I’m currently working on Spring of Spirits and my thesis. The fiction is suffering a little under all the work I have to do for my thesis, especially since the thesis costs so much (creative) energy already!

What frustrates me is that I’m still coming up with good ideas for stories. Usually, they just pop up in my head, and I’m like O_O Manon, that is brilliant! And then I’m totally, 100% frustrated with myself for being stuck, writing the other stuff. I feel a hint of the fresh air of a new story, but… I can’t. I shouldn’t. I should finish what I’m working on now, first.

Source: ellzalmighty @Flickr

So when I think of something cool, I make sure to write this down as quick as I can so I don’t forget, and store them all in an “ideas” doc. I call it my secret pot of gold.

I know some have more trouble to find what to write about. The following is a list of a few things where I usually get my ideas from, and could maybe help you too.

1. Watch Movies and TV shows

Yesterday, I was watching an episode of Castle. A certain element of that episode really appealed to me – and I thought… “what if I would combine that with a different genre?” and BAM! There was another golden idea. Just out of nowhere!

When you’re watching a movie or an episode of a good TV show, allow yourself to dream a little about where you would take the story, or about a specific character, what places he could go… Or take a specific element of it, maybe something you’re not used to working with usually and just think about all the things you could do in the genre (e.g. I don’t write crime novels, so I tend to dream about what I could do with such stories and how to implement that in sci-fi). What also helps is mixing movies: what if The Matrix happened in the Alice in Wonderland world? Or what if the Batman movies were set in a post-war fifties era? Change the scenery around.

Well fuck, I am getting more and more ideas as I’m writing this.

2. Travel

A bit more expensive than watching a movie or tv show, but traveling often does the trick for me. I am greatly inspired by traveling to foreign places and taking in the scenery. I based a story in Venice after I travelled there, for instance. I was also very much inspired by Egypt, and got more than one idea during and after my time there. Be creative, and again, during your brainstorm/daydream sessions, don’t hesitate about mixing genres. That usually takes the originality of the idea up a notch, too. Don’t let yourself be bound by norms or set notions about what your story should be about or like.

Source: CubaGallery @Flickr

If you don’t have the liberty to travel, watch documentaries about countries, or do research about a country. Infuse yourself with it. Use Google Earth. Go places digitally. I haven’t been to India, but my current story is set there. What also helps is to find and connect with people from the country you haven’t been to so they may help you get some of the cultural aspects right.

Also, the places you travel don’t have to be as exotic as the couple I just mentioned. You can be inspired by a small town near to you. Just open your mind to it!

3. Use Other Story Material and the News

Someone once said that the best story ideas are usually stolen from other, older stories. The Hunger Games for instance? I bet Suzanne Collins watched the Japanese Battle Royale when she got that idea. There are many examples of immensely popular stories that are a lot like other stories. Every kind of story can inspire ideas. Or watch the news – there’s enough crazy going on in the world to produce some idea (and here, the same counts – don’t be afraid to inject some fantastical element into this).

Be sure to deviate from the source material though. You don’t want to make it too obvious that you “stole” your story idea. Add or detract elements, add some spice to it. Change the characters around. Use other perspectives. You know what I mean. You don’t want to plagiarise, you just want to be inspired.

4. Daydream

My final and golden tip… Daydream. Daydream a lot. Just let your mind wander for a bit every day. I know it can be hard because it needs a certain level of relaxation, and I know our contemporary lives are hella stressful. But I know you have to commute to your job, or ride your bike to college. I’ve found that traveling to places are usually the best times to daydream, and I’ve gotten many ideas while riding my bike. Just let your mind wander about the things I mentioned above, and you’ll get ideas soon enough!

Let yourself be inspired by the landscapes you pass as well, even if you’ve already seen them a million times before. If you see a small cabin on a field, just think about what could happen there. Or if you see a certain shady looking car – what’s its story? I drove by a large industrial area a few weeks back by night…

Source: Gerard Mengerink @ Flickr

How inspiring is that view? I got quite a few ideas since I had just read Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker.

Writing down your dreams is another good one too, though I usually forget my dreams fairly fast, and I’m usually too groggy and cranky to write my dreams down in the morning. But for some people it helps to get story ideas, so maybe that’s something you could try, too!

I hope these tips will get your idea generating juices going! If you have some other tips to share, please do so in the comments.

How to Become a Your Own Story Idea Generator | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

I am a procrastination professional. It’s a skill developed and nurtured over many years. That’s why wou should trust my expertise in this: I am a procrastination rock star.

