Tag Archives: Writing

Should you be a content creator?

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Since the beginning of Covid it seems like there has been a lot of people who want to try out the world of streaming and online content creation. With people being laid off and losing their jobs due to work places preventing them from working to help break the spread people think content creation is easy and the way to go. Here is a few things you might want to ask yourself before you begin. They might not be easy questions and some of the answers might be hard to hear but still they need to be asked regardless.

One huge question you should ask yourself is Why? Why do you want to start online content creation? Is it because you want to get rich quick (Which let’s face it, will not happen fast and there will be more about that later!) Or because you want to make a bigger impact on the world or even an impact as an influencer too.

What type of influencer or content creator would you like to be is one of the most valid questions you should ask yourself. Do you want to be a different person and create a persona or would you like to be genuine and yourself? Not to mention, Where do you want to produce content too, Youtube, Twitch or Facebook? Do you want to grow on Instagram or Twitter? When I first started streaming, I could have told you that I wanted to be a partnered streamer and see how that realm of creation works. Now, I would tell you I want to be a successful writer and blogger with streaming on the side as well.

There are many different skills or qualities you need in order to be successful in creating content for the world direct on the web. Some generic answers for this would be you should have some type of a sense of humor and charismatic personality. You also should understand the space you are trying to break into. And a huge if not one of the most important qualities would be to understand that this is the internet and there will be people who do not like you. They will troll you and direct hate towards you for many reasons. How you handle this can ultimately decide your happiness. People will hate or be rude towards you for anything from your appearance or even sound of your voice or way you put out videos or blogs or photos too. Ignore them. Having haters is typically a sign that you are doing well!

Doing some research and finding a niche will ultimately be a challenge for anyone. For example: If you are looking to become a streamer and want to play the game with the most viewers on Twitch chances are you will find a really tough time breaking in unless you are a pro player and absolute god in the game. Another would be if you want to be a blogger and if you don’t research. I stared this blog on Streaming and without thinking, streamers probably are more likely to watch a YouTube video instead of reading a blog about it. Switched to Lifestyle/Parenting/etc and my blog seems to be slowly flourishing when I should have did a bit more research into it. I also had no idea the importance of pinterest in blogging and growth either and that was a whole year wasted (Not really since I did learn more!) that I should have been pinning and helping drive traffic here. I also didn’t use any tags either which didn’t do me any favors.

Here is the question everyone is asking and probably thinking it is easy to get. Will I make money at creating content? The short answer is No, Not right away. Nothing is quick and it will take you a long time to grow your brand and make people want to tip you or support your content. You are going to have to do a lot to influence folks to want to give you money for whatever reasons. Do you provide a product? Do you provide a service? Entertainment? Or whatever else there might be. I have been streaming for nearly four? or three? (Honestly it feels like ages!) years and right now currently I am making about 25$ per month. That is legit all. And with Twitch you only get paid every time you hid the 100$ threshold. That means I essentially don’t even get a “pay check” every month from them. That is another reason why I wanted to focus a bit more on blogging. Streaming is such a give give give way of making money and the reality is the money you make is never a for sure thing either. You could totally make a modest month worth of cash and the next month make next to nothing. I feel like long term blogging could be the way to make a regular income once I get it grown to where I feel I am able to search the financial side of it though. Just like any job, content creation on whatever platform is not easy. Overnight success is not easy and chances are you will be working hard for a long time for little to no money before you can say that you “made it”.

So before you dive in, Ask yourself if creating content online is right for you. And before you take the plunge into trying to make a living out of this I would recommend NOT quitting your day job. So many people in the time I have been around on twitch along have been trying to make it big just by streaming full time hours. If you want to be successful put content to different platforms and bring others towards different avenues you have created. But NEVER put your own family or livelihood at risk because you think you can make full time hours online. Truth be told, The people I have seen stop and try to stream full time and be successful, are no longer streaming at all anymore.

Have you ever thought about creating content online?
What spots have you wanted to produce content?
Do you have any tips you would like to share with folks too?

