EZ Cash Advancers

Why to write article? Article Directories are the best source of publishing and generating traffic to your web-site. Several of these sites will publish your article right away, and because of higher rankings of these sites, your article will quickly indexed in the search engines.

Many article directories are looking for new articles that can be used on their websites, blogs, and in their ezines. Following are the major reasons why to write articles. 1. Write to reach more people: When you write good articles, people may visit the site often looking for new articles and information from you. 2. Write for free advertising: Submitting your articles to other websites provides an opportunity to advertise your website without paying exorbitant fees. 3. Write to gain high search engine ranking: Optimize your article to make it search-engine friendly. After you publish your article, search engines will craw that article and you may get good page ranking from this. 4. Write to increase link popularity: Submit an article at other sites, be sure to include a link to your site in your resource box. When these websites publishes your article, you automatically get a link back to your site. 5. Write to establish credibility: Through writing good and original, you not only give your site exposure, but you also create a good impression with your prospects. How to Write Article: Certainly, it is good to write your own article, but before begin to write you should research on writing article styles. A good research helps you to know where to start, and can help to make the article smoother.

There are some writers who like to write their articles without a plan, but beginners, especially, those who are apt to find them helpful. However, you don’t have to stick to the outline completely, but can change it around while writing. You can get some tips from http://www.1888Articles.com.

Submit Your Article to Editors: After completing writing your articles you can submit it to the editors of E-zines that are in constant need of fresh articles. Submission procedures are casual. Many will also welcome unsolicited articles.

Simply send an e-mail to the editor your article with a short personal note. Most of the websites and ezines have specific submission strategies they want you to follow. Check ezine web sites for submission guidelines.

Once the editors realize that you can post them good articles, you can post your articles into a regular column. Submit Your Articles to Online Article Directories: If you do a search for article directories or article banks, you will possibly find hundreds of them on internet. Submit your articles to various directories that provide free submission of the article to their article to their sites. There are many sites out there, which allow writers and author to submit their articles, for example http://ezinearticles.com, http://goarticles.com and http://www.shvoong.com and many more. You can search for directories on search engines by using keyword like “free article submission”.

Writing article itself is the most significant part of the process. Make it informative and interesting to lure the reader’s attention. It is recommended that you should spend more time on writing and editing the actual article than on the research.

About the Author : Allen Brown is a freelance writer for www.1888Articles.com<http://www.1888Articles.com />, the premier website to find thousands of free online articles related to various categories like science articles , health articles , feature articles , news articles , technology articles, management articles and more. He also freelances for www.1888PressRelease.com <http://www.1888pressrelease.com/>.

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When you’re preparing for CCNA and CCNP exam success, the best investment you can make is to put together your own home lab. There is no better way to learn Cisco technologies and prepare for the CCNA, BSCI, BCMSN, CIT, and other exams than by working with the many protocols and services you’ll need to master in order to pass the exams.

One of the most popular articles I’ve written over the few years dealt with buying and configuring a Cisco router as a frame relay switch. That article is still available on many websites (including my own), but I want to remind you that just because you configure a router as a frame relay switch, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a home lab router, too!

The global command “frame-relay switching” allows a Cisco router such as a 2520 or 4000 to perform just that, frame relay switching, but this command doesn’t disable IP routing. Depending on the router model you use, you will most likely have some extra serial connectors as well as an ethernet port that you can use with your other routers in your home lab.

Let’s say you have a 2520 router as your frame relay switch. This switch has four serial ports and an AUI port. You could connect to up to four routers to the 2520’s serial ports in order to serve as the frame relay switch for those other routers, and still assign an IP address to the ethernet port and run a routing protocol on the 2520. If you’re connecting to less than four other routers as the frame relay switch, you can assign IP addresses to the leftover serial ports as well.

A frame relay switch is a tremendous addition to a CCNA / CCNP home lab, and if you use it as both a frame switch and a router, you get double the bang for your home lab buck!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.

For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Get your CCNA study guide with The Bryant Advantage!

