Writer's Block

I've never had writer's block before. Normally I will babble on about anything and everything and have to be prised away from the keyboard. I don't like the feeling of not having the right words for what I want to say. The only solution I could think of was to give up and do something completely different.

It is doubly annoying because, earlier on, I knew exactly what I wanted to write but I had chores to do first. Having done my boring chores, I cannot pin down what I want to say. Oh, well, tomorrow will have to do.

I had about 5 different articles half written in my mind but they are hiding. I bet I wake up at 3.00am full of ideas again. Maybe this time I'll creep up here and start typing. If the rest of the household wake up, I'll suggest they get earplugs.

For want of success in more constructive endeavours, I checked my money doublers. What a joke. My Double Bot share is 36211, Cycle It Fast has not moved and Matrix Twisted is missing altogether.

At least Empowerism is earning me money. They paid my commission for my sponsoring and I think one of my MVP packages will cycle soon (maybe tomorrow).

I am going to make up for my lack of activity by doing some surfing and I might submit some articles for publication. I added some new directories to my Ezine Announcer so those ones don't have all my articles yet.

Tomorrow had better be a good day!

Empowerism Paid Me. The Zoo Keeper

Nice surprise today, money from Empowerism in my Pay Pal account. It was a surprise because I thought I had set the option to save up my commissions but it was a nice surprise. Still getting more people signing up and my MVP packages are due to cycle again in the next few days.

On top of that, I am getting sign ups for Search Estate every day and that means more bill boards for me. Tremendous stuff. I am really not having to do anything to earn these now, my downline is doing it all.

Spent today submitting an article to the directories and adding more directories to Ezine Announcer . I now have over 50 article directories to submit stuff to. There were a few others that I didn't bother with because they didn't look suitable but I will keep a look out for new ones. I am glad I got them all loaded in and the macros set up for them. Now I have my article submission fully automated and it is just a matter of a couple of clicks to get the articles in. Great!

Anyway, without further ado, here is my article:


The Zoo Keeper And The Monkeys

Did you ever watch the Zoo Keeper working in the monkey enclosure?
I can recall watching the Zoo Keeper when he was sweeping out the big monkey enclosure. He was industriously sweeping up dead leaves and twigs and the rest of the litter the monkeys had made and he was taking no notice at all of the antics of the noisy crew of monkeys. I guess he was used to their racket. Suddenly one of the monkeys swung down from a branch and snatched the Zoo Keeper’s cap right off his head. The Zoo Keeper hardly had time to react to what had happened before that monkey was out of reach in the higher branches of the tree.
The Zoo Keeper looked up, the monkey bared its teeth in that special grin monkeys have and chattered quietly. The Zoo Keeper pantomimed a shrug for his audience: no point in him even thinking of climbing the tree after that monkey. The Zoo Keeper carried on with his cleaning up and ignored the chattering monkey.
The monkey tried the cap on for size, on his head, then on one foot, then he sniffed hard at it. The crowd laughed but the Zoo Keeper didn’t bother to look up. The monkey dropped from the tree just a few feet behind the Zoo Keeper, screeched in that way monkeys have and flourished the cap when the Zoo Keeper looked round startled. That sure got his attention!
The Zoo Keeper stood, hands on hips. The monkey did the same, putting its head a little on one side as if he was waiting for an answer. The Zoo Keeper took a slow step towards the monkey and the monkey just stood there holding the Zoo Keeper’s cap. The Zoo Keeper took another cautious step towards the monkey and this time the monkey took a step back. The Zoo Keeper tried another step, the monkey stepped back, turned, let out a screech and leaped into the lower branches of his favourite tree. The Zoo Keeper grabbed at his cap but he was no match for the monkey’s swiftness.
By now a crowd of children had gathered and they giggled as the Zoo Keeper looked up at the monkey who had again perched out of reach chattering loudly and waving the cap in the air. What the Zoo Keeper didn’t know (but the children did) was that another monkey had removed a small shovel from the Zoo Keeper’s unattended cart and was marching about waving the shovel in the air as if he was conducting some invisible monkey orchestra.
When monkey number two started beating the shovel against the bars of the enclosure, the Zoo Keeper did notice and his attention was completely diverted from the first monkey. While the Zoo Keeper crept up behind the monkey with the shovel, monkey number one dropped out of the tree and upset the Keeper’s cart, scattering all the rubbish he had swept up.
At that moment, the gate into the enclosure opened and a Feeding Attendant brought in the monkeys’ lunch. Monkey number one saw the attendant and lost all interest in the cap, which he dropped on the ground. The second monkey threw the shovel over his shoulder as he loped in the direction of the food.
The Keeper made the most of this opportunity. He rescued his cap, picked up his shovel and walked back towards the strewn litter. Unfortunately, on his way to gather up the litter, he trod in a pile of monkey pooh and had to stop to scrape his shoe clean..
What does chasing after monkeys have to do with your Internet business?
When I am working at my home based business on the Internet, I often feel as if I am trying to work in a cage full of monkeys. There are so many distractions, so many people trying to get your attention and lure you to their websites. If you do not remain focused on the job in hand, working on the internet can turn out very much like chasing monkeys. If you lose your focus, you will find yourself being led in every direction apart from the one you intended to take. You will spend your morning chasing about and achieving nothing. Suddenly you will realise it’s lunchtime and you have still not managed to complete the morning’s tasks. If you let this situation carry on, you are likely to find yourself in the sort of mess that’s best tackled with a shovel.

