Part I: The Definition of Social Media

In order to define what social media is, I feel it is necessary to define what it is not, due to the many misconceptions people have about it.

Social media is not defined as

• Forums for socializing online (chit-chat, gossip, opinion, personal stories/images).
• A place to sell your products and services to millions of people.
• The latest fads in online communication technology.

It would be foolish to say that social media doesn’t have elements of the above, but it would be equally foolish to define social media as any of the above. Unfortunately, many people do see social media as these things because they see people using it for chit chat and gossip, or sales and marketing, and they see new social media platforms come and go.

What is the definition of social media?

According to different experts, both academic and professional, social media has been defined as the following:

1. “The many relatively inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on a common effort, or build relationships.”  –Arthur L. Jue, Social Media at Work, published by Oracle (link to book preview).
2. “Any highly scalable and accessible communications technology or technique that enables any individual to influence groups of other individuals easily.”  –John Blossom of Content Nation (link to book preview).
3. “A group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content”  –Kaplan & Haenlein of Users of the World Unite (link to full article).

The first definition talks about the tools, and the things people do with them. The second definition is the best in my opinion; it frames social media as technologies that enable users to have influence. The third definition, the worst of the bunch, puts an emphasis on Web 2.0 (whatever that is) and its implications.

These definitions of social media are informative, but none of them really spoke to me; they didn’t described what I experience with social media. I wanted to develop my own definition based on my experiences, so I researched the origins of the term.

My definition of social media

Social media are the web-based applications that facilitate communication and allow individuals to exert influence through an unmoderated (or user moderated), many-to-many, user generated exchange of information and ideas.

My definition hints at the potential that I believe social media has to transform society positively, and in fact, I believe this transformation is already taking place.  In the following section, we’ll look at some examples.

Part II: Social Media is Transforming Society

The fact that you can talk to thousands of people using social media means that you can also influence them.

The word ‘influence’ can have negative connotations, and in terms of marketing, most people consider the word synonymous with ‘manipulate’. While still prevalent, that type of influence is dying, due to the hugely collaborative nature of the internet. Statistics show that people no longer want to passively receive information; they want to be a part of creating and sharing it with their community—when they see fit, how they see fit, and with a large dose of their own opinion on the side.

So, how can we influence each other using social media?

• We can recommend or warn against certain products or brands
• We can share our opinion about events, companies and people
• We can pass on valuable information
• We can educate each other through collaboration
• We can form groups and do all of the above on an even larger scale

We can do all of this influencing relatively cheaply and it’s making a difference.

How is social media making a difference, right now?

Who we are listening to is changing:

• 62% of content consumed by people born after 1980 is created by someone they know!
• 47% of broadcast television viewers say they’d pay for tv without ads.
• 2/3 of all purchasing decisions are being influenced by word of mouth—mostly taking place on the web.

Political landscapes are changing

• In February of the US elections, Barack Obama attended very few campaign fundraisers, but he earned $55 million on social networks. Social media has been deemed responsible for his election by many.
• During elections in Iran, citizens used Twitter to leak critical info during a government-imposed media blackout, which resulted in the general public being informed about what was really happening.
• Many have called the internet the truest form of democracy that we have seen: The internet is made by the people, for the people and it has no will or agenda of its own and is totally unbiased, so it cannot be corrupted.

Gate-keeping and Information Silos are being destroyed

• “Wikipedia and Google have democratized information to the point where anyone is able to acquire the knowledge they may want—Knowledge is NO LONGER power.”
• MIT, Harvard and other prestigious universities are offering web versions of some of their classes for free, because they understand that it’s not about the information, it’s about the relation-ship.
• “The paradigm is now no longer to try to appear perfect, but to be more transparent with your thoughts and feelings, to reveal your humanness”

Part III: Further Reading

Part II discussed how social media is shifting how we receive and share information. In Part III I’ll share further reading on the subject of social media.

• Social Media, Political Change and Human Rights (2011)  is a paper by Sarah Joseph, professor at Monash University, about the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East. She first gives a background to the topics and then goes on to analyses Clay Shirky’s arguments for and Malcolm Gladwell’s arguments against the importance of social media in revolutions. Her conclusion is more on the side of Shirky, stating that where people aren’t given freedom of information, social media can play an important role in change. Below are some quotes from her paper about the contrasting views:

Gladwell argues that social media connections promote weak ties and low-risk activism, or “slacktivism.” He argues that “liking” something on Facebook, or retweeting a story, requires little effort, yet those actions might lull the protagonists into thinking they are doing something meaningful. – Malcolm Gladwell, Small Change, New Yorker, Oct. 4, 2010, at 42, full article available here.

