Wendy Boswell has written a fantastic article: “How to get things done working inside and outside the home” over at LifeHacker (whose comment policy still makes me cross, incidentally) in which she documents how her family have struggled and in the main overcome the issues and problems associated with a freelance stay-at-home mum and a 9-to-5 dad.

It’s a timely piece that I’m taking heed of. Although we don’t have children to contend with yet, the whole work-life balance is very important, as are all the issues surrounding boundaries, housework, real-life relationships, etc.

Well worth a read.

Let me tell you that the four business weeks from 19th June to 14th July 2006 (I’m in week two) are proving to be quite tough.

For both financial and ethical reasons, I am working out my full four-week notice period in my current employment.

I am also expanding my plans to launch into ProBlogging on 17th July with maximum impact and efficiency. In other words, I do not expect to be lying around in bed until 11am wondering what I should be doing!

It’s proving to be quite an emotional drain.

The motivation to wrap things up at my current workplace is next to zero, but I believe I should continue to do the best I can for them in the time I have left. This involves handovers, tying up loose projects, general tidying of accounts, emails, etc.

The temptation to simply walk out and start blogging full time is huge!

Nevertheless, I think I will come out of this experience stronger, and more determined to make the new lifestyle work.

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I can see that one of my Problogging pet peeves is going to be that for a few of the blogs I will be writing for I have to use Typepad.

Maybe others have had better experiences, but in the month or so I’ve been using it, I’ve found it to be slow (both the site and the backend control panel) and unreliable.

This morning (UK time) I tried to log in and was greeted with an “Internal Server Error 500″ message - now I know that 500’s are not good.

And I really don’t expect to see them on professional services.

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With just over a month to go until I officially turn ProBlogger, I thought I’d give you all the opportunity to let me know what subjects you’d most like me to write about.

I don’t know how my ProBlogging journey is going to go - here’s your chance to walk with me through uncharted territory.

Topics up for grabs could include:

• Earnings
• Projects
• Motivation
• Time management
• Pros/cons of working from home
• Writing skills
• Technical knowledge
• Daily hours
• Promotion

Leave me a comment if there are any specific areas you’d like me to write about, either regularly or as a one-off.

I won’t promise to write about everything you ask me, but I’ll consider all suggestions.

A few weeks ago I made a public declaration: to become a Problogger by 1st January 2007.

I also hinted that I’d secretly like to get there by my 32nd birthday, on 24th July 2006.

Know something? I could just do it…

Subject to a few formalities, I’m very pleased to announce that I will be going Pro on 17th July 2006.

I’ll make more details available of what I’ll be doing nearer the time. What I can promise is that you’ll be seeing a lot more of me on the web…

…particularly you Blue Fish members. You’re going to get a lot more of the recognition and attention you deserve.

So hang tight and watch this space.

What do you do with offensive comments on your blog?

These comments are not spam, as such; they’re not even caused by known trolls. Sometimes it seems anyone can fly off the handle at (seemingly) the smallest thing, and instead of engaging in a polite conversation/dscourse, hurl some abuse for their own pathetic satisfaction.

(I know I have)

Take the following comment I received on a piece I had written today from a company press release:

IDIOTS!! just lost all respect for this site, APPLE cinema and Dells have been at this res and beyond for years!! so what they have stuck HDMI on the end of the plug The DVI on the dells and the apples can be adapted to HDMI with a £1 adapter. idiots. removing this from my news aggregator. HDTV sort yourselves out, writing silly titles for your articles is not a way to gain readers its a way to lose them BYE BYE idiots

That’s not the way to enamour yourself to the editors of a website.

If the commenter had said something more polite stating that he didn’t agree with the article, because of particular factors, then we could have started an interesting discussion about the claims that companies make (remember, this was based on a company press release, not hearsay or gossip). However, simply calling us IDIOTS pretty much stops the conversation dead.

How did I respond?

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If your blog mainly depends on daily news to keep it running, a slow news day can be your worst nightmare, particularly if you have a writing quota to fulfil.

Slow news days can cause negative thoughts:

• Is my niche area drying up?
• Have I missed some big news story that everyone else has?
• Have my news sources cut their supply?

There are various responses to a slow news day, and what action you take depends upon your blog, your temperament, your readership, and the time you have.

1. Do nothing

• Simply accept that there’s not much happening today.
• Believe there’ll be a news avalanche tomorrow.

2. Post opinion / forum / consumer views

• Move away from ‘hard fact’ journalism.
• Write personal opinion pieces on your niche.
• Find out what the buzz on relevant forums and newsgroups is, and form an article from that.

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