My Squidoo Journal

Big Coin Pop Art by PopArtDiva

First thing I want to add is that payday came on my birthday this time!

It was a small one, but it gets better for April and hopefully May if I play my cards right.

This was from 6 Tier 3 lenses with no sales.

Subtotal $2.36

No extras this month. Last month I had the tier 2 text link adds for my best lens, which nearly made the one worth as much as all the tier 3 lenses. Next month will get better though, so I'm not tore up about it.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that Tier three makes it to .50. I know you all think I'm silly about loving all over Tier 3. It may be cheap, but it's still money. I want my .39 cents. LOL.

Here is my February squidoo payment report, paid out in April!

In order of moolah made,

• My 3rd lens, Pencil sketch gal: $1.63 from Text link ads
  $0.30 from Ad Pool


• My 2nd lens, Creative gifts: $0.08 from Text link ads
  $0.30 from Ad Pool


• This lens, the squidoo journal got: $0.30 from Ad Pool
  $0.08 from Text link ads


• My 4th lens, good ole pizza flash games: $0.08 from Text link ads
  $0.30 from Ad Pool


• And finally my 5th lens the cheeseburgie games: $0.30 from Ad Pool
  $0.08 from Text link ads

Gold Digger - who me? note card by X_pressions

Notice, my best lens the pencil gallery managed to squeak by with a tier 2 text link add. :D

Yeah, since getting full on in tier two, and tier one for November, she's stayed dangerously close to getting T2 again, but not enough to grab the whole thing. By May/March payday I might squeak in with another T2 text link.

The super awesome good news is that this lens will get tier two full on in its face when Aprils payday rolls in! WHOOT!

I thought I would get my digital sketch book in the mix for April, but no, the poor thing suffered badly before finally reaching tier three. I checked and re-checked again, but it's legit that it didn't make it in yet. I hope to get my other two lenses paying in the next pay period.

So, the grand total is: $3.49!

Green Sand Dollar Stone Coaster by BirdsOfParadise

The fourth payday has come and gone. This would be January gold. Well, more like copper piece. LOL

Ok, I'm cool with it, my lens portfolio is still quite small so I think I deserved this month's payday.

I won't get too technical since it's just a buck and some odd cents. HEHHEHE.

So, from five lenses the grand total is! $1.95 WHOOT! hahah. This was from five T3 lenses. But, I'm hoping the T3 gets a bit more buttery as time goes on. I was hoping for a count of .50 cents a T3, but for this month the payout was more .39. Also, I don't enjoy any more xmassy sales from family.

But, I am patient. I'm not just writing this to have a stiff upper lip for you guys. I honestly don't expect to have this big giant payment every month. With the T1 month and the T2 month I accept and realize that I just got really lucky. Now, when I have 50 lenses and still get a buck payment, then I will be peeved! HAHAHAH.

Looking at my lifetime earnings, I've almost caught up with my lifetime zazzle earnings. That is enough to make me realize what a good catch squidoo is. I've been with zazzle since 2006! Just, not good!

You know what they say, a dollar will make you hollah!

Money Origami Turkey Side by InkWorks

The 3rd payday is here! Which really means, this is Decembers cabbage.

I think it's a pretty darn swell one too! Sure it's not as great as last month's big 50 buck whopper, but it exceeds the 20 dollar a month goal. Next month won't be as groovy so bask in this with me guys. lol.

Here's the breakdown in the order of lens creation!

• First lens: This one, the squidoo journal.
  Ad Pool $0.39,
  Text link ads $0.10


• Second lens, my zazzle gift page. The poor child has struggled, but is stabilized.
  Ad Pool $0.39
  Text link ads $0.10


• My third lens and child. My pencil sketch page,
  Text link ads $2.03
  Ad Pool $7.72
  Amazon 12.69, trained the family to xmas shop from me :D

Grand total this month's payday, = $23.42

Of course I'll have to wait for my other three since they are not old enough yet. I think next month two of them will be eligible. We'll see!

Wealth - Poster by casi_reisi

Can I get a hell yeah for payday?

Best payday ever too!

Lens #3 Tier one: $53.62
Lens #2 Tier three: $0.46
Lens #1 (this lens) Tier three: $0.46

Making a grand total of: $54.54 minus a $1 for PayPal of course. Leaving: $53.54.

I still have some pending from the family xmas shopping over December coming for next month!

I'm very happy! I kind of busted the small goals already! Now time to get back to work and work harder and smarter toward the next paydays!

May everyone have a happy Squidoo day. Squidoo payday damn well should be a holiday!

Oh my gosh it's finally finished! It's another installment in the food game series.

