a view of what i do, know, and think

Monthly archives for January, 2011

What I Signed Up For



I do really well with deadlines other people set for me, competitions, and challenges. I don’t do so well trying to figure out what I want to get done and when I want to get it done. I have changed so much of that over the last few months by adding backlinking, by adding a couple of new websites, by joining a team project, and by trying to make sure that I get so much done over the next year that I will dramatically change the face of my income.

All these goals, hopes, dreams, and plans aren’t taking me very far cause I have been struggling to get my words onto paper. It isn’t that I don’t know what to write or where to write it. Instead it is just a matter of sitting down and doing it. For me that has been really hard lately for two major reasons (three if you count my children as two instead of one). However, I need to push past this so that I make a decent amount of money come the end of the month.

So, when I saw the 90 day challenge on The Keyword Academy earlier today I wanted it. I didn’t know how it worked or what it would be like, but I wanted in. I may have bitten off more than I have ever bitten off before but I really hope to make a huge difference in my online income and I want to use this time to get started on that in a major way.

The TKA 90 Day Challenge

The TKA runs this 90 day challenge for its members to challenge them to write more. This particular challenge they are calling The Cold War and it started January 15th and runs until April 15th (yep, I am starting today and a bit behind!).

  • You write as much as you can. It can be for any aspect of your online business, but it has to be for your business and somehow related. Backlinking counts and you can write articles for any site.
  • You publish everything you write and keep track of your word count with their cool WordTracker (a great tool for members).
  • You join a team that is working toward a specific number. The team is there for support. There are teams from 100,000 words on up to 500,000 (though you can aim for higher goals if you wish). You don’t have to join a team, but I would imagine that it is helpful to have others cheering for you.
  • For every 10,000 words you write over 100,000 you get an entry into a drawing (up to 30 entries). There are several great prizes though the two that really appeal to me are the TKA yearly memberships (about a $400 value) and $1000 cash prize).

I joined the team for the 500,000 goal. I am already behind and there are only 77 days. I did get to add up my totals for the past 7 days. So, I have 16,944 words not including what I get done today. I am hoping that it is all a piece of cake, but it might be harder to write 6,000 words a day than I hope it is.

Other Goals.

I have a few other writing goals I want to get done in that time period as well. I want to win the contest next month on InfoBarrel. I don’t know how easy that will be. It usually takes at least 60,000 words worth of articles, but is likely to take more than that. They were also talking about a 50 articles in 48 hour challenge that I want in on (assuming I can find a place for my 4 year old and 20 month old while I am working away the two days). I really want to kick butt on IB next month as well as keep up with everything else. If I write more than 6,000 words a day I should be able to do it.

Well…that’s it for now. I am off to do a little of this and a little of that.

What about you? What types of online goals are you setting? What are you doing to get where you want to be?

Web Writer    , ,

The Fear of Failure



Some people have great ideas and step up with them. They turn the world into their paradise. Then there are those who feel they just don’t have any good ideas and they walk around hoping that something hits them over the head. Finally, there are people like me. At least I hope there are others out there like me. They are those that feel they have a million and one great ideas, but when it comes putting those into action it is a lot harder.

In fact, it is fear that holds me back. I am not afraid of very many things, but I am deathly afraid of failure. Which I know is ridiculous. After all, I will fail if I never try. But it is trying and failing that really scares the crap out of me. I know that I need to try or I will never get anywhere, but so often I find myself frozen like a deer in the headlights. I struggle to push forward and to make the world my paradise.

The fear of failure is one that makes things really hard for me. In the five years I have been working toward finding a way to work from home I have had a lot of failure. I have tried a lot of things that just haven’t worked out. However, I still struggle with working hard knowing that there could be a bit of failure in the future. In the end, I have to get over it so that I can have more.

What is your biggest fear? Do you fear failure or something else?

Web Writer

Electric Blue Lobsters



While new to this “write whatever you want and include stuff from your daily life” idea, I am pretty excited to share with you our newest purchase. For the most part we do an okay job of sticking with our budget and avoiding extras. Our biggest issue is our fish tanks. We love new fish tanks, new fish, new snails, and other underwater creatures. Yesterday included!

What Harm Could It Do?

We were in the neighborhood of our favorite pet store. It’s about 30 minutes from here, so we don’t go often. We were just going to stop in and find out what they had there. Then we saw them and it was love at first sight.

