New Year, New Job, New Goals

I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions. My go-to resolution, if people ask, is simply this: to not break my new year's resolution. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as tautological, paradoxical, or both, which is why I like it.

But this year, some things came together to make the start of the 2016 a true new beginning for me.

On Facility and Speed

Words Used Carelessly

I like this quotation from Douglas Adams's the Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul — "Words used carelessly, as if they do not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through." —because it can be insightful in two ways.

On Fiction and Truth

Author and fellow Hoosier Jessamyn West once said, "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." I believe this is true both in the reading and the writing of fiction, and I have long held the belief that the best literature, by revealing these truths, helps us to be better human beings.

The Constant Joy of Sudden Discovery

I often wonder if people who don't write think writing is simply taking a thought and putting it down on paper (or the screen). How boring would that be?

One Story, Infinite Meaning

Writers write for different reasons. Readers read for different reasons.

The words on the page are only part of any story. Everyone brings their own experiences, needs, shortcomings, worldviews, and biases to complete the story. The story that the writer creates is only her version, the story she needed to write for herself.

With every new reader, the story is completed anew and in a different way.

Try to remember this the next time someone doesn't like a story you've written. They're experience of the story is different from yours and will be different from the next reader's.

Don't let one person's opinion keep you from your work. Remember why you write (it's not for them) and keep at it.

 

"Stories are the vessels I use to interpret the world to myself."

—Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

Abandon the Idea That You Are Ever Going to Finish

For most of his life, John Steinbeck avoided interviewing with The Paris Review. In his later years, though, he had a change of heart. Unfortunately, by that time he was too sick to work on it.

Writing as a Constant Search

Writing about things happening to people isn't difficult. But a story — at least a good one — is so much more than just things happening to people. Behind every good story is some truth, some thing that the author wants to tell the world, or get off his chest, or convince herself of.

Unfortunately, that need to have something to say is also what can paralyze a writer, make writing word one a trial fit for Hercules.

Sometimes we stare at the blank page. Sometimes we just start writing and hope to find the meaning as we go.  And often, we fail.

But those few times when it all meshes just right — when the perfect story and its deeper meaning come together like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup — it's all worth it.

On Romanticizing the Writing Life

We are all guilty of romanticizing the writing life from time to time. It's so easy to do when you only look at finished products — works of beauty and truth and poetry that enrich the lives of everyone who reads them.

Breaking the Funk: What I Love about Writing Fiction

I have lost my mojo. My groove has filled in. The thrill is gone.

I'm in a funk.

Some of you writers understand (at least I hope you do). Somehow, for some reason I will never completely understand, I haven't been able to feel the joy that writing used to grant me. I think longingly about writing during the day, but when I finally sit down in front of the computer or open up my little black notebook, the only thing my mind seems to conjure is a silent scream.

I fear I have fallen out of love of with writing.

Editors and That SEO Jazz

It's an understatement to say that a lot goes into creating and maintaining a website that appeals to both search engines and living, breathing humans. But when the separate areas of search engine optimization (SEO) and good content come together just right, it's like a good jazz combo. Many different parts combine to create something that really grooves.

• The first area of SEO is the underlying site design. This deals with elements like crawlability, mobile-friendliness, and page loading speed. This part of SEO is like the pianist laying down the chord structures that underlie the music created by the other instruments — the other elements of SEO.
• Then you have the content strategy — how often you publish, what topics you'll cover, what voice you'll use. All this is guided by research into your audience and their behaviors, desires, and needs. This part is like the drummer, establishing the tempo of your website and your content production.
• Marketing — both online and off — plays a big role in SEO. It gives many of the other website elements (especially content production) their direction. The marketing aspect of SEO is like a walking bass line: It gives the site content a foundation and drives the whole process forward.
• On top of this rhythm section are the melodic instruments — your actual content. Each jazz combo — and each website — has its own particular combination. For a website, it can include text, video, audio, infographics, apps, and more.

When all the parts of this SEO band work well together, it's more likely to attract some attention from Google, yes, but from your audience as well, which is your ultimate goal.

I'm not here to help you build a band, though. Although it's helpful to understand at least at a basic level how all the parts of your SEO jazz combo fit together, you need to focus on your part: the editorial content.

That's where I come in.

