Tag Archives: Emma Blogs LLC

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #30

December 16, 2015 emmapalova 2 Comments

A tribute to chief challenger Bradley Will of Learn to Blog

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I must say I feel lighter today and that’s not because I didn’t have anything to eat.

I just finished watching the “Best Year Ever Webinar Replay” and completed the 30 Day Content Challenge.

Just like the challenge, it was very inspiring right before the holidays. I would like to officially thank Bradley and the ambassadors for all of this. You made me a different person.

I uncovered things about myself that I didn’t know throughout the #30 Day Content Writing Challenge.

The thoughts for each day guided me in a forest of thoughts and ideas. I made new discoveries like the story about a Magnetic Island down South. I made new friends with Nicole Varga. Gary and Pete Safe.

Even though the challenge was marked by constant violence, it was productive and creative. I found out that by making myself write every day, I could be helping someone else accomplish the same goal.

When I missed posts, I caught up thanks to Pittsburgh Grammy and Gandhi quotes. I wrote a simple children’s book in Czech.

I found out that I can efficiently write about fear in the wake of Paris attacks on Day #3 of the challenge.

“I keep feeding my mind, I am not that one-dimensional blogger,” Will said in the webinar.

Well, I feel the same way that everyday writing made me stretch my mind and expand my personality. I am not a one-dimensional blogger either. I am everything I want to be.

“Sometimes it takes other people to point out our blind spots,” Will said.

Yes, it does.

“Turn back to art,” was Will’s advice.

Art has always been my favorite haunt, my favorite hideout. So, I am going to finish the challenge on that note.

Collectively between 500 people, we published 3,200 posts.

“The results left me stunned,” Will said. “Inspiration stems more inspiration.”

The opposite is also true that violence breads more violence. And we all fought it back with creativity.

“Be around great people.”

Thanks to you Bradley, I was around great people. Some of the best in the industry. They motivated me and carried me through the challenge.

I also learned about rather giving than taking and that money doesn’t bring you happiness.

Everyday writing is like keeping a diary. It is very therapeutic and explorative.

The challenge made me a better person.

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blog design, blogging, business, content writing, Uncategorized, WordPress, writing

30 Day Blogging Challenge #22

December 8, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

The way we do anything is the way we do everything

By Emma Palova

This statement is true. I either do everything 100 percent or not at all. It doesn’t matter what it is; writing, blogging, posting, laundry, gardening or cooking. I don’t believe in halfway work.

Yes, sometimes I do wander off on a tangent, but I get back on the track. I wrote about excellence #21 yesterday.

Once, I decide I am not going to do something, I don’t do it. Today I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have to post to a client’s blog, while another one has pulled a fast one on me. It’s the nature of the business.

You explain the purpose of a WordPress blog to someone in a sales pitch, and they go and have someone else do it for them.

I am a good spirited person, I don’t mind. I can handle just about anything except for stupidity and violence.

Every day we make conscious choices based on the best information we have.

Today is unique, it will never repeat itself no matter who we are. I like to think that by writing every day, I am helping also someone else accomplish the same goal.

That’s the knowledge I’ve gained in this 30 Day Content challenge by Learn to Blog (L2B).

By helping others, you’re helping yourself as well.

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blog design, blogging, business, content writing, WordPress, writing

30 Day Blogging Challenge #21

December 7, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Excellence, participate in life

Dec. 7, 2015 Monday

By Emma Palova

I’ve been excellent and I’ve been bad. Most of us have. I’ve been able to produce the best of work, and the worst of work. Just like in the Charles Dickens’ book. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. They have a tendency to feed into each other. The good and the bad. I know, now I sound like Clint Eastwood.

Thai wind 1 by Kacey Cornwell, Art Prize entry

I can be creative, and on other days not so creative.

What carries me through this challenge is that I need to help others. I do not live for myself. I think we each have a bigger purpose why we live.

I strive for excellence, but sometimes it’s not within reach. I am a human being, therefore I am vulnerable. I have my strengths and my weaknesses.

Totally desperate when my husband Ludek had to leave Michigan for Wisconsin in 2009, I wrote a screenplay “Riddleyville Clowns” © 2009 about the assassination on presidential candidates. Yesterday, I heard from an independent production film company. I’ve been to the Cannes Film Festival in France twice and I saw demonstrations there along with Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas. That’s again the good and the bad.

