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advertising, business, celebration, community, travel, WordPress

WordPress anniversary

January 15, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Two years with WordPress

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI- Two years ago, on this day, I published my first post on WordPress. It was my author’s bio that I had later moved into About section. I introduced myself in a story with an author’s photo.

One hundred and ninety-six posts later, I am grateful that I had chosen the WordPress platform. It was a pure coincidence. I wanted to like and comment on the Hawkins Chamber of Commerce in Texas, and I was directed to the press site.

I wanted a blog anyways after Writer’s Digest suggested that every writer should have a blog or a website. At the time I started writing memoir “Greenwich Meridian” and I needed the exposure.

McGregor, Iowa — Rediscovering treasures on the Mississippi River

And I fell in love with WordPress for its finesse, sophistication, the variety of themes and the community in general. I found Rumanian colleagues Valeriu dg Barbu and Cristian Mihai, French photographer redstuffdan and many others, whose work I admire. They inspire me in my writings.

I started learning the ropes. Coming fresh from the print media, it was very different. I must say that I like new things, and this was right up my alley.

The constant challenge of change, new themes, new ways of posting, the speed and the prompts delight me.

I feel like I am being pulled deeper and deeper in. Like today’s prompt in The Daily Post “Connect the Dots,” Open your nearest book to page 82. Take the third full sentence on the page, and work it into a post somehow.

While sitting in a folding rocking chair in front of the wood stove, I reached into the library and grabbed “The People’s Chronology” and the third sentence on page 82 is entertaining in itself. For once I got lucky.

It reads: “Canon of Medicine by the Arab physician Avicenna (Abu Sina) follows the thinking of Aristotle and Galen but is so well written and organized that it will be a major influence on medical thinking for centuries.”

I couldn’t ask for a better prompt.

EW Emma's Writings — EW blog on Gatehouse Media 10 million reader market

Ironically in my Internet discussions, I asked, “Where will the Internet take us?”

Today I realize the real question is, “Where will we take the Internet?”

I took it to the next level. In July, I started my writing and blog design company on WordPress, Emma Blogs LLC. It is a portfolio of 10 blogs that covers a range of topics from health, outdoors, homes to brides and farming suited for advertising, whether affiliate or traditional.

I also write and manage a bilingual blog CJ Aunt Jarmilka’s Desserts in Czech Republic on http://jkarmaskova.wordpress.com

I have great writers like Sarah Harmon who bring their unique style to the blogs, and salesperson Ed Donahue.

EW writer Sarah Harmon in Paris

EW Emma’s Writings also feeds into the Gatehouse Media, a 10 million reader market including the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.

What I like the most about writing on WordPress is that it does have an impact on people and it gets the message out.

Friend Tina Sicialiano Cadwallader asked me when is the book coming out at a Christmas party at the Fallasburg Historical Society.

“We’re going to take a selfie with the book at the Lowell museum,” she laughed.

Last Saturday, I ran into Betsy Davidson, owner of Addorio Technologies, LLC.

“Have you been travelling?” she asked. “I am really enjoying your stories because I don’t get to go to places like that.”

Vizovice, Czech Republic — Vizovice, where old meets new.

Longtime friend Ruth Hall said, “I absolutely love reading your posts.”

Comments and advice on the posts are also very gratifying and informational. Following is a comment by Herbal Weight Loss Remedies & Tips at http://url.darkillusion.us/weightloss748972

“Great articles you post on your blog, I have shared this article on my twitter.”

I find the happiness engineering support team very helpful at times when I pull her from my head.

And as I ask in my story interviews, “What don’t you like about so and so?”

Off the top of my head, I really can’t think of a single thing that would stand out that I don’t like about WordPress. I might think of something later as I toss in the bed in the wee morning hours with my chronic insomnia.

Thank you WordPress for two great years.

Links:

Fallasburg Historical Society

http://www.fallasburg.org

Addorio Technologies, LLC

http://www.addorio.com

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Christmas through Lowell, community, events

Holiday stories

November 7, 2014 emmapalova 1 Comment

Holiday season and stories

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI- ‘Tis the season to be merry, and to shop merrily. After all the wedding turmoil, I find it hard to immerse myself into the holiday spirit or to go back to a full writing, design and marketing schedule.

