Hi there! Welcome to my blog! I love, love, love talking about all things metaphysics, writing, and blogging. My hope is that you leave here feeling much better than when you came. It's great to see you!
I’D LOVE TO…
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed for the very first time for being myself. You know how people get interviewed for being singers or actresses? I got interviewed for being a blogger on a mission. In so doing, I learned a valuable lesson that I thought you would find interesting, and perhaps could also learn from as you scoot on down your own paths of love, awesomeness, and passion.
I’ll cut right to the chase–when someone interviews you for being awesome, make sure you’ve actually done something awesome. In the interview below, blogger Chris Coleman interviewed me for his Champion Connections series. I featured him in my Passion Series not too long ago, so I decided to return the favor. His series focuses on people who are working towards bringing great things to the world, and to inspire hope and motivation into anyone seriously considering following their dreams. Naturally, when he asked to interview me I thought, what the hell am I going to say? I haven’t done anything.
So in the 37 minutes below, I talk a lot about writing, passion, and what I want to bring to the world, and that’s about it. I think I did touch a bit on my Passion Series, but by the end of the interview, I was left feeling both sort of awesome (cause woah cool my first interview), and sort of like a failure. Failure is a strong word here, I know. But I was feeling a bit like I wasn’t being interviewed for doing anything special, and half expected a stranger to comment on the video with, “Why was this girl even interviewed? She hasn’t done anything.” (This was more an issue with myself, not the actual interview, or the fantastic interviewer, or the awesome series).
This, my friends, is the lesson I learned: sometimes, it takes 37 minutes of talking about yourself to realize you don’t have anything important to say. Plain and simple. It really brought me back to the reality that while I have my hopes, passions, and dreams…I haven’t really done anything this year that’s noteworthy. Last year was cool because I was plugging away at business school applications, but since I’ve applied, I feel like my motivation to actually finish something has been stagnant. Sure I’ve been working hard in my little online classes on the side, but I haven’t put things I’ve learned to any kind of use, and if you’re learning without doing you’re not really learning are you? Or maybe you are, but the things you learn are quickly forgotten.
The point of all of this sort of self-deprecating talk isn’t to whine or fish for some kind of support. The point is that every day there are valuable lessons to be learned. We throw ourselves headlong into foreign situations and we come out with perspective, and that’s what this is. Interviews in general teach you a lot about your past accomplishments, your present capabilities, and how people perceive you. They are like public moments of reflection and introspection. And like all the lessons life has taught me over the years, I am taking this one with a grain of salt and a stiff tequila shot. This interview was my mirror. I was afforded a moment to stare directly at my reflection, and realize that I’m not quite doing the best that I can, and that I have let my goals choke in the smoke that has billowed over my future as I wait to hear back from USC’s MBA program. I’ve been sort of in limbo, and I need to fight my way ’round it.
Have you ever been taught a lesson like this from an interview? I’d be anxious to hear if anyone else has experienced something like this. I’m so grateful to be alive and to be able to have the space and time to work on the side projects I’ve laid out for myself each evening, but I’m also feeling like a rusty buoy, bobbing in the sea while all the waves rush all rapid and crazily past me. That’s pretty cliche sounding, but in the moment, it was the best I could come up with.
If you’ve got 37 minutes to spare, (or maybe just a few), the interview is below. While I don’t feel like I portrayed myself in the best way, I do feel SO grateful that I had the opportunity to be interviewed, and that I did something that sort of scared me.
I absolutely hate ads. Especially banners. I love my blog, I’m digging the way it’s laid out for the time being, and I absolutely do not want any huge blinking ads distracting you lovely people from what’s most important–being happy, passionate, and absorbing interesting content. I have, however, been wanting to experience with a little something called affiliate marketing, and it is for that reason that I’m going to very candidly speak about a couple small image links that are going to appear in the sidebar of A Novel Quest this week.
Basically, affiliate marketing is where you are sharing a sale with a business. You can place their banner or link on your website/blog for their service, and when someone on your blog signs up for that service, the owner of that blog will get a small commission from it. The good news is, the services I’m going to be putting in the sidebar of this blog are all awesome, and completely relevant to the things that I talk about.
