Creative Work and Blogging Plans

As much as I neglect it - this blog is still a living, breathing entity. So long as I am.

I'm considering the future of this blog. It was my first-ever blog and since then I've gone through many other blogs via WordPress... but I kept this one Blogger.com blog because it is the first.

These days I call this my main blog: LindaJoMartin.com - it is focused on books and writing - one of my obsessions in life.

I'm getting older. 64 now. Looks like life is limited so I considered what to do with my blogs from years past. What I'd like to do is compile all my blog posts from all the blogs together with my compilation of "morning pages" (my journals) and other things I've written - and publish them all on Amazon as a series of books chronicling the life of Linda.

Anyhow, life goes on. This blog has been fun...

Here's a photo of me now, from earlier this year, in January, when I went to visit my mother in Texas.



And here's my latest video - from a hike up Mineral Ridge Trail, near Coeur d'Alene. When I did this video, I didn't get to the top of the ridge, but I've climbed to the top twice since then. I love this trail loop... 3.3 miles. Awesome climb! I'll have to do another video about it.



Here are a few of my most recent book reviews:
Hillbilly Elegy – Book Lady’s Review
Book Review: One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Abusive Men: Why Does He Do That? – Book Lady’s Review

I also wrote this recently:
Baptism of Jesus Location: Jordan River

And a couple of prayers:
Gratitude for Salvation
Release From Sin

Here's something I wrote a while back but recently re-posted to my main blog:
Finding Your True Writer's Voice

Affiliate Network Marketing #AtoZchallenge

I've been working online in affiliate network marketing for twenty years. My first experience with it was in 1995 when I set up my first version of Literature For Kids with book sales links provided by Barnes and Noble.

Since then that site has been rebuilt three more times, with the most recent version beginning only a few months ago.

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I'm building an affiliate network marketing business.

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In the meantime, I've switched my book links to Amazon and made a considerable heap of money from online work. It is my main income source. I've tried other affiliate marketing programs with limited success on various sites.

I believe it is dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket - so I do get income from other sources - but affiliate marketing continues to challenge me. It helps that I like to write articles.

It takes time and focus to build a career in affiliate network marketing. Essentially it means putting links to products on your blog, such as the book image I've included with this article.

Not only does a blogger have to write great articles to go with their affiliate links, the blogger needs to have a strategy for attracting people to their blog. That is most effectively done with good keyword research, effective writing, and search engine optimization... which essentially means, doing everything Google and Bing like, and avoiding what they don't like.

You could do what I did and learn from trial and error over the course of many years, or you could get guidance from experts like the bloggers at Pajama Affiliates, where they offer informative and effective online courses and affiliate network marketing opportunities. If you're not sure you want to pay for a full class, try out their $1 fast-pass sampler of some of their video tutorials.

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This is my first article for the 2016 A to Z challenge. I chose to use this blog because here, I can write short articles without feeling pressured to write more. On some of my other blogs I prefer to write at length, but I can't commit to doing that daily for the A to Z challenge.

My articles will all be focused on my affiliate marketing career. I hope bloggers will find them helpful.

Here's what I've written so far, during the month of April 2016:

A: Affiliate Network Marketing
B: Brainstorming - Learn Creative Brainstorming Techniques
C: Create a Content Inventory Spreadsheet for Your Blog
D: Domain Buying Considerations
E: Embed Pinterest Pins Tutorial
F: Facebook: How to Set Up a Facebook Page for Your Blog
G: Google Plus Communities Tutorial
H: History Timeline - Affiliate Marketing
I: Images: Ways to Create Images for Your Articles and Social Media
J: Jaaxy: Keyword Research Search Tool

Next: Keywords

Have a great day.

Some Recent Articles I've Posted

I haven't written here lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing.

Today I wrote about how God takes care of us:

When Things Don't Go Right

The past two weeks I've been working on the 2016 rebuild of my Literature For Kids website, posting some of my inventory of articles about how to write for children.

Place Children's Story Characters in Unusual Settings - Literature For Kids

Themes in Children's Fiction - Literature For Kids

And more.

I also posted three new articles at FightCPS last month, and three at Klamath Design.

There are others....

At Bennachti.com I wrote: Mocha Coffee Fashion and Basic Blogging Instructions.

At my River Girl site I wrote The Chinese Prospectors of Happy Camp and River Girl by Kelley Mickwee, A Song.

