Every once in a while all I have learned in a week cannot be connected by anything particularly clever, and I just spew random facts. I don’t even have anything to yell about. Next weekend I will be in town doing nothing that is open to the public or of general interest.
The most interesting parts of my life right now are off limits to this blog: the antics of my house-mates, finances (in any detail), and my still essentially non-existent love life. There is, to be clear, no actual news on any of those fronts. But there are plans, some clearly insane, and they are off limits here. Because I don’t want to break news to (or tip off) people who actually know me through my silly blog.
So lessons learned that are in-bounds, going roughly backwards through the week.
This is from the “Pilot Episode”
In the draft of Go Action Fun Time, I write at some length about how episodes (aka adventure or modules in other games) are broken into the traditional 3 act structure for a lot of reasons.
Episodic TV actually runs in five acts. But, in our defense, those are hour long dramas. We are simulating a half-hour action cartoon. Besides, I like what I wrote, and I am keeping to 3 acts.
I may though, go to 12 pt courier on everything, in line with these standards.
On a busy construction site, late in the game (when guys like me saunter in) there will be active smoke alarms. And if your work makes a lot of smoke or dust, you will set these off, and this is bad. Especially if you’re working (as a hypothetical example) on a partially occupied hospital. You might be tempted, rather than go through the process of filling out forms and getting clearance to bypass the alarms, to just tape over them. Don’t. Not just because it’s not the Right Procedure, and not just because the tape might not work anyway, but because the act of removing that tape will absolutely set off the alarm.
And then you find yourself standing in the warm sunshine of a late August morning in Phoenix with every other person on the jobsite while the GC goes on about this at some length, and threatens to dismiss the next clown he catches doing this.
The cheesy graphic Patel used. I learn from the best!
On occasion my curiosity mixes with abit of greed and I wonder how I might make some money off a blog. This leads me predictably to other blogs blogging about monetizing blogs. The best I’ve come across in NeilPatel.com, where the always upbeat Patel will explain with a breezy blog voice and a ton of screen-captured statistics how everything I do here at WHWL? is wrong.
- My posts are too short (1800-2400 words is what you want for Google to take you seriously and yet still have a chance of someone finishing the article. My posts weight in around 850)
- My posts are not focused on a single topic that would be known to attract readers. They are usually a little more focused than this, but not much. But I do not research possible topics by SEO strength.
- My posts are not structured. I do not do number lists or this-then-that explainers.
- I don’t have consistent video content.
- I don’t have pop-up boxes asking you to subscribe.
- I don’t buy targeted advertising
What impressed me most about Patel though is his easy-breezy writing voice that whisks you through some relative thick material before you even know it.
https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-become-a-better-blog-writer-in-30-days/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/content-marketing-works/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-future-of-seo/
There is no decent place to eat breakfast on a weekend morning in Show Low unless you are local. Conversely, I was able to get a decent breakfast with little drama in the far smaller burg of Overgaard. Go figure.
Breakfast in Overgaard
I was up in and around Show Low for a friend’s wedding. I shouldn’t get seriously drunk at wedding receptions, it seems. I’m still a bit too bitter.
I enjoyed the drive home though.
WORD COUNT
Last week’s What Have We Learned? = 1000 words
Monday Night Writer’s Group = 5000 words (even though I was the only one who showed up). (Again.)
2 hours editing Go Action Fun Time = 1000
2 hours revising my novelette “Enrinyes” = 1000
Good thing too! The file labelled “submittal copy” still had “2nd draft” pasted in the header among other problems.
Thursday night writer’s Group = 500 (this group is still well-attended!)
Hand-written draft of Taliesin’s Last Apprentice (the sequel to Beanstalk and beyond) = 900 words.
4900 words. Close enough.
[750 words]
What Have We Learned? 