Finished My New Website And Got A New Happy Guy Article

Well, it took me a few days but I have finished my Empowerism Training Site and posted the address on the PIPS forum. I hope the resources will be useful to my downline. I have been doing these things for a while, so I take them for granted but I have done my best to remember and include all the minute details and different advertising websites.

I've had a busy week all in all. It has been a nice week weatherwise as well: bright and sunny, still cold but that's what you expect in January. It is a bit strange sitting at my PC reading stuff from people in the US and Canada who are looking out on snow while I have a view of brilliant sunshine. It was so nice that I took a shortcut through the park on Wednesday. The spring bulbs are well above ground now and it makes me want to start on the garden but, alas, it is far too early in the year. Spring is still a long way off.

Had my two favourite newsletter/ezines this week. I enjoy The Write Stuff and The Happy Guy weekly humour column. As so often happens, I recognised myself in the Happy Guy's column this week. Oh dear, perhaps I should not have admitted that. Never mind, here's the article.

My Identity Crisis
By David Leonhardt

When we are young it is all so simple. We know exactly what I want to "be" when we grow up. You know what it's like: "I want to be a fireman." I want to be a ballerina." "I want to be a movie star." "I want to be a nuclear physicist specializing in embryonic schisms in post-menopausal subatomic particles."

This aspect of growing up came back to haunt me recently when reading a magazine article by someone working in television who had always wanted to be a celebrity. To paraphrase her words, "It never occurred to me that I might have to actually do anything." Well, here I am, a fully-grown adult. Or perhaps I am no longer fully grown - I'm not sure at what age we start shrinking! But I do have a confession to make; I never knew what I wanted to "be". I knew only what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was design cities, urban spaces, bus routes. No, that's not true. What I really wanted to do was design maps...but most map companies want map designers to simply mimic the city's existing design.

Geesh, where's the creativity in that? So I was led astray, falling in love with politics instead. For a while I worked as a political aide, plotting to become King of the World. Amazingly, it took only five years for reality to grind my idealistic innocence to sawdust and send me on a frantic search for a do-it-yourself lobotomy kit. (I never did get to be King of the World, nor did I ever find that do-it-yourself lobotomy kit.) I spent the next decade-and-a-half as a consumer advocate and lobbyist, doing media relations, government relations and industry relations -- none of which are technically verbs that one can actually "do". At social events, the accountants and lawyers had it easy. "I am an accountant," says it all. I was not so fortunate. "I am a consumer advocate," I would say. "So what do you do?" "Well, I talk to the media and to the government and to industry," I would explain.

"Ahaaa... and I talk to the tooth fairy. So what do you do?"

