12.31.06
The Writing Expert
The Expert
I had just logged online and an alert popped up that I had an important private message. These messages tend to always get my immediate attention when I receive them right away. I don’t want to be interrupted while I am working later. So I opened my messenger service to read it.
I had been a member of a writer’s group for quite some time and the message was from one of the members of that group. He had gotten my name after I answered a post of his asking for help with his work, earlier that day. Following a link that he found in that reply he was directed to my business Website where he found several examples of my work.
A freelance writer’s Website is a necessary evil. It is necessary to show your prospective clients your work. It is evil because when a prospective client stumbles upon the site they often do not understand the form of the writing or the reason behind it. This can, at times cost you a client. Many freelance writers‘, I among them, don’t actually consider this problem until someone like my Internet colleague comes along.
This man, in his genuine concern for my success had taken two of the examples that he found on my site and rewritten them. While what he had done was, with one exception, grammatically and structurally correct, his revisions were written in his voice, not mine. The structure of it no longer suited to my purposes.
After reading his efforts, giving his suggestions careful consideration, and pointing out to him the one exception, which was redundancy, I tried to gently explain the form of my work. After rewriting the first piece he restructured the form, turning the sixteen paragraphs of Website content into six long paragraphs.
My explanation of the work was met with this response, as copied from my history files. Colleague: “Even in web content you need to keep things flowing,”
Janet: “In this case you don’t, not in the normal sense of the word anyway. My work flows with the rest of the content but each paragraph still, in its own way, carries a new idea or thought”
Colleague: “even in web content you need to keep things moving and flowing eveningly”
Janet: “Perhaps in the blogs but most of my stuff goes into a marketing format. This one is already sold to a mold resolution marketer and the EPA.
Colleague: “even in marketing format its ok”
Janet: “Now that’s where I am the expert, in marketing web content and it isn’t okay, I guarantee you that. I have researched it with identical sites. The only difference was the layout of the paragraphs. The site with the longer form did only 27% of the business that the site with the shorter paragraphs did.”
Colleague: “longer form doesn’t translate to longer paragraphs even in marketing formats you have to maintain a readablity of your story if you fail to do that the customer will wonder if they misread something and will have to re-read it. Some will forget about it and move on. complexity in marketing is something that will ruin a business as much as poor management. I had lots of business classes in colleges LOL”
Janet: “Well I am self-educated; I have never been to any school of any kind.”
It was at this juncture that I gave up. I felt insulted and stupid. I logged off the Internet and instead of working that night as I normally do I went to bed. The next morning I had every intention of rewriting everything that was on my Website. “After all” I thought, “who am I to judge. This man has a college education and must know something I don’t.”
My husband was on the telephone when I got up. We have a dial-up Internet connection so I would have to wait. Looking at my files the whole conversation and the way I felt about it haunted me. I knew that something about all this just wasn’t right. I had actually deleted two files when John got off the telephone and I connected to the Internet. I had just finished an eBook a few days before and was about to delete it. As I opened my browser I realized that I was getting angry.
Yes this man is educated and I am not. The fact is that most of the work I do is rewriting the content of websites that were originally written by writers with a college education in marketing. Yet the sites were creating no income, even the sites that had a large hit average on the search engines were not making profits.
Who am I to think that I know more than someone with an extensive marketing degree? I’ll tell you who I am. I am the representative of the non-college educated CONSUMER! That’s who I am. It dawned on me that this person was just like the media today. Always trying to ram down our throats their idea of what WE need and what WE want. I am sick of it.
Let me set a few of you people straight. I am talking to those of you that market but don’t buy and those of you in the media that writes but don’t read. None of you know how to LISTEN! If you did your websites and your magazines and newspapers would sell themselves better.
