Tips for Scholarship Essay Writing

Scholarships that require essays offer you the opportunity to stand out from the pack and make an impact on the reader. If an essay is ever optional, always, always include it! By choosing to ignore a request for an essay, it shows the application-committee or reviewer you really did not want to put the work in. You are writing this essay for money; it's worth the time and effort you put into it. (It is unwise to write one essay and copy/paste it for all the scholarships you are applying for.)The essay section of a scholarship is your only chance to distinguish yourself from the rest of the applicants. You may be just as qualified, or perhaps even less qualified, than others, so this is your time to shine and let them know why YOU deserve this scholarships.What will distinguish yours from all the others? Perhaps you deserve this scholarship, but other students probably do too. What makes you different from the masses? Put some time into thinking about what you're going to write and always have someone else read it. A second opinion, third, or even fourth will likely bring you plenty of valuable feedback. Ask your teachers, coaches, managers at work, your friends. The more feedback you can get, the better off you are.The purpose of the essay, for the reviewers, is to learn about you. Your words reveal something about your personality and plans for the future, and a chance to get an in-depth look at the topic at hand. Clear writing ability and creativity do not go unnoticed in your essays. Before you begin writing
Create an outline of your paper. Regardless of the order in which you write each section, you should know prior to writing what topic or main points you should cover in each part of your paper. Basic outlines have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Intro
Typically it is a good idea to use some sort of "attention getting" aspect; make the reader want to continue reading. Do not begin every sentence with "I" or "my". Although this essay may be about you, it sounds redundant. Add some variety and spice by changing your language and sentence structure. For example: I am a senior in high school and I am going to college XYW after I graduate. I have participated in many great activities during the last four years. I think I deserve this scholarship because ..." The repetition within those sentences is boring and will not engage the reader.Body
The body of the essay should support the main topic of the essay; make sure to give examples and explain why you are qualified. Avoid repeating yourself using the same language. Personal and specific examples create a story that may draw in the reader and create a memorable impression. Using generalities is not convincing; they may be applied to most people and do not create a unique impression of you.Conclusion
To conclude your essay, restate your main point, although do not use the same language word for word. Using a future-tense may be appropriate. If you choose to use a quote or a poem in your essay, choose wisely and be selective; it may be perceived as clich or unoriginal, or even inapplicable.

For free scholarship information, check out http://www.squarehatmoney.com/scholarships

Freelance Writing Online

Never before has it been this easily to earn a sizable income as a freelance writer. The internet has exponentially exploded not only the number of places where writers can submit their writing, but more importantly, the number of people looking to hire capable writers. The internet is a huge beast that requires fresh content (i.e. writing) on a daily basis, and millions of websites and media outlets spend enormous sums of money to keep the beast fed.

If you can write interesting and compelling articles and blog posts, it is not unrealistic to expect to earn a very comfortable living working as a freelance writer creating content for websites. This article will cover three steps you can take today to start your career as an online freelance writer.

1. Write Everyday

By this I mean, post something online every day. This can be as simple as starting a free WordPress or Blogger blog and posting to it daily. Make your posts a few hundred words in length and make them about thoughtful topics. You want these posts to showcase your writing as its best.

There are several reasons to write every day. A few of the more important reasons include:

• To earn a decent living as freelance writer online you are going to need to be working on paying jobs everyday, so you might as well get into the practice of writing everyday, even if at first you are not getting paid (or paid a smaller amount).
• As mentioned above, writing everyday creates a portfolio. There will come a day when a potential client wants to see examples of your writing. Being able to direct them to a site that you have contributed to regularly not only showcases your writing, but also demonstrates that you are able to maintain a discipline of writing regularly. Your online posts are your business card, make sure they represent you well.
• Writing everyday is the discipline of exceptional writers, especially online writers. Start this discipline today. Chances are it is either going to be easy at first and then get difficult, or it is going to be hard right from the start. Either way, it's going to get difficult eventually and if you plan to write for a living you need to learn to get through the hard times as soon as possible.

2. Network With Other Freelance Writers

Online forums are a great place to get know other freelance writers. Make it a point to find at least one forum, or section of a forum, that is populated by active freelance writers. Join the forum and start participating.

There are many benefits to getting to know others in this business and networking with them on a regular basis. As you run into questions, you will have a valuable resource from which to seek answers. As you start to develop relationships with other writers, you may find unexpected writing opportunities. For example, someone on the forum may be looking for a guest blogger on a particular topic that you know very well. The person is more likely to offer the opportunity to you if they know you and are familiar with your writing.

Forums are also how most freelance writers post referrals for jobs and assignments they are not able to accept. For example, a writer who focuses primarily on banking and finance topics may have a client who is looking for a fitness writer. This writer is likely to let the the forum know about this fitness opportunity since he knows the client can trust the caliber of the other writers on the forum. Or, perhaps if the writer knows of a particular fitness writer that he trusts, he will refer the fitness writer directly to the client.

Forums are also a great way to get your name out. Most forums allow you to use some sort of signature line with a link to a website. If you are writing online everyday (see #1 above), forums are an excellent way to get visitors to your website. These are just a few examples of how forums can be great resources.

3. Start Bidding on Jobs

There are hundreds of online job boards that are updated daily with new requests for freelance writers. Find several of these boards and check them daily. (Time Saver: If the job board has an RSS feed, set up an RSS feed reader to collect all of these job postings in one place for easier checking.) When you find jobs that you are well-suited for, apply for them.

It is especially important in the beginning to develop a stellar reputation. Ideally, you want to be able to turn your first few clients into long-term clients, or at least be able to use them as an outstanding reference or testimonial. Make sure that the first few jobs that you bid on are ones that you can complete ahead of deadline with the highest quality. It is better to bid on fewer jobs and do great work than bid on several jobs that end up just OK. Your first few jobs are crucial to your success, so pick them wisely and submit exceptional work.

Freelance writing is an outstanding way to earn a living online. Now you have three steps to start you on your way to making money creating online content. The work is there, it is yours for the asking. Start writing today and take advantage of this huge opportunity!

My name is Kelly Gammon and I make a living writing. I often get asked what resources I recommend for those just starting out as a freelance writer. If you are ready to make a comfortable full-time living as a freelance writer, I recommend that you check out http://www.freelancewritertips.com now.

A Children's Writer's Guide to Critiquing Manuscripts

If you've just joined or started a critique group for writers but no one seems to know what to do next, maybe this guide and checklist will help. If you aren't in a critique group, you can still use it to critique your own writing.

CRITIQUING MANUSCRIPTS (For Critique Groups)

Begin with some basic procedural guidelines for critiquing:

1) Start with something positive - Point out at least one thing that worked really well in the manuscript.

2) Be specific in your comments and suggestions - For example, saying "I liked your story" is flattering to the writer, but doesn't really mean much. Saying something like, "I felt the dialogue sounded exactly like something two teenagers would say and advanced the plot well" is more specific.

3) Use the checklist (below) - This will help you be more specific in your comments and suggestions. And, if you use the checklist to critique your own writing it will help you recognize weak points in your story before you share your work with anyone.

CHECKLIST FOR CRITIQUING MANUSCRIPTS

I. Character

__ Are my characters well-rounded? Do the major characters have both positive and negative traits?

__ Is my main character someone readers can care about? Does he/she want something important?

__ Have I revealed character through action?

__ Does my main character take action? Or is she too passive?

__ Is each character's voice distinctly his/her own?

__ Have I avoided stereotypes and stock characters?

__ Does my main character solve his/her own problem? Is he or she different in some way from how he or she was at the beginning of the story? (this doesn't always have to happen, but usually it means your story has some depth to it)

II. Point of View

__ Have I stayed with my POV character throughout the story?

__ Would the story be stronger if I switched from third person to first person or vice versa? Would the story be better told from a different character's point of view?

III. Plot

__ What is the basic conflict of my story?

Beginning

__ Do I introduce my characters and the conflict right away? Or do I take too much time revving up? Could I chop off the first paragraph and start with the second?

Middle

__ Have I put complications in the middle that get worse and worse and build to a climax?

__ Does my character have to work to reach his/her goal?

End

__ Does my main character solve his/her own problem?

__ Does the ending grow logically out of the rest of the story?

__ Is my ending satisfying without being predictable?

IV. Language

Description

__ Are my details specific, not generalized?

__ Have I bogged down the action with tedious passages of description? (One way to check this is to see how many "ing" words are used; very many usually means there is too much description)

__ Would that description work better if I wove it gradually into the story rather than presenting it as a block?

__ Have I described with more than one sense (i.e. sight, sound, touch, taste, smell)?

Action

__ Have I used strong and specific verbs and nouns?

__ Have I successfully avoided passive voice?

__ Can I cut out redundancies? Small talk? Clutter? Meaningless qualifiers such as "just" and "very"? Passages that bog down the action? Have I used too many different dialogue tags that attract attention?

Mechanics

__ Are there awkward or confusing sentences or scenes that need to be cleaned up?

__ When I read my story out loud, does the rhythm sound right? Is it choppy? Too wordy? Monotonous?

__ Are my transitions smooth?

__ Have I avoided clichs?

__ Does each sentence sparkle with my own voice? Is that voice strong and credible?

V. Purpose

__ 1. Does each character and action in the story have a definite purpose?

With these specific points to look for when critiquing a children's story, it should be much easier for you and your fellow writers to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each and every manuscript.

