25 Reasons to Make Online Article Writing Your Career



25+ Reasons to Making Online Article Writing Your Career
Writing articles online can be a lucrative, satisfying home business. If you enjoy composing articles, have proficient grammar, possess a computer, have reasonable typing skills and enjoy writing, here are 50+ reasons write online articles.
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Big Lake Poems: The Good Ship Marguerite Louise


The Tale of the Good Ship Marguerite Louise
A tale of two ships on Lake Michigan on a cold November Night. For my father D. Jack who knows all there is to know about the ships of Lake Michigan and who likes a good story.





stranglehold cold wind and rain
mute dull foghorn moan
rising banshee storm shriek
drowns alarm's warning groan

feeble fading lighthouse beam
struggles, fails and strains
in fog clogged unlit night
and driving, blinding rains

freighter D. Jack out on the lake
as November gales begin
headed for the haven
unaware of the danger within

no beaming light across the water
nothing seen in darkning drear
no moon marked rocks to alert
around us sail and not too near

nothing heard in dead cold fog
of steady, sounding alarum gong
muted bell tolls a death knell
of disaster 'fore ere long


searchlight flickering fizzling out
tempest waters dead ahead
no saving beam on empty sky
close the book and mourn the dead

blame the deadening pea-soup fog 
blame the storm that tossed night
blame the winter for coming too soon
blame the waning of the light

sing the song of blinding dark
mourn the D. Jack's ending doom
lament the brave ship dashed and torn
finis, death, in the drowning room

But pause a moment this tale's end
hold a bit the death bell knell
consider a mystery, too low for heaven
but just as much too high for hell

old ship Marguerite Louise sits in ruin
safe within dark deadly walls
invisible beneath the foggy shroud
silent under deafening squalls

then occurred the thing so odd
something in the very waves
woke Marguerite Louise from her slumber
to save those men from watery graves

Warn them, Marguerite and make them hear
bang your moorings, jangle your chains
Raise a ruckus above the storm
Drown out those roaring killer rains

She answered the call, the D. Jack was saved
she was heard on down the coast
and clear across lake Michigan
so the old ones loved to boast 

Now she sits still rusting and silent
but what possessed the old ship night
shades of sinners or visions of saints
dark demons or heaven's saving light?

Sailors lost are nevertheless gone
however varied be the clime
Do some come back to warn others
just in the nick of time?

Memoirs of My Husband



My Husband is the Sexiest Man Alive
I woke up this morning to Jennifer Wright's AC's Sexiest Men of 2009 article. Inspired, I'll toss a nomination for my husband as sexiest man. But this in no way detracts from Jennifer's list of highly desirable AC men.
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Writer's Guide: Article to Page View Ratio



Guide to Increase Online Article Page Views: Consider Your Article to Page View Ratio
Many quality articles have been written at Associated Content and other online venues about SEO, keywords and other tools for succeeding an online writer. Here's an oft overlooked factor: article count to page view ratio.
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Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving Thoughts on Loved Ones
How many times have I assigned students to write that Thanksgiving holiday essay entitled, 'What I Am Thankful for'. Family always tops the list. I'm thankful for my family, always, and in memory of a boy named Michael.
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Writing YA Fiction or Coming-of-Age Stories? 14 Must-Read Authors


Mature Reading for Teen High School Boys and Young Adults
It's a sad fact that the majority of teenage boys and young men do not read anything beyond magazines or newspapers. Here is list of literature guaranteed to get teen boys and men hooked on books. Excellent for YA authors.
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Happy Baby Feet: A Poem to Our Stillborn Daughter Isobella Raine

To Our Daughter, Isobella Raine Sachteleben Born and Died June 28, 2004
It's been 12 years since baby had to go. A tiny little soul, not quite ready in body. It's really sad when hello is also goodbye.

when did it happen

i'd really like to know

she was so alive

just why did she have to go?

  sweet child grew
 
  tiny heart beat
 
  sleeping baby beauty
 
  in my secret deep

  lovely baby feet
 
  dancing in my womb
 
  when did happy feet
 
  cease to hear the tune?

