Along with family, friends, presents, and far too much food, Christmas Day brought news of a thwarted terrorist attack on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. CNN is reporting that a 23-year-old Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab activated an explosive device that caused a fire as the airplane began its descent.
On TV, talking heads are speculating about heavy-handed new security rules. Ignore them. We already know how the Transportation Security Agency and airlines are responding, thanks to analyst Charlene Li. Read the rest of this entry »
After 11 months on the job, Editorchat is taking a break for the winter. Well, okay, not for the whole winter, but for December. My co-founder Lydia Dishman and I are taking the month to try and make the experience, and the blog, better.
You might say we’re returning to our roots. We’re taking time to remember why we started this thing. Here’s what we said back in March, when former BusinessWeek Executive Editor John A. Byrne joined us for a chat:
If you have yet to try Editorchat, think of it as the world’s cheapest, real-time writer’s conference covering issues of substance facing the publishing industry. We think these sorts of discussions are essential for survival as writers. Having BusinessWeek join us makes us think that we’re onto something.
Twitter sometimes acts like it’s in college; everything’s fine till someone throws a party.
Dozens are invited, of course. Tweets flow like beer and whiskey. Tweeps get louder and more obnoxious with each thread, right up until someone breaks a stereo — I mean, server — and the killjoys who weren’t invited hear the noise and call the cops.
Stumblers head for the exits. Some make it. Others enjoy a nice, quiet ride downtown to the drunk-tank. Everyone else passes out on the couch, waiting for Twitter to rally from its out-till-3-am alcohol and Cheetos bender.
Source: Photobucket
And of course all of this happens in a matter of minutes — just enough time to transform Editorchat from a joy to an annoyance. My friend Lydia Dishman and I prefer it when Editorchat is a joy, which is why we’ve moved the chat from Twitter to FriendFeed. Read the rest of this entry »
My idea of freelance writing heaven is having an editor who is one part Pitcher and one part Partner. But these are only two of the six types of editors my friend Lydia and I dream of when thinking of working with that Great Typewriter in the Sky.
Source: Flickr
Fortunately, I’m already living the dream daily. My editors at The Motley Fool are heavenly. What’s your favorite editor archetype? Please read Lydia’s post and leave your comments there. We’d love to hear from you.
Starbucks brews a decent cup of coffee, but it stinks as a place to work when I need one.
Look at the store designs, and the lines. Every Starbucks store is made to move people in and out as fast as possible. The pitching, foaming espresso machines may as well be screaming at me to get my drink and leave.
But you wouldn’t know that from management’s comments. In March, a spokesperson told The Wall Street Journalthat changes to its menus and pricing were meant to give Starbucks the feel of a coffeehouse.
If you’re unfamiliar with #editorchat, it’s a weekly discussion on Twitter run by yours truly and my friend Lydia Dishman. Writers and editors use the forum to talk about topics of interest to the beleaguered publishing industry and in the process help each other to work smarter and more profitably.
Source: newswire.poormojo.org
Tonight, we had hoped to tackle pay. We knew it would be a contentious topic, one guaranteed to raise tempers and maybe even voices. How it could not when outlets are increasingly choosing to pay by the penny, and still shift risk to their freelancers?
Big Publishing Brother apparently doesn’t like such talk. So, he decided to shut down the conversation before it could begin. Maybe. All we know for sure is that the Fail Whale belly-flopped into our #editorchat tweetstream.
We’re going with the conspiracy theory, if only because we find it more entertaining. Herewith are our top 5 Big Publishing Brother reactions to tonight’s proposed #editorchat topic, none of which have any basis in fact other than they were trending topics on Twitter when #editorchat stalled. Drum roll, please: Read the rest of this entry »
The Web is the second-best resource ever created for writers. The library is still better, by far. Here’s why.
Source: Strahov Theological Hall, Prague
1. You get free access to the Web at most libraries. My local offers two options. Patrons can either bring their own computers and log on with free Wi-Fi, or they can reserve one of the library’s computers. Either way, the library gives you the Web and a lot more.
2. You can find top reference books. When I was first starting out as a freelance writer, I’d spend $20-$30 for a shining new copy of the annual Writer’s Market. My local has its own copy that I can use every time I visit. Even better: I can check out copies of the magazines that WM is telling me about. Money saved is money earned. Read the rest of this entry »
Author Alice Hoffman has taken a beating for using Twitter as a bazooka to attack a reviewer of her latest book, “The Story Sisters.” She has since compounded that error by closing her Twitter account.
