I will be in Las Vegas from this Friday, February 22nd, to the following Tuesday, February 26th. I will be videoblogging from that location, just so that it looks like I’m doing actual work.

Actually, I will be attending the Affiliate Marketing Summit, camera in-hand. I will be posting a report shortly after on this blog and two other as-yet undisclosed locations. (Oooooh – mysterious speculation about affiliate marketing. I’m in with the Big Boys now…)

In my recent research about overcoming writer’s block, I’ve found about 1000 ways that claim to help you overcome this sometimes long-term affliction. Some are cool, some are crazy, but most are just off-the-edge enough to work.

Here are some of my favourites;

1. Grandma Peggy gets first spot, as usual. Her axiom? “If you weren’t at least a little insecure, you wouldn’t be a real writer.” In other words, stop being moody and get busy.
2. Watch a movie. At the top of my pile for writer’s block is Get Shorty, starring John Travolta. What most people don’t know is that the movie was written by a friend of the real Chili Palmer, Elmore Leonard. The real Palmer has a small role in the film – and yeah, he’s smoky. Check out screen shot at right – Palmer is the younger fellow at the right elbow of actor Dennis Farina. (Another one of those actors I adore.)
3. Watch another movie. Another one of my icons, Mae West, is not just known as the Queen of Corsets, but also as the writer of a number of her own films, including the famous My Little Chickadee, with W.C. Fields. Whenever in Las Vegas, be sure to visit the Mae West bathroom in the NY,NY hotel on the strip. Gilded furniture, pink velvet upholstery, and marble everything. Talk about sanctuary.
4. Need a muse? Why not put Walt Disney’s severed head on your desk. No, it’s not messy: it’s wax. (But still creepy.)
5. Make up your own word, like Brandon Burt of the City Weekly . Of course, his was not in response to writer’s block, but to writers being blocked, aka the recent writer’s (WGA) strike in Hollywood.
6. Figure out what’s blocking you. This serious post by Jimmy of Cinemoose.com points at some clever ways to objectify your block and shoot it square in the eye.
7. Try a Mind Map. The University of British Columbia here in Vancouver, Canada, has a page about mind-mapping software. For a clear idea of how you can use mind-mapping, watch this YouTube video by marketing guru Ford Saeks.
8. Eat something bizarre. For example, Korean chicken in a cup. De-Lishus. Pepto on standby.
9. Visit your fave author. At right is a photo of my husband meeting his, Jack Whyte, author of the Templar Trilogy, among other things. Whyte gives incredible 60-minute talks in bookstores like Chapters, where he discusses gory details of daily life at the time of King Arthur.
10. Make something. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be inspired by something positive – don’t make something with your anger. All you really need are popsicle sticks and empty mint tins. Sometimes making something more tangible can break negative cycles that happen in our own unreal inner world.

It seems to me that I heard somewhere a quote by Bruce Lee, and although I cannot find a link to it, I’m sure it was his, because it represents his philosophy of taking all the good things from various martial art styles and making them his own. The essence of the quote was this: that when one does not actively seek out other styles, or art, or work, and thinks only about their own styles, art, or work, they have nothing to prod their creativity. (Which becomes the block.) They eventually become a prisoner of their own ideas, and cannot move their brain in any new directions. So grab those boots and walk right out that door – if only to your regular coffee joint. Bring something to capture the ideas when they start to flow.

I’ve been studying up on ways to improve my blog’s traffic. I used Technorati to see what the universe thinks of me, and was delighted to find some people linking in to my blog. What surprised me is that one of them is a major snowboard magazine.

Apparently, this post that I wrote back in September came up in their list of search hits, and has since been backlinked by a few people. It has nothing to do with snow – I just use snowboarders as an example of a certain demographic.

The more I learn about things like Technorati, the blogosphere and other areas of social networking, the more I realize that viral marketing is everything that I thought it was not. Viral marketing is not about posting things on walls in Facebook. (Yes, I caved and set myself up there.) It’s not about Spam, and it’s not about instant messaging each other what you ate for lunch.

