Christine Buske.com

I posted a video earlier that discusses an issue close to my heart: write what you know. It is such a simple concept, and often carried out by bloggers these days. After all: writing what you know is so much easier than doing hours of research for one blog post.

However; there are also a lot of people creating a lot of intellectual clutter. I.e. they write what they don’t know. I’ve often wondered what happens to all those websites, cluttering up the web and diluting out my Google ranking… I realize that if they are crap, eventually they will be filtered out and just fall into obscurity until the site owner comes to his senses and just cancels his hosting package. Until then though, which the millions of articles being posted every day I ask again: who’s reading?

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I came across a new market place for freelancers today, where people or companies with too many projects on their hands can find someone to get the job done. Similarly, freelancers with too much time on their hands can find projects to place bids on.

I just quickly browsed through BizReef, but it looks pretty good at first glance. Registration is free, and you can instantly bid on, or post, jobs and projects.

The categories on this job board for freelancers are:
Animation
Audio
Business Consulting
Entrepreneurial Assistance
Environment
Finance
Graphic Design
Legal
Mobile Phones
Online Gifts
Online Marketing
Photo
Presentation
Programming
Video
Web
Writing

What worries me about this freelance marketplace is that BizReef claims to be the place where you can find a “free market”, in other words: find a freelancer for the lowest possible price. I suspect this means freelancers in India, who can offer their services for much less than anyone in North America, are competing with the rest of the world. It is then up to the company to decide who they trust with their project.

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I’ve been wanting to write a series of unrelated books for years. These are ideas that have been implanted in my mind, and waking me up at night, for a long time now. However, miraculously I have also found myself paralyzed.

I have started writing, I’ve gotten along reasonably far even on some projects only to find myself back in ‘writer’s block land‘. I’ve found out this creative paralysis cannot be blamed on any of the classic causes. There is a highly personal and delicate reason for it, and even the threat of NaNoWriMo could not get me moving on my keyboard yesterday.

I just started participating in NaNoWriMo about an hour ago. I’ve written almost 600 words so far, and none of them pertain to my much loved ideas.

I am writing a fictionalized version of the truth. It is dirty, it is simple and it isn’t pretty: I am writing what I feel.

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If you are puzzled, this is not a newly invested word by some crazy writer who has been cut off from society for too long! NaNoWriMo stands for: National Novel Writing Month. This means that as of today, time zone by time zone, writers all over the world will hear their call to the almighty keyboard, to pen down that 50.000 word novel that has been on their mind for God-knows-how-long.

Sound challenging? It is! The idea of NaNoWriMo is however to get those 50.000 words on paper or your harddrive, and worry about editing the pile later.

If motivation is a problem, taking up the challenge of writing a novel in 30 days is definitely a kick in the pants! I am actually tempted to tag along with NaNoWriMo, and write up something that has been bugging me for over a year now! It’s now or never, so let’s get started on writing that novel!

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Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel, writing a novel

I am not a big believer in “writer’s block”, even though I am the walking definition of it. However, I realized what could be at least one cause of “the block” so many writers seem to struggle with, write about and debate.

Let me tell you about my writer’s block, and where I think it is coming from.

I was reading through this month’s Elle magazine, and I was astonished at actually finding a glossy that has very interesting articles. I used to devour copies of Cosmopolitan, thinking it was the ultimate sign of my femininity and urban independence. All of a sudden however I realized that each new issue of Cosmo has essentially the same articles shuffled around and repackaged: “how to please your man”, “how to have a mind blowing orgasm” and “secret things all men want in bed”. I’m never one to reject some tips and tricks, in whatever area, but the ridiculous directions some of these articles take, and the absurd claims none of the men I’ve personally asked can confirm to be true became a real turn off for me.

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Technorati Tags: writer’s block, writers, articles

If you are a freelance writer, why are you feeding the “starving writer”-stereotype? Find what is keeping you from publishing, and then find a way to kill what slows you down.

Personally, I am perhaps so critical that my query letters don’t make it to the mail. I currently have about 3-4 query letters written and ready, but for some reason keep putting it off “till tomorrow” every evening. I decide that I need to look over them again, and have some generalized fear of sending query letters. Even though there is no reason for this; the queries I have sent in the past have been quite successful.

How do you kill your inefficiency bug when it comes to freelance writing, writing articles or query letters? Do you procrastinate, and what do you do to actually hop to it?

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Technorati Tags: freelance writer, publishing, query letters, writing

Are you creative? Does your blog ooze style? Then there is a site you should know about:

The Guys from StylishLabs are building a list of some of the most relevant and useful sites and blog about design, creativity and innovation, if you think your site can be part of this exclusive list go straight to StylishLabs and become a member of the Creative District.

An equally stylishly related post:
MySpace Layout

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I just installed
WidgetBucks, and out of curiosity let the system crawl my pages to determine which products are best suited for the ads on this blog. To my great surprise, and amusement, the ads came back with pictures of espresso and coffee machines.

I look over to the side, stare at my large StarBucks mug filled with gross instant coffee and burst out in laughter. This program shouldn’t be called WidgetBucks, it should be wizzardbucks, or something like that. Although this blog has NOTHING to do with coffee, it somehow guessed that coffee makers would PERFECTLY suit Christine.
I have to say, I am very impressed!

However, as far as customization goes: there is still some left to wish for: the colors seem washed out and I browsed through all options trying to get a really bright widget. No real result, so I settled for the green scheme you can see on this page. We’ll see if I succeed to make money with WidgetBucks, but so far I did already make $25 free, by signing up.

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