Source: The Boston Globe
More about why this is a mistake shortly. First, some background. The Boston Globe published freelancer Roberta Silman’s lukewarm review of “The Story Sisters” on June 28. Shortly after, Hoffman responded angrily via Twitter, calling Silman “a moron” and questioning her credentials as a reviewer: “Now any idiot can be a critic. Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed by [Anne] Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?”
Was I wrong to tell my fellow freelancers to not write for content aggregators? Recently, I sold a reprint of an article that I first wrote for Helium to Hope Clark for her FundsforWriters newsletter. “5 Ways to Boost Your Word Count” appeared in the June 21 issue.
One query, 31 times the earnings
Find the original article from last August here. Helium readers and reviewers liked it but didn’t love it, ranking it 11 of 23 articles on the topic of writing more. So far, my story — which I have since improved — has earned $0.47 in shared advertising revenue. By contrast, Ms. Clark paid me $15 for one-time reprint rights. One query and a modest rewrite netted me 31 times the earnings.
Freelance writers who blog should help readers to “buzz up” their content using Yahoo! Buzz, a popular social bookmarking service that hopes to rival Digg, StumbleUpon, and dozens of others.
There’s just one problem: Buzz buttons like these invoke Javascript, a technology unavailable to those who host their blogs at WordPress. The good news is that there’s an alternative. Any writer willing to dedicate 10 minutes under the hood with HTML can get Yahoo! Buzz working without invoking a single script. Here’s how.
I don’t need to tell you that I haven’t been posting as much recently. Don’t take that to mean that I’ve lost interest in this blog — to the contrary, I’m more interested than ever. You might even call me obsessed.
Source: Screen Gems
Of course, there is good and bad that comes with obsessive behavior. Here, I’m consumed with ways to engage you using social media and other community-building tools. Have a look at my task list and let me know what you find useful. Read the rest of this entry »
Another month, another guest post. This time, Dave Taylor takes the reins. Dave is a well-known entrepreneur here in Colorado. One of his latest ventures, FilmBuzz, you can find on Twitter. I’ve asked him here to talk about the business of writing movie reviews. Read on for his expert tips, and when you’re finished be sure to check out my review of CrossOver for Mac at Dave’s tech support blog.
By Dave Taylor
Have you ever watched a movie?
Yeah, I thought so.
Everyone reacts to a movie while they’re watching it, laughing, gasping in fear, snickering at stupid plot points or smiling at a really cool action scene. When the film ends, you turn to your companions as you walk out of the theater (or get up from the couch to use the bathroom, as the case may be!) and say “great film!” or “jeez, what a dog” or “whatdja think?” or similar.
In that sense, we are all film critics and we all have the basic ingredients to be film reviewers. Yet I’ll wager a new DVD that you don’t write any sort of reviews of the movies you see, and at most perhaps you “Tweet” your friends with a ten-word micro-review. “Star Trek? Awesome. Go see it!” may reveal to others whether you liked the movie or not, but this tweet misses a fundamental element, the core of all good movie reviews: “why.”
UPDATED: Thanks to commenter and fellow Fool Brian Orelli for forcing me to clarify what I meant by “seaweed-free” sushi in an earlier version of this query.
Once again, I’m experimenting. This is an open query designed to reach as wide an audience as possible and in the shortest amount of time. I have two aims with this. First, to land an assignment. (To be clear: I won’t take the first bid that comes along unless the publication really is a great fit and the offer is reasonable.) Second, to gather information. I’d like to write a book about building a writing career with social media — posts like these are part of the data collection process. With that, here is my proposal.
Dear Editor,
Source: Fishing HotSpots
My patience has officially run thin. I’m tired of parents and parenting magazines treating food allergies as an easily-dismissed annoyance. Long before anyone was talking about swine flu, pork almost killed my son.Read the rest of this entry »
When my writing needs a lift, it’s either (a) time for coffee or (b) time for a cocktail. What’s that? You too? Get yourself a Collins glass, writer — we’re going to mix a Ramos Fizz.
