Strangely, Monday still feels like Monday when I am “not working,” because dang it, looking for work is an odious job – practically as bad as working; I’m under-appreciated by prospective employers (ahem, ignored might be a better word) and I’m slightly stressed (running very low on play cash – we have enough for bills, but no new nothin’ for a while). But despite my grumping, I am making a tiny little bit of progress everyday, and also I am cooking, blogging, and reading lots – so how bad can my life be?
I’ve categorized my three main areas of focus for job hunting:
1. Looking for a real job – I continue to apply to positions through journalismjobs.com, but I find that I am under-experienced for magazine editorial positions or over-qualified for the entry level jobs. I am now pursuing more freelance style work and also applying to teach art history and/or English at the local community college.
2. Building my clip file or “tears” – in order to land any kind of writing work, I need proof I can write, beyond blogging and my master’s thesis, and yes, beyond the 20-page essay I wrote for an art catalog last year. To this end, I am polishing up a few posts and shopping them about to the Sun Runner, a local hi-desert mag, and Indie Bloggers, a writing blogsite. I have also embarked on a self-directed program to learn the style of writing art blurbs in the LA Weekly and OC Weekly. I’ve also instituted two LA art days a month: two full days completely dedicated to seeing art. That’s a start, although, after only seeing seven galleries this last Saturday, I can see that I may have to start going weekly.
3. Increasing hits on womantalk.org/Building depth versus breadth – What does this mean? It just gives me license to blog as much as I damn well please. No seriously, this blog has been the portal through which I have been reconciled with a victim of my childhood bullying and published for the first time, so it has proved to be a capricious, but effective method of self-promotion.
So, I am posting (almost) every day.
I am actively seeking out other blogs I want to read: Jurgen Nation and Not a Girl, Not Yet a Wino (both are founders of Indie Bloggers), a Thinking Stomach, and others, by following their blogroll links.
I am also actively commenting and involving myself when I find blogs that make me want to say something.
I am checking out one blog from Technorati’s top 100 blogs every day. These are the blogs with the most “authority.” Authority is determined by how many other blogs have linked to you in the last six-month period (multiple links from the same blog counts as one). A site like Engadget has 32,000 links to be at the #1 spot. Boing Boing is #2 with nearly 25,000 links. It’s one way of reading news in the blogosphere and also these blogs are already filtered since thousands of people find these particular blogs interesting enough to link to them. These are the blogs that are (mostly) making enough money to support their writers. My authority is very small, but growing. (I appreciate every link – thanks Jun, for linking to me yesterday!)
I’ve been reading blogging self-help sites, like problogger.net, where Darren Rowse gives all kinds of tips about how to make money blogging. And reading books, such as Rule the Web * by Mark Fraunfelder, the guy who founded Boing Boing (okay – truthfully, I haven’t started reading that yet – I’ve been walking by the table where Corrina‘s been reading it and asking her for encapsulated tips.)
I’ve been revamping my “About” page to include my CV and writing clips. And working on my sidebar to include different kinds of information. I’m building a “Eaten” page which will link to every recipe I’ve ever posted and to a map of my favorite restaurants.
I’ve joined Blogher and Indie Bloggers, and added the Blog Action Day badge. (Blog Action Day is October 15 and everybody is encouraged to post that day about saving the environment.)
And more, but now I’m embarrassed and self-conscious, because holy mother of blogging, do I do anything but sit in front of my computer all day?
I’m off to make chicken tacos for dinner.
*Thanks to John for giving me this book!
September 17, 2007 at 9:11 pm
A-ha! Capricious! I will wrap my head around that word if it kills me.
September 17, 2007 at 9:16 pm
jeannie, reading blogs such as yours is education to people like me. more than a decade ago i couldn’t express jack. but boot camp, CNN, monday night football, and the daily newspaper took care of that deficiency. i still have with me my old notes and the old thesaurus with asterisk markings on the space preceeding each word I’ve learned. It all started with just twenty words and phrases from my drill sergeants at boot camp. not-so-nice words under those circumstances, if you know what i mean. and now i’ve created my own blog site for the very reason of “expanding” my english horizon. finding, reading, and understanding blogs like yours is like receiving a present. i get to open it, use it, and keep it.
but my son, the seven yr old dragon, he is my number one open critique. “dad, it’s `stuff’, not `stuffs’, okay”. the little bugger.
anyways, you are an authority in this field based on your educational background that’s why i’m here. however, you have humor and grace, that’s why i’m a fan.