So today I bring you the very first Procrastination Top 3! I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you successfully procrastinated, and what you should have been doing instead.

#3 Instagram

If you don’t have an instagram account yet, go get it. It’s addictive, fun, and great to see pics from all over the world, on any topic that you fancy. It’s also awesome to make pics and share them with strangers. Oh, and don’t forget to add tags to your pics! I can spend hours exploring instagram pics.

While you’re at it – don’t forget to add me!

#2 My Cocktail Bar (Free App)

If you’re into cocktails like I am, get this app. Currently it’s only available for Android (who cares about iPhones anyways!). It’s an awesome app: you fill in all products you have at the moment, and this app will show you which cocktails you can make. Have some limes in the fridge? Some old vodka in the back of a cabinet? Grenadine? This app will tell you what to make. It will also tell you what ingredients you’re still missing to make other cocktails with the stuff you have right now. I feel very inspired to get every type of liquor out there, now.

Must. Not. Go. To. Store… I have other things to do! Or maybe I should go…….

There’s also a paid version of this app, but the free one will do just fine.

#1 Duolingo.com

Great way to procrastinate but still learn something: Duolingo.com is a website on which you can learn languages, game-style. With every lesson you complete, you’ll score points, so you can compete with friends (or total strangers). Even though sometimes the grammar isn’t explained so well, if you score a hundred points every day, you will be able to tell your skill is improving! Mi Español es mejor cada día!

Currently, you can only study Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French at Duolingo. Of course, there are some down points, too: the “mother tongue” is always English, and the grammar, for as far as I can tell, isn’t always very clearly explained. But those are just some minor quibbles, and I’m sure at least the latter will be improved.

The Duolingo iPhone app is already available, and the Android app (highly anticipated here) will be made available May 29th (almost! \o/).

So I hope you’ll successfully procrastinate with these three options – right now, what I should have been doing instead was reading articles and books for my thesis, but instead I wrote this blog post. Procrastination: mission accomplished.

Procrastination Top 3: May Edition | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

Over the past few years I have written many, many academic papers. I think with all the practice, I can finally say I really know how to write one. Today, I’m going to tell you how to write an academic paper (or article) like a boss. Writing a paper is all about the preparation. It doesn’t matter what kind of piece you’re writing – a review, an essay, a research report, thesis, dissertation – proper preparation will help you write the thing in a jiffy.

Preparation

Preparation #1: Look for Good Sources

Start with searching for good sources for your paper. Not only is the actual content important, also make sure to look for sources that show you how to write an article such as the one you will be writing. It will give you an idea of what to include (and perhaps even more important: what not to include). Don’t read them just yet, just scan them.

Preparation #2: Create an Outline

What I usually do is, after I’ve checked out source material, is create chapter and paragraph headings in the order I want to write them. Note: at this stage, this is not set in stone at all – if during the writing you feel you need to change the order around or that you’re not happy with some of the paragraphs or chapters, don’t hesitate to ditch them. This is an outline – a guideline, not a rule. What is especially important is that – for most papers and articles, you include the following:

• introduction
  • introduction of the topic
  • your research question
  • an outline of the contents of the rest of the paper
• middle
  • further introduction and outlining of the topic
  • your arguments
  • research results
  • methodology
  • theory
  • et cetera
• conclusion
  • a short summary of the introduction and middle
  • your conclusion
  • very important, something you should never forget: a concise answer to the research question you posed in the intro
  • a final thought or comment or recommendation to end the paper
• sources

Fill in this outline to your needs, and you’ll have a great guideline while writing later on.

Preparation #3: Do the Reading & Researching

Read all the things! Read your articles, books, and all the other sources you gathered. Make notes, mark passages. This can be a lot of work, especially with thick, wordy books. If you need a little help on how to get through this quickly, read this blog post: “How to Gut a Book“. Also, while you’re working through these sources, jot down the references (name(s) of author(s) and year) beneath each paragraph/chapter in your outline so you know which sources to use when. Also, if you haven’t started it already, this is the stage you’ll have to start your research.

Writing

Writing #1: Go!

Start writing. It doesn’t matter what part you start with, since you already have your guideline. To get the writing juices flowing, I usually start with the part that interests me the most – once you’re writing, the rest usually comes more easily too.