What satisfies me, is that I have done all these different things. I have participated in life. The educational system in former Czechoslovakia taught me to participate, it also taught me to be a leader and to help others.

Anything can be hard if you make it hard. Anything can also be easy, as easy as you make it.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #17

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Creativity versus destruction & violence

By Emma Palova

The content challenge that started on Nov. 17 has been marked by consistent violence. I find it bizarre, that at a time when we’re creating content, 2089 pieces of it, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg created a $51 billion foundation for the next generation, other people decided to destroy.

It saddens my heart to see so many people killed. Starting with the attacks in Paris, shooting at the Planned Parenthood Center and now San Bernardino, California.

Even for president Barack Obama, the speeches after shootings have become routine.

Is this the way to live in fear of routine shootings?

We’re living like in the Middle East where you never know if you’re not going to get blown up in a coffee shop. And now people suggest to arm ourselves. On Day #3 I wrote about Fear in the wake of Paris Attacks. The post was about how fear supports consumerism. And here we go again. Buy more arms.

I will never shy away from saying that violence breeds more violence. We have just saw it over the last three weeks.

Violence is not the answer to anything, neither is increased consumerism.

I face violence with more creativity, my own and others. The government should use diplomacy and they shouldn’t be sticking their nose into other country’s business.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #11

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Lighting of candles without the candle burning down, Buddha

By Emma Palova

I share happiness and the great human experience through my writing. Sometimes it’s sad, at other times it’s happy. That is life.

Art has always helped me get through difficult times. When I am upset, I turn to art; my own and others.

When my husband Ludek had to leave for a job in Wisconsin, I turned to painting. I painted pictures of koi fish in our pond up there in the garden.

Most often poetry does the trick. Nicole Varga’s poetry has calmed me down after the upsetting shooting on Dec. 2 at San Bernardino, California.

I also love poetry by the Rumanian poet Valeriu dg Barbu and Emily Dickinson as well as Charles Baudelaire.

There is something calming about art and poetry. Throughout my journalistic career, I met many artists, but one really stands out in my mind. Her name is Kathleen Mooney. She owned a gallery in Lowell. Mooney is a member of the International Society of Experimental Artists (ISEA).

After traditional painting, she turned to abstracts.

When I asked her which is more difficult, Mooney answered immediately:

“Abstracts.”

“What inspires you?”

“Symbolism.”

Yes, Mooney finds inspiration in symbols and in words.

I personally think that is incredible. Somehow, all the arts are integrated into one big sphere.

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blog design, blogging, business, content writing, Uncategorized, WordPress, writing

30 Day Blogging Challenge #10

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Nov. 26 Thanksgiving Thursday spent with the family in Hastings

Thankful

By Emma Palova

I am thankful for the country I live in. I became a naturalized American in 1999 along with my daughter Emma Palova-Chavent at the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I received so many congratulations and the Ionia Sentinel-Standard did a story on me. Kara Hennigan wrote the story. That made me both; the writer of stories and the subject of some of them.

I was born in former Czechoslovakia and I studied engineering at the Technical University of Brno by default and by punishment. We left the country illegally in 1968 just before the Soviet invasion. I wasn’t allowed to study any humanities.

Mom Eliska wanted to go back in 1973. We returned to the homeland and we were punished for doing so.

That is what my memoir “Greenwich Meridian” © is about.

On a writer's retreat in Venice, Florida — On a writer’s retreat in Venice, Florida

The book is about our journey back and forth across the Greenwich Meridian.

We left the country again; dad Vaclav in 1976, mom Eliska in 1980 and I left in 1989 after the Velvet Revolution. My husband Ludek left the Czech homeland in 1988 for Austria.

Crazy?

It’s been a turmoil. When I interviewed my own parents two years ago during a writer’s retreat in Venice, Florida they both said they would never do it again.

“It doesn’t matter anymore because everyone back home is dead,” Vaclav said.

True, our most recent trips to Czech were for the purpose of attending funerals.

However, we all started a new life in the USA. It is a life of accomplishment, satisfaction and love.

Our son Jake has a beautiful family and he is very successful with the Faygo company. He studied at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Our daughter Emma lives in France with her family. Both her husband Adrien and Emma are medical doctors.