Electric Blue CrayfishElectric Blue Lobsters

They had electric blue lobsters. We had eyed these before online and once at The Pet Store (that’s its name) which is a pretty nasty pet store. However, these were beautiful blue and only $9 each! We were so excited. So, we bought them and brought them home. (By the way we got a 33% discount). All in all, it was a great deal, but finding a home for them in our tanks wasn’t as easy as we thought.

New 29 Gallon Tank

No place to put the new electric blue lobsters, to the store we go. We have had a double 29 gallon stand for some time now and haven’t put a 2nd tank on it. So we went and got a new 29 gallon tank for it. However, the one from Walmart was broken. The whole affair left me home with the kids (it was past their bed time) while hubby went and returned the broken tank (the only one Walmart had) and headed on over to PetSmart for a new tank.

Blue CrayfishWhile He Was Gone

While he was gone I learned to sex them hoping to breed them. Sadly they are both females and we still need a male before we can have little electric blue lobsters. I love this hobby though.

Making Money From Your Hobbies

I am in love with the idea of having hobbies that I enjoy that can make us a little bit of money. I feel that way with Enlivened Heart Jewelry (though I am still a ways away from making money from it) and the fish is the same thing. We want to start a blog and start selling some of the stuff we have breeding and growing out there in April.

For Those Who Don’t Know…

For those of you who are wondering why we would want lobsters in our fish tank…They are actually crayfish (if that makes it any better). These cute little blue “lobsters” or crayfish are actually native to Flordia. However, they have been bred to bring out the blue and the other color forms (red and brown) aren’t seen in the aquarium industry often. They are interesting to watch and add a new element to the tank. Of course, the tank they are in now is just them (for now at least).

Well…that was our Wednesday adventure and something that will keep us busy for awhile.

What Is The Thing You Keep Spending Your Money On? Almost everyone has that one thing that they spend their money on even when they shouldn’t. What’s your one thing?

Web Writer    ,

The Problem That Lead To a Challenge



I started aidenofthetower with two things in mind. The first was a hub of sorts that allowed you to find out where I was and what I was doing. Since I write for so many different sites and am working on building up several blogs it only seems right to have somewhere where I talk about it all and share it all. The second thing I planned on doing was telling you why I did those things, how you could do them, and how you could make money from them. However, once I joined the 5Currencies team and started sharing how to make money online there it didn’t seem right to put those same types of articles here.

This lead to a problem. Here you have a blog, one you really want to maintain so that you can grow your hub into something great. However, you have no content to put there. I looked into a few options, but really couldn’t find one that I wanted to jump into. I could do a blog that shared information on growing as a person, but 5Currencies will have information like that. I could touch on organization, relaxation, and all that. However, 5Currencies will eventually cover many of those topics as well.

At the end of all the brainstorming I came back to the only thing that I could think of that would work. A personal blog. One of those grab bag, write whatever you want blogs. On one hand, it fit. On the other hand, it just didn’t feel like me. That would require personality to shine through and I forgot mine in my other pants. Maybe the post A Wild Crazy, Gotta Read Your Blog will help you to understand my personality dilemma.

My husband and I talked it over as I pussy footed around the idea and he challenged me. He said something along the lines of, “That’s great, it will make you grow!” And so I am here. I will be blogging one of those grab bag, whatever I feel like blogs that I can hopefully put a lot of personality into. Hopefully I will be growing because right now it takes a lot to try and make this blog sound sarcastic (like I am) or fun and exciting to read.

Web Writer    ,

A Wild Crazy, Gotta Read Your Blog



Some people have it and some people don’t. So far I just can’t seem to make it in the wild crazy, gotta read your blog category. I was thinking lately about why I struggle to write in a way that my personality will work its way into everything that write or anything that I write for that matter. Why can’t I produce that wild crazy, gotta read your blog, blog?

High School

I look back to high school. It wasn’t so much that I was an invisible force there. Almost everyone knew me or at least knew of me. I was quiet and usually sat in the corner reading a book. I wasn’t very social and only a few people even knew that I had a personality. All in all, I was and that was it. It wasn’t really that I didn’t have a personality. It was just that I only let the hat out of the box after I got to know the people I was around. Not only was I shy, I had a hard time letting loose.