For more helpful tips for writers, visit http://www.workingwriterscoach.com and sign up for the mailing list. When you do, you'll receive a free ebook for writers, plus every weekday morning you'll get The Morning Nudge, a few words to motivate and inspire you to get a little writing done.

Visit the National Writing for Children Center at http://www.writingforchildrencenter.com and find out how you can learn to write for kids. Suzanne Lieurance is a fulltime freelance writer, children's author, and founder and director of the National Writing for Children Center.

Writing Jobs - What You Should Know Before Accepting

After a few years of writing some writers look much older than their age. They have deep frown lines, and startle sharply at any loud noise. Here's why they're nervous wrecks: they never grab the reins of writing jobs they're offered, and they've never learned the power of "No."

There's a secret you need to know if you want to make money writing: many of your clients have no idea of what they want you to write, and why. They have an amorphous idea, or even a collection of ideas of what they want. They expect their writer (you) to put bones and flesh on their ideas.

Your first task as a writer if you want to avoid frown lines and lead a peaceful productive life, is to help your potential clients to define exactly what they want -- BEFORE you accept a writing job.

Here are three steps to doing that.

1. If It's Not in the Brief, It's Not Going to Happen

Every writing job starts with a brief, or job description. I advise my writing students to study each brief, and then rewrite it in their own words. When you do this, holes in the brief will come to light, and you can start asking questions.

Please get into the habit of asking lots of questions. No, you won't look stupid or inexperienced -- remember that 99.9 per cent of your clients aren't clear on exactly what they want. Your first task is to help them to decide and articulate the scope of the job they want you to do.

Make it your motto: "if it's not in the brief, it's not going to happen."

2. Trust Your Intuition, and Google

You'll be offered writing jobs, and your gut will clench. Sometimes it's because a writing job seems too good to be true. Trust your gut. If you can sense that there's something not quite right about a job, you're rarely wrong.

Use Google. Google each and every prospective client, without exception. If something seems wrong, stay clear. A client's problems need never become your problems, unless you willingly slip a noose around your own neck.

3. Learn to Say: "No"

Yes, you can refuse writing jobs. As your writing career develops, you'll refuse more jobs, because you're booked up. You'll become selective, only taking jobs which a client can articulate clearly, and which you know you can complete in a timely manner. You'll have more confidence.

However, you should be selective right from the beginning of your career. If a prospect won't respond promptly to questions you have about a brief, pass on the job. There are always more writing jobs.

Finally, avoid being the kind of writer who becomes jubilant whenever you're offered a writing job. Check the jobs out carefully before you accept, ensuring that the scope of the job is clearly defined in your brief.

Want to make a great income from your writing? Angela Booth's "Sell Your Writing Online NOW" Training Program at http://sellwritingnow.com/Home/training.html gives you all the skills you need to make great money writing for the Web. A subscriber recently said: "Your training has inspired me - I'm on Lesson 14, and I'm making enough money to quit my day job."

For free weekly writing information sent to your Inbox, subscribe to Angela's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine at http://www.freelancewritingezine.com/ and receive "Write And Sell Your Writing: The Power-Write Report" immediately.

What Do You Do When You Are a Writer and Witness History

What do you do when you are a writer and observe a historical event unfold and you know the truth? Should you write the truth and burst the lies of the present period so that those in future periods can know the reality of the era, or should you promote the lie in hopes that somehow this might change the world?

It has always been my contention that political correctness is other than reality and thus, is a dangerous marker from which to judge and make decisions. Once we forgo the reality of human nature and the primate politics of humankind, we deny ourselves decisions that will be free from the laws of unintended consequence.

As a retired Franchisor Founder, I've made a little bit of history in my esoteric Industry sub-sector niche and as I've both participated and observed history over the last four decades. Now as a writer in early retirement I write about present and know that my record will live on.

It pains me to know that others who have mastered the power of the pen are so ethically challenged and confused, and purport falsehoods of our time while covering the truth with their wordsmith ways. Today, we have a new President of the United States, and we are to celebrate how diversity has overcome glass ceilings and barriers.

What a great day for America indeed, yes, but only in name. You see, there is a reality behind this election of the first Black President, a story that is known, but goes untold. Is it fair to history and to truth to sugar coat now? If we do, as others have in the past, are we any better than they, have we learned nothing?

Is all history a lie, just like the present? If we sweep truth under our carpet and modify the textbooks of the next generation to suit - where is the integrity in that? If we really want to do something great in our time, there is no need to pretend or fake it. We can make a difference without fakery, propped up propaganda, and pretending in the present period.

Is our whole civilization and society going to live a lie to themselves - is this what America has become? We are better than this. There is nothing wrong with having an African American President, that indeed is commendable, proof if you will of our strength and vision, but allowing so in a manner that is far beyond the span of rules we have set for ourselves is a disgrace.

We are to blame, we have traded our promise for a myth, and into the gates of hypocrisy we do march.

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

A Writing Strategy For Premium Traffic

Have you ever played one of those "maze" strategy games where you have to move through a huge maze to reach the exit ... but every path you try seems to be a dead end? I'll bet there've been times in your professional life - maybe now - when you thought getting premium traffic to build a profitable online business was exactly like that.

I remember a unique demonstration I saw many years ago. Some scientist stuck a rat (not a writer) at the beginning of the maze. At the end was a desired reward - a piece of cheese. No matter how many dead ends that rat hit - and there were a lot - it never lost focus. It never got discouraged about its lack of keyword training. It never cried out to God for more inbound links, more joint venture partners, more clicks. It never blamed other rats who ran a frustrating content promotion affiliate program. Instead, this rat recognized how the maze distribution system worked. So each time it hit a dead end, it just turned around and made a new submission. And sooner, rather than later, that rat had his cheese.

If you're anything like me, you've hit a ton of dead ends while trying to generate traffic to a website. For a long time, even when something seemed to work, the traffic I got didn't convert to subscribers very well - if at all.

Then I figured it out. When I write articles that give great value, and then entice a few people in my target market to share my articles with others, I get a steady stream of real prospects in my niche. And they do convert. So the writing strategy to get premium traffic is to be sure you give your audience real value satisfaction each time you write. That works.

Only results count. Richard Dennis submitted 20 short articles in 10 days. Result? Google lists 18 of the 20 articles in its top 4 search results. In fact, 14 articles are #1 ... against many millions of competing pages. See the proof at http://ArticlesByRichard.com, and get your free step-by-step plan for how you can do the same.

Writing the Rainbow

If you were to disregard all of the file folders, books and scribbled Post-It notes, one of the first things you'd notice about my office is my fondness for The Wizard of Oz. Along the walls and bookshelves are postcards of Dorothy and The Wicked Witch, a stuffed Scarecrow and a Cowardly Lion hand puppet. There's also an 18-inch rainbow on my desk. It's really a candleholder, a simple black ornamental bridge with small glass votives of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. To me it is a symbol of hope and inspiration, a reminder of how color became my muse.

The road to rainbows

Like many writers, there was a time when my words did not flow, flow, flow onto the paper, a time when I would have welcomed a pair of ruby slippers just so I could click myself three times out of the Writers Block Woods and into the Creative Light. Then one day I walked into a metaphysical shop and found my muse. There along one large, sunny window were over 100 square glass bottles, each containing two different-colored layers of liquid. They mesmerized me with their gem-like brilliance.

This was my introduction to Aura-Soma, an holistic therapy which uses the healing energies of colors, plants and crystals. Instinctively, I reached for "Gabriel", the blue-over-violet bottle. By applying the oily contents to my throat and temple, my communication abilities would be greatly improved, it was explained. What's this--a writer's miracle in a bottle? Intrigued, I brought "Gabriel" home and after only a few applications, I found myself enjoying what I can only describe as a creative high.

An ancient method

Now that I have spent many years researching the benefits of color, I'm not surprised "Gabriel" worked so well. "Color is a powerful tool," author Lori Reid wrote in ther book, Color Book: Use the healing powers of color to transform your life. "It acts on our bodies, minds, and emotions, triggering deep and subtle responses on a subconscious level."

Within each of us are spinning wheels of energy called chakras which correspond to a specific color of the spectrum, as well as an emotional issue. Red (root chakra, located at the base of the spine) is used for energy, grounding and passion. Orange (sacral chakra, located two inches below the navel) promotes joy and sexuality. Yellow (solar plexus chakra, located below the breastbone) helps counteract depression and stimulates mental activity. Green (heart chakra, located at the center of the chest) represents compassion and healing. Blue (throat chakra, located at the throat) deals with peace, communication and artistic expression. Indigo (brow chakra, located at the third eye area, between the brows) activates intuition. Violet (crown chakra, located at the crown of the head) represents spirituality and inspiration.

Since ancient times, color has been used in physical, mental and emotional healing. It is said that Hippocrates applied his medicine in rooms painted in soothing colors and used different colored salves and ointments as treatment. In ancient Egypt, China and India, individuals were dipped in colored pigment or bathed in light that was filtered through colored-glass windows. Today color is introduced by using crystals and visualization, wearing a particular color clothing to absorb color physically, applying colored lights or oils to the skin, eating colored foods and drinking colored water. One can also receive different color vibrations through music.

