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How to Create a Media Kit: A Step-by-Step Guide for Bloggers, Content Creators & Influencers (+ Free Template)
I’m going to be honest: despite consistent blogging and brand interest (though mostly from AI companies), this blog does not have a media kit. Which is bad. Embarrassing, even. Because media kits are very important in the blogging space. It’s probably one of the first things you should prepare for marketing and partnerships. The reason I haven’t done it up until this point is because until this year, I haven’t blogged regularly. And, as you know, when it comes to blogging, it’s more important to start than fuss over branding. You can do that stuff later. However, if you’re new to blogging, content creation, or influencing, and you find that…
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Book Talk: What I Read in September
Guess who’s back in school? Me! And guess who’s taking an English class after at least five years? Also me! I’m low-key, extremely excited about this. Which is weird because I don’t expect a lot from foreign language teachers in Turkey. Maybe it’s my face; I’ve been told I have a certain type of dead look. And don’t even get me started on how mean my German language tutor was. Seriously, but I think the school I enrolled in may have something to do with that. They tried really hard to get me to sign up for A1 German instead of B1. But enough of that. We’re talking about what…
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How to Set Up A Staging Site on SiteGround
Not sure how familiar you are with it, but testing new features/releases on a test “staging environment” is pretty much the industry standard in tech. I’ve been responsible for a lot of quality checks on staging myself. And let me tell you one thing—well, two things: But enough about company superstitions. My point is, it doesn’t matter if you’re a multi-million dollar company or a small blogger. If you want to tinker around with your live (we call it that or production) site, make some changes to the design or template, you should seriously set up a staging site first. Why You Should Set Up A Staging Site Now, I…
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How to Write A Murder Mystery
So, recently I’ve been watching and reading a lot of murder mysteries. It’s a fall thing really. When the weather gets colder and the cafes start serving pumpkin spice latte, I like to curl up with a good murder mystery. You’ll see more of that in this month’s reading list. Anyway, the point is, I like murder mysteries. But I’ve never written them before. I’m not sure I could, to be honest. At least right now anyway. I’m way too involved with my own manuscript to think of anything else at the moment. But just because I’m not writing a murder mystery, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t either. And help…
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How to Write Effective Endings
To quote Chuck Shurley from Supernatural: “Endings are hard. Any chapped-*** monkey with a keyboard can **** out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna *****. There’s always gonna be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ***.” And yes, I was a Supernatural fan in my teens (part of the SuperWhoLock part of Tumblr). We’re keeping it PG for the kids right now. In case there’s any here. But the point is, writing endings can be difficult.…
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How to Write Slow Burn Romance: A Guide for Struggling Writers (Like Me!)
I’ve hit a bit of a writer’s block recently with the romantic subplot of my manuscript, especially since I’ve been recommended to write a slow burn love triangle. And it’s led me down this road where every scene I write reminds me of Twilight. The movie, not the book. Now, as a writer, I’d love the frenzy around the whole “Team Edward/Team Jacob” debacle, but I don’t want to write stuff that would make you cringe. I mean, I guess sometimes you can’t help it. I personally adored Edward Cullen and hated Jacob. But my inclination towards Edward may or may not have to do with the fact that he…
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How to Write Flash Fiction: A Guide to Writing Impactful, Compact Stories
I’ve started submitting some prose to literary magazines recently and as usual, I kept running into the same problem: the word count. In my guide on how to write a short story, I talked about how to structure and write a short story. I also briefly mentioned flash fiction, as a type of a short story. And well, this is the blog about it. We’re going to talk about flash fiction, and how you can write it. It’s super popular with most indie literary magazines and if you’re an up-and-coming writer, it’s a great way to start fine-tuning your writing and building your portfolio. So, let’s get started! What Exactly…
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Book Talk: What I Read in August
As you may or may not know, I’ve been up to a bunch of random educational stuff over the summer. It was an interesting experience. Long story short, there’s a reason I hated my (almost) alma mater. I spent the last five years romanticising what graduating from there would’ve been like. But after one six week program? No, thank you. With all due respect. Seriously, there’s a reason I didn’t stay at that university. The past week was quite difficult because I was balancing my job, a couple of side projects and finals (yay!). So, this week’s update is meant to be a little easy on my packed schedule. So,…
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How to Create Notion Templates You’ll Actually Use (+ Free Template to Get You Started)
Okay, so I’m big on scheduling and organising myself. And to do this, I like to use Notion. In fact, I’ve been regularly using it since 2022, when it was introduced to me at work. It was our company’s project management tool. It was great at that and I ended up using it for other stuff too. Think about this blog, my manuscript edits, even budgeting and keeping track of expenses. But it wasn’t a switch-flip moment for me. I didn’t always look at my Notion page regularly, and it’s because I wasn’t using a Notion template that worked for me. I actually ended up doing a lot of fine-tuning…
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What is LLMs.txt and Should You Add It to Your Website?
Alright, so I’m not too confident about this one. Usually, when I write something, I like having an opinion about it before I write. But unfortunately, we live in a world where AI “experts” are actually just hype marketers. To be honest, it shouldn’t be this difficult. Or confusing. It should be straightforward, but unfortunately, like most things out of Silicon Valley, the so-called AI revolution is starting to look less disrupt-y and more tech bubble-y. And if you’re a long-term reader, you know how much I loathe bubbles. Especially since 2022. In fact, this blog’s happening because a report was submitted at work. And it includes a suggestion I…