Marketers, when you post that Website that has paragraphs of nine and ten lines we don’t usually read more than one line or sentence of each after the first paragraph. By the time we have read the first line of seven or eight paragraphs we run to the end to find out how much you are charging for this thing we don’t know if we want or not. Then when we see that you are asking $19.95 or $29.95 we click on that little x that is located on the right corner of our browser or tab. Not only do we have no idea what exactly you were selling but also we don’t care.
Many of these sites begin by you telling us how poor and despondent you were and then you learned the secret. Now you are a millionaire. Hoopla! (Yes dear colleague, it is a word.) Our well wishes to you all but when you have 3-6, 000 words on one page for us to read, even when half of them are testimonials, we simply do not read it! It is doing you no good! Ask your web content writer to read the thing to you aloud. Bet he/she won’t do it. It’s boring!
Media: We don’t give a flying @@@@ in @@@@ who President Clinton exposed himself to, or who Angelina Joilee is living with or that Rosy O’Donnell is gay. Jane Fonda can protest anything she wants. Many of us remember that John Carey was one of the first people to scream ‘Baby Killer’ to the returning Vietnam veterans even though you did not mention it during the campaign. (Why do you think he didn’t win.)?
The exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast was only a big deal because you made it one and we all know that anyone that allows their child to live with or stay with her brother is out for the money.
The majority of us, you know, those of us in the REAL world, don’t care what color you are if we are mad at you. Hillary Clinton will never be president because most of us think that if a person cannot demand and acquire the respect and decency of their spouse they are ill suited to run a country.
Tony the Tiger is cute and funny but if we don’t like corn flakes we don’t think they are Greaaat! The beautiful girl that gets out of the minivan half dressed is not the reason this vehicle is widely popular with mothers of school age children and Nike is a well made product, that’s the reason we spend that kind of money and let our children wear them.
Get a grip people!
12.29.06
My Nightmare
A Nightmare
By: Janet M. Atwell
It was the early a.m. on a Saturday morning in October of 2006 and I had been asleep for about five and a half hours when I woke suddenly. As I jumped out of bed my husband, John asked what was wrong and I answered that I was going to be sick. He got up to follow and see if he could help me. As he entered the hall he saw me hit my knees in front of the bathtub. He said that he felt panic all of a sudden and started to run but the door was closing and he did not make it in time. I had apparently kicked the vanity under the sink as I fell over and the door was blocked by it. I had a seizure.
I am fifty years old and have never had a seizure in my life. This one lasted more than forty minutes and John reports to me that he had only about eight inches of opening to reach in and help me during the four occasions that I stopped breathing. He was finally able to grab my arm and pull me around enough that I was no longer against the vanity. He got the door free and taking our hand held shower attachment he began to soak me with cold water.
I do not remember the hallway, let alone the bathroom. What I do remember is being in a bear hug and opening my eyes to see the terror on John’s face. I remember asking him what was wrong as I began to slide out of his arms. When I finally came out of it I was on the couch in the living room. I was a mess. I had wet myself and vomited all over everything. John tells me that during the seizure itself I just got stiff as marble, gritted my teeth and made this awful noise. “But the vomiting was the most violent thing I have ever seen” he stated.
I had several seizures after that. None of them lasted very long, some only a minute. I was weak all the time though. I just couldn’t get over it. We had no insurance and it was several weeks before we were able to find the means of obtaining medical care. The doctor was at a loss. Several tests were run. The only thing they found was that I was suffering from pneumonia.
The last Monday of December that year my kitten had a seizure. She was sound asleep when it started. I lasted only a minute or two. It was then that I remembered Cloe and Tigger. Cloe was a cat that I had purchased for my daughter some twenty-two years earlier. She was a Russian Tortoise. My youngest granddaughter was allergic to her and she was brought to my home to live.
Cloe had been here for about three months when she had a heart attack. She had always been well cared for but at her age I was amazed that she survived it. A month went by and she seemed to be doing fine.
One morning I woke up to an odd tapping noise. I found Cloe in the kitchen having a horribly violent seizure. She had them throughout the day. She seized more than she didn’t and we had her put to sleep that evening.