The best free ice cream games

I cannot begin to tell you how difficult this one was to pull off. Sometimes it can be hard to write about what we want to write about, and another thing to get keywords and content to come together. After all we still want folks to read it! Normally my problem is keywords. I hope that won't be a problem with this one, but this time my problem was with the games! I've never thought of the specific food theme when I played these types of games. I thought for sure there would be a crap load of ice cream in them hills!

I found four good ones, five actually, but I'm having a really hard time beating that game so I'll hold off until my strategy is there. So, I post about it here because it hopefully won't be too much longer before its finished.

I'll tell you what, they may not look like it, but these damn flash game lenses take me forever to finish! It's always something going wrong trying to build them too! I love them dern games, and my vision of them will come to life. It's only going to get harder as I try to do the less popular food type games. lol But, who'd of thought ice cream would be weak, damn.

The Burger Fairy Note Card by Planet_Zerick

I had so much fun creating the pizza game lens that I created a food companion for him.

Cheeseburger Games

This fifth lens revolves around burger online games.

But, there were a few crushing disappointments while creating the page. One of the games I was excited to include since day one suddenly is riddled with bugs. It never used to be unplayable. I guess with flash and browser updates flash games go out of date too.

I normally find that its the game site who has the outdated version and find it on another website. Not this time I'm afraid, as it was unplayable worldwide. Or at least the game sites I trust and am willing to venture.

Maybe I will find a workable version eventually. That's the beauty of Squidoo lenses. I can always add games as I find them as long as the lens doesn't get too full.

I'm really glad even though I knew some of the games inside and out that I re-played and checked them all!

Here it is!

My favorite pizza games to play

I made a lens to goof off with. I'm also working on a companion for it since I have no other game lenses to link them up with. I will update this section tomorrow, since it is four am right now. I didn't want to leave it naked over here. I kind of took too long with my weekly journal of the squid thoughts. :)

I probably shouldn't do this and just come out and say what they are going to be about, but what's the fun in that. I will say this, It will be centered around food, but won't be about recipes and it won't be about art. lol

I wanted to do something a little different and decompress a little. For a long time now I've been nose to the grind stone over something work related, even before Squidoo. I've pretty much put fun things on the back burner and was starting to burn out. Then, I thought hey let's combine some fun time with lens making!

Even though I'm familiar with most of the things that will go on both of these lenses I felt a need to re-familiarize myself with them. They are behind schedule as usual, but I got one of them to where it's not going to take long to finish building. At least I think it won't take me much longer. I was a week off on that prediction when I was making the last lens!

Self Portrait postage stamp, by Shannon Fleet

I first came up with the idea to create a bio lens before I knew how lenses worked. Since plopping this down in the up and coming lenses, I now realized that the whole idea needed a revision. I figured I would write this here as a heads up before I axe this out of the squidoo journal for the time being.

Here is what's going to happen. The bio lens will just be a lensography about me, which will connect to a series of lenses that relate back to it. I'm actually relieved by this because I was having night sweats on how I could make this without it being the longest lens in the universe. It also gives me a chance to slowly build up to the topics that are big sores for me, or I may even not write those at all if my comfort level is too shaky.

To be honest I've had a rough life folks, there are a lot of sensitive spots deep in the closets. I'm toying with the notion to bring them out, but may not, but I figured they would be good therapy for me. Whichever I find best in the end I will do, so I will not make any promises that I can't keep.

I've finally finished the second lens! Creative and fun gifts

I felt a little overwhelmed working on this. Especially when I was trying to get my Zazzle pictures to stay where I wanted them to. I did find it easier to work with the text with big picture module, because it was a bit less wonky about things going exactly where I wanted them.The real trouble came when I was trying to promote other peoples work. I felt weird about deleting the text link that normally sits below the picture link. Yet, when I tried to make it look interesting with the placement, my text would be in left field while my picture was front and center. There was a lot of cussing going on. lol

Sorry to get redundant with the image, but I used this for the intro picture over on pencil sketch lens. The bio idea has to be revised anyway.

It is finally finished! The third lens, and the one that took me the longest.

The Pencil sketch Gallery

There were some bumps in the road and it took me a whopping two weeks to complete the lens. It was a good thing most of the creation time was spent before I hit the orange button, but it still stood as a WIP for around four or five days.

I uploaded a whopping 22 drawings into it, labeled them all, and changed the links to open the drawing in a blank page instead of photobuckets page, but I later had to knock off all but nine of the links due to a bug in the system that was saying photobucket was not white-listed. I had sent a report on this, but I was impatient about waiting for a fix. I decided the best thing to do was to just make all but nine of the links non-clickable. As I get time I may find another host for the others.

Of course I can't keep anything simple! I was fiddling and farting around with a visual table of contents, which probably isn't very sustainable, because I can't add anymore thumbnail images to that module. LOL, the code takes up nearly all of the limit on characters. There is also the fear that with 22 images, page elements, and the things in between, that the page may not load very fast. Something may have to go!

