I never really believed in the power of workshops until I did a few. Being in that two day workshop about the self employment program and becoming self employed made me really feel it was something attainable and I really could change my life. Now the glow has begun to tarnish and I'm back to being me again. I want another workshop.

So, I have decided to follow some advice I wrote for writers a couple of years ago. I will create my own workshop. Here are some quotes offered at my workshop, just to get me started.

First some humour:

George W. Bush: 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.

Now the inspiration:

The only thing in the world you can change is yourself and that makes all the difference in the world. - The Cher

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. - Alan Cohen

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles DuBois

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it You just do it one step at a time. - Marian Wright Edelman

It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to. - Marilyn Ferguson

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. - Washington Irving

This is my star inspirational quote for this workshop, such as it is:

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not? - George Bernard Shaw

"People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents."

Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835. (Scottish born American industrialist and philanthropist. 1835-1919).

This is a good quote to keep around for starting up a business. I may print it out and stick it over my monitor. I surely do need all the help I can get.

Once upon a time Suite101 paid it's writers, then they stopped. A lot of writers left, some stayed.

Now Suite is offering to pay writers again. But!... they want quite a lot for the money. You are to maintain the topic on top of the actual writing. This means responding to emails, keeping a running and moderated forum and so on.

The articles you write are to be word perfect (that means more than just spellchecked on MS Word). They are to be at least 400 words in length and you are to publish at least 10 articles over the course of a month. This is more than two each week. It doesn't sound like much but if you are doing this regularly you will run into dry spells and times when you just don't have a second, third, or tenth article in you. However, you can get a guest writer, assuming you can find one.

They guarantee a pay of $75 a month, for the first three months. After that it's $1.50 per 1,000 page views. So it will depend on you generating traffic, which of course, benefits Suite and yourself anyway.

Is it worth it? I'm not sure. It would be a lot of work and no sure pay. Especially as they have a history of stopping pay. Risky, yet I'm still reading it. :)

Ezine, blog or just plain everyday website, how do you know which is which and what makes it one or the other?

From the Dmoz category descriptions:

Ezine: An e-zine is the electronic form of a magazine, delivered via the Internet through the web, by e-mail, as a PDF file, or some other commonly accepted electronic form. It shares many of the characteristics of a paper magazine. It will have a regular publishing schedule: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.

It can accept submissions, which are then approved and edited by an editor or a staff using an agreed upon editorial process. Or it could be produced by a small group of writers.

An e-zine will typically publish only a small selection of the work submitted to it, setting a tone for the zine.

Weblog: A weblog (blog) is a cross between an online journal and an ezine. Weblogs must have links to other websites, they also need a commentary on the sites. Blog entries must be dated.

Weblogs are personal surfing diaries -- daily or weekly lists of links that the writer thinks are interesting.

"Personalized news isn't about going to excite and getting words that match your keyword. It's about going to a person you trust. Personalized." -- Sabren

Weblogs come in two major flavors: Weblogs, which are more link-oriented, keeping track of news in a particular topic area; and online journals, which emphasize more of the writer's own thoughts, opinions, and daily life. Both need to be updated on a fairly regular basis in order to be included here (at least three times a week).

Zines and Websites don't seem to have a description, or any one category. Instead they are listed by subject matter.

I think that leaves ThatGrrl.ca: WordCraft as an ezine then. But, I don't accept submissions or work with any other writers. As of this moment I also don't have it sorted into it's own section on the site. I created 3 index pages: Inspiration and Creativity, Internet and Publishing and Business and Home Office. But, there is no one page I could say is WordCraft itself. I still have Writing Prompts, Quotations and my Author Blab pages up too. But, they are all seperate, joined in a sidebar but not on any one page I could refer to as a seperate identity from the site in general.

Suite101.com: Suite University

The main problem with Suite101 (in my opinion) are those Google banner ads which take up too much front line real estate on their topic pages. Each time you open one of the network of topics you must scroll down to see the real content. Those ads make the site look unprofessional and spammy. In the old days we would have said seedy but spam has surpassed seediness.

Anyway, the best things about Suite are the topics which include fairly good to really good articles, written by people who have a personal interest in that topic. The other really good thing about Suite is just new this past month. They now have free online courses. They were not free before but the site policy has changed. Sure, it's a way to bring in traffic but the courses are there for anyone. I didn't even have to register or login with the site.

You may think the courses are just soupy (lacking in usefulness and meaty content) but they are worth checking out. I'm taking a course about web searching right now, just for the heck of it. I've been searching the web almost 10 years but you never know, I could come across something new and isn't that what it's all about?