Postcards from the Funny Farm

The times we are rejected are like forks in the road.  We may think the one road is best, but forces tell us we just can’t take it.  If you think of all the energy tied up in job interviews, dates when we are single, applying to schools, wanting babies, etc., it all becomes freed up for othet things once we are denied.  The only question that hangs in the ait after rejection is this: “Now what?”  What a great place to be.  You won’t be spending anymore energy on “road one” and you van let your imagination run wild about how “road two” will be.  Some of the greatest people in the world experienced rejection.  For one reason or another, no one wanted to produce Disney’s first film idea.  Can you imagine the regret that person or interview panel had years later?  Think about the road less traveled.  Robert Frost declared “That has made all the difference.”

This is a time where a lot of people are out interviewing to get a new job and better support their families.  Good news, they still aren’t requiring DNA testing or anything exclusivist like that. You have a chance! In all that fussing around, remember that rejection is not the end.  If you see it like I have been talking about it, it is clearly a beginning.

Tell me about the interviews for jobs you never got.  How do you view rejection?

A close friend who will remain unnamed is to be thanked for the idea here.  Folks, thanks for tuning in today to PFTFF (AKA Postcards from the Funny Farm).  In celebration of Damien Riley’s 1,000th post on Postcards he has agreed to sit with me and talk about his blog(s) and what he thinks after 1,000 posts have been submitted to the interweb.  Let’s jump right in:

How are you today?

Damien: Doing well.  Just watching Letterman here naked.  I’m a little worried about the laptop though, it feels a bit hot on top the lap.  Ha!  Just kidding, I’m never naked when I blog.

Ha ha. That is very funny.  Hey, thanks for talking to us today.  So how the hell did you write 1,000 posts in 21 months.  Is your melon warped?

Damien: Quite.  Recently I have started bic-ing my head.  The gray and receding hairline was really starting to bug me.  I found out my melon is a bit malshaped, but nothing that bothers my wife.  No, seriously though … I enjoy making posts.  They are therapeutic to me.  Many of those months my wife was not happy with all the time I spent blogging.  In the past few months though as you guys know, I have started making crazy money with this stuff.  I added two other blogs and now I am blogging for money all the time.  I take my wife out for cocktails and a movie once or twice a week on blogging money now.  Thank you to my advertisers and for Google for recognizing me at a solid 4/10 rating.  To summarize: My melon is warped, my psyche is not :)  I am well aware I work on my laptop and am happy with the pay (in all forms).

LOL.  Once again the joker.  So dude, I have to ask: why so many typos?

Damien: I am a search and plunk typist.  That means I look at the keys not the screen when I type.  I learned it wrong in high school and have never fixed it.  I am very embarassed I have so many typos.  I don’t know what to do.  Hopefully you guys will forgive me and try to fill in the blanks.

What are you going to focus on the next 1,000 posts?

Damien: Before I am 90, because I hope to live to 90, I hope to wear out 5 or 6 laptops.  Blogging makes my thoughts clearer.  I hope to learn more about writing and strengthen my mond while wearing out laptops.  I just got a fresh Acer.  My wife rocks.  She bought it for me because I had broken my last one.  I want to know what the people out of the web are saying and doing and of course, put me where the easy money is.  That is always nice (though now that I think of it, it’s not all that easy is it kids?  Do I get an amen?)

I see.  Well, this is a special day and we appreciate you answering these questions.  What word do you have for people reading this:

Damien: Don’t take yourself seriously, take yourself very seriously.  Care about other people and their brains and try to find something to love in everyone in your circle.  Mostly though, try to laugh and have fun, we’ll all be dead before you know it.  Seriously, the 1,000 posts thing is no big deal.

1,000 posts for this guy and counting!  I encourage you to give him some comments in this post.  It’s a landmark moment that will vanish like the wind in a day or so.  Thanks for reading!  Follow your vision.

An interview with yours truly on blogging and historical questions about Postcards is now up at the impressive new Fuelmyblog blog. You’re reading this so you are already reading my blog. If you’re new here or if you want to read my thoughts why you should read Postcards, you should read the interview. A big thanks to Sylvie and Paul and the whole staff there. I enjoy Fuelmyblog as a social network as well as a traffic building source. If you’re not currently subscribed there, I highly recommend it. Let me know what you think of the interview. That’s the beauty of an online interview, you don’t have to go to a charlotte cosmetic dentist. It’s that whole “face for radio” thing.

