How many of you knew that I was a wedding singer? You’d have learned it if you’d ever checked out my link to 100 things about me, listed at #70.
Before then, I’d never thought of myself as a singer. I didn’t really start singing while playing the piano until my sophomore year, even though I did have to sing a song at the end of my freshman year when I took voice lessons. My first teacher wasn’t all that impressed, but my second teacher was. For some reason he thought I should be an opera singer; I wasn’t feeling it, especially after he started me with Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, which was immortalized in this short clip below: Continue reading 4 Ideas To Find Your Blogging Voice→
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a major Harry Potter fan. I may not be the demographic J. K. Rowling was aiming for but she got me anyway. 🙂
One of the most freeing things I’ve done recently is deciding that I don’t have to try to be Neil Patel any longer because overall, Google’s never going to see me as an authority. I might get in the lucky post here and there but all those posts over 2,000 words aren’t getting it done.
I read a lot of blogs and I write a lot of posts. I’m certainly not perfect when it comes to the articles I write but most of the problems I see on other blogs or websites (especially news and information websites) are things that are easily avoidable… things I don’t tend to do myself.
Since I haven’t talked about writing issues in a long time, I thought it was time to offer some tips and critiques about writing, blog writing in particular, since this is an article on a blog.
No matter what it is you do, you get to consider yourself a professional at it if you’ve ever been paid to do it. For 14 years I was a professional wedding singer, even though I didn’t charge a lot most of the time because I was doing it for friends of mine. I was a professional songwriter because one person along the way paid me for the rights to use some of my music in a one-woman show… which turned out to be bad. lol I’m also a professional speaker because I’ve been paid to do that on a variety of topics; that’s pretty cool. And many of you know that I’m a professional consultant in leadership and health care, as well as social media here and there.
I’m also a professional writer. I’ve been getting paid to write for other people since 2009. When I started out I was getting paid a penny a word; that didn’t last long. At some point I started getting paid better, but it’s a tough game to play sometimes. It can also be rewarding and intriguing. The best part of it is that you can do it from wherever you want to; home, in a store or coffee shop, while on vacation… with pen and paper or a tablet or laptop, it’s all on you. Continue reading Pros And Cons Of Being A Professional Writer→