Shirky argues that “political freedom has to be accompanied by a civil society literate enough and densely connected enough to discuss the issues presented to the public.” He endorses the theory of sociologists Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld that the formation of well-considered political opinions is a two-step process. The first step requires access to information; the second, use of that information in conversation and debate. Under this framework, Shirky argues that social media has revolutionized how people form political opinions and has made information so widely accessible that more people than ever are able to develop considered points of view. – Clay Shirky, The Political Power of Social Media, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2011, partial article available here.

• Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media by Rory O’Connor has a title that pretty much sums up the book pretty well. Book preview available here.

In an interview with Alternet Rory discusses his book, his research and why he thinks that providing access to the means of media production to millions of citizens is democratizing the news. Full interview available here.

• An article in the Harvard Business Review discusses 6 ways that new social media technologies are changing our relationships with ourselves, each other and organizations. Full article here.
• A great report by the Brookings Institute discusses ways that social media is used in and is changing Education. Full report here.

Academics & Grumps, by Griffin Johnston on Flickr

This article is an update of my February 2011 article, It’s Time for Accountable Content on Blogs. Since then, I have learned three solid reasons to write accountable blog content:

1. Your readers will trust you more
2. Your site will rank higher in search engines
3. You will make more money

In this article I’ll cover these 3 reasons why you should write accountable, *quality* content, as well as give you some criteria for what I think *quality* content is.

1. Your readers will trust you more

Trust and communication are inextricably connected to each other. The Oxford Dictionary says:

Communication is the imparting or exchanging of information or news

Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something

Communication requires trust and trust requires communication. We buy certain brands because we believe in their promise; we trust them. We read certain authors again and again because we know their story will entertain/inform/enlighten us; we trust them. If you’re in the business of blogging, whether for business or hobby, you’re in the business of building and maintaining trust. Whether you want someone to subscribe to your blog, or whether you want them to click on an ad, accountable content will improve your chances of success.

2. Your site will rank higher in search engines

If you’ve been blogging for any time, then you know there are two ways people can get to your site. One is through your network (social media, subscriptions to your site, friends and family) and the other is through search engines. Google and other search engines rank sites higher when they know that people find what they’re looking for on your site. Of course, the search engine can’t read minds, so how does it know that someone has found what they’re looking for? The answer is hyperlinks! If someone clicks a link on your post, then the search engine knows that your blog has something that people are looking for, and it ranks you higher for that search term.

Accountable, *quality* content has links to sources of information, connecting your thoughts to the larger dialogue that is happening around the topics you write about. Over the space of a year, I actually became number 1 for a specific search term because Google knew that people find what they’re looking for on my website, by clicking on links in my post.

In my research in 2011, I learned that many people avoid linking to other pages because it takes away from the time spent on their page and the possible money they will earn from their ads. This article about Black Hole SEO talks about why this might not be very effective.

In this post about Google, called How to Improve Your Website’s Google Ranking, Marziah Karch talks about how to link properly:

Link Early, Link Often

One of the biggest factors Google looks at is the hyperlink. Google looks at both links to and from your website.

Google looks at the words you use in links to help determine the content of your page. Use links within web pages as a way to emphasize keywords. Rather than saying, “click here to learn more about SEO” you should say: Read more about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Learn more about why hyperlink names matter to Google.

3. You will make more money

Only 4% of bloggers say that their primary source of income is their blog and only 7% state money as their primary reason for blogging (2011 Technorati survey of bloggers). However, money and/or career appears to play a part for most bloggers in some way or another:

• 22% blog to attract clients to their (own) business
• 24% blog to get published in traditional media
• 28% blog to advance their career
• 42% blog to gain professional recognition (to advance their career)
• 25% blog to make money or supplement their infome

Why do you blog?

Here is a summary of the survey results for the question, What is the Primary Reason Why You Blog?

Summary of survey results for question: What is the primary reason why you blog? Click on image to go to Technorati survey results.

I am a fairly representative example of this summary: My primary reason for blogging is to explore my interests. I also network and share my expertise, experiences and opinions. I don’t make money directly from my blog, but I do indirectly: when I send a resume or post an ad for my writing services, there is a link to my blog and I believe it improves my chances of being offered work. In my email communications, I have a link to my blog in my signature, so when I email strangers, that link lends me credibility, and builds trust, which can benefit me in all kinds of ways.

If that person clicked on that link and it landed on a website that lacked credibility, I could actually make myself look worse than with no link at all. What I’m saying is that it pays to build credibility. There are many ways to build credibility, but the one that I’m talking about in this post is through the *quality* of your content.

What is *quality* accountable content?

