Tools to Make the Writing Life Easier: Gmail

Date: May 25, 2013
Author: Janalyn Voigt
Categories: Writing Resources
Comments: 2 Replies

Tools to make the writing life easier: GMAIL via @janalynvoigtGoogle’s gmail is an author-friendly tool I’m happy to have discovered. In this post I list some of its best capabilities.

  • Emails organized into threads help you better follow a conversation.
  • Filters that can pre-label, automatically trash, and send specific incoming emails to another email address.
  • Gmail+ method helps you or others pre-label emails. An example: lets say you have “Education” as a label and want to email an interesting post from a website to yourself. In the “To:” field of the website form, you would type YOUREMAILADDRESS+Education@gmail.com, and the email will show up in the Education folder as well as your Inbox.
  • Archive without deleting emails. Once archived, emails are out of your inbox but available in a search.
  • The multi-labeling ability means you can find an email in more than one folder.
  • Nesting labels helps you manage them.
  • Color-coordinated labels makes them easier to group.
  • Canned response capability saves time when you find yourself sending the same information over and over again.
  • Gadgets let you customize your gmail account.
  • The Tasks application helps you stay organized and will even import emails directly.
  • Google Calendar access tab. I find this calendar system an awesome help. I feed multiple calendars to my website to help others find me online.
  • Google Reader access tab.  A feed reader accessable in one click from my email account is a tremendous benefit. UPDATE: Google Reader has been replaced with Feedly.
  • Google Documents access tab. I use this feature to get files off my local computer. It’s possible to share files through Google Documents.
  • The Pictures tab accesses my Picasa Web Albums.

Which of these features sounds interesting to you?

©2013 by Janalyn Voigt
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Managing the Writing Life: Shutting Out the Noise

Date: May 18, 2013
Author: Janalyn Voigt
Categories: Remember to Breathe
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 Writing Life Management: Shutting Out the Noise by @JanalynVoigt

It’s difficult, if not downright impossible, to keep on top of all the information and conversations directed to me in this social networking world. Just opening my email splits my focus in a variety of ways, if I let it.

Ah, there’s the key. It might feel comforting to step into a victim’s role, but the truth is, while I can’t completely control my environment, I am in charge of my response to it. In other words, if all those virtual people talking at once in my office deafen me, I have only to shut the unwelcome guests into their own “rooms” (files), where they will abide in contentment until I remember them.

Social networking can splinter my attention, too. That is, if I let it. No one can possibly keep up with every opportunity for networking nowadays. Accepting my limitations frees me to do what I can in the time I have. When it comes right down to it, that’s all any of us can do.

Writing-related tasks can overwhelm me, if allowed, but focusing on them one at a time helps me achieve more and stress less. Having a schedule helps me silence the voices of the other tasks when they clamor like children for my attention. Their turn will come, but not before its time.

Shutting out the noise helps me think, create and breathe. It helps me find the time I need to simply be.

©2013 by Janalyn Voigt
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Books for Writers: Platform by Michael Hyatt

Date: May 11, 2013
Author: Janalyn Voigt
Categories: Books for Writers
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Books for Writers: Platform by Michael HyattIn Platform, Get Noticed in a Noisy World Michael Hyatt offers step-by-step advice to help writers create compelling products, compete in a crowded marketplace, avoid obstacles to achieving success, and build a well-constructed platform from the planning stages to inception and beyond.

Hyatt’s friendly writing voice married to his practical advice seems designed to soothe overwhelmed writers. While inspiration abounds in this book, it’s really a work manual. Topics include creating an author website, blogging, making videos, building an email list, launching product, and social networking.

I recommend you read it several times while taking notes, and then act upon the advice in a logical manner to build a winning platform.

Reviewed by Janalyn Voigt, author of DawnSinger.

Purchase Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World

Note: Janalyn Voigt is an Amazon Associate and benefits when products are purchased on Amazon through the affiliate links she provides.

 

©2013 by Janalyn Voigt
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Is There Life Outside Writing?

Date: May 4, 2013
Author: Janalyn Voigt
Categories: Live With Passion
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Beyond the Writing LifeThey say the definition of insanity is repeating the same action while expecting different results, “they” being anonymous possibly to avoid the consequences of making such a lucid statement. It’s far too easy to accept an easily-consumed life doused with equal parts of wishes, hope, and lethargy. Tweet this! This can apply to every avenue of living, not just the writing life. Sometimes, even, we let writing get in the way of living. That happens once in a while for most of us, usually for reasons over which we have little or no control. At such times, maintaining a sense of humor is the way to make it through.

When writing crowds out the rest of life on a regular basis, it becomes a god demanding to be served at all costs. Historically, service to an idol could involve sacrificial offerings, sometimes of human lives. Reasons for worshiping touched on fear, reverence, and greed. Rewards included affirmation, a sense of belonging, and advancement. How close to these reasons and rewards does writing take us? It’s one thing to respect myself as a writer and polish my craft until it shines. It’s another to slavishly devote myself to writing as a grind that excludes all else. Having said this, I must also state that forces within the world of publishing can and do place super-human expectations on writers. That’s no excuse, though. We teach others how to treat us.

Attaining balance is key, and that requires us inevitably to disappoint the unrealistic expectations of others. Tweet this! As a reality that doesn’t sit well with me, but I’ve come to embrace it. If I didn’t, I’d reach the finish line having run the wrong race. I don’t miss deadlines or renege on promises but do give greater consideration to the cost of commitments before I make them

I’d like to hike across England, take up bicycling, raise my own vegetables, and spend more quality time with family and friends. My dreams won’t happen if I don’t give them time and consideration. Tweet this! Some put together bucket lists of things they want to accomplish or experience in their lives. That’s not a bad idea provided they take time to pull achievable goals from their dreams. Setting, scheduling, and attaining goals requires time and attention, but it’s worth it to live with passion.

How about you? Can you name other dreams into which you should breathe life?

Related Posts

The Perils of a Big Imagination (Or How to Stay on the Right Path)

7 Ways to Manage Time Stress (My Crunch-Time Cheat Sheet)

The Writing Life: This Video Could Just Change You

©2013 by Janalyn Voigt
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Janalyn’s Guest Posts: Should You Be On Pinterest?

Date: April 26, 2013
Author: Janalyn Voigt
Categories: Janalyn's Guest Posts, Writing Resources
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Pinterest LogoThe trouble with being a writer is that you have to write. That would seem desirable, but the writing I’m talking about goes beyond pounding out the next scene in my novel. Since becoming a published novelist, I’ve submitted–at the request of agents, editors, bloggers, and marketing personnel–guest posts, interview responses, pitch sentences, two-sentence blurbs, query letters, proposals, sample chapters, material to use for promotion, back-cover copy, tag lines, book club questions, and of course myriad versions of my biography. Add to this the need to devise creative updates for social networks, and you begin to see why a writer might groan.

Enter Pinterest, a social media platform that allows members to network with pictures more than words. I love writing and (go figure) even have a fondness for words, but I find Pinterest a breath of fresh air. As a virtual bulletin board where users pin images, Pinterest frees me to express my creativity without having to hurt my brain with so much thinking. Since women primarily frequent Pinterest, spending more time on it than on other networks, it provides another benefit. Book buyers are predominantly female. (This varies by genre.)

With 4 million active daily visitors and as the fastest-growing social media site (now second only to Facebook), Pinterest is a site many writers should include in their social media platforms. Read more at Wordserve Water Cooler.

©2013 by Janalyn Voigt
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