Santa Squid from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

I’m finishing this year feeling I’ve accomplished some things that I really wanted to do. There have been some disappointments and sad times too – just like many years, in fact.

At the beginning of the year, I was making very few new lenses on Squidoo. I’d become a Giant in October 2008 by making 50+ lenses. After that I just lost inspiration for writing. I’d start a new lens, think about it, then delete it because I couldn’t think of more to write or I was bored by the subject. Worse still, I sometimes finished a lens, read it the next day, decided it was rubbish and so deleted it. Although I made a few lenses, they were a struggle.

Early 2009 two things pulled me out of this Slough of Despond. I joined Senior Squids and started to take part in their weekly lens Challenge. The second was I received an invitation from Michelle (a_willow) to join the Wiwon Team to become a Giant 100 Clubber. That was in April and the deadline to have 100+ lenses was June 30th 2009.

Joining in the Senior Squids weekly lens Challenge helped me start lens building again. Only having a week to make a lens concentrated my mind – I didn’t have time to dither and decide I didn’t like what I was doing. I made lenses on so many different subjects, it was this that started me off doing gardening lenses like I Love Lilies, Moonflower – Night Blooming Plants and Best of Garden Flowers on Twitter.

Salute to Giants from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids

Not only did these count towards my 100+ lens target, they also started me writing again. I made the Giant 100 Club having met the required number of quality lenses by June 30th.

Then Michelle asked me to be a tutor on Wiwon for people wanting to make Giant or the 100 Club. She would decide she wanted a lens on some aspect of writing for Squidoo and that I was the one to write it. Sometimes I only had a couple of days before she wanted it. Funnily enough, it really helped me too.

Now I’m a Squid Angel and I love doing this. It gives me the opportunity to help new Squids particularly. Sometimes I see newcomers with great potential and all they need is a little guidance on the best way to use Squidoo. It’s also lovely when I get an email or message on my Angel’s lens telling me I’ve made somebody’s day by blessing their lens.

That’s the really great thing about Squidoo – for many of us, it’s all about community and giving back as well as taking.

Both pictures came from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids.

My Coaching Lens for Stazjia's Stars

Because I made the Giant 100 Club last time, Wiwon, the group I joined to help me, has made me one of the coaches for people hoping to make Giant or the Giant 100 Club next time, deadline September 30, 2009.

Stazjia’s Stars is one of the small coaching groups. I have six members, which is about average for each group. In SS we are still getting to know each other but have started reviewing each other’s lenses and that seems to be going well.

I think giving critiques on lenses helps the owner of the lens and the people doing the critique. Obviously, the owner gets suggestions for improvements but how does it help the other people?

They have to look at the lens with a critical eye. They need to assess it for attractiveness and how it reads. Does it encourage people to read it? Is the lens easy to read on a screen or are there great blocks of text that make it difficult? Are there enough illustrations to brighten it up, make it look attractive and help the meaning of the text. For example, a lens about a flower is always helped if the reader can see a picture of the plant in question.

The Wiwon Team

Sometimes the problem can be that the text doesn’t flow well from beginning to end. When writing about most things, there’s an optimum order to impart the information. If it’s written in the wrong order, it feels disjointed and jumbled. Sometimes we don’t always realize what’s wrong with the writing but we know there is something stopping us enjoying it.

When people write a critique, they have to assess all these things and others too, sometimes. They then have to formulate a way of writing their opinions of what’s wrong. Saying, “it reads funny” doesn’t help. You have to work out why before you can give the critique. Then the person doing the critique should make suggestions for improvements.

While they are doing all this, they are learning more about how to make good lenses.

Remember, lenses are just Squidoo’s name for web pages and so this method should apply to any page of content or even a sales page.

I did it. I finished up with 108 lenses and I was notified on Thursday that I had made it into the Giant 100 Club.

I really didn’t expect to qualify. I wasn’t convinced that I’d really got 100 high quality lenses. I wanted to do at least another five or six to give myself a better chance. I always do my best when I write but we aren’t always the best judges of our own work.

What has helped me so much more than when I made Giant with 50 lenses is being part of the Wiwon Squidoo team. Each time I made a new lens I posted the URL in the forum and other members would give me opinions and suggestions about it. This sounds scary but it’s incredibly helpful. Sometimes you don’t realise the mistakes you’ve made or the way some things are badly phrased because you know what you meant when you wrote them.

Other people giving you suggestions and catching typos and poor phrasing has been a big help. In fact, I have joined another group as well, the Senior Squids, and find this is good too.

These smaller Squidoo groups are, I believe, a good way to proceed. The network is outstanding for the sense of community among lensmasters and the small groups take this another step further.

Before I close this post, I have a bit more bragging to do – my lens, I Had a Mini-Stroke and What Happened After, was awarded a purple star the day after I made the Giant 100 Club so last week was a really great week for me.

It was good for me because it made me concentrate on writing quickly and not spending too long agonising about which subjects to choose. I have a terrible habit of starting a lens then deciding I don’t like what I’ve written and I’ve lost interest in the subject so I delete it.

A Favourite Climbing Plant

I’ve been pleased with the look of some of my recent lenses like My Favourite Climbing Plants, Best Desserts on Twitter and I Love Lilies. I’ve been lucky to find some really lovely pictures to illustrate them. Sometimes I spend more time looking for pictures than I do writing a lens.

The last one, I Love Lilies, was done in response to a Senior Squids weekly challenge. I wish I’d taken a more active part in Senior Squids earlier because I’m sure it would have helped me with making lenses for the Giant 100 Club but I was like the person pushing a bike who is late – I didn’t have time to get on it and pedal!

That’s the brilliant thing about Squidoo, there is such a great, supportive community willing to help. You never need to feel you are struggling on your own.