I put asterix around the word quality because this is subjective, of course. The following list is my own criteria for *quality* accountable content:

• References to other people/ideas are supported by links or sources.
• Credit is given to anyone from whom you got information.
• The authority (or non-authority) of the author is stated clearly.
• Statistics are sourced, if possible to the actual research they came from (Hint: if you’re having a hard time finding the source of a statistic, it’s probably because it’s a fake–don’t use it).
• Quotes are sourced, if possible to the book or website they came from.
• Statements of fact are supported by evidence, or by professional opinion.
• Opinions and advice are supported by evidence, or by professional opinion.

Further Reading

• This how to article, explains all you need to know about attributing things properly.
• Digital Ethics, by Loyala University has a very in-depth guide for Best Practices for Bloggers.  It’s great, read it.
• This article called 12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every Time is not only an excellent example of *quality* accountable content, it also gives lots of tips on how to avoid errors that really have an impact on your blogging success.

Follows is the most beautiful, and one of the longest sentences in his article that gives a colourful, heartfelt explanation of his decision to write long sentences. Prepare to be amazed.

Enter (I hope) the long sentence: the collection of clauses that is so many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions, that has so much room for near-contradiction and ambiguity and those places in memory or imagination that can’t be simplified, or put into easy words, that it allows the reader to keep many things in her head and heart at the same time, and to descend, as by a spiral staircase, deeper into herself and those things that won’t be squeezed into an either/or.

To learn more about Pico Iyer, see his website.

Rutger at the Ready by Barry Shaffer on Flickr

This is an essay about overcoming fear and anxiety using different techniques such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The following topics are covered:

• What is Your Worst Possible Outcome?
• A Curse Upon Me: Fear
• My Journey with Fear
• Magical Thinking
• Facing the Worst Possible Outcome
• The Techniques:
  1. Decatastrophizing
  2. Finding the Good
• Further Reading

What is Your Worst Possible Outcome?

We spend a lot of our time and energy doing whatever we can to avoid the worst possible outcome, but what if we embraced it instead? What if, instead of running, we turned around and looked it in the eye? What would happen if we embraced the fact that we’re going to die, and it might be cancer, it might be a heart attack and it might be a big accident? What if we make peace with the possibility that our husband or wife could very well leave us one day (yikes!), or maybe we forgot to lock the door, or here’s a big one: we could lose everything we own–to a stock market crash, a fire, or we could get fired from our job.

I don’t mean some kind of positive thinking campaign where you try to force yourself to look forward to these tragic experiences, and I don’t mean a passive acceptance of things that might cause you or your relationships harm. Rather, by embracing the WPO, I mean exploring these dark, scary places and asking, “then what?” If the worst happens, then what happens after that? Can I cope? Can I see any goodness in it, no matter how small? I have a little exercise for you: take a moment to look at one of your fears, big or small, and if you’re brave, take a trip to the WPO. Just for a second, look inside and make a note of what thoughts or feelings come up.

The WPO is actually a technique for dealing with fear and anxiety called decatastrophizing in psychology.  I’ve been learning how to use it, and I’ll go into this technique in more detail, but first I’d like to share my experiences with fear and anxiety to put this technique into context. Maybe you’ll see yourself here.

A Curse Upon Me: Fear

This post was inspired by a story I was told by a good friend of mine who has been visiting Bali for the last few months. A local man she had gotten to know, a Balinese shaman and healer, had put a curse on her because she would not give him what he wanted. “A curse!? That’s crazy–and scary,” I told her. She shrugged it off, but did mention that she had needed to stand strong in her power to resist the curse. This story made me curious–in our modern age, what is a curse? What does it mean to stand strong against one? In my mind, I see a shoot-out between two gunslingers, dust blowing, sweat dripping and a hard gaze between them, waiting, watching for a flinch. A task of both skill and an unwavering concentration. There is no room for fear in this place.

Even though I don’t believe in the power of curses in the way that a Balinese shaman might, I definitely wouldn’t feel good if someone put a curse on me; it might cause me to have anxiety, which could in turn cause illness or injury. I don’t believe that the power of a curse lies in the curse itself, or the shaman who makes it, but in the accursed’s inability to overcome or rid herself of doubts, fears and anxiety. Taken further, this fear and anxiety and these doubts cannot be brought into existence by a curse, but must already be there in me to begin with. As a proverb states, “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come home to rest.” I’ll give two examples to help illustrate this point: if someone says “the earth revolves around the moon,” you don’t begin to doubt your knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun because you are absolutely certain it does. On the other hand, if someone says, “You’re a bad person,” you could begin to doubt your knowledge that you’re a good person if there are times when you feel like you’re bad.