With a full house, for the last 17 days, I had to steal time to write about the International Wedding and to post other writers’ stories like Sarah Harmon’s Pumpkin 5K run.

The great pumpkin ride at Klackle Orcards

But, on the flip side, I found out that I would not be able to live without writing. There is so much value in the written word. Writing is such a powerful tool not only to express oneself, share information, facts and communication, but it is also a means of escaping the real world.

Call it a reprieve, if you will. It helps organize thoughts and different experiences.

Christmas through Lowell attracts hundreds

Grand Volute is still accepting vendors for Christmas through Lowell

Our EW team plans to cover Christmas activities throughout the area such as the 23rd Christmas through Lowell from Nov. 14 through Nov. 16. The tour is one of my favorites as people open their decorated homes to the public and offer Christmas gifts and nick knacks, along with cookies and cider. The tour features more than 50 houses, businesses and organizations from Alto, Lowell to Vergennes Township. More than 300 vendors will be offering their crafts and arts.

River Edge B&B still accepts vendors for Christmas through Lowell

The Christmas tour attracts people from all over Michigan.

There are still locations willing to add more vendors such as the Red Barn Market, Riveredge Gathering Place and B&B, Grand Volute Ballrooms and many more. For a complete list go to www.christmasthroughlowell.org

New vendors are Gless Board, Lowell Women of the Moose, Our House to your House, Small Town Sentiment, Riveredge B&B and Red Barn Market.

Red Barn Market accepts vendors for Christmas through Lowell

You will find delightful treasures, jewelry, Christmas decorations, folk ad fine art, antiques, repurposed treasures, primitives and garden art, beeswax candles and home-made candles, crocheted and knitted crafts, purses, bags and totes, home-made rugs and quilts.

The Lowell Area Historical Museum also opens its doors beautifully decorated for Christmas.

The Christmas tour attracts people from all over Michigan.

We will also cover the Santa Parade and all related activities.

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advertising, business

Emma Blogs LLC

July 30, 2014 emmapalova Leave a comment

Follow Emma Blogs LLC team as we roll into spring and summer for a magic time. Advertise and email emmapalova@yahoo.com for rates.

Or go to company website on http://emmablogsllc.wordpress.com

ehealthwellness

Follow the EW flagship team as we move ahead with our rolling portfolio of blogs. We will be bringing to you health, beauty and fashion news. The main Internet journal is at http://emmapalova.com

The focus at ehealth will be on wellness, prevention and living a happy full life.

The old-fashioned beauty of hydrangeas cannot be substituted.

Coming soon is Emma Palova’s personal story about her cataract eye surgeries and bouncing back after almost complete blindness.

See story Waiting for Dr. Verdier on http://emmapalova.com

I wrote about Dr.Verdier while freelancing for the Grand Rapids Magazine and Advance Newspapers about 10 years ago. At the time I did not expect I would be needing a surgery so soon.

“Hello youngster,” greeted me Dr.Verdier during evaluation last month.

“You’re the youngest person in here,” said the anesthesiologist later in the surgery room.

“Yes, everything is relative in this world,” I said.

I am…

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Happiness engineering

June 28, 2014 emmapalova Leave a comment

Happiness engineer resolves computer drama

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI-Happiness comes in many forms. What brings a smile to your face?

A WordPress happiness engineer brought a smile back to my face.

I panicked after I lost two-thirds of followers of EW Emma’s Writings on Monday. The photo below depicts exactly what I felt like. The caricature is by Olin Pink

Emma Palova deals with a technical hiccup.

“Losing followers, including shares and subscriptions, is like losing gold or accounts,” I wrote in the original story that I have decided to completely rewrite.

The help I received was efficient, fast, analytical and comforting. Each email ended with “Cheers.”

I got links that narrowed down the problem and finally resolved it with a best wishes farewell.

Happiness engineering is like Russian nesting dolls

Happiness engineering reminds me of Russian nesting dolls. Happiness engineers work to narrow down the problem and what caused it.

The happiness engineers around the world work as a team until the problem is solved.

The WordPress support distributed team works in a similar environment like the users, according to a presentation by happiness engineer Andrew Spittle. Here is an excerpt from Spittle’s talk at a 2013 conference in San Francisco.