The first one is already there in the sidebar under “Affiliates”. It’s called Blogging Your Passion, it’s a service that helps people get set up blogging about their passions. Well that is 100% me. I started a blog, discovered I have a million passions, and even started up a series to celebrate other people blogging about their passions. And ever since I started blogging about my passions, I’ve helped at least 3 people set up their own blogs so they could start blogging about their passions, so I think it’s a great resource to have here for anyone interested in that sort of thing.
The second one has to do with learning, something I wish I could do all day. The service is Lynda.com. I’m always talking about Skillshare.com, and how I’m taking classes to learn how to code and illustrate and all that, so I wanted to become affiliated with a program where I’m offering more opportunities for my blog readers to learn new things. Lynda.com is just like Skillshare, except instead of paying for courses, you pay about $25 per month for an unlimited amount of online instructional videos to learn all KINDS of awesome shit. I’m talking learning photography, business, 3D animation, you name it. They also have a 7 day free trial (affiliate link) in case you want to just browse first.
Lastly, I’m going to promote one of my favorite new sites that I have not learned how to make money with yet–fiverr.com. It’s a buying and selling marketplace for every single person with a brain and the ability to type. Basically, if you want to make a little extra money, you can become a seller and create what they call a ‘gig’ where you say what you will do for $5. (E.g. I will wear your t-shirt to Disneyland for $5). If you are a buyer, and you want something done for you without spending too much money, like a paper edited, or a product promoted, you can find someone on there who will do it for you for $5. It’s pretty great because you’ll find people are pretty much willing to do anything for $5, which is cheap as hell if you want stuff done for you and are low on dough. I even hired someone there to spruce up my resume for $5 American dollars last year. Amazing. On top of everything, they just redid their entire site, so it’s all nice and fancy now.
So in closing, I’ve officially become an affiliate for those three services, and I wanted to let you know that I am going to make a small percentage off of anything you purchase from this site. I am a full disclosure kind of gal when it comes to anything on this blog, because you have all given me such a gift already by visiting my blog, that I feel the need to speak to you as candidly as I would my own cat (if I had one). I see this blog as a shared house, and if I come home with a new sofa that takes up the entire living room because someone is paying me for you to sit on it, I’m obviously going to forewarn you.
So now, feedback time. Have you ever heard of those services or used them? What was your experience? Or, if you’re a blogger already, what’s your experience been like with affiliate marketing?
Thanks for stopping by!
P.S. Packing and prepping for Australia has been the best kind of crazy so far this year.
The first line from my first blog post two years ago today was “Courage comes from within.” At the time, I was confused as to why I was 26 with nothing cool to show for it, save for maybe an English degree. I realized that day two years ago, that I wasn’t going to be able to change anything in my life without the courage to start, no matter how small that start was. I had to dig deep down inside of myself and pull out the courage to start something, no matter how small, if I wanted to go anywhere.
I was completely, totally, and heavily directionless. My life seemed like a few years at one job, maybe marriage and kids down the line, and perhaps a few other jobs like the first. And while some people in their quarter-life-crisis realize they’re 26 and it’s time to sink or swim (or marry)–I floated. I started a blog, and I fucking floated. And it’s come a long way since that beautiful day in June of 2011, and I can say with much gusto that I am proud of it, and of me. That I put my mind to something, and I did it. And you can bet I’m going to keep on doing it.
I don’t want to launch into too much. People get bored with lengthy histrionics, as histrionic as I am. And I don’t feel like expounding upon my woes and how I’ve been healed, and how different I am now than I was then, because at some point, everyone finds something that heals them, big or small, for however fleeting, and the people who aren’t healed don’t want to hear about it. I will say this though–I’m glad I stuck with it. I’m glad I didn’t start and stop. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I’m glad I had the courage to welcome adrift Monique. I’m glad I never stopped after wondering “Will doing this even get me anywhere?” or “What am I even getting out of this?” Because once you start questioning what feels right, it feels wrong.
I don’t have a clue what this blog will do for me, and maybe I don’t want it to do anything for me except for what it already does: keep me going.
So happy fucking birthday bloggy blog. Here’s to growing old together.
