I spent part of Christmas Eve trying to explain to my dad what a blog is.

I should have known it would be difficult, like the time I tried to show my mom how a fax machine worked. (I don’t blame her. Did any of us really understand that one?)

“But how do the words go through the phone line like that?” she asked.

I should have known that it’s impossible to explain my life’s work to someone who calls voice mail my answering service.

“I tried to call you yesterday, but I just got your answering service,” she said.

On Christmas Eve, after a couple of false starts, I told my dad, “Well, see, a blog comes through the computer. People subscribe to it—you know, kind of like your newspaper?

“You write stuff to help them solve their problems. They see how much you know and they start feeling like they can trust you. And some of them will become your clients.”

He squinted. “O-o-oh.”

I could tell he didn’t have a clue.

But four bright and accomplished people do know what a blog is. They recently got together with Write to Done, the amazing website for writers, and chose what they thought were this year’s Top Ten Blogs for Writers.

I was glad I was sitting down when I read this year’s winners’ list because my name was on it!

Thanks to the judges, whose daunting task was to narrow down 518 nominations to 20 finalists, to just 10 winners. What hard work that must have been!:

• Leo Babauta, creator of the blogs Zen Habits and mnmlist.com, author of Focus and co-creator of the top writers’ resource site, Write to Done.

• Brian Clark, creator of Copyblogger and co-founder of Teaching Sells and Third Tribe.

• Deb Ng, founder and former owner of Freelance Writing Jobs, owner of the blog Kommein and Conference Director for the BlogWorld and New Media Expo.

• Michael Stelzner, author of Writing White Papers and founder of Social Media Examiner.

And thanks to my readers, who left such encouraging words of support on the contest website. You are the best!

Whether you have that next blockbuster fiction book in your head or 2011 is the year you’ll finally write that how-to book to help your clients, there is something on this list for you.

As Mary Jaksch, Chief Editor of Write to Done,  says, “There’s some serious gold here, folks!”

Top 10 Blogs for Writers 2010/2011

1. StoryFix- Bestselling author Larry Brooks helps budding novelists break down the storytelling process, from concept to character to sequence and theme.

2. Men with Pens- This Canadian blogging team of copywriters and web designers is a leading resource for writers, creative professionals, freelancers and entrepreneurs.

3. Make a Living Writing- Carol Tice is a blogger who is passionate about helping freelance writers earn more from their work.

4. Cat’s Eye Writer- Hey, that’s me. (Blush.)

5. The Renegade Writer- Linda Formichelli writes about developing a writing style that works for you, overcoming freelancing fear, getting motivated and earning money.

6. Writer Unboxed- Aspiring novelists Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton blog about “unboxing” genre fiction writing by discussing craft and interviewing successful authors.

7. Word Play- Novelist K.M. Weiland blogs to help writers become authors.

8. The Creative Penn- Author, speaker and consultant Joanna Penn shares her knowledge about writing and self-publishing with aspiring authors.

9. Victoria Mixon- Professional writer and editor Victoria Mixon blogs with spot-on advice to aspiring authors.

10. Courage to Create- On his blog, Ollin Morales chronicles his journey as he writes his first novel.

And if you’ve been wondering how to find the time to write, this post is for you.

Happy holidays to you, my dear readers, and here’s to the most awesome year of writing and blogging yet.

Have you thought about writing a book? If you’re undecided, what’s holding you back?

The ‘experts’ will tell you that your about page is one of the most important spots on your blog.

They are right. In fact, on the CatsEyeWriter blog, my about page is consistently the second or third most viewed page.

Because the first thing a new visitor wants to do when they are intrigued about a post I’ve written is find out just who this CatsEyeWriter person is.

They are curious.

What the ‘experts’ are wrong about

For every expert opinion on how to write the ‘perfect’ about page, you’ll find an equal and opposite one.

“Keep a professional focus,” says the expert of stuffiness. “You need to separate business from  personal.”

“It’s all about credibility. Your degrees and post-graduate work count the most,” says the guru of self-importance.

“Be ‘authentic’ and talk about some mistakes you’ve made,” says Mr. Warm and Fuzzy.

All of these people are wrong.

Because there are no about page rules—except for one.

Now some of you have heard me say that a good about page must have certain pieces.

That’s true. But you must also find the right mix of personal and business—the recipe that makes the most sense for you.

The right ratio of business and personal is determined by the kind of business you are in, who your customers are and how you have built your brand.

So each about page is unique.

You do not want a reader to visit your blog and wonder what you do. That would be a bad thing.

