Postcards from the Funny Farm

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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.

If there is one post worthy of you slowing down to read today, it is this one. The writing contest results are in and posted here. It was a truly enjoyable time gathering the posts for this writing contest. Congratulations to the winners. To all who participated I say thank you for sharing your amazing visions with me, my readers, and the interweb.

I chose this topic for my contest because I have always been fascinated by Amazing Visionaries. They range from Walt Disney (photo: wikipedia) to Pat Rodgers (my grandfather). By watching their moves, I have been able to recreate some of that success in my own life. And I have written about it.

I heard a story many years ago about how the new tellers at banks get to spend a week handling money … nothing more. The reasoning behind this was so that the tellers could detect a fact having been made so familiar with the real. When we study the look of a successful person’s moves, we too can avoid being duped by false success stories. Just like the well known authorize.net spots fraudulent consumers, so these posts will help you spot the bad examples as well as the ones to follow.

The stories mentioned here are the “real deal.” By collecting them and putting them in one place, hopefully it will rub off on us. If you enjoyed the links, please bookmark this page, as well as the permalinks individually, and share them with others. In my opinion, now more than ever, the world needs more amazing visions! I think you will be inspired by what you read here.

Below are the 6 winning urls for “Amazing Visions: Blog Carnival Edition 2.” After that are links to all the entries. Why hold them back when inspiration is so lacking in our times! I hope you enjoy reading all of them as much as I did. Stay tuned to Postcards for Edition 3 in the near future.

TOP 3

1. How I got Started with Blogging and Freelance Writ... by Michael Kwan
2. Mother Teresa on Love by Chelle
3. How to become what you want to become, in about tw... posted at I Will Not Die.

Honorable Mentions

1. An Entry from Torri’s Travels by Torri
2. Nick’s Entry on Randy Pausch posted at Romandock
3. Amazing Vision - Mahatma Gandhi posted at Growing Happiness.

Though they didn’t get in the top three, these highly well written posts are the rest of these amazing visions . . . Please read them, you will find strength and inspiration. (Thank you again to these bloggers!) -in no particular order …

Josh Waitzkin an Inspiring Performer by Isabella Mori

A One Man Peacekeeping Force by Alexander

She’s Inspiration by Katelynjane

How Hokusai can Inspire Designers and Bloggers posted at Designer Daily

The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone - How In The World D... posted at Shattered Paradigm.

Privilege to Be with a Loved One at the Time of De... posted at Andy, saying, “My dad was one of my greatest heroes. This is my tribute to his legacy.”

(and one of my own I just threw in at the end!)

Amazing People and Things by Damien Riley

Since blogs are read daily and posts from yesterday are rarely read, I thought I’d post all the entries to my contest, even though it’s before the 1st (2 days away to be exact).

Anyway, I’m researching an idea for a series and don’t have anything better to post today (Sunday) so here’s a recap of the contest guidelines and prizes and links to all the entries so far. I hope you all enjoy reading them! There are technically two days left to enter. I will announce the winners on the 1st and link them all again. So far the hippie in me has been inspired! I’m about ready to find a bus for sale and head out on the road. See what they do for you!

THE CONTEST:

There will be 2 big winners and 3 honorable mentions. The 2 will get box ads to their blogs for a month free of charge along with optional custom-made 125×125 glass buttons courtesy of our design company, Create and Innovate Designs. Each will also receive a thoughtful writeup about their blog linked back from here in a post.

The 3 honorable mentions will also get a customized glass button to use as they wish along with a free review here and Google-juice linkback of their blog.

HERE’S THE AMAZING VISIONS SO FAR:

The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone - How In The World D... posted at Shattered Paradigm.

Privilege to Be with a Loved One at the Time of De... posted at Andy, saying, “My dad was one of my greatest heroes. This is my tribute to his legacy.”

The Silva Mind Control Method posted at Effortless Wealth and Abundance.

How to become what you want to become, in about tw... posted at I Will Not Die.

What is there to Know About Diet Pills?? posted at HealthyBitz.

Amazing Vision - Mahatma Gandhi posted at Growing Happiness.

