Ideas are never a problem. I have no shortage of ideas for either Haunt Jaunts or my newer marriage blog. In fact, I often have way more than my fingers can keep up with.

If I didn’t reread everything over and over maybe I’d go faster. But I inevitably notice mistakes or see tweaks I’d like to make, which makes me think I might be missing something so I read it again.

Jade asked if I had ever considered using an editorial calendar. I use calendars all the time. Not just to schedule what I write, but to look ahead and see if there are any key dates coming up that I could feature something for.

That’s not what she meant. She was talking about what I call theme days. Dedicating one day each week to  a particular topic. I sort of do that on HJ.

• I don’t do it every Monday, but when I do I do Movie Mondays.
• Tuesdays I generally try to stick to something travel as part of #traveltuesday on Twitter.
• Wednesdays are Semi-Wordless Wednesdays where I feature photos.
• Fridays are Friday Fun.

I’d also like to do some kind of technology Thursday and focus on different equipment out there, from ghost hunting to photography to neat travel-related gadgets.

I’d also like to do a Feature Friday where I feature various products from Haunt Jaunts Emporium. I haven’t quite gotten my act together to get all that flowing yet though.

Jade suggested it might help me stay on the submitting track for SAHW Experiment if I instituted a routine where I posted certain topics on certain days. It was a good suggestion.

Mostly I just need to get my butt in gear and start posting all the ideas I have. Some are even half written and being held as a draft in my blog’s system. I just need to get ‘em done.

If I only had more time…which if I wasn’t doing all the other stuff I’m doing, if I was only focused on HJ and SAHW, I’d have it. But I’m working on books, doing freelance articles, playing tennis and volleyball several times a week…un, yeah, a schedule might help, but first I’ve got to make time to schedule in making a schedule!

At any rate, it was neat to learn what an editorial calendar is. That Jade is always teaching me new things!

#s 1 and 2: HAUNT JAUNTS RANKS AS AN EXPERT AND GETS AN AWARD

Rather than rewrite it all, I’ll just link to the post I wrote about this on Haunt Jaunts.

But in case you don’t want to click over, here’s the short version: HJ ranks #50 out of 118 experts on Sulia’s paranormal channel and one of HJ’s Twitter friends nominated the blog for a Shorty Award in Travel.

I’m not gonna lie. The recognition feels great!

#3: MASTER OF THE COURT

Then at Thursday’s tennis clinic the most amazing thing happened. We had just started doing a drill when Coach Beth stopped us and pulled us in.

My heart sunk because I was one of the ones in the middle of the drill. Worse, I had last touched the ball. My first thought was, “Aw man! What did I do wrong this time?” Because I’m always sure I’ve made a good example of something not to do. That’s happened more than I care to admit.

Not this time! I about fell over when Beth said, “Whoopsie (that’s my tennis nickname) is the only who’s mastered something. Can anyone tell me what?”

I sort of phased out for a moment as I did a mental rewind. Had she just said “mastered” and “Whoospie” in the same sentence?

Apparently she had. I then listened with keen interest as people started naming things I might’ve mastered. I had no clue. I had just done another of my trademark lobs before she stopped us and called us all in. I figured it had to do with that.

In part it did, but the point she was trying to drive home was I had mastered reading the court and knowing when to pull out certain shots, like lobs.

Huh? I was waiting for the punchline or the hidden camera reveal. I have never been singled out for doing something good before. Again, the recognition felt awesome!

Until I started thinking about the target on my back. The girls will be gunning for me now, itching to take me down and figure out how to take my lob opportunities away from me. I’ll have to come up with some new tricks and quick!

But it made for an exciting week. I’ll let myself bask in the glory for a moment before I buckle down and get back to just being me –a big ol’ Whoopsie at heart!

FLW related how his uncle’s message backfired. FLW had enjoyed the sights along the journey. He’d taken time to stop and smell the proverbial roses.

Osteen’s message was all about that. Finding balance and enjoying the journey. Not getting so caught up in accomplishing our goals, but to appreciate all we experience along the way.

I had been trying to live that principal prior to 2008. It sort of got lost in the Black Cloud that engulfed me that year.

HAUNT JAUNTS AND BOOK WRITING

Last year I was so focused on Haunt Jaunts. I don’t know why. It’s just a blog. And I don’t really know what I’m accomplishing writing it every day anyway. Sure, I’ve met a lot of neat people, but in the end what’s it all for?

This year I want to bring some magic back in my life. I want to find the balance. I want to remember to allot X amount of time to HJ and not obsess about writing one more blog, or researching one more place, or posting one more Tweet or FB post.

I want to write again. I want to get back to my books and short stories. I have umpteen in-progress books started. This year I’m finishing one!

