Not so long ago, I used to participate in a blog fest every other Friday. It was Life List Friday. A group of writers known as The Life List Club would exchange guest posts with each other. The mission of the Club is to encourage its members to create a Life List, share it, and cheer each other on as they achieve the goals on their Life List.
That Was Then. This Is Now.
Things have changed since then. The Club is still here but we are no longer a scattered bunch swapping guest posts. Under the fearless leadership of Marcia Richards and the vision of Jess Witkins, the Life List Club now has its own blog to promote the membership and showcase their writing. Our readership is growing and the blog makes it easier for our readers to keep up with us.
We Have Reason to Celebrate.
Today is a special day for two reasons. First, it’s our regularly-scheduled Milestone Party where we assess our goals, lament our shortcomings and celebrate each other’s triumphs. Second, it’s the Club’s One Year Anniversary. Sherry Isaac was kind enough to prepare and post an interview of the membership. It’s a flash summary of what each of us has been up to and there are links to each writer’s page so you easily can follow along.
My dear friends and fellow Life Listers, Sonia G. Medeiros and Lara Schiffbauer are also celebrating with us today. Stop by and say hello to each member. You may end up winning a prize for simply saying hello.
Our Readers Are a Big Part of It.
We appreciate the comments and feedback that our readers share on our posts. In large part, it goes towards making our efforts worthwhile. To show our appreciation, the Club is sponsoring a $50 Amazon gift certificate for one lucky guest poster. There are other prizes you can win on the other member's blogs as well.
One poster on this blog will win a $10 Amazon Gift Card.
The comments must be received between 6 AM (EST) June 29th and midnight (EST) July 5th.
All the the winners will be announced on Friday, July 6th at LLC and the writers’ blogs.
It’s been a week of life lessons. I’m hoping Gary won’t mind my commandeering of his blog to share one of them with you. But you shouldn't miss the eloquence of what I imagine to be his soothing baritone voice. You can find him safe and sound talking about wizards and magicians at Jenny Hansen's blog. It’s another edition of the Life List Club and we’re hoping you’ll join us on our tales of inspiration and honest mistakes. Share with us your own, we all love hanging out in the comment boxes, so please feel free to chat and know you’ve got support from us!
This past week I’ve been on the last of my remaining vacation days for the fiscal calendar. I had hoped the time off would result in incredibly productive writing time. I mean I intended 8 hour days of writing non-stop, complete chapters coming to fruition! Well, if I wanted that to happen, I shouldn’t have gone home.
What I should’ve done is found a little corner in the library and hid out with my laptop, a can of Pringles, a water bottle, and my gloves with rubber on the fingers so I can type and still keep warm when they turn the heat off for the night!
Shhh! I’m doing research!
Instead, my time was otherwise spent with family activities. And you know what, I don’t often see my family, so I think it’s ok. I attended my 3 year old niece’s princess-themed birthday party, Church service with my dad, helped babysit my niece for a day, took mom out for coffee and a movie, and forgive me, used my spare time to take a bath. I LOVE BATHS! And at my house, I live with all boys, so I will not set a TOE in that tub!
Ok, back to the life lessons! I promise I learned more than what a properly clean bathroom looks like. Honestly, I feel like this whole week has been one of those times when life sends you sign after sign after sign alerting you to the direction and path your life is on. First, it was dealing with my newly damaged car and rearranging when I can take it in to the garage to get it fixed, cause I had to drive it home first and it felt like a long 3 hours with no cruise control and all the bigger cars sloshing muddy snow in my windshield. Then it was the pastor’s lesson in Church with my Dad, on how can we demonstrate audacious faith in times of difficulty? Then it was watching a toddler for a day, which was fun, but completely wiped me out. And I took the drives around town with my parents as a chance to ask them what the hardest things they had overcome in their lives were. The main message I kept hearing was this: crossroads. Everyone has them, and it’s not always easy to know the next step.
Whether it’s looking at your finances with eyes of disbelief, or finding yourself craving something more in life but unsure of how to proceed, or teaching a toddler good manners from bad, or hearing for the first time how the harsh realities of a marriage, a parent dying, and an illness can all alter your life. Yes, I was learning a lot.
I haven’t yet shaped all these lessons into a resulting answer for my life, but I can feel it coming. I am at a crossroads. I have sat idle too long waiting for life to happen, and pretty soon I’ll be making tough, but necessary decisions about the direction my life should head.
What have you learned this week? What crossroads are you facing in your life right now? I know this year would be even more difficult for me without the encouraging voices of the LLC members cheering me on. Who’s keeping you accountable? Are you like me and realize you need help? Then I’ll see you in the comments, friend!
Bio: Jess Witkins claims the title Perseverance Expert. She grew up in a small Wisconsin town as the much younger youngest sibling of four, she’s witnessed the paranormal, jumped out of a plane, worked in retail, traveled to exotic locations like Italy, Ireland, and Shipshewana, Indiana, and she’s eaten bologna and lived to tell about it! She deals with it all and writes about it! Come along on her midwest adventures; Witkins promises to keep it honest and entertaining. Go ahead, SUBSCRIBE, you know you want to. Follow Jess Witkins on Twitter: @jesswitkins
We live at the dawn of the digital age. With a little work, we can have hundreds of “friends” and followers. Nowadays, it doesn’t take a big achievement to have thousands of followers. We take for granted how easy it is to connect and to belong. I can imagine a teen-ager wondering how folks formed new connections and stayed in touch before the age of social media. Actually, sometimes I myself wonder.
