After reading this article Facebook owns your content. All of it. Forever, I am reminded of the virtual lack of control content generators have over their content online. This is one of the reasons why I am very careful with not only what I publish online — but where.
Here’s a breakdown of the services I use, how I use them and their “content ownership” policies.
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Happy Valentine’s Day! Today’s the day to celebrate all things love and I can’t think of a better way than to share with you the love poetry from Twitter.
Poetry is a great way to get those creative juices flowing, especially if you need to flex those “descriptive” muscles. Here are the love haikus from the event, and I hope you enjoy reading them no matter how you choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I linked to the Twitter profile of everyone who contributed as well, so if you’re on Twitter — be sure to check them out.
@coffeesister careful consideration / opposing opinions offered / eros expressed
@coffeesister friendship found / communication deepens / love is born
@J_Dalgliesh blazing grass behind / they emerge from smoke and flame / handclasped and alive
@J_Dalgliesh brushed skin quivering / burning trails of wild desire / molten body yields
@J_Dalgliesh the back of his hand / gentle on her autumn cheek / their golden wedding
@kaliphonia My dear you’re the bomb / mushroom cloud of destiny / love’s a battlefield
@ldydisney Second time around – Deeper love, pure honest love – Love my Valentine
@debsoul Love ever present/Illusion washes away/Light filled brand new day
@bigbookofyou You are the pebble, In the Center of your life, The source of ripples (From the Big Book of You)
@kimfalconer Dark wings touch my face/ when a shadow flees the heart/ love has come at last
@carliepaiva The sweet lovers sigh / thumping hearts fill their ears / together as one
@coffeesister sun sparkles / hope joins in / heart warms
@mlvalentine Show a writer love / read a book today and smile / we love our readers
@madkane Love Haiku / St. Valentine’s Day— / One day each February? / No. Daily each year
@ielliott Come the day of rest // Saturday will have then passed // Did you show your love?
@tombedell Saturday, is it? // A day-long dip in the stream // Of raging currents
@music_notes fall in love again / music fills our hearts and minds / thanks to songwriters
@mlvalentine music of the spheres / angelic voices singing / faithful, loving hearts
@_justen_ crisp air, chilled wine / she is out with her best friend / this Valentine’s Day
@_justen_ so many roses, / candies, and expense to say: / I love you, baby
@slacey Noble tetanus // Oh where have your eyebrows gone? // Stolen by an attorney
@_justen_Oh powerful wind/ weathering worlds, lives, and hearts:/ terraforming love
@mlvalentine delicate, pale Spring / knocks Love’s door to awaken / slumbering lovers
@suburban_cat Crepe myrtle petals / Dance in the summer breeze as / Tears run down my cheeks
@mazzycat the familiar/comfortable feeling of/knowing each other
@mazzycat the sun in your eyes/a glance, a turning away/the slowest of smiles
What is Twitter? And what the heck is a haiku? A haiku is a form of poetry that is really short. I mean, really short. This form of Japanese poetry is based on syllables. In English, a haiku would be written in three lines, with the first line containing five, the second seven and the third five.
Jane Reichold offers really great resources for reading and writing haikus on her website, if you want more detailed information and articles to read.
Twitter is a “micro-blogging” service that allows you to set up an account and follow interesting people. I use it for link-sharing, networking and friendship; one of its benefits for me is that it connects with my Facebook and LiveJournal accounts.
When you “blog” on Twitter, you are limited to 140 characters which can make some “tweets” quite challenging but can make for some interesting bouts of creativity.
After putting some initial feelers out there, many fellow writers were interested in my idea for a “haiku day” on Twitter. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought we could have our first #haikuday next week and have a love theme.
For those of you who are new to Twitter, when you put the “pound” sign on Twitter in your tweet, it allows other people to references your topic of conversation. Using #littlelove will ensure everyone’s haikus can be read, regardless of whether or not you are following that person.
Join me in spreading a little love next week on Thursday by sharing your own love-themed haiku poems. If you aren’t already, I invite you to Follow Monica on Twitter. I don’t auto-follow new people because I’d like to get to know you, so be sure to introduce yourself and say “Hi.”
Here’s a sample 5/7/5 format using that love theme:
red flowers remind / cold, blue winter is melting / warm hearts all year round #littlelove
Let’s see if we can get the word out there so we can all get our creative juices flowing for a Haiku Day on Thursday, February 12th! In the meantime, I’ll definitely work on my haiku writing skills!
Part of the idea of “community” is being able to support one another regardless of whether you have brilliant milestones or crushing defeats. A few weeks ago, I asked the people who follow me on Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal to sound off and share with me their website or what they were working on.
As I look at this list I am reminded that no matter what I personally enjoy writing or reading, the “act” of writing is something I share in common with many different kinds of people. I’m very happy to introduce this eclectic mix of writers within my social network, and hope that I can do this on a regular basis.
Join me in supporting these writers, and feel free to share with me your own work in the comments below. This is just a small portion of the writers that I’ve gotten to know over the years, so I encourage you to check out who I’m following on my social media accounts to find more about some of the interesting people I know.
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Every day I not only read headlines about layoffs, but hear from peers, friends and people I greatly admire how they had just lost their job. Having been through some of these experiences myself, I’ve often turned to resume writing books, professional agencies and other resources to learn how to market myself on paper, which is not as easy as it sounds.
The challenge with writing resumes and cover letters, is that it’s easy to make a mistake. Unless you get a callback for an interview, typically prospective employers won’t communicate with you if your resume is written poorly. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving resumes for different jobs you’ve hired for in the past, you probably have a lot of stories to share. Some of the more ironic stories I’ve encountered are the resumes I received for editing positions, only to find out their name was misspelled.
Writers often encounter another stumbling block, because writing is often perceived as a “skill” rather than a “career.” Often, we have to be versatile to navigate different industries both online and off in order to stay in business. Because of that, if we don’t handle that type of experience effectively we can appear very unfocused or too detail-oriented.
After reading several resume writing books throughout the year, there is one that stands out in my mind. This book is absolutely essential to writing effective resumes and cover letters, in my opinion.
This resume writing book, entitled “The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book” is one of the best books I’ve ever read. This best-selling resource not only offers you different examples of resumes and cover letters, it provides solutions for specific job-hunting situations and critiques of resumes that could be improved. Before you get to all of that, the book asks you to think critically so that you find the job you want before you submit your resume.
Here are some of the items I’ve used in the book that have helped me:
The last revision of The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book was published in 2007. The revised editions ensure that the content is up-to-date with current trends and technology.
With an easy-to-reference format, this is a resume writing and cover letter book that’s perfect for writers, because it encourages the reader to think strategically about format, keywords, etc. and provides excellent critiques of the resume samples. The critiques are exceptionally helpful because it teaches you how to write an effective resume, rather than just following the format.
For those of you that are job hunting, you could probably also check this book out from your local library, too. Otherwise you can find The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book on Amazon.com for less than ten dollars.
My heart goes out to those of you who are job hunting out there. Hope you find this recommendation helpful. For more job hunting tips, be sure to check out my tip about the job hunting search engine Indeed.com.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!