Some Blog Site

or, How to Double Your Website Traffic in 3 Easy Steps

This post will tell you how to write a guest post for Stuff Christians Like. Jon Acuff has already listed some hints on what to write in a guest post, but this post is going to tell you some additional details on how to do that.

Steps for Writing an SCL Guest Post

Step 1. Come up with a good idea.
Step 2. Write a 500-word humorous essay on that idea.
Step 3. Email it to Jon (his email is listed in the link above).

It really is that easy, but there are some other details that might help – things I’ve picked up over the years.

Tips for Writing an SCL Guest Post

These tips are not guaranteed to get your guest post published on SCL, but they might help.

1. See if your idea has already been covered in SCL. It’s okay if the topic is the same, but you must write about a different angle.

   For example, Jon and I both wrote about meal-time prayers. But he wrote about which meals deserve prayers and I wrote about the reason for a prayer.

   Same topic + different take on things = different posts.

2. A guest post should be ready to publish. Write it well. If you’re not good with grammar or proficient in proof-reading, then find someone competent to be your editor (your English-major sister, the guy who leaves blog comments correcting things in the post, etc.)

   Yes, Jon will clean the post up a bit, but if he is choosing between your guest post and someone else’s similar guest post, my guess is that he will pick the one that requires less work on his part.

3. Remember that you’re writing for SCL. The audience is there because they appreciate a certain style, so work within the culture of SCL.

   This might not work for all people, but I write my SCL guest posts differently than I write my own posts. Posts for my blog are drier, so I try to be more entertaining in a guest post. Something along the lines of “what would Jon write?”

   But guest post are for variety, so don’t try to mimic him. Which leads to the next point…

4. Don’t add trendy pop culture references just for fun or because you think Jon will like them. If that’s a part of your writing, then fine – go ahead.

   Jon is known to tweak or add things to guest posts, so if he thinks a current topic deserves a cameo in your guest post, he will make it so.

5. After you send it in, just wait and don’t worry. Sometimes he sends a reply the next day. Other times it takes a week or two. It depends on his travel schedule and who knows what else.

   He usually sends a “Thanks for your guest post” reply first, to let you know that he got it. Then, once he knows that he will actually use it, he sends a “I loved it! It will go on SCL in a few weeks” reply.

   If all you ever get is the first email, then your guest post is languishing in purgatory.

6. Type out your website in your email signature. If you just sign your name when you send in your guest post, Jon won’t know that you have a website. Therefore, he won’t provide a link to your site. And that means you won’t get all those visitors.

   Because that is why you’re writing, right? No? You just want to help others? That’s not a very sustainable business plan. (of course I’m joking here. I don’t have a business plan either)

7. If you want visitors from SCL to return to your site, you might want to think about having an update just for them. You could have a new post all set to introduce yourself (and your site) to them.

   I did this the first time, but I don’t bother with this anymore. Maybe if I had a product to sell or a goal in mind, I would do this more.

That’s all I have to share with you today. Help out Jon and write a guest post for him.

For those interested in the details of the most recent addition to our family:

• 9:00 am – I get a call from my wife. She is calling as she is leaving her doctor appointment for a regular weekly check-up before her due date. She tells me that we have to go to the hospital. The doctor said to be there in an hour because we’re going to have the baby today, even though my wife isn’t feeling any contractions. We decide to wait until lunchtime or she feels contractions, whichever comes first.
• 11:45 – I get home from work and greet my sister, who is over to watch the kids while we’re at the hospital
• 12:25 – We get Alpha off the school bus. They had a half day, so now all the kids are together with some cousins.
• 12:45 – We leave for the hospital
• 1:05 – The nurse chides us for not arriving sooner. “I’ve been waiting since 9:00,” she says.
• 1:15 – They hook up monitors to see how contractions are going. There are some contractions – they’re just slight enough that my wife had been dismissing them or not noticing them.
• 1:30 – two students from a nearby nursing school arrive. It’s their rotation on the maternity floor.
• 2:20 – the doctor comes in and checks things
• 2:30 – the doctor decides she wants to deliver the baby soon, so she breaks the water. The nursing students get to help clean up
• 2:35 – contractions every 3-4 minutes, looks like the doctor will get her wish.
• 3:15 – parents arrive. I greet them and usher them to the waiting room. They do get to peek into the delivery room and say hi.
• 3:30 – epidural is in. Good thing, because the contractions are coming in waves now.
• 3:40 – the doctor checks things again. She brought a resident with her. There are a lot more people in the room this time than for the other 3.
• 3:50 – the doctor and resident get suited up and then the pushing starts
• 4:08 – baby is born. He is silent for the first few seconds, but then he starts crying like one would expect. It’s always amazing how the baby can go from not breathing air one second to breathing air the next second.