September 18, 2007 at 10:38 am
Reading blogs is time consuming but pretty fun. Do you think it’s a waste of time ever? Sometimes I think it’s as bad as TV in that you are sucked in and you can read the whole day/night away. You might try reading Mom’s Daily Dose as there are some posts on increasing your blogging presence. It might b e through a group called Mom’s Daily Dose of Awesome (bla bla bla) but I just can’t remember which one had tips on increasing traffic.
http://www.cafemom.com/group/16643?t=wid_g
However, you’ve probably read plenty from the sounds of it. Also, Mighty Girl wrote a book about topics to blog about which might be worth checking out.
http://mightygirl.net/shop
Mighty Girl (Maggie) is a good read too. Short but quite hilarious at times. And her new baby’s name is Henry, which I love.
tiff
September 18, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Hey Tiffany,
Thanks for the comment – I was actually trying to remember where I had seen an About page that I liked that included professional and non-professional info – and it was Mighty Girl!
I don’t actually feel like I spend too much time reading other people’s blogs – I’ve just started doing that more because that’s what my friend John told me to do to build my own hits.
My daily hits are around 90 per day right now (in the last 30 days: high – 129; low – 44).
When I was getting really into it I had daily hits as high as 300 – but then after the wedding they dropped and I am building them back up.
Doesn’t your blogging platform have a way to access your blog stats? WordPress has a way to look at them daily, weekly, and even monthly now. I can also see which sites people have linked through to come to me and what search terms they used and ended up at my site. The stats are addictive. I noticed right away that if I didn’t pay attention to the blog or to the quality of my writing that the stats dropped and vice versa. Speaking of which, if you ever want to change blogging platforms, wordpress has a way to import all your stuff from your old blogsite.
Anyway, I don’t see it as a waste of time, because by all accounts, blogging and web writing is an exploding field. Every major company needs to have a full-blown web presence and that means lots and lots of content needs to written. Writers with blogging experience and savvy preferred. I see it as at-home training. Also I am trying to familiarize myself with basic html, exploring new web tools, and learning some new programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, and InDesign). The last guy I spoke to about the web field said that I had better get myself on facebook! Basically, anybody looking to hire me is going to check me out online – the better my blog is, the better my chances are of landing a writing gig.
I think you totally have the potential to generate some income or some something through your blogsite (what is it that you want exactly??). I find your blog very appealing, and not just because I know you. I check it at least once a day, often more than that. You have a solid, spunky writing style that really reflects you, you are curious, and you share new interesting info all the time. I like too that you are a hardcore “Greenie” (I just made that up – meaning into organic foods and sustainable living- I never knew or suspected that about you in college.)
To make money, you need advertisers, and advertisers want sites with big hits, so that’s what I’m working on. I mean why the hell not? I enjoy it and I’m inbetween jobs anyway. I mean how much can I do on any given day to look for work? I send out applications and wait. I call folks and send emails and wait. So in the meantime I am improving my writing chops and building my own cyber filing cabinet.
September 18, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Thanks for mentioning me as a read-worthy blog.
I don’t know much about making blogging a career: I write because I teach writing and I constantly have to think about it, and, keeping a blog gives me a place to do that. If I don’t write, I believe I am a hypocrite. I can’t teach it if I don’t do it. However, I do know that some of my blogging peers have begun to make a living at their work, people beyond the “big timers” like Dooce (through advertising) and Orangette (through her book deal). Other people have used their sites as a means of garnering freelance work. I know The Inadvertant Gardener gets work through her blog, and Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen has developed such a web-presence that she gets writing jobs at several different venues. Finally, being around for a while makes a difference. Blogs come and go daily–someone keeps at it for a week then realizes it’s work to write to an audience and to anticipate the audience’s needs, so that blog disappears. The ones that stick around start getting some attention.
Good luck. I’m really interested in seeing how you make it work.
September 18, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment on my blog.
I taught 8th grade English for years – and really was a big advocate of writing – especially the writing workshop in the style of Nancie Atwell. Writing can be such a fearful experience; to ask kids to take that risk and not do it yourself is really hypocritical. I also believe that you teach the kids more just by modeling excellent human behavior than you ever teach them about rules of grammar and punctuation, so KUDOS to you for not being a hypocrite as a teacher. Really, I saw far too many.
Christina, I look forward to trying some of your recipes and reading your archives at a thinking stomach!
October 29, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Hey, get us those submissions! We’re always looking for desert contributors at The Sun Runner Magazine. In fact, since we’re growing regionally, we need regular columnists on several topics too!