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Can 97% of Netpreneurs be Wrong?
Why Some People’s Ads Almost Always Make Money
Discover the Master Copywriter’s Little-Known Secret of Locking in Profits!
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Tip: Your home page must be all about your visitor, not about you. Just one
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Some choose this method because they don’t think they can write, yet we can help to
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Speakers need to write separate copy for each talk they present to include its
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We have to meet for us to get going on the most important aspect of your business. We want You to succeed. Our whole mission is geared to getting the job done for you. Now, only YOU can determine the outcome. If you read this and don’t respond, that will be on You. Never say You didn’t have chance to find out if this is the “real” deal!

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Insider Confidential #6 5 insider secrets to writing million dollar sales letters.

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Insider Confidential #8 How to turn benefits into features.

In closing, if YOU don’t take action, NOTHING will change! I hope we meet soon. The answer You seek is waiting. Make it happen. Reach out and touch someone now!

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PPS: Do You have the answers to these questions?

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Copyright 2005 James P. Tyler ©
___________________________________________________________
This article may be used in its complete form “IF” the resource box here is
Included! James P. Tyler is a writer and designer.
http://OffersForYourProperty.com/
(866) 601-3157 x0
http://BestWebDesignsByTyler.com/
http://SaveYourselfTimeEffortandMoney.com/
____________________________________________________________

About the Author

Writing helpful articles.
Bio is too extensive for here.

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Claude McKay (1890-1948) was born in Jamaica to “relatively prosperous peasants” (Hathaway 489). In his youth he “studied classical and British literary figures and philosophers as well as science and theology” (Hathaway 489). McKay’s earliest poetry was written in traditional English forms, but later he was encouraged by his mentor Walter Jekyll to write “dialect poetry rooted in the island’s folk culture” (Hathaway 489). His first two volumes of poetry, {i}Songs of Jamaica{/i} (1912) and {i}Constab Ballads{/i} (1912), are primarily written in dialect. McKay immigrated to the United States in the fall of 1912, and after studying agriculture at Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College, he moved to New York City in 1914 (Hathaway 490).

In New York, McKay became “increasingly involved with political and literary radicals” (Hathaway 490). His third volume of poetry, Spring in New Hampshire (1920), reflects his changing political stance; his previous use of dialect is gone, and the poems are divided between commentary of race relations in America and nostalgic images of life in Jamaica (Hathaway 490). Dissatisfied with American leftist efforts to combat racism, McKay escaped to the Soviet Union in 1922 and spent six months traveling throughout the country, attending Communist symposiums and lecturing on art and politics (Hathaway 490). While in Russia, McKay “republished a series of articles he had written for the Soviet press” under the title Negroes in America (1923), which delivers a “Marxist interpretation of the history of African Americans” (Hathaway 490).

In 1928, when McKay was recuperating from illness in France, he published his first novel, Home to Harlem, which is his most widely read work. Even though the novel describes the lower class culture of Harlem, rather than middle class values, Home to Harlem is inherently propagandistic. The central theme of the novel is the internal conflict undergone by an educated, intelligent African American (Stoff 133). Ray, through his friendship with Jack, the ‘natural, instinctive man’, realizes he has “been robbed by his ‘white’ education of the ability to act freely and impulsively” (Stoff 133). According to Stoff’s interpretation of McKay’s work, “only the instinctive primitive can survive happily in white civilization, its dehumanizing tendencies are irrelevant to his innately free existence” (Stoff 134). While McKay’s politics and philosophy are at odds with most of the Renaissance elders, he still uses his art for propaganda purposes, in this case to condemn the African American intellectuals who have traded their own culture for the middle class values of white America. In his last novel Banana Bottom (1933), McKay offers a Jamaican heroine whom is adopted by white missionaries (Stoff 142). Unlike Ray, Bita Plant, “who rejects the civilized value system but not her intellect, can move easily from one world to another without impairing either instinct or intellect” (Stoff 142).

