poetically challenged

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Are you trying to get good page rank? And are you having a hard time getting it done?

Big Web Links Bid Directory doesn't list its search results by popularity, page rank, alphabetically, or anything like that. It goes by contribution amount. Attach a dollar amount, and that determines where you'll show up in searches. It's as easy as that.

So, if you are looking to have your site appear higher in search results, and yet are sick of begging for links here and there, then Big Web Links might be just the thing for you.

Thanks to my kind sponsors at

I've been reading an excerpt from the newly released Hunger and Other Stories by Ian Randall Wilson. The excerpt that is available online, "The Wire Man," is a very moving story about fathers and sons.

The storie surprised me in how moving it was. At first, as I was reading, it seemed like a lot of other short stories that I read in literary magazines (and I read some of the best literary magazines on a pretty regular basis).

The story is available for reading on the website linked above. If it is an accurate indicator of the quality of the stories in the volume, then I think Mr. Wilson has come up with a really fine collection.

I read a lot of short stories, but they aren't usually my choice of genre. I generally prefer novels or poetry. The reason I am not a big short story fan is that I tend to prefer the character development we can get in a novel but that is virtually impossible in a shorter story. In "The Wire Man," though, I found that the characters are the driving force behind the story, and for me that makes it a good story. I know, having read this one, I'd be happy to pick up any short story of Ian Randall Wilson's that I find and read it. That's another sign that a story is working for me.

If you are a short story reader, or if you are a fan of father/son stories, then I think you might like Hunger and Other Stories. You can visit the website linked above and read more about it, and read the excerpt "The Wire Man" there.

Any webmaster or blogger can tell you that search engine marketing is the thing if you want to create a successful web presence and make a little money online.

And it is even more important if you want to make a lot of money online.

Priming the search engines is the surest route to success with your online presence. By making good use of search engines and getting your website ranked highly in searches, you'll generate more traffic. And statistics will tell you that more traffic will translate into more income. It's really that simple.

So exactly how do you go about getting higher page rank? It really isn't that difficult. There are a number of things you might do to maximize your web presence, making it more popular with search engines.One is making good use of keywords. Another is getting a lot of incoming links.

And getting links can be easier than you might at first imagine it to be. You can go through link exchanges, where you swap links with other bloggers or webmasters. A sort of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" approach.

You can always hope that your content is that good and that your readers just can't help but link to your site. (good luck!)

You can pay SEO copywriters to write money-making content (keeping your fingers crossed all the while).

Or maybe you can pay for links from bloggers. Blog ad companies have gotten to be big business, and are set to boom even more.

Call toll free: 866-798-3862, or click on the link above to request a custom proposal for how you can optimize your website or blog's performance.

One of the matters that has become complicated by this whole process is how to issue invoices and send and receive payments. There are many online money-exchange companies have made handling transactions fairly easy in a send and receive sense. But the whole system of paperless paperwork is still a puzzle for many freelance writers. Online invoicing and payment is just the thing to simplify the whole process.

That's where the excellent service offered by Simplify This comes in. It helps freelancers and other workers who do jobs online to take care of invoicing and sending of reminders to customers. It is easy to use, offering automated billing for freelancers.

You can use Simply This from the home or office, or from any computer anywhere that you can get online. You can track payments, send reminders, record one-time or recurring charges... the whole shebang. And you can do it anywhere you have an online connection. Just sign in and you're on your way to taking good care of your earnings.

Pop by Simplify this and see what services they offer. It is a great way to automate the business side of your freelance work, and help you focus on the parts of the job that you really love.

A page like this, from Simplify This, below makes it easy to keep track of payments for which you are waiting:

Wouldn't it be just right... putting down a deposit for an Apartment in Costa Blanca North, settling back, and starting to enjoy an early retirement. Talk about living the dream! Spain is the sort of place dreaming is made for... and maybe one of these days, I'll be sitting in that Costa Blanca flat, living the dream.

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And she's not kidding!

We've got a mountain of papers right now, staring each of us down, trying to intimidate us. Even, I think, trying to overwhelm us with the ridiculous, to the point that we will give in.

But, we'll keep pressing on. We will, one day, defeat this mountain. We believe, and we won't give up.

But we might vomit blood along the way.

What's a 360 degree perspective? Well, it means that you can see yourself from the perspective of other people around you. It's all very straightforward. Here's how it works:

You decide which package works best for you. Say you want something on leadership development. Then, you use the leadership development package. You, or perhaps the leader you are trying to develop, fill up a questionaire about your own self-perceptions. Then you choose 6 other people to send questionaires to. They answer the online multiple choice questionaire. The system then generates a report based on those perspectives. It helps you to see the leaders you are trying to develop from their own perspectives, and from the perspectives of those around them.

And you can apply this to individuals or to your business as a whole.

Appraisal360 is an excellent tool for human resource departments and marketing departments, helping them get a fuller perspective of how the company or its workers are viewed by the people around them. Give it a look, and see if you can get a better perspective of your business and your workers.

With DVDs and all that now, the option to listen to a dubbed audio track in one's own language is easier than ever. I used to hate reading subtitles, but have grown used to it living in Singapore. Now, whatever language the film is, I like having subtitles available. Even when I watch an English movie, I tend to read along with the Chinese subtitles. I know... it's weird, but that is what I do.

Which do you prefer, choosing an audio track in your own language, or listening to the orginal audio and reading subtitles in a language you understand?

I use this all the time. What I've done is this: I've decided what category fit me best, then looked through that specific section in the index. From there, I've made a schedule of when the various publications in that section are accepting submissions. I use that as a way of scheduling when to put my poetry into which market.

It is a lot of work. The Poets Market is a big volume with a whole lot of information. It takes some time to wade through it all, and a lot of discipline not to get distracted by every opportunity that looks appealing.

But it is worth it. After taking this more disciplined approach to submissions, I've begun to taste a little more success in getting published.

I don't know if it would work for everyone, but I have found that discipline seems to be half the game here. With a disciplined approach, I believe there are plenty of markets out there that are appropriate for your work, and that you can find them.