Not long before her heart attack a truck drove by our farmhouse at about forty miles an hour. They threw a kitten out the window. I did not think I would get the poor thing out from under my house where he had run to hide from my dogs. Actually, I worked at it most of the day and John got him out when he got home. When Tigger was about a year old we woke up in the night to find him running in circles on our bed.
This circling occurred every few nights for several weeks. The veterinarian gave us medicine for the odd seizures but they did not stop them. Like Cloe he began to seize one day and seized for hours with only a few minutes break here and there.
Three cats developing this illness, none of them related is just too much of a coincidence.
History of Illness
I have had asthma for as long as I can remember. I rarely had an attack however. I could work in the heat for hours on end, which I did almost daily, and never have an attack. They seemed to come on more often at dusk on a humid day. It was during the early fall of 2002 that I started having regular and severe asthma attacks.
By the end of October that year I had a constant sinus infection and was more often than not too weak to do much of anything. I wanted to sleep all the time. January of 2007 came and I rarely walked outside the house. I am a minister and had to call the administration offices to find a replacement. When my parishioners learned that I was not going to be with them anymore they sent two ladies as representatives to find out exactly why I was leaving them. I had been to the doctor when I first became ill and was prescribed an inhaler and daily asthma control medication. The inhaler helped during an attack but that was all. When the ladies saw the condition I was in they asked if they could take me back to the doctor. I responded, “I don’t feel good enough to go to the doctor.” Then they demanded that I go. With the church checkbook in hand, the ladies hauled me off.
For months, I went to some doctor every week. None of them could figure out what was wrong with me. They would send me to another specialist for more tests.
I received a telephone call from the first doctor I had seen one day, about three months after my first visit to her. She asked me if there had been any improvement with the change of season. In my weakened state I did nothing more than answer a question. I made no further comments. This doctor has attended my services in the past and knew this to not be normal. Twenty minutes after closing her office that evening she was at my door.
When she entered my home she stopped just inside the door and stood there for a minute. Then she summoned my husband and stepped back out. When John got outside with her she said, “I just found out what is wrong with Janet. I am highly sensitive to mold. I thought I smelled it when I walked in, standing there for a moment I was sure. I needed to sneeze. We have to get her out of there.”
I went to the hospital then for just over a week. When John picked me up he did not take me home. I stayed at my mother in laws. Every stick of our furniture had been cleaned, the walls washed, the curtains disposed of and the ceilings and floors were cleaned and treated while I was hospitalized. I stayed with John’s mother overnight while they finished up.
When I was allowed to come home I smelled the cleaning supplies and the mold as soon as I walked in. The mold was still there. My son came over that day and told John that he had read something online about carpet being the worst thing a person could have in their home because it was host to parasites, mold and other allergens.
We live in John’s grandparents old home. It is more than a hundred years old. What they found when they pulled our carpet up shocked us all. There were two layers of carpeting over linoleum, which was over another layer of carpet and padding. Under that were two layers of linoleum. Then there was tile over a layer of tarpaper.
The place where I sat at the dining room table was in front of a set of windows. When all those layers were pulled up my men had exposed a hole in the flooring that was big enough to set the captains chair I used into. Each layer of floor covering that they pulled up had a layer of black mold between them. The house was literally black when they were finished from the flying spores. My husband, son and daughter-in-law began the cleaning process again. I improved rapidly after all this work was done. But I never fully recovered.
Oddly, and unfortunately for me, I had forgotten all that until the third cat had her fist seizure. Even then I did not remember it. I am the member of a writers’ forum, there is another member named Amanda who is a pet expert. Remember this, (doctors say the seizures are what has affected my memory) I logged into the forum and sent her a private message explaining my cats seizures and mine to her. She answered with mold or lead paint. That’s when I remembered. I went to the doctor the next day. She had me breath into a machine that counted mold spores, among other things in ratio to the air that I exhaled. The black mold count was off the charts.
