SEO by the Swake

Life by the Swake usually evolves on Saturday morning; the product of a week's worth of living and a Spark of Energy and Optimism - my SEO.  It all starts about 6 a.m. coffee in hand, hair standing on end.  The easy part is getting down the stairs into the office and sitting down.  It gets a little harder after that.  Not immediately of course, because signing into the blog isn't hard unless I am having a moment in which I can't remember the right one of the fifty thousand passwords that life requires me to have.

Sunset on the Swake
Assuming all goes well logging in I find myself looking at a big blank white page and that is when the pressure starts.  I wonder what you would like to read about.  I mentally sift through the events of the week for that one nugget that might form the starting point.  I alternate between typing and deleting while my husband reappears periodically providing Just in Time coffee.  And I keep on typing and deleting; on good days there is more typing than deleting.  Actually on all blogging days the typing exceeds the deleting or you would never get anything to read.  But some days from my vantage point hunkered over the big blank white page and my keyboard, it feels as though there is more deleting than typing.  It is on those days I have to rummage around to find my SEO.

In the rummaging, my neural pathways are lit up with an active search for the idea that will fuel the writing engine, optimizing all those seemingly random thought patterns into something coherent to publish.  In order for that to happen successfully and in a reasonable timeframe, I need to maintain my SEO.  I can't let my spark of energy and optimism be overcome by a damper of fear and failure or I will freeze, unable to produce a single word.

Every week I have to overcome those demons of fear and failure and I wondered how I did it.  Was there any wisdom I could pass along?  If I were a famous motivational writer, I'd give you three rules for building your SEO, something catchy although not necessarily original, then I'd write a book.  Truth is I don't have three rules or any secrets; it comes down to three familiar words - just do it.  Make an agreement with yourself to refocus on your SEO every time you are tempted to wallow in the muck of fear and failure.  Trust me it is way more fun when life is sparked with energy and optimism, even failing isn't as scary.  Try it this coming week.  When you are tempted to go to the dark side, pull yourself back and insist on enjoying that spark of energy and optimism that brings you joy.

Comments