As for my writing routines, I decided to focus on those blogs that generate the most traffic and ad revenue. Once I grow those up to where I want them, I should be able to start to hire a team to assist. At this point, I’m not even close. Think of my traffic currently in the lower double digits. We’re talking another year or more before I reach that stage of growth. If then.

All of these changes means that I can now choose a day to focus just on writing, a day to focus on scheduling social media, and the rest will be for sewing or creating. I don’t have to worry about what I can and can’t do. I don’t have to worry about if I have time. I don’t have to pick and choose. It’s a lot to think about when you are trying to deal with 10 websites. It’s less when it is 8. Now, it’s better with 6.

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This week I decided it was time to change my routine. I gave every day (including weekends) a designated work assignment. I would alternate between writing and sewing. On days where it was a writing day, if writing ended or I was unable to write for eight hours, I could stop and do a sewing related activity. That seemed like a winner, right? I would still be working on a business activity either way.

The biggest problem is not the day designation. The problem is I enjoy sewing. I’ll find any excuse to go sew. At least on days where my depression doesn’t seep in and cause me to be listless while my anxiety re-examines every awkward incident and event in my life.

So today is a writing day. If I can manage to find my thumbdrive (I don’t know why it isn’t where it is supposed to be) I may actually have time to work on my novel. That’s another reason why I needed writing days. I have much to write and finish this summer. My goal is to have my book finished by the end of July. I’m certain I can do it as long as I can stay focused.

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I’ve been extremely frustrated lately with the fact that when I sit down with every intention to write in the evenings, I can never find that spark of inspiration. What’s the deal? All day at work, I mull over ideas in my head and I’m certain that as soon as I’m home I will put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard, but what follows is anything but productivity.

This has been a weekly occurrence, and I’m frustrated about the writer’s block that seems to happen at the end of my normal teaching work day. [If you are unfamiliar with what I do for my 9-5, you can visit my blog: Teaching ELA in the Middle. I sometimes chronicle my life as a middle school teacher there.] Why must I have writer’s block at the end of the day?

Then, something miraculous happened. I realized that my most productive writing times are in the morning after I first wake up and late at night (closer to midnight). What? How can this be?

My ideal writing time is not lining up with my daily Monday through Thursday schedule. Now I am at a loss for how to work this new information to my benefit. Do I get up extremely early during the week, or do I stay up extremely late and risk not being at my best for teaching?

I don’t mind this kind of schedule on a Friday night or Saturday, but I have no choice while school is currently in session to comply with my creative needs.

Ugh! I feel like my students right now: Ms. Thurrrrrstonnnnnn, this is tooooooo harrrrrrrd! And yes, it sounds just as whiney as it is written and with eyes rolling, pencils slapping desks, and frustrated children sliding down in seats.

How do you overcome writer’s block when you have to write?

I’m certain that in some alternate perfect paradise where I no longer teach, but I have freedom to write whenever the mood strikes, or I can write for as long or as late as needed, I wouldn’t have such severe writer’s block. Right now? It is horrible! Even with the multitude of beautiful journals, notebooks, smooth writing utensils, and gorgeous planners, I can’t manage to focus. Even my idea document is not benefitting me lately.

I need something to change.

The post The Frustration is Real appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

Sorry for the MIA. So much has happened since my last blog post. I lost my domain name. Apparently some foreign retail store now has it. They are benefitting from the traffic that I had worked many years to create. I’m mad about that, but I refuse to pay them for the return of my name. I’m still the original Martha L. Thurston.

I was homeless for a course of time, and currently still displaced, although we are in a temporary home.

My son was also in a motorcycle wreck. That in itself was devastating when I think back to how I was told about it. It was as though he was dead. I’m not going to go back through that. If you’d like to read about it, it’s on my food blog at Sweet, Sassy, and Southern.

Overall, I really wanted to get my writing blog back up into action. Afterall, I have so much happening right now. My writing has been much slower, and not as pumped out as it has been, but that is okay. I am working on trying to get consistent with my posting, but sometimes life seems to happen (i.e. the wreck and subsequent weeks).

I have started working on one of my websites where I talk about building your own business. You can find that at Simple Handmade Business. I have included how to start your own blogging business. I will be expanding on that in the coming months. Right now, I’ve been trying to get everything updated and running smoothly. I’m still juggling many websites, although not like I was in the beginning. In the beginning, I was also running a sewing business. That has been put aside, and I’m not promoting like I would if I were in my own home where I could have ALL of my sewing things here, tons of fabric included. The website count of those up and running are eight (8). I still have 4 more that need to be, but I am leaving that for another day.

Until then, look for my weekly Saturday posts.

The post Did you miss me? appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

I have two more weeks before I can kick start my summer plans. I wish I could say that my summer plans involved vacation and lounging by the pool, but to be honest, it is all about the hustle. In fact, summer means that I can put more emphasis on building my businesses and less time on creating lesson plans for my middle school students. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, but I know that I will not be able to teach forever. In fact, I’m even looking forward to teaching in the fall. We have been looking more and more like normal, and truthfully, normal in my classroom looks nothing like these last two years. Despite that normalcy, my health means lessening stress, and that means preparing to leave the classroom soon. In order to leave the classroom, I need a way to continue to earn money. Enter my summer plans.

