How many times??

How many times am I going to keep writing "I really should stop neglecting my blog"?? It's even making me annoyed; I can't imagine what it's like for all 5 of you that actually read this from time to time.

So in my annoyance and cluelessness about keeping this blog afloat as an integral part of my business, I reached out for help on the trusty interwebs. Alyson Stanfield had retweeted an offer by @problogger (Darren Rowse) on Twitter. 50% off his e-book "31 Days to a Better Blog" for a total of $10.

$10 to get a clue? Sign me up!

The problem was I got stuck on step one:

Create a tagline for my blog so I can easily describe to others what the aim of my blog is and hopefully guide my topics.

And as has been made CRYSTAL CLEAR by now this year: I have no blogging aim. This is why I struggle. My aim has been to wish for blog ideas to just randomly appear in my brain while I juggle a part-time job, social life (sort of) and my business. I thought I could take the MySpace approach to blogging and just write about my dog or this funny thing that happened to me on the way to work or whatever and magically EVERYONE will want to read it and then buy my art.

Yep. That sounds like a good plan. (insert eye roll here)

Then I looked at the top of my blog. The completely undesigned, boring and neglected blog. I made a cute little recipe. I thought it was funny at the time, but when I look at it now, it serves as a guide. I can write about THOSE things! WOW! I knew what I was doing after all, it was just buried back in the part of my brain that attempts to be witty. Now I just need to form that into some sort of catchy tagline like....

Sharing my recipe of life as a digital artist

Eh? I probably should work harder at this. Get out the ol' pen and paper. Suggestions are welcome!

Need to get back in the habit

And there it stares me in the face upon login: "last published July 19". Yes, yes, I know Blogger. I've been horrible at updating my blog. I tried to update it from my phone but apparently got too wordy and while it was keeping track of what I was typing, it wasn't scrolling down to show me, so it was almost impossible to write, unless I didn't care about misspellings or typos. It was in regards to my trip to Chicago and finally finishing one of the Chicago collages I have been planning on working on since 2007. A good post, too. I guess I could've written it when I got home, but it's always been that I have to be in the mood to write something in order for it to be worth reading. I'm kind of in the mood right now, but not completely as you can tell. I'm babbling incoherently.

I'm in the process of coming up with a lesson plan for teaching classes in Photoshop Elements. I realized that while there are a lot of local resources for people to learn about the full version of Photoshop, there are not many actual classes (3 dimensional room classes versus online) in Mpls/St. Paul. I have the room to teach (people would have to bring their own computers, though) and the time, so I would like to throw it out there and see if I get any interest. If you're in the Twin Cities, leave me a comment or shoot me an email at info@inkblotsart.com if you're interested!

Just what I was afraid of

I came back from the Estes Park workshop excited, revitalized, ready to take on the internet world and become the master of my blog, website, and social media sites.

Well...

I made some updates to my website. I'm excited about those changes and proud of the work that I did. It still needs work, but it's getting there.

My social media I've been keeping up on fairly well. I re-did my Facebook profile and am constantly keeping up with Twitter. Not a lot of problems there.

My blog....

Yeah.

Last post: May 8th. Today's date: May 18th. I promised myself I would write 3 times a week. That has not happened. I've been busy preparing for art fairs and doing custom work and the blog has fallen by the side. Not to say I haven't been preparing to write my blog. Oh no. I've been keeping track of the steps I've been going through completing this custom collage. I will be finishing that blog series. And I should've been posting it and writing it as I go instead of "preparing" to write it. What am I preparing for? Just write it!

So I have some work to do. The blog is just not happenin' for me and I need to figure out what I need to do to make it less of a chore in my mind and more of something fun that I enjoy. When I actually do it, it's not as bad as it is in my head, but for some reason when that iCal alarm rings reminding me I need to do it, something in my brain is like "NO!!!" like a dentist's appointment or something. It's NOT that bad.

So Wednesday is my next blogging day. I will be continuing on with my custom collage series. And I'm going to tell my brain to shut up.

Blog about blogs

I was hoping to have a new home for my blog today and then write here about the switch, but unfortunately it requires a little more time than I can put in today. I initially was going to just use a free blog from WordPress, but after learning about how WordPress.org works and that I could add it to part of my website, it just seemed to make more sense. Though it will require a little more work learning about coding, I think it's something that I can accomplish. I hope to have it up by Friday so I can announce it here!

Okay, okay, iCal, I KNOW!!!

iCal keeps reminding me, like it's supposed to, that I have to blog today. And once again, I don't have a whole lot to say, but going to just make some commentary on things going on around me lately.

A great person I follow on Twitter, Cassandra Harrison (@geehowquaint), told me about this book that she reads to get her butt moving; to keep procrastination at bay. It's called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield (link provided to save you from going through 10,000 pages of "art of war" when you search). So, one day on lunch I went to Borders and flipped through it and thought for $13, I NEED this book. It's inspiring, it's motivating, and it does it in such a matter of fact way. None of this sunshine and rainbows garbage. More like, you're the one who's getting in your own damn way and the only person you can blame for your failures is yourself. Get off the couch, tune out the chatter, and GET TO WORK. It's a very fast read because of how he's broken up the sections and again, definitely worth the money. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to start something new, follow a passion or just be a better version of themselves.

We had another visit from the trainer (Bark Busters) yesterday and Bea has been behaving. It's kind of scary because it was such a dramatic change from one day to the next. I hope she's not depressed or something. But she is being very, VERY good. I'll post some pictures of Bea sometime soon so you can see how cute and adorable she is. :)

Still here

Well, I knew it would happen. That art fair season would begin and iCal would beep at me 3 times a week, 3 times each of those days letting me know that I need to keep up on my promise to blog. And what happened? I ignored it. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm busy! I know I need to blog!"

But I didn't really have much to write about, didn't want to blab on and on about nothing except for "I'm busy, what else is new?". 

So, here I am, at the first art fair of the season (thank you wifi!) blogging about my lack of blogging.

I'm using my new invoicing system, USB Swiper, and so far it's pretty good. Me writing things out is a LITTLE easier, but this will catalog things much better. And, once I get the credit card swiper and don't have to nervously type card numbers out by hand, it'll be super slick. Working with new things is always slow at first, but I anticipate things will get faster as I get better.

So far, things are going pretty well sales wise, so my hope for the art fair season has grown! Excited for the upcoming year!

No, it's not "blog day", but I have new art!

So I usually make "blog days" Monday, Wednesday, Friday but I finished this and I wanted to put it up. Plus I don't know if I'll have anything to say tomorrow, so this kind of takes care of that problem!

Continuing on with the spinners, here's another piece to go with the first! I'm really enjoying this series stuff. Something about things matching, I guess! Enjoy!

Twitfacespace

I am completely overwhelmed by social networking these days. There's SO much!! People blog, tweet, facebook, myspace....you could spend all day just talking about yourself! Or pointing people to things you found interesting. Or connecting with customers, friends, family, etc. It's amazing. An artist I'm following on Twitter, Shannon Grissom, pointed me to this article. It made my head spin. I could spend all day reading up on how to "properly" use these resources. 

Is that the best way to use my time? I have no idea. I hate to bring up the economy because people are probably so very sick of hearing it, but I think drumming up new business will be a struggle this year. Plus I'm trying to be cost effective in doing it. I can't afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on ads, be it print or web, so I'm going to take a shot at all of this social networking stuff. So...shameless plugs:

Follow me on Twitter!

Friend me on Facebook!

or, sign up for my email newsletter on my website!

Sorry, folks. If I don't have business, my dog goes hungry. ;)