Writing #2: Keep Your Personal Opinion Close, But Your Sources Closer

Arguments for and against your statement

Yes, a personal opinion is important. But whomever will be grading your paper will not be overly impressed if that’s all you use to build your argument. While you shouldn’t be afraid to state your own opinion, make sure to use – good – sources to support your argument. However, if you want to sound like an academic professional, avoid pronouns – some teachers/professors don’t mind if you use them but I’ve been hit on the nose for it too many times to not get nervous of the pronouns – hurray for conditioning! Don’t just use sources that support your argument! Search for sources that don’t agree with your statement, and do your best to counter their arguments – also with the help of other sources. Keep in mind that the phrases “on the one hand (-> your argument)” and “on the other hand (-> an argument that counters your that you’ll counter)” are praise-worthy to many a professor.

Writing #3: Keep Track of Sources

What has always helped me greatly to save time is to keep track of my references during writing, especially when I use a big pile of sources. So whenever you jot down an in-text reference, make sure you type out the entire source in your sources section after the end of your paper. This is something you’ll want to accustom yourself to, because there’s nothing professors like less than plagiarism, even if you didn’t intend it to be plagiarism. It’ll cost you points, trust me. No matter what kind of reference style you use (I’ve always used APA), make sure you get the style right. I’ve never actually had points deducted for it myself, but former fellow students of mine have: they just didn’t italicize a title or journal name, or forgot a period somewhere. Don’t just depend on the reference generators you can find online either – I’ve found they make too many mistakes (and I know because I know about every APA rule by heart).

Editing

Editing #1: The Big Picture

Read the entire thing through. Check the order of your paragraphs – is it logical? If not, change it around. Are your arguments decent and convincing? Have you presented enough for/against arguments? Have you answered your research question properly? Have you fulfilled all of your professor’s requirements for this assignment? Make sure your big picture is right, that you’ve covered everything you wanted to cover. If not, get back to writing.

Editing #2: Copy-edits & Grammar

One of the most useful tools I’ve ever used in my entire academic career is Paperrater.com. This little tool gives you so much more info than your average document processing software. You can select the type of paper you’re writing, the academic level you’re at, and it will generate info on how you scored on grammar, vocab use, transitional words use, spelling, and will even grade all this. I wrote a review about this great tool – you can read it here. I personally never settle for anything less than an A.

Editing #3: Sources, sources, sources

Yes, more about sources. It’s important, people! Check one final time if your in-text references are all decently presented, and that your list of sources is perfect. Look closely – I usually pick out a few tiny mistakes (i.e. I used a comma instead of a period, or I forgot to italicize something). It’s a hateful job, but it needs to be done.

Final Round of Perfectionism

If you’re a perfectionist like I am, your last bit of work on your paper will pertain to the physical looks of your paper. Give your paper a nice layout, don’t use Comic Sans but use a font that’s plain and easy to read, make sure you have a shiny, yet professional looking title page and don’t forget page numbers. Or your name. Or the date. Or the number of words, if your professor requires it. Usually font size 12 and line spacing of 1,5 and  is required. Justify the text – it looks nicer and less chaotic. And don’t forget to indent the first sentences of paragraphs.

A Last Tip: Use Google Drive

I have one final tip for you: USE GOOGLE DRIVE. It saves your document every few seconds, which is a blessing. I have lost much work because a pc crashed (which luckily is a little less common these days, but you can never be too careful), or because I accidentally closed Word (I get twitchy fingers after hours of working), or just because I was hungry, got distracted, closed my laptop and it went to sleep on its own, and destroyed all my work in the process. Loss of work looms around every corner, seriously. The only thing with Drive is that it doesn’t allow for many layout options, so to make it look nice I usually download the doc when I’m done, pimp it in Word and save the completed work as PDF (and upload it back on Drive to back it up). It’s a bit more work, but a lot less than if you’d lose your work.

Also, many universities and colleges require you to work on group assignments – this is also where Drive comes in really handily. Nothing is more annoying than working on a Word document, having to send it around, downloading new docs again with tiny edits, and then eventually have someone hand in an old version by accident (it happened to me before). In Drive, you can work with a group of people on one doc, it even has a chat, it keeps track of edits, and you can use comments in the text to highlight and make a note to tell people to change it around. It works splendidly. It made my life so much easier when I was working on my bachelor thesis. So, just do it.

That’s all I have for now! I hope this helps you – now go write that paper, you can do it! If you have any more tips and ideas for my readers, please feel free to share in the comments. Questions are also always welcome .

How to Write Academic Papers Like A Boss | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

You may have noticed that I have been somewhat absent the past few weeks – lo siento! I have been insanely busy with writing the last few papers for my Master’s. I’m done, now, though! Finally.

As I shared a while back, I handed in my Master’s thesis proposal. My supervisor was excited and enthusiastic about my proposed research! While writing those last few papers I got more and more anxious to get started.