My plans for this summer involve building my websites and fleshing out those that were starting to gain traction. Lately, I have placed all of my focus on my children’s boutique, K and R Styles. I made a lot of changes to make my website easier to navigate, and I’ve been trying to make it so that I am not constantly trying to work it (i.e. constantly creating new products). I have finally managed to make things where I only have to put out new products twice a year, Spring and Fall, and the rest of the year I’m only fulfilling orders, or working to increase inventory on those items that are sold out or low on inventory.

This also means that I can focus on writing more content for my blogs and planning out my weeks. I think I’d rather spend my summer writing. Besides, I have so many things that I need to write. My list keeps growing. Eventually, I’ll be able to get a great start on all of it.

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It’s the weekend, and I am back to writing. I took the week off from writing as I felt I had pushed myself too much finishing up the month of November. However, I am back to writing. I mean, who needs NaNoWriMo as an excuse to write? Certainly not I!

I have so much to do in the next few months. I had thought about not posting as much on this blog while I worked on my other websites, but this morning I realized that I didn’t want to do that.

Of course, I probably will not post several times a week, but I will certainly post weekly while I let you know the progress of what is going on with my websites and blogs.

I currently have a total of five in progress and one that is in its infancy stage. Two of those are Ecommerce sites. I actually sell products on them. So maintaining and keeping it running is my main goal. The others, this site included in that, require constant updating and writing. Lots of writing.

I’m in the middle of researching for the newest addition. I don’t mind though. I enjoy writing. I enjoy research. Research means reading.

Today I’m focused on updating those that are already up. I’m adding in new articles and recipes. Then tomorrow, I write for the new one. I’m getting ready to launch it in a few weeks.

Until then, I’ll just continue to do what I do best and write.

The post Who needs NaNoWriMo to write? appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

I didn’t think that I would meet my goal. In fact, on Friday I was beginning to stress because 30 blog posts seemed so far away, and yet I managed to just eek it all out.

Friday I sat down and wrote all day. I pushed out post after post after post. Saturday I was exhausted from writing and my fingers hurt from typing on Friday. I was still 7 posts away.

Instead, I got caught up in planning. I pulled out my spreadsheet and began to plug in various benchmark goals of where I should be and when. Honestly, the goal was to be at 30 posts across one website and then slowing down to 10 a month on that one while I work on the next.

My business website needs to be completely revamped as I am planning to take things into a different direction now that my daughter-in-law will soon be my ex-daughter-in-law and will not longer be a part of the business. With it just being me, I plan to liquidate most of my inventory and begin a fresh start with it. It’s one thing to have 2 people sewing, but it is another to have just one.

So I took the morning to daydream. Seemed pointless. Daydreaming about how you would use your earnings and on what frivolous things you would use the most filled a void, although I have to confess that it excited me and depressed me all at the same time. The reason? I probably will not see results until May. That’s a long time to wait to see if the work I put in is going to result in anything. Plus, I have 2 books that I’m planning and another to finish. The wait time for that is also a long way down the road.

If anyone ever said that writing was easy, they are wrong. Writing is hard work with no guarantees. But oh the what ifs!

The post Reaching my Goal appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

I stated in my last post about the fact that I was still writing, and I am. I have one blog that I am working on feverishly to bring up-to-date. For this blog, I have at least two pages of post ideas to write, and some that need research, so my time has been spent handling that. I also have another blog that I am in the process of fleshing out. This one will be near and dear to me because it is going to be more memory than anything else. Well, memories and food, that is.

At least the writing that I have accomplished since October has brought my blogs up through the page ranks of Google. It’s not bad when you start at 2 million and work your way up to 500,000. I’m fairly certain that there are some website owners out there who will be intrigued by that movement. How do you take something so stagnant and raise it so quickly? It takes hard work, dedication, and a tight schedule. Remember, I’m still a full time teacher.

Anyhow, that’s why I decided to skip NaNoWriMo this year. Yes, I’m writing, but I doubt I’ll meet that 50K word output. Or will I? Maybe I’m not skipping and just didn’t go through the formality of it all.

In the past, I’ve always held regret when I didn’t meet my target because I fizzled out. Maybe that’s why I prefer to write without setting a lofty goal for myself. I don’t even think that I’ve kept track of the word count from the articles I’ve written this month, and to be truthful, I’ve sometimes written three posts a day. Due to my full time teaching job, my schedule can get quite hectic. When I find a free moment with extra time, I write. If I have already posted for the day, I schedule the post for a day in the future. My goal was to have twenty posts by the end of this week. I still have two more to go to meet that goal.

Maybe that’s why joining a large movement of writing isn’t what I need. I need more attainable goals. After all, a blog post has to be more than 300 words, and that is achievable if you stay focused. Setting numbers of posts, that is something that I can meet with more freely than say writing an entire novel in a month. I may take on that challenge again when I know that I have the freedom to get up in the morning and write all day for a month. For now, 300+ words and setting the number of posts is my November NaNoWriMo.

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