College

In college I really became invisible. I sorta just blended in with the wood work and didn’t really try for anything more than that. I still wasn’t boring to myself and those that knew, but to everyone else I was either dull and boring or I was invisible.

So, the truth is that while I have personality, it is buried under my layers of boring exterior. With that, I find it hard to put down on paper (or on the screen) what is really inside. It is hard to let go, even online. I can write technical articles and posts all day long and fill them full of great information. However, personal ones are a lot harder to do and I always struggle to get them out.

Sometimes the articles seem to pour through my head. They are exciting, funny, and entertaining. Then when I sit down to write them my head goes blank and out pours some dribble of some sort. I have said all of this to pretty much come to a very simple and dull conclusion. “I will try harder”. I will do my best to make this blog and my posts more interesting and to let my personality out of the box.

What’s your personality like? Tell me…what are you like? How do you show your personality to others?

Uncategorized

Passion



Buy at Art.com

Okay, so I have read a lot of blogs, both starting out and more established on the topic of being a success online. One thing that all of them do a better job at than I feel that I have done this far is excite passion. I know I need more passion and flair in this blog, but I haven’t really figured out how to do that. I would love your feed back if you are here.

What can I do to excite you and to get you to come back?

It’s as simple as that. I would love to get some advice from you!

Uncategorized

Extra Money



First I want to apologize to those of you who have been visiting and reading the posts that have been rather dry lately. I have been really tired and feel that it has really impacted my writing. From now on, I will try to do a whole lot better by you!

So…I did my post on how much money I made and then I had a discussion with my husband. He pointed out that some of my numbers didn’t add up. In fact, there was a fair amount of extra money that I still don’t know where it came from. Here’s the scoop.

When I look at the channels responsible for my Google AdSense earnings I find out that I have made $89.64. This was rather sad because I was looking forward to having a payout every month from now on. However, the numbers seemed to say that wasn’t happening this month.

I went back and checked it all out and I really made $103.13. However, to this moment in time I have no idea where the $13.49 came from. It is true that I am definitely not going to complain. But at the same time it feels a little frustrating because I am missing something and really don’t know where or what it is. For now…I am just going to be glad that I made the $100 payout at Google!

Earnings    ,

The Year



January has people everywhere taking a look at the year past and the year in front of them and deciding what they will be doing to change their life. Often many of these goals or resolutions end up laying dying by the way side about two months in, but for those that take their goals and their hopes and dreams and work them all year long good things come. I am very determined that good things will come to me this year.

It Won’t Be Easy.

I am so tired of everyone looking at the Internet as a way to make easy or fast money. There really aren’t any such things. In fact, earning money on the Internet is really hard and takes a lot of work. It is true that once the time, effort, and work have been put into it that you can continue to grow your empire with less work. You will be able to make money while you are sleeping, while you are on vacation, and throughout the day. Nothing is better than earning continually for the work that you put in a single time.

The Projects In Motion.

There are several projects that are already in motion. I want to make sure that I am working hard on making these the projects I focus on first.

  • This blog. I started this blog only a few months ago. It’s main purpose is to connect people interested in more from me to more by me. However, I also want to grow this into a resource for real people looking for answers.
  • 5Currencies. This site is my most recent project, though it includes help from 7 others. The 5Currencies is a site that is to help others find real wealth, both that of the financial kind and the life kind because now is that time to live life to its fullest.
  • Enlivened Heart Jewelry. While being the woman of 1,000 things can be hard at times, there are a great number of reasons to diversify and to work toward many different successes. I love making beautiful jewelry and Enlivened Heart Jewelry gives me the outlet to do that. I just opened my store, but have lots of plans for the future of my site and store.
  • The Phat Diaries. This is a blog I have had great intentions for the last couple of years. The good news is that these intentions can still bring fruit. I am working hard to get this blog running smoothly, providing great information, and offering something to others.
  • The Gemstone Story. This is my “secret” project. It offers some great information, but because not everyone understands or agrees with the information provided here I don’t talk about it much. However, I think that the blog has some great potential.

Revenue Sharing.

I have also started working on providing articles on several revenue sharing sites. In 2011 I would like to write 1000 new articles for InfoBarrel and at least 100 new articles for HubPages. This should greatly increase my passive income from these sources.

Spreading Out.