I finally added the above sketch into the pencil sketch gallery! I made use of the photo gallery module with this. I made this lens so dang long that I was really afraid to stick with the usual style of the page.

Yesterday I dared to struggle post card by galdesigns

I still have so much trouble writing intros. What's worse is that I know that if I feel awkward that the writing is going to be awkward too. Hell, I'm pretty darn awkward in person too so maybe it's just me.

Maybe all the trouble comes from briefly repeating what I've already written. I'm probably getting a sense of, "hey I told you this already!"

When really all I'm doing is saying hello, thanks for stopping by my house, this is the meal I'm going to serve, I hope you'll enjoy."

My brain rebels and wants to plop the plate in front of them and say "EAT IT!"

I have another theory on what my problem might be. I don't talk like this. This is how I talk...

"DUDE! WHATS UP mang! Holy crap! I was looking online for this recipe and have found the best GD pizza on the planet! I made if for your punk (Censor)! STFU and eat it."

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but comes out pretty close. lol

I talk more like Al Swearengen from Dead wood, but instead of a jerk, tie in a really silly goof ball and there you have it. Words are just words to me, powerless unless we give it to them. Judging someone on foul language habits, including my own has never been on my to do list. I prefer to judge someone on their deeds, or how open their mind is first.

My methods for writing an entire lens is to write it how I'll say it. Then I go back and edit the tar out of it. I chop that sucker up pretty good too. Except, I still have yet to come up with a comfy system for that intro.

My third theory on why I suck at writing intros, confidence! I lack it so badly even after eight lenses. Pure fear of looking like a jackanape. My self imposed deadline is not helping either. LOL

If you haven't already guessed, I'm sitting here as we speak struggling with an intro! It's getting on my nerves! I think it's time to roll around the squid world and read intro related lenses again. Perhaps even the same lenses, something obviously didn't sink in.

Do What You Fear Most - Post Card by DonnaGotlib

I've learned many lessons in the last few weeks. I had joined the Fresh Wonders group some time ago and it's been the best thing that ever happened to me on Squidoo. Well, I've already learned some things that I've been doing wrong in my lens making, and I'm currently trying to learn how to be more efficient and faster.

The efficiency and speed thing is very difficult for me and I'm still struggling. Guys, I don't even eat or walk with efficiency. In fact, the only things that I do fast and efficient are things that I hate to do. Cleaning and such, bleh. I love to make love to something I'm working on.

That being said, I managed to create my 8th lens as a challenge. This was published in 3 days. I cannot say that it was finished in that amount of time because although I finished in three days, it was done by literally sitting at the pc non stop, eating here and neglecting all things! lol.

I'm happy that I could do it, but I'm tired.

I did recharge a bit though. I had my groovy 38th birthday yesterday. My real one, not a squid birthday lol. I mention because it was the best birthday I've had in a really long time, after a lot of dark times. I'm also doing a good job of not thinking about the 11th of May, which was the worst day of my life back in 2005.

In summary this was a great week of first time things, which made it a great week. I'm still a bit tired though, but I've got work to do.

Close Up Rain Drop of Waterby IsisoftheEast

A little update that's kind of related to the last diary entree.

It would appear I'm finally getting it together, those lists I made last week are actually working to help me get a lot of work done. Even on those days where my time is limited and frustrating.

Every single drop of work done has created a giant bucket of productivity!

For one thing I checked every single link, fixed every broken thing, did some minor scrubbing around my lens universe, lots of updates across the entire board too. Of those little things that needed doing, every lens now hopefully is tied to each other right, also has my own featured lens thing at the bottom, and I used the squid tools for my links to other people rather than the weirdo link list module.

I used the featured module for my "all other lens" section since those lenses wouldn't be related to the page, I figured being crawled would hurt the lens. But the related ones will be crawled now!

Why does this make me cheer? Because, I did it all without sacrificing everything else that I needed to get done like in the past. :)

In other news, I'm saving the one lens I was creating for later and moving on to the next. There's too much going on in my life right now to tackle that one.

Things To Do Damask Stationery by mvdesigns

For some reason I fell off my full update bandwagon and was simply doing little updates as I saw them.

That worked somewhat and I found that it's never a bad idea to do things as I see them in my travels, but I found myself procrastinating on lens updating because of late I've been having some serious time issues from non-squidoo related obligations.

I sat down today and created two lists, one where individual lenses need fixing here and there, and the other to do something about major weak areas that are going to be common in all of them.

My biggest weakness right now are my squid tags, I really suck in that area. I've done more reading, but the task even with my itty bitty lens roster is a huge task to swallow in one sitting with my time problem. So, I broke it down into chewable bite-sized pieces for me to tackle when I can do them.