For those keeping track:

• Baby #1 – at least 90 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #2 – 20-30 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #3 – 6 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #4 – 5-10 minutes of pushing. I didn’t keep good track this time. Things progressed too quickly and I wasn’t facing a clock.

Since we’re in the sports doldrums (between hockey and football seasons), there’s a lull in the play-calling world. I know baseball is being played, but there aren’t many different defenses you can have in a baseball game. But enough about baseball – don’t get distracted from the main topic…

To fill the void of play calling during the summer months, I present to you Defensive Schemes for Parents.

You can look at this in at least 2 ways:

1. You’re a parent who wants to understand sports lingo, or
2. You know sports but don’t know how to handle the number of children you have

Guide to Football-style Diagrams: O is for offense (children in this case) and X is for defense (parents in this case).

I haven’t quite figured out what’s analogous to the goal line. But whatever it is, I have to make sure my kids don’t get there.

Transcript:
For a two-parent family,
1 child = double team
2 children = man to man
3 children = zone
4 children = prevent

If this is how your child looks when you take him to a gym and give him a ball:

then you’d better save up for cleats.

If this is how your child looks when you take him to a gym and give him a ball:

then you’d better save up for the bookstore.

A few days ago I posted something about the warning of “Do not break this seal”. It had to do with software agreements and EULAs and such.

The warning, however, was written in English. I have taken the liberty of updating the warning to be understood by today’s international users / global marketplace / illiterate population.

Here is my contribution: an easy-to-understand warning to not break the seal. Feel free to use it in all your software documentation. I estimate this will be good for about 1.5 more years, at which point no one will be releasing software on CDs anymore.

And, as Ricky pointed out, zoos might be able to put this image to good use also.

Parents of small children will eventually have their children invited over to birthday parties. And those parents will probably be thinking of important questions to ask before the party, such as

• What time is the party?
• Do I drop off my child, or am I expected to stay?
• Who else will be there that my child knows?
• etc.

Allow me to add one more question to that list, so that you will have a more complete checklist before accepting the invitation:

What live animals will be involved in the party?

Alpha and Beta went to a birthday party, and they won something as prizes for a little game they played.

They won two goldfish.

Each.

We went from zero to four goldfish instantly.

We had fish before, but not for very long. The bowl has been sitting in the basement for a while (about 3 years now), so I rinsed it out and put the new fish in it.

The older two kids are somewhat excited about the fish, at least enough so that they ask whose turn it is to feed the fish.

Beta named his two fish “Biggy” and “Mediumy”.

The only problem is that the fish are not very hardy. It’s not really a problem to us parents because we didn’t invest much in the fish, and we don’t expect much out of them. I think the kids remember from last time that fish are quite temporary. They won’t be heartbroken either.

We started out with 4 fish.
The next day, we were down to 3 fish.
Two days later, 2 fish.
A week, 1 fish.

At this rate, we’ll be out of fish by Thursday.

Oh, and my wife informed the giver-away of the goldfish that we will be giving away kittens to her kids next time.

It’s June, the start of the summer quarter. Time for me to update the theme on this blog.

As is usual, it’s not really a new theme – all I did was replace the images and reaarrange the sidebar. It’s supposed to look like sand on the beach.

Anyway, here’s a slightly new look. Expect some tweaks in the days to come.