This course of thoughts brought me to a big realization that I wanted to share; namely, that my doubts, fear and anxiety are like a curse upon me. This begs the question, where did these fear-curses originate, and how do I fight them? In the curse of fear, the battle is all in my head, and there is no shaman, nor a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. In the end, it comes down to believing in myself–my goodness–and the path that I am on.

My Journey with Fear

The subject of fear and how to deal with it has come up a lot in my life, as I believe it does for many people. In more recent times, I was hired to write a book about overcoming fear in pregnancy and childbirth. As a midwife, my client had developed her own birthing techniques based on an accepted theory that fear causes needless pain and suffering during childbirth, as well as most complications and the need for interventions. I did a lot of research about fear for this book, and it helped me flesh out my own thoughts and examine how I deal with fear in healthy and unhealthy ways. My self-education deepened further when, earlier this year, I suffered through a time of  heightened anxiety. Luckily I was able to get some help with this, but considering the damaging effects of fear and anxiety that I have seen in my own life and many friends and family members, I have been taking this topic of fear and anxiety quite a bit more seriously.

When did it begin? Like most young children, I was afraid of the dark and monsters under the bed. I relied on many things to help me through these fears, including nightlights, my mother, and my well-developed skill of dashing like a fox into my bed and under the covers after turning the lightswitch off. I also perfected the, “It’s not real” mantra and the “never let your feet dangle over the side of the bed” technique.

By the time I was a teenager, I had developed two strategies for dealing with fear: 1) avoid the fear-causing situation, or 2) simply push the fear away. For example, if I thought that I had forgotten something at home, I would either push that thought away, or go back home and look until I figured out what I forgot. With my fears around cancer, I would either push the thoughts of the C-word out of my head, or start worrying about the food I was eating or bad habits that I want to change. Of the two strategies, I thought that pushing the fear away was the braver, more evolved option. It made me feel strong. For example, pushing fear away helped me to do a lot of scary things, like jumping off a bridge into a lake, learning to drive, or travelling alone to Europe when I was 18. I used many methods for pushing fear away, including distraction, prayer, reciting affirmations, or using blunt logic (people have a much higher chance of getting in an accident in a car than in a plane, so GET ON THE PLANE).

As I grew into an adult, I developed a bit of a superstitious nature. For example, I sometimes touch wood if I mention something about the future that I want to happen, and I learned to avoid thinking or speaking about negative things because I feared it might make them come true. If something bad does happen to me, I often begin to think that I’m being punished (by whom I don’t know!). Even though this is totally irrational, when I’m having a bad day, this type of thinking just creeps in.

Magical Thinking

In psychology, this superstitious way of thinking is called magical thinking. If you’ve ever bought a lottery ticket, worn a lucky charm, crossed your fingers, looked for ‘a sign’, or gone to check to make sure you locked the door–a second time–then you have engaged in magical thinking.  Although I personally believe that there can definitely be value in magical thinking, I also believe that there are dangers. People who suffer from certain mental health disorders, such as depression, OCD, anxiety, and psychosis (schizophrenia, mania, etc.), often engage in magical thinking. This doesn’t mean that magical thinking causes mental health disorders, just that there is a correlation between the two phenomena.

Magical thinking has come into mainstream culture lately with the book, The Secret. The book describes “the law of attraction as a natural law that determines … our personal lives through the process of ‘like attracts like.’ That is, as we think and feel, a corresponding frequency is sent out into the universe that attracts back to us events and circumstances on that same frequency.”  (quoted from wikipedia page on The Secret). There is definitely some truth to the fact that positive thinking can help us achieve our goals, but when taken to the extreme, this same ‘law’ can be very unhelpful and even damaging. For example, when something bad happens, if you believed in this ‘law’ you could easily deduce that your thinking, or ‘frequency,’ caused the bad thing to happen. Or, if you don’t manage to achieve your goals, then you could easily deduce that you have the wrong ‘frequency,’ rather than look at the circumstances or your behaviour for a balanced view of why things might not have worked out. Critics of the book have also pointed to the fact that this outlook can be used as a victim-blaming tool that marginalizes people in our society.

I note these criticisms because I have realized that magical thinking has definitely played a large role in my anxiety. In fact, one of my earliest strategies for dealing with fear (pushing it away) is based in magical thinking–the belief that by thinking about what I am afraid of, I will draw it to me, and by not thinking about it, I will keep it away.

To learn more about magical thinking, see the links at the bottom of this post in the section called Further Reading.