Since I'm lucky enough to still have a miniature lens roster, I've been told and have been doing the organization thing early.

I've numbered my lenses in the order that they were created and wrote them down. I've categorized all the little boogers already, and will make a general lensograpy as either my tenth or eleventh lens.

Poster Dog With Head In The Sand by reasonablerobinson

My thoughts on the new squidoo duplicate filter.

I don't write duplicate content that I know of anyhow. I also don't plan on it. However, I am paranoid since software can hardly be relied upon and I don't understand how this new filter will work, for example are we talking literally, or very loose?

What if I was writing in my journal and used a common cliche phrase that's used the world over to prove a simple, yet lazy point? That would be my idea of the filter being too stuffy. Or, perhaps I recited the man from Nantucket! Well, the other filter will give the man from Nantucket the shake down. lol

I'm going to take my head, and jam it deep into this pile of sand right here and try to not worry about it. I'll cross that damn bridge when I get to it! All of this worrying about putting captions on my own created artwork, filters, and duplicate worry warting was only driving me up the wall. Being driven up the wall is another nice and lazy cliche. :D

Plus all of this micro management of what's going on is a sure creativity killer.

Also, worrying is probably for nothing since for all I know it will finally do something about raging thieves.

On a lighter note, I do know the full version of the man from Nantucket.

STUDYING HER ABC'S by joyart

It's been kind of crazy around here, but I won't go into all that, this is the squidoo journal, not the whine line! hah!

Ok, I finally got that seventh lens finished, go check out the lens section! Its free ice cream games. :D

Also, I'm learning more about linking our lenses together, and also a better way to tie in related lenses over my old method which was by way of using the link list module. This thing on the squidoo tools.

Squidtools

I have it good and bookmarked for when I need it.

I'm still not sure about the ins and outs of whether or not something needs to be do follow or follow, but I do know that if it's related that it should be, at least from what I've been reading.

As you can see I've been doing a lot of romping, or more like lurking throughout the squidU. I'm trying to be social over there, I'm kind of scared to be honest. Time is another factor of course, I have about as much time to fart of late, and that's it!

That reminds me too! I'm behind on everything! I still haven't started the archive blog for this lens. As you can see it's getting pretty damn long too. lol I did make a table of contents just for it. I'm going to need to do the same for the pay log and the lens log eventually.

My behindness is all part of my, "don't fret about that yet and get the lenses done!"

Multi-Talented Squidoo by Sandyspider

I've been working on a few unconventional things like, goals, time management, and taking lots of deep breaths!

Deep breaths because after this seventh lens, the eighth is going to cause me a lot of pain, and digging. That is of course if I don't skip over and make it lens nine.

I've read the tar out of squid-U and understand that these types of lenses don't make you jack all, but I just have to make it though. I know I'm a young squid and will wise up one day! LOL.

Seriously though, I would like to think that Squidoo is the start of a brand new chapter in my life, and I can feel the old page turning as I reach 38. I hope it was a good decision and not another one of my delusional quests, but my life cannot move on until I write about what I've gone through, and dig a giant virtual hole and bury it there.

Sure I learned that I need to make some sales lenses, I wish I knew how to make them, I'm still researching that, but what I want all of my lenses to convey is honesty and who I am, no matter the subject.

I want to be me damn it! Well, I can be partly me anyhow. HAHHA. You can't swear on Squidoo, and rated R lenses seem useless to make. Yeah, I sort of swear like a sailor, and enjoy singing certain limericks. I'm George Carlin only prettier!

I kind of needed to write something rambly because I've been pretty overwhelmed and figuring out better ways to manage my time and get more done. I don't know why I pressure myself so!

Back to work before bed! Take care. :)

Computer Networkby prawny

Now it's time to get back to work and play catch up!

I must say that it's so nice to be able to sit in front of the pc and have everything work like it's supposed too! I'm so looking forward to having no down time now that things are up and running.

Not much to report this week, but work towards the seventh lens is moving right along, as well as my big lens update day. Thanks to finally getting over a nasty cold and having a nice new Ethernet cable.

My 3rd lens, the pencil gallery is struggling a bit to stay into tier two this month. I've just done the best I can with her, keeping her fresh and keeping my fingers crossed for traffic. It's been really difficult keeping a finished lens fresh too!

Forgive me, this is on the back of fiddling with the image on my newest payday report. So, my journal writing has carried on to the next day! LOL

Yes, this lens is quite time-consuming for something with less than ideal traffic, but hey it's good for me and worth it! Sometimes you've got to do for you.

That's my feel good theme this week, to be good to me. Well, payday has made me feel better. Hahahha!

Seriously, this week I've worked on the big seven in the face of great difficulty. In fact, all of my online endeavors have been crushed by this one. I've been having horrible internet problems. WIFI trouble!