I’m glad this blog didn’t get nominated for “Best Feel Good” blog because things aren’t always ‘feel good’ around here. Not that I don’t feel good–I do–but the more and more I blog, the more and more I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I have to tell you, I’ve been thinking about this blog so much lately, you’d think it was my actual child.
Basically, I worry about not providing enough good content. You would be surprised the amount of pressure bloggers get to provide good fucking content. Google won’t even bat an eye at you if it feels like you provide worthless fucking content. I read so much about how ‘good content brings this’ and ‘compelling content creates this’ and all the while I’m never really sure what my content is doing for my readers. I work for an internet marketing company, so I’m constantly reading up on the industry, and how important it is to have great content so your readers are engaged. But all of that makes me feel forced to fit this blog into a niche category, and just one, which I can’t stand. It’s like pop stars who want to be famous but don’t really know what kind of image they want to portray when they step on stage. They just know they love to sing.
That’s me. I just know I love to write. I’m not trying to blog on one specific category. I’m a million categories. I’m creativity, I’m art, I’m human, I’m happy, I’m love, I’m business, I’m gloom. There’s a reason this blog didn’t get nominated for “Best Feel Good” blog, because I’m fucking human, and things aren’t always good, and I can’t bloody write ‘feel good’ posts when I don’t feel bloody good! And for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to think of ways to spruce up the blog and make it so it had a direction…so it was a place were people could do X, and that was what the blog would be about…but I just can’t. I can’t fit myself into a category. I’m like a new species that’s indescribable and bubbling and infected and strange.
I know I’ve complained about this before, earlier on, when I was experimenting with the direction of this blog. Then I decided to just freakin’ write how I felt and was happy with that. Really happy with that. But now that I’m getting further and further into it, it’s hard to do anything with it when my content is all over the place. I work on the thing daily, trying to think of keywords to use and categories to trim down, and it all just sort of frustrates me that the digital market is so focused on outlining one goal and one strategy to do this or that with your blog, and so set on defining what the blog is about. Why can’t we just enjoy the thing without having to bloody define it? If it speaks to the right people, they’ll read. But then I suppose they wouldn’t even find the blog, or want to read on, if they didn’t know what the freakin’ thing was about.
I suppose this rant started because I was sitting here for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to write about. I’ve decided when you can’t think about what to write about, you’re trying to write about the wrong things. One thing is for certain, and that is…you have to be true to yourself. I never want to not be me here. This is the place to always and forever be me. I hate having to look at stats and track and analyze. Even though I love seeing the numbers go up, it just bugs me that the higher they go, the more I want to see them go higher, and the more I’m sacrificing myself to make that happen. And that’s just what it bloody comes down to.
I just want to do what I want and that’s it. I want to go to business school. I want to write about the experience here. I want to continue with my side projects (writing, designing, video editing), and write about them here. I want to make you laugh, make you hope, and make you happy to be alive, overall, in the process. I want to share inspiring stories, like in the Passion Series, because those are what get me going, those are what keep this journey of mine journeying, and I want to share that journey with you! And in the end, I hope you feel like you are going on a journey, or that you are motivated to embark on your own.
And shit, that’s just what it bloody comes down to. I love all the readers I have, and all of the people that enjoy reading my posts. And if you’ve subscribed and actually put up with me in your inbox a few times a week, I am forever grateful. But I am not a business consultant. I’m not an expert. I’m not a guru. I’m a writer. I’m an art lover, and I’m a flippin mess. I need to remember all of that on nights like tonight when I get frustrated, because I don’t want this to become a chore. I suppose it’s just the industry that bugs me. And I appreciate you listening.
</end rant>
I was perhaps too excited about nominating A Novel Quest for a Bad Ass Blog Award on IndieChicks.com last week, but this blog is my baby, and I am too much of a proud momma not to enter it into all kinds of contests. I had a good feeling I might not win for the category I nominated it in, “Best Feel Good” blog, but I thought what the hell. It’s my baby, and my baby is good enough for anything.
It turns out my blog wasn’t even selected for nomination, haha, meaning it wasn’t even selected to get voted on, and I had no idea, other than by casually discovering that my name wasn’t on the list yesterday, and contacting the Indie Chicks via email.
