each unique, there’s one thing which nearly every one shares.

The comments lay beyond the horizon of our initial message.  Some bloggers allow their posts to perish upon publish, others choose to fan the flames of discussion.  Ultimately, it is up to us whether we abandon our comments beneath the body of our blog, or use them as a tool to transform our post from passé to popular…

Motivate Thyself

We each blog to the beat of our own lives.  Different schedules and rhythms require a multiplicity of approaches, but there is a constant.  If we want to be the best blogger we can be, without becoming a prisoner of our posts, then it is necessary to approach each day no different than a sunrise on the farm.

Farmers don’t waste the sunlight.  They make every minute matter.  So should we.  Bouncing around from task to task only carves us a tunnel leading to nowhere.  Modern innovation has led to an endless array of distractions; email, twitter, youtube, Digg…  I could continue, and easily turn this into a two part post.  We must focus, or risk drowning beneath the billions of bytes…

A Daring Adventure

An active blog has a thousand and one stories unfolding behind the curtain; like when food is prepared, costumes are changed, or instruments tuned.  A wealth of tales take place well after our post is published, playing throughout the web in countless tweets and emails.  Somewhere in between the focus of our post and the chaos of the net, lies the clarity of our comments.  It is there, in the backyard of our blog, where conversation reigns.

Like any gathering of minds, civil discourse can sometimes get out of hand.  Too much drink lowers our inhibitions, but too much broadband can heighten our bravado…

Copyblogger

Face it.  There are few things as intimidating as the blinding white of a blank page.  It makes no difference if it’s an empty sheet lying on our desk, or a blank screen, aiming between our eyes.  Defeating nothing by subjecting it to something is what gives a writer breath.

Whether to pay our bills or please our muse, eventually words must spill.  Here are ten tips to help plow past writing insecurity.

ProBlogger

Granted, Leonardo Da Vinci probably didn’t want anyone messing around with his mojo, but there isn’t any doubt that for the majority of us, two minds are definitely better than one.  It’s just simple math.  We, instead of I, means more goals accomplished, and broader breath for every idea…

ProBlogger

Finding that special blogging buddy (or buddies) isn’t anything you can place on Craig’s List.  Like any relationship worth developing, only the proper combination of time and place will lead to conception.  It is important to understand that part of the challenge lies in the patience it takes to wait for the right blogger to enter our lives.  Of course, while being patient, it wouldn’t hurt to speed the process along by meeting a myriad of people…

Zen Habits

I’ve always thought of life as a spiraling staircase, gracefully wrapping around time and achievement, as opposed to the blunt vertical found on a ladder. Comparing life’s ascension to a set of stairs is often apt, but there are moments when life as ladder is far more fitting, such as when we find ourselves stuck between rungs, mired in the middle of old pattern and new performance. This is when the decisive climb from one rung to the next must begin so that we may climb toward our tomorrow, while leaving yesterday behind.

The Art of Manliness

Whenever I’m watching a movie that harkens back to a sepia tinted yesteryear, it isn’t the simpler times I long for so much as a return to the distant days when a man rose alongside the sunrise and was expected to give the daylight his best.

Clothes were sharper, adolescence shorter, and the word man still deserving of the first spot in the word manners. Now it seems as if there is something missing, something stripped from today’s men, besides their buttons and blazers. I peer at photographs of my grandfather in his prime, and ponder the polarity of our worlds. A dozen decades have hurtled by with such speed; it seems they have left our populace with a case of collective amnesia. I look past the creases of my curling photographs, grateful that I can still teach my son what I believe it means to be a man.

Simple Marriage

Two years back, my wife whispered in my ear, “When are you going to start writing?”  Perhaps to impress her, perhaps only to see if I could, I penned something special for our first born.  The results made her weep.  Then, like any other fire that needs feeding, my wife continued to fan the flames of my newfound fascination, adding fuel until a few glowing embers were roaring from within a raging inferno.

John Chow

There isn’t any doubt that there are some common tactics every blogger should use. If you’re new to Blogopolis, it’s essential you learn the basics before you can be an effective member of the community. Once established, you are free to blog to the beat of your own drum. Stand out, be unique, and search for opportunities not yet dim from too much exposure. There are too many bloggers fighting for the same spot. You can’t afford to waste time in futile competition.

Interviews:

Blogger Dad

Tell us a bit about yourself: (where you live, age, family info, whatever else you want to include)

I’m in my early thirties, married to my best friend.  We liked each other so much, we decided to try to clone ourselves.  The science wasn’t there, so we did it the old fashioned way.  Both children are amazing, but it’s a family recipe and I’m afraid I can’t share…

Top Business Reviews

My niche is people who love words, and would rather read than scan.  The internet is filled with scannable content, and though I make sure mine’s pleasant to look at, I’d prefer it read to scanned.  I’ve never cared too much about what others were doing, and though I did my homework before starting Writer Dad, I abandoned much of what they said.  I don’t write for SEO or keywords, I just write…

Blue Duck Copy

Writing my posts is the most consistent writing I do, besides private journaling about my life and family.  I’d love to pull far enough ahead to where I have a bank to pull from, but now that would be difficult.  I pen my posts the night before, then publish first thing in the morning…