Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Writers Can Make a Difference

There will be times as a writer trying to make a buck online, that you get so caught up with the whole process you forget why you are writing. This is time when you need to sit back and remember your purpose. Why are you writing? Most of us write not only because we have something to say, but because we hope to evoke some sort of response from our readers. When we lose sight of that, our work becomes meaningless, and worse, it becomes robotic, and that shows in the words we put down on paper or the screen.

Finding success as an online writer is not all about links and keywords and SEO research. To truly be successful, you have to write what people want to read. More than that, you need to understand that your readers want to trust you, they want to be entertained, informed and feel like they haven't wasted their time on you. Keeping your readers happy means that you have to meet their needs.

Write about things that matter. Not everyone will be interested in everything you write, but you can make a difference. This morning as I was reading the local news, I came across a story about a wheelchair garden at Loma Linda University in California. This garden was a community project involving 40 volunteers and 5 master gardeners. What they created was a garden where wheelchair patients undergoing treatment could have a gardening experience, much like they would at home. I thought, "Wow! What a great idea. This needs to be shared because wheelchair gardens could benefit so many people." So I wrote a story for my eHow library, How to Plant a Wheelchair Friendly Garden. This article made me feel like I did something good today. Hopefully, it will inspire projects across the country.

This was a story that had meaning for me. I believed in it, and I believe it will do good for others. If it makes money, great. But that wasn't the point. Sometimes, money isn't everything.