To refresh your memory (or to enlighten you, if you’ve been confused by my recent tweets :p), I am currently researching dystopian science fiction movies. Most people who I tell arch their brows at me, confused about how I could possibly mix that with criminology. Let me tell you.

Gattaca

I am looking into how dystopian science fiction movies discuss “formal social control”, that is every kind of control exerted by the authorities (either in classical government form or, as is sometimes depicted in sci-fi, the corporation who plays a governmental role), often in the shape of law enforcement. Not only am I looking at law enforcement, though. Control also includes punishment, so any kind of prison system or punishment modality, and crime risk management. Additionally, I’m looking at how certain scientific technological developments are portrayed in science fiction, but only tech development that is related to social control (such as the use of eye-scanners and DNA profiles for identification).

Society and Movies are Linked

The theory, among some cultural and popular criminologists is that film and society are linked inherently. Sociologists have often thought that movie only portrays “real life”, and so often for crime films, in analysis, people wondered how accurate the depiction of reality was. According to for instance Rafter (2006/2011) is that it’s not important how accurate it is: she says that film is influenced by reality, but that reality is also influenced by film – it’s going both ways (her example, for instance, is John Dillinger’s fascination for movies).

With my research I hope to shed light on what kind of developments have taken place in late modernity (approximately from the 1970′s to now), and how this has influenced formal social control. Science fiction movies are as much a depiction of a possible future as well as social criticism on society today.

The Movies

I will be watching about 40 science fiction movies in the next month, among which In Time (2011), Blade Runner (1982), Soylent Green (1973) – in the law enforcement category, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Children of Men (2006), The Running Man (1987) in the punishment modalities category, Banlieu 13 (2004), District 9 (2009) and Battle Royale (2000) in the crime risk management category, Gattaca (1997), Sleep Dealer (2008) and Strange Days (1995) in the scientific development category. I’ve already seen quite few, though, but I’m also seeing lots of new (to me) movies.

Sleep Dealer

I’m very excited that I can combine my love for science fiction and film with my academic field! I’m very daunted about having to write a coherent, cogent thesis on the matter though. Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone has ever had as much fun writing a thesis as I have, lol.

What are your favorite dystopian science fiction films? What do you think of the capability of sci-fi to deliver social criticism?

Science Fiction & Criminology | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

Recently I researched Neal Shusterman’s novel titled Unwind, and in particular, the concept of restroactive abortion for harvesting organs.

I critically assessed whether this concept could be a solution for the worldwide shortage of donated organs. Current solutions that are offered at the moment are the concept of “presumed consent”, where the state assumes you will donate your organs at death, unless you have explicitly stated otherwise. This is only used in a few countries in Europe, but other countries are considering adopting this policy as well.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Unwind takes place in a near future United States of America, after a Second Civil War has taken place, fought over abortion. The pro-choice and pro-life groups reached a compromise: a constitutional amendment, the Bill of Life, was passed and from then on, parents would be allowed to sign an order for their children between 13 and 18 to be “unwound”. These children are aborted retroactively, taken to “harvest camps”, where their body parts are harvested. The only condition to the Bill of Life was that the lives of these children don’t “technically” end: because all useful body parts are (required to be) taken and reused, the groups reasoned that the children are (technically) not dead, because the individual body parts live on. This is called the “divided state”. The story takes place many years after the Bill of Life was passed and the practice of unwinding is then common and accepted.

As the term suggests, retroactive abortion means abortion after birth, for the sole purpose of organ harvesting, and for the parents to rid themselves (and society) of children that in their eyes are unmanageable. In Unwind, every one child in 2,000 is unwound each year.

A great alternative… or not? Pros and cons(equences)

Retroactive abortion would go great lengths in solving the problem of the organ shortage. On average in the U.S.A., 100,000 people are waiting for an organ, however, only 30,000 transplants are performed each year, and 6,000 Americans die per year while waiting for a transplant. Currently, there are about 35 million children between 13 and 18 years old in the United States (United States Census Bureau, 2011). If the Bill of Life were to be passed today, every year, 0.0005% (1 in 2000) of all children between 13 and 18 years old would be unwound, resulting in 17,500 full-body donations. With every unwound body, multiple patients could receive viable organs, if each Unwind would provide for only five of 21 transplantable organs, the waiting list could be cleared in merely a year.

