Just Words?
A friend recently asked me, ‘Do you think people realise how much a good review actually means to the person who receives it?
Receiving a good review - not even an amazing review - can truly change a small business owners entire day, if not week. It can make them feel like they are truly appreciated, that what they do is worthwhile, and that they are worthwhile. It can even give them enough motivation to keep striving towards their small business dream.
The year I started working at The Bodhi Tree Bookstore Cafe, (in Perth, Western Australia) I had a stack of goals, several of them quite large. Yet the one that had most impact on me and that still stays with me today was my daily one to make every customer I served smile. Not a large goal, but I’m told it definitely had positive repercussions.
So this year as we’re deciding what we want to do this year, don’t forget to include one small achievable, daily goal. It could just be to stop using negative words, offering a genuine compliment to everyone you talk to, smiling and thanking the barista for your coffee, or every night writing a list of all the good things you’ve achieved that day.
None of these actions cost money, they are just words - but we all know words are never ‘just words.’ The difference they make might be small or life-changing.
Chances are we’ll never know, but that’s not the point. Is it?
Most of us, as writers, have a coupl e of clear goals in our lives. One is to continually put arrangements of words on the page in a truly impressive order. The other would be to have those words then printed so that our (hopefully) thousands or millions of followers can easily access them. Yet, it would appear to be a fact (certainly within my small research pool of writers) that, ...
There are many wonderful things about the internet, but there are a few annoying things too. Like, how if you search for something online you then tend to be flooded by countless ads, memes and articles on the same topic - even months after your initial search. But have you ever wondered how great it would be if ...
A collection of the most popular word games you can play without writing.
Simple writing techniques every writer should use when writing dialogue.
Critiquing! Did you know me when my life revolved around critiquing manuscripts for writers? Being given the opportunity to help other writers with their work always made me smile. Seeing the genuine delight on the faces of writers as they saw a strong, readable story emerge from their laboriously prepared manuscript - it was unforgettable. It might sound cliche, but it truly was. In fact, ...
The benefits of Shiny Object Syndrome, how to use it to your advantage, but also how to overcome the distractions.
We all know that the pandemic has ch anged things, some irrevocably, some for the good and some less so. To a certain extent, as a house sitter, I’m protected from a lot of the changes. After all, because I’m always moving I don’t have a local community to lose touch with. I don’t have to learn to adjust to different working requirements because, well, when you’re moving every few days or weeks you have to do it anyway. But,...
As housesitters we stay in countless homes. In fact, in the last month alone, we stayed in six. Each of these houses tend to have their own unique character and decor, as such, some have nothing that’s familiar to me while others have memory triggers every way I turn.
We all know how important proofreading is, right? It’s also more than likely you’re aware that any piece of writing usually needs proofreading more than once. After all, it’s not just your typos and confusing sentences that need catching, but also the infamous incorrect (and sometimes humorous) Autocorrect. My personal ‘top of the list’ mistake though is continually reading the words that I thought I wrote but actually didn’t. Frustrating and infuriating! To be honest, I think missing typing errors is as much a part of writing as spending half an hour staring at your page trying to come up with the perfect descriptive word. The question, therefore, is, what can you do about?
So what do you reckon, is it worth paying for your website just to avoid having the inevitable website provider’s ad you get on a free one?