Source: Esquire magazine
INGREDIENTS
2 ounces London dry gin (ed. note: Bombay Sapphire, preferably)
1 ounce heavy cream
1 egg whites
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce lime juice
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
2 to 3 drops orange flower water
Is it possible for writers to elevate their craft to the point of indispensability?
Source: Google image search
We discussed this from the reader’s perspective — the idea of indispensable content — during last week’s Editorchat, but we couldn’t agree. Freelancer Erik Sherman argues that indispensability varies by audience. For example, a reader facing foreclosure might find a piece about a specific house-saving strategy indispensable and a great article about grilling merely enjoyable.
This is a fair point from a must-follow blogging writer. And yet I wonder: Isn’t any piece of writing that gets you paid indispensable to the someone who paid you for it? We call these people editors, and their job is to be both reader advocates (i.e., seek and publish indispensable content) and publisher advocates (i.e., keep costs under control).
Maybe the question of indispensability is best asked with these gatekeepers in mind. Can a writer become indispensable to an editor? I think so. But just as no two readers are alike, neither are any two editors alike. Thus, in seeking a definition for what makes an indispensable writer, I run the risk of making the same mistake I made during Editorchat. “Indispensable writer” could be as loosey-goosey a phrase as “indispensable content,” and just as useless.
But I doubt it, if only because the process of thinking about what qualities our editors consider to be indispensable forces us to think as they do. This is the key, I think. Being good matters; understanding what our editors need matters more.
But before we get to the names, a hedge: There are many writers whose work I love yet who aren’t on Twitter or who use it sparingly. Kerrie Flanagan, Director of the Northern Colorado Writers and keeper of The Writing Bug blog is one of those writers. So treat this as it’s intended: a compilation and nothing more.
Now, without further ado, here are five more blogging and tweeting writers that all aspiring scribes should read regularly. Read the rest of this entry »
Today you’ll find me writing at Dave Taylor’s excellent tech support blog, AskDaveTaylor.com. I’m evaluating CrossOver, a cross-platform utility that allows a user of one operating system to access programs designed for another. For me, Mac OS X is where I write and Windows is where I visit — CrossOver is the bridge.
And a pretty good bridge most of the time. But as with all software, CrossOver isn’t without its issues on my machine. Recent tests I’ve run suggest that the Gmail scripts I use to enhance Firefox may be giving Internet Explorer 6, and thereby CrossOver, a hairball. Either way, I grade the software as indispensable for the social writer who needs his Mac to play nicely with his client’s Windows network.
Read the full review at Dave’s blog, and be sure to keep an eye out for his post about writing film reviews. I’ll have it here next week. In the meantime, you can follow his cinematic coverage at this blog and via FilmBuzz on Twitter.
With Technorati now indexing more than 100 million blogs and the esteemed editors of Writer’s Digest having named the 101 best websites for writers, I could be kidding myself trying to tell you who to follow.
Source: Google image search
Certainly this would be a silly exercise if I were assuming some position of authority in presenting this list. I’m not. My aim is to feed your brain with ideas by introducing you to those who feed my brain with ideas.
Also, this is a writer’s list, not a list for writers. Writer’s Digest has already singled out top blogs about the craft and business of writing, such as The Renegade Writer blog.
Writers who blog are a different breed. Here are the first five of my 10 favorites, listed in no particular order and all of whom you can find on Twitter. (Look for the other five here tomorrow.) Read the rest of this entry »
For the second time since it became an open source project, The Freelancer Writer’s Helper has been updated. Last time, Susan Johnson of The Urban Muse added freelancer job sites. This time, I added submissions guidelines for Writers’ Journal and FundsforWriters, C. Hope Clark’s excellent newsletter series that highlights markets for new and established writers. Did you know that she also pays for advice articles from freelancers? Now you do.
Stay tuned for further updates of the Helper from yours truly and the Helper’s other contributors. If you’d care to join our open source band, write to me here.
Should a blog have an editorial calendar? Markus Merz says “yes” in this post at the Performancing blog. He argues that having a schedule of content engages readers and forces planning upon the terminally disorganized. But does it really? Time for an experiment, social writers. Below is my rough editorial calendar for June:
Week 1 (June 1-5)
Source: PepsiCo
The top 10 bloggers for writers to follow. Thank you, blogathon. Not only did you re-introduce me to the magic elixir that the elves at PepsiCo call Mountain Dew but you also found me some great new writers to follow and whose musings I enjoy reading.
