Life is Just Like a Ballpen Refill

Life is just like a ball pen refill. A ball pen refill that is full resembles your childhood days. During those days, you were also full of enthusiasm and your imaginations had no limits. As you grow older into your teenage, you start feeling life is not all that smooth. This is same as ball pen refill which sometimes does not give smooth writing in the beginning. But here you should have remembered words of Shakespeare:

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first

Later, the refill runs smoothly. Isn't it same as when you have completed your education and started earning of your own and buying whatever you had ever desired.

And one day, your refill gets over. The same is going to happen with your life. One day, it has to end.

In the year 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined a very famous adage:

Pen is mightier than the sword .

That means you can use your pen either to draw zigzag lines & ordinary things or use it to write something that brings about revolution; much like Edward Bulwer in just one quote stated above.

So is the case with your life. You can either make a living with whatever resources you have or you can exploit your latent potentials to create a living that is not just for yourself but to entire humankind.

A costly and most aesthetically designed pen is useless unless it has inside a refill filled with good quality ink.

Same applies to any human being. So, while attiring yourself in the best way nourish your mind and cultivate your soul with equally best way. This "inside-to-outside" growth has been emphasized by many gurus including Stephen Covey in his book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People".

If you don't like the refill (may be its color) inside your pen then you simply replace it with another one you like. Same should hold true for your life also. You should have this sort of flexibility in your attitude to discard your bad habits and to forget your not so good past easily. Instantly fill your life with colors of developing a sense of living, having well-defined goals, and work single-minded in a focused manner to turn your burning desires into a reality.

Do not use pen of your life to simply write the life as it comes. Instead stretch yourself to deliver beyond expectations, for you know life is going to end similar to pen refill that finishes with its use. To write something very very great, you need not have an expensive pen refill. Similarly, you need not to be very rich to help others. Devoting your time and teaching or sharing with them what you know is sometimes even better. For example, when you give money to a poor you are arranging his one or two meals but if you are teaching him a skill then arranging meals for his generations to come.

Al-kaatib, a masters in computer science & engg. and a software professional from India, loves writing on variety of topics like computer science, spirituality, and self-improvement. He maintains his blogs at: http://www.crossroadsbyzainvi.blogspot.com

The Perks of Writing a Novel

Let's be honest here: Writing a novel is no small task. Yes, I know there are eBooks out there claiming to show you how to complete a novel in 30 days, but it can't be done, at least not by a newcomer to novel writing.

Producing 70-odd thousand words is a big enough challenge alone. But to learn the rules of how to plot a novel and how to create characters and all the rest of it,(which is the position a newcomer would find themselves in) well, let's just say that two or three years is a more realistic estimate of how long writing a novel will take you.

Which leads me to the point of this article.

What is the payback for all this hard work? What can you expect to get out of it?

To be honest, the perks of writing a novel will be different for everyone. For some, making money from their fiction will be the prize they keep their eyes on. For others, it might be the promise of fame (or, God help you, celebrity). For many more, the creative challenge alone will be sufficient.

For what it is worth, here is what motivates me (and what doesn't)...

First up, it isn't the money (honestly!) Not that the riches that a bestselling novel might bring wouldn't be welcome in my bank account, but I would be lying if I claimed it was money that motivated me to write.

The same thing goes for fame. (I'm perfectly happy out of the glare of the spotlight, thank you very much.) Even the possibility of writing a truly great novel and going down in literary history doesn't do it for me (well, maybe a little).

You see, all of these things are rewards that you receive only after your novel is published. Before that can happen, you face years of hard work with no guarantee whatsoever of publication. And even if your novel is published, it is unlikely to be successful enough to enable you to quit the day job (sorry, but those are the cold facts). To put it simply, if fame and fortune are what you seek then novel writing probably isn't the best train to climb aboard.

So what else is there?

The challenge of writing a novel, that's what. And the fun of writing one. The sense of achievement that comes from nailing a particularly tricky scene, or from figuring out a clever plot-twist.

The opportunity to have a creative outlet for all of your thoughts and theories and feelings and beliefs on what it means to be alive in this funny old world.

Above all, the chance to rebuild the world according to your own specifications - and then to play at being God in that world. That is exactly what writing a novel is all about when you think about it: Playing at being God in a world of your own making. And which of us wouldn't want to do that?

Harvey Chapman is a published writer and a full-time teacher of creative writing. He founded his Novel Writing Web Site in early 2008 (http://www.novel-writing-help.com/). The Site offers free and expert advice on planning, writing and selling novels.