Let me know in the comments below!

– Stacey

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How I Write My Blog Posts

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When I first started seriously blogging I had nearly no idea what I was doing. Literally none. I just wanted to be a blogger and I kind of did it however it was more rants and totally sporadic. There was no rhyme or reason. That is until I though blogging could be a serious way to make some type of footprint in the world of writing.

I started blogging seriously in preparation for my son. I was a streamer and would stream pretty heavy hours. I wanted to branch out into more than just streaming. I always loved writing and thought this could be a great way to still produce some type of content while waiting for my son to be born. Though the schedule was a bit tricky I could still schedule posts and pre-write them so I was still putting out content even when he was still a newborn and I had little to no sleep.

I first started with goals for blogging. That would be to try to have some growth and see where it goes. I knew I wanted to see if i could eventually make some kind of income though I still have legit no idea how to make that happen as of right now but I am working on growing followers as well as my email mailing list. I think that is good starts for it as well. I had dabbled with the idea of starting a blog in the past however I had no idea where I wanted to start or how I would go about it even. I had done a few posts but never really knew or understood how I would go about growing it, continuing, how often to post or anything. When I became pregnant with my son I knew that I wanted to take it a big more seriously and try to get something happening.

When I first decided to blog, I believe I posted on a few different days, still two days a week though but it was all about streaming. I thought because I was a streamer that I had to write about something that I knew. Which was streaming. I wasn’t really a big streamer by any means just one that was around a long time and felt like I could offer some tips and tricks to people if they wanted to see what it was about. I would strictly post about streaming like that was my niche. I know it seemed like a good idea. I was posting it on twitter when I was publishing posts and then I was seeing how it would go. I never really posted it anywhere and didn’t do anything to push them out. I just “hoped” that people would read them. They didn’t. After about the summer I realized that it was time to change it up. I started to write about my life, different aspects like parenting, funny stories, little rants. And well, here we are if you are familiar with my blogs you will see I don’t really have a “niche” per-say but I still do quite well I think!

Since I don’t really have any specific subject that I write about, it can be challenging to narrow down something to actually write about. What I normally do is if I am away from the computer I will save the title in my phone in a notepad and when I have a handful saved Ill save them into word press as a draft. It can be the weirdest times that something pops up. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes it has to do with something on TV or somethings it has to do with food or life or parenting in general. You can see that I kind of have a random amount of topics in here and to be fair, I just cant really narrow it down though!

I structure paragraphs after I figure out the title. I typically have an intro and outro which is standard I assume, and questions at the end of the post. In the middle I try to if I can write in subject words for the paragraphs where I can just start writing. Just words to break down what I am thinking and to help the flow with my train of though. For this I had the words “Paragraphs” and the next was “Googling Occasionally for idea jolts” to help with what I need to write about. I find it helps prevent me from having a writers blog mid way through a post, however if that does happen I have learned to leave the post and then come back to it at a later date to finish!

Sometimes I occasionally will google “blog ideas” and see if anything triggers some ideas for myself. I don’t like writing the standard posts I want to put my own spin on them. Sometimes when you google topics it can give you a very generic idea and I like to hone in on something more specific. Is that good or bad? I am not entirely sure since it can be maybe a little too specific. But I don’t want to write blogs full of fluff or rainbows. I want to write about real life subjects even if they are a bit tough too.

I would say my first year blogging I did OK, I went too hard on one subject but overall I think it could be a lot worse and I STILL could be writing things about streaming and going no where. But instead I changed my focus and here we are nearly at 200 followers and working on getting more daily/weekly/monthly views.

My goal by the end of 2021 would be to have about 500 followers on the blog. And hopefully in the process grow my email list which I think could be a great tool to use as well too. I think the hardest part is admitting that something I started might not be the same as when I finished. If I knew or thought about changing subject I would have done it a lot sooner. And to be fair, I have a lot more fun and enjoyment talking about subjects randomly instead of the same things about streaming and gaming all of the time.