I wrote other places too. I started an archive of art products I like at Kit.com: Artista

Well, this is the work that I do. Writing is apparently my "passion" in life... that and my savior, Jesus Christ, who keeps me happy and provides all I need.

Two articles I wrote today

Today I wrote two articles. I know, I know.... will miracles never cease?

I just finished this one:

How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Webdesign Business - Klamath Design

While doing that I made a Pinterest business page for my Klamath Design site.

Visit Klamath Design's profile on Pinterest.

Earlier today I wrote a somewhat whimsical article on my Antediluvian Adventures blog. The blog is for the book series I wrote, with that title.

Today's blog post was ostensibly written by the main character of the the first book, Raoli. I'm using his voice on the blog to help myself get back into character, as I'll be working on these books this coming year.

It was kind of fun and I'll probably do it again.

My writing business, snow, and my son's visit

Sometimes it is better to write a little than not to write at all. I like this blog because I feel like I can write tiny posts without it harming anything.

Some of my other blogs are there for more important purposes, and so I write articles with a minimum of 500 words, and sometimes much, much longer. The pressure to write long articles is enormous because they do better in search engine results.

Today I've set before myself the task of writing 2 articles. One is a revision of an unpublished old article on what to do if your home business gets more business than you can handle. The other - I think will be on parental rights for disabled people.

And now, a prayer:

Heavenly Father, please help me with my writing. You alone know how hard this is for me. You are the only one who watches as I stumble and fall, and you know how much failure has become the norm for me. Please help me today and every day to get my work done and to write articles that are truly useful to those who need to read them. Let me do it all for You. In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

It snowed all night on Thursday/Friday this week and we're expecting a lot more snow before Christmas. In the two years since I moved to Idaho, I've never seen deep snow. I saw deeper snow when I lived in Happy Camp, in California.

It gets a lot colder here, though, and the snow freezes to the pavement, whereas in Happy Camp the roads were usually cleared right away. People here drive on frozen, icy packed snow like it was just nothing.

This is what I saw when I woke up Friday morning. This is what Northern Idaho is supposed to look like in the winter... though too often I see no snow at all. The snow here is only four inches.

When I went into my office (a bedroom in my apartment) I saw that my window was iced over. I'm trying to train myself to take photos whenever I see something awesome... because I know it won't last long. Something will change. The ice melts, or light patterns change. So I snapped a few photos right away.

Once I settled into my office chair, which is a chaise lounge with a card-table desk that goes over it, I saw this sight out that window. The roofs, covered by white, and the icy window slowly warming.

That table is for filing. The little green-topped Truvia jars are what I keep little things in - like rubber bands, buttons, paper clips, etc..

Last week I decided to sponsor a poverty-stricken child in Mexico. I wrote about it on my Prayer-Power blog: Prayer for Children Living in Poverty. I love this little girl and want so much to be a blessing to her and her family, and her town. Her name is Brisia and she's eight years old, of Mayan descent.

A few weeks ago my youngest son came by to visit. I hadn't seen him in over a year so this was a wonderful event for me. I had to walk down to the truck stop on the corner, and he came rolling in with an 18-wheeler.

We ate dinner together at the Subway in the truck stop. This is how he gets his vegetables... something only a mom would spend time thinking about, I guess.

Okay, I'm ready for another visitor. Who wants to be next?

I'd better go do some serious writing now.

Pyramids in China and Bosnia

I found two interesting articles this evening about ancient pyramids.

The Bosnian pyramids date back 29,200 years!

The Chinese pyramids seem to have been the work of aliens who crash-landed in the Himalayan mountains of southern China. They left records that are actually about the size of phonograph records. This knowledge has been suppressed and the disks are stored in China.

There's much about the history of this planet that is yet unknown.

My interest in ancient archaeology has been brewing many years... and I've written a yet-unpublished novel series set in an ancient land: Antediluvian Adventures.

Busy Web Work... Despite the Stress

I've had a busy week... lots of work, and the community activities. My work is website development. Right now I've got lots of sites to work on. I don't do rush orders but rotate my web maintenance duties... with an intention of doing updates on every site every month. To do that, I need to work on three sites each day.

Really, it isn't hard... but it is constant.