Now, I have an even harder time when somebody asks what I do. Most people have no clue what search engine optimization is, which is my main "career". Few people really understand what freelance writing is, except if they read a freelance writer's article in a magazine . I don't even try to mention that I run three websites and do affiliate marketing. But people do understand what it means to be an author. "Wow, you wrote a book on happiness? Congratulations. So when's your next book coming out?"

Which is when I have to explain how a book really doesn't feed a family, and if I took the time to write a second book, it would take time away from search engine optimization and affiliate marketing... "Huh, what's that?" "Never mind," I answer. "I'm a stay-at-home dad." Which also is true. People might look at me weird, but at least they understand me. Or, so they think. All of which brings me back to that question I never answered when I was young: what do I want to be when I grow up? I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer to find out. Like when I grow up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Leonhardt is author of Climb Your Stairway to Heaven http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/Item.asp?Catalog=Books&Item=059517826X Read more personal growth articles: http://www.thehappyguy.com/self-actualization-articles.html Visit his liquid vitamins store: http://www.vitamin-supplements-store.net Or his happiness website: http://www.thehappyguy.com

Doubled My Investment With Empowerism

Today started well. I received emails confiming I had two new paid members in my downline at Empowerism. I also had two other emails from Empowerism telling me that two of my MVP orders had cycled. That was all before breakfast. Empowerism is becoming very exciting.

I am going to try to write a training guide for new Empowerism members. It is all very simple but there is so much information on the site that it can seem confusing and hard to find things. Once you have visited the site a couple of times, you soon know your way around.

For my new training stuff, I downloaded a web template free from Empowerism and modified it. This is the first time I have ever use a template like that but it did not take long to get the idea. Now all I have to do is write the text and put in all the links and test it all - not much to do then!

Still haven't checked my so-called money doublers, perhaps I'll get to them tomorrow. I don't have much hope of any movement there though.

Back To Blogging, More Empowerism and an End To Insomnia

Can't believe two whole weeks have flown by since I last visited my blog.

Needless to say, I have been busy. What have I been doing? Can hardly remember, made some minor changes to the website, wrote a few articles, set up a new autoresponder for my Empowerism campaign, registered a new domain for my training site (which I haven't started yet).

I feel like a pot-holer who has just found her way out after being lost in a cave network: oh yes, daylight, I remember that! I've been so busy I haven't even checked my money doublers. Better try to do that tomorrow even though I know it is going to mean disappointment.

At least I finished my January newsletter and sent out the emails to announce it today.

I managed to win a platinum membership with Ezine Articles, now I cansend them unlimited articles. Just have to write faster to get the full benefit.

I'm expecting my Empowerism MVP package to cycle again any day now (that will be the third time), so exciting.

One of the articles I finished and submitted for publication was the one about insomnia. Here it is:

How To Give Up Insomnia
By Elaine Currie, BA (Hons)
http://www.huntingvenus.com/ecartind.htm

I am writing this on a Sunday morning following a very restless night when sleep just didn’t want to be my friend. I have suffered with insomnia for many years but, by using a combination of techniques, it is more or less under control.

Yesterday, I spent much too long working on changes to my website. I was enjoying it, so the time shot by. I ended up sending out for a big Chinese meal late in the evening. A vast quantity of spicy food was washed down with several glasses of wine. If you want to lie awake half the night, just do as I did. The remedy is simple and obvious. Time to get a grip on the lifestyle.
Self-inflicted insomnia is easily cured. What I call “real” insomnia is a beast of a much deeper hue, debilitating and much harder to defeat. Even so, it is not impossible to overcome and there is a whole range of things you can do to get the upper hand.

Here I should state that I do not pretend to have any special medical or therapeutic knowledge and I would not advise anybody to stop taking their prescribed medication. I am just sharing my experiences in the hope that they might help other people who are struggling through wakeful nights.

The following tips for getting off to sleep are pretty well known but I think they are worth repeating.