The second principle I hold to be true is that happy people are most inclined to share and spread that happiness.

We’re Happiness Engineers, right? We don’t want to create a culture of sadness. That’s not going to help our users. If we can orient decisions toward increasing our happiness then it will also inevitably increase our users’ happiness.

We can step back from the pressure, trends, and isolation of any particular geographic area. There isn’t a central, geographic ideology that’s predominant. The languages, values, ideas, and lifestyles of our team are distributed around the world, just like our users.

That built-in geographic distribution, what I earlier called being location-agnostic, means we can say No to a lot of things. A lot of things people assume to be required of a customer support gig we don’t need to worry about. In our day-to-day work we have:

We have no set shifts. We prescribe no particular schedule. And we ensure that no one pulls a graveyard shift.

Thanks to the entire support team and especially to the angel happiness engineer somewhere out there in that vast Internet space.

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Writing journey

May 29, 2014 emmapalova Leave a comment

Writing; a wild journey into the unknown

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI- Three things prompted me to think about the writing business: 101 Challenge by WordPress, 100 Posts & beyond that I have achieved in a year and my worsening eyesight.

Sometimes people ask me what would I be if I wasn’t a writer.

“I’d be a queen,” I answer laughing. “The queen of hearts.”

First of all writing is a business and it should be approached as such. I never quite got the idea of some of the Internet writers’ magazines screaming out loud on Facebook:

“Writers, do you want to get paid for writing?”

How is writing any different than going to get your groceries and paying for them? Or gas at the local station? Air ticket?

Actually it should be paid higher than your average retail position because the fact of the matter remains that minority entertains the majority.

“People would die of boredom if it wasn’t for writers and artists,” I always say. “What would you do without us?”

But, there does come a time when you feel like giving up after all the ups and downs, the encouragements and the discouragements.

It is that time when you’re bombarded by self-publishing houses that want your credit card number for your book on demand; by your spouses who want you to make money rather than use it on print cartridges, your aging parents who want to hold that long dreamt about book.

Then, kicks in the thing about driving traffic to your Internet sites and likes, which somehow magically will transfer into sales.

Not to forget about traditional publishers who want everything by snail mail, and 10 months later they still haven’t responded to you.

I don’t know how to change things to get different results or more likes and followers.

I like to encourage others to keep on trying doing the things they want along with the wanted outcomes.

My wanted outcomes are the publishing of my memoir and a book, but I seem to be lost in a sea of unexpected results on winding paths. This is not always bad, it’s just something else than you wanted.

It’s like going into the woods to get morels, and instead you bring back blackberries.

“It leads to new discoveries,” I say.

Like in this typical example of having a blog to increase your online presence and publishing capabilities while writing your memoir.

Well, accidentally you pick out WordPress, the best of the bunch. You are a perfect match, and you’re on your way.

“I love doing the blog more than writing my memoir,” I told my husband the other day.

There’s better and instant feedback, the constant challenge of maintaining the blog and coming up with new things, new challenges.

Then in turn you get picked up by other Internet giants and you’re headed into the unknown, like on a spaceship.

“I like being its captain,” I say.

This is part of the 100 Posts & beyond series.

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Dr. Verdier

May 17, 2014 emmapalova Leave a comment

Waiting for Dr.Verdier

By EMMA PALOVA

EW Emma’s Writings

In the spirit of 101 Challenge: The Commons I wanted to write about finding your feature niche II for your blog yesterday. I wanted to thank everybody for participating in the challenge yesterday. I wanted to write about the month of May being the mental health awareness month and my friend CEO of Ionia County Community Mental Health (ICCMH). I wanted to do everything yesterday.

But destiny wanted something else.

I can hardly see the screen. Yesterday, I couldn’t see at all. I couldn’t write. The screen was dipped in a faraway 3=D mist. Google was floating somewhere in a distance.

I barely made it back home from town with my medication as I couldn’t see the oncoming cars.

I went to see the eye doctor this morning. Eyes are the second most precious asset that I have.

“What brings you here on a Friday,” asks the eye doc.

“I couldn’t see yesterday, it was creepy,” I said.

The eye doc conducts a thorough exam and says:

“Putting something in front of the foggy lens is not going to solve your problem,” he said. “You have cataracts in both eyes at a young age. It’s very progressive.”