Digg or StumbleUpon? I’ll weigh in on which service writers should use. Write me here if you’ve an opinion or an experience you’d like to share.
So, I’m setting two goals beginning in June. First, I plan to post here at least 15 times a month from now till the next Blogathon. Second, I plan to go 31 for 31 next year. I’ll use these two strategies — strategies that I ignored during Blogathon — to bring value to you, my readers.
A short time ago, I published a new edition of The Freelance Writer’s Helper via Twitter. If you have never before used the Helper, it’s a guide I created using Google’s now-stagnant Notebook tool to collect submissions guidelines and useful tips for new and veteran freelance writers.
Source: Sony Pictures
The process has been educational. My queries are more focused and more effective because I’m more mindful of what editors want. How could I not be? They’re telling me all I need to know, right there in the submissions guidelines.
Adding more opennessto an already open project
Twitter has been instrumental in the Helper’s development. Writers I’ve met there have contributed to the guide in various ways. Read the rest of this entry »
Was this week’s American Idol victory by Kris Allen a failure of crowdsourcing? Readers who’ve responded to my take on this at The Motley Fool mostly say no. Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat says yes. After further review, I say “maybe” because it depends upon how you define crowdsourcing.
Wiktionary calls it “delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without monetary compensation.” This definition reminds me of services like Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out. “HARO,” as it’s known, claims to provide writers and journalists with access to at least 100,000 qualified sources.
Source: helpareporter.com
Of course, the trouble with having 100,000 sources is that some of them aren’t very good. Yet some are outstanding; I’ve had tremendous success using HARO to find experts to comment about Twitter and social media. I’ve had less success using HARO to track down sources with very specific expertise, such as corporate chief information officers.
So crowdsourcing as a way to find sources has its limits. But what about story ideas? Should writers crowdsource topics? Or does literary pride dictate that I be my own R&D department? I can see both sides of the argument. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, as guest writer for Michelle Rafter’s WordCount blog I argued against writing for up-and-coming content aggregators such as Helium. In response, Barbara Whitlock, Helium’s New Member Outreach Manager, posted a thoughtful comment at Michelle’s blog. I’ve decided to add to the dialogue here by posting an open letter that further explains my thinking. Have additional thoughts of your own? Please comment at WordCount.
Hi Barbara,
I’m grateful for the response, as I’m sure Michelle is.
A couple of additional thoughts for you and for those who may be reading.
Today is Guest Post Day in the 2nd annual WordCount Blogathon, so please welcome Michelle V. Rafter,a Portland, Ore., freelance reporter for national business and trade magazines and websitesand keeper of the indispensable blog WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age. She’s filling in for me today. You’ll find me over on Michelle’s blog talking about writing for content aggregators.
Top 10 virtual hangouts for writers
By Michelle V. Rafter
If Dorothy Parker were alive today, she’d probably be tossing around those famous bon mots on The Red Room.
We writers are extroverts who spend too much time by ourselves. Or are we introverts who force ourselves to talk to people? Either way, we’re alone with our thoughts and computers for hours on end. When we’re not writing, we like to talk – about writing. Our preferred partners in conversation are other writers, people who can relate to miseries only we understand: endless waiting for editors to reply to pitches, and when we finally land an assignment, more waiting for the inevitable request for a rewrite.
Freelancers working in self-induced isolation have several options for filling our need to mingle and kvetch. We can join local writers groups, which is fine if you don’t mind kibitzing with poets and posers. We can go to fancy writing camps, inevitably somewhere far away and expensive and not at all satisfactory when you’re jonesing for daily gossip.
Or we can go online. Virtual writers groups have been around since the days of CompuServe forums. But thanks to the Internet, software that makes web-based message boards easy to build and the rise of the Gig Economy, there are more online writers’ circles than ever. Here are my top 10 virtual hangouts for writers: Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve officially read too many rants decrying the fall of print media and traditional publishing. Ed Wasserman’s essay for the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW), “Keeping it Honest in a Freelance World,” went too far.
Source: SABEW
“There’s good reason not to welcome this,” Wasserman writes, referring to 2008′s bumper crop of unwilling new freelancers. “It means journalists will be paid even worse. It means coverage is likely to suffer from further loss of consistency and coherence, not to mention expertise.”