1. Keep the bedroom just for bed with no reminders of daytime activities like work or study. Decorate the room in restful colours and use soft lighting. Make sure the temperature is comfortable and the ventilation adequate. Hang curtains which are heavy enough to block out the early morning light.
3. Have a bedtime routine. This does not involve doing anything special, it is just a matter of doing the same things in the same order each night. We all have things we do regularly: empty the dishwasher, put out the cat, lock the front door, set the alarm, brush teeth etc. These routine things are our steps away from the activity of the day, towards the restful night.
4. Make a soak in a warm bath part of your nightly ritual. Adding a few drops of aromatherapy oil to the water makes it doubly relaxing, soft background music makes the experience positively decadent.
5. Don’t drink alcohol late at night. A nightcap might make you feel drowsy but it will disrupt your natural sleep rhythms and exacerbate your problem.
6. A warm milky drink is the best thing to have last thing at night. (Yes, our mothers were right when they made us drink cocoa.) There are tons of instant milky drinks available and most ranges have low fat options. If you don’t like this milky, chocolatey type of drink, try out herbal teas but avoid anything containing caffeine.
7. Exercise is important but should be performed several hours before bedtime otherwise the adrenaline will still be pumping around your system and keeping you awake.

What if you follow the above tips, fall peacefully asleep and then wake up three hours later, in the dark middle of the night? To me, this is the most distressing type of insomnia. I know how it feels to wake up at 2.00 am, listen to the clock chime every hour round to 7.00 am, fall asleep and be rudely awakened by the alarm at 7.30. I always feel worse after that final snatched half hour of sleep than I felt in the middle of the night and sometimes get up insanely early to avoid it. The following tips can help you get back to sleep.

1. Recognise why you are awake. If you are too hot, cold or uncomfortable in any way, fix that problem. I often wake up thirsty, so I always have a jug of water at my bedside. Sometimes a drink of water is all that’s needed to get back to sleep.
2. Relax by breathing slowly and deeply and by concentrating on tensing and then relaxing every muscle in your body, one by one, starting with toes and working upwards to your head.
3. Keep a pen and paper by your bed so if you are worrying about things you have to do, you can write them down in a list. This way you can stop worrying about forgetting anything important.

As you write each thing down, visualise it leaving your brain and lodging itself on paper where you will find it safely in the morning. I find this exercise helps a lot if I have things on my mind.
If all this fails, you have been awake for over half an hour and know you are in for a long wakeful night; give up, get up, go do things. You won’t feel any worse and you will probably feel better. There is no point in wasting those hours just lying there worrying about insomnia. If you feel sleepy further into the night, you can always go back to bed.

I gave up insomnia by sleeping whenever I could and getting up and doing things when I was wide awake even if it was the middle of the night. I decided to sleep when I could, not worry if I woke up at strange hours and not waste time tossing and turning in search of sleep. The decision to stop worrying was the key to my recovery.

I was fortunate in that I was not tied to a 9-5 work schedule, most of my work was done at home or in the library. All I had to do was make sure I was there for my children who were all school age.

Over a few weeks I “enjoyed” a strange lifestyle. I would go to bed at my normal time, get up at any time of night when I couldn’t sleep (usually between 3.00 am and 5.00 am) and read or write essays or do quiet household chores. Then I would get the children up and see that they had breakfast and got off to school. I would then, depending how I felt, carry on working or go to bed. My alarm would be set so that I did not have to worry about being asleep when the children came home from school (I never was: I think mothers have an internal alarm clock). I would sleep for as long as I needed and then get up and carry on with my day. At weekends I could sleep while the children were doing homework or out with their friends.

Gradually, my night-time sleep became longer and my spells of daytime sleep grew shorter. Without any effort or worrying, I reverted to a normal sleep pattern and resumed a conventional timetable.

Several years afterwards I came across this quotation: “If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep”. -- Dale Carnegie. I couldn’t have put it better myself!

If you have commitments which prevent you from using this “cure”, I suggest you give it a try over a holiday weekend or any other time you can manage to be home for three or more consecutive days. You will not find sleep if you search for it or worry about it, relax and it will come to you.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is one of a series of articles published by
the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons) at
http://www.Huntingvenus.com
Subscribe to Online Profit Course newsletter by
mailto:huntingvenus@SubscribeMeNow.com
100’s of free tips and advice on working from home.
You may republish this article only in its
entirety and with all hyperlinks intact.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Empowerism Paid Me Today

Empowerism is looking better and better each day. Today I had an email from Pay Pal to say that my commission from Empowerism was in my account. Later I visited the Empowerism website to make a post on the forum and I noticed that I had further accrued commissions ready to be claimed (this time for signing up new members). Things are moving along nicely.