Amazing Things - Inspiration in life, blogging, writing, work, love, living posted at Postcards from the Funny Farm.

How I Got Started with Blogging and Freelance Writ... posted at Beyond the Rhetoric.

It Might Be Love » Blog Archive » Mother Teresa ... posted at It Might Be Love.

Amazing Vision Writing Contest posted at Barbara`s Travels…at home in the world!!!!!.

One-Man Peacekeeping Force posted at Our Evolution.

She?s Inspiration - Amazing Visions Contest posted at Katelynjane’s Notebook.

Nick’s Entry on Randy Pausch posted at Romandock

Just 5 days left ’til the deadline for the “Amazing Visions,” Blog Carnival.  Congratulations to the folks who have submitted their posts already.  If you want in this edition, just write a post about someone who has shown vision and inspiration through their life.  They deserve your recognition, and we would love to be inspired by their story.

Use the handy widget below to submit your post.  (Thanks to the blogcarnival folks for making such an awesome automated widget!) Questions?  Drop me a line.

*Note: If you submitted your post to me manually or in a pingback you may not see it on the instacarnival until the deadline. The carnival is a new undertaking for me so I appreciate your patience as I learn by DOing to be a better host.

My mom and I have been talking a lot lately about the book A New Earth. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you soon will. Oprah has fully endorsed its author, Eckhart Tolle, and we all know that what Oprah endorses, sells like crazy. But Tolle is a very humble guy. He claims his ideas were all around him and that he didn’t invent them. Pretty humble for a guy who’s probably going to become the next psychology writer billionairre. More and more people I talk to about the book tell me they have either read it, or want to read it. But this guy isn’t hype, he has great vision in his book. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.

I remember getting a similar feeling about a book when I read M. Scott Peck’s psychology book: The Road Less Traveled. ” When I read great books like these, so full of truth and help, it’s like relaxation comes from he page, into my eyes and throughout my body spreading calm and joy. I’m still on chapter one of A New Earth, but what I have read so far is pure genius. My goal is to write a review of it very soon, so stay tuned to Postcards from the Funny Farm for that. I want to do this to spread the news about this amazing little book. Tolle’s insights on spiritual meaning in the world around us are really revolutionary and life-changing. Whether you are going through something as simple as trying to experience life more or something as serious as working through drug rehab and the like, this book brings out a strength you didn’t know you had.

At any rate, my mom told me a story from his book the other day that really intrigued me. She also watches the author every Monday she can on Oprah’s website where he does a regular video “town hall” style class where people can participate and ask questions. She gave me some good advice from him regarding negative people. Lately I’ve been getting some bad energy from people in all areas of my life and it’s beginning to worry me. Why am I attracting this sort of energy? Is it the way I talk? Is it the things I say? How do you deal with negative people anyway? We’re supposed to stay positive ourselves but what about when we can’t control bad energy around us. As I’ve speculated on here in the past, we should ignore it but as some of you commented, that isn’t always the best option. There is an alternative to ignoring Tolle offers that I prefer. It’s a phrase to have waiting in your back pocket. When negative people spout all sorts of negative things, just tell them this:

Is that so?

You can respond without reacting. Reacting is the “ego” as Tolle calls it. Responding is more of the being who you are inside coming out. There are so many good energies in my life these days now too, but why is it that I allow the bad ones to bring me down? It isn’t even rational to pay the most attention to negativisim. Another book by Tolle is called simply: “Stillness Speaks.” I would agree with that, wouldn’t you?

Anyone coming into your emotional space and saying “blah blah blah (something negative - you fill in the blank here)” should never take your good energy. Simply nod your head and say “is that so?” I love this mantra and I intend to use it from now on. If you tell me the sky is falling, I can say calmly “is that so?” If you tell me something is impossible I will say “WHY?’ Then, if you tell me why I will say: “is that so?” If you make a point on a forum I don’t agree with, there is no need to argue or even debate. All I need to do is consider what you have said and then say: “is that so?” Think about it, for real life or even social internet connections, it’s a pretty good mantra! Revolutionary thoughts like these take meditation. Here is a video I ran across of Tolle talking about getting that into our daily lives.

How are you reacting to bad energy in your life?