Tag: Blog

Blogging, Holidays, House and Home, Parenting

Where have I been all this time? –And- My thoughts on STUFF

Mandy Webster
a graduate and her dad
My dad looks a little sleepy in this picture, but I look good, and he’s not online to see it and complain about it, so here ya go. I got my Master of Arts in English with a concentration in creative writing from Mount Mary College on May 18th, 2013.

Hello there. I’ve been MIA from my blog for some time now. I hope you all didn’t miss me too much. This may turn into a long, rambling post with little to no point. I hope you don’t mind.

So, where have I been? First of all, I made it to graduation and crossed the stage on May 18th. I may now officially refer to myself as Mandy Webster, MS, MA. Wow, look at all those letters behind my name! I also got an A on my creative writing thesis (go me!) Graduation and all that goes with it is part of the reason why I’ve been largely absent from the blogosphere.

I was also wrapping up all seven of the courses I taught this semester (or quarter depending on which school I was teaching at.) Needless to say, after teaching seven courses and writing a thesis in one semester, my house was a bit of a wreck. Since graduation, I’ve been on a cleaning streak that has completely distracted me from all things academic. Continue reading “Where have I been all this time? –And- My thoughts on STUFF” →

Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Join the official Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Mandy Webster
novel writing challenge
Join the Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge and write the first draft of your novel between June 21st and September 21st.

I recently wrote a blog post in which I discussed author Stephen King’s view that you should never take more than a season to write a novel. In that post, I posed a challenge to my readers to “write your novel this summer.” I’ve been thinking about this challenge, and I think it might be fun to make it a real “thing.”

How cool would it be if a bunch of us banded together to support each other in knocking out that first draft of the novels we’ve all been meaning to get around to? It could be kind of like NaNoWriMo, only we get an entire season rather than just one month. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to write a novel in one month, November is just about the worst month of the year to do it in! Continue reading “Join the official Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge” →

Blogging, Reading

Blogs you should follow, if you’re so inclined

Mandy Webster
Reader of novels
This is me, reading your blog. Only replace the book with a smartphone. (Ha Ha, just kidding. The pickin’s are slim on Zemanta these days. Seriously, what is going on this picture?) | Reader of novels (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hopefully none of you are depending on me for regular blog content this semester. But just in case you are, let me share a few of my favorite blogs with you… something to keep you busy until after I graduate in May. Hopefully after that, I’ll have more time for blogging. I don’t want either of my subscribers to get bored. I’m talking to you, Ryan. You and that other guy. I don’t know his name. Continue reading “Blogs you should follow, if you’re so inclined” →

Awards, Blogging, Digital Marketing, Uncategorized

Because my resume could use another award or two…

Mandy Webster

My blog was recently nominated for a Liebster Blog Award. Probably because I personally know the blogger who nominated me, and we’ve been sharing strategies for bumping up our readership. At any rate, it looks like fun, so why not?

liebster blog award

The Liebster Blog Award

The rules for the Liebster Award are very simple: You are required to thank the person who nominated you, answer the 11 question they have asked you, nominate 11 other people and ask them 11 questions in return. According to the guidelines, the Liebster award should be sent to bloggers with less than 200 followers so that new bloggers can see how awesome they are!

By the way, thanks to Punky Coletta at SlimeGreen  for the nomination!

My Questions Continue reading “Because my resume could use another award or two…” →

Blogging

I do my best blogging at the coffee house

Mandy Webster
The view from my comfy chair at Cafe de Arts in Waukesha, WI proved very inspiring last weekend.
The view from my comfy chair at Cafe de Arts in Waukesha, WI proved to be inspiring last weekend.

I love blogging while sitting in a coffee shop. Whenever I meet my writer friend for a day of coffee and writing, I always end up putting my intended work aside to write at least one blog post. At our last session, I ended up writing three different blog posts before the afternoon was done.