Every weekend I have community activities. On Saturdays I go to the community drum circle at the local dreamcatcher. Our dreamcatcher is thirty feet across... very impressive. We sit under it to drum.

My life has been extremely stressful this month. I've noticed that too much stress takes the joy out of living. It caught up with me at the drum circle on Saturday. For a change, I didn't want to stay. Usually I want to stay beyond the time when everyone else wants to leave. This time I wanted to leave first. I was thinking, "Gaaa... where has my enthusiasm gone?"

Today at the writer's club meeting I did better. I managed to forget my troubles and write two short stories. One was about aliens - one of my favorite flash fiction topics.

The other story was shorter - about a woman falsely accused of drug smuggling, inspired by my current obsession with watching old episodes of "Locked Up Abroad" (a National Geographic Channel show.)

This evening after the meeting I worked on three more sites. One of them was a forum. I upgraded to the most recent version of phpBB, installed a new theme, which is white (I love)... also checked stats and was thrilled with lots of search engine traffic, installed advertising, and made a new header graphic for the site. I also interfaced it with my new Prayer Power website.

Earlier today I was meditating about my work, and got an inspiration that one of my websites would become an important site, somehow. Honestly, at this time I can't see it. I can only go ahead and develop it and see what happens. I'm looking for all sorts of ways to create new income streams... I so want to close some of my other sites. I'm looking for change.

Writing Memoir, or Autobiography Contemplation

For several years I've been entranced by the idea of writing a great memoir, or autobiography. This is an up and coming popular genre and I've given it a few good starts. One year I decided to write autobiography for NaNoWriMo and came out with 50K of mush. I called it The Green Tea Chronicles but I may pull the name and give it to something else. Undecided at this time.

Later I studied a great memoir writing book, Your Life As Story, and discovered that memoirs are better if focused on only a small section of the journey of life. So I thought deeply on that and came up with the idea of writing about my time in an organized religion... which my daughter still belongs to. She didn't think this was a good idea. I'm not so sure. So the jury is still out on whether that story will ever be written.

I have a lot of stories wrapped up inside of me... but for now I'm publishing fiction. My novel, River Girl, will be published soon.

Perhaps I should continue with the autobiographical writing, and memoirs, and then never publish them. The remnants could allow someone else to write my biography someday. I have to admire people who write great biographies. It must be much more difficult to do research and write about other people's lives, not your own. In comparison, all one has to do for autobiography is open a vein and let the blood flow. It puddles up on the paper and a story is revealed.

The most important thing, of course, is to just keep writing. Talking about it doesn't help a bit. Only printed words count.

Writers Club, Local Style

I love my local writers club. We meet weekly to write together. Mainly, that's the purpose, but what we do more of is shoot the breeze. Talk. Talk. Talk. But that's okay because we're all friends and love talking to one another.

It is a small town so we are lucky to have six people who show up fairly regularly. One member missed this last meeting. We found out later it was because she was given custody of a nine-month old baby. I don't know how that will affect her participation in the future.

The rest of us got on the topic of politics. That's something we should probably avoid. We also got onto the topic of religion. Through it all we are all still friends.

Tanya brought her yarn. I brought my writers notebook. Judy brought her happy smiles, Dennis brought his cane, and Bob brought opinions, as always.

No matter what else is going on in town, I can depend on my writer friends to want to meet to write. We have a collection of topics and choose one weekly to write about. Fun... writing together is usually more productive for me than just trying to sit at my kitchen table and write.

Goals

I got my writing goal for the day done early (I wrote a short story) so I had the rest of the day free and spent it writing goals for the rest of this month and all of next year. I'm amazed how much there is to do but if I stick to my lists of goals I should be able to organize my time better and get a lot done.

At first it looked like a lot but I divided it into twelve months, keeping in mind what's really possible for me... and now the goal list doesn't look so ominous.

Never Nothing To Do

I'm staying busy with webdesign jobs and writing a collection of children's novels. I've come up with a good unique factor to put in the first novel in the collection - which is nearly written now. But I have to think of equally compelling gimmicks for the other novels or my readers may be disappointed. It sure puts my creativity to the test.

This weekend, however, I'll be doing mostly webdesign. I have so much to get done. I can't complain about not having enough work to do. My daughter asked me just this morning why I never have nothing to do. (That seems to be her problem.) If it were me and I thought I had nothing to do I'd pick up a good book to read and that would take care of that!