However, the problems retroactive abortion could cause are serious as well. It seems fairly unimaginable that any pro-life group would agree to abortion of any kind, even by rationalizing that “technically” the soul lives on as the separate body parts live on in the “divided state”. In the novel, the main character is an Unwind who escaped the government on the eve of his arrest (and becomes an AWOL Unwind, absent without leave, as they’re called). There are many of these AWOL Unwinds: shadow people, hunted by the state. Out of necessity, they steal food and other materials and have to defend themselves with violence. The children are never asked their consent for unwinding, and most of them would not agree to it. The disregard to free will in this is quite astounding, the children are left no choice whatsoever, as they are taken away from their homes by bulky officers of the National Juvenile Authority, with force if necessary.

Additionally, resistance groups have come into existence. These groups are strongly against the notion of unwinding. Some of the se groups’ members are turned into “clappers” – they are injected with an unstable chemical substance. At the target location, e.g. harvest camps, all they need do is clap their hands and they explode, they are suicide bombers. There are also resistance groups who do not use violence like the clappers, instead, they rally the AWOLs and bring them to a safe haven where they can hide until they are 18 years old and can no longer be unwound. It is realistic to imagine that crime and violence would increase after a law such as the Bill of Life were passed, even if most of it isn’t visible “on the surface” for most of society.

Another serious problem retroactive abortion poses, however, is the carelessness with the plenty organs and body parts. The masses in Unwind have become used to the notion of retroactive abortion and the abundance of organs. Resistance as mentioned early is actually exceptional – generally, people no longer feel any moral objection to using organs and body parts freely. For instance, eyes are transplanted as fashion statements, or, if an arm is damaged severely in an accident, the entire arm is replaced as to avoid the hassle of reparative surgery. The general carelessness of people about the body parts harvested from the children is actually something that is seen in reality, albeit to a lesser extent, as well. Scheper-Hughes’ (2003)  illustration is painful:

“Dr B. Clemente, Medical Director of Capitol Medical Center in Manila, saw no conflict in advertising to foreigners (especially to patients from the USA and Canada) the availability of modern transplant services at her modest hospital and of fresh kidneys procured from local donors for whom (she said) ‘a few hundred dollars or even a large sack of rice is payment enough’.” 

The body part has become a commodity, it has become a good to be traded, with which relatively rich Western buyers can save their or their beloved’s lives and relatively poor Third World sellers can pay off their debts or satisfy their need for monetary gain. In this sense, this trend could eventually lead to extremities as seen in Unwind, however unlikely it would seem.

To conclude

Ultimately, retroactive abortion would most likely not be accepted worldwide. Although in the U.S.A. alone retroactive abortion would save at least 6,000 lives a year because people no longer have to wait to receive a replacement organ, instead, nearly three times as many youngsters would be lost per year. If retroactive abortion is not a practical solution, and presumed consent is not either in certain parts in the world, all possible alternatives need to be considered that could satisfy cultural and religious demands to solve the organ shortage and prevent further extremities such as organ theft, trafficking and harvesting without consent.

Have you ever considered the worldwide shortage of organs? 

I love science fiction books that go into our real world problems. What other sci-fi’s have you read (or seen) that deal with current problems?

Unwind: Could Retroactive Abortion Work? | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

Some time ago, I started a series called the “Did You Know” series. These posts are all about a certain psychological topic, and shed some light about interesting, funny or just plain weird phenomena. To make these easier to browse, I thought it would be nice to collect them in one place, so here they are!

The Did You Know Series

DYK #1: How to overcome a problem

DYK #2: Interpreting dreams

DYK #3: Smoking while Pregnant

DYK #4: Just-World Fallacy

DYK #5: Phobias

DYK #6: Tetris a cure?

DYK #7: Which works better, standardized or individualized therapy?

DYK #8: What brain areas does a blind person use to read?

DYK #9: Is Binge Eating a recognized mental illness?

DYK #10: Would you rather let something bad happen than cause it?

DYK #11: Drinking coffee – healthy or health hazard?

DYK #12: I’m so ugly, I’d rather be dead

DYK #13: Listening to music is biological

DYK #14: Abu Ghraib = Stanford Prison Experiment

DYK #15: Does our perception fool us?

Which is your favorite? What did you already know?

Did You Know Psychology – The Collection | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

I took a year-long break from blogging – not proud of it, but I had to recharge. Before I took my break, I blogged about 4-5 times a week for about a year (yeah, no wonder I got a blogging-block). Back then I was always quite concerned with my website audience, and often checked my Google Analytics. Actually, I had a little plugin for my Google Chrome that would keep me up to date of my numbers all the time. I was a little obsessed.

Then, my break. I didn’t even look at the website for a while. When I returned a year later, I checked my Analytics, and was absolutely flabbergasted.

I still got 6000 unique page views per month. 