Wow, as I write that, it makes me emotional, because cancer is one of my biggest fears. It’s a curse, really. Where did this curse of cancer come from? I believe it was my grandfather who originally cursed me with a fear of cancer as a child, by telling me often that I could get it because my father died of a genetic form of cancer that I had probably inherited. Anything that I did that he thought was cancer-inducing would bring up the subject. Like wearing nail-polish even!  I was cursed again when I was 16 and went to a clinic at UBC studying families with genetic forms of cancer. They have been studying my family genes for a few generations, and they wanted me to participate in their program. They told me that my odds of getting cancer and the types of treatments that I could expect. It was very disturbing, and fear-inducing. A curse, really. And my way of dealing with it was that I wanted nothing to do with it. I never went back to that clinic.

We’ve all been cursed with fear by different experiences in our lives. As in the case of my fear of cancer, the people who cursed me never had any intention to harm me, and in fact, the opposite is true: they were trying to help me. My fears aren’t special–they’re the same as almost everyone else. Everyone fears illness, injury, death and the loss of loved ones, the loss of status, being rejected, not belonging. When those fears possess me, cause me to freeze in my actions and determine the paths I take in life, then I am not free. Facing the worst possible outcome is my way of accessing freedom. I hope the techniques below will help you as they have helped me.

The Techniques

Technique #1: Decatastrophizing

*Disclaimer:* I am not a therapist and this won’t necessarily be a good strategy for everyone to use against their fears, especially alone. I learned this technique from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and I practiced it alone, so I think it can work for others too. It’s called decatastrophizing. For this to work, you need to be really honest with yourself, and you need to do be ready to let your anxiety go. So here it is:

1. Take a small situation to begin with that causes you anxiety. Maybe you want to write it down, although I do it in my head.
2. Now figure out what the WPO is in that situation. It might not be obvious at first.
3. Now say to yourself “If the WPO happens, then what?” but replace the words WPO with the actual dreaded event.
4. Now really imagine yourself in the WPO, what will you do?
5. If you find yourself using general descriptive terms like, “I’ll panic” or “I’ll freak out,” then continue on with your questioning: “If I panic, then what?” How long will you panic for, what will you do after you panic? What will you do while you panic?
6. Keep up this line of questioning until you get to the point where you can imagine that you’ve passed the WPO and you’re just living your life again, normally.
7. Either think about or write down where you underestimated your ability to cope with the situation. People have coped with losing a leg, going through Nazi concentration camps, going to jail, and being raped. They have coped with cancer. Superman Christopher Reeves coped with total paralysis of his body. You might think that you won’t be able to cope, but the likelihood is that you will be able to, so let that feeling of being able to cope come up in you.  That strength.
8. Now either think about or write down where you overestimated how horrible the situation would go. Would you really lose your job for forgetting to bring something to a meeting? Will you really die if you get cancer? Will your life really be horrible if your girlfriend dumps you?

Now, I didn’t learn this next part from a book, but it really helps me:

After you’re done, say to yourself “If  __________ (the WPO) happens, I will be okay.” Say it until you believe it.  Let yourself believe it, most importantly.  Let go of your belief that you are so weak that you can’t cope or deal with what life throws at you.  For example, “If I get cancer, I will be okay.”  Or, “If I make a fool of myself, I will be okay.” Or, “If they laugh at me, I will be okay.” Or, “If she dumps me, I will be okay.”   Feel it.  Think about the times in your life that you’ve overcome something similar, and remember how you dealt with it, even though it was so hard.  When the anxious thoughts come back again, just repeat your mantra until you believe it.

After all is said and done, I will admit that I often don’t actually believe in many ways that I would be able to deal with the WPO. Like losing my love.  Sometimes I worry he could get into an accident, for example, and I know that I would survive, physically, but there is a part of me that feels like it would destroy me completely. Like I wouldn’t be able to live with it. But when I use the WPO technique, I just trust in the fact that I would survive. I know logically that I would survive because I know people who have survived cancer, losing their leg, losing their wallet, losing a beloved, etc. So I guess it’s just about believing in the time after the grief. Not to say that the grief would be easy or that there wouldn’t be intense grief, but to trust that I would eventually get over it. Also, to allow myself to get over it. Because sometimes I have this idea that if I allow myself to get over something, then I’m not being loyal. This is also magical thinking, and I’ve seen people close to me lose years and years of their lives to this type of ‘loyalty’.

Technique #2: Finding the Good

This second technique I learned from Byron Katie. She uses this technique in part of her larger technique called ‘The Work’, which is 4 questions that you ask yourself about something that is really bugging you. I’m not going to go into the larger technique, just the part about facing the WPO.