Writing From the Road

There is a rather large contingency of traveling writers, article authors, and novelists that travel in motor coaches and write. I know, for seven years I myself traveled the country by motor coach and I often met them. Some were travel writers, others wrote magazine articles, and some were well known authors. This always fascinated me, and perhaps gave me the confidence to become a writer myself.

My motor coach "The Blitz Mobile" mobile command center has a trailer set up and the trailer section contains my personal library. Did anyone ever tell you how heavy books are? In this library I have all sorts of information and thus, I have all the references I need to write on the road, something I would recommend for any serious traveling writer. Other writers I have met have their own smaller reference library, they take with them. Many traveling writers have invited me into their motor homes and they'll have a small row of reference books. Books such as Travel Guides, Atlas, Dictionary, Almanacs, Thesaurus and other mini-Encyclopedia type books. In fact you can always tell a traveling writer by what is in their motor home.

And I also recommend having reliable Internet Access as well, this is why I set up a separate power source in the trailer and use the WiFi from the Internet Satellite Antenna from the Motor Coach part. If you are considering writing from the road you might wish to check out the MotoSat Mobile Systems available, they are not cheap, but they work very well.Some writers use the new 3G wireless access card for their laptop. Some older writers just wait until the find an Internet Cafe. Still others only stay at WiFi enabled RV Parks and there are more and more of them these days.

The great thing about being a writer is that you can write from virtually anywhere and with mobile technology what it is today, you can have instant access to the real world when you want it. When you don't turn it off and enjoy the inspiration from the scenic views or destination spots. Why not take your writing on the road, enjoy life, dump the stress and allow your creative juices to flow, your mind to roam and ride like the wind!

Lance Winslow is a public speaker and gives professional interviews to various news agencies and Internet Companies Lance Winslow. Lance Winslow is also available by appointment; http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/honeywebought/bossresources.html#lance ; PBS Special with Lance Winslow.

How to Use Article Marketing to Bring in Big Traffic Online

Article marketing is one of the easiest ways to jumpstart your internet marketing traffic generation. One of the things I really like about article marketing is how targeted is the traffic I get from it, and that is huge for me. With article marketing, you are already beginning the relationship before you get started with the email campaign - so you don't have to start by building a relationship in the email campaign, you can just build on the one built in the article marketing phase.

Here's how you can jumpstart your article marketing effective ways:

1. Study the effective ways of writing intriguing titles. This is one of the primary things that you must to do in order to explode your open rate. You must to study how to write titles that can interest web people so you can get this web traffic to open and read your articles. You may use ideas, words that can motivate to take action, and you can even use new information to get the attention you desire. Just make positive that all the information you provide up to your internet readers is right so you will not mislead them.

2. Get incredible writings. Get more web people to read your articles and radically improve their situations of being distributed by having confidence that they are of better quality. They must be loaded chock full of the most useful information, web articles must be well-written, and highly targeted to the satisfaction, knowledge and demands of your potential readers, and they must easy to read. Moreover, they must be direct, concise, and direct to the point as you are serving potential customers with tight attention span.

3. Get to understand well your potential prospects. This is something that is relevant in this field. You must get to know the traffic you are making your articles and writings for to simply make your online content relevant and exactly targeted to their needs and what they need. I might think that you invest at least a a few hours or at least a few minutes a day learning with this online traffic source through online methods and other methods.

4. Do online research. This is one top technique to discover the subjects or other important information that your possible buyers are hunting for. Locate a keyword suggestion tool and find the important keywords that are most being searched by your best customers when they go searching on the internet. You can produce articles around these most critical keywords so you can most easily offer your readers what they truly hope for.

5. Use a powerful bio and resource box. Convert more readers to potential customers by creating an efficient and directed resource box and bio. In this area, you can communicate your expertise, your desire to help, the challenges you can solve, and the reasons why they should use your service. Be sure to include in your bio your website's URL, a good call to action, and an effective reason to act.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing

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Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

How to Be a Superb Article Magazine Writer

These days, more and more people are doing freelance article writing for magazines. This is good news because it gives you more opportunities to improve your craft, as well as earn extra money.

In some cases, freelance article writing for magazines even pay more than your regular job. If you want to succeed in this industry, then follow these tips below.

1) Start with what you're familiar with.

When you're just starting to do freelance article writing for magazines, it's best to begin with a title that you're familiar with.

Do you often read sports magazines or fashion magazines? When you read a particular magazine often, you're already used to the writing style and tone of the said magazine. This makes it easier for you to do a good job on that topic.

2) Use your connections.

Once you're already doing steady freelance article writing for magazines, don't be afraid to use connections. One of your co-writers or even employers could recommend you to more writing gigs, which in turn could help you create a name for yourself.

Freelance writers are usually highlighted in some magazines so writing a lot will give you more exposure (and more projects in the future).