  baby girl and me
 
  whisper soft kiss
 
  living in our joy
 
  in happy baby bliss

  would her eyes be

  like daddy's baby blue?
 
  maybe long dark curls
 
  like her mama, too?

  pretty baby smile

  warm, golden glow
 
  glad you stayed awhile
 
  why did you have to go?

  why did she have to go?
 
  i asked the universe today
 
  i know she plays in heaven
 
  but i wanted her to stay.

  why, she never left
 
  Love said in great surprise
 
  she dwells within your soul

  and shines out from your eyes

  your tears upon his cheek
 
  kisses from Isobella Raine
 
  his strong arms 'round you
 
  are shelter from the pain

  sweet daddy and dear mama
 
  i didn't want to go
 
  but Blessed Mother held my hand
 
  so it wouldn't hurt you so

  and when you see that baby star
 
  that's me smilin' on you
 
  and when my little star twinkles
 
  that's me playin' peek-a-boo

Big Lake Poems: Acorn benediction and Oak Leaf offertory



November fall leaf funerals
grampa in flannel coat and ear-flap cap
me in fur-trimmed jacket and pom-pom hat
big rake and little rake

26 trees in grampa's yard  
oaks with crunchy-crisp fall-down-brown leaves  
and thousands of acorns
kept us and squirrels hunting and gathering

grampa boasting with neighbor  
of how many bags each would offer 
on his autumn harvest pyre
each secretly sure his sacrifice would please most

On cracked cement altar  
leaves piled ceremoniously high  
consumed in flame under watchful eye  
of grampa against shifting winds

leaves to ashes, ashes to dust
pom-pom clad mourner bids farewell
rest in peace, rainbow friends
to nourish next year's soil

but acorns were not burned
acorns explode sending out soul sparks
that singe unwary watchers
their little selves spared, but only for autumn-greedy squirrels

close my eyes and i can smell
oak-leaf incense from ritual burning
hanging heavy-hazy under leaden November clouds 
sharp, sad fire-fall fragrance

summer oak bounty smoldering
on heaps of crimson and ash
tolling Indian summer death knell
somber scent of endings and good-bye
  
  

Halloween Haiku: The Dead


The Dead- a Haiku
Another Halloween Haiku from my friends at Associated Content. This is Rissa Watkins prize winning Halloween haiku,'The Dead' Pure creepy in 17 syllables.
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Big Lake Poems: Pink Pickable Ladyslippers

Pink Pickable Ladyslippers
This one is from The Big Lake Poems anthology. The Lake Michigan dunes flora decorated my growing up and has inspired these poems. This one is about lady slippers, childhood and big life choices.


i wasn't to pick the lady slippers
that much was clear
but they are so pickable and plus i WANT to
i whined to grampa

as we walked to Lake Michigan
through the woods of the backdune
where their precious lady slipper
grew just to taunt me

let them grow he said
if you pick them, no one else can enjoy them
i didn't see that as my problem
there was no one around to see them anyway

Besides he said they are protected
its illegal to pick the lady slipper.
illegal, humph i scuffed my feet and scoffed
(not really seeing that as my problem either)

pick up your feet, you'll ruin your shoes
he smiled over his shoulder 
to where I lagging and still slightly scuffing 
Also if you pick the lady slippers, they can't grow.

he had me there
other people not seeing flowers
did not in the least bother 
a selfish four year old girl

going to jail for picking a flower
did worry me a bit
not about breaking laws
only whether i could bring my toys

but to be responsible for the murder of flower?
now that was troubling
if i should pick her
she would wither and die

her pretty pink blossoms shaped like fairy pointe shoes?
little flowers that never hurt anyone 
whose sole job was to make the forest nice
i decided to leave the lady slipper to her work and announced this to grampa

grampa in his plaid flannel coat
took his less-selfish little girl's hand
in his big printers ink stained one
and we walked home, we two, content in our company

The Grama-Grampa House Smell: Fresh-wind Lake-green Pine-time


Fresh-Wind Lake-Green Pine-Time
More from the Big Lake Poems anthology. I wish that I could make you smell the way my grandparents' house near Lake Michigan smelled. Or that I could smell it again. Maybe this poem will help.