I’m actually a bit more disappointed with the way I found out about it, more than I am about not being selected as a nominee. I had to visit the page myself and in a panic, after not seeing my blog on the runner up list, email them to find out. But upon entering I never read anything about them being selective about the nomination process. There wasn’t even a small note on the voting page letting people know that not all blogs nominated would be given the chance to be voted on. It was one of those weird let downs, where you’re not entirely sad about it, but you’re not entirely happy about it either.
I sound bitter, but I’m not, truly! I think the Bad Ass Blog awards are a great idea, and I’ll admit I’ve always had trouble fitting this blog into a single niche category, so maybe the editors didn’t see my blog as fitting for a ‘feel good’ category. I’m just a little disappointed in the process, I suppose. I think there could have been some disclaimer somewhere, stating that all blogs nominated would go through an approval process before making it to the final voting round.
But this is 2013 ladies and gents, and let’s face it, I’ve had my failures before. It’s just another year that I am changing, failing dramatically, pulling out gray hairs, worrying about cancer, trying new things, writing my soul out, having human experiences, and thinking of getting new tattoos. This is no time for fret. This is time for fight. I’m used to rejection at this point, and those pillow-stitchers are right–it’s not about what you fail at, it’s about how you fail at it. And I don’t come away from failure failing at it.
I come away from failure like hungry fire.
(Hence, blogging, SEOing, and writing at 12am). Thank you for being my therapy.
It was only a matter of time before I submitted my blog to be nominated for some kind of blog award, and the time has finally come!
I’m so excited to tell you about this, I almost can’t even write about it. A good friend of mine sent me a link via Facebook today, asking if I had any interest in submitting my blog for a Badass Blog Award via IndieChicks.com. I’d never heard of this site before, but upon skimming it I found that it was dedicated to helping chicks find their passions, and from there providing additional motivation and wisdom to help them make those passions happen. Something I could totally get behind.
It turns out IndieChicks.com turned a year old recently, and to celebrate, they’re holding blog award nominations for various categories, starting from now until May 15th. This means on May 15th, you can no longer nominate a blog for an award, but the voting can begin! Voting will run from May 15th to May 31st, and the winners are announced on June 3rd.
I nominated my blog for Best Feel Good blog. There were all sorts of categories, but ultimately I think this is the category my blog falls into. I hope that when people stumble upon this blog from somewhere out in the interwebs yonder, they’ll feel connected, inspired, or somehow just good after reading a post or two. What better feeling is there for a blogger or a writer, than knowing that somehow their writing made someone feel good at some point? That was my goal when I started the weekly Passion Series posts after all, so I feel like this ‘feel good’ category is fitting. It was a bit hard to decide though, because I still can’t really describe in a few short sentences what exactly this blog is about. I know in my heart it’s about me finding direction, and hopefully inspiring others to find theirs, but sometimes it’s hard to fit that kind of blog into popular blog categories. So I’m grateful ‘feel good’ was an option.
I’m also planning to bring a lot more ‘feel good’ to the blog in the form of art at some point down the line (possibly digital illustration in poster form), so hopefully the ‘feel good’ will really start to kick in here at A Novel Quest, as I continue down the path to Great.
In closing, I’m very excited about this quiet little award series in badassery going on behind the scenes, and I will keep you posted as soon as voting starts! Which, as I mentioned is on May 15th, but even I have trouble remembering that. So if you’re not already subscribed, do so! (Upper right hand corner, under my face). So I can shoot you an update when it’s time to vote via email. A very pink email, might I add. Which I know you love.
Till next time. Peace ya’ll.
Now that I am mostly settled into my new place, I’ve decided to get back to blogging.
“But Monique, you’ve been posting for the past two weeks pretty regularly, what’s changing?”
The past blog posts were auto-pilot Monique. I was posting, doing some SEO here and there, but mostly just neglecting this site and my goals and my mission and my direction and my classes and just my everything in general. And I’m feeling like I need to spring into action again. So as my loyal blog audience, I’d like to share with you a few things I’m changing on the blog. Changing in the best way possible. I want to do things better around here, so it’s time to clean up shop.