There are two projects I would like to get done this year in addition to the blogs and the revenue sharing sites. I would like to write my first eBook and I would like to make my first niche website so that I can start making money from these other forms of residual earnings avenues. These are reserved for the second half of the year.

Another thing I would like to do to make money from my hobbies is to sell fish, shrimp, and snails that we breed on the Internet. I am hoping to sell an order of fish, shrimp, or snails each week starting in April. This isn’t something I am looking at making a ton of money with, but for this first year I would like to make $300 for the year 2011 from the creatures I breed.

The Plan.

My plan is to get it set up for the blogs to update automatically without much assistance from me. This won’t work 100% because I will still need time sensitive posts to put up, but I should be able to get a lot of the work done for providing other information.

I am also looking to do the 1000 InfoBarrel articles in the first 6 to 8 months so that I can save the rest of the year for putting together my first eBook for sale and also for putting together the first niche site I have done.

Additionally.

I would also like to put together several free resources for my readers and grow my sites. I need to do a lot of backlinking for my articles to increase the traffic and therefore earnings. There is definitely a lot of things to do!

Lets Talk Numbers.

I am not very good at naming numbers. For the past three years I have floated by on naming numbers I know I can meet such as how many articles or blog posts to write. However, this has made it hard to focus in. I want to make sure that I am making at least $1500 a month by December 2011. I would also like to set numbers for traffic, subscribers, and other things too, but need to evaluate those goals a little more closely before I define them.

What About You?

It is easy for me to talk about myself and what I long to do. However, I am just one small person in a huge online network. What are your goals and hopes for 2011?

Goals    , ,

5Currencies



A lot of my plans have changed dramatically the last month. This is a really good thing because I am pretty excited about the project that I have added to my to do list. Without further ado or chit chat about all that I do…

5Currencies

I am one member of a great team that is putting together fantastic information about gaining wealth. This goes far beyond financial riches and into things of the heart and soul. To be truly happy in this world and to have all the wealth you will need money, but also you will need to use your time wisely, grow your reputation, improve your connections, increase your knowledge, and live life to its fullest.

Growing By Leaps and Bounds.

With 8 other team members it is really easy for the site to grow by leaps and bounds and it really has. I am amazed at all the work that has been done since a few days before Christmas. However, this team is dedicated to bringing you the best information and becoming one of the most complete sources for information. We want you, who ever you are, to be successful and to live life as it is meant to be lived.

We would love to have you stop in and check us out. We are working hard to provide you as much information as we can as fast as we can. So, for the trip of a life time…5Currencies.

5Currencies    ,

aidenofthetower?



Five years ago my husband and I started talking about making real money online. We had dabbled in eBay and various thoughts, but we hadn’t come up with any plans that were actually working on making us money. It was then that we started talking about writing.

aidenofthetower was born.

My husband and I came up with the idea to write fantasy fiction together. He was falonofthetower and with thought and a few stories in my head I became aidenofthetower. I had a lot of hopes, but not a lot of hard core plans that were actually put into place. None the less aidenofthetower was born.

Growing.

Our site and plans didn’t take off. This idea required a lot of work from my husband who continued to work a full time job with over time and didn’t have time to pour into his writing. While the original plans faded away I found Helium and started writing. I choose aidenofthetower as my screen name and with it I took the name everywhere I went.

I am aidenofthetower.

I don’t hide my identity anymore. Somewhere along the lines I realized I didn’t really feel the need to. I shared with others that I was Danelle Karth, but I still remain aidenofthetower. It can be complicated and simple at the same time.

What to call me.

With so many things going on people find it hard to figure out what to call me. That’s not a problem. Call me what you would like. In real life I have been called Danelle, Danielle, Dani, and Dan (my dad always called me Dan). While spelled odd it is pronounced the same as Danielle (dan-yell). Online I have been called aidenofthetower, aiden, aott, and even AT. Really it doesn’t matter. I enjoy being me all over and after five years I do feel that aidenofthetower is me.

You can do the same thing in your online persona. Whatever or whoever you want to be can be you. Just make sure that when you are choosing a screen name you are choosing something that you really are okay with being called and identified as. If you don’t you may very well find that you aren’t real happy with your choice.

Who are you?

With all of this in mind. Who are you? Share with us either who you are online or in real life or both. Are they one in the same?

Who Are You?    , , , ,
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