My Interview at their blog: We are Fuelmyblog-Postcards from the Funny Farm

Fuelmyblog’s Main site

The Fuelmyblog Official Blog

Over the past year or so, I’ve met several excellent bloggers who really know their stuff. One in particular is Jacob Share who authors a few really “top-shelf” blogs. I call them that because their circulation is high along with their analytics. However, In addition to that, they have subjects relevant and helpful to me as a blogger. Group Writing Projects, is one of those excellent blogs. If you have a blog to promote or if you enjoy reading blogs, I want you to know about this resource. Getting into one of these things can explode a post. One of mine went from 27 views to nearly 3,000 as a result of a group writing project. Every little strategy helps, they are like seeds. After all, most of us internet writers secretly hope to be more popular in searches than stuff like women’s lingerie, do we not ;)

Jacob was kind enough to let me interview him and share it with you all. Please visit Group Writing Projects after reading, it’s an excellent resource. Here it is:

1. Who should use Group Writing Projects.

By announcing their group writing projects on my site, creators get more exposure for their group writing project and their blog, which in turn drives more traffic, participants and potential subscribers. Plus they earn more links for their project and its participants, which they can use to attract even more of the above. Finally, creators will also be able to share and learn best practices to make their projects even better next time.

Every creator is also a potential participant and participants have it good on Group Writing Projects, the only place they need to subscribe to stay updated on where the latest group writing projects are happening. It’s a great way to get blog post suggestions regularly, with the additional benefit of guaranteed links and attention to your article AND blog. The “random” appearance of gwps also helps bring your blog to readers that have probably never seen it before.

It’s win-win.

2. What is the benefit to your visitors?

Very few blogs can keep up a high rate of quality unless they’re making enough money to support themselves full-time or the blogger doesn’t post very often. For other blogs to have success, even their “lower quality” posts need to have value for their readers, and that’s the tack I’ve been taking with Group Writing Projects. Most of the posts on the site are newsworthy project announcements and results roundups that will only pull you in when you need them but that you’re nevertheless happy to see. Otherwise, higher quality, instructional and opinion articles come out appear every few weeks but my goal is to increase that frequency to once a week.

Taking a different angle with your question, Group Writing Projects doesn’t filter. The site will announce any gwp that comes to my attention, but I will not hesitate to recommend against participating if it’s justified. I have an article coming out soon with more on that, it will surprise some people.

3. What was your motivation to start this?

Very simple. When I first discovered and fell in love with gwps while blogging on JobMob, my reflex was to search for more and I quickly realized that there was no centralized resource bringing them all together. I decided almost right away that I would take on the project but I actually put it off for almost 6 months before getting down to work on it. Both my blogs started to take shape in November, and both were launched a few months later. I may do that again this year as well with yet another :)

4. When did you start?

Group Writing Projects was semi-officially launched in February 2008. I say ’semi’ because I had a whole launch planned but I froze the launch halfway along the plan. That’s the topic of a whole blog post in itself that I’ve promised my readers so I won’t go further here. As for traffic, it varies, by design. The announcement and results posts were designed to be easy for subscribers- quick to scan in your feed reader, with links to creators’ sites if you decide to participate. They also don’t have much interest for search engines, and so they don’t bring many people to the site but that’s fine. The “higher quality” articles tend to do well for the opposite reasons.

5. What is your defining objective with Group Writing Projects?

I make websites that help people. JobMob is about helping people find jobs, and Group Writing Projects is about helping bloggers to achieve their blogging goals. For example my recent Building RSS group writing project has only begun to help bloggers with tips about how to get more subscribers, and the upcoming free e-book for my readers will be so handy that every blogger will want it.

As for an objective, I will only be satisfied when I see gwps as a regular blogging device appearing on blogs of all sizes, in all industries and niches. That’s when I’ll feel that my work is done ;)

Thanks for the interview, Damien. If anyone has questions, they should just come over to Group Writing Projects and ask in the comments or contact form.