On May 13, I will present an audioconference through Copyediting.com called "SEO for Editors." In what I hope will be a delightful and informative 90 minutes, I will cut past the parts of SEO that word mongers like you and me have no control over and focus on the editorial aspects in our bailiwick. You'll get:

• A brief history of Google algorithm changes that have affected how we create content
• Guidelines for creating links that both people and Google like
• A look at how keyword strategies have changed over the years
• An overview of what titles and headings mean for SEO
• A discussion of what high-quality content means to a search engine
• The golden rule of SEO

One more apt comparison of SEO to a jazz combo: There's a lot of improvisation going on in both. Just as there is no formula for creating "the perfect song," there is no formula for creating "the perfect content" that will land in front of everyone who you think ought to see it.

Yes, Google and its ilk use algorithms (just a fancy word for formulas) to power their search results, but

1. Those algorithms customize results for the listener (the searcher), not the band. Every new search is like a different ear listening for a great tune. (And not everyone will be interested in your jazz.)
   
2. They aren't singing. Search engines are tight-lipped about exactly how their algorithms work, releasing only the information they think website owners need to know to help search engines connect searchers with the information they're looking for. Why so reticent? Because people are selfish jerks. With every big search algorithm change, short-sighted SEOs rework their strategies to try to game their way up the search engine results pages (SERPs). Then, when the next change comes along, those short-sighted strategies — much like the once beloved keytar — all but disappear.

My hope is that, in this audioconference, I can show you today's basic best practices of on-page editorial SEO — the right scales and chord changes, if I may extend the metaphor further — so that your content has a better chance of reaching the ears that want to hear it.

So if your job relies on writing and/or editing online — whether you're a blogger, a journalist, an ad copywriter, a corporate word-slinger, or the editor in charge of any these folks — nag your boss into paying for the professional development opportunity that is "SEO for Editors."

See you there.

Writing prompt: Personal fiction

I'm decompressing and recombobulating after ACES 2015 (the annual conference of the American Copy Editors Association) this morning, so this is going to be short and quick. More about ACES tomorrow.

Writing prompt: Android porn

It's 200 years from now, and androids are common in society. They even have rights . . . though not quite as many as meat people. You walk into your android's bedroom/workshop/recharging station and he/she/it is sitting in front of a screen enjoying the android version of pornography.

What is it and why?

Writing prompt: Saying thanks

I haven't read much by Terry Pratchett. But still. Whenever a writer dies — and especially when a writer dies too young — I feel a special kind of loss.

Whenever a Terry Pratchett dies — or a Ray Bradbury or a Maya Angelou — we hear a lot from other writers about what an inspiration they were.

Writing prompt: Half-human, all humanity

1. Start with an animal you dislike. Maybe it's ugly, or seems to have no purpose, or it's only ever been a nuisance to you. Whatever animal (or insect) that is, hold that image in your head.
2. Pick out one or two physical characteristics of that unliked animal and give them to your otherwise human character. Your protagonist, then, is part-human, part ugly-pointless-hated-nuisance animal.
3. Place this protagonist in a world in which his or her mutations are unique and rare but not uncommon enough to be noteworthy. These types of mutations are as rare as, say, Crohn's Disease or Type 1 Diabetes.
4. Send your protagonist on a job interview.

Writing prompt: What's On Your Mind

Create a character who is doing something that ought to require a great deal of concentration, but have her distracted by thoughts of something completely unconnected. This will of necessity need to be written in first person (or, I suppose, second person) as you jump from the character's outer world to her inner world.

Writing prompt: Communication Breakdown

Pick your favorite disaster — earthquake, alien attack, sharknado, whatever. In the midst of this disaster, place two people who will need to rely on each other if they are to survive. Problem is, they don't speak the same language. How do they communicate with each other in order to make it out alive?

Writing Prompt: Chatter Chatter Chatter

Write a scene involving two characters that consists only of dialogue. No description. No "he said" or "she whispered" or "they expostulated." Only dialogue. And because it's only dialogue, you don't even need to waste time using quotation marks; just start a new paragraph whenever the other person starts talking.

It'll make you feel like Cormac McCarthy.

Writing Prompt: Do You Push the Button?

This week you get a very detailed and specific writing prompt that requires some personal exploration:

Writing Prompt: A Larger Vision

Your protagonist is in an unfamiliar place and, for whatever reason, suddenly cannot see — unexpected blindness, a chemical spill, a massive power outage, whatever. He needs to navigate through the area in front of him — again, why he needs to do this is up to you. Maybe there's an eye-wash station, or he's trying to get to the circuit breaker.