Christine Buske.com

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

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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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WidgetBucks is a new advertising program that allows you to make money online by placing ads on your website. It is a pay-per-click program, so visitors do not actually need to make a purchase for you to get paid (as is the case with AuctionAds).

They claim that in test runs WidgetBucks had an eCPM of $3-$6! With the lower payout minimum of $50 (lower than the Adsense $100) it could be a great alternative for smaller blogs!

WidgetBucks can work with Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, Movable Type and some other blogging platforms.
Customization is still a bit limited, but from my experience so are the Adsense options. I’ll test this by replacing my default Adsense option with WidgetBucks and see how it goes.

If you sign up now, you will receive a $25 sign up bonus in your account! So you are already halfway to the $50 payout. Definitely worth a shot! Sign up for WdgetBucks here.

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Ah, the joy of an “online stalker”, as a good friend of mine calls himself. He has apparently not kept up with my “activities” and asked me today whether I post any recent writing work on my blog. Well, I didn’t… but I could!

Here are the links to all of the FOX articles I have worked on, in reversed chronological order:

Enjoy P.!

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