“Does it run in the family?”

“Most definitely,” he said.

“I need to see Dr.Verdier,” I said.

“You know him,” asks the eye doc looking at me through his spectacles.

“I wrote about him,” I said. “He travels around the world fixing eyes.”

“Did you write that article about him on the Orbitz plane,”asks the eye doc.

“I did.”

“Then you know he’s worth waiting for,” says the eye doc.

The first consult appointment with Dr. Verdier is on Aug. 22. I still have to write. I have a book deal in the making, but I need to see.

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100 Posts & beyond

May 3, 2014 emmapalova Leave a comment

Reaching beyond 100 posts

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Reigning in on an idea

Lowell, MI- As I write this I am probably on my 107^th post or more between my rolling portfolio of Emma’s Blogs.

I get my ideas from nature, from other people, art and sometimes from press releases.

“Get out of the office, go and talk to people, shoot some bull,” a presenter said at a writing conference in 1998 at Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant. In a million years, I could not have received better advice. I live by it. I swear by it.

A story is not going to walk into your office or into your space whatever or wherever that may be. You have to seek it out. If it does walk in, excellent. But, you still have to explore it in 3D. Otherwise you have a dry piece without juice and atmosphere. In sales, it’s called “drumming up business.”

My second editor Dave Trinka of Allegan County News, awesome photographer, told me that I should just do a drive around and get some photos. Well, with the photos usually comes a story idea, and you get a bonus break from the screen, the keyboard, and the editor. Sorry, Dave, Valerie and Jeanne.

“Ask yourself questions,” the presenter encouraged in that pivotal CMU conference.

Go to your local coffee shop and listen to what people are talking about. What is the talk of the town? Is it you? Or why has that coffee shop changed hands so many times? Why is it doing so well now? Once a co-pastor of a local church owned the coffee shop under the name Kava Klatch.

What happened to the pastor who just wanted to try it out for the sake of trying, used a fancy foreign name, and three month later went out of business?

About people blog Entrepreneur Extraordinair — About people blog

Well, he’s a successful pastor at a successful growing church. Does that warrant a story about the evolution from church to coffee shop and back to church?

Interesting, isn’t it?

My second favorite stories are enterprising stories. They’re up for grabs, they’re that low-hanging fruit.

“What would Big Rapids or Mount Pleasant be without their sacred cows? Or better, what would Rome be without the Vatican? What would WordPress be without its users?

Can anyone guess what those sacred cows are?

They’re the anchor institutions or businesses in communities. Every community around the world has them.

“Find your sacred cow. What has she been up to lately?”

No. 1 HUMAN INTEREST STORIES

Everybody loves them. They are about people for the people. The subject of these does not necessarily have to be George Clooney or Brad Pitt. That’s been done million times all over the planet. You can get that anywhere. You probably see it on my site http://emmapalova.com

It does not have to be about your local habitual offender. That’s too easy. The news organizations got that from a massive press release from the police department. You don’t even have to change anything. The police chief probably sweated long hours over it.

“The easiest beat you can get is the police,” said former editor of the Ionia Sentinel-Standard Roger Harnack.

It does not have to be about the NBA franchise owner Donald Sterling who got into trouble for his racial comments. The TV and the Internet have us covered for the next 100 years on this one.

Look deeper inside your own community. Again ask yourself questions. Follow through and study your subject of interest.

Who is the woman behind the successful events drawing people into the community? What kind of a difference has she made? What is her impact on the community? Why does she care?

“She keeps reinventing herself,” said owner of Ace Hardware Charlie Bernard about the Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce director.

That warrants a story on many different levels in spite of the fact that she is on every press release and in photos sitting on Santa’s lap promoting Christmas picture taking.

Why? Because she is different. She boldly stands apart from the crowd.

What happened to the former editor who got canned from two newspapers? Well, today, as we speak, he is walking the aisle to accept his doctoral diploma in communications.

“I’ll be walking tomorrow,” he posted on LinkedIn. “I still have to make a few corrections to my dissertation.”

What is the active ingredient in the Tazo tea that makes you go to sleep? Among the proprietary blend of 13 ingredients, the Valerian Root stands out. So, you pick it and write about it.

To be continued…..

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