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How to Write Your Way to Better Decisions

How to Write Your Way to Better Decisions

I've been listening via Audiobook to Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content, a book on free-writing that I'm not sure why it took me so long to find. I am devouring this thing. (As much as you can devour an audio book, I...

How to Find Free Images Online

How to Find Free Images Online

As a long-time blogger, I'm always on the hunt for places to find free photos on the Internet. I want cool, interesting, evocative images that don't look like they were taken fifty years ago, and don't look like everyone else has them. Even if you're not a blogger,...

What a Dream Board Can Do for You

What a Dream Board Can Do for You

I'm not sure where I first heard of the idea of a dream board, but suffice to say the first time I heard about it I thought it sounded silly. A little Kindergarten-like. A little arts-and-craftsy. A little, well, not me.  But that was before Pinterest. Because with...

When Non-Essentials Matter More Than You Think

When Non-Essentials Matter More Than You Think

I'm typically rather obsessed with not caring about the little things, and sometimes that can be a bad thing. My husband , for one, has long told me I don't pay enough attention to detail at times, and I know I have made mistakes as a result. Come to our house at...

Why Non-Writers Should Learn to Free Write

Why Non-Writers Should Learn to Free Write

I was listening to a good audiobook recently on the writing process called Accidental Genius. The premise of the whole book can basically be summed up in one sentence: Free writing does a body good.  The act of free writing (of putting down things on paper without...

Does Practice Really Make Perfect?

Does Practice Really Make Perfect?

Last year, one of my friends had a baby. It was a natural birth. It was also a home birth. It was also her fifth. Yup. A mere hour or so before giving birth, she was apparently chatting on Skype with some other bloggers, saying it was time to put on some mascara (for...

How Much Does it Cost to Travel Around the World?

How Much Does it Cost to Travel Around the World?

I spent 2006 on the road. And I mean that in the capital letter sense. The Road. Over the course of a year, I traveled to 19 countries and fulfilled my dream of, well, "traveling around the world for a year." I'm not sure why that timeframe was always so alluring to...

This Week in the World {Links}

This Week in the World {Links}

This week, I got back into peanut butter. In a big way. I continued to be annoyed by everything Aria says on Game of Thrones. (Whiny, much?) I bought 18 boxes of tea (Subscribe and Save, anyone?) I read a few more books, and I came to California. The picture? Me and...

I Went to Kenya to Climb a Mountain…

I Went to Kenya to Climb a Mountain…

I've been thinking a lot this week about Twitter for Good, a book I wrote about using Twitter well. When I wrote that book I also launched an online video course alongside it. But things change, and it's time for that course to sunset (at least for 2013). If you're...

Should You Pay Money to Start a Blog?

Should You Pay Money to Start a Blog?

I love me some blogging, and have since 2006, when I started my first blog. The other day I gave you a complete step-by-step tutorial for how to launch your own self-hosted blog on Wordpress. In response to the post, I got lots of questions from readers about starting...

This Week in the World {Links}

This Week in the World {Links}

This week I finished the 25-hour (!) audiobook I had been listening to, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown. This was actually the third time I'd read this particular book (first via audiobook) and I came away feeling as I always do with audiobooks: they...

How You Wanted Me to Help You

How You Wanted Me to Help You

Last week I sent out a question. It was a simple one, and apparently it resonated. When I asked, "How Can I Help You?", I got over 250 responses. There were a number of things folks wanted help with, and after reading through each and every email and responding to as...

Why You Need an Ideas Notebook

Why You Need an Ideas Notebook

Here's the scenario. You're a writer, say. You put words on paper and put those papers into the hands of people who read them. Or maybe you put words on screens and let Twitter do your billing: I PUT A WORD HERE. COME READ IT. Whatever your method (paper, pen,...

How to Set Up a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog (The Complete Guide)

How to Set Up a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog (The Complete Guide)

{Have you checked out the free 7-day Start Your Blog Challenge? Sign up here.  Want a free PDF ebook of these instructions? Go here.   Starting a blog is one of the very best things that ever happened to me, and I love to share with folks why blogging is a great...

This Week in the World (Links)

This Week in the World (Links)

This week I continued another month of eating a modified Paleo diet. I saw Flight, with Denzel Washington, and remembered why I hate watching addicts in movies (although I did like the movie). I read a few more books, but was more proud to read an entire Vanity Fair,...