Make no mistake. Dragons do exist. We may not be living in forests any longer but there are real dragons lurking out there. Modern dragons of the virtual kind like Google and Facebook.

Right now many people are keenly anticipating the imminent unleashing of Facebook’s secret plans as it prepares to ingest our personal data with its insatiable appetite. Meanwhile, Google is hatching its own plans.

These are two of the most powerful uber-consumers of today and they are contentedly feeding on the tasty morsels of our personal details. Furthermore, we are voluntarily feeding them information faster than they can digest our offerings.

Of course they purport to be helping us – for our own good and convenience. But are they really helping us? They seem more and more intent on gobbling up everything in their paths – including our very privacy.

Ever read the book 1984 by George Orwell?

He was the originator of the phrase “big brother” who he cleverly predicted would soon be watching us from every street corner.

I think the book may be worth a re-visit just for the fun of it because though his predictions were regarded as outlandish at the time, he didn’t even skim the surface of what was to eventually transpire.

But he did get one thing right. Big brother is certainly watching us.

Personally, I don’t want to be part of anyone’s data feed. And I particularly don’t want to be owned by the virtual soul seekers of today.

I prize my independence and I just want to be able to do my own thing freely and at a normal pace. I want to be in control of my own space and I want to be captain of my own ship.

Unfortunately there is so much clamour out there that we can’t even think straight – let alone be creative. It’s so much easier to do as we’re told. And that’s exactly why right now, more than ever, it’s time to take a deep breath.

We need to slow down the pace. We need to think before we divulge too much of our information. In short, we need to think more carefully about what it is that we really want and in doing so at least try to achieve some semblance of normality.

And if that means upsetting a dragon or two so be it!

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

Down with scraped content – those bits and pieces of text automatically swiped from other people’s articles by some clever piece of software.

Down with those disconnected sentences that are so meaningless you need a translator to help you understand them.

Who wants to plough through reams of inferior stuff whose only purpose it is to confuse the search engines?

Many PLR articles too, are mostly poorly written rejects that their authors are too embarrassed to own publicly.

Bloggers often find it difficult to update their blogs with fresh content on a regular basis. Of course it’s difficult and of course, as bloggers, we’re all game for a short cut here and there. But blogging is a craft and it’s a creative one at that.

A page or two of original writing has more value than volumes of meaningless scraped content. That is why blogging should never be an exercise in scraping bits and pieces from the Internet just to get regular content out.

If you don’t feel like blogging for a week or two – then so be it.  Just blog when you feel like it. But let it be your own writing with your own original thoughts.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

“Twitter!” It sounds so tiny and petite.

Take a look at the cute little words they use.  “Tweet,  twittering and tweetback.”

But don’t let that mislead you.  It’s a humungous craze – The twitter craze is really a birdlike chat cult that has spread into a worldwide feeding frenzy.  And it’s spreading across the internet world quicker than you can scatter a bag of birdseed to a ravenous flock of birds.

But don’t think it only caters for tiny little seed eaters.  There are ravens, eagles and ostriches out there! The biggest marketers on the internet are flocking in droves to deliver their marketing messages via Twitter. It’s that effective!

It appears that the whole idea is to get thousands of “birds” to follow you.  You drop your trail of birdseed in the form of interesting snippets of information and then you sit back and watch a flock of hungry birds pecking it all up.

I thought I’d be able to tweet a message to hundreds or even thousands with the click of a button. But it isn’t quite so easy.

What they don’t tell you is that there are birds of many different feathers out there.  And birds can be very particular. They only feed on the morsels that they fancy.

So the little birdseeds that you have just cast out can very well lie there unnoticed while the juicier fat grubs are being gobbled up at an enviable rate.
So how to crack this nut?

Well there’s a tiny little secret. The trick is to decide what type of birds you want to feed. And only then should you put out onto your feeder the appropriate fare.

After that, they tell me, you can sit back and wait for your flock of hungry birds to arrive.