It's being a weirdo, one moment it's going strong, the next it won't work. This has actually been going on for the past few months and I've been fiddling and farting around trying to pinpoint the problem.

Here is how I'm going to deal with this. Stay with me it's relevant. hahhaha. I used up my payday money already, that's how.

I'm going to say to heck with the wifi and bought a one hundred foot Ethernet cable! MUHahhahahahha! The handsome knight in shinning armor is going up to the attic and run that bad boy to my laptop, drill a hole in the ceiling, and give me some juice. No more hassle, no more beard stroking over what the problem could be, I'm done and over it. :D

I was actually trying to avoid whining about this in the past few months here, since it's coming to a good close real soon, I feel victorious over it. :)

One Step at a Time | Postcards by kristinamari

Finished my sixth lens and immediately started working harder on the seventh.

Here is the link encase you missed it in the lens section: My digital sketchbook

I have gotten over last weeks mental slump on how fast I create these lenses. I'm only going to make myself sick obsessing about this crap. And worrying about hitting the orange button before I'm almost done is just a silly. I was not hitting it until I knew I could get the lens done in a day or two, but would work weeks on it off line.

I'm telling myself to just hit the damn thing with some types of lenses. Which is what I did with the sketch gallery! I was having trouble visualizing where I wanted to put what until I kicked myself in the rump and just hit the damn button. There are some that are better off getting half done before doing this, but I'm not going to hesitate any longer.

No more than one at a time though, I worry about having too many staring me down.

Girls 6th Birthday Party Custom Invite Invitation by Pip_Gerard

Work has begun and the orange button has been pressed. The sixth lens will be called my digital sketch book!

I've been flipping back and forth to four lenses on my table, but it would seem my focus has settled into this one right now since the one I'm working on is emotionally difficult.

I hope to be done either by the end of this week or the beginning of next week. This at home have been pretty hectic, so I really hope so!

In other news if you remember my beginning idea to cover K-kups, since I drink the stuff all the time. Well, I've finally buried the idea. Aside from it being a saturated subject my interest is just not sitting on it very well. I may love it, drink it and adore it, but I can't see myself writing about it. If that makes any sense.

Well, look for the six lens real soon!

Super squid hugs. It's time for me to stop farting around with my first lens and get back to work on it. :)

Because I'm the LensMaster by johndilbeck

I'm working on a few things, but they aren't written in stone yet.

1. I'm doing a very, very personal lens that is very hard to write.

Honestly, I don't know how long this one is going to take me and it's probably better that I jump from lens to lens while working on this one since the subject is taking its toll on me emotionally. I don't even know if it would be a good idea to publish it. I'll just have to pick at it and wait and see.

2. I have listened to the advice that lens rank is not going to cut it very well in the long-term, so I'm experimenting with something to diversify the portfolio to bring in some more money. I'm only going to do subjects I'm passionate about on this end as well, but I'm nervous because I don't know what I'm doing and have failed before on this end.

Sadly this one might take me a bit too.

So, in summary I have 4 lens ideas on the table bouncing back and forth to each. This is my experiment to find out if I like this way of working. I have many lenses where this may be the only way of working! Especially the big, "my baby" projects.

When I first joined I made this massive list of ideas, then revised most of those since I didn't know what I was doing to spring off of those ideas.

I wish I had not made the up and coming lens section. LOL, reason being I don't know what I'm going to continue working on and what's going to get finished. I'll save the section for things I actually hit the create button on. LOL.

piggy bank full blank card by cvanwagoner

Happy payday everyone!

Today was my second payday and I've also revived my first Tier one payment! I've written down all of the nitty gritty details in the got paid section, but I'll repeat that payday has given me 53.54! I'm a happy squid.

On things going on this week I've been in the middle of heavy keyword research on a pack of lens ideas I've been sitting on.

I have two problems. My first is that the things I'm interested in, no one else is, or so it would seem according to keyword incoming searches on some, and second everyone loves what I'm interested in, according to the competition of other ideas. LOL! Sometimes on both incoming search being terrible, and comp being bad even though the incoming is bad.

Serious chin rubbing and beard stroking is going on over here on what I'm going to do about this situation. I think I grasp how to do the keyword thing, but it's what to do when you can't get one is scratching me. Especially if you really want to work on a lens.

The plan is to map out the next five to work on and get a "to do" list going to keep the flow of work moving. This way I can easily shift the gears between mturk and art projects. I need to learn to do this too if I'm to reach all of my goals with everything without feeling overwhelmed or neglecting anything. It is kind of hard with my obsessive personality and one track focus mentality. Anyhoo, with keyword digging out of the way I can focus more clearly on the lenses themselves. At least I hope so.

Funny Spring Cleaning Fish by doonidesigns

I hope you all had a happy new year!