I even want to finally write my first non-fiction book. Granted, it’ll be my Haunt Jaunts: A Travel Guide for Restless Spirits that I’d envisioned in the first place and which the blog was born out of. But I have an idea for how to turn it into a series and make it different from the other haunted places books already out there. I’m curious to see if I can sell it.

THE STAY-AT-HOME WIFE EXPERIMENT

But I also want to start a new blog. I already have the groundwork sort of laid out. It’s also going to hopefully evolve into a non-fiction book: The Stay-at-Home Wife Experiment. I think the tag line will be something to the effect “Can a modern woman live a life fulfilled as a devoted wife and kept woman?” And then I’ll share the lessons I’ve learned about faith, friendship, self and love over the past 11 plus years.

It’s been on my mind because my friend Jade Walker, who I think is a brilliant, accomplished, fiercely independent woman who I respect very much, took a shine to me when I wrote for Families.com. After I left she suggested a couple of times I re-consider writing a marriage blog somewhere.

But that was back when I was just recovering from the cancer. All I could think about was Haunt Jaunts, which seemed to be the thing Spirit put in my heart to motivate me and inspire me to get moving and focus on the future so I could get better.

But I can’t tell you how many people still seek me out after reading articles I wrote on Families.com to say how much my words meant to them. For any writer that is a huge compliment, but for me it affirmed something Jade had once said to me. It was just a random comment about how she liked my words and they spoke to her. But she’s extremely well-read. She’s world-smart and intellectually savvy.

I’m just me. I did graduate from the University of Arizona, but I wouldn’t my Communications B.A. a fancy degree. I don’t have any formal training in writing. Not like Jade. She’s worked for major publications. Heck, she still does. She’s a true journalist. For her to find anything I have to say interesting still blows my mind.

Yet, maybe there really is something there. Maybe when I channel Spirit and flesh out the ideas the Muse sings into my heart it is something interesting. Others seem to like it.

So I’m going to launch the SAHW Experiment and put together a book proposal and see what happens.

TIMELINESS AND TENNIS

I also want to try and not only be on time for meetings, classes, and what have you, but early. (I’ve become notorious for being late anymore and I hate it.)

And I want to get even better at tennis. I want to remember to run to the net when I lob over people’s heads. I want to remember to talk more on the court and warn my partner if I’ve accidentally lobbed short and given the other side a chance to smash her with an overhead. And I want to remember to turn my shoulders, reach for the ball and position myself to smash away any overheads the opposing side gifts me with. And I’m hoping I can remember to keep my left hand raised instead of dropping it during the serve so I get better stability and more accuracy on my serve.

Phew. I guess I’ve once again developed an ambitious list of things I’d like to accomplish in 2011. Mostly I just want to take chances and see what comes of them.

What kinds of things do you hope to do in the year ahead?

But when I wrote how I had no Follow Fridays last week, she said this Friday she might have to get involved in all that FF business.

I do believe Julie is a jinx for me –in a great way.

She did do some FF shout outs and threw a couple my way –which I think is what broke the zilch spell for me. I ended up with 25, not counting a few that were RT FFs in nature.

Julie, thank you. I know you didn’t mean to be a jinx, but I’m serious. I really believe you are!

Last Friday I had no Follow Fridays (a.k.a. #FFs) on Twitter. Zip, zero, zilch.

I did have someone RT one of my FF shout outs, and I had a few people thank me for including them on mine FFs, but I didn’t make anyone’s FF shout out list this week.

Bummer.

But, like I said, I did know it was coming.

It sure was fun while it lasted. And it just might happen again someday. Something to look forward/aspire to.

I thought that was totally impressive and it blew me away, but this week’s #FFs annihilated last week’s number. It set a new record. One I’m not sure will be touched for quite a while.

33!

SHAZAM! (And that wasn’t including the few people who for whatever reason #FF’d me more than once, or RT’d other #FFs that had @HauntJaunts in them.)

What happened to make it spike so much? Do I even know? As a matter of fact, I do.

I was well on my way to at least getting close to last week’s number on my own. I had 12 #FFs when I checked early on in the a.m. But when I checked back later around noon…whoa. I saw a slew more. And my followers number had leapt up too!

All because Autumnforest had shared her contact with me at Ghost Adventures. (I used to actually have a contact there, but I didn’t follow up with them and ended up losing him. It was actually serendipitous Autumnforest was as generous and selfless as she was to share her contact like she did, and I’ll be forever grateful to her for doing it.)

Anyway, the GA contact sends out advanced info for bloggers to blog about. Then, if you send him your link, he’ll Tweet it.

With something like 14,000 followers following GA on Twitter, that’s pretty decent exposure.

Autumn had suggested I make it something snappy. Something to make people want to click. Because when she does it, she sees a HUGE spike in her numbers.

Well, easy for her to say “clever.” She’s insanely clever. (She did a funny one about a song, “Sunglasses at Night” and how it should be Zak’s theme song. It was really good.)