Color your world

How would you describe green to your readers? Before you write, visualize your setting and try to see, feel and smell the green. Say you are writing a short story about a young girl living in an old country cottage in Ireland. Is the color of the grass and trees an emerald or Kelly green? Does the grass feel dry or wet? How do you convey the smell of the countryside? Is green an earthy, clean smell? Is it sweet and slightly minty or antiseptic-smelling like pine?

"Becoming aware of the effects of color means that we can make use of its positive benefits to lift our spirits, to unlock our creative imagination, to enhance our environment and to improve our image, our well-being, and our lives," says Reid.

Did you know that if you write on a yellow note pad with blue ink, you can enhance both your communication and creative skills? Think about what you wish to communicate to your readers. Is it anger? Joy or pain?

Once you understand the excessive and deficient qualities associated with each color, you can write stories with more interesting, more believable characters. In her book, Color and Crystals: A Journey Through The Chakras, author Joy Gardner provides an excellent example of someone who has too much red energy:

"This wealthy perfectionist is the owner of a California restaurant chain. He rules his employees like a commanding general. He is nervous and chronically constipated. He owns three cars, which give him little satisfaction. He sleeps with many women, but it's an empty experience."

Gardner describes the rainbow colors and their related excessive energies as Red--greedy, egotistic, domineering, sexually indiscriminate; Orange--emotionally explosive, aggressive, manipulative, over-indulgent; Yellow--judgmental, workaholic, perfectionist, overly intellectual; Green--demanding, possessive, moody, melodramatic; Blue--arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic, addictive; Indigo--egomaniac, proud, religiously dogmatic, authoritarian and Violet--psychotic, depressed, destructive.

An outstanding example of a red personality is the aptly named Scarlett O'Hara, the fiery heroine from "Gone With The Wind". Talk about attention-getters! Scarlett was stubborn and temperamental, a woman who demanded everything the world had to offer. Nothing could stop her from achieving her goals, not death and destruction nor the scorn and wagging tongues of the local citizens. If she had to steal her sister's beau, murder a Yankee or toil in the fields, well, so be it. She would not be defeated.

In the end, Scarlett had amassed great wealth and had rebuilt her beloved Tara, but she had suffered great losses as well. Her daughter was dead and her husband, Rhett Butler, clearly didn't give a damn and was heading out the door. But we just know that Scarlett got Rhett in the end. Why? Because she never, ever quit. She knew what she wanted and she would fight the devil himself to ensure that she got it. Scarlett O'Hara was the ultimate survivor. Surely, if she had had a personal mantra, it would have been: "It's all about me!"

A writer's meditation

Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting on a beautiful white sandy beach. The sun is directly overhead and its rays are brilliant and warm as they flow from the top of your head and throughout your body.

Let your toes feel the cool, Caribbean blue waters. See yourself staring out to sea, mesmerized by the dancing rhythm of the waves. Watch the seagulls fly above you, then see them dive into the sparkling water. You feel at peace here. After awhile, you notice a huge wave coming toward you but you are not afraid. The water comes close to your hand and when the wave is gone, you see it has left you a wondrous gift.

Glowing like jewels on the sand are seven different colors of seaglass. You pick up the red seaglass first and hold it in the palm of your hand. Stare into the seaglass and imagine you are becoming smaller and smaller until you are surrounded by the red seaglass. Feel the warmth and energy of the color red. Red is the first color of the rainbow. It is the color of passion and enthusiasm and survival. Red helps you obtain your material needs.

Now pick up the orange-colored seaglass. Orange is the second color of the rainbow. Look into the seaglass and become the color orange. Orange is a joyful color. With orange, you feel happy about your decision to become a writer and you will not allow anyone or anything to dampen your enthusiasm.

Now pick up the yellow-colored seaglass and feel the power of yellow surround you. Yellow is the third color of the rainbow. Yellow gives you better confidence in your writing abilities, no matter how many rejection slips or criticisms you receive.

Place the green-colored seaglass into your hand. Green is the fourth color of the rainbow. It is the color of harmony and balance and peace. When you are hurrying to meet deadlines for books and articles, visualize the color green and your balance will be restored.

Pick up the blue-colored seaglass and become the color blue. Blue is the fifth color of the rainbow and offers you creativity and communication. Blue helps you perceive the truth and to conquer writer's block.

Now pick up the indigo-colored seaglass. This is the sixth color of the rainbow. Indigo is the color of intuition, your inner voice that tells you to "go for it". You need to trust your intuition if you are to realize your potential and become a successful writer.

Now there is only one seaglass left to explore, the violet-colored one. Violet is the seventh color of the rainbow. It is the color of faith. No matter how difficult your life may get, faith never lets you give up on yourself. In your journey as a writer, remember the color violet and your abilities and opportunities will improve.

Now slowly open your eyes and when you are ready, take your favorite colored pen or pencil in hand and write a page in your personal color journal, knowing that the power of the seven colors of the rainbow has made you into a better and more creative writer.

Are you ready to do some rainbow writing? Try these exercises now:

1. Write about a red place, object or character. OR write a cover letter to an agent, describing why he/she should take you on as a client. What are your accomplishments? Why are you certain your book or article will sell?

2. Write about an orange place, object or character. OR write about the first time you knew you really wanted to become a writer. Then write how you felt when you received your first criticism or rejection letter. Were you angry? Sad? Suicidal? How did you resolve the situation?

3. Write about a yellow place, object or character. OR write a movie synopsis of your life. Is it a poignant drama, comedy or psychological thriller? Which actor portrays you? Would you give your life story a General, PG-13 or R rating?

4. Write about a green place, object or character. OR write a poem about a time when you really loved something or someone. How did you express your love? Was it returned or rejected?

5. Write about a blue place, object or character. OR interview yourself as if you are already a successful writer. What suggestions would you give to a beginning writer? How have you managed to keep your name at the top of the bestseller lists? How do you avoid writer's block? Do you network with other writers?

6. Write about an indigo place, object or character. OR write a dialogue in which a small child is describing your present surroundings to an older blind person.

7. Write about a violet place, object or character. OR in first person, create a Cinderella-like fairytale where your greatest desire is to attend the most famous writers conference in the country. What are your adversities? How do you eventually get to the conference? Describe the general layout of the conference. Whom do you meet there? What questions do you ask your favorite author? What lessons do you learn? (Begin your story with "Once upon a time I was...")

Creating a personal color journal

Once I was angry with a person whom I felt had treated me unfairly. Since I was already "seeing red", I instinctively reached for a red pen and began to write passionately, wildly, about the injustice of it all. Had I been trying to "chill", I would have grabbed my "cool blue" pen instead. But in this situation I needed to express my anger--to really feel the emotional power of it--and that is why I chose to "be" red for that journaling session.

As you might expect from someone with an Oz collection, one of my major philosophies in life is to have fun, so I suggest the more colorful you can make your journal, the better. Choose either a large spiral notebook in your favorite color or seven different notebooks to reflect each hue of the rainbow and its corresponding emotion. If you are feeling depressed on the day of your journal entry, you need to add more red, so you will write this entry in red because red is the antidote to blue.

To get you started, here are nine colorful journaling prompts:

1. On the top of each page, write and complete this sentence: "The color I feel today is _______________________ because..."

2. Describe how you generally feel about the color red (or orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo or violet) and why.

3. Using the color red, complete this affirmation: "Today I have..."

4. Using the color orange, complete this affirmation: "Today I feel..."

5. Using the color yellow, complete this affirmation: "Today I can..."

6. Using the color green, complete this affirmation: "Today I love..."

7. Using the color blue, complete this affirmation: "Today I speak..."

8. Using the color indigo, complete this affirmation: "Today I see..."

9. Using the color violet, complete this affirmation: "Today I know..."

Dive write in, the aura's fine

Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. These seven colors are powerful tools for writers. So if you've lost your muse somewhere along the yellow brick road and don't have a pair of ruby slippers to find it, look to the rainbow and you'll discover that writing is an even greater adventure when it's not all black and white.

Eleyne Austen Sharp has been a professional writer since 1980. She is a certified color therapist, certified spiritual aromatherapist and creator of Rainbow Writing, an innovative journaling and creative writing technique. Eleyne is the founder of Aura House (http://www.aurahouse.com), a professional color therapy and training center. Email her at rainbowwriter@aurahouse.com

What Makes an Article?

Good quality articles are easy to be sold out over the Internet. Articles are needed because they are the ones that make the websites alive and more informational. Without these articles, web pages are useless. In order to have a good website, it must contain good articles.

In order to write a good article we must comply with the SEO or Search Engine Optimization rules in writing a good article.

First, choose a topic which is in demand today. Once you already have a topic in mind, formulate a good title. A good title will make a best impression on the readers. Use a catching title. After that, the title should appear in the first paragraph of your article. Use the words in your title as your keywords.

A keyword must appear at least three times in a paragraph. Always write a sentence with a good structure. Never make your article something like a turning wheel by going round and round with your topic. Once you all have that quality in your article, always remember that the readers are reading from their monitors. It is hard to read in monitors than in papers.

Viewers don't spend much time reading long articles, so keep your articles short but not short enough to lose its thought. A good article must contain at least 250 words up to 500 words. Lesser than that, the article would be cripple and more than that it would be boring.