Would you like to hear a little of what Amanda has to say. She is a great writer. Here are her links.
Pets are my passion!
http://funpuppytraining.blogspot.com
http://www.squidoo.com/petcareplr/
SYMPTOMS OF MOLD POISONING
There are hundreds of thousands of mold types. Approximately 40 known variations of mold are common to indoor environments, and they cause a myriad of health risks, such as: allergy attacks, arthritic aching, asthma, bloody nose, bronchitis, coughing, chronic head-aches, depression, dizziness, fatigue, hearing, loss of memory, nausea, pneumonia, restlessness, runny nose, sight, sinus congestion, skin itch, skin rashes, sneezing, trouble breathing, watery eyes, stiffness, balance or equilibrium loss.
The more severe common symptoms of black mold poisoning is your lungs will begin to bleed. This will happen after you have been exposed to black mold for quite some time and if your system cannot fight it off anymore. The black mold will attach itself to your lungs and begin causing them to be inflamed and become irritated. Over time the mold will cause bleeding and sever damage if not cared for properly by a doctor.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: I have learned that each of these symptoms as well as seizures and permanent neurological damage can also result in cases of lead poisoning.)
Do you or another member of your household have unexplained or recurring health problems? Do you suspect that mold may be in your home?
Would you like to receive an informative email that will tell what to do about this situation? I will not sell or give your name or contact information to anyone and there will be no fee required for this infomation. Send me an email: inspirationalwordarts@hotmail.com In the subject box type the word MOLD.
Thank you for reading my work.
Did you know that you learned the secret to a long lasting and loving relationship in school? Its true.
It wasn’t sex education, health, social sciences or even study hall. Would you like to know what class it was? Read my eBook, Split Families for the answer. Send me an email with the words, “I want to Know.” in the subject box.
Another Newspaper Article – Campaigning
They’re Campaigning Again Already?
Here we go again. You can’t listen to the radio, watch television or even have an adult conversation in a restaurant these days without hearing about the awful mistakes that those mere mortals have made in the past.
How many of you monitor the things that your children watch on television. Yeah, I know, the average parent doesn’t even consider it until little junior has a nightmare or little missy comes out of her room barely dressed. But for those of us that do, (I did) we think nothing of allowing these impressionable minds to absorb the childish statements made by politicians.
I for one am sick of it. I couldn’t care less if President Clinton exposes himself as long as he hasn’t exposed his desires to my daughters. I don’t care who Claire McCaskle married. And I don’t listen to what is said in these smear campaigns.
Have you listened to the one that has a reporter asking the governor if he gave a job to a constituents’ wife after receiving a donation? I have. He repeats himself in an obvious and poorly executed tape-editing job. But what is he really saying? He says, “You’re asking me if I gave what to an eight year old?” He appears to be confused. Can you blame him? He was actually asked, during an interview while he campaigned for office the first time, if he had put an eight-year-old boy on the payroll of the public office he held at the time. Boy, they had to dig for that one.
The eight year old was named after his father. The job had actually been given to the senior and not the junior. It also came to light that the man was well qualified for the janitorial job that he was hired for. Now, let me ask you folks, do you honestly believe that the governor had anything to do with the hiring of janitorial or gardening personnel? I didn’t think so.
Visit our new Website or give me a call if you would like to let the politicians know that we are tired of being treated like ignorant fools. That’s exactly what they are doing when they spoon us this crap!
Articles from a monthly community newspaper.
This article was in the November 1, 2006 issue of a local monthly newspaper I write. The paper is not quite a year old. I started it with 150 copies, free to the public, supported by local advertisement. In August I printed 300 copies of the 18 page paper and two days later had to print another 100 copies. I mailed 27 of those copies to past residents and 43 were sent via email. The community it is produced for has a population of 437.