So reporting under the influence of a 1099 rather than a W-2 is tantamount to institutional decay? Read the rest of this entry »
“All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”
So said Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if he was was drunk when he said it. How else but through an altered state do you stare over and over at the same verbiage and experience something different — every single time?
Perhaps Hemingway was speaking to the artist in us. Perhaps he knew that almost anything could lead to a scene, or a new character, or a particularly biting blend of dialogue.
Or maybe, he just really liked his rum. (Pirate.)
Tonight, because I’m overdue to share a cocktail recipe with you, I’m going with “c,” Papa liked his liquor. Herewith is a recipe for one of his favorites, The Mojito, taken from Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guideby way of my favorite NPR quiz show: “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” (Thank you, Peter Sagal.) Read the rest of this entry »
On May 30, I’ll be teaching a class called “Secrets of a Six-Figure Freelancer,” sponsored by the Northern Colorado Writers (NCW). I’m thrilled to have a chance to share my experience with fellow writers but I’m also nervous that my story won’t be interesting. I’ve only been freelancing for six years.
Have you been waiting for your big break as a writer, suffering through what seems an endless pile of rejections? Well, wait no longer: it is now officially possible to buy yourself a writing career thanks to The Huffington Post.
Includes: a two-three month internship at The Huffington Post in NYC or D.C. Must be at least 18 years old. NYC is the main office and D.C. is the political office. Winner can choose which location they would like.
I’m a social experimenter. Today’s Foolish duel notwithstanding, I’m a great fan of both Facebook and Twitter, as well as LinkedIn and most other social networks. But all of these services are severely limited by one unassailable truth: they’re digital. Every relationship in the ether is a blind date till verified by a flesh-and-blood experience.
Why should you, the writer, care? If all writing is enhanced by experience, you (and your writing) is likely missing out if you don’t take social media to the extreme by getting outside your 60-degree, musty, dark and altogether dreary basement office and meet some real people. That’s what I’m doing today, attending the Glue conference in downtown Denver.
So far, I’ve learned something about NASA’s extraordinary ingenuity, the power of open source platforms for cloud computing, and how extensible browsers such as Firefox are changing the way we interact with the Web. In other words: I’ve got a bunch of new story ideas.
I’m a sucker for great TV ads. The best combine a simple, actionable message with a delicious dollop of spit-take worthy humor — and in the process transform a pitch into conversational shorthand, like this:
If you’ve seen this video you know the subtext: “Dude” is the everyword, a homograph that’s as appropriate for describing dismay (“Duuuude”) as it is joy (“Dude!“). There’s art in the subtlety; inflection breeds variance. Of course, we writers act as if everywords are detestable. We’d rather revel in vocabularic mastery, as if an encyclopedic knowledge of words great and small is a pridemark — a tribal tattoo of the literati. But this, too, is excrement. (See? More vocabularic hoo-ha!) Read the rest of this entry »
You use magazines, books, newspapers and even TV for story ideas. Why not Twitter, too? It’s easy if you know how to tweepsurf.
Tweepsurfing — literally — is searching your friends’ and followers’ tweets for content that interests, intrigues, or challenges you. I do it as often as possible, which is usually weekly due to the demands of a daily deadline. Your schedule may allow for more wave-catching. If so, great. Just be sure to adopt a routine that you can stick to.
Once you’ve found content that you like or want to use, save it using one of these tools: Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, Amazon.com announced the new Kindle DX, a large-format e-reader intended not just for books but also newspapers and magazines. Color me intrigued. As much as I think the device itself is crazily overpriced, there’s no doubting that the publishing industry is in desperate need of innovation. Kindle is a spark that I would love to see become a fire.
And I’m not alone. I’ve witnessed a surge in interest in Editorchat on Twitter ever since fellow freelancer Lydia Dishman and I turned our eyes towards innovation and its thrills and chills. We continue the discussion tonight from 8:30-10 pm. This time, we’re looking for success stories. What innovations have helped you, editors? Writers? Read the rest of this entry »
One of the great myths about writers is that we’re poor, every single one of us. Not true. But in an economic climate like the one we’re facing now, it’s time to do as our grandparents did. It’s time to save more than we earn. Call it an old fashioned idea whose time has come again.