Never thought of writing a popular article, you'll be disappointed but rather write a good article and if your article is good enough, popularity enters.

If you want to know more about Search Engine Optimization India then feel free to visit SEO India

Sentence Grammar Checker - Effectively Edit Your English Writing!

Sentence Grammar Checker can make life easier mostly for those who spend much of their time writing emails, articles and other digital documents. English is the most popular international language; we use it for personal or business purposes while communicating with others. If you look for new ways that will help you to improve your writing level - read the following review.

Short overview
Sentence Grammar Checker solutions are actually add-on tools for conventional word processors, they were designed to cover the more complex language issues such as correct grammar and punctuation. Up to several years ago grammar checking technology was very basic, but today it provides better performance based on advanced language processing algorithms. Grammar writing programs enable us to: checking for proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and sometimes few of them offer text enrichment.

Can it make our life better?
Do we really need it? Well, let's examine what is in it for us:

- Automatically identify sentences construction problems that may have been missed during a manual proofreading.
- Providing extra capabilities which do not exist in conventional word processors.
- Saves us time spent on grammar guides.

Looking closer on this technology, we could easily find other advantages that are not covered here, as this tool constantly changes, bringing us new solutions that help us on improving our English writing and editing skills.

Summary
Sentence Grammar Checker is a great way to enhance our writing capabilities and improve our written based communication. This technology is very helpful on identifying writing problems that we were not aware of. Although it brings many challenges to software developers, we can expect this solution to further develop itself, for a single reason: writing is one of the most important tools that help us with almost any aspect in life.

Watch how an advanced Sentence Grammar Checker analyzes text and learn more about innovative technologies that can help you transform your English writing correct, professional and creative.

Increase Your Traffic by Writing Articles

If you want to increase you website traffic quickly there is only a few ways to it. One of the ways is by Writing good quality articles that people would want to read.

It is not easy to increase your website traffic without cutting corners and this is something you should never do. There are a few things that can increase you traffic that are legal as long as you have the time and skill to be able to write interesting articles.

So you've built your wonderful new website and submitted it to the search engines and directories. In your eyes you are so proud of all your hard work that Google and all the search engines will just fall over themselves to add you to the top page.

So you wait...and you wait...and nothing happens. It takes a very long time for a newly developed website to get any form of listing in search engines and directories and even longer to get any meaningful listing. So, what's the solution to speeding up the process?

The best way you can increase traffic to your website for a short period of time is to write and submit newsletter articles. The beauty of this method is that anyone can do it all you need is a good idea, the ability to write accurately and some spare time. I'm not talking here about working for a magazine or website but the wonderful world of free articles. If you are short on cash and can't afford to promote your business then this technique is especially suited to you.

There are many websites that require constant content on a daily basis and most Newsletter editors are always looking for well written content. This is more so if their newsletter or blog is updated daily or weekly. As you can imagine it would be very difficult to maintain that level of content and prohibitively expensive and so they turn to free articles to ensure their website is relevant and interesting to their visitors.

As with most things on the internet if a gap appears it's very quickly filled and so we have the wonderful world of free articles. The deal is that in exchange for allowing the authors content to be published for free, the author of the article is allowed to place a link or advert at the bottom of the article without any charge.

Just imagine that for a minute, if your article is interesting enough and good enough it could be included in hundreds of websites in a matter of days and what does that mean, one way in-links. This of course is great for your pr ranking and will no doubt increase your traffic for as long as the article is placed high on the publishers website pages. The thing to remember is that you are not giving the article away just given away the rights to use the article on other peoples websites...you still own the article.

These links or adverts are usually placed just below the article and are called "resource boxes". The resource box is your chance to sell yourself or your website or both. It usually contains information about the author and a link to his website.

It's important that you take some time over the content of the resource box because if it is well written then more people will be tempted to click through to your main website and let's face that's the main reason you're given this information away in the first place. Don't add a affiliate link or straight link to another persons site as most publishers are wise to this and would not add your article.

Once you have written your article you now need to find the write publishers and newsletters that will take your work of art. This can be a long and boring job but it is a very important one. I would suggest you find at least 20-30 newsletters of a decent size and don't give up until you have done so.

The main reason why taking a little time over this part of the process is simple: It does not take much longer to submit your article to 500 sites that only main difference is the amount of traffic you will receive.

It's hard to say how much this type of approach will increase your traffic because it's very dependent on how well your article is written and how well you market it. In the best case scenario your article could be accepted at several larger ezines that have 150,000+ subscribers each and could result in 1000+ visitors to your website.

On the other hand you could end up with nobody publishing your article and not single hit. My personal opinion and experience is that a reasonably well thought out and written article usually produces around 500+ unique visitors per article.

There is another way you can get help with the tiresome job of finding publishers and newsletters and that is to pay one of the many companies out there to submit your article for you. I have used several of these companies and the quality and cost of their work can vary enormously. Some of these companies charge per submission ad some charge a flat monthly fee. The most important thing is that you are getting your article to enough quality publishers.

Brian is the editor of Bee Ltd a domain acquisition and development company that has many years experience in the domain name and internet market. You will find many useful articles and advice on all manner of subjects associated with domains names at our site: Bee.eu.

Technical Writing - What to Do During Economic Downturns

We are in the midst of an economic downturn as these lines are written. Things are not peachy for a lot of people right now, including writers. For technical writers, location is important in times like these. For those who do not live in hi-tech metropolitan areas, well-paying jobs might not be that easy to come.

So what should a technical writer do in-between jobs? Such temporary downtimes can actually be an excellent opportunity to work on basic skill sets and build up one's portfolio.

For example, if you're a beginner level tech writer I recommend you practice your indexing and TOC skills and write a great 20-page "User Guide" about a software you're already using. If you do not have MS Office, download Open Office for free and write a sample guide about how to use the basic functions of Open Office. That way, when you go to a job interview in the future you'd have something to show as a proof of your tech writing skills.

You can also offer volunteer documentation work for your church or synagogue or house of worship, a membership club, or a sports or social organization that you belong to. Perhaps it might be the local chapter of your party, if you are into politics? Today you can start writing their Policy and Procedure handbook, handling their office correspondence, or writing a press release for them and doing other kinds of low-tech writing assignments. And tomorrow? You never know.... if and when they need a full-time writer or have the budget to pay for part-time assignments, you would be the first one they would naturally consider thanks to your earlier volunteer work. It's important to keep networking and keep in touch with such contacts.

If you are an experienced technical writer you can brush up on some advanced-level skills like learning XML, structured authoring and DITA. Enrolling in a graduate degree or certification program is another option to make the best of such temporary bumps on your career path.

If you are interested to read more about technical writing as a career and how it can help you earn a steady living, visit http://www.learntechnicalwriting.com. You might be pleasantly surprised with what you'll find out. Join the thousands who are already helped and inspired by this information provided by a Fortune 500 Senior Technical Writer. Visit today and claim your free report "How Much Do Technical Writers Make?"

Dr. Ugur Akinci is a Fortune 500 Sr. Technical Communicator http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com/

Are You Letting Travel Writing Opportunities Skip Town?

Here's a news flash for everyone: many people thrive in the midst of economic turmoil. Did you know that more millionaires were made during the Great Depression? Do not let opportunity pass you by because you are buying into the limited thinking of your fellow countrymen. What do they know? These people signed their name on the dotted line knowing they could not afford their purchases.

You may believe travel writing opportunities are non-existent. This is far from the truth. My writing has taken off because I write on other topics besides travel. That's the key. In order to support your dreams, you may have to take on other work. I'm a die-hard writer who is passionate about many topics and genres of writing. I've written articles on how to install shelving to dog sympathy cards. Believe me, my writing muscles have been stretched in more ways than one.

Ideas to support your travel writing

1. Take a road trip and write about your experiences.

2. Edit guidebooks.

3. Search Craigslist.

4. Enter writing contests - submit your "travel fiction."

5. Sign up with Elance.com and Guru.com.

6. Post an ad on Craigslist advertising your writing services.

7. Go to the new restaurants and write about the food and wine.

You may have to take a full-time or part-time job to support your travel writing. Will you be all right with this? Are you an all-or-nothing person? If you have a dream, you'll do whatever it takes to see it come to fruition. This may require a full-time or part-time job outside of travel writing. Of course, you could always get a job within the travel industry. Become part of the crew of a cruise ship and sail around the world. You'll have no shortage of travel writing articles.

Get a vision for your life. You may have to write on other topics other than travel writing - so be it. This will make you very valuable as a writer. If you know and understand SEO marketing, you're writing services will be in demand. This is a "hot commodity" right now. Organizations always look for people who can help them. "Ask not what an organization can do for you, but what you can do for the organization." Does this sound familiar?

Travel writing can be a fun job and you can earn extra cash. Look around and you'll discover travel writing opportunities that you are just waiting for you. Remember, your area is a destination spot for people. If you're passionate about golf, visit a few golf courses and write about them. If you enjoy horseback riding, find a couple of dude ranches and ride off into the sunset. Sometimes you must create your own opportunities in life. Brainstorm for travel writing ideas and you'll find a few gold nuggets!

Our website is dedicated to aspiring and experienced travel writers. You'll find inspiration, encouragement, and education on everything travel writing.

Sign up for our weekly blog recap. If you're about to travel this is a great way to keep up-to-date with the latest in travel writing. Also, check out our forum. If you have a question, login, and with a click of a button you'll have the answer to your question.

