Beth Howard had a good life. After bailing out of the dot-com biz she worked in a Malibu pastry shop and became a pie baker to the stars, met the love of her life, traveled, settled down in Iowa and started what’s become a popular pie blog, The World Needs More Pie. Then, as she was starting to write a book about pie, her husband died unexpectedly. Flash forward 18 months and Howard not only got back to writing the pie book, she sold it to Harlequin Non-Fiction for publication in summer 2012. Read the first chapter of Making Piece: A Memoir about Love, Loss and Pie. Just like a good slice of apple cinnamon pie, I promise it’ll leave you wanting more.

More on Writing

Writing Advice and Blog Topics Sent Weekly (ChrisBrogan.com) – Master blogger – and self promoter – Chris Brogan now offers a weekly Blog Topics newsletter featuring writing prompts he says makes regular blogging easier. Subscribe for $9.97 a month. Not ready to shell out the big bucks? Here’s a freebie from Brogan: 20 Blog Topics to Get You Unstuck.

Data journalism discussion recap (WebJournalism.org) – From March 4 #wjchat.

More on the media business:

Google’s Journalism Prize and the 5 Groups That Should Win It (Fast Company) – The magazine looks at five examples of journalism innovation to inspire contestants after $2.7 million in prize money being offered by the search giant.

All of Facebook’s Like Buttons on Third-Party Sites Now Publish a Full News Feed Story (Facebook Insider) – I just tested this and can verify that it’s happening. If you read a story on a website and click on the Facebook “Like” button the publisher’s included, it will now publish the story’s headline, site and short story summary to your Facebook status.

More on inspiration:

The Worst Moments are Your Best Opportunity (Seth’s Blog)

In honor of the 2010 WordCount Blogathon, which starts May 1 -tomorrow! - today’s edition of my weekly roundup of good reading and good writing is devoted to bloggers, blogging and blogs.

ProBlogger - Whenever I have a question about blogs, ProBlogger is my first stop. Lately I’ve been researching advertising and ProBlogger didn’t let me down. I found the most comprehensive explanation of anywhere I looked on how a solo blogger like me should set blog ad rates. Is this great writing? It won’t win any Pulitzers. But if you’re a blogger, it’s a veritable fount of information.

Break the blogging rules – Do this, don’t do that, make sure you remember SEO. Don’t you ever get sick of people telling you what to do on your blog – including me? If so, you’ll love these blogging rule breakers. First, Seth Godin. An Internet marketing trendsetter, Godin’s blog, which is simply called Seth’s Blog, breaks all the rules: no links (in some posts), titles that are anything but SEO, subjects that are all over the place. But the stuff he talks about – priceless. Next, Lisa Barone, chief branding officer at Outspoken Media, whose recent post The 5 Old Blogging Rules Killing Your Readership has been making the rounds. Barone argues that tried-and-true blogging rules about short posts being better and page views being the end all be all are outmoded ways of thinking. Even if you don’t agree with what she says 100 percent, it’s food for thought.

Writer-bloggers we love – When it comes to blogs on writing or blogging, some writers have it down cold. Susan Johnson is one of them – and I’m not just saying that because she’s a 2010 Blogathon sponsor. Johnson’s blog, The Urban Muse, is well-organized, has lots of extras and above all, is always an interesting read. Other blogs about blogging worth checking out: Blogging Basics 101 – the name says it all – Copyblogger and Daily Blog Tips. Want more? Here’s Daily Blog Tips’ list of top 25 blogs about blogging.

A newspaper lover’s newspaper – How could you not love Dave Eggers? He comes out with a book that redefines the memoir. He edits a respected literary journal, he makes movies and on top of all that, is incredibly good looking (here’s photographic proof in case you need it). He’s also an unabashed newspaper lover and Panorama is proof, as this Chicago Tribune Q&A with Eggers shows. Panorama is a McSweeney’s Issue No. 33, a one-time only, Sunday-edition size print newspaper, the San Francisco Panorama. It came out over Thanksgiving 2009; copies are $16 and you can get one shipped via FedEx. Or you can see images here.

Reinventing the metro daily – That’s what Jonathan Weber says he’s setting out to do as editor of the yet-to-pick-a-real-name Bay Area News Project, the Warren Hellman-funded nonprofit news organization. SF Weekly.com’s The Snitch caught Weber’s Feb. 24 presentation, which was part explainer, part job fair. Right now Weber’s hiring 15 people, half of them reporters. Interested parties can read more about open positions here.