Maybe I should just plan on going out to a coffee house once a week to write all of my blog posts. When I blog at home, my blog posts often come out concise, professional, and utterly boring. At the coffee shop, I get creative ideas and write posts I think people might actually want to read (I hope.) Continue reading “I do my best blogging at the coffee house” →

Blogging, Novel Writing

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Mandy Webster
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Mists of Avalon and similar works by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley have inspired my writing since my high school years. | (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently downloaded the Google Reader app to my phone and have been catching up on a ton of awesome blogs that I otherwise wouldn’t have the time to even glance at. One of my favorites is by author Charlotte Rains Dixon who shares tons of writing exercises that I can’t wait to try out. Last week, Charlotte answered a few questions about her current book via The Next Best Thing Blog Hop. I wanted to answer the same questions on my blog, so I asked Charlotte how I could get involved, and here I am today!

As part of the Blog Hop, I get to tag 3 – 5 other bloggers who will hopefully play along. (But I’m okay with them if they don’t, as I know how busy they all are.) Even if they don’t answer the questions, please check out their blogs anyway, as they are some of my personal favorites. I have listed their links at the end of this blog post. Continue reading “The Next Big Thing Blog Hop” →

Random Writing Rants

I need to write something

Mandy Webster
Emergency "Twitter was down so I wrote my...
Emergency “Twitter was down so I wrote my tweet on paper and photographed it and posted on flickr” : Satire on internet culture (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I seriously need to write something soon. Or stop calling myself a writer.

Maybe this would have made a better Twitter update than a blog post. Continue reading “I need to write something” →

As Found on Pinterest, Blogging, Digital Marketing

Proper Pinning: How not to irritate your followers on Pinterest

Mandy Webster
Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012
Pinterest featue in Metro – 27th February 2012 (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I kinda love Pinterest. I have tried a ton of new DIY projects and even make my own homemade laundry detergent now on a regular basis. But Pinterest can be as annoying as it is helpful when pinners fail to pin properly. To combat this problem, I have compiled a short quick-list of tips for properly sharing articles on Pinterest to avoid irritating your followers:

1.  Link to the individual blog post, not the blog’s index page.  Continue reading “Proper Pinning: How not to irritate your followers on Pinterest” →

Blogging

Write On the World Presents: Top 7 Spam Comments

Mandy Webster
viagra is a commercial produced medicine conta...
Dear Spammer, I am not interested in buying Viagra or advertising it for you in my blog comments. | viagra is a commercial produced medicine containing Sildenafil citrate, which is used to treat male erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have a blog, you’ve probably gotten at least one ridiculous spam comment on one of your posts. You know what I’m talking about… those comments that were obviously written by some online Viagra salesperson in Southeast Asia who is sitting at a laptop filtering their spammy comments through Yahoo Babelfish before posting. And what about those comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the post you’ve written? Do these spammers really think we’re this stupid?

Luckily, I use Akismet on my blog, so I don’t have to read too many of those spammy comments. The ones that do occasionally slip through the spam filter are generally pretty funny. Check out this list of the top 7 ridiculous spam comments received on my blog, and you’ll see what I mean:  Continue reading “Write On the World Presents: Top 7 Spam Comments” →

As Found on Pinterest, Blogging, Digital Marketing

4 Tips for writing a “Pinworthy” DIY blog post

Mandy Webster
My latest DIY Pinterest project: Crocheted Handbag by Mandy Webster
This is my latest DIY project: a crocheted handbag recreated from a picture I found on Pinterest.

Has this ever happened to you? You find an interesting recipe or craft project on Pinterest that you want to check out only to click through and find the blog post is missing one or more essential elements required for you to actually be able to bake the goody or make the craft yourself. Or maybe everything is there, but it’s so disorganized, you immediately give up figuring it out and move on. You return to Pinterest without repinning the post. And that blogger just lost an excellent opportunity to see her blog post “go viral.”

If you’re like me, it probably only takes you a few seconds to look over a blog post and decide if you want to repin it. A few minutes ago, I found a blog post on making a “relax bottle” (aka “mind jar“) for counting down a child’s timeout minutes. I love the idea, the pictures are great… but I got to the blog post and couldn’t immediately figure out if the bottles are made using supplies I might already have on hand. And, where are the instructions? There are tons of great pictures, but the how-to part is all over the place. I still wanted to do this project, but I had to go look elsewhere for better instructions. Continue reading “4 Tips for writing a “Pinworthy” DIY blog post” →