1. Imagine yourself in the WPO, but you don’t have to go too deep into it this time. Just identify exactly what it is that is causing your anxiety. For example, if you are anxious every time you leave your house because you think you forgot something, but it’s not actually forgetting something that is causing your anxiety, but the consequences of forgetting something, then identify that consequence that you’re so afraid of.  Like losing your job, looking like a fool, etc.
2. Now find three good things that could come if the WPO actually happened. No matter how small or insignificant they would be compared to how great your loss would be, just find them. For example, if I lost my job I would have more time to write, I might find a better job and I wouldn’t have to hang around with so and so, who is really annoying. If I got terminal cancer, I could finally take that trip because I wouldn’t have to worry about saving money, I’d get to see what my head looks like bald (I loved Sinead O’Conner as a girl and I always wanted to shave my head but didn’t have the courage), and I would have more quality time with friends and family.  Oh yeah, I’d get to act like a real jerk!

You might feel really guilty about using this technique, especially if the WPO is about someone else leaving you or dying, but remember, this isn’t about being happy that they leave you or that they died. This is about being honest with yourself about your ability to cope with the situation. This is about facing the WPO with courage. If you really have a difficult time with this technique, examine where you might be using magical thinking to your disadvantage. Are you afraid that by thinking about the WPO, you will make it come to you? That’s magical thinking. Are you telling yourself that you are betraying someone by thinking about the possibility of being okay when they’re gone?  That’s magical thinking. I don’t want you to give up your beliefs, but if your beliefs are hurting you and stopping you from living life to your potentials, then maybe you want to look at that.

Further Reading

• I learned about facing the Worst Possible Outcome from two sources:
  1. a technique used in CBT–Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
  2. a technique used in the Work (the link goes to a video where a man does the Work about his fears around a business decision that he made that is stressing him out, and where he faces the WPO).
• Here is more info about decatastrophizing: Decatastrophising in Cognitive Therapy
• Here is a decatastrophizing worksheet.
• This is a great article with information about anxiety, magical thinking and lots of tips and techniques: Self-help strategies for anxiety relief.
• This is a great and balanced article in Psychology Today talking about how and why we use magical thinking and some forms it takes.
• Here is an article in Scientific American about some research that showed that superstition and magical thinking can be helpful.

Cold Outside by Italian Voice, Flickr

This article covers the following:

• My experience with the local Vancouver writing community
• How online critiquing works
• Pros of online critiquing
• Cons of online critiquing
• Tips for using an online critique group successfully

In October of this year (2010), I volunteered at two writing and reading festivals, the ViWF and the SiWC and they were very valuable and enjoyable experiences for me.   I met a lot of writers, local and international, and I even had the chance to have conversations and learn from several successful authors.

One of the more memorable moments was at the SiWC with Robert Dugoni, an amazing speaker and teacher, and author of six books.  I have never read anything by Dugoni and I may never  because I’m not much into crime fiction, but his ‘query letter workshop’ was packed FULL of useful information, and his speech at the closing gala had the entire audience on their feet, cheering and inspired.

One thing that stood out to me was his firm advice to share your work with others, and he suggested many ways to do this, including joining an online critique group.  The part about sharing your work was not new to me, but online critique group?  Really?  A few days later, when I’d had a chance to digest the two events (which took place during the same week in October), I sat down and did some research.

I have since joined Critters, which was only one of many groups out there on the web.  So far, it appears to be very well organized and secure, but most importantly, I am learning a lot through reading and editing other people’s work.  This week is my turn for people to read and critique my work, so I will let you know how it goes.

See some helpful critique group links, lists and other blog posts about critique groups.

Update February 2012

For the last few years, I’ve been using critters.org to gain insight into how the general public will perceive my book, and to that extent, it has been an invaluable tool. The level of attention that critters give to their critiques is truly astounding, especially since they aren’t getting paid (although they do get critiques in return). I’ve received tons of amazing feedback and some great tips that I have definitely incorporated into my writing.

How online critiquing works

You sign up to the secure, members-only part of the site and put yourself into a queue. Each week, you choose the work of at least one other writer in the batch of writing at the front of the queue, and write a critique about that writing. When your writing comes to the front of the queue, other people will read it and give you their thoughts.