I'm taking some time out of new lens crafting to give all of my lenses a good polishing. So far, I'm half way done and I've given them all a healthy boost for my efforts.

I was a bit bummed, but now I'm recovered about my best lens slipping to tier 3. It sat at Tier one for all of November and exactly half of December. It then went back to Tier 2 for the rest of the month. Now she is at 3. I do so hope this payday will give me the Tier one payment. I'm pretty sure it will since the lens was created in October.

I tried to keep it there, but no matter what I did nothing would help because the boost it got was from Novembers purple star, LOTD, and half of Decembers feature page, you've got potential badge contest. With the traffic down on it again, the google traffic I am getting is just not enough to keep it up.

I'm still pleased as punch though. I never thought I would get any of those, much less it staying to give me a possible payment up and coming. I'm pretty excited about that too! Keep your fingers crossed, payday is coming up for that month soon!

Take care!

I made another food game page to match my pizza game page. I call it, Cheeseburger games! Cheeseburger themed games

My small goal is half way there. It's a big deal to me because I've been so slow. Also, five lenses is my own promised lens enema time! I'm going to go over all of them and deeply see what needs doing. I need to figure out the whole tag thing once and for all. The side tags have confused me more then keywords have. There is really all kinds of stuff I'm going to do for the groovy enema time!

Excuse me if this one sounds weird. I've been working to get this lens finished by the end of this month, so I've been busting butt from out of the bed until bed time for three days. I know me, if I would have tried to spread it out to thin and probably would not have made it. It did look like I had more to do then I thought I did. Hmmmm, maybe I forgot something.

Anyways, I'm unbelievably tired, research, playing the tar out of them, screen shooting, crop, rename, write and edit 5 drafts, I probably proof read five times, and tweaked it, picture rooting, painting the most horrible excuse for a cheeseburger. That intro pic won't stay by the way! HAHAHA. I made some bullets but didn't use them but for the lens love module. Oh, made some dividers too.

One last thing, during enema time I'm going to start the blog to hold the archives, and switch the order of the squid thoughts for newest first, oldest last.

Time to go doodle and deflate a bit. Take care!

My first payday is finally here!

Funny Money by Lidusik

Let me stop and do a dance. Wait a minute, I forgot, I can't dance. HEHEHEHEH. I don't care how much it was for so long as I got it. You veterans will know that I will eat those words come six months from now. LOL

I got two tier three payments from this Squidoo journal, and one from Creative fun gifts. The others were not alive yet in October.

I also got $3.01 from family shopping from my Amazon link. :) Later, I shopped from my own link, but that was just this month. A few shopping trips resulted in no go because I must have not had cookies turned on. I messed those up somehow. Now I know not to assume it's on.

So, I finally get to fill up the "Money I've made" section of this journal. What's even better was that it's already hit the PayPal account and hit the bank from my transfer. :)

This is certainly a much faster return then I received with my first payment at Zazzle, which took a year and a half to get my first.

On a totally unrelated note, I was thinking I forgot to add last weeks journal entree. Turns out I had wrote in last weeks squid thoughts. Holy crap that means this last week was the longest week on earth! EEK! So, I've lived two weeks in one. That bites, lol!

Joy of Squidoo by Sandyspider

I'm almost finished with it for real this time. I got some tweaks and polishing to do, but that's about it. I was determined to do it by December first, but I could not pull that off. I'm going to do promotion a bit different this time. I'm not going to do anything until it's a month old. I'm not even going to post it in squidu critique until then.

Even though it would have been wise to publish when the lens was still in a par-baked stage, I couldn't do it. There are some more things for me to do in the normal weekly update rotation at least. I can tweak something until it screams!

I read the advice about waiting until it's a month old in squidu. I think it was Tipi that said it. Whatever the reason, this will keep me from hovering over a new lens like a gargoyle and get to work on the next one. Just experimenting with this right now.

I'm still very confused about when a lens starts earning money even though I've read, read and read some more. The info just won't sink in.

No matter what I'm still extremely happy that my pencil sketch lens enjoyed being in tier one for as long as it did, and even in tier two right now, but I often wonder if I'm not going to see anything for it. LOL.

I wouldn't change a damn thing though. This whole experience has shown me that I can do this. I don't expect every lens to stay in Tier three, rocket to tier one, or get purple stars, but at least I know I'm capable of it now.

I'll let you guys know any news and post it here when it's live.

Go ahead and get your turkey groove on!

Happy Thanksgiving Postcard by touchministry

I'm not really big on the holidays, but I know my fellow Lensmasters have worked hard on some of the most awesome turkey inspired lenses ever and I know you all love you some turkey day. So I'm giving a happy Thanksgiving shout out this week and hope that today is filled more with good food, loving people in your lives, and maybe even a drunken uncle or two! LOL

It's still technically Wednesday night for me still because I haven't been to bed. It's never morning until I've slept! I have the power to keep it Wednesday if I just believe! lol. I spent the day on my feet making cookies and brownies and other sweet baked goods. My feet are tired! I do so enjoy baking and cooking, just in this volume it's exhausting!