No apologies – How many blog posts have you read – or written for that matter – that open with an apology? “Dear Reader: I’m sorry it’s been 3 months since my last blog post.” Or “Dear Reader: I’m so busy I don’t have time to write something longer.” Hey, so what? We really don’t care why you were away so long. We just want to know what’s on your mind today. Marketing guru Seth Godin nails this one in typical Zen master fashion in a post called Why are you apologizing? The post isn’t about blogging, but it could be. It’s also an example of good writing that’s short: not everything worth reading has to be long.

A picture’s worth 1,000 words – Not everything worth reading is words either. Case in point – this chart put out by the Obama administration showing U.S. job losses from December 2007 to January 2010, roughly the length of the recession. All politics aside, look at how striking that image is – a deep V that bottoms out right around the time George Bush left office, and starts creeps back up again once Obama shows up. Sure, there’s some text on the page, but really, what else do you need to know?

Great writing doesn’t always equal the most page views, but that’s OK - Om Malik is a respected analyst, pundit, blogger and all around smart guy who built the GigaOm network of seven blogs covering Silicon Valley and the tech industry. Malik came to his own defense recently after another blogger called him out for not having the traffic of a TechCrunch or Mashable. That’s true, but it’s not the point, Malik wrote. Instead of going for quantity, go for quality, value and relationships.

I’ll weigh in on my picks for the highlights and low points of the freelance business during the past year in the next few days.

But first, a present. I’d just started wondering what to write this week that would get people pumped for the possibilities the new year will bring – and I’m optimist there will be a lot of them. Then I read something that reminded me of an email I got right before Christmas. An old friend had sent me a copy of a free e-book from Internet marketer Seth Godin called What Matters Now. I didn’t have time to read it before. But I today I did – and it’s just what I was looking for.

Godin, who’s written numerous marketing books over the last decade, asked 70 people – writers, thinkers, Internet gurus and more – to come up with one word they want people to think about in 2010 and explain why they picked it.

The 82-page booklet is best read like one of those daily inspiration calendars – a little at a time. Wired Editor Chris Anderson expounds on atoms, management expert Tom Peters on excellence, and money makeover radio show host Dave Ramsey on intensity.

Like it? Share it. It’s free and, as usual, Godin’s doing his best to make sure it goes viral.

Because goodness knows we could all use a little encouragement after the last 12 months.

It’s got me contemplating my own tribes. There are the obvious ones – my extended family, the parents of children my kids go to school with, friends I went to high school or college with.

Then there are the writing tribes I belong to. When I worked at a daily newspaper, the other reporters were my tribe.

When I went freelance, not only did I lose my full-time paycheck, I lost my tribe. Instead of being part of a pack of 300, suddenly I was on my own – at least that’s what it felt like at the time.

It’s partly the reason journalists – anybody really – feel discombobulated after losing a job. Suddenly the tribe you’ve identified with for as long as you held that job has vanished.

But as Godin points out, the Internet is the perfect tribe-making tool because it makes communicating so easy. First it was through email listservs, then IM and chat rooms on online services like AOL, then the Web, blogs, and now the ultimate tribal circles, social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn and so on and so on.

Today, I’m part of several writing tribes. Knit them together and they’re the buddy system I lost when I left the newsroom. They’ve become intrinsic to my professional identity.

My tribes:

Freelance Success – A subscription-based writer’s community with a weekly newsletter and pay-rate database. For me and many of the hundreds of professional writers who pay the site’s $99 annual fee, the best part is the message boards, which are active, civil and cover topics such as magazines, corporate writing, blogs, travel writing and books.

#EditorChat - A weekly online chat on FriendFeed.com hosted by Motley Fool finance writer Tim Beyers and business feature writer Lydia Dishman that takes on all manner of subjects writers and editors care about. #Editorchat happens Wednesday nights at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. The latest discussion covered the types of work or household tasks freelancers outsource to buy themselves more time to work – or would if they could afford it. Earlier discussions have covered the New York Times’ decision to have columnists teach online classes, writing for content aggregators and hyperlocal news.