Yesterday was a bit of a lost day, apart from sorting out my email and sending a couple of emails to people who asked me for advice, I didn't achieve very much. I did read a few informative items, including some advice on getting sign ups for Empowerism . I am starting to consider the idea of offering to pay new members' first month's fees if they sign up through my link. It would not break the bank and I am sure the drop out rate would be tiny: once people find it, they love Empowerism so that is definitely something to be considered.

Yesterday I woke up feeling much better and decided I would really like to rewrite my 400 day newsletter - as if I don't have enough to do at the moment! I would like to send out original stuff. I'm no guru but the current letters are dry and I'm not as keen on the articles as I was on the previous series. At least this way, they would be mine and reflect my personality. If people don't like that, it is better they decide before they get too involved in the business. Can't please all the people so, perhaps I'll have some fun.

I also want to add some stuff to my website, I would like to find an affiliate programme connected with health, but not one of these crank juices, something genuine.

Thinking about my January newsletter, thank goodness I have a fair idea of content. Will have to start drafting the details in the next few days as I have a couple of free things I want to add.

Today I found a tip for increasing website traffic and that seems to be working. So far, so good.

This afternoon I submitted an article for publication, so today has ben quite productive.

Here's the article which can also be read at my website: http://www.huntingvenus.com/echbart3.htm


Cyber Love At First Sight
How I Found My Home Based Business Niche.
By: Elaine Currie, BA (Hons) © The Hunting Venus Group
I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly unemployed after more than twenty-five years in the same job. Prior to this I had no ambition to own my own business. I had previously had vague thoughts that it would be very nice to be able to work from home, but I never had any idea of what I could actually work at. I have a computer, I am literate and can type at a pretty fast rate. Apart from these, I have no skills which I can see as the basis for a home based business. I like reading and I grow all manner of plants from beans to cacti, but I couldn’t see anybody paying me to stay home and do any of these things.
If you had told me then where I would be today, and what I would be doing, I would have thought you were crazy. I would not have believed that I would own some websites (my own domain actually), be working from home and have published articles which I had written myself.
I searched for work, both on and off the internet and the more I searched, the more downhearted I became. Sure, there were jobs about but they all required things I lacked: some wanted experience, some wanted much younger people, the worst ones wanted people who were prepared to work long hours for peanuts.
I was regularly searching on the Internet for opportunities for home work. I joined forums and read posts from women who were desperate to work from home, most of them had children and were unable to find suitable jobs to fit in with their schedules. It began to seem as if there is a great army of people all wanting to work but unable to find the right opportunity to suit them.
I signed up with a couple of companies to get paid for reading emails, but reading a couple of emails each day is not the way to make a fortune. I still read emails for these companies, but only out of sentiment (you will understand what I mean by this when you get to the end of this story).
I picked up a couple of ideas which seemed promising and I tried them out. The first thing was mystery shopping, which sounded simple enough, and potentially enjoyable – well, getting paid to go shopping sounds good to me. I found many companies through searching the internet and I applied to dozens of them; I wanted a full time job, not just the odd shopping trip. Months went by and I heard nothing from any of these companies.
Fortunately, I had not been just sitting back and waiting for the mystery shopping jobs to come pouring in. I saw advertisements for paid surveys, and it seemed that you could make a full-time income filling in surveys on line. There were many websites which advised that you should never pay a fee to join a survey company, and these sites displayed the web addresses of various survey companies. At the same time, I saw a lot of advertising by a company which promised access to an enormous database of the best paying survey companies for a fee of only $35, which you would be bound to recover within a few days. Against my better judgement, I paid over the $35 and was disappointed to find that many of the companies in this database would accept US and Canada residents only. Nothing wrong with that, apart from the fact that I live in the UK. Of the companies which would accept international residents, I had already signed up to most of them. I got precisely nothing back for my $35. The only money I earned came from two paid survey companies which I did not join through that database. To date I have received a total payment of £12. I have earned another £21 which is in an account which would only pay out if my total reached £50.
My work search turned into a research project. I started looking at home based businesses rather than jobs. No shortage of possibilities here, but how to choose? I saw some attractive websites aimed at selling all kinds of goods but I had no idea where I would obtain stock, or even what I should try to sell, let alone how to set up a website, and my budget was limited. I tried searching for turnkey businesses. I looked at affiliate programme opportunities, and they seemed a good idea, no stock to buy or handle, but what should I sell? There were also different grades of memberships. I hardly knew what most of it meant to start with, but I was learning, and I was getting a pretty good feel for what I didn’t want.
I would like to say that I found my niche as a result of my own genius, hard work and perseverance. Actually, it was an accident. I opened one of my paid to read emails, clicked on the link and had my first view of a Plug-in Profit SiteÔ . I try to avoid clichés but this truly was a sight for sore eyes, eyes which felt as if they were ready to bulge out of my head after hours of staring at a computer screen. If it is possible to fall in love with a website, I did just that; I knew absolutely without a doubt that I wanted a Plug-in Profit Site of my own, it was everything I needed and more besides.
An attractive young man (young enough to be my son, I am afraid) was offering to build for me free of charge a website, complete with five free to join affiliate programmes selling a wide range of items, to provide multiple ways of earning money. He was also offering me, free of charge, my own pre-written newsletter, his own guide to setting up and running my business and many other free things which I came to appreciate even though I didn’t know what they were at the time (remember, I did not know a mailing list from a grocery list at this time, and I thought a lead was just something you needed to walk your dog). I could take delivery of all this within 24 hours, thank goodness; I don’t think I could have waited a minute longer. I did not resist this temptation for even a second and within 24 hours, I was a website owner all ready to trade.
The learning curve started here but I’ll save that for another story. I’ll just tell you one thing that I learned: I found out that I had, once again, been extremely lucky. I joined a couple of forums and read many posts from people who had struggled for years to find a decent home based internet business. These people told harrowing tales of failure, money lost, mounting debts, years of hard work and worry. In a strange way, I feel almost guilty that I found my niche by accident.