Pros of online critiquing

This system works exceptionally well, thanks mostly to the operator of the site, Burt. The following is my own list of positive features and benefits of the critters.org site in particular, though I guess this would apply to many online critique groups:

• It’s cheap. In fact, it’s free! I have honestly spent thousands and thousands of dollars in classes and editing fees in the past 15 years of my writing career, and as an editor and writer, I constantly have people asking me to read their work for a reduced fee. Unfortunately, this just isn’t possible because I do need to pay my bills, so I confidently encourage them to find an online critique group, with the knowledge that it will truly help them.
• You will become a better writer. I think that this is absolutely the biggest benefit. Through editing other people’s writing on a continual basis, you will become a better writer yourself. You will figure out, time and again, what works for you and what doesn’t. Through reading what you like in other people’s writing, you will find out what you like about your own. You might just discover that the gaping plot hole you found in that lady’s story is very similar to what you did in your own story, and you’ll be so shocked to discover it!
• The advice and criticisms can be incredibly informative. I have received reviews that were worth a lot of money. Some people on this site truly give their best; some of the people who have reviewed my writing have been published writers themselves, English teachers, very caring, and all around brilliant editors.
• You build up relationships with other writers. It was really great to find out weeks later that the author I had critiqued appreciated my critique so much that they returned the favour and critiqued my own writing. Over time, I felt like part of a community and I was exchanging emails.
• You get to choose what you critique. I liked the fact that I could choose to read what I felt interested in (rather than just having to read what was thrown at me, like I did hundreds of times in classes that I paid thousands of dollars for), and I really got to read very enjoyable stories!

Cons of online critiquing

With so many benefits listed above, what could possible be wrong? Well, there are some things to look out for, that’s for sure, especially for young writers or people with delicate sensibilities (anyone who cries easily).

• The critiques can be tough. I know because I received and wrote a few tough ones myself. Some people just don’t like your writing, and maybe that’s because your writing needs improvement and maybe it’s because it’s not their taste. Either way, if you are a budding writer, who, like most beginning writers, takes everything that everyone says to heart, then you could extinguish the small fire of your writing passion before it ever has the chance to grow into something.
• It’s a bit of a clique. There are obviously members of the community who have the feeling that they rule the roost.

Tips for using an online critique group successfully

Some of the following things I learned from being part of other online communities, and some of these things I learned through my experience with critters.org. I hope you find them useful.

• Don’t take anything anyone says to heart!!! Please! There are some mean/super insensitive people who get really irritated by poor grammar, or weak plots, or whatever have you. But, if you believe in your concept, don’t let these people get you down! Take the criticisms that you understand, that resonate with you, the ones that you say, ‘yes, I knew that was weak, he’s right’ and work on that one point.  Forget the rest, let them go… fly away.  Just like you are not obligated to like every type of writing, no one is obligated to like yours.
• Go one step at a time.  You might feel inundated with different types of criticisms on all facets of your book/story: grammar, voice, plot, syntax, structure, characters, etc. There is only so much you can improve, only so much you can do, or understand.  Even though you want to write a best seller right out of the starting gate, you can only take that path one step at a time.  And even if you do write a best seller out of the starting gate, then it is highly likely you would look at that book years later and say to yourself, ‘My god, did I write that?!’  Your writing style and ability will grow slowly over time.
• Do great critiques if you want to get the most out of it.  Your critiques will be returned in favour, and if you want to become part of the community, then, at least in the beginning, you will need to prove your worth by doing great critiques before people will take you seriously.
• Follow the rules!  Seriously. It’s a small community.  If you are rude it will come back to you.  People will tear you a new one. Generally people are very sensitive about their writing, so unless you want that guy to come back and tell you all about why your writing sucks, then find a way to tell that guy nicely why his writing didn’t work for you, and how it might have worked better for you.  Be diplomatic.

This list of twitter resources and secondary applications will help you run your twitter effectively and with less effort:
(Updated June 2011)

Twitter profile design

Design your profile to reflect who you are: put up a good picture and design the background: the more personal and ‘real,’ the better (Believe me, this cannot be understated).  If your twitter profile is boring, it’s telling the world that YOU are boring.  If your twitter profile is generic, it says that YOU are generic.

• Be careful with your photos, because they are often obscured by the Twitter foreground.
• Here is an amazing blog-post about ‘pimping’ your twitter profile (for intermediate computer users, or die-hard tweeters).
• For a more simple option, Flickr has amazing seamless backgrounds (like the starry universe of my twitter profile), just be sure to thank the author. Oh yeah, that reminds me, the best designer of seamless patters, IMO, is Patrick Hoesly :) thanks Patrick!
• Or you can go to colourlover.com to create and customize your very own background.

Finding people to follow

I have found the twitter search bar absolutely useless, except for finding people I already know.  Choosing who to follow on Twitter will depend on what you want to do with Twitter: 

• If you are looking to keep up to date in current trends in your field, follow selectively and use lists to organise followers.
• If you are looking to contact many people to share yourself and meet new people, then you will want to follow many people.  In this case, it can be helpful to follow 10-50 people per day, and

To find people who are interesting to follow, either check out who your friends are following, or use some secondary applications, such as:

• wefollow.com and twellow.com. List yourself in their databases and use the simple search to find other twitter users who have similar interests to you.  They’re both large databases, and I find interesting people on them all the time.
• twitterfall.com.  This site allows you to perform very intricate searches, based on location, list, key words, Just put a keyword in any of the tag/search-bar and start reading/clicking–you can put in multiple key words and see all of the results in one pane and watch as they continually flow in.  Check it out–it’s cool.