First thing on the list – the way you receive my posts in your inbox. The format? It’s ugly. It just says “A Novel Quest” in the subject line, and it’s dull. The other night I switched all of you over to Mail Chimp, an email marketing service, instead of Feedburner. Now when you receive my posts in your inbox, they might be a little different. Tonight is the test run. I’m really not sure how they’re going to look when you receive them, but I’m subscribed myself, so I will see how they turn out. I’d like the title of the blog to go as the Subject line in your email, and then I’d like it to be prettier when you open it.
Second thing on the list – advertising. The best thing about blogging, at least here, is that I can be extremely candid with you about everything I’m doing. Because I work for an internet marketing company, I know a thing or two about advertisements, and how annoying they can be. I refuse to put any kind of disruptive banner, pop up, or interstitial ad on my site, as the user experience is what’s most important to me! But I have found an affiliate program that automatically links words in my content to products you might be interested in. If you buy them, I will get a small cut from that sale. So I’m in the process of creating a Disclosure section of my blog, where I fully disclose that I will sometimes make a small amount from the stuff you guys buy, if you choose to buy something ever. Which you definitely don’t have to do.
Third thing – I’m thinking of a new design. I’d really like my logo to be up there somewhere, and I’d like this place to be spruced up a bit. Given that I’m no designer (need to catch up in my classes for that), I might have to hire an expert of sorts, or download some kind of easy, elegant theme. But that is going to be a work in progress.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but right now, those are the things on my agenda. I’ve already begun using an affiliate program, but I’m not set up to disclose that properly yet, so I need to put a section here somewhere that talks about that. At any rate, those are on the agenda this month with regard to le blog.
Other than that, I just really want to focus on my business school e-book, and finishing up that HTML class I started weeks ago. I feel like since I’ve moved into this new place I’ve just been half assing a lot of the things I used to put a lot of effort into, and I don’t want that to become a habit.
In other news, it’s FRIDAY, and my friend Alyssa got her documentary funded! I am so happy for her and her next step, I can hardly breathe. When you’re finally able to fund your dream…well I can’t even imagine what that feels like.
It’s a beautiful thing. Until next time…here’s a pony dancing.
You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at this post, but not being able to work on my blog has been killing me. Right now, I’m blogging from my tablet, because I haven’t bought internet yet, and I’ve been having no luck using the apartment wi-fi with my PC. This means this is going to be a very short post, because typing on this thing is incredibly tedious.
This also means that my posts are not optimized for search, and the picture attached to this post and every tablet post afterward, is going to SAWK!
In other news, I hope to get full fledged functioning internetz by early next week, so I’m praying my Alexa rank holds out. I’ve worked hard for my traffic, and its a pity to see it go to waste.
The upside to all of this is that I am finally all moved into my new place! I have a few last things to pack up from the old place, but I have been sleeping here all week. Its been too interesting to not write a poem or short story about someday, or to not mention in a blog post. The first night I stayed over was the worst. I was so tired from the day and night before, that I was hallucinating things, and thought every sound was either a demon or a ghost. As tired as I was, I’d wager that I got about 3 hours of sleep.
The next night I discovered I had an ant problem. There were a few scavengers on my counter and in my tub, and I’m still not quite sure what to do about it yet. This was the same night I also busted a pipe underneath my bathroom sink after trying to fit a tub o’ shit inside it. It leaked for a couple days but I called the landlord and the maintenance guy got it all taken care of.
On the upside, I have never been so happy in my life. Everything I need is within walking distance, I feel like I’m living in New York, or some place like it. I told Bailey the Starbucks was 4 blocks away and as awesome as that is, it’s still ‘too far’. He said ‘that’s the city life! You’ve gotta walk everywhere, get used to it!’ But I totally am. I walked to the Ralph’s a couple nights this week for quick dinners, and it’s so neat to see all the people out and about. I’ve never lived in a bustling place like this, where I’m woken up at 12:45am to laughter on the sidewalk, arguments in the building next door, and random violin playing. But I know for a fact I am loving it.
I have so much more to say, but there’s a time and a place. Until then, know this: despite my absence, A Novel Quest has resurrected, like I said it would, just as Jesus said he would, and being that today is Good Friday, and Easter is approaching, I think it’s fitting.