I've been forcing myself to work on the lens before getting to anything else as a result I've been late on comment approving. When I get to working on something, next thing you know it's four am, and I've hit the lick! It's about 2am now because of baking. Oh, I'm sure this needs proof read in the extreme, but I'm tired and wanted to show some love and give a heads up.

I will get out my lens polish and find a snappy picture tomorrow if the turkey doesn't put me to sleep after eating it.

One Step Forward Motivational Poster by affirmationshirts

I've had a really hard time coming up with goals because I've been trying to learn all of the ins and outs of Squidoo. I'm just not sure what to expect into the coming months.

I've been sitting here thinking about it and I do have an understanding of what I want. That being said I'm going to go ahead and bang out my goals and see where all of the chips fall.

I can't remember where I've read it, but I've always heard that mapping out your goals helps, then setting up short-term goals followed by the really big and crazy goals. It's still very unclear to me but I'm going to give it a shot and amend them as I go along.

Here it is my finished goal area.

Small and large Squidoo goals.

Gettin' it Done by TLArnold2

For a little bit anyways.

I'm still glowing from my accomplishment getting the lens of the day and the purple star, as well as the pencil sketch gallery being in tier one! I have a feeling she's not old enough to benefit from this, which is a bummer. Best thing I can do now is to try and keep her there. According to the born date the lens is exactly a month old, but that is from the time I hit the create a lens button, not actual publish. I think it took me four days to do that. I'm in the habit of getting a lens mostly finished before messing around in a WIP. As it stands there have been no WIP lenses since I've been working on the fourth in the background.

Also the Pencil sketch gallery is getting some good google drips along the way. With each one I create I have a better understanding of the whole keyword research process. It is getting the phrase occasionally, and many other keywords as well.

Bad news on the 2nd lens, the creative fun gifts. I'm pretty sure I messed up with her keyword research. In fact, I know I did. Upon learning more I plugged it into the google keyword tool and she came up in the zippo traffic zone. This was before I knew enough to hit the exact and phrase buttons to check their traffic. I'm assuming she is in the phrase category and as there is good traffic for broad, there is zippo for phrase, even worse for exact.

The good news for both this lens and the second lens is that they have been teetering in the low third tier levels, despite dragging their feet. I am most happy about that.

What I want to do in the coming weeks as far as maintenance goes with the second lens is to try and figure out how I can fix her keyword situation.

The problem with my second lens makes me glad for the long lag between each lens. I have been feeling bad that it has not exactly been a lens a week happening for me. The lag is me trying to figure crap out mostly. I'm hoping I'm even less stupid with the fourth.

I'm still working on that fourth lens in the background. I hope I get finished with it soon.

I´m Dancing in My Mind by InspirationalStories

November 4, 2011

OK, new developments!

I'm still in shock over this one too! After a long day of Mturking, then working on the fourth lens, I re-log back into Squidoo to check on things, and I come to find out that my pencil sketch gallery got Lens of the day! EEP! EEP! EEP!

I actually found out by looking at my dash board. After midnight the stats go back to zero, I often check log back in around this time. My eyes zero in on the number 34 right under visits for the day. I had to rub my eyes and thought, "Wut?" That's a weeks visit count. Then I went into shock after that and stared at it. Then I thought "Oh, it's that thingy I won where it might show up in the corner under arts and design." So I head over there. Not there. lol. Then I thought, "Must be some hiccup?" LOL

So I go to the front page thinking I wanted to go lens hop. Then see myself in my self portrait under lens of the day! Before running to tell Alex I kind of sat here in shock.

I am so damn happy! I certainly didn't expect this one either. I wish I could hug the tar out of everyone and anyone who had a hand in this! Consider yourselves hugged to pieces!

The most unexpected sight to see!

This has been a wonderful Squidoo week! My pencil sketch gallery, which is also my third lens revived a purple star! YAY! I want to thank everyone who had a hand in this. I will forever be grateful <3

I didn't think it was even possible. After all I only have three lenses. Not only that, but it was the furthest thing from my mind. One of the few things throughout all of my learning about Squidoo that I haven't dove into yet. I was also in shock because as far as I knew you had to be a giant squid to get one! You should have seen the look on my face when I opened that email! lol

It could not of come at a better time. My confidence has been low again and my fourth lens is taking longer then any of the others. Time problems and research have been making it take longer then I would like. I really needed this boost badly!
In time I think I'll get better with time management and hopefully with confidence This issue has gotten me before and I can't let it get to me now.