Like the characters in his novels, McKay himself was “forever seeking fulfillment of his desires to escape color-consciousness and recapture lost innocence” (Stoff 146). McKay, in his later life, stated that “As a child, I was never interested in different kinds of races or tribes. People were just people to me” (Stoff 128). It was in America that he became aware of his race consciousness through bigotry and discrimination. McKay, for the rest of his life, strove to transcend racial boundaries, but ultimately failed. Many other Renaissance writers, such as Jessie Fauset, would also explore racial boundaries.

Bibliography

Hathaway, Heather. “Claude McKay.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 489-90.

Stoff, Michael B. “Claude McKay and the Cult of Primitivism.” The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972. 126-146.

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Does this sound familiar? You have a newsletter that needs to go out in a few days, but you just can’t come up with a good article to write. You have a serious case of writer’s block. Or, you know you should be adding more content to your site on a regular basis to keep the search engines (and of course your visitors) happy, but you just can’t find the time to sit down and write articles every week. There’s an easy solution to both problems. Hire a ghostwriter to write the articles for you.

Basically, a ghostwriter is someone that writes articles for you that you get to claim as your own and publish under your own name. No one other than yourself and the ghostwriter has to know that you didn’t write the article yourself. Once you pay for the article, you hold all rights to it and can publish it wherever and however you see fit.

Now let’s talk about the hard part. How do you find a good ghostwriter? You can start by posting a small project on elance or guru.com. Anyone interested in writing for you can bid on the project and you will get to choose your writer from the bidders. I mentioned posting a small project because you just don’t know exactly what you are going to get until you receive the finished articles. A small project in elance or guru terms would be about 15 to 20 short articles on a subject that’s either common knowledge, or easily researched. You want to make it worth the bidders (to attract good writers) without having to spend too much per article.

Other great ways to find a ghostwriter is to network with others in your field, ask friends and post on message boards related to the topic you want the articles written about. Just ask if there is someone interested in writing for you. There are also quite a few freelance writers that offer ghostwriting as well. Search for ghost writing in your favorite search engine to find sites like momva.com .

Pricing for ghostwritten articles can range anywhere from $2.00 to $65 per article. Most writers will charge about $5.00 to $12.00. Keep in mind that you will pay less for shorter articles than long ones. The average article size is from 300 – 1200 words. Shop around, but don’t shop by price along. Like anywhere else you will get what you pay for. Articles in the $2 to $6 range tend to be pretty simple and to be honest quite boring. To get any decent hourly rate, the writer has to crank out 4 – 5 articles per hour and it will show in the quality of the article. You can however find some great articles in the $8 to $12 price range.

When choosing a writer, start by asking for sample articles. Find a few writers who’s style you like and ask them to write a few articles each. You should be able to tell who will work out and who doesn’t. If you have done a good bit of writing yourself, you may want to provide the writers with some of your own articles before they start, so they can get a feel for your style and personality. Pick one or two writers to write for you on a regular basis. It may also be worth staying in touch with the runner-ups in case a writer doesn’t work out, or doesn’t have time for additional projects down the road.

So, will it be worth paying someone to write your articles? It sure does for me. Submitting article and adding them to your own site is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to get traffic to your site. When you add the articles written by your ghostwriter to your site, optimize them by a particular keyword, or key phrase to get more search engine traffic. Then submit the un-optimized version to the various article directories. As your article is used on other sites and in newsletter the traffic will start coming in.

How much are you paying right now to advertise on various websites and in newsletters? $25 per ad or more? For $25 you can easily get 2 to 5 quality articles from a ghostwriter. These articles can then appear in countless publications and websites over and over again. Don’t forget, your resource box, with a link to your site will be included each time the article is published. Your articles may appear in larger newsletters or even print papers and magazines that you could never afford to place an ad in. If you ask me, hiring a ghostwriter and getting more articles with my resource box out there is a great investment.

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There are a number of possibilities as to how this might be done. Sometimes, a conference organiser or corporation will provide a translator who sits in a sound proofed booth, simultaneously translating what you say, and feeding that translation into headphones worn by those who speak the foreign language. In that situation, little adjustment is needed, other than to perhaps briefly meet with the translator beforehand, to let them know about any unusual words or phrases that you plan to use.

