A New Project: Best.Grammar.Ever

Instead of writing posts for my blog and brainstorming topics for the coming weeks, as I ought to do to keep up with my commitment for NaBloPoMo, I've been working on something new. I am slowly accumulating Squidoo lenses as a hobby and a way to promote my articles. I have had a mixed experience, with one lens actually making money and sending hundreds of referrals to my articles every month but the rest either languishing or getting a trickle of clicks.

Now Squidoo has joined up with Ever.com and tempted me to try somthing new. I started something called best.grammar.ever.com. I find the layout much less "cute" than regular Squidoo lenses and the web address more memorable.

I am filling the site with posts from this blog, arranged by topic. So far I've written about and linked to my posts on -tion words and on the passive voice. I was surprised to find that I've written about the passive voice eight separate times. I intend to do sections on punctuation, improving your vocabulary, and why you need grammar in the first place.

If you have any questions about grammar or suggestions for topics, I'd love to see them. Not only can you learn but you can help shape the best grammar site ever. If you do have a question, I'll link to you in the post so that you get full credit. Thanks, and keep reading!

Squidoo Exerts Its Evil Influence

I've been resisting the urge to join Squidoo for ages now. Unfortunately, I have finally become convinced that it's a useful way to orgainize my articles even if it doesn't make me (or my chosen charity) any money at all. That's what hooked me, actually - that I can designate a charity to benefit from anything I do over there. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So far I've only made two lenses - one for my music articles and one for my articles about urban sprawl. I am going to do at least two more. One will be for my articles on parenting and family and the other a catch-all for various subjects.

I'm considering a fifth for book reviews, if only because I read so much, but I don't think the format there lends itself to a running commentary like a blog. I think that, with something like 110 articles out there starving for attention, I needed a way to find them and a way to point folks to similar information.

Obviously, these are a work in progress. I am looking at them as being relatively static, more reference material than active pages. I'm also looking at them as prospective referral pages for future clients, where they can see how I write and how familiar I am with a subject. The lenses will be my online portfolios, tailored to the sorts of jobs for which I am writing queries.