I met William Gibson at the ViWF last fall and he told me: “Twitter is like a magazine you can customize.  You need to be careful of who you follow and how many people you follow.  If you follow too many, you just can’t keep track or have very meaningful conversations.”  He recommended 70, but hey, he’s William Gibson, he’s supposed to be a loner.

On the other hand, if you are trying to promote yourself for some reason, and you don’t necessarily want to use Twitter as a magazine, but are more interested in reaching a large audience, one option is to follow TONS of people who are interested in your topic/passion/product, because when you follow people on Twitter, there is a good chance that they will follow you back.  Especially if you tweet about things they like (use wefollow.com to find people who will be interested in what you tweet about).

Resources

• tweetake.com downloads a file with information about all of your friends & followers.  You can easily find things to retweet and get a better sense of what people are talking about.
• By filling out a short form, you can download Hubspots free ebook with tons of tips for using twitter for business.

Does your writing have style? 'Writing' by jjpacres on Flickr

In this post I’ll give you a free style guide template to work with, and I’ll cover the following:

• What is a style guide?
• Why create a personal style guide?
• How to create a style guide.

In university we learn about style guides such as MLA and APA, which are so confusing that you practically need a guide to use them–especially if you take a psychology and a history class at the same time!  But style guides don’t have to be complicated or long–they can be as short as one page!

My first run-in with a simple, personalized style guide really delighted me, so I thought I would share this simple tool with you.

What is a style guide?

Wikipedia says the following about style guides:

“A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document.”

In simple, a personal style guide is a clear set of rules that reflect the choices you’ve made in your writing style over the course of your writing career.

Why create a personal style guide?

Everyone has a different writing style and although there are grammar rules, we all know that these are not set in stone.  Consider the following choices you’re faced with on any given writing day:

• Where do you use semicolons? (maybe you hate them, so you never use them!)
• How do you use em dashes (–)?
• How do you use en dashes (-)?
• Do you put a comma before the last item in a list? (apples, oranges, and pears)
• When do you capitalise headings?
• Do you use American or Canadian English?
• When do you italicise words?

Instead of making style choices again and again, or worse, being inconsistent, your style guide will capture things you’ve learned, and choices you’ve made over the years.  Your style guide will grow with you, as you grow as a writer.

How to create a personal style guide

You can download my personal style guide, but I HIGHLY recommend that you spend some time editing it–I have my own idiosyncrasies based on my own writing experience (plus, I’m Canadian).  The blog, “Copyediting”, has a great post about creating style guides and they offer a list of things you ‘might’ want to address in a style guide.  I suggest that you pick what you feel you’d like to add to your style guide, and forget the rest (don’t be intimidated by the amount of info on this list! It’s only a prompt):

Quick reference style guide issues (taken from Copyediting.com)

• Dictionary of choice.
• Punctuation. Start with the items below. If you have time, check out other comma rules, semicolon usage, parentheses vs. brackets, and other punctuation marks.
  • Serial comma
  • Em dash
  • Ellipsis
• Hyphenation. This is a big topic.
• Names. Know the capitalization rules for:
  • Personal names
  • Titles of people
  • Organization and company names
• Titles of works. For books, blogs, newspapers, articles, poems, and so forth, note the following:
  • Capitalization rules
  • Rules for using italics, quotation marks, or nothing at all (no one underlines anymore, right?)
• Abbreviations. Items to familiarize yourself with:
  • How do you introduce acronyms and initialisms?
  • Which state abbreviations do you use: two-letter (MA) or traditional (Mass.)?
• Numbers. This is another complicated topic. Start with the rules you use most often, such as:
  • Numerals vs. words
  • Plural and possessive numbers
  • Dates
  • Fractions
  • Units of measure
• Possessives. There are so many variations! Try to nail down the basics:
• Singular noun
• Singular noun that ends in s
• Plural noun
• Plural noun that ends in s
• Exceptions to singular or plural rule

Resources

• Here is a link to download my personal style guide to use as a template for creating your own.
• Here is a link to the Modern Humanities Research Association style guide.
• Here is a link to my favourite site explaining APA and MLA styles by Purdue University.
• I highly recommend the book Steering the Craft by Ursula Leguin if you are a fiction writer–it will help you learn and practice using grammar that you might be unfamiliar with.