If a live translator is being provided (that is someone that stands on stage with you, repeating each sentence after you), this needs an entirely different approach. Because of the time consumed by waiting for the translator to speak, you will have to lose at least half of your planned material. It’s not easy to present a talk in this way, but if there is no other choice you’ll have to go with the flow and try to concentrate on your part as best you can.

In both situations, it is helpful to provide a copy of your notes to the translator. Other tips are to speak slowly and clearly, avoiding jargon, acronyms and jokes – they do not translate easily.

At the very least, learn a short sentence or two in the native language of the group that you are presenting to, the translator can help you with this. Your effort to do that will show a sincere, genuine interest and will be highly appreciated by the audience.

Paul Daniels is often described as The Johnny Carson of England. In his home country he is a household name due to his more than 20 years of prime-time TV shows that have been broadcast to 41 countries. Paul’s course: The Stress Free Guide To Public Speaking and Presentations is the International best selling speaking course – visit: http://www.stressfreepublicspeaking.com for more information.

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Get started creating web pages using text files and HTML code! This article is a continuation of HTML Explained: Part 1, which gives a general overview of HTML. Here, we’re going to get into the nitty gritty of the code itself. Once you see how simple it really is, you should RUN, not walk to the nearest bookstore and grab your own copy of a handy HTML manual. All right, let’s begin.

In viewing the source of web pages, you may have noticed a lot of these things: < >. They’re called HTML tags, and they’re what the computer uses to interpret the HTML code.

NOTE: in this article I had to add spaces to all of my HTML tags so that I could display them without actually having them work. There are two HTML tricks to actually “shutting off” HTML tags, but neither of them function properly in this submission box.

The HTML tags shown here will display like so: < FAKE TAG > but in reality you’re supposed to type them like so:

<FAKE TAG>

A friend of mine describes HTML tags as “on/off switches.” An easy example which you may be well-familiar with, is the Bold command. To “turn on” Bold, type < B > (but with no spaces). All of the text that comes after the Bold tag, will then be Bolded. To “turn off” the bold characteristic, type < /B >. Any text that comes after the “bold off” tag will unbolded.

It’s worth mentioning that in all cases, all text that falls between an “on” or “off” HTML tag will take on the characteristic of that tag descriptor. How much text can you put in between two HTML tags? As much or as little as you want. That means, you can use just a couple of HTML tags to design paragraphs and paragraphs of text.

What are some other HTML tags that web designers frequently use?

< I > and < /I > (for italics)
< U > and < /U > (for underline)
< BR > (to create a single line break).

In most but not all cases, if you activate an HTML tag by enclosing it in these: < >s, you must also deactivate it at some point, as in < I > and < /I > for italics shown above. An exception to this rule is < P >, or paragraph separator tags, and < BR > or line breaks.

Specifying Multiple Text Characteristics Within a Single HTML Tag

HTML tags work in different ways, depending on the aspect of the design they’re controlling. As I mentioned above, you can control all elements of web design via HTML codepage separation, text formatting, image placement, design layout, and hyperlink insertion. For this reason, one HTML tag can include multiple variables. This sounds a lot trickier than it is.

For example, a tag with multiple variables enclosed all in one of these: < >, can be used to format text. An equals (=) sign is used to specify multiple characteristics within a single HTML tag. To tag a section of text for font specs, begin with:

< FONT FACE=

Using no spaces after the equals (=) sign, type your font name in quotes, as so: “arial”. You can also specify the size and color here. In the same tag that says to close. Your font tag will now look like this:

< FONT FACE="arial" SIZE="2" > (but with no end spaces).

If you wanted to, you could also include a color for the text within that tag. The color is entered in the same way as the font face and size, and is named within its own set of quotation marks either in a basic name such as “black” or “red”, or a 6-digit numerical code that begins with a number sign.

So, an HTML tag that designates a paragraph typed in Arial font at the 2nd smallest size of type, in the color black, would look like this:

< FONT FACE="arial SIZE="2" COLOR="black" >

All of the type that came after this HTML tag would take on the characteristics above. Once you wanted to “shut off” the font characteristics of that blurb of text, you would type the tag < /FONT >.