But don’t write a dry bio that leaves your visitor cold and feeling like there is no living, breathing person behind your business.  Because that would be bad, too.

So what’s the  one rule?

Don’t make it all about you.

About pages can be tricky because at first glance they are about you. But ultimately, you must connect your skills, abilities and interests to your client’s needs. Keep that hat on as you write and you should do just fine.

5 tips for writing an about page that connects with your reader

Your reader wants to know know who you are, who you help and what matters most to you in this world. Here are five distinctly different about pages I wrote—four for my clients and one for myself.

1. Say what—but don’t forget the why.

Your readers want to feel your passion for what you do, but they also are interested in why you chose your life’s work. For one of my clients, the turning point was the day he realized that he was seeing too many adults in his counseling office who had been sexually abused as children.

He decided to figure out how to stop the abuse before lives were ruined. And so he launched a cool program to teach parents and teachers how to talk to kids about staying safe.

2. Tell us a good story.

Stories are just a part of us. They help us understand your personal journey—if that is important to who you are and how you are uniquely qualified to help us. We remember a good story long after the telling is over.

For one of my clients, a business coach, her story of going from ‘broke, busted and disgusted’ to becoming an award-winning coach and nationally renowned speaker was important to show that she gets being stuck, understands barriers to growth and knows how to get people on the road to living a life filled with passion.

3. Don’t lead with boring credentials—even if they are important.

Most about pages don’t start with a list of the person’s degrees—and for a good reason. Names of colleges and pieces of paper do not excite us. When is the last time you hired someone based on what college they went to? One of my clients is a career development specialist.

His students and coaching clients expect him to have the proper credentials and he shares them—at the end of his about page. We decided to lead with the story of the  ‘accidental’ job that caused him to take a huge leap— from forestry to career education—and why. Because it shows how important he thinks it is to find the life work you were meant to be doing, which is what he helps his clients do.

4. Tie in some relevant accomplishments.

You can’t talk about every activity you enjoy and everything you’ve accomplished in your about page. So focus on the things that increase our trust in you as someone who knows what you are talking about and who can also solve our problems.

I wrote an about page for a client’s social media marketing blog. He also happens to be founder and president of Social Media Club Seattle, which gives him huge amounts of added credibility in his blog niche. So try to pick the things that are relevant to your business, your services, your blog.

5. Write in your own unique voice.

Show us some of the personality that makes you unique. I close my about page with 7 things you’d probably rather not know about me but I’m going to tell you anyway. At first glance, they may seem to be unrelated, but they do two things: They reflect my ever-present sense of humor and show my love of language, words and writing.

I’m a writer and blogging coach, so the facts that I’ve written three unpublished middle grade novels, I can say “Four knives will be sufficient’ in Swahili and I wanted to be an interpreter at the United Nations when I was in third grade connect with who I am today.

Use these five tips to spice up your about page. And if you think you need some help with that, I’m here.

Happy 4^th of July to all my American friends.

Speaking of freedom, did you know that one year from today, your life can be immeasurably better?

That you can feel more powerful? More independent?

That you can blog better, with more confidence—more engaging content?

Would you laugh hysterically if I told you it could happen? And in as little as 15 minutes a day?

In the privacy of your own home? In your pajamas? With no expensive books or teleseminars or video sets?

In fact, for just $5.68 a month?

Okay, that was fun. Just for one day, I got to be one of those obnoxious, in-your-face Internet marketers. You know, the ones I hate?

How I became a better blogger in just 15 minutes a day

All hype aside, 15 minutes a day and $5.68 a month actually did change my life. Made me a better writer. Helped me get closer to my readers.

Before I bought Julia Cameron’s amazing book, The Artist’s Way, before I had ever heard of Morning Pages, I was pouring my heart and soul onto paper every day.

Some girls had fancy-pancy diaries with a lock and key.

Me? I had my ‘Pee Chee Papers.’

They are still in a box in my basement closet—yellowed sheets of scribbles tucked into the pockets of musty bright gold-colored folders with those leaping football players and relay racers on the cover.

Every evening in the winter of my 11^th grade year, as the wind cried and raindrops smashed against my bedroom window, I scratched out pages of self-absorbed whinings about my ex-boyfriend Ronnie, the football star who ripped my heart out and kicked it down the hallway outside Miss Gwinn’s classroom.

It was therapy back then.

And, with my daily 15 minutes of Morning pages,keeping a journal is still therapy.

It seems that getting all those petty thoughts out of my head before I start each day releases the demons, obliterates my ‘stuckness’ and just overall opens up all the possibilities.