Aerobics, AOL and Writing

I rediscovered eBay and quickly ran out of money to spend there. I managed to get another copy of an old aerobics video tape I lost after moving, and since it came in the mail I'm been doing that every day. I still haven't gotten all the way through it but every day is a little better. Today I did the wamup, two routines, and then fast forwarded through the third to get to the cool down routine. I feel so much better, getting a little exercise these days. It takes only 1/2 hour to do as much as I did today.

Now all you anti-AOL people can just vomit or whatever it is you do - but I recently downloaded AOL 8.0 and just love it. Always before I've had connection problems with AOL and well, the service wasn't all that exciting. I don't know what it is about this version, but I love the colors, the interface, the new features, the way it works, everything. And - I got my old screen name back after 2+1/2 years and I'm so happy about that.

NaNoWriMo starts again on November 1 so I will be busy writing my fourth novel. If you want to be updated on my progress, zip over to my writing blog where you can read all about it.

By the way, my webdesign site is done, for now.

Writing, Writing, Writing

News... there's not much new going on here. Things are starting to get so peaceful here again, I've started back into my writing projects. I spent a peaceful afternoon letting the waiters at Indian Creek Café fill my coffee cup, while getting some preliminary writing done to plot my protagonist's inner turmoil and progress. Yes, it is another novel in the making - this one for the young adult age (teens).

The helicopters were making so much noise today, Keith and I decided to take a drive to see what they were up to and get fire pictures for Happy Camp News - but as it turned out, it was only a training exercise.

Classes: Weather Spotting and It's Your Business

Wednesday night I went to a Weather Spotting Class and now I'm a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service office in Medford, Oregon! About eight of us were trained and signed up for the job. It was fun and I learned a lot about summer thunder storms.

On Thurday night we had the last "It's Your Business" class ... it was a lot of fun listening to and giving presentations about what we learned and what our next steps are in forming our businesses. I've decided to start a webdesign business believe it or not. It will be Klamath Design and the website won't be up for another month but I'm already busy making websites for the Chamber of Commerce here. In exchange they gave me the software I've been needing to start this business. I'm also doing other things besides webdesign but that is what I like doing best.

Of course I'm still writing my novels and I'm also putting up an author website that will hopefully help me sell my stuff.

In other news - my daughter's birthday is tomorrow! We got her a karaoke machine and are paying for her to have a pizza party downtown with a few friends.

Happy Camp History Research for my Novel

When I woke up this morning ... first thing, I picked up a copy of the Siskiyou County Pioneer - the historical society's annual publication.

The one I own (the ONLY one I own) is about the history of bootlegging and prostitution in the county, the 1994 edition of the Pioneer. The reason I bought it was... because I have in mind to write a children's book about this area.. taking place in about 1920. I'm trying to get a good grasp on what the culture of that era was. Still I have so many questions. Were there telephones in Happy Camp then? If so, were they just on this side of the Klamath River or were they on the other side too? Were there any wild horses then? Were bootleggers out here very concerned about being caught? How many elementary schools were there in 1920 in this area, and where exactly were they?

Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
Buy at Amazon

Sure, I could make up a lot of stuff and probably most people would never know the difference, but do I want to do that or do I want the absolute facts? How deeply must a historical novelist dig in order to find factual data for a good novel? Somehow, it is much easier to write a fantasy... and that's why my first novel IS a fantasy... at the time I didn't want to stop to research because I knew I was going to write that novel in a hurry. (It took 17 days to write 50,152 words, and since it is a children's novel, that's more than enough.)

Writing Down the Bones
Freeing the Writer Within
by Natalie Goldberg
Buy at Amazon

At night now I'm reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott... I just love that book. It is strong on both humor and good writer's information. I like it better than the book I read last month - Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, though that's one of the classics for writers.

Keith stayed up all night last night. Now he looks so tired. He says he couldn't sleep... like he really tried.

(later...) Now it is noon and he is resting. He said he planned to wake up in an hour and I told him I wouldn't wake him up. We'll see what happens.

All I've done so far this morning is write this and read my email. I have too much email coming and and must delete most of it. I just scan for information except on the lists I own, and the web design lists - I try to get as much information out of those as possible.

River Girl
by Linda Jo Martin
Buy at Amazon

Update: My novel, River Girl, was published in 2011.