Using HTML Tags to Add Images to Your Web Page

Now suppose you wanted to add an image to your webpage. And let’s assume the image was already located in the folder of your website where images are stored. In order to make the image appear in your NEW web page, you need:

1. the complete web address of your website (such as http://www.wordfeeder.com),

2. the folder (or subdirectory) on your server where images are kept, and

3. the file name of the image (ends in .jpg).

The HTML code used to “pick up” an image from a source is IMG SRC. As always, it belongs inside those handy bracket-things. So your tag would begin:

< IMG SRC=

Without typing any spaces before or after the = (equals) sign, you’d then paste the URL of where the image is located (as explained in examples 1, 2 and 3 above), and follow with the filename and .jpg ending. I’ll illustrate this with an example from my own web collection of images:

< IMG SRC="http://www.wordfeeder.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/wordfeederlogox.jpg" >

By typing that HTML tag with the specific web address and folder information/filename within quotation marks, the computer knows the origin of the image, and will then “hyperlink it” into your web page.

If you’re ever unsure of the filepath of an image you need, go to the webpage where it’s located and then right-click the image. Under “properties”, you’ll find the complete URL path that must be typed in between the two quotation marks that fall inside your Image Source tag.

Note: you do not need to “shut off” an image tag.

You can also include multiple variables within a single image tag. For example, if you wanted to left-align the above image, you’d edit the above tag to look like this:

< IMG SRC="http://www.wordfeeder.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/wordfeederlogox.jpg" ALIGN=left >

Hyperlink Tags for Email and Website Addresses

Ever wonder how webmasters create live links? A live link might say something like, “Click here for more info!” and then when you click there, you’re suddenly transported to a new web page. A live link is simply type covering a website address. Check it out:

< A HREF="http://wordfeeder.com" >Visit Wordfeeder for more info!< /A >

That’s HTML code for “hyperlinked text”. It looks weird, but think about it this way. The first part in that’s enclosed in these: < >, is what turns on the “make the following words into a link that leads to the address I am typing here” function. The end tag, < /A > is what “shuts off” the “hypertext linking” feature and will then let you resume typing in normal, unlinked text.

As you can see, by typing a few simple HTML tags, you can create some pretty amazing things. This article is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope that the explanations and examples shown have at least provided a basic understanding of HTML for you. A great way to learn is by “studying” other people’s web page code from the View>Source window. You practice by copying their HTML code into your own fake pages, and filling in the “meat” between their “on” and “off” tags with text and images that suit your own purposes. But be careful. If you paste HTML incorrectly, you can totally wreck and corrupt your document.

For folks who want to get into serious design, I highly recommend that you buy a comprehensive HTML guide. Once you get the hang of HTML, there’s no telling what you can create!

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with nine years’ industry experience. Her current focus is web content and web marketing for a multitude of products and services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for big-name companies like Toys”R”Us. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for rates and samples.

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In my life, sleep is the number one way that I can either enhance my self-care and nourish myself or defeat my self-care and deplete my energy, peace of mind & productivity all in one shot.

When I’m rested I’m more resilient to stress. My body is more flexible and willing to work, my head is more clear and focused, I feel happier and more at peace and I’m nicer to myself AND to everyone else.

When I’m overtired, on the other hand – my body and my emotions feel more brittle. Unexpected turns can send me into a hurricane of a tizzy, my mind is foggy and I’m much less likely to be kind to you OR me.

I know this. I’ve known this for some time now. So, you’d think I consistently get enough sleep to make sure that first scenario happens all the time, right? After all, I AM the “Self-Care Coach”, my self-care must be perfect, right?

Well…….not so much.

As well as writing about sleep, I must mention another self-care concept here – in order to explain why I’m a bit bleary-eyed today. The concept is SELF-SABOTAGE.

The dictionary definition of sabotage is “an act or process tending to hamper or hurt” or “deliberate subversion”. Why on earth would we sabotage ourselves? That’s a complicated answer. And a simple one. We choose to.

