Mad Libs and Magazines: Inspiration for Blog Posts

As you are building your online business you’ll produce an amazing amount of content: blog posts, Tweets, Facebook status updates, ebooks, video scripts, program materials, sales copy, the list goes on and on.

Here’s a trick for coming up with blog post topics for your editorial calendar.

You can also try this tactic when inspiration isn’t striking and you need a quick blog post topic.

Content Strategy Tip: Pick up a stack of magazines and use their cover lines to create fill-in-the-blank formulas, like Mad Libs, to spark post ideas.

Here are a few examples to get you started.

Cover line:
The Novelist’s Survival Kit (from Writer’s Digest)

Mad Libs style fill-in-the-blanks template:
The _____ Survival Kit

Twist to fit your niche:
The Weight Loss Survival Kit
The Product Launch Survival Kit
The New Mom Survival Kit
The Solopreneur’s Survival Kit

Cover line:
Story Essentials: What Every Writer Should Know (from Writer’s Digest)

Mad Libs style fill-in-the-blanks template:
_____ Essentials: What Every _____ Should Know

Twist to fit your niche:
Weight Loss Essentials: What Every Woman Should Know
Product Launch Essentials: What Every Entrepreneur Should Know
Breastfeeding Essentials: What Every New Mom Should Know
Outsourcing Essentials: What Every Solopreneur Should Know

Easy, right?

Now, let’s see what you can do. Post a comment with your twist on one of the cover lines above (or an alternative cover line from one of the magazines you have on hand). I’d love to see what you come up with!

p.s. This is a great thing to do while you are waiting for doctor’s appointments, oil changes, etc. There are always magazines on hand and often they are ones you’ve never seen before. Fresh inspiration for your brain.

 

Online Resource Roundup: January 2012

I will be featuring a monthly round-up post of current and upcoming online classes/programs/resources that support women entrepreneurs (like you and me) in building our best lives. The descriptions are provided by the instructors. You, as a self-reliant, in-charge adult, are responsible for evaluating all the details of the programs and deciding if they are a good fit for you. If you have an online offering that supports women entrepreneurs in living their best lives please share in the comments.

~~~January~~~

Business Growth

Online Zennn
With: Kat Fulton
Price: $247
Join the Zennn Masters by January 30 and master your domain with style and ease. Online Zennn is a 4-week course on WordPress websites, designed to replicate your awesome offline self to the web! (definitely for WordPress newbies!)
http://www.onlinezennn.com/join-online-zennn-2012/
Enrollment Closes: Jan. 30, 2012

Creativity

Writer Unleashed
With: Nanci Panuccio
Price: $47
A four-week audio program for writers of fiction and memoir who want to dissolve creative blocks, free their voice, and write with more joy, inspiration, and mastery.
http://emergingwriters.us/writer-unleashed/
Begins: Jan. 31, 2012

Family

The 10-Day Family Re-Charge
With: Erin Goodman
Price: PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN
Are “slowing down, having FUN and spending more time together” part of your family’s goals for 2012? The 10-Day Family Re-Charge is a virtual program designed to help busy families (re)connect with healthy eating, nature, music, creativity and most importantly with EACH OTHER!
http://eringoodman.com/the-10-day-family-re-charge/
Enrollment Closes: Jan. 31, 2012

Personal Development

Making It Stick: The Class
With: Michelle Nickolaisen
Price: $15
In this online class, you’ll learn everything you need to know to make your new habits stick in 2012 – including why most attempts to add new habits fail, how to use habits to reach your goals, & how to add habits to your day without relying on sheer willpower to keep ’em there. And bring your questions for Q&A time, where you can get personalized advice for your situation!
http://www.letsradiate.com/2012/making-it-stick-the-class/
Enrollment Closes:
Jan. 25, 2012

Wellness & Health

THIS has to STOP: 4 Keys to Release the Weight & More
With: Brenda Coleman
Price: Free
This call will touch on certain to releasing your weight and creating the life you want. Without this information, it doesn’t matter how many weight loss plans or meditation and yoga retreats you sign up for, it just won’t work.
http://www.brendarcoleman.com/this-has-to-stop
Enrollment Closes: Jan. 31, 2012. Sign-ups after Jan. 24, 2012 will receive a recording of the call.

The Peaceful Heart Retreat and Retreat Into Stillness
With: Barbara Coon
Price: $77/month for 4 weekly sessions, $197.00/month for the weekly and monthly afternoon retreat
Retreat Into Stillness is your time to connect with the healer within. Be present to your body’s inner worlds by opening doors to more ease, peace, and joy.
http://barbaracoon.com/mentoring-2/
Sales close: Early Bird Pricing Jan. 31, 2012

Inner Circle Body Wisdom Boot Camp
With: Sue Ann Gleason
Price: $697 for 16 weeks, live calls plus online forum
The Inner Circle Body Wisdom Boot Camp is an online program supporting and inspiring women to explore what it means to be a well-nourished woman. In addition to the culinary and nutritional components of this program, we will examine our art, both the expressed and the unexpressed, because I’m convinced there is a deep relationship between our creative expression how we nourish ourselves both at the table and in our lives.
http://wellnourishedwoman.com

 