URL: http://www.Travel-Writers-Exchange.com

Best Types of Writing Worksheet

Teachers and parents basically are the primary users of worksheets. It is an effective tool in helping children learn how to write.

There are many types of writing worksheets. There is the cursive writing worksheets and the kindergarten worksheets. The latter is more on letter writing and number writing. This is typically given to kids of aged four to seven to first teach them how to write. Through these worksheets, they learn muscle control in their fingers and wrist by repeatedly following the strokes of writing each letter.

These writing worksheets have traceable patterns of the different strokes of writing letters. By tracing these patterns, kids slowly learn how a letter is structured.

When you are a parent, and you want to teach your kids ahead of time just before he would go to school, you can use the free online worksheets. There are lots of them available. You can let your kids learn online. Through this, your kids will be ready for school.

These online materials are readily downloadable and can be printed for use. And the good thing about this is that you can produce as many copies as you want, until your kid learns and perfect the craft of writing.

There are also teachers who use these kinds of techniques to teach in a more animated manner. The idea is to keep children interested because without their attention, it is difficult to make them absorb what you are trying to teach.

There are many types of worksheets you can use as a teaching aid. First is coloring pages. This is good in teaching kids the different colors and their names, and the proper way to color. With First Crafts, kids learn how to make simple crafts and enjoy the fruits of their hard work.

There are also worksheets that teach how to read. It includes the basic sounds each letter produce. Kids try to read the words displayed before them. In the First Alphabet worksheet, kids learn how to write the alphabet. And in the First Animals worksheet, kids try to recognize the animals in the picture and learn the names of these animals.

There are many more worksheets available. They vary in complexity of the activity depending on the age and grade level of a child.

Other activities for kindergarten include jigsaw puzzles. There are also worksheets that teach children about some biblical characters, and how to help a community. These activities are not limited to individual work. There are also worksheets that require a group effort to finish the task. This way, children learn to work in a team. This is a very effective group activity in helping them realize the importance of cooperation and teamwork.

At a young age, kids are first taught to write letters in print only. When kids reach the age of eight to ten, they are taught how to write in cursive. They may find this quite difficult and boring at first. But one fun way to teach them this is to use worksheets also.

The basic cursive worksheets that you can use are Rockin' Round Letters, Climb'n' Slide Letters, Loopy Letters, Lumpy Letters, and Mix 'n' Match.

Worksheets are now being used in most schools as they are proven effective in fostering a children's learning process. There were studies that show children responding better to worksheets compared to other boring and strict methods of teaching.

For more information on cursive writing worksheets and kindergarten writing worksheets, please visit our website.

Production Techniques For the Online Article Writer

Let's face it there is a lot of competition in nearly every niche online when it comes to article marketing and online article authoring. There are also many theories on how best to write articles and which production techniques to use.

Over the years I have read many books from many writers about production techniques and some were good, some great, and some simply not for me. But, I have tried them all and on occasion I will employ each if it serves my purpose. I would recommend that article authors study what the top online writers are doing and do what works best for them.

Personally, I like to use all the production techniques and strategies out there, anything that I can use to increase efficiency. By doing this it allows me to enjoy the creative fun in writing articles and it's important to enjoy what you are doing, especially if you plan on doing a lot of it.

You do not have to sacrifice your creative genius to increase your article writing production. I refuse to do that, and you should refuse too and immediately commit yourself to doing both; enjoy creating quality articles and increase your production rates.

Eventually, every online article author has to come to terms with the realization that no matter which strategy you use, how much SEO thought you put into your work or how carefully you choose titles, topics and techniques, much of the online article author's success is about luck. Meaning you must put out large quantities of articles if you wish to get lucky consistently. Think on this.

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

Article Writing Service to Help Lighten Your Workload

As an Internet business owner, you are sometimes too caught up with all kinds of business related tasks to pay much attention to article writing. Daily tasks such as Internet marketing, product development, meetings, etc. may take up so much of your time that you simply don't have time to look at content creation.

However, your Internet business will need content. Sooner or later, you will find yourself having to come up with some content. You will need articles for your own websites, your sales letters, your blogs, or to execute some article marketing campaigns. For whatever the reason, there is no denying that content is king on the Internet.

As the owner of an Internet business, it is your responsibility to come up with a way to overcome this challenge - the challenge of content creation. A heavy workload is an obstacle, never an excuse. To make things worse, there are other obstacles.

Some business owners find writing to be time consuming. That may be because some people are not native English speakers, or they do not grow up in an English speaking/writing environment. Hence they face great difficulties when they find that they have to write. In this case, article writing becomes a painful task.

Fortunately, there is a ready solution to such obstacles. Simply outsource all your article writing to processional writing service providers. Usually, such providers have a team of writers to write for you. They are usually native English speakers, who are able to write naturally. Writing is almost second nature to these writers, and they are able to complete articles in a much shorter time span than most people.

Besides, since they are professional writers, they are expected to be more knowledgeable than the average layman about the subjects that they write about. On some occasions, they may be stumped by certain rare topics. But that can be easily overcome with some research.

Overall, professional writers can deliver high quality articles very quickly. The best writers even possess Internet marketing knowledge and experience. That means when they write, they will keep the theme of the articles tightly focuses so that the search engines can determine the context of the articles easily.

Most business owners decide to outsource all article writing activities simply because writing just takes up too much time. Even for a prolific writer, writing an article of decent quality can take as much as 15 minutes. Imagine setting up a website with 10 pages of content. That's 150 minutes dedicated to content alone. For any business owner, a lot can be done within 150 minutes. Hence, most just decide to outsource. After all, quality writing services come at highly affordable prices these days.

Just by spending a few extra dollars, business owners find themselves left with a lot more time for more important tasks.

Professional article writing service and article submission services available. Fully featured - Fast turnaround, back up articles to local hard drive and more!

Writing From the Road

There is a rather large contingency of traveling writers, article authors, and novelists that travel in motor coaches and write. I know, for seven years I myself traveled the country by motor coach and I often met them. Some were travel writers, others wrote magazine articles, and some were well known authors. This always fascinated me, and perhaps gave me the confidence to become a writer myself.

My motor coach "The Blitz Mobile" mobile command center has a trailer set up and the trailer section contains my personal library. Did anyone ever tell you how heavy books are? In this library I have all sorts of information and thus, I have all the references I need to write on the road, something I would recommend for any serious traveling writer. Other writers I have met have their own smaller reference library, they take with them. Many traveling writers have invited me into their motor homes and they'll have a small row of reference books. Books such as Travel Guides, Atlas, Dictionary, Almanacs, Thesaurus and other mini-Encyclopedia type books. In fact you can always tell a traveling writer by what is in their motor home.

And I also recommend having reliable Internet Access as well, this is why I set up a separate power source in the trailer and use the WiFi from the Internet Satellite Antenna from the Motor Coach part. If you are considering writing from the road you might wish to check out the MotoSat Mobile Systems available, they are not cheap, but they work very well.Some writers use the new 3G wireless access card for their laptop. Some older writers just wait until the find an Internet Cafe. Still others only stay at WiFi enabled RV Parks and there are more and more of them these days.

The great thing about being a writer is that you can write from virtually anywhere and with mobile technology what it is today, you can have instant access to the real world when you want it. When you don't turn it off and enjoy the inspiration from the scenic views or destination spots. Why not take your writing on the road, enjoy life, dump the stress and allow your creative juices to flow, your mind to roam and ride like the wind!

Lance Winslow is a public speaker and gives professional interviews to various news agencies and Internet Companies Lance Winslow. Lance Winslow is also available by appointment; http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/honeywebought/bossresources.html#lance ; PBS Special with Lance Winslow.

Be a Successful Freelance Writer

These days, anybody can be a writer. With the amount of freelance writing jobs available over the Internet, you don't even have to set a foot out of your house to earn some extra cash. And if you're hardworking and skillful enough, you'll probably earn more than many day job workers.

Freelance writing jobs are not as daunting as they used to be. Offers can range from anything and everything under the sun. In fact, there are plenty of people looking out for writers right this very moment.

And if you hang around long enough, you'll learn how to avoid basic mistakes and spot golden opportunities. Here are some helpful tips to succeed in freelance writing.

Surf the Net and Be Observant.

You can start making money by typing freelance writing jobs on your favorite search engine. As impossible as it is to believe, that's how easy it is. Of course, most of the links will then lead you through blogs, forums and Web sites.

As mentioned earlier, topics to write about can range from anything and everything. It could be something as common as travel, or something as technical as manipulating graphics.

Stick to What You Know.

Aside from their obvious popularity, blog articles are also easier to write. They're less formal and use a more easygoing tone.

For a beginner, it's the best place to start your career as a freelance writer. If you're fond of cooking, you can look for a blog that focuses on that subject. If you're into marketing, there are hundreds of blogs out there which deal with your interest.

Accept Payments.

Payment transactions are usually done online. You'll need to set up an account at a credible online money transferring company or payment processor in order to receive your money.

Personally, all I earn from my freelance writing jobs are wired through Paypal. It's easily one of the most popular and credible companies out there. If your country is not included in Paypal's list, another good alternative would be 2Checkout.