Sometimes it’s so frightening to imagine changing, growing or making conscious choices that we deliberately hamper our own efforts. We make choices every minute of every day. Our life is up to us. These are intimidating thoughts. And doing things the way we’ve always done them feels safe and comforting.

I know I’ll feel so much better if I get a good night’s sleep. And sometimes, for whatever reasons, I don’t choose to “feel good”.

And when self-love and common sense win out and I AM able to do what I need to do in order to get a good night’s sleep, I am rewarded.

Aside from benefits I’ve already mentioned, a good night’s sleep can also have specific rewards for us creatively. A few months ago I came across an article titled “Does a good sleep make you smarter?” (www.msnbc.com, in the “Health” section). The article described a research project going on at the University of Luebeck in Germany, which has determined that a good sleep not only makes us smarter and better at problem-solving, but more creative as well!

The article points out that “history is dotted with incidents where artists and scientists have awakened to make their most notable contributions after long periods of frustration.”

In other words, when we’re struggling with a problem in the hours before sleep, our brains actually keep working on the problem while we’re sleeping, and the answer might just “pop out” in the morning!

So, the longer and more restful sleep that we have, the more time there is for our “sleeping brain” to work on the problem that our “awake brain” has been struggling with.

This relates to the common spiritual practice of praying, before bed, for the solution to a problem, or to the self-help practice of writing a question on a piece of paper and slipping that under your pillow before bed.

So what stops you from getting a good night’s sleep? How do you sabotage your efforts? Over-work? Television? Internet surfing or gaming? Food, drink or other substances that make it difficult to sleep? Irregular sleep habits?

Here are the five things that work best for ME for getting a good night’s sleep.

1. Turning off the computer and television one hour before I’d like to be asleep. This gives me time to wind down, quiet my thoughts and prepare myself for sleep.

2. Getting out of bed early on the weekends. This means I don’t stay up too late or sleep in too long on the weekends. I try and keep my bedtime and wake-up times within about an hour of what I do during the week. Otherwise I spend half the week getting re-adjusted and life’s too short!!

3. Giving up caffeine. Even before I gave it up completely, I really had to limit my caffeine and “just say no” anytime after about 5:00 p.m. or else the caffeine affected my sleep that night.

4. Breathing techniques and other relaxation exercises. Just a few minutes of deep breathing can calm me and send me right off to sleep.

The simplest tips are to focus on breathing from the belly (diaphragmatic breathing) and to focus on long exhalations (exhalation is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for relaxation).

5. Setting the scene with music. I use music both as I’m winding down and getting ready for bed, and as I’m going to sleep. I’ve experimented to find the music that best does the job for me; this is obviously a very individual choice.

I recommend either instrumental music or vocal music that is either without words or sung in a language you don’t understand (so you’re not mentally caught up in the words as you’re trying to fall asleep). Wind instruments (I like the shakuhachi flute) are nice since the natural breaths and pauses that the musician takes can mirror your own deep, slow breathing.

Have you ever woken up in the morning (or in the middle of the night!) with the solution to a problem, a new idea for a song, or another creative spark? That sounds like the work of a good night’s sleep!

This article was originally published on the Muses Muse Songwriter’s Resource website (January 2005) http://www.musesmuse.com.

(c) Copyright 2005, Genuine Coaching Services.

Linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues. To receive her free monthly newsletter, “Everyday Artist”, subscribe at http://www.genuinecoaching.com/artist-newsletter.html

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When we think of writing it triggers many thoughts and visions depending on our framing. It could trigger a lone man with a full astray, unshaven, staring at an old plunking typewriter with white blank crisp paper waiting in anticipation for his words.

If a mother or younger, it could conjure up an image of a 30-something woman typing away on a keyboard with an apron on, in between making formulas or getting ready for work, still dark outside. Pounding on the keys because the flow is there, just as the light from the window begins to change, trying to get as much onto the page before the kids need her attention.

If you grew up in a Catholic school in the 50s, writing could mean perfect penmanship and a rap on the knuckles if you didn’t.