It is also notable that after the first issue was released the newspaper has been operating well under the budget offered by the advertising. As it is sponsored by a non-profit organization it has actually made money that is used to winterize the homes of the elderly and pay utility bills for those that find themselves on hard times. I am quite proud of it.
Turkey Dinner
We just have to be different. Most periodicals that you will encounter this month will have loads of holiday recipes, decorating ideas, gift ideas and heartwarming stories that recall holidays past. Not us.
The unique thing about the ‘Neelyville Star’ is that we strive to bring community awareness to our readers. That’s fine in and of itself, however, we feel that we need to keep you informed in other areas as well.
I have done a bit of research and discovered that some enterprising group has also done some research. In a comparison of hospital records throughout the United States, this group learned that there is an average 12% increase in the occurrences of death due to natural causes on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the days after the two holidays that figure rises to between 14 – 18%.
David Phillips, a University of California, San Diego sociologist, who was the lead researcher in this study states, “The most plausible explanation we’ve found so far is that people seem to be postponing medical care until after the holidays,” Phillips said. “Also, when people travel during the holidays,” he said, “they are less able to find medical care because they are in strange territory.”
Dr. Phillips also stated that these statistics increase by 5% with each passing decade. As the study was made in 1999 that would place the percentage for this year at around 17-21% for the days following this 2006 holiday season.
There is good news. It seems that these statistics did not apply to the years of 1973 and 1981. Why? Inflated fuel prices kept folks at home.
The high price of fuel may actually save Uncle Bubba’s (or your own) life this year. If however you do happen to travel to Grandma’s this holiday season, keep in mind that you don’t want to bother the family with a visit by the ambulance crew.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember to listen to your body. It doesn’t care that you have looked forward to this gathering of family for a long time. When it hurts it hurts. When it is sick it is sick
Article Example
Cheating the Executioner
Texas has the largest population of prisoners on death row than any other death sentence state. It may be assumed that the taxpayers of Texas are in some ways given a break by the short life span expected of these prisoners. They are not expected to support these offenders for decades on end. The truth is that these prisoners are maintained also with moneys collected from the taxes of Neelyville, Mo workers. This collection process is called the Federal Tax obligation of the public. No matter where the funds come from Texas is very protective of their right to judge and discipline its citizens as they see fit. They are protective to the point of being a bit ridiculous.
In 1995, Mr. Jeff Wetterman, 27, was working at his family owned gas station and convenience store near Waco, Texas. An amount of gasoline, totaling $24 was dispensed into a stolen vehicle. The occupants of that vehicle were David Vest and Michael Dewayne Johnson, who were 18. The pair gunned down Mr. Wetterman as they fled the business.
As is often the case each accused the other of the actual murder of Wetterman. Vest was convicted after accepting a plea bargain for testifying against his friend and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Johnson received the death sentence.
Eleven years later, after several appeals, just 15 hours before his date with the executioner, Johnson committed suicide. He had acquired a blade. Presumably, he had somehow gotten away with not returning a disposable razor he was issued. The cells of death row prisoners are searched every 72 hours. Johnson’s cell had been searched just the day before his suicide. Officials state that they are not really sure where the weapon came from.
Thirty-six hours before a prisoner is scheduled for lethal injection, prison staff is required to make routine checks on the prisoner every 15 minutes. Johnson is reported to have talked with the officer on duty and expressed his desire for breakfast. He did not seem any different from any other day over the last 11 years. His lawyer, Greg White, stated, “I’ve never seen him not in good spirits,” White said. “I’m not trained in those things, but just from a common person’s standpoint, we just never had conversation that he was near the end and `I’m doomed’ and any of that kind of stuff.”
Johnson would have been the 22nd Texas inmate executed this year. The state has 390 people on death row at this time. The national news wire service article gives no further information on this incident. Feeling there was something more to the story, I contacted a local Texas news agency. Through instant messaging over the Internet I learned that there is a thorough investigation in place to discover how Johnson accomplished his suicide. Prison official have indicated that any and all measures will be taken to prevent this type of behavior from reoccurring. Without having said it, I get the impression that the reporter, Laura Millous, is telling me that the warden is out for blood and wants to place blame on the rolling, detached head of one of our federal employees for allowing this travesty.