Freelance writing jobs may seem easy-and they are-but they also require proper working habits. You might think that it's okay to slack off since you don't exactly have a superior watching over you like a hawk; however, how you work can determine where your next paycheck comes from.

If your employer decides that he or she likes your writing style as well as your work habits, you'll be the first person he or she will call up the next time a project pops out.

Want to earn a 5-figure monthly income through freelance writing jobs? Go to http://www.20daypersuasion.com/5figurewriter.htm and discover how to earn massive amounts of money by becoming a freelance writer

7 Deadly Writing Sins

1. Sloth

The definition of sloth has changed over time. At one time, it was known as the sin of sadness and despair. Dante described it as the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul." Today, it is generally considered synonymous with laziness or indifference - the failure to use one's God-given talents and abilities to their fullest. So what does this mean for a writer?

It means that we should stretch beyond our comfort zone and challenge ourselves to hone our skills and learn new ones at every opportunity.

It also means that we should approach each day's work with enthusiasm and joy - joy that we have within us the ability to communicate clearly, to educate, to entertain, and to provoke thought and discussion among readers. Joy that we are able to see the world in infinite and interesting ways, and that we are able to transform that experience into words that we can share with others.

It means that instead of practicing avoidance when it's time to write, we ought to look forward to applying butt to chair and crafting the words that will touch another person's mind.

2. Gluttony

Gluttony is described as overindulgence and waste. Did Emperor Joseph II's accuse Mozart of gluttony when he criticized his work, saying, "Too many notes, my dear Mozart"? Perhaps. Perhaps we commit gluttony when we indulge our passion for words and wordplay and waste the reader's time by failing to engage, enlighten, or entertain anyone but ourselves.

3. Greed

Greed - as a sin - refers to obtaining or hoarding wealth, in particular. And some writers are very good at eschewing greed, saying, "I don't write for money, I write for the sheer love of it. I write because I can't not write. I write for art. I write for myself, alone." This last bit, "I write only for myself," could be seen as a form of hoarding. While ideas and words may not be material objects or wealth, they have value and should be shared - particularly if you accept the notion that writing is a God-given talent.

Shared, yes - stolen, no. Plagiarism would be a form of greed, coupled with envy. Steal someone else's words? I must have sensed this was a sin, given the number of times I've told rip-off artists to go straight to Hell. Whoops... guess I should re-read that section on "wrath."

"I write because I must," might be a form of pride - also one of the seven deadly sins. The implication in the tone is that anyone who doesn't feel that same compulsion is a lesser being, a "non-writer." We all have gifts; where would we be, after all, without the astute readers who buy our books or the skilled laborers who built the cold-water flat in the corner of the garret where we writers notoriously gravitate to do our work?

To write only for money would be a joyless thing (see "Sloth" above), but it is no sin to earn a comfortable living. One could argue that a comfortable living allows one to turn one's thoughts from gluttony and greed; knowing where that next meal is coming from tends to take the focus off of food.

4. Envy

Schadenfreude. Isn't that a fun word? Envy isn't merely wanting what someone else has, but wanting it to the point of feeling sorrow or resentment at another person's good fortune, and feeling a little gleeful when they are deprived of it. My mother once said that it is easy to find friends with broad shoulders to cry on when you are miserable, but hard to find any to come celebrate your good news with you. We do well to celebrate our colleagues' success - it can't help but earn us good Karma points. When another writer announces a sale, it doesn't mean there's one less publishing opportunity in the universe to be scooped up by us. When someone reports a six-figure advance, we should take that as a sign that there is abundance in the universe, and resolve to apply butt to chair just a little more diligently so that we might be next.

5. Lust

Ask the spouse or lover of any writer, and I'll bet they'd say there's just not enough of this sin going around...

6. Pride

Too many people confuse "pride" and "self-confidence." It's a confusing word, too: On the one hand, we are told that pride is a sin; on the other, we are told to "take pride in [our] work." Pride - the sin - equates to narcissism or excessive self-love. Dante defined it as "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor." So how does this apply to us and our writing? Most of us are our own harshest critics. We could do with a little more self-love, and few of us are prone to excess in that department. But those of us who are published - do we ever think of those who simply write for the love of writing, with vague dreams of being published "some day," as "wannabes"? Do we dismiss the typo-ridden scrawls out of hand - and thus the writer who promulgated them? Someone helped us, when we were young and nave and just beginning to find our voices as writers. It's a debt marked "payable to the hopeful novice."

7. Anger/Wrath

Interestingly, wrath encompasses anger directed inward - so the next time you are tempted to bang your head against the wall, muttering, "Stupid, stupid, stupid - this reads as smoothly as a pig walks on stilts!" consider that you may be committing the sin of wrath. On the whole, though, writers have an excellent outlet for anger and wrath - they can sublimate the urge to kill and torment others who dearly deserve it by letting their characters damn themselves to Hell.

Holly Jahangiri is a professional writer who claims, tongue-in-cheek, to channel the spirits of Edgar Allan Poe, Erma Bombeck, and O. Henry. Holly is the author of the popular children's book, Trockle http://trockle.wordpress.com For more information, visit her blog, "Do I Have to Spell It Out?" at http://blog.jahangiri.us

Lin Carter The Science Fiction Writer

Here was a man who lived to write, I mean, and I really mean, he lived to write, and did he write, yes indeed, he wrote about 115-books (plus three chapbooks), and his style was that of his hero writers such as Edger Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark A. Smith and L. Sprague de Camp. And he loved himself, so he put himself in his books, why not, if you don't love yourself, who will? Not a bad group to have for his genre company.

In pure volume, he perhaps has out-written all of those writers combined, I just mentioned (I know ERB wrote about 80-books himself). Some folks would not agree to his quality of writings, but then if they liked the authors I just mentioned above, well, Carter can't be too far off.

He died at 57-years old, had oral cancer for a while, got therapy, and got the cancer back, but now with alcoholism, yes he had the monkey on his back.

He attended one of the noble universities in the United States, Columbia, and was a war veteran of Korea, not a bad combination, rather good I'd say. He belonged to many a Science Fiction clubs, or groups, which seemed to keep him busy, and perhaps his wife. Born in 1930, died in 1988; actually, prior to his first book, in 1965, which was "The Wizard of Lemuria," which he rewrote in 1969, a thicker book, with a longer title: In addition, he wrote three chapbooks prior, the third being in 1959, called "A Letter to Judith."

Of his many books, he finished Howard's tales on Conan, and in 1975, had a book of poetry released. I don't want to judge this man on his writings, and there is a reason for that, and there has been many who have, negatively so, saying he was a copycat, and that he had dull plots, and so forth.

Pushing this all aside, I think the problem was, he didn't care to be an original, he just wanted to jump into space and off he went, and if Burroughs or Howard or H.P. wanted to come along (in his mind) well, all the better.

Incidentally, to my understanding, he had 15,000 books in his library, that to me is a bookstore.

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

What it Takes to Become a Freelance Medical Writer

Freelance medical writing is a career that requires lots of studies and mastery. Like any other freelance article writers, a freelance medical writer should be resourceful, hardworking and creative. Famous freelance medical writers have gone through every hardship in writing for delivering quality articles to the readers. There are many terms to know, advice that need to be accurate and new medical applications to study.

What is the price that has to be paid for becoming a freelance medical writer? "Health is wealth", this is what we all know. Yes, this is true and will always be true. Medical articles are very important to everyone. For someone who is very concerned about his or her medical condition or someone who wants to be informed about any other field related to medicine. As a freelance medical writer you have to provide latest and accurate information to your readers.

There is a lot of research and work behind every health and medicine related article. Being a freelance medical writer can be hard, but this is the path chosen by many because it is one of the highest paying job in today`s world. Writing articles can be easy, but putting your heart to your articles like freelance medical writers do is incomparable. Medical writers should have solid foundation and experience because one wrong advice on the article can cause someone`s life.

It is a good idea to join some courses before you start your freelance writer career. There are many online courses available all over the internet.

If you want to know more about Freelance Medical Writing then feel free to visit http://www.uniquearticle.net

Online Writing Therapy

Writing was invented for expressing, conveying and communicating. Whoever invented writing would have never thought what writing is going to do in future. We write down to learn as student, we type or write in office for office work, writers pour their feelings on paper and convert them into books. As hobby some people write their daily activities in paper diary or online diary on internet. Every one expresses themselves through writing in different ways. Writing is expression which brings out feelings and messages from your mind on paper or on your computer screen.

Doctors from certain parts of the world have been busy in researching about writing since 1970s, according to them; writing has certain advantage which is yet to be known to the world. The use of writing down feelings is "Therapy". It has certain medical advantages associated with it. Doctors have researched for many years and finally concluded that writing down feelings twenty minutes every day can cure many diseases. This technique is know as "Writing Therapy" it is just as if physiotherapy is done for physical exercises, writing therapy is very useful for keeping mind healthy and can help do wonders.

Writing therapy can cure diseases like depression, stress, cancer, asthma, different abuses etc. WT is helpful in developing a sense of recreation and identification. Writing helps in in identifying potential of one self. According to research conducted by Doctors, writing therapy sessions can help in overcoming fears by just writing out feelings on piece of paper, it also helps in identify the inner strengths and inborn sense of one self.