Happy New Year And A New Free Programme

Happy New Year Blog. I have a feeling 2005 is going to be a better year for business and in every other way.

Well New Year's Day brought me a new free to join programme. Got the tip from a member of the Warrior Forum and signed up straight away. It is totally free and promises payment for doing absolutely nothing apart from having your computer on - not a difficult thing to do when you work online from home. The website is minimalist and uninformative so I immediately made an instruction page on my website here.

Still struggling under the influence of my pet virus. I think it loves me, it is showing no signs of wanting to leave. Can't seem to get much done. Decided to have a go at tidying up the html on my website, I know I have lots of odd tags left over from when I have made changes. I am also trying to find out how to make the whole thing load faster. I will try a few more things but think I will be forced to ask for help. I bet it turns out to be something really simple!

Managed to stay awake long enough last night to watch a new production of Tom Brown's School Days starring the excellent Stephen Fry. I loved it! It is one of the best things I have seen on TV for ages.

It is so long since I read Tom Brown that I did not remember any details of the story; it is not one of the books which has been done to death by television companies. When it started, I was suitably horrified by the fact that the pupils gambled and drank alcohol. Then I thought about today's knife-carrying schoolkids.

On reflection, I think today's Godless, undisciplined, amoral, society is far worse. Call me old fashioned, but I think discipline, loyalty and respect for others are valuable character traits. Personally, I find it hard to like or respect today's shallow snivelling younger generations. We are expected to take them seriously and enforce their "rights" and they think hardship means not having the most up to date mobile phone or the latest fashion item.

Today's youngsters are to be pitied: they have far too much in material terms but are spiritually and morally deprived. These selfish pampered young people are tomorrow's hollow men and I fear for the generations which will follow them. If the pendulum does not start to return soon, society will sink further into a morass of depravity and violence.