How did you find this blog?
Are you a blogger yourself?
If so, What do you blog about?

Let me know in the comments below!

– Stacey

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I Want to Write a Book

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This may or may not come as a surprise since I have in fact mentioned it before in previous blogs, in fact the most recent time was here, When I talked about my New Years Resolutions that I would like to write a book or even books. I have a few ideas that are floating around the universe that I legit have to sit down and really think of a plan. As you know I am for sure a planner. So before I even was to begin writing I would like to map out a story, plot, some twists and see where we go from there. I don’t want to just sit down and write and write and write and hope inspiration comes. I want to have a base line and hope that in the process I can add some bells and whistles and see how it goes from there.

First I would like to start with some short stories. I went and found different type of mythical creatures or monsters. Like Vampire, and Witch or Werewolves, and found different characteristics about each. And roughly wrote different stories, dark and horror type ones since I have been on a binge of these types of shows for a while. Id like them to be on the slightly longer side of short stories between 8000-10,000 words however I think if I did approximately 5 stories per book I could do a nice collection. I just have to really take time even if I have to schedule it to write down time in my life i want to spend to writing whether that be when Vincent sleep’s one day, or one evening I end stream a touch early and write, Or I take a weekend my boyfriend is with the baby and take an hour or two then.

Next I would like to write a book that becomes so big movies are written based on them. Think Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter big. I have some bits and pieces for these books. I feel like I really want to have a good base down as far as chapters, characters, scenes before tackling this type of book series. That would be so much for me to really put together and make it all connect correctly. I also feel like if I write the mini/short stories first then it will help me understand stories a bit better and what it takes. I have never really written something this big before in my life so I kind of want to work my way up to that as well too. All it really takes is an amazing book to make yourself known. Or even think Stephen King big!

I have also thought about doing a poetry content book. I say this and the term is probably wrong however I never really researched it. I just thought maybe a romance poetry book, or moving collection of poems could be a nice thing to do. When I was younger I always really enjoyed writing out my feelings. Types of things that were suicide related, I know topics we never talked about ever. And it was a great release. Now that I am older I don’t feel those feelings however I would like to revisit that side of my life in a different light. I loved poems that could rhyme and what not as well. I think it could be a great little side of writing that I could put out to the world. Even motivational or seasonal. I would however have to look a little bit though in terms of structure or patterns you can do since it has been so long. However I would love to explore that area again too!

As you can see there really is a lot that I would like to write about. And I am sure that any writer would also feel overwhelmed by this. The hardest part which I’m not even thinking about is the process of publishing it when it has been written. How much does it cost? Where to go? How to market the book? What about a proof reader? Or editor or whatever else. I have no idea where to begin with this. There is some help though. On my Facebook some of my mom’s friends have in fact published books. When the time comes Ill probably ask both of them and see where that can take me. Money may be a factor but if so I will just have to save save save! Like honestly, how much does it cost to have a whole book printed? I have no idea but some books are expensive to buy! Which type of book would be easier to print? Do I want a hard cover or soft cover or both? The more I sit here I find more and more questions to ask. Good thing Ill have this blog to refer back to for when I have to ask them I wont be forgetting anything.

I have yet to decide how I will be going about this. Do I want to set up goal of writing so many words withing a time frame? Do I just want to schedule time in and write for the period? Would it be better if I set a monthly word goal so I can kind of have a bit of a relaxed but still have a goal for the end of the month? And what would a reasonable amount be! I guess I really need to be sitting down and figuring out these before the end of the month and the beginning of 2021. That way I can know the expectations I set on myself before hand and hopefully wont be dreading them in the process either. But I know this is something that i really want to do for myself. If I wait I am afraid the longer I go without planning to write and be an author the less likely it will be to happen. This year I would like to be something at home. Hopefully make some what of a financial income even it it might take a bit to get there.

What is something you always wanted to do in your life? Did you end up doing it or holding off?

Let me know in the comments below!

