Perhaps you have watched one of Ree Drummond‘s programs on the Food Network. That is only one region of her world and there are so many others I have only begun to explore. She is also a wife, a mother who homeschools her four children, and somehow finds time to sustain one of the most popular blogs. She characterizes herself as “a desperate housewife” who lives on a ranch in Oklahoma, channeling Lucille Ball, Vivien Leigh, and Ethel Merman. To check out her world, please click here.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Here are the first three of ten (actually eleven) “things” she has learned.

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1. Be yourself.

o Write in your own voice.
o Write as if you’re talking to your sister.
o Unless you don’t get along with your sister.
o Or don’t have a sister.

2. Blog often.

o Whether you write a sixteen-paragraph essay about the cosmic implications of a free market system, a one-paragraph description of what happens to your soul when you walk into your godforsaken laundry room, or a simple photo and caption, consider your blog a precious bloom that requires daily nurturing.
o And watering.
o If you water a plant once every two weeks, it will shrivel.
o Unless that plant is a cactus, and then it would thrive.
o And to tell you the truth, I really can’t figure out how a cactus fits into this analogy, so forget I brought it up.

3. Be varied.

o Change things up.
o Offer a smorgasbord of content.
o Unless you’re, say, a fashion blog.
o And in that case, you should probably continue to blog about fashion.
o But never blog about the same top twice!

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To read the complete post, please click here.

Ann Marie (“Ree”) Drummond is an award-winning American blogger, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author (The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl and The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels–A Love Story), food writer, photographer and television personality who lives on a working ranch outside of Pawhuska, Oklahoma.