The purpose for writing therapy lies within the writer. Writer can pick different topics, then choose how to express feelings and in what time frame. Twenty minutes a day is a proven remedy. Writing therapy is useful method in re-creativity, self administration and also helps in improving wisdom by exploratory writing methods. Writing can help in get you started and can be launch pad for you. Writing will make you feel more in control of your self, utilizing twenty minutes a day will help you notice positive track records of your vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, stress etc. Writing therapy has been proven very useful for prisoners as well. Now you can have writing therapy sessions on internet by using online journal. Write your feelings and live healthy life.

Conduct Online Writing therapy session through Online journal

Write Better English!

Grammar Punctuation Help Software automatically proofreads our writing for basic grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. English writing is a skill that only improves through practice, and it seems like these fresh technological solutions are able to assist us on improving our writing skills. Professional writing is about proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and style. Learn how you can easily acquire these professional writing skills.

Introduction

Grammar Punctuation Help Software is a tool that helps us with one of the most tedious writing tasks - that is proofreading our writing for any problems and errors. Just as you write your text, it is instantly being analyzed by a dynamic, self-learning mechanism that constantly collects and maintains a growing 'correct grammar dictionary' made of millions of text variations. Grammar writing programs enable us to: grammar check, misspelling and typos correction, and suggesting proper punctuation.

Important advantages

Let's summarize the main benefits and advantages:

* Helping us to avoid embarrassing grammar mistakes.

* Analyzing our sentence structure for correct punctuation, thus transforming our writing more comprehendible.

* Enriching our English vocabulary.

Extra research on this solution would probably bring up additional benefits that were not mentioned in this review, as this unique system is constantly moving forward, bringing us new ideas and additional solutions that help us on improving our Writing performance.

Conclusion

Grammar Punctuation Help Software assists us on catching common writing errors as we proofread our writing assignments. Correct grammar and proofreading is matter of practice, this technology won't teach us correct grammar directly, but indirectly. In the next few years we can expect this solution to further develop itself, simply because writing is one of the most important tools that help us achieving many of our goals.

Watch how an advanced English Grammar Check Software analyzes text and learn more about innovative technologies that can help you transform your English writing correct, professional and creative.

Profitable Article Writing - Announcing 6 More Secrets That Will Explode Your Article Writing

Do you not have enough money for huge advertising costs? This isn't a problem; so don't bury you head in the sand and worry. You can still get your website going very well online and take advantage of some free marketing, as long as you can write. There's much call for highly compelling and informative content online. Read on, and I will show you 6 secrets that will explode your article writing ventures.

1. You can make a start when you've defined your target audience. To do this you'll need to take some time out to discover, identify, and get to know who it is you'd like to assist. Is it to be businesswomen, businessmen, mums, or students; for instance. Now find out what they need; what are they asking to be solved? You should consider what sort of information are you going to have to give them to help them with their lives, and that they'll come to you for. The more you know, the easier you'll make this for yourself.

2. Choosing topics. If you have absolutely no ideas of what to write about, then keyword searches, or surveys and questionnaires to your potential customers are ideal. If the latter, you can be sure that these people are seeking information and answers in your products, for their pressing problems and issues.

3. The way to keep your readers impressed is to ensure you write informative, quality content in every article. Write easy-to-scan information, that's loaded with benefits, and gets right to the point. This is the way to get readers to your resource box.

4. Confidence counts. Remember that you need to come across to your readers as a niche expert - an authority in your domain. Deliver your content with strong conviction, but also in an easy, relaxed tone.

5. Add some sparkle to your articles. Content that's posted on W2.0 media such as blogs, or on a website, may include graphics, images, or animation. This will be fine - so long as you keep it all relevant. This comes into its own when you're creating step-by-step tutorials, as visualization becomes easy.

6. Short and simple - that's the way. Easily understandable articles are more compelling to readers. Avoid using fancy words, or technical terms. Your readers are looking for an easy, smooth, comfortable reading experience.

Do you want to learn more about list building to create massive income online?

Download my free guide to listbuilding here: List Building Formula.

Ian Jackson has written over 100 published articles.

Be a Successful Freelance Writer

These days, anybody can be a writer. With the amount of freelance writing jobs available over the Internet, you don't even have to set a foot out of your house to earn some extra cash. And if you're hardworking and skillful enough, you'll probably earn more than many day job workers.

Freelance writing jobs are not as daunting as they used to be. Offers can range from anything and everything under the sun. In fact, there are plenty of people looking out for writers right this very moment.

And if you hang around long enough, you'll learn how to avoid basic mistakes and spot golden opportunities. Here are some helpful tips to succeed in freelance writing.

Surf the Net and Be Observant.

You can start making money by typing freelance writing jobs on your favorite search engine. As impossible as it is to believe, that's how easy it is. Of course, most of the links will then lead you through blogs, forums and Web sites.

As mentioned earlier, topics to write about can range from anything and everything. It could be something as common as travel, or something as technical as manipulating graphics.

Stick to What You Know.

Aside from their obvious popularity, blog articles are also easier to write. They're less formal and use a more easygoing tone.

For a beginner, it's the best place to start your career as a freelance writer. If you're fond of cooking, you can look for a blog that focuses on that subject. If you're into marketing, there are hundreds of blogs out there which deal with your interest.

Accept Payments.

Payment transactions are usually done online. You'll need to set up an account at a credible online money transferring company or payment processor in order to receive your money.

Personally, all I earn from my freelance writing jobs are wired through Paypal. It's easily one of the most popular and credible companies out there. If your country is not included in Paypal's list, another good alternative would be 2Checkout.

Freelance writing jobs may seem easy-and they are-but they also require proper working habits. You might think that it's okay to slack off since you don't exactly have a superior watching over you like a hawk; however, how you work can determine where your next paycheck comes from.

If your employer decides that he or she likes your writing style as well as your work habits, you'll be the first person he or she will call up the next time a project pops out.

Want to earn a 5-figure monthly income through freelance writing jobs? Go to http://www.20daypersuasion.com/5figurewriter.htm and discover how to earn massive amounts of money by becoming a freelance writer

Lin Carter The Science Fiction Writer

Here was a man who lived to write, I mean, and I really mean, he lived to write, and did he write, yes indeed, he wrote about 115-books (plus three chapbooks), and his style was that of his hero writers such as Edger Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark A. Smith and L. Sprague de Camp. And he loved himself, so he put himself in his books, why not, if you don't love yourself, who will? Not a bad group to have for his genre company.

In pure volume, he perhaps has out-written all of those writers combined, I just mentioned (I know ERB wrote about 80-books himself). Some folks would not agree to his quality of writings, but then if they liked the authors I just mentioned above, well, Carter can't be too far off.

He died at 57-years old, had oral cancer for a while, got therapy, and got the cancer back, but now with alcoholism, yes he had the monkey on his back.

He attended one of the noble universities in the United States, Columbia, and was a war veteran of Korea, not a bad combination, rather good I'd say. He belonged to many a Science Fiction clubs, or groups, which seemed to keep him busy, and perhaps his wife. Born in 1930, died in 1988; actually, prior to his first book, in 1965, which was "The Wizard of Lemuria," which he rewrote in 1969, a thicker book, with a longer title: In addition, he wrote three chapbooks prior, the third being in 1959, called "A Letter to Judith."

Of his many books, he finished Howard's tales on Conan, and in 1975, had a book of poetry released. I don't want to judge this man on his writings, and there is a reason for that, and there has been many who have, negatively so, saying he was a copycat, and that he had dull plots, and so forth.

Pushing this all aside, I think the problem was, he didn't care to be an original, he just wanted to jump into space and off he went, and if Burroughs or Howard or H.P. wanted to come along (in his mind) well, all the better.

Incidentally, to my understanding, he had 15,000 books in his library, that to me is a bookstore.

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

Freelance Writing Fortune - Start Making YOURS Today

If you're struggling to make a go of it as a freelance writer, you might wonder if it's even POSSIBLE to make a comfortable, but modest, living from writing - much less a fortune. But that's because you're probably still following the OLD freelance writing model.

The one where you try to break in with newspapers and magazines while you struggle to complete a novel, or even a nonfiction book, in the hopes of it one day becoming a best-seller, making you rich and famous in the process.

Sound familiar?

True, there are a few writers today who have made a fortune following this old model. But most writers these days are following a much different model to acquire their freelance writing fortune.

The new freelance writing model involves some or all of the following:

Online content writing - On the Internet, everyone is looking for quality content, and plenty of it. If you can provide this content, you can start making money right away.

Corporate writing - Writing for businesses is big business. From the small mom-and-pop operations in your own neighborhood, to the Fortune 500 companies across the globe, they all need the services of a writer from time to time.

Article marketing - This involves writing short information articles on a regular basis and submitting these articles to online article directories. Articles for these directories serve the writer in a variety of ways and are a major part of today's new freelance writing model.

Information products - Today's freelance writer doesn't wait for contracts and assignments. Instead, he tends to create his own information products, which include articles, special reports, e-books, CDs and downloadable audio files, and even teleseminars.

JV partnerships - The new freelance writing model calls for both short-term and long-term joint venture partnerships with other writers and entrepreneurs.

If you're ready to start making your freelance writing fortune, break away from the old model and learn more about the components of the new model right away!

