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Book Talk: What I Read in October
Guess who’s read 50 books this year? This writer. Seriously, I opened Goodreads this morning and saw the banner and that’s pretty cool actually. I’d initially set my target for forty-two books, aimed at reading a book a week, but I upgraded it to 62. So, pretty close. Next year, I’ll aim for 75. Now, I’ll admit that this is pretty low for me. In the past, I’ve read upwards of a hundred books a year. In fact, during my teens—at one point in time—I read at least a book a day. But in my old age (of twenty-seven), between work and school now it seems, I have to actively…
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How To Optimize Your Blog Posts for Google’s Featured Snippets (or AI Overviews)
Okay, so I’ve been holding out on talking for a while. Why? Because Google’s crazy, and I didn’t want to post a generic blog on how to optimize your blog post. I wanted to have an actual use case that small bloggers can replicate. And here it is: Truthfully, this isn’t the first time I’m ranking high on Google. But there’s a difference between a small one-person blog, and a corporation that has an SEO team, a third-party contracted SEO agency (until recently but we’ve been going solo since March), and marketing resources. This one’s been a long time coming. Now, unfortunately for this blog, we’re not doing that well…
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On Writing: What is a Central Conflict?
In case you haven’t been able to tell from my last blog on writing trauma, I’m back to working on my manuscript. And that’s not all; I’m also working on a number of short stories. It’s probably the weather—the rain, the shorter days, and the fact that I’m all bundled up in sweaters and socks. I believe I do my best writing during the winter. Since I’m refining my manuscript, I’ve been thinking a lot about the central conflict and how different subplots and elements need to cohesively come together to make a good story. It’s super easy to get lost in a character’s journey, the drama, and whatnot. In…
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On Writing Trauma: How to Do Justice to Your Story & Readers
Okay, so this one’s a popular request. I’ve got many emails and comments under my post, On Writing Emotions to cover how to write trauma in fiction, so here we are. The reason this took me a while is because there’s a lot at stake here. You can easily fall into a Colleen Hoover-shaped rabbit hole where you’re romanticizing something that’s not a joke. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you completely ignore the subject, but when you’re writing trauma, you need to be more intentional. When done right, it helps readers connect with your characters and fosters empathy around complex issues. When done wrong…I believe we have plenty of…
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How to Write an Opening Line That’ll Hook Readers Instantly
I recently reread the opening line of my manuscript and regretted everything. Seriously, it wasn’t bad—it just didn’t hit. Which sucks because my editor thinks it’s pretty good. But—and this is a me problem—I do this thing where I start comparing what I write to my favourite authors, and then spiral. And that’s a rabbit hole that can really mess you up if you’re not careful. Because let’s be real: what you and I think is bad, might actually be great. I mean, my editor certainly thinks so. But that’s not the first thing that comes to my mind. I’m really critical of my own writing even though I’ve been…
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How to Create a Media Kit: A Step-by-Step Guide for Bloggers, Content Creators & Influencers (+ Free Template)
I’m going to be honest: despite consistent blogging and brand interest (though mostly from AI companies), this blog does not have a media kit. Which is bad. Embarrassing, even. Because media kits are very important in the blogging space. It’s probably one of the first things you should prepare for marketing and partnerships. The reason I haven’t done it up until this point is because until this year, I haven’t blogged regularly. And, as you know, when it comes to blogging, it’s more important to start than fuss over branding. You can do that stuff later. However, if you’re new to blogging, content creation, or influencing, and you find that…
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Book Talk: What I Read in September
Guess who’s back in school? Me! And guess who’s taking an English class after at least five years? Also me! I’m low-key, extremely excited about this. Which is weird because I don’t expect a lot from foreign language teachers in Turkey. Maybe it’s my face; I’ve been told I have a certain type of dead look. And don’t even get me started on how mean my German language tutor was. Seriously, but I think the school I enrolled in may have something to do with that. They tried really hard to get me to sign up for A1 German instead of B1. But enough of that. We’re talking about what…
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How to Set Up A Staging Site on SiteGround
Not sure how familiar you are with it, but testing new features/releases on a test “staging environment” is pretty much the industry standard in tech. I’ve been responsible for a lot of quality checks on staging myself. And let me tell you one thing—well, two things: But enough about company superstitions. My point is, it doesn’t matter if you’re a multi-million dollar company or a small blogger. If you want to tinker around with your live (we call it that or production) site, make some changes to the design or template, you should seriously set up a staging site first. Why You Should Set Up A Staging Site Now, I…
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How to Write A Murder Mystery
So, recently I’ve been watching and reading a lot of murder mysteries. It’s a fall thing really. When the weather gets colder and the cafes start serving pumpkin spice latte, I like to curl up with a good murder mystery. You’ll see more of that in this month’s reading list. Anyway, the point is, I like murder mysteries. But I’ve never written them before. I’m not sure I could, to be honest. At least right now anyway. I’m way too involved with my own manuscript to think of anything else at the moment. But just because I’m not writing a murder mystery, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t either. And help…
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How to Write Effective Endings
To quote Chuck Shurley from Supernatural: “Endings are hard. Any chapped-*** monkey with a keyboard can **** out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna *****. There’s always gonna be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ***.” And yes, I was a Supernatural fan in my teens (part of the SuperWhoLock part of Tumblr). We’re keeping it PG for the kids right now. In case there’s any here. But the point is, writing endings can be difficult.…