That’s quite the crowd. In the existence of this website, I have attracted one hundred and twenty thousand individuals to my website. Yeah, that’s a bit daunting. Whether or not these people return to my website in my opinion is not very important – they find my website, read my blogs and see my work!

How come I got these kinds of ratings? I know you too want more than just your mom, dad, significant other and grandma to read your blogs. So, let me tell you.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Yes, you have probably heard about Search Engine Optimization about a million times. But trust me, don’t discard this one! It’s probably the most important reason I get so many visitors. Google is my friend. See the evidence here:

Traffic sources (of all time)

Almost 60% of my visitors find me through search engines. And most of them find me through Google. Look:

Search Engines Data (of all time)

How good a friend of mine is Google? About 94%. I’d call that a best friend.

SEO can be really complicated. I’ve mostly come across complicated explanations that make my brain hurt. Algorithms schmalgorithms, I say. My trick?

The WordPress SEO Plugin

All you need to do is install this baby on your WordPress (or, if you use a different content manager, I am sure they have SEO plugins for those as well), toy around a little with the settings (not too much or you blow stuff up), and make sure you fill in the WordPress SEO details for every post. It will even give you a page analysis on what you can do to improve your SEO. Once you’ve done that, you are set!

2. Don’t underestimate StumbleUpon.com

Almost 30% of my visitors finds my website through referral websites. In the following table I want to focus on StumbleUpon.com for now.

Referral Data (of all time)

SU.com is number one of all referral sources! It has sent me about 10,000 visitors which is pretty impressive.

StumbleUpon needs people to add a certain page to their database (I won’t go into detail too much, if you are interested in exactly how it works, go visit their site). So what I always do is, as soon as I’ve published another blog post, I upload my page to their database. You can install a StumbleUpon plugin into your web browser (Chrome, Firefox) and make it even easier (click the thumbs up button in the bar to go to the add page). Or, if you have social media buttons added to your blog post, add SU.com as well and use that one.

You’ll be directed to an “add page”, where you can add your blog. Fill in the details as carefully and fully as you can and select appropriate tags (I usually skip on the comment though). That’s all there is to it! From there, people will automatically stumble upon your site through SU.com’s randomizer.

I admit it’s a hassle to have to add each blog manually to SU.com, but as you can see, it pays off.

One last tip: make sure you don’t change the URLs of your blogs after you’ve added them to the SU.com database – once you do, it can’t find your posts anymore.

3. Don’t overestimate Facebook and Twitter

As you can see in the table above, Facebook and Twitter combined lead only about 7% of my audience to my website. Harrumph. That’s not very many. I spend a lot of time trying to write good tweets, deciding which hashtags to use, etcetera. Perhaps these numbers are more an indication of my sucking badly at social media, but … Somehow I do doubt it.

I know you reach more people on Twitter than on Facebook (even more so now that FB has their immensely stupid Promote rules, limiting your audience even further). But I think that (and this is from personal experience) people have a “READ MY BLOG PLZ” overload, from all the blog-shares going on on Twitter. I very rarely open a link to a blog anymore, and if I do, it must have really appealed to me. I’ve become a lot more efficient with my time, lately, and not spending hours reading random blogs I found through Twitter is part of that. I can imagine others feel the same.

But, are all my efforts to spread the word through social media futile? No, certainly not. And this is why.

Why this isn’t a reason you should give up on social media

Look, my data aren’t really useful for a generalization (the external validity is rather low). Your data would probably look quite different compared to mine. I took a year-long blogging break, and during that time, I did not really share anything on Twitter or Facebook, either. So, people technically and practically couldn’t find my stuff on there!

What I think really speaks for the use of the social media is the following (click on them to enlarge)

As you can see above, although Google and Stumbleupon send me a lot of visitors, these people tend not to visit the site for long. They visit one, occasionally two pages. The amount of new visits is high, but the bounce rate is, too (80% of the Google visitors closes the page after just a few seconds, deciding this was not what they were looking for).

However, the stats for Twitter and Facebook show something entirely different. They more often visit two or more pages, they tend to take their time to read on the site, the amount of people who return here more often is actually higher, plus people are much less likely to close the page after a few seconds.

Morale of the story? Although you attract tons of people through the search engines, they might find your blog post didn’t really match their search query and will close your site immediately. However, the ones that decide to click on your tweeted/shared link on FB or Twitter do so because it appeals to them. They take their time reading your site, and quite likely also return if they like what they see.

So there are pros and cons to both SEO/SU.com and Social Media: with the former, you reach a lot of different people, with the latter, you reach less people, but you reach the people that are already interested in you and/or in what you write.