Find out more about writing for Fortune 500 companies at http://www.freelancewritingfortune.com and learn how to get started writing online content at http://www.sixfigurefreelancewriter.com

Suzanne Lieurance is a fulltime freelance writer and the Working Writer's Coach. She coaches writers to the freelance writing career of their dreams through her 12-week Working Writer's Coaching Program.

Non Physical Conscious Awareness

Human Consciousness can be measured with an Electro-Encephalograph (EEG) machine. What we do not see is the non-physical aspects in the Aura of the person - the electromagnetic field of energy that surrounds the Human Body.

The Human Aura is multi-dimensional; it is not just a shell-like field of energy which is like an egg around the body. It has different layers, which correspond to the different layers of the physical body: the Whole Body, Organs, Cells, Molecules, Atoms, Finer Particles, Light Body and Core Being or Vacuum.

As well as these layers we have the Energy Centres - Chakras - coming out like cones. As the colours of these cones merge with each other we see different colours of light being formed to give us a point in the Aura of each shade and hue.

You can watch the Aura having different shades of points of light, acting like radio tuners receiving similar frequencies from our environment; the Human Body can tune into all frequencies at the same time and we can interpret these with our emotions and feelings.

When we smile we can feel the energy in our cheeks extending out from our body like angel's wings or like a magnetic field; this is created within the body, as would happen in a bar magnet. The field of energy which our physical body creates extends out into the non-physical Aura and beyond, like the force field surrounding a magnet.

Our body is sensing the astrological influences from the planets, as we exist in the Earth's Magnetic Field. All these different electromagnetic levels of energy and force have an influence on our consciousness and our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

We notice how we feel happier on a bright, sunny day than we do when dark storm clouds are over us.

We live in an invisible field of Electromagnetic Energy which covers the full spectrum: Gamma Rays, X-Rays, Ultraviolet, Visible Light, Infra-red, Radio Frequencies, etc. We are connected as One with this field of Energy and it is part of our Conscious Awareness.

As well as this natural electromagnetic field from our solar system, we are also influenced by the electromagnetic smog of mobile phones, TV and radio and all the other methods of man-made communication using this underlying field of energy in which we live.

Human consciousness can use the underlying electromagnetic field to send messages telepathically, and to get premonitions and dj-vu insights.

The Universe uses this field of Power and Force in an effortless way, to bring about synchronicities in our life; our vibration draws to us the things which are patterned in our being; something magical seeks us out and happens in our life.

As more humans become aware of this non-physical electromagnetic field of energy, it grows stronger and the synchronicities happen more often. The accident rate is declining as everything acts as part of the whole and moves in a frictionless flow of life in Conscious Awareness.

By George E. Lockett SSHA, IIHHT -- HealerGeorge(C) Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved. Tel: +44 (0)1286 882701 Visit HealerGeorges web site to experience the power of Distant Healing or listen to HealerGeorge Radio giving Questions and Answer advice mixed with Spiritual Music. You can also enjoy many free benefits on HealerGeorge, like listening to Free Guided Meditations. Why not order HealerGeorges Latest book entitled A Journey into The Self The Multi-dimensional Nature of Being Human By George E Lockett. It is all available off the web site. HealerGeorge Web Site and New Book Description: What is this book going to do for YOU? For those who are seeking a complete energetic makeover, as you read it you will feel a stirring and awakening in the depths of your heart. For those who have questions about Shifts in Consciousness, Energy Balancing, and Healing within the body, you will find clear answers.

Finding Something You Don

Law of Attraction - A First Stage of Awakening

Using the Law of Attraction is a process of raising our consciousness. Most people tend to stay stuck at the victim stage--blaming others, parents, the government or something for the way their life sucks. Since we have been programmed since forever with this attitude, our beliefs are such that this is the way life is, and there's nothing to be done about it. Actually there is, but it takes work and many are not willing to do the work necessary to get out of the victim stage. They would rather stay with the misery that is familiar than to seek unknown success.

The work involved in raising our consciousness above the level of victim is all about accepting responsibility for our own thoughts. It takes great effort and determination to stand guard over our thoughts and change the negative ones or just decide to think only positive thoughts.

Now I know you think that positive thinking doesn't always work. You're right! Positive thinking alone does not make the law of attraction work properly, but it is the foundation upon which it is built.

We can choose to think any thought we want. When we realize that our thoughts are energy and have power to create more of what we're thinking about, we begin to see the value of eliminating the criticism of others, the complaining that life isn't the way we want, and the negative thoughts we have about what is going on in our lives. This only happens when we decide to accept responsibility for everything that happens to us.

It takes awhile to accept total responsibility, but as we remember that what we said or did or thought is what caused such and such to happen, we will begin to believe it. A victim will argue with this thought, that there is no way one could cause the experience taking place. THAT is the thought that must be transformed. Just realize that this is the way the Universe was set up, it's a universal law that our thoughts create our reality. The only way out, is to believe that and accept total responsibility for your thoughts.

Just open your mind to that possibility--that your thoughts create your reality. In the beginning you won't remember it very often, but determination and believing that it is true will bring it to your conscious mind more often and you will slowly begin raising your consciousness. Sure, you'll forget often, we all do, but when things aren't going well, and you aren't feeling great, realize that you've forgotten that your thoughts are creating what is going on in your life.

Raising the level of the energy of your thoughts takes forgiveness for having thought that way, and forgiving yourself for forgetting and loving yourself despite your mistake. Love, appreciation and gratitude have very high frequency energy levels, and science has proven that an energy of low frequency bombarded by one of higher frequency will raise the lower one.

If you are interested in the process of the Law of Attraction, then you are raising yourself out of this first stage of awakening. You no longer want to be a victim of circumstances. You don't want to be tossed by the winds of fate. You want to be more in control of your life, and that is very possible. This is knowing the principles of the Law of Attraction. To learn more, you can download a free ebook, 10 Critical Mistakes Using the Law of Attraction and How to Correct Them.

Mareen Robinson, published author, columnist and teacher of the Law of Attraction, offers tips, techniques on learning how to use the Law of Attraction. Visit Mareen at her website: http://yourmagicwanda.com

Backup Plans Feel Good

How Setting Goals and Following Through With Them Can Help You Achieve Success in Your Sales Career

Have you ever dreamt about what you would like to become and what you would like to be doing? Have you ever wished you had an unlimited source of money and could make decisions based on choice not dollars?

Now wishing and dreaming are things most people do every day. It's like buying a lotto ticket, hoping you'll win. That's why the majority of people are just surviving, getting by. They wish and hope that their luck will change and until then they settle for mediocrity, second best.

However, the small minority who make it to the top have one thing in common. They take action! Not just any kind of action, planned action, action based on predetermined goals.

It's true! Successful people can tell you where they are going, how long it will take and what they plan to do along the way. They are experts at goal setting. Their goals are specific, measurable relevant and trackable. They map out every part of their life, regularly reassess and fine tune for success.

Most people know the story about the Harvard class of 1954 where they tracked those who made goals and those who didn't.The small percentage that made goals on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis made more money, had more free time and more happiness than the others.

Well that same study has been replicated using a group of sales people. They found that 6 out of 10 do not set outcome-based goals at all and this group earns the least amount of all salespeople! Three out of 10 set earnings goals and as in the Harvard study, this group earns double the income of the no-goals group. Only 1 in 10 people sets specific goals but they earn 3 times as much as those who set no goals at all.

So if you want the kind of success in your career that only a minority have then becoming a master goal setter is the key.

Knowing how to set goals and then following through with them of course, guarantees to improve your career. It's the way to bridge the gap between what you are now and what you truly want to be.

Goals are really stepping stones to success. When you first start out learning how to set goals and follow through with them there are a few things you must keep in mind.

1. Make your goal achievable in the near future. It's all very well setting a goal that is just way out there....totally huge and fantastic. The problem with doing that however is that you can become overwhelmed and frozen into inaction. The task, although something you want to achieve may seem just too hard and you don't end up even taking the first step towards it. Better to break the major goal down into small steps that you can work on day by day and which lead to the bigger goal.

2. Write your goals down and share them with someone you trust or admire. This will help you stick to what you have said you will do and keep you accountable.

3. Celebrate your successes along the way. Each time to complete one part of the major goal or any of the goals you set, congratulate yourself. This can be done by actually saying positive things to yourself or giving yourself little rewards, like a night out at the movies, a takeaway dinner or a bunch of fresh flowers. Too often we are quick to berate ourselves when we don't finish a task or complete a goal rather than taking the time out to acknowledge the things we did do well.

4. Reassess your goals regularly to see if you are still heading in the right direction and rewrite them if necessary. It is better to do this than stick doggedly to something that is actually getting you nowhere.

Remember the wise saying of Confucius..... A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

We all have to start somewhere and taking that first step can be the beginning of something great! So start writing down your goals and remember it's okay to just start with small ones. When you achieve them you will feel so much better and be able to keep moving forward.

Donna Cox and Dayle Walker are the brains behind Success In Sales For Women. With more than 60 years experience between them in sales and educating people from all walks of life to achieving their true potential, Donna and Dayle now specialize in inspiring women who are keen to excel in the sales world. Learning how to set goals and follow through with them is one of the topics they cover in their membership Course. If you want to find out more go to http://www.successinsalesforwomen.com or contact them at dayle@successinsalesforwomen.com or donna@successinsalesforwomen.com

Finding Something You Don