I learned to blog on WordPress, the biggest publishing platform in this world.

I consider myself privileged.

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Uncategorized

An epic moment 10-1-2015

October 1, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Fallasburg Today E-newsletterSource: An epic moment 10-1-2015

blogging, business, newsletter, women's

Emma Blogs newsletter for July

July 9, 2015 emmapalova 1 Comment

July newsletter is finally here

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

With all the 4th of July holiday activities I fell a bit behind with the Emma Blogs monthly newsletter that I absolutely love to design on super easy MailChimp. I wish everything was that easy. The newsletter features correspondent Emma Palova-Chavent, MD and fellow word press blogger for the month of July Coach Leigh Ann Dickey. Palova-Chavent, MD resides permanently in France and works at the emergency center in Dijon.

Coach Leigh Ann started blogging on WordPress two years ago when she hit 40 and lost 35 pounds.

“i wanted to share my story,” she said.

However, after suffering a head injury on a bike,she wanted to figure out where she was going with her life. Coach Leigh Ann took the site down and went into design.

For full story about Coach Leigh Ann Dickey follow EW Emma’s writings on http://emmapalova.com.

The feature story 50 years of Fallasburg preservation takes you back in time. There is still time to make plans to visit during the Fallasburg Fall Festival on Sept.19 & Sept.20.

The featured photo on the blog with the banner is downtown Lowell getting ready for the annual Riverwalk festival that starts today and runs through Saturday.

Emma Blogs runs a summer special 25% off on blog and web design. Just submit the email with the newsletter.

To sign up for the newsletter, fill out the form at the end of this message.

Enjoy your summer.

Emma & the EW team

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Greenwich Meridian memoir update

June 26, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

The featured image is the Greenwich Meridian memoir on the screen surrounded by various memorabilia like the economy class menu of the Czechoslovakian Airlines. I flew with them in 1989 for my second immigration to the USA.

Blogging anchored, Greenwich Meridian memoir evolves forward

By Emma Palova

EW Emma Writing

Lowell, MI- Now, that I am firmly anchored in the blogging world with Emma Blogs, LLC, a portfolio of blogs, I resumed working on the Greenwich Meridian memoir in mid-May. The blogging part may seem like a detour to many, not to me. I feel like I can take the book to its finale. I didn’t have that feeling before.

It took me a year-and-a-half to set up the blogging portfolio under the umbrella of http://emmapalova.com. Fellow blogger Leigh Ann Dickey said it took her two years to prove herself. So, don’t believe the hype out there like “Get a blog in 60 seconds,” or in five minutes, in an hour or in a day. And definitely, don’t pay any money for that pitch.

It just doesn’t happen. It’s like saying you’re going to learn calculus in a day. You may get the template like you would get a college-ruled notebook to start your math, and then what? Do you start with fractions, trigonometry or double integer?

Of course you start with the About page in the world of blogging. After all, you know the best what you are all about. Add a picture, it’s worth a thousand words.

Many blogging colleagues out there don’t know what their niche or target audience are. How are they supposed to pick a theme? Should they post every day and what should they post to attract that ever elusive traffic?

Maybe Stephen King asked himself the same question before his big Carrie break, “What should I write about so I make it big?”

I know I ask myself that question every week before posting, “What am I going to post this week or what is the next chapter outline?”

Other than King, I always think about German Martin Luther posting 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517 according to the student custom. The theses were a catalyst to a change.

Blog posts carry those same signs of a changing world. A shorter, faster world of pixels that has no time for long “expose” articles. Readers want to know everything and immediately.

Without the “how to” knowledge, blogging can feel like sailing on vast seas after you lost your compass. You started out right, what next?

Stay tuned for more.

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blogging, editorial calendar quarterly, writing

Summer 2015 editorial calendar

June 25, 2015 emmapalova 1 Comment

Editorial/marketing calendar for July, August, September

Dive into summer fun with Emma

The editorial/marketing calendar for Emma Blogs is flexible and I invite anyone who wants to contribute whether with stories, photos or ideas.

As you can see the topics range from blogging to vacationing, and everything in between. I am looking forward to the new summer series, Living in the country vs. living in the city. I bet anyone can attest that both have their advantages and disadvantages. So, feel free to write about your take on where you live and why. It will be hilarious.