4. Lastly, write a lot (but not too much)

My last tip is to write a lot. I have published many posts that attract people. Another tip: write about a few topics, don’t limit yourself to one. You’ll attract more kinds of people. But make sure it’s not too haphazard – my posts have always been related to what I do in my academic career, what I find interesting and stuff that I use for my books. If it’s too far removed from what you think would make your blog readers buy your book, they won’t buy it (and this applies to any kind of business, really). It’s as simple as that.

On the other hand, don’t write too much, or you’ll be burnt out like I was. Four to five posts a week is doable with more people, but trust me, two to a maximum of three is more than enough on your own. And you’ll appear as more stable and trustworthy to your returning reader, too.

And then, one very last piece of advice: don’t expect major changes in your stats overnight. For instance, Google’s algorithms work in such a way that once your site is visited more, it will put you on the top of the search results more often. That takes time – give it that. Don’t check your analytics every day, because you’ll be obsessed and disappointed, like I was.

Well, that is it for now! I hope this is useful to you. If you have any questions, please ask .

If you have any tips for me or other readers, please share them in the comments section. What do you do to attract people to your site?

How to Build an Online Audience | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

I haven’t shared an update on myself for some time and I probably should. I sent in my thesis proposal last week and I’m crazy excited about it. It’s cultural criminological and focuses on “society” as a whole, so it’s very macro. This is my research question:

How do dystopian science fiction films discuss developments in formal social control in late modernity?

I’m going to have to watch about 70 dystopian science fiction movies, relate them to real-life developments in … formal social control. That’s control exerted by the government (or a government-like institution), and I’m focusing on law enforcement, risk management, punishment technologies and technological development. I am so excited about it because I get to mix my three favorite topics in the world – movies, science fiction and criminology! Ah! I cannot wait to get started.

I’ve picked up the blog again after what I never realized really was a blogging-block. I’m really proud to admit though that my blogging break actually didn’t matter much for this website, even during my absence I got between four and seven THOUSAND unique visitors every month. But I’m happier I’m back.

You might have noticed, too, that I’ve been working on a new project, called Spirit, and I’ve already posted two teasers. I’m very excited about it!

Anywho, I have some instagram pics for you. If you don’t follow me on Instagram yet, feel free to! You can find me here.

Instagram!

The building my favorite coffeeshop is in!

Sunrise – from our bedroom window

Poh and I

A pretty house in my hometown (Utrecht)

Sneaky Poh!

Man, it was cold this month. O_o

Poh killed my orchid

He then made it up to me by being irresistably cute.

I got a haircut two months ago but hadn’t shared a pic yet, so here it is!

Then I found the Photo Grid app for Android (sorta like Pic Stitch for iOS)

Got myself a KeepCup! And who says you can’t let them wrap it as a gift, even though it’s just for yourself? This makes it so much more fun! ^^

We had our first spring weather here in The Netherlands and I immediately went up our roof to soak in the vitamin D. Omg. So relaxed!

Oh and lastly, I wanted to share this 3-minute TED clip, which is the absolute coolest thing I’ve seen in some time.

How has your start of March (god, time flies, new year’s was yesterday!) been? Did anything exciting happen?

On Life, Thesis & Orchids | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

This is the fourth and last installment series on the Global Drugs Trafficking. Before, we discussed the basics of drug trade (Discover the Trade, pt. 1), how organic drugs are grown (How to Grow Coca and Opium Poppies, pt. 2), and how the drugs are produced (How Heroin, Cocaine and Meth are Produced, pt. 3).

Today, we’ll discuss the distribution of the drugs. After production, the drugs need to be distributed around the world. As is usual for the posts I write on drug trafficking, my source is the UNODC World Drugs Report (2010).

Distribution closely linked to demand. Where the demand is, the drugs go.

Distribution of Cocaine

Cocaine demands are high worldwide. However, there has been a shift in where the drug is in demand. Before (1998), cocaine was particularly popular in the USA. Nearly three-quarters of cocaine produced was shipped to and consumed in the US. In the past few years, demand for cocaine has increased in Europe and the amount of drugs distributed to the US and Europe are almost equal.

On the figure on the right you can see the global cocaine flows and how they have changed between 1998 and 2008. What is particularly interesting is that cocaine, these days, is more often shipped from South America to the African continent, where it is then shipped to Europe. Additionally, the Caribbean route seems to have become less popular (perhaps because of the alternative African route).

What I miss in this figure, is that it lacks information on cocaine flows to Asia. In the World Drug Report, it is mentioned that cocaine is consumed in Asia, and it has become increasingly popular on the continent. However, unfortunately I can’t say anything about the flows to the continent.