In 2002 a prisoner attempted suicide several days before his scheduled execution. Guards, discovering the attempt, had the prisoner moved to the hospital ward where thousands of dollars in medical treatment was used to revive and make the prisoner well. He was executed 32 days after his release from the hospital. Does this make any sense at all to any of you? Who really cares if execution officers’ number 9, 5 and 8, with the assistance of medical personnel or Michael Dewayne Johnson is the actual executioner? True, Johnson maintained his innocence, (like most convicted by our judicial system), throughout his incarceration. But the fact remains that this man was going to be put to death on the very same day that he ended his life without the assistance of prison employees. No matter the means of delivery, death was imminent. Our government institutions have a truly unique set of excuses to use to waste our money with no regard for any form of common sense.
The bigger question is why do we allow it? The typical answer is; “What can we do? It‘s out of our hands.”
The facts that this article have been based on came from Rueter’s News Service. An international news wire.
Biographies
Do you need a promotional document to sell yourself, a business venture or both and don’t know where to begin?
I am your answer to this question. Send me an email with a basic idea of what you are in need of.
It is a relatively painless process. Here are the steps we will take working on your project needs.
We will set up a time to communicate in person, using any instant messenger of your choice or a specific time for a telephone conversation can be arraigned. (I can only get a dial-up internet connection here in the country.)
After this initial conversation I will send you a questionnaire targeted for your specific situation and an example of a completed document.
When you have filled it out and returned it to me. After I review it an estimate, an example of the completed document, (in part) and a contract will be sent to you. I will also sent you an estimated time line.
After I have received your signed contract your worries about a promotional document will be over. Sit back and relax.
Do you have more than one application for a bio or profile? Will it mean a separate document for each? Not necessarily, your original document can usually be altered to specific need and I provide special rates for this application. Also, if I am aware of a Website that needs this document in full or part, it will be formatted for that purpose.
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First Impressions – Watch your sales grow.
What does the home page of your website say about you?
Many of the sites I visit today have content, even on the home page, that loses me before I have even glanced at all of the information. I don’t click on the navigation bar to view any other pages. I don’t have the time to struggle through a bunch of jargon that could have been presented in a more reader friendly and understandable manner. Who does?
In many areas of life we are offered the opportunity to take a mistake that we made and make it right by an offended or disillusioned party. This is not true with first impressions. If you have lost a customer before he has even gotten past your first page I guarantee you that if he ever returns he will remember your site as soon as he sees it and will leave immediately. That first impression has been made and a prospect is forever lost.
You just found the answer to all your text content needs!
What are your text needs?
Take a look at some of the examples you will find in this site.
Was it interesting? Did it hold your attention? Did it give you anything that made you think?Will it be something you will remember tomorrow?
If you answered yes to the questions above you will be doing yourself a disservice if you pass up the opportunity to let me help you in your marketing, investment site, Web site or job hunting ventures.
It is important, no matter what you are promoting to make the best possible impression in the fewest reader friendly words possible. There are hundreds of sales, promotional and marketing sites that are losing hundreds of dollars every day because they lack these three simple characteristics.
Today I visited four Web sites that offered eBooks for sale. All of them were sites that I did a specific search for. Without exception, I read the first few paragraphs and thought, “Wow, if this is this dull and repetitive I am surely not going to spend money on something of the same caliber.” One of these sites presented a single paragraph that contained as many as 300 words.
Don’t make the same mistakes. My motto for my personal and professional life is: “If a person shows you who they are, BELIEVE THEM!” Your advertisement or promotional copy shows who you are as well as what you have to offer. You want it to be the best available.
Contact me today. Let me show you who I am and what I can do for you.