If you want to join the feeding frenzy  and get real visibility for your website or blog here is a free copy of a Twitter report that will help you get free targeted traffic.

If you want to learn more about Twitter here is a full training course with videos.

Happy Tweeting!

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

The very worst thing about blogging is that it’s supposed to be so easy!

The word out on the street is that a blog only takes about 6 minutes or so to set up.  Well, that’s what they say. But the truth is that I found setting up my blog a nightmare.

It took me over 2 months of fanatical determination bordering on the obsessive to get my blog to behave in a semi-coherent fashion. Eventually, after much sighing and gnashing of teeth things began to improve a little. But no sooner had I begun to relax when I came upon a brand new minefield.

Images!

Adding images to blogs is an area all on its own. It requires a PhD in blogging to get your text to wrap properly around a picture.

But what made things even worse for me was the thought of those millions of bloggers out there blogging successfully and with such apparent ease.  It made me feel really stupid.  But then I suppose it’s something like learning to ride a bike or drive a car. You feel as if you’re the only person in the world battling it out alone while everyone else is doing it so easily.

Meanwhile, I did discover the helpful blogs of Yaro Starak and Codrut Turkano and made good use of their tutorials.  But they’re busy folk and like other internet celebrities they’re just about impossible to contact.

The bottom line is that if you have a problem that isn’t completely standard, you’re on your own.  You’ll have to learn how to do everything yourself.  And that really is one of the worst things about blogging.

There is one small advantage, however.  Once you have overcome a particular hurdle – no matter how small – you reach expert status in that area.  Simply because it will have taken you so long to learn all the possible permutations. In which case consider yourself qualified!

It’s now  OK to set up your brass plate and announce that you have learnt how to insert an image into a blog post and that you are therefore available for consulting.

And here’s some good news – I’ve heard it said that just like learning to drive a car, it’s also possible to learn how to blog.  So if you’re just starting out, take heart because you’ll get there eventually, I promise.

And I should know because it’s taken me several moons of determined battling to get there too.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

One of the best things about Blogging is that it helps you to organize your thoughts and ideas in a systematic way.  What a win for writers!  The intuitive blogging software helps you to file your material in such a way that your precious thoughts and ideas don’t get lost.

In the beginning it’s often difficult to find things to write about on a regular basis.  But as your subject categories begin to grow something kicks in and your blog seems to go on a roll (no pun intended!)

Maybe it’s the organization or the discipline or some mysterious force that releases your writing muse but you’ll find that your blog seems to take on a life of its own.  At the same time, your thinking broadens, your interests grow and you learn an awful lot.

Many thoughts and Ideas seem to pop up in the most unlikely places so it makes sense to grab them wherever and whenever you can. I find it helpful to keep a notebook with me so that I can capture an idea before it gets lost.  I like to jot down any nugget of inspiration as it arrives.

Clearly, the more often you write the easier it becomes.  Eventually you’ll find ideas tumbling out faster than you can write them up.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

How did I venture into the world of Blogging?  Actually, I had six websites before I decided to start a blog.  And if the truth be told, I was very much against blogging.  Mainly, I think, because I was reluctant to embark on the rather steep learning curve that I knew it required.

And in honour bound, I have to admit with great humility that in my case, I did find it to be a steep learning curve.  Added to this was the off-putting thought that blogging requires some degree of commitment.

At any rate, I eventually took the plunge into the rather icy waters of blogging technology.

And nearly drowned in them.

But once I was able to lift my head above the murky waters of wordpress’s formidable codex of instructions I began to see some benefits. In fact once I started I became more and more determined to succeed.

Why exactly?

Well first of all, blogging has this marvellous reputation of being so very easy.  Proof? There are millions of bloggers out there blogging away very successfully.  So bottom line – was I particularly stupid? I had to find out or at the very least accept the challenge.

Anyway, after much trial and error and numerous online tutorials I managed to break through the technical barriers.

And then, O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I found myself floating in calm waters.

And that is my story of how I began to dabble in the art of blogging.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development