What it is about, is something that I’ve tried to develop in my business in general. True benefit to the consumer. Yes, marketing online is different than real-world marketing. But the underlying themes of quality and delivering what you promise are things that do translate to the web. It’s all well to create a mechanism by which someone can send a link to their friend about my blog posts, but that means what I write here must be interesting to that friend.

My comment in the original post concerning snowboarders talked about them as an aggregate of my reader. I’m not sure how accurate that is – but as I learn how to gauge that, I’ll tell you all about it here. I’ll also happily tell you anything I’m learning about what worked for me or my clients about using social networking for marketing. In return all I ask is one thing – my original post about the snowboarder made reference to their need for a high-quality caffeine supplement. If anyone has found one, can you let me know?

I’ve become something of a WordPress addict. I don’t shop for shoes any longer – I collect WordPress plugins. The thrill is the same, because it’s about finding something cool that solves a problem. And so far, I haven’t had a problem that there isn’t a WordPress plugin for.

Right now, you’re reading a web page that is built on a WordPress platform. WP is handy-dandy software that you install on your web server, and then you manage your entire website based on it. It’s free (because it’s open source), it’s easy for both techies and non-techies alike to use, and most importantly, it works.

If you’re worried about control over how your website will look and act, fear no more. If it’s good enough for the Ford Motor Company, it’s good enough for me. The link in the previous sentence hops to a portion of the Ford series of websites related to autoshows, which I would suggest is a fairly major part of their marketing efforts. The advantages gained here by Ford are that of anyone with a WP site, which are many, but the majority of them are;

• very fast setup: be ready to insert basic content within minutes
• totally customizable, and easily changed at any time, all without having to re-enter ANY of your core content
• easily update your content to keep your site fresh anytime (and therefore more appealing to search engines)
• self-managed: no need to bug your web designer for every little thing you need changed on your site
• accumulate and maintain an email list that you can use for marketing
• watch stats on who is visiting your site, how often, and what they’re doing while they are there
• sell products (like books), tickets, and information directly off your website
• easily manage multiple contributors (columnists) to your site’s content
• host videos and podcasts in a library accessible at any time to any user

Many consider WordPress to be a blogging platform, but clearly, it has evolved beyond these roots in the trenches. Blogging platforms are the blue-bloods of server software, because they must stand up to intensely competitive efforts to funnel traffic. Managing a website on WP is like driving in Los Angeles: if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.

All this, and I haven’t even mentioned the best part about WordPress: It’s cheaper than shoes.

 

 Why WordPress is so Fantabulous [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m thinking quite seriously of spending about 3 months in Las Vegas. I love my Canadian home very much, but let’s face it: it’s cold and wet. I need to dry out. (Some might suggest that LV is the last place anyone should go to “dry out”, but I’m not rich enough to drink my way through that town.)

Does anyone take a sabbatical in America? Mexico seems to be the destination of choice for writers and musicians looking for objectivity. But I’ll still need to run my business from wherever I am, which means reasonable access to technology, international flights, and decent Chinese takeout. Vegas sounds like the perfect solution.

Nothing is real in Vegas anyway. Even the air in the casinos is so pumped up with extra oxygen that it’s no longer really air – it’s a feel-good mixture that enhances your dice-tossing skills. Where else can you eat pie for breakfast, ride a roller coaster before lunch (not after it), and wear an evening gown to business meetings? I’ll tell you – nowhere but Sin City, baby.

Besides, to a Canadian, everything in America is super-sized and attractively unnatural. Preachers dress like movie stars, and movie stars dress like prostitutes. The President thinks he’s a cowboy. Citizens buy carbon credits to make up for all the disposable items they use. I mean, you’ve got to love a country that puts glitter in deodorant.

I don’t even have to make it all the way to Vegas – I hear there’s a little place just over the Nevada border where you can buy a steak dinner for just $1.49. Now, doesn’t that sound like an unreal deal to you?

 

 American Sabbatical: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download