Twitter – Writers use Twitter many ways – to connect with sources, promote a story, showcase a blog. Another is to synch up with fellow writers. I follow several hundred writers and editors and am followed by a like number. We use it like a mini-message board, to share tips, answer quick questions or exchange atta boys. If you’re a writer, follow me at
@MichelleRafter and I’ll follow you back.

Portland digital media scene – A collection of writers, bloggers, podcasters, software developers and other media types with one thing in common – living and working here in Portland. This is probably the most loosely defined tribe I’m in. Portland’s media tribe hangs out at the Green Dragon on Fridays for Beer and Blog, goes to WordPress user groups meetings and WordCamp Portland (the next one’s Sept. 19-20 at Webtrends), and congregates at Mediabistro.com cocktail parties (which, BTW, somebody needs to resurrect – Mediabistro, if you read this, I’m happy to volunteer). The area’s digerati coalesced in the biggest way ever when more than 150 locals got together at the Digital Journalism Camp in August to listen to panels on hyperlocal news, new revenue models, podcasting and more.

UPOD – A Yahoo group for experienced freelancers led by Los Angeles freelancer David Hochman that I tune into via email.

Online News Association – This trade group for professional journalists who specialize in digital media has benefited from the demise of traditional (print) media in the past year, witnessed by a major uptick in membership. The group holds an annual convention – this year’s is in San Francisco Oct. 2-4 and I’ll be there – regular online and in-person classes, an online journalism awards competition, member discussion forum and offers other benefits and resources.

These tribes have become the places I look for help, bounce ideas off people, blow off steam when I’m frustrated with a story or editor or visit when I just want to talk.

As more people work freelance – not just writers but all kinds of freelancers – expect to see more tribes. That’s what all the fuss is over social networks, which ones are the best tool for creating tribes. It’s why Facebook and Twitter are such big news, why investors still pour money into social network start ups and everyone from job boards to media outlets are tacking on a community component to their websites – think of it as tribal warfare.

Are you in a tribe?

Here are some I never want to hear or write again:

At the end of the day – Normally spoken by marketing directors or vice presidents in phone interviews. Meaning to sum things up.  I’ve heard this one since the early 1990s. Enough.

Enterprise – Beam me up Scotty, so I can escape from this one, a common substitute for the words “company” or “business,” especially to describe one that’s really, really big.

Grrl - A human female of a certain, normally younger, age who understands technical stuff. Those extra r’s make her sound mad.

Mashup – A new one I’m already tired of. A noun that describes two or more Web-based software programs that have been glued together in some fashion. The old business about 1+1=3.

Meme – Never could understand what it was supposed to mean. And if the writer can’t, imagine how the poor reader feels.

Platform - The hardware or operating system software that a specific software program runs on. Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS are operating system software platforms. Confused? Everybody else is too.

Solution – Catch-all phrase used to describe a product or service, ideally one that solves a potential customer’s problem. So why not just say that.

Space – Particular area of business a company sells to or operates in. As in, “Microsoft is the leading vendor in the enterprise email space.” Thanks to my editor friend Carroll for coming up with this one.

Techno – When used as a prefix, describes something technical, such as “technogeek.” Not to be confused with the kind of music my college-age daughter listens to.

Thinking outside the box – Once fast food restaurants start riffing on this in their ad campaigns, you know it’s time to put a fork in it (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).

Transparency - How forthcoming an organization is about something. Generally used in the negative, as in “There’s little transparency about how they plan to introduce their solution into the space.” Ugh. UPDATE: Adding a shout out to Susan Weiner, a freelance investment writer who blogs at Investment Writing for this word, which was the inspiration for the post.

User – There’s no getting around this one. because the word is so darn, well, useful. So why does it make me feel like I’m calling people drug addicts. I make coffee in a French press every morning, but I don’t refer to myself as a “French press user.” So why do people insist on referring to someone with a PC as a “PC user”?

Web 2.0 – Software programs you use all the time that live on the Internet instead of on your computer’s hard drive. Veiled reference to numbering system companies use to identify software upgrades. For Web 2.0, think Facebook and YouTube, but also Salesforce.com, Gmail and My Yahoo. Great innovations, but when writers start putting “2.0″ after everything – Dating 2.0 anyone? -  it’s time to say goodbye.

Like this kind of stuff? You can read a bunch more at marketer/blogger Seth Godin’s Encyclopedia of Business Cliches.