Classes, Webdesign, Writing, and a Truck

I have suddenly become so busy! It all started about ten days ago. My friend, Judy, mentioned she was going to a business class and was worried that there might not be enough students for the class to continue. I thought about that... and realized that I too would benefit from taking a class on small business setup and management... so I volunteered to go with her. It turned out to be a class through the college extension program. Walking into the room I met Tracey for the first time and found out we would be televised for video confrencing. I found that very shocking, but adjusted soon enough.

Tracey mentioned that she was taking an EMT class that I could still get into, though I'd missed at least one class... so I decided to sign up for that too. I don't know if I'd ever get a job with an ambulance service (okay, maybe...) but it will help a lot to have some medical knowledge in case my family or neighbors need emergency help. This class is on Tuesday nights and the other class in on Thursday nights. The EMT class has a lot of required reading. The business class has less reading but homework that is aimed at setting up a small business plan.

Besides all that, I took on two web design projects this week. I'm very excited about both - they are professional level jobs that I'll be able to use as references for other customers I may have in the future. One is for the Chamber of Commerce here in Happy Camp and the other is for the 411 "Information Day" Rally - a nationwide initiative planned by a friend in Sacramento. I have the framework for that one set up already - we're now just working on adding content. The Chamber of Commerce website will feature a page for each event and a page or link for each member business.

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Next... I'm trying to keep up with the writing prompts in A Writers Book of Days and have a group of writers I'm doing this with - via a mailing list.

I'm coming up with some fantastic writing... in my opinion... I'm improving my skills as a writer quite a bit by doing these daily writing practice sessions. That brings me to where I am today - I just wrote a seven-page entry for writing practice and like it well enough that I'll be using it as the start for a novel about CPS. A few weeks ago I set up a mailing list for writers who want to do work on CPS related works. I'm planning to do fact-based fiction and philosophy for my first CPS related writing project.

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We bought a used truck a few days ago. A very very used truck - I think it is a '71... but... it is a nice big 3/4 ton pickup... good for hauling and camping trips, pulling utility trailers.. things like that. Since we live so far from the stores, it really helps to have a big truck of our own. For example - recently our washing machine went out. We had to pay someone else to haul it to the nearest repairman. Another example - if we ever want to buy new furniture, we'll have to truck it in here from the nearest furniture store, which is either 70 or 100 miles away. Anyhow, the truck won't win a beauty contest but it is strong and should last a while. The man who sold it to us said it will probably still be running long after we're all gone. I agree with that... they don't make them like they used to!

My Letter to the Editor About CPS

This came as a surprise to me... I wrote a letter to the editor three days ago. It was in response to a letter from a victim of CPS in the Siskiyou Daily News. Right after her letter was printed, the editor printed a long op-ed from a friend of the victim-mother.

I was very moved by these letters, which explained that the girl has completed her entire reunification plan, but was not being given back two of her four children. So I decided to answer, but the muse didn't get here to help me out for a couple of weeks. I finally wrote my piece, which was way too long, and sent it in on Saturday night.

Right after I sent it in, I opened Friday's newspaper and saw that a program manager in the local CPS agency had written an op-ed explaining her side of the controversy. So... I thought it all very interesting... and I didn't expect my piece to be printed for another couple weeks, if at all. Well, here it is in the paper, on Tuesday, just three days after I wrote it! He put my website URL for Fight CPS And Win, and my phone number at the bottom. I've received a few calls...

New Multi-Function HP Printer Ordered

We ordered a printer! I'm so excited about it. First we ordered a Canon multi-function printer/scanner/fax/copier... but AOL told me they had to cancel the order because the manufacturer would not be able to deliver more of them... so I ordered the Hewlett-Packard multi-function printer/scanner/fax/copier instead!

I told Keith today that with this machine I could open another office support business. I probably wouldn't make enough here in Happy Camp to earn all we need to live on, but it would help. I used to have a business like that in Tulare, when Cimmie was a baby, and found several good repeat customers to keep me busy. I'm a paralegal, typist, editor, website designer... etc.. etc.. and the money I make from my writing will help too.

Speaking of writing, I'm currently 44,000 words into my second novel... that's more than half way through the first draft! Today I wrote the scene that made my protagonist into a criminal... it was quite heart-wrenching for me to do that to her. Now she's afraid, and doesn't know what to do next. Crime never pays.