~~~February~~~

Business Growth

Hot Brand Action
With:
Shenee Howard
Price:
$275
A virtual branding course that isn’t just about learning about your brand but building it, LIVE.
www.hotbrandaction.com
Close date: Feb. 1, 2012

Soul & Creativity

Unleash Your Wild Creative Daimon & Embody Your Legend
With:
Kathleen Profit
Price: $499
A 12 week anthropological dig into the exquisite wild RICH terrain of your psyche! We will work with the embodied arts:  authentic movement ~ an inner vision quest, expressive painting, writing,  and ritual performance art, to explore and access the deeper profound intelligence which resides within your dark cryptic creative nature, your personal daimon, and evoke it into your psyche  to transform, guide, fortify and unleash a whole new level of your authenticity into Life!
http://kathleenprophet.com/unleash-your-wild-creative-genius-embody-your-legend-program/
Launches: Feb. 2, 2012

Wellness & Health

Busy Women Mealtime Makeover
With: Betsy Moore
Price: early bird special of $95 by January 26th, $125 after that
This program is perfect for you if you are a busy woman and you want to get a decent meal on the table! We’ll cook together. You in your kitchen. Me in mine. 12 new recipes for real, whole, fabulous food. You are better than processed food. 4 weeks. Join me.
http://bmoorehealthy.com/2011/07/29/busy-women-mealtime-makeover/
Enrollment Closes: Feb. 5, 2012

Foundations for Unshakable Joy™
With: Stephenie Zamora
Price: $97
The EXACT Foundational Process That Took Me From a Stressed and Depressed Mess, to Happy, Fulfilled and Living a Life Built Around My Passions and Purpose
http://www.myawesomelifemastery.com/
Launches: Feb. 7, 2012

Fresh Start Cleanse
With: Judy Griffin
Price: $20.12
This is a week of vibrant nourishment to get women back on track, open a window to Healthier Living, and your ticket to feeling fit and fabulous.
http://nourishingsolutions4life.com/2012-fresh-start-cleanse-for-only-2012

~~~March~~~

Personal Development

Master Your Life Women’s Group
With: Dr Laura Ciel
Price: $450, payment options and additional private sessions available, also
Master Your Life! Be Part of the 10% Who Actually Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions! If you are a woman who has made some ambitious resolutions or set high goals for yourself this year and you are committed to seeing them achieved, this is for you. This is also for you if you did NOT make such goals and you WANT to.
http://1oneworldleadership.com/events/new_years_resolutions/
Begins: March 6, 2012

~~~Ongoing~~~

Business Growth

How to Get Your First 1000 Subscribers
With: Jenny Shih
Price: $67
You’ve heard that “having a list” is one of the best ways to grow your online business, but you’re not sure how to find all those people and get them to subscribe. In this class you will learn exactly how to get your first 1000 subscribers with down-to-earth, practical, specific how-to instruction… superhero style.
http://jennyshih.com/grow-your-list/

Personal Development

30-Day Fast-Action Coaching Program
With: Shay de Silva
Price: $697
A one-on-one 30-day program to get you totally clear on where you want to be and how to get there. We’ll work together to create a detailed action plan and I’ll keep you accountable every step of the way!
http://solutiongarden.com/action-planning/

Please share anyone who would benefit from this information.

If  you’d like to be included in the next roundup, please comment below and I will send you details..

Spelling Bees and Advice

I periodically glance back at my daughter’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

She has tears slipping down her cheeks. She’s trying to talk but I can tell that it is an effort to just get the words out.

“I don’t want to do the spelling bee because … what if I spell a word wrong?” she finally manages to say, her voice cracking at each word.

“Oh,” is all I can manage for a second. “Oh, honey.”

My first thought is “That’s just silly.” But I don’t say that out loud.

Instead I say …

“Eventually everyone spells something wrong.”

“What’s most important is that you try.”

“I don’t care if you win. That’s not what this is about, it’s about learning to spell.”

“I will love you even if you spell every word wrong for the rest of your life.”

Then, because that advice doesn’t seem to be stopping the tears, I do what I’ve learned to do with my kids, distract with humor.

“Libby (our Lab) doesn’t care if you spell anything right ever.”

At this she laughs and her sister laughs.

Fear of the spelling bee is forgotten.

I mull her reaction to the spelling bee over in my mind the rest of the drive home. I talk to my husband about it. I talk to my mom, a retired 2nd grade teacher. I talk to my sister.

I think about how much I identify with my daughter’s fears. I think about all the things I haven’t done in life because of fear of the outcome. I think about the advice I gave her that I don’t quite follow 100 percent of the time. 

I wish for a magic wand to take all her fears away.

A few weeks pass and my daughter comes home thrilled, “I got second place in my class!”

She describes in detail how the spelling bee went down: how her stomach felt weird, how her legs and hands were shaking, how everyone spelled words wrong and had to sit down, and how Ethan won by spelling the word “tongs” correctly.

“That wasn’t so bad was it?” I ask.

I think of myself and I think of you.

I wish for both of us what I wish for my daughter: that fear not stop us in our tracks.

I want us to embrace fluttery tummies and wobbly legs and to step up to the spelling bees that life sends us.

————-

What has fear held you back from lately? What advice have you given someone that you love, that you need to take to heart, too? Comment below and share with someone you know who needs a little push.