The grama-grampa house
was not on Lake Michigan
but you could smell the big lake 
in their house


as the crow flies grampa and I could walk
to the big lake and we did
at least once a week every week
of my life since birth give or take

except when we moved to Alaska
or during my years in college
until I moved away
but i came back and walked with him

he took my kids for walks to the beach
our oldest three that is
he wasn't getting around too well
when the youngest came

the lake inhabited the grama-grampa house 
in scents of sand and wind
wood and rain
and an indefinable fragrance signature of Lake Michigan alone

I smelt it first and best
coming upstairs third step from the top
of the cool yellow speckle- tile basement
where I was sent to fetch canned cherries

from the cedar wood pantry
that grampa built for grandma
for a dessert called
Cherries in the Snow.

we saved some things
from the grama grampa house
in a box sealed tight
to preserve the wind-fresh lake-green pine-time smell

for awhile if you sniffed soul-deep
there was a whiff of it
wind-fresh lake-green pine time
but now its all gone

i can evoke scent-memory a little
with feel-think smell- remembering
i can conjure up the grama-grampa house
but only a little and its fading fast



Big Lake Poems: Trillium and Pine


I'm creating a volume of poetry that I call 'The Big Lake Anthology' about my life and memories growing up near Lake Michigan, or The Big Lake as we called it. This one 'Trillium and Pine' is centered around a white tri-petaled flower, also known as grandiflorum, native to Michigan's old-growth forests and protected by the DNR. This early spring blossom is welcomed every year with a festival in my home town. Some trillium are red and so my poem reflects those species in metaphor. It also celebrates the short lives of my two infant daughters, deceased at birth, Mary Therese and Isobella Raine Sachteleben.

warm wine glow
tranquility flow
trillium and pine
rhythm and rhyme

good with the bad
happy I've had
time upon thyme
trillium white wine

from flower bower 
then turns the hour
up a steep hill
some remain still

some things to grow
some to let go
rest in the vale
tell of the tale

sad winter time
crusted in tear-salt rime
gall bitter vine
blood red wine

mem'ry is song
singing along
verse and refrain
of lyric-ripe pain

sing to the dark
cling to the mark
libate the night
drink to the light

feel the days go
rain and then snow
fresh summer wine
rosemary and time

the trillium still bloom
in deep new-spring gloom
white as a maid
born in the shade

pine stands true
ever green-blue
withstanding the pain
shining the in the rain

warm autumn wine
golden twilight, thine
now is the time
for reason and rhyme
trillium and pine.


Big Lake Poems: Lily- Laced Walks


Lily-of-the-Valley grew along Grandpa's walk
Tiny white bell-blossoms with breath of heaven scent.
He pruned the yard but let the lilies engulf the path.
Sometimes you had to skirt them and walk on the grass.

Grandma had Lily-of the Valley in her wedding bouquet.
It cost twelve dollars for a dozen in 1935.
It was the Great Depression and that was a fortune
but she wanted them so he got them.

I have an old photo of her at the altar
It's a black and white, painted on the back for color.
they did things like that back then
She's holding the lovely lilies and she is lovelier 

I guess lily-of-the valley are weeds
I didn't know that. He told me so, my husband
They grew in the motor-oil soil of the alley behind his growing up house.
Some even snuck under the chain link fence and his mother would root them out.
 
I grew up with stories of
dollar a piece lilies in bridal bouquets.
I thought everyone felt that way about them. 
these wee white wedding bells

 There are ancient lily-of the-valley
 lining the crumbling walks of our now house
 Planted when the city was just a stop
 on the interurban to Grand Rapids.