Ways of Transportation

From the Andes Region to the US

Most of the cocaine enters the US through the Mexican border. Border cities Juárez (Mexico) and El Paso (TX, USA) are where most of the drug-smuggling magic happens. The US has put fences along the national border between the two cities and regulate all road customs, but the cartels have found their ways to still get the drugs across. They have dug tunnels, and they’re not the tunnels you’d imagine. Some of these tunnels are thousands of miles long, with electricity and little mine-like trains running through them. The US border patrol has found a few of these tunnels in recent years.

Juárez is actually one of the most violent cities of the world. Since Mexico started their drugs war to break the power of the cartels in 2006, over 15,000 people have died (“Life and Death in Juárez, the World’s Murder Capital“, The Guardian, 2009).

Other cocaine shipments enter the US by water, often through big ports in Florida (particularly Miami) and Texas.

From the Andes Region to Europe

We Dutch quite often hear about cocaine smugglers in the news. “An individual was caught on Schiphol airport (Amsterdam), smuggling 2 kilos of cocaine in his belly”, or someone was caught with twenty kilos in a suitcase, or they had it concealed in their clothes. Twenty kilo, or even two, is nothing. It’s even irrelevant, which is interesting because you rarely hear about the large amounts of cocaine seized in the European ports.

Most cocaine enters Europe through the big ports. The port of Rotterdam (The Netherlands) is an important one, but due to language barriers, the cocaine smugglers (who evidently mostly speak Portuguese and Spanish) head for the big ports of Spain and Portugal. The amounts that are caught in these ports are astonishing. Occasionally “small” hauls of 300 kilos are seized, and in August 2011, the UK seized their biggest shipment of cocaine ever. The shipment consisted of 1,2 tons of cocaine, worth an estimated £300 million (nearly US $500 million) and it was destined for Rotterdam harbor (“Seized Cocaine Shipment Is The Largest Ever Seized In Britain“, UK News Gateway, 2011).

Distribution of Heroin and Opium

As I portrayed in the first, more general post on global drug trafficking, heroin has become slightly less popular, worldwide. Because of this, it has also become cheaper and thus has become more popular on the African continent and Eastern Europe (no exact causal correlation here, but this is, in a very basic sense, what’s happened).

On the figure on the right you can see the heroin and opium flows from Asia. Approximately 80% of all heroin produced comes from Afghanistan, next biggest producer is Burma (Myanmar) and a few percent come from the countries surrounding them. A few tiny percent come from the Andes Region, which aren’t even displayed in this figure.

Afghanistan has three main routes through which the heroin is smuggled, but after it’s passed through these main routes (through Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia and Russia), the heroin and opium are spread all over the continent. They seem to have a multitude of ways to smuggle the drugs.

Most of the smuggling goes by land – often carried by camels and other pack animals, in caravans. From Iran, the drugs are often carried to other destination by air or sea, in cargo containers. The shipments to North America are most often smuggled by plane.

Interestingly, what’s mentioned in the World Drug Report but not clearly displayed on the figure is that most heroin coming from Pakistan goes to the UK and The Netherlands. Pakistan is also the biggest supplier of heroin to Africa.

A recent BBC report (“Nigerian officials find heroin in shipment from Iran“, BBC, 2010) mentions a seizure of 130 kilos of heroin in the seaport of Lagos, Nigeria. The entire shipment was worth nearly $10 million, and the drugs were hidden in engine parts. What’s interesting is that in the World Drugs Report, a figure displays the nationalities of people caught in Pakistan for heroin trafficking, 32% is Pakistani and 32% is Nigerian. 14% falls in the “Other” category, the remaining 22% is made up of a lot of other African nationalities. That’s very interesting!

 ***

 What are your thoughts about the global flows of heroin and cocaine? Are there any bits of information here that surprised you or that you find particularly interesting?

Global Drugs Trafficking #4: Distribution of Heroin and Cocaine | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog

Added to Global Health Care Alliance Cloud on July 7, 2133 by Koizumi, Y.M., M.D.

(click to enlarge image)

This is part of a blog series that introduces the world of Spirit. These are bits and pieces of news, blogs, diary entrances, files and charts, of when the human race ran out of souls. 

Curious for more? At least every two weeks more will be reveiled. You can discuss Spirit on Twitter or other social media with hashtag #NoMoreSouls. 

Spirit Series: Soulless Medical Trials Example: Resident #429, Tokyo | Manon Eileen - a Writer's Blog