How about we have a drink to celebrate? Ladies and gentlemen, please meet The Old Fashioned:
Photograph by Jeff Gurwin. Originally published in Time Out New York
INGREDIENTS:
4.0 cl. Bourbon, Scotch or Rye whiskey
1 sugar cube
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 splash soda water
DIRECTIONS: Place sugar cube in old fashioned glass and saturate with bitter, add a dash of soda water. Muddle until dissolved. Fill the glass with ice cubes and add whiskey. Garnish with orange slice, lemon twist and two maraschino cherries.
I’m enjoying myself today because, earlier, I got to interview a superstar. Not of the stage, or screen, or court, or field but of the board. Alfred Leonardi is the co-creator of Ace of Aces, a series of picture-book games.
Source: Flying Buffalo Games
Copies of the varying “series” sit on the bookshelf of my basement office, just above well-worn copies of The Random House Thesaurus and The Associated Press Stylebook. Read the rest of this entry »
Your friendly neighborhood writer occasionally turns to libations to lubricate his wordsmithing engine. A pungent glass of red wine often does the trick, none more so than a fine pour of Ménage à Trois Red.
Source: Folie à Deux Winery
Created by the Folie à Deux Winery in Napa Valley, California, the vintner describes this blend as rich and fruity. I agree, but I also wouldn’t know. Truth is, as much as I love the way red wine smells, I can’t distinguish fruit from root when it comes to sniffing ingredients. Ménage à Trois simply tastes delicious and can usually be had for $10-$12 a bottle. Cue the Hallelujah chorus.
Find out all you need to know about vintage, vintner and carrying vendors by visiting the Folie à Deux Winery on the Web.
Recently, I asked the writers who frequent Twitter if they had landed work using the microblogging service. Responses were mixed.
“Haven’t landed an assignment on Twitter yet, but I’ve found sources,” says Susan Johnston, a Boston-based freelancer who goes by the witty Twitter moniker @UrbanMuseWriter.
She’s right. Twitter can be excellent for finding sources and source material. But can you effectively query in 140 characters or less? “I haven’t landed a paid assignment via Twitter, but had opportunities to write pro bono,” says freelancer Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, @quipsandtips on Twitter.
That’s telling. Pawlik-Kienlen, like yours truly, is a long-time pro who writes for food money. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and WomansDay.com, among others. Johnston’s no slouch, either. Her work has been published in The Boston Globe and The Christian Science Monitor. If these writers aren’t landing paying gigs via Twitter, are there any to land? Read the rest of this entry »
For John A. Byrne, Executive Editor of BusinessWeek and Editor-in-Chief of BusinessWeek.com, journalism is an act of communion. “For us, this is all part of how journalism is changing from a product handed down by reporters to an audience, to a process that embraces the user at every stage,” he wrote in guest-moderating last week’s edition of Editorchat.
So we’re all members of the media now? I doubt that Byrne would go that far but when readers are also sources, fact checkers and, at times, assignment editors, the line gets blurry. When do we know we’ve officially crossed it? Should we care? Read the rest of this entry »
Each Wednesday, freelance features writer Lydia Dishman and I host Editorchat on Twitter from 8:30-10:00 pm eastern. We’re on again tonight. Only this time, John A. Byrne, Executive Editor of BusinessWeek and Editor-in-Chief of BusinessWeek.com is our guest moderator.
The Social Writer, me, refers to my twins tastes in social media — Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn — and cocktails. Revisit me here for updates on my writerly experiments and a bit of kitchen chemistry. Today’s cocktail is still my favorite, the Gin and Tonic:
Source: boozeitup.wordpress.com
INGREDIENTS
4 cubes ice
2 fluid ounces gin
4 fluid ounces tonic water
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 lime wedge
DIRECTIONS: Place the ice cubes in a tall, narrow glass with the ice coming near the top. Pour gin, tonic water, and lime juice over the ice. Stir well with a long-necked spoon. Garnish with lime wedge, and serve immediately.
Find the original article from last August 
There’s just one problem: 
Another month, another guest post. This time, 
.jpg "Kris Allen wins American Idol")
Tweepsurfing — literally — is searching your friends’ and followers’ tweets for content that interests, intrigues, or challenges you. I do it as often as possible, which is usually weekly due to the demands of a daily deadline. Your schedule may allow for more wave-catching. If so, great. Just be sure to adopt a routine that you can stick to.