The times have changed, thank goodness, and now children grow up with memories of learning to cluster and freewrite. To allow whatever needs to flow appear onto the page. There are more books than ever on creativity, and how to play and embrace the craft new everyday. It is a freeing time for writers.

Yet, three principles prevail no matter what your association to the meaning of writer appears. They are PDA, for short. No, not the PDA you carry around in your pocket. But the PDA a writer needs to carry around in the heart.

P=patience D=discipline A=action

The patience to allow our writing to mature with practice. To push just enough to keep us uncomfortable yet still allow us to keep trying.

The discipline to sit still long enough to get it started and completed. The discipline to keep picking up the pen, putting another sheet of paper in the printer, or buying new keyboards because the last one certain keys just plain gave out.

Action to keep the vision and dream alive for one more time, one more word, one more story, one more meaning.

Remember, the next time you want to write more or write better. Don’t pull out your PDA from your pocket, but pull out the ones that really count from your heart. The ones that truly affect your ass(ets), patience, discipline, and creative action.

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Your mother always told you how first impressions were extremely important. That’s why whenever you go to meet an editor, you dress impeccably, walk confidently and talk as if you just got out of training with Oprah Winfrey.

But as you sit down to write that e-mail query, you forget everything your mother told you and send editors a query that inevitably brings home rejection. The subject line reads “Query” or something in close proximity with the language spammers use”Become Debt Free Today”. You write your e-mail address and Web address, but leave out other information such as your postal address and phone number. And of course, since it’s an e-mail query, you don’t include clips. After all, the editor explicitly mentioned no attachments, right?

After sending out a dozen queries of this sort, many writers sit in front of their computers hoping that some editor will respond. When no one does, they wonder why their queries aren’t getting enough response, even though they did everything right.

But you know what– there’s a better way. E-mail is the way to go today, so your queries should hit the mark right away. Here are some tips that will melt the toughest of editors.

For starters, get the subject line right. You’re a writerso be creative. Instead of writing “query” or “submission” or even the name of the magazine, how about using the title of your article? And I don’t have to tell you that the title you choose should be informative, witty and creative, do I? It doesn’t always have to be funny, but it has to be interesting. Here’s the format I usually follow for my subject lines:

Query: Creative Article Title

Try to avoid titles that read like spam. “Lose Weight Easily” can be rephrased as “10 Ways to Keep Fit”. Similarly, “Discover Singles in Your Area” is a line spammers love to use, so you could use something more attention-grabbing and less spam-seeming such as “The Top 10 Places to Find your Soul Mate.” Notice the difference?

Write your e-mail query as if you were writing a normal query. Induce in it the same passion, the same commitment and the same confidence that you would like to project in a query sent by snail mail. Forget the mantra that editors will delete long queries. Not a chance. If you’ve sparked the interest of an editor, do you think she’s going to stop reading simply because it exceeded her one page limit? Nope.

As in a mailed query, take the time and space you need to get the editor’s attention. But refrain from rambling. Generally, your query (e-mail or otherwise) should fit into two pages or less. More than that, and you’re giving away too much. They should be succinct, to-the-point, and if you’ve done your job well, you’ll have the editor asking for more. Always include your address and phone number should the editor feel like calling and giving you the assignment.

Remember how editors are busy people? That’s why, instead of sending them hyperlinks of all the articles you’ve ever written, send in three or four relevant clips of your best work. And yes, attachments are strictly prohibited. Instead, include your article as text in your e-mail. But what about the pretty pictures and the beautiful fonts? Well, that’s why, above the article, include the link to the article. If the editor has the time or the inclination, she can go online and view it in its full glory. If not, you’re sending the material in the email so she doesn’t have to wander around cyberspace looking for your great creations.

E-mail queries aren’t much different from snail mail ones. If your query is professional, presented in an original style and makes the editor sit on the edge of her seat, you’ve got a winner. And always remember what mom preached first impressions do count.

* This article was originally published on WritersCrossing.com (http://www.WritersCrossing.com)

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