Creative Folks Want to Be Noticed
All creative folks like their work to be noticed and appreciated. And if we’re lucky, we enjoy the ultimate experience of getting paid to share our talent. Social-media platforms help us to develop our brand, gain visibility and build an audience. We can choose from a large array of social-media networks to help us get noticed.
Lots of Small Fish Go Unnoticed
While huge networks like Facebook and Twitter have their benefits, each member is only a small fish in an ocean. If you are not well known, your voice and your presence can easily go unnoticed.
You Can Be a Big Fish
Many writers relish the opportunity to write a guest post on someone else’s blog. It gives us the chance to be a big fish for a time, even if it’s in a small pond. The exposure, a mini network effect, is the intangible but valuable benefit. A very effective way to increase your visibility and showcase your talent is to join a small network.
We Extend an Invitation
If you are a blogger, we invite you to investigate what the Life List Club is all about. Our small network will give you the opportunity to be a guest blogger twice a month. Your blog and your writing will be exposed to all our existing readers. You will make new friends. Just like any other network, the more connections it has, the more powerful our LLC network becomes.
How I Benefited
I’ve been a member for a mere three months. In that short time, I’ve made wonderful friendships with talented writers. My blog receives guest posts on a regular basis. Many of my visitors “discovered” my blog because I belong to the LLC. I haven’t asked them yet, but I’m sure some LLC members will want to write a review for me when my novel is completed.
The Life List Club encourages members to set goals that are shared publicly. This exercise provides good grounding for a self-evaluation. I can look back three months ago and see what I’ve accomplished since then.
Have you previously benefited from your membership in a network? Do you belong to a network that helps you to build an audience for your blog?
It's still Friday, right? It's late, but it's still Friday. Due to technical difficulties over at The Life List Club headquarters, I'm posting Jess's column in the evening. You can blame me. But I'm thrilled to have Jess as my guest. Before I give Jess the floor let me say that Jess Witkins and I are members of the Life List Club and that you may want to consider joining. The basic qualifications are that you operate a blog and love the craft of writing.
I was over at LLC member, Sonia G. Medeiro's blog earlier today and tried to be inspirational and wrote about embracing your life's journey. Enough from me, I'm turning things over to Jess:
More Wishbone Than Backbone?
Hello Life List Club! Today I want to talk to you about your backbone. You know that knobby thing that runs up and down your spine. Well, if you’re not sure where it’s located, this song might help:
All together now! The hip bone’s connected to the backbone! Ok, you’re right, I didn’t steal Gary’s blog to make you all sing. I do want to talk about backbone though, and more than just that thing your Chiropractor cracks after you work a 10 hour day of holiday retail. Just me? Moving along...
The Life List Club was formed with the goal in mind to support one another in our life list plans. Many of my goals centered around writing, so I’ve been blogging regularly three times a week, learning about the craft and social media by taking courses online, and partnering in critique groups to get feedback on my book. Two classes I’m taking are taught by author and social media expert for writers, Kristen Lamb. In one of her recent lessons she talked about taking initiative towards the goals we want to achieve. For me, that goal is being a writer. Your goal could be meeting new people, traveling somewhere you’ve never been to, trying a new food at least once a week, keeping up with an exercise plan, or watching all 500+ youtube videos of cute kittens doing ridiculous things. It is so good to have goals.
When Kristen talked about starting out in her writing career, she admitted she had a hard time completing her word count goal. Writing for long hours and producing well-written text was a developed skill for her. Before she could be successful, she had to admit she had “more wishbone than backbone.”
The Backbone to See It Through
I think all of us reach a point where we feel we’re doing the best we can, but we wish we were doing more. I know I do almost everyday, but I’m self deprecating and over-analytical, which I say adds to my natural charm. ;) The point is, we do take initiative to make change in our lives, and any goal we try to succeed at requires work. Steps that helped me improve my goal progress are time management, such as focusing my hours at work more so I could leave relatively on time and allow for more writing to happen. I also set realistic goals. If we make a wishbone kinda list, we won’t have the backbone to see it through. Make your goals attainable, while still moving forward. And most importantly, take action! Why are action movies so entertaining? Because things happen!!! It’s called an action plan for a reason. Sure, you could make a dramatic plan; I suggest framing it and sprinkling it with fairy dust then cracking a wishbone for extra good luck. You could make a horror plan, carving out your goal list with a chainsaw, but you might amputate a body part and then you’ve just gone and bled all over your goal list. Ew, gross!
So you see, having a backbone is better than relying on a wishbone. And, you’ve always got one with you, no digging around in a greasy dead bird pulling veins off and pushing itty bitty organs out of the way, washing and drying the thing, ruining your good towel and then waking up your roommate to snap the damn thing necessary! *I’m a visual learner!*
Now tell me, have you let your wishbone take over backbone? What is it you want to accomplish? What do you know about yourself that will help you achieve your goals and what opportunity do you have to move yourself forward more?
Bio: Jess Witkins claims the title Perseverance Expert. She grew up in a small Wisconsin town as the much youngeryoungest sibling of four, she’s witnessed the paranormal, jumped out of a plane, worked in retail, traveled to exotic locations like Italy, Ireland, and Shipshewana, Indiana, and she’seaten bologna and lived to tell about it! She deals with it all and writes about it! Come along on her midwest adventures; Witkins promises to keep it honest and entertaining. Go ahead,SUBSCRIBE, you know you want to. Follow Jess Witkins on Twitter: @jesswitkins