Yes, I pull out one of my wirebound notebooks—of the cheap variety—and my Roller Writer pen (I like the ones that make nice gooey black splats when they hit the paper). I sit at the dining room table and purge.

Every little inconsequential thing in my tiny brain is given permission to come out on the page. Like:

“I wonder what a ’pip’ is. Archie called Edith one in an ‘All in the Family’ episode. What does that mean?”

Or:

“I can’t get that Clorox 2 commercial out of my head. Make it stop! ‘Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama’s got the magic of Clorox 2.’”

Sometimes I get downright cranky:

“I’d like to make that cop who gave me a ticket for not coming to a full stop put a pink dress and black patent leather shoes on and cry like a little girl.”

The point is to spew out all the petty, fearful, gunky stuff. Just get it all out so you are free to move forward—in your life and in your blog. To say the things you really want to say.

The things straight from the heart.

5 easy steps to journaling your way to a better blog

1. Buy a cheap notebook and pen.

First of all, to get this right, you need to write your morning pages in longhand.
That’s right, the handwriting some of us learned back in third grade.

Who writes longhand anymore, you say.

Well, no one. But it’s the way you will be freed to say anything that comes into your mind. No hitting the delete key because “Wow, I didn’t mean to say that my boss is a Grade A scumbag.’:

No erasing. Just leave what you said right there. You can only do that with pen and paper.

Besides, there just is something organic and true about your hand moving across the page, your brain’s thought going down into your arm and coming out of the pen in your fingers, splashing onto the paper.

Oh, and do not buy one of those fancy, twenty-dollar “journals” at the stationery store. It’ll just make you freeze up.

You’ll think you’d better have something pretty freakin’ brilliant to say to justify writing it in that leather-bound book with the gold-edged pages.

All you need is a cheap pen and notebok, which together will only set you back $5.68*.

2. Block out 15 minutes a day and find a quiet place.

Try to write your pages in the morning so your brain is freed up the rest of the day to come up with all those creative ideas. Pick a time: after showering, before breakfast, maybe on first waking up.

Whatever you choose, stick with it until it becomes a routine.

Don’t worry if you miss a day or two. Just get right back to it.

3. Keep your hand going across the page—non-stop.

At first you will feel a little stupid.

I have nothing to say, you’ll think. That’s normal. It’s just your left brain/crabby Aunt Florence
talking. Just keep writing, if only to say you can’t think of a thing to write about.

Eventually, it will become second nature. And don’t reread any of your sentences. Just keep writing until you have filled three pages. Keep your hand moving.

4. Talk about bitter things. Talk about ecstasy. Write anything that comes to mind.

Guess what?

You don’t have to try to be brilliant. You have permission to be mediocre. You are even allowed to say mean, trivial, inconsequential, crappy or stupid things.

Write about that Clorox 2 commercial if you want. Nothing is off-limits.

Everybody whines. Even famous writers.

John Steinbeck, in the journal he kept while writing The Grapes of Wrath, his most astonishing work, says:

I don’t know whether I could write a decent book now. That is the greatest fear of all.

Referring to a short part of the novel he had written one day:

You pages—ten of you—you are the dribble cup—you are the cloth to wipe up the vomit.

On the requests from people who wanted him to lend his name to this or that:

What do I care about my name? It is battered and completely out of shape anyhow. It hasn’t any meaning and I haven’t any meaning.

And during that same time, look what came out of this man. An American masterpiece.

So, yes, some stinky stuff will emerge. In fact, that is the whole point. To get the mindless fears and sludge out so the good stuff can rise to the top.

Just write as fast as you can and be as junky as you want to be.

5. Put your red pencil away.

This is the tempting part. We are trained to judge ourselves—to improve ourselves when we can. To make things better.

This is not the time for that.

If you are writing a blog post, you normally write a rough draft, set it aside, rewrite, edit the rewrite and do a final check for spelling, grammar, tone and style.

Your morning pages are ideas in the rough.

If you go back much later, as I have done, and reread some of your past pages, you will probably find a lot of awful stuff and a few sparkling gems. Thoughts that have promise.

Ideas you may be able to do something with. Things that get those little wheels in your head moving.

But for now, leave them in their purest form. If your mind is more clear, they have served their purpose.

Have you ever tried journaling?

Gotten any good insights about yourself or ideas you wanted to explore deeper?

* Plus tax. Based on one Bic pen @$1.49 and one Mead
wirebound notebook @$4.19.