3) Be original with your ideas.

A lot of magazines like giving their readers a different perspective. That's what your job is. Even though you're familiar with the writing style of a particular magazine, having a different point of view also gives you an edge. Magazines are always pushing forward and aiming for growth; freelance writers are usually their sources for new ideas.

Doing freelance article writing for magazines can be a profitable experience. I'm not just talking of money here, but also of career growth. You're trained to deal with different kinds of articles and situations which help you improve your writing style in the long run.

Want to easily earn a 5-figure monthly income through freelance writing jobs? Go to http://www.20daypersuasion.com/5figurewriter.htm and discover the secrets to earn massive amounts of money continuously by becoming a freelance writer.

What is Creative Writing?

Traditionally, all writing has been classified into two clear-cut categories, non-creative writing and creative writing. Non-creative writing usually deals with hard, cold facts. Its purpose is to inform readers and enhance their knowledge about a specific happening, situation, product, or concept. For instance, a book on history, a news write-up on a recent event, and a technical article on the latest software are all examples of non-creative writing.

In contrast, creative writing is inspired writing or writing that comes from within. It may or may not be based on facts. Even when based on facts, the purpose of creative writing is to reveal these facts in a new light, as perceived by the author. A creative writer reflects on the people and things surrounding her, meditates on concepts like love and fidelity, and then puts her thoughts and feelings on paper. Novels, poems, and short stories are all examples of creative writing.

To understand the difference between non-creative and creative writing more clearly, let us consider a road accident. A simple report of what happened in the road accident-who was injured, who was driving, etc-is an example of non-creative writing. However, if the same accident is woven into a story about the injured man, perhaps portraying him as a victim of fate rather than the motor driver, the resulting work would be called creative writing.

As you've probably guessed, both these styles of writing require different skill sets. While a non-creative writer must focus on writing with an analytical and methodical approach, a successful creative writer must be imaginative, philosophical, and to a certain extent, visionary.

The good news is that the traditional dividing line between non-creative and creative writing is blurring. It is not uncommon to find a non-creative work written in a highly creative way so that the work not onl book y informs but also inspires the reader. A good example of such a work is Sophie's World, a New York Times Bestseller, by Jostein Gaarder. Although Sophie's World is about the history of philosophy, something that most readers would consider a dull subject, Gaarder treats the subject as a wonderful mystery novel.

Does a writer lurk within you? Visit http://creativewritingforyou.wordpress.com to unleash the writer in you

Article Writing - Hot Skills For the Web

Want to make money writing for the Web? Learn how to write articles - writing articles is a hot skill which is in high demand. Web articles are very different from print articles, and are easier to write.

To get started, think about your own searching and reading habits on the Web. What makes a Web page appealing? Consider: lots of white space, sub-headings, bullet points, and images.

Aim to make your articles appealing, right from the start, by writing in short paragraphs, using clear language, and making points quickly, rather than waffling.

Here are three tips which will help your article writing.

1. What's an Article's Purpose?

Before planning an article, or a series of articles, you must know their purpose.

If you've been hired to write articles, you'll often just be given a set of keywords. If so, your purpose is to write, using the keywords effectively.

If you're writing articles for your own Web properties, your purpose might be: to get traffic from the search engines, to make a sale of your own product or an affiliate product, or to educate or entertain your site's visitors.

I often write articles in sets of five, or ten or more, over a couple of days, so I create a folder for the articles, with a file of notes, containing a list of keywords, the articles' purpose, and article titles. Making notes ensures that I can pick up writing where I left off, even if several days go by.

2. Beyond Keywords: Article Titles and Descriptions

While keywords are important to ensure that your articles are found on the Web, your article titles and their descriptions are equally important. When people are searching, the results pages -- the Web pages which are returned after a Web query -- contain lists of Web page titles, and descriptions.

When writing titles and descriptions, include the primary keyword you're targeting.

3. What's the Takeaway?

Every article you write should contain a takeaway: a clear benefit for your reader. When you think in terms of articles' purpose, and their takeaways, you'll write articles which are read, and which get a response.

Enjoy writing articles. It's a hot skill when you want to make money on the Web.

Discover how to make money online today with Angela Booth's Sell Your Writing Online NOW at http://sellwritingnow.com/Home/training.html You'll learn how to write and sell articles, blogs, ebooks and Web sites for profit, and you'll get complete training in how the Web works, so you can take advantage of the unlimited opportunities.

For free weekly writing information sent to your Inbox, subscribe to Angela's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine at http://www.freelancewritingezine.com/ and receive "Write And Sell Your Writing: The Power-Write Report" immediately.