Steampunk Stickers by WinonaCookie

I didn't write about this encase I screwed it up, but so far my big nip tuck and journal day has been Thursday. So far, I've done this consistently since I've created this squidoo journal. This includes all lenses if I can find something to do with them, even if I've tweaked and fiddled with them yesterday, or the day before that. I hope I can keep it up in the future lol.

These are just little small crumbs, with the exception of this one If I have something to say. Now, my other plan will be to give all of them a major enema every fifth or tenth lens. I'm doing it this way to strike a balance between working on the new, and spit shinning the old.
On another note it has been an awesome Squidoo week! I got the, "you've got potential badge!" I didn't even know there was such a badge. I squealed! Also, the 2nd lens is doing fantastic, and the 3rd is doing better then I had expected. hahha, this one is not exactly where I want it to be. Of course I did no keyword research on this lens what so ever.

Speaking of keyword research, which I'm sure I'm still not very good at, but I've actually gotten three people from google on to the 3rd lens. They were really long phrases I didn't even think of! Keywords still confuse the tar out of me.

P.S, I'm currently working on the fourth lens, but the research is taking a bit of time. Speaking of schedule, I'm also running behind on updates in the "lenses I'm working on" section. lol,

Bug Collection Beetle, by paintingmaniac

I did get my third lens finished, but I'm having a little bit of technical difficulties with it, so it's not exactly published yet. Bug submit report is sent out and I'm waiting for a response. In the meantime I need to work out a plan for the fourth lens.

My Bio lens idea is going to be a series of lenses, then I'm going to make a lensograpy to connect all of them together. This was the only way I could give it the focus it needed.

The keurig coffee thing may have to wait. I did my keyword research and wow momma! Most of its high competition.

Back to the third lens, and what I was going to tell you. It's almost embarrassing, but that lens took me two damn weeks! It might need a nip and a tuck for its size and how many images I put on it, and a table of contents experiment I conducted, but I will find that out as soon as I can get it published. It was a series of, "OH let me try this, that would be cool." Well, I just hope I get better, and more efficient. Hhehhe.

Frustration ' Art Card by ColorCommando

My third lens has been a slow climb. Despite having a cold, a sinus headache and other confidence issues this week, I have plugged along with most of my to do list on and off the Squids. I had hopped to finish it by today, or tomorrow rather because I haven't been to bed yet. lol

I've made a decision this week after reading quite a bit about it. I'm not going to start a WIP lens until I know its going to be finished that day. It would seem that if you take too long with a lens your lens rank will steadily tank. Also, the creation date of the lens is off because it counts toward the day you started making it, not the day of publish. If I had started my third lens as a work in progress I would still be working on it seven days later.

I'm a paranoid person, so I could be wrong on this, and the people I read it from on the squidU could be wrong about it, but I got enough to worry about without that happening so I'm not leaving anything to chance here.

Time for me to go to bed, but look for the third lens over the next two to three days. Eh, give or take a couple of days, this one is harder then my last two. Sad thing is I bet it won't look like it took me this long to make it. Especially after I wrangle those long rambling paragraphs! Esh! I may have to come in again and edit this. You know how those four am rambles go, might as well write drunk right?

Two Monkeys Motivational Poster by wasootch

Lots of good news from this week! This lens received three angel blessings yesterday from, LisaAuch, artbymichelle, and Ilona1. Thank you so much! Also, this lens is now 100% complete in the side bar.

And last but not least my second lens is now finished. It was probably harder to push it out the door then this one. Focus was not easy since this was an earlier idea. What I tried to do was focus on the fact that my Zazzle store is a gift shop. I've always had trouble defining Zazzle. It is a rather loose topic, but I did do my keyword research and I'm hoping it pans out. We'll see how it goes. Here is the spanking new lens: Creative and fun gifts

On a last thought, I really need to find balance. Oh no, not really for Squidoo, my second lens really took me the better part of a week to create. I bring up the time balance because I haven't got a lick of painting done. I hope I become more efficient at this once I get over the learning curve.

Focus-Positive Attitude Motivational Poster by semas87

I have decided to write my thoughts every week, but I don't want this page to get overly long. I was thinking of letting it build up to ten entries before moving it to a blog. Got to keep the page running smooth! The lesson of focus. I've been doing a lot of learning, and reading mostly. I think that the lesson of focus has finally sunk in. I've been working on revising my lens ideas.

It hasn't been easy because the thought of killing those lenses would be like killing my babies. If I can't figure out how to accomplish this, then I guess I better move on to other lens ideas.

On the lens crafting front I have been working on the "zazzle portfolio" first, which won't be called that anymore. Yep, this one was ate up with the lack of focus real bad. I thought that if I could figure out a way to at least give it some focus while sharing the page with others, then I could go ahead with the idea.