So…I did the best I could and came up with a short quiz about what does Ghost Adventures and Princess Bride have in common to tout the extended version of the Poveglia Island episode that was on last night. Then I gave clues in the form of quotes and a picture.

Ghost Adventures did Tweet it, and my bit.ly stats for that link also set a not-likely-to-be-topped-anytime-soon record: 536! (I average about 6-10 clicks per bit.ly link. In the teens is good. Above 20 is great. Once I hit 50 something and that was the record holder.)

So that’s how I know it was the GA tweet that helped me so much. (That and a lot of my new followers have GA twibbons on their avatars.)

But it also didn’t hurt that A&E (as in A&E on cable TV) included me among those they gave #FF shout outs too also.

So Friday January 22, 2010 will go down in my record books as an absolutely marvelous and fun, not to mention record-setting, Follow Friday!

My dear friends didn’t leave me out there hanging with no fans in the beginning. Tracie and her mom and aunt, then Brenda, Kim Smith, and even Wayne signed up.

Then I ran the Halloween Blog Contest and got more fans that way. (FB has since revised their policies on such practices, so I won’t be doing that again!)

However, I think I got up to 17 then.

I’ve been growing slowly ever since. Which is pretty cool. (And I didn’t even know it! I think I was at 20 something, like 22, last I knew.)

Twitter took off all of a sudden in December. I went from 400 to 500, 600, 700 to 850 followers in a month! But Facebook was just sort of stagnate.

Until recently. 39 fans? Okay, so it’s no 850, but it might as well be. People actually took the time to check me out. (At least long enough to hit the fan button.) Sweet!

Slowly, slowly, I’m growing more visitors. It’s all very exciting. And fun. I love living in the Internet Era! What a blast!

I sure wasn’t making that at Families.com, but I was making something. And I knew they had to be making something because they were paying 20+ of us bloggers monthly, plus our quarterly bonuses.

I learned a lot at Families.com about the importance of including pictures with posts, SEO,  linking, and writing entertaining, informative posts frequently. I went from 1,200 hits my first month to between 40,000 and 50,000 hits/month when I left two years later.

Which was impressive to me, but the Superstars (as I liked to think of them) snagged 100,000+ hits a month. And since our bonuses were based on hits, well…it behooved us to get as many hits as possible!

Some people knew how to work it. Plus, they wrote about timely topics that naturally generated tons of hits. (Think Britney Spears, weight loss, etc.)

Then during my brief stint with Examiner.com I learned about embedding videos and polls, the importance of links/lists to Google rankings, and a little more about Digg.

When I started to really put all that together with Haunt Jaunts, I noticed I did okay with hits on the blog.

But let me back up a sec. I had BIG ideas about having a Haunt Jaunts website that listed haunted places. I planned on having affiliate links, like Travelocity, Amazon, plus Google AdSense that would help me earn money.

However, that was a LOT of work to compile the lists. I also quickly realized my blog was (a) more fun and (b)  getting more hits. Also, there were other sites similar to mine, most with better graphics and set ups. But none of them really had a blog.

Hmmm…here was my niche. But could I earn money with just a blog?

Naively I thought you just throw up an AdSense link and that’s that. The bucks will come rolling in.

Not so. There’s a lot of tricks to it. The ones I’ve found to make the most difference so far include:

1. Having “above the page/above the fold” ads. (Ads near the top of your page/post.)
2. Ad size. The bigger the better.
3. As many ads as possible. (Google currently allows 3 per page.)
4. Color. Ads that blend in with a site’s color scheme do better.
5. HITS! This is the most important. More hits translate into more page impressions which translates into increased page per hit percentages. Oh, and if people click on those ads, BINGO! You can score big!

Amazon hasn’t worked for me at all. Problogger and my friend Chris V. say they’ve had luck with that. That hasn’t generated any funds for me –yet. I did recently redesign my Amazon ads so we’ll see what happens with those.

The biggest revenue-generator last year was from a company who wanted me to write about a link and include it in a post. That’s all I had to do! It was a fun assignment and easy money. I’d like to snag more of those gigs!

I also signed up with a new company, ReadySite, that I put on HJ today. As well as I revamped some of my Google AdSense ads and shuffled around some of my widgets to give HJ what I hope is a more pleasing visual feel. (In my efforts at the very end of last year to retool some things I felt I was getting too commercially-feeling. I wasn’t liking it.)

Because yes, I want to make money and entice clicks, but I also want to have a nice site with good info. If it’s all cluttered and visually distracting, who’s going to (a) notice the links to click, or (b) and most important, visit in the first place?!

So, we’ll see how I do going forward. The great thing is, nothing’s written in stone. Things can be changed any time.

It’ll be fun to see what happens from here on out. If I learn some new tricks or anything that works spectacularly (or fails spectacularly) I’ll post here to try and help others avoid my mistakes!