If you find yourself in a midlife slump, it's a good idea to learn something new. And it really helps if you have a partner in crime. Pat Leuchtman is mine. 

We have both been writers for newspapers and magazines for decades, but over the past few years, we've been exploring self-publishing. Dogged freelancers, we got tired of the low pay and fickle editors, and decided to take matters into our own hands by going on the web. Fiftyshift is my result, Commonweeder is hers.

(Now the "low pay" is "no pay." Ah, well.)

I also develop and teach new media courses. When I started, several years ago,  it was fairly easy to keep one step ahead of students. Not so anymore. So this summer, I'm learning more about video. 

Pat and I got together at her kitchen table in Heath this afternoon for a terrific webinar on blogging from NewsU, Poynter Institute's professional training unit. If you're getting started with your writing or self publishing, check out  NewsU, which offers lots of free or low-cost resources. (Also, you might be interested in the writing resources and tips at  my teaching site bjroche.com.)

There are lots of free or low-cost, web-based training workshops that can help de-mystify this new-tech world, which we all need to navigate, regardless of which field we're in. Dive in and don't get left behind.

Back to the video. This summer we are all about the monetization--how we can start to make some money from our sites. One idea was to see if Pat could start doing webinars about gardening from her site.

Inspired by the NewsU seminar, I pulled out my little Nikon CoolPix camera for a dry-run. I shot the video, uploaded it to my YouTube account, and posted the embed code into my "source" file on this post. Take a look, and let us know what you think.

                                                                               --B.J. Roche