Someone talked of digging them up when we moved in
"you won't want them, we feel sure"
I protested, let them grow and he agreed
One woman's weed is another's wedding bower


It's 20 years now.
Grandpa's lily laced walks 
have new people living within them
I dream I'm back there every night

The lily bride and her slender-pale groom
have been in their graves for nearly the same
their lives long and full
but no less painful the passing for the length of sojourn

My groom gathers our lilies in spring
and puts them in a vase 
that my grandmother gave me
how we miss those silly romantics who wasted two weeks pay on weeds



Halloween Haiku: Mind's Eye Halloween


Mind's Eye Halloween
Halloween Haiku; Haiku is the perfect poetry form for Halloween, Harvest, Autumn and fall. Haiku encompasses nature in little seed morsels. The rigor of writing in only 17 syllables makes the poet very choosy about her words. You will be seeing more Halloween Haiku from myself and other writers at Associated Content. And why not ask guests at your Halloween bash to jot down Haikus? Fun and creative party game.
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Twitter for Article Page Views


Twitter and Associated Content: Tweeting for Friends, Fun and Page Views
Twitter. Isn't that a cute name for a social website? Several friends who are new to the world of online social sites have asked me, 'just what is Twitter, anyway? Twitter. Is it like Facebook?' And I reply, 'yes and no'.
Read on and tweet!

Halloween Haiku: Craving


Craving: A Vampiric Halloween Haiku
A Halloween haiku for vampire fans.Brought to The Writer's Garden by Associated Content contributor Gabriel Gadfly
Click to read if you dare...

Autumn Flora and Fauna: Squirrels and Pumpkin Seeds


St. Spermophilus and the Pumpkin Seeds
Squirrels. Garden Militia. The backyard telegraph. Plant paparazzi. Weighing in at 1.5 pounds, one squirrel in pursuit of nest material is a whirling dervish. A regiment makes yard look like the epicenter of a hurricane.
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Halloween Haiku: Black Cat Moondance


Black Cat Moondance: A Halloween Haiku
This delightful haiku is just in time for Halloween, featuring black cats and a special witch's brew!Brought to The Writer's Garden from Lyn McCallister @ Associated Content.
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Halloween Haiku: Masquerade


Halloween Haiku Masquerade
Trick or treat haiku. Halloween candy in an eerie minor key, by Associated Content contributor Sylvia Branch.
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Halloween Haiku: Haunts from Beyond


Haunts from Beyond
A scary Halloween haiku, this one comes to us from Jennifer Amlie of Associated Content.
Read on if you dare...

Halloween Haiku: Trick-or-Treat Fun

Halloween Night: A Haiku Contest Entry
Halloween Night: A Haiku Contest Entry
Halloween Haiku fun from AC Kay Wittenhauer; read on...

Halloween Haiku: Candy Corn Smiles


Halloween Haiku - Candy Corn Smiles
Halloween means ghouls and goblins, scarecrows and pumpkins and of course, the traditional favorite - candy corn. This little Halloween Haiku captures it all. Shared courtesy of Marie-Anne St.Jean at Associated Content
Click here to read...

How to Get Readers, Subscribers and Page Views


How to Get Other Contributors to Read Your Articles, Favorite You and Subscribe to Your Work
There are some misconceptions about how to get other Associated Content contributors to read your articles, favorite you and subscribe to your work. Based on what I've learned, I'm going to attempt to set the record straight.
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How to Add Your Content to Your Blog


How to Embed Associated Content Articles on Google Blogger
You've worked hard to get those articles published. Now you need page views and readers. You can get those if you embed your Associated Content articles on your Blogger blog. Here's how to get readers and page views.
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Essay and Article Writing Guide


How to Write the Perfect Online Article
A neat, tidy writing lesson in bite-sized steps. Plenty of examples of how to plan, organize, write, edit and rewrite an article. Gives practical advice on how to keep the article on track and cohesive.
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No Fail Guide to Increase Readership and Page Views


No-Fail Guide to Increase Page Views on Associated Content
This guide is not going to boost your page views to 1 million overnight. There's no magic bean to grow an enchanted page view beanstalk. It takes time, patience, hard work and cooperation with AC editors and fellow writers.
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How to Start a Blogger Blog


How to Set Up a 'Blogger' or 'Blogspot' Blog
Google Adsense pays money when readers click ads on your blog. Linking articles to your blog increases page views. Here's a guide to set up a 'Blogger' or 'Blogspot' blog and make money with Google Adsense.
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