-StaySeeJ08

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New Year’s Resolutions

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If you are reading this you will probably notice this is released WAY before New Years Eve. Mostly because I would like to take 2 weeks off from blogging (Officially since I have been on mini hiatus through out the year) and spend some time with my little family since it will be the first one for my son!

New Years Resolutions are tricky. You have the typical I want to save money or I want to lose weight. Where everyone goes hard on making these goals happen while falling off the wagon so to speak at the end of January. Typically I do not really set goals or haven’t done really resolutions in a very very long time. Not that I can remember anyways. This year I want to do something different though. I want to try to set myself up for success BEFORE the new year begins and have a solid, sustainable plan. I would like to do some things so that if I slack I can make life a bit easier and not have to worry about slacking off.

First what I am doing is laying out a plan. Not in my planner per-say but in my content creation scribbler. This is where I go through with the help of a calender and write out all the dates for specific things ie: All the days in a month down the page for streaming so I can accurately keep track of my streams and how long I stream. I wrote out all of the dates blogs will release so every single Tuesday and Saturday so that I can just fill in the title and how many words are in each (With the goal being a 1000 minimum for each). I also will be writing every Monday and Friday for the different youtube videos that I would like to be putting out as well too. This way I can see dates that are upcoming and figure out if they are around a holiday, Do I want to do something before or use that subject for it, whatever the case might be. I have an agenda but I mostly us this for other goals and things. My scribbler is something that I carry over from year to year!

Blogs, I would like to pre-write 25 at least. I know this seems daunting however I would like to write a book (Another blog subject!) and if i can get a bunch of blogs written before hand I can just schedule them as the time comes. And if a subject is more relavant than another I can switch them around. Not to mention if we hopefully get pregnant with baby number 2 next year that is a whole new batch of blogs so if I am able to do something ahead of time on subjects that won’t be changing ie: Types of food I like, I want to write a book, What I keep track of when trying to lose weight etc, It can help me keep busy and not snack in the mean time! Though if I post a review or something that wont be schedule I will just post them as it happens. Reviews are a lot longer than these by about 500 words so for me to post them willy nilly it really wont be an issue! Just as long as I have seen the movie or show I want to review!

I want to write a book. I have a bit of a start by researching types of mythical creatures but overall I would like to start with a mini series of short stories. Where each book focuses on a types of mythical creatures, so an example would be perhaps like classics ie: vampires and werewolves and witches. And so on. These short stories will be anywhere from 7500-10,000 words each with approximately 5 stories in each book. My goal would be to start with writing one of these books. If I get more bonus. To achieve this I will be scheduling in some writing time each week so that I can just write. The key is being disciplined enough to actually write when I schedule it. I would ultimately like to write a series simular to Harry Potter but I feel like starting with these would be kind of neat and work on my creativity as well too.

And one of the last goals I have and certainly not least, Losing weight. I want to continue to lose weight. I feel like it is extremely harder for me to lose weight right now especially since giving birth to my son. But I would much rather be my current weight as the max weigth with baby number 2 than gain as much as I did with my son. That was a lot of weight and I know it will probably be much harder this time around while caring for him and pregnant. I feel like I am in a good place where I am not really smoking as much weed which is a huge success. Obviously I indulge a bit over the holidays but we will be right back at it though. If I want to lose weight I cannot smoke as much weed as I have been. I self sabotage myself so much that I need to learn to not do that anymore. Truth be told, I feel a lot better though since slowing down the smoking since I am not completely eating a weeks worth of calories by bingeing in an hour!

Overall time will tell if I stick to these resolutions, The major thing I think will be if and when we move back home. I am looking forward to having out own house again, our own space and privacy. I would like to be able to paint and decorate our house and have a bedroom where I don’t have to crawl out of bed but I can walk around the entire thing. I would like to be a drive away from my parents even If I don’t end up going there often because I am lay the possibility will still be there again and that is exciting!

Do you make resolutions for the new year?
Did you use to and don’t now?

Let me know in the commented below! I’m curious!

-StaySeeJ08