From the Ashers - Stories from us, The Ashers
Home
BLOG
    Latest Blogs
    Beautiful Things
    Creativity
    Kids
    Family
    Food
    Hitwave Alison
    Life
    Music
    Weekends
    Writing
MEMBERS
    SECRET ASHER STORIES
    BECOME A MEMBER
    Login
    My Account
About Me
Contact Alison
From the Ashers - Stories from us, The Ashers
  • Home
  • BLOG
    • Latest Blogs
    • Beautiful Things
    • Creativity
    • Kids
    • Family
    • Food
    • Hitwave Alison
    • Life
    • Music
    • Weekends
    • Writing
  • MEMBERS
    • SECRET ASHER STORIES
    • BECOME A MEMBER
    • Login
    • My Account
  • About Me
  • Contact Alison
BLOG
Archive
Creativity

Problogger Conference for Not a Problogger

Surfers Paradise QT
01/09/2014 by Alison Asher 26 Comments

If you follow many Aussie blogs you’ll probably already know there was a Problogger conference this weekend on the Gold Coast.

Surfers Paradise QT

Surfers: The view from The QT

 

There are people more experienced and more savvy than me who can tell you how it all went down, and I don’t suppose you’d be all that interested in what I learned over the weekend anyway, but I do want to tell you two things, both consisting of equal and opposite energy for me, just like Newton told us it would be.

Firstly, at the end of Day One I was completely bereft.

I thought this was the most soul-destroying seminar I’d ever been to.

Problogger is, as I’m sure you’ll have figured out, about monetising your blog.  Being paid to blog.  I’ve been blogging for just over a year, and I had an idea that being paid to do this might be something I could do.  But as the day wore on, it became patently obvious that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing here, with respect to earning buck$ for blogging.  I don’t have a niche, a specific tone, or a message.  I don’t provide anything useful, nor do I solve any of your problems.  I don’t have products or ideas to sell you. I’m a personal blogger, and that means this space is all about me.  Not really the kind of thing that lends itself to paid content or advertising.  Two other things also became obvious: I have no clue what all the techy stuff is about (SEO, what?) and being a paid blogger appears to involve a shit-load of work.  So two things I do.not.like appear to be important.

So I almost ditched the whole remainder of the seminar to quaff Cosmopolitans by the pool.

Some would say this is a pattern of mine, but I’d tell them to shut up and mind their own.

Luckily, I was there with a mate who knows me better than I know myself most times, and she pretty much forbade me to miss a single Saturday session.  Which was a good thing, for redemption was just around the corner, in the guise of Matthew Michalewicz, heralding the second big thing I needed to know.

He reminded me of many things that I needed a nudge with, and most of all, the concept that when we say we can’t do something, what we really mean, is that the motivation isn’t great enough.  Yet.  I may have said I could not learn all the computery things required to run this blog properly, but as Matthew would say; if my whole family would die if I didn’t figure it out, I probably could.  And fast.

And of course, as always, a concept that applies to you in one area of your life, will cross over into others.  This “I can’t” mantra doesn’t only apply to my bloggy life, but to my work, my family, my finances.  I can.  I just need compelling leverage.  Which also involves going back to the original idea, the thing I’m saying I can’t do, and double check that it is something that I really want, and that it isn’t just some notion that I’ve grabbed from the air, or from someone else’s bag of tricks.  The difference between something I should do and something I want to do.

Sometimes it’s good to get a whack of perspective when I’m being a big whining baby.

And a free book.

Life in half a second book

Thanks Matthew xx

 

 

Is there anything you’ve been saying you can’t do (that you claim you want to do)?

What do you do or say to yourself to get your mojo back?

…From The Ashers xx

 

Share:
Food•Travel

The Best Cafe in Surfers Paradise

by Alison Asher 2 Comments

I love Surfers Paradise.

I love the buildings that are trying to reach the clouds, and keep the beach a secret.  I love the lurid pink neon, and the noise of traffic and tension.  I love the seedy bars, and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not? and the smell of salt and carbon monoxide mixed together.  I love the tattoos, and the bustling energy, and the women who look twenty-two from behind and sixty-five in the face.

But I don’t love the cafes.  And that’s okay, because I don’t come to the Goldy for fine food and wine, I come for fun, and a taste of something a little wilder, and little bit more edgy than my perfectly arranged seaside town.  I come for a little bit of naughty.

Today I found a little gem that I didn’t expect.  Nestled between restaurants in the Soul Sea Temple complex is a special slice of Melbourne-Up-North.  Complete with a roof of tiles that could be from Flinders Street Station and walls of concrete that could be from the City Square, is Cafe Elston.

Cafe Elston sign

Cafe Elston

urban lights

Industry lights

Cafe elston

Blackboard sign Cafe Elston

 

The staff are so pretty they could have been ripped out of an ad for Beat Magazine, with their carefully coiffed hair and beards and freshly inked forearms.  I could have spent most of the afternoon trying to read their cutely colourful body art, but there were Bennys and cheese boards to be eaten, Espresso Martinis to drink, and cupcakes to gorge on.  Even the beer list was something to savour, with ice cold White Rabbit and My Wife’s Bitter to slake a karaoke croaky throat.

Eggs Benedict

Botanical Benny

 

It was love at first sight when I saw Cafe Elston, which bloomed into true love when I was presented with the delicate blossoms of dishes created by some arty chef in the kitchen.  I suspected they were constructed by a mincy little pixie but when I glimpsed him a couple of times during my extended stay, the incongruous was almost jarring: tattooed and blokey and more at home at a Nirvana concert than making fiddly floral food art.

cheese board

Cheese Board

Butterscotch cupcake

Butterscotch Cupcakes

 

Thanks Cafe Elston.  You have managed walk a fine line between urban and garden, with surprising prettiness and cheeky Surfers fun.  A playful slice of Paradise that has an attitude I want to hang around with.

Perhaps the Gold Coast is shedding some of her slightly tattered glittery clothes and acting her age.  I like it.

 

Have you been to the Gold Coast lately?

Where is your fave place to hang out on the Goldy?

…From The Ashers xx

Share:

Recent Posts

  • Of Course 20/09/2021
  • Waiting to Exhale 17/09/2021
  • Hey Rick, Bit Weird 15/09/2021
  • Somedays We Bop 13/09/2021
  • In Love With Love 31/08/2021
  • Homage to Carla, Part 2 26/08/2021

Blog Roll

  • Woogsworld
  • Styling You

Recommended Links

  • Chicks Who Click
  • Quest Chiropractic Coaching

Recent Comments

  • Alison Asher on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “I love that Paul. That smile! (And daring you.. she was always the most daring wasn’t she?)” Sep 16, 09:48
  • Alison Asher on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “OH Tan, I didn’t know you had the boots! I’m so pleased as I never wanted them to go to…” Sep 16, 07:30
  • Tania on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “Love it. I have those bloody cowboy boots in my wardrobe and they will never leave my side. Just loved…” Sep 15, 22:29
  • PB on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “My memory shifts between the intensity of her eyes when she spoke to me…..controlling me ,enveloping me, daring me ….to…” Sep 15, 21:49
  • Alison Asher on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “Oh Trace. I’m so sorry to hear that. One foot in front of the other, ‘eh? Do you have a…” Sep 15, 18:42
  • Tracy K-S on Hey Rick, Bit Weird: “Good reflection for me on what has been a tough few weeks. A new friend was diagnosed with cancer today…” Sep 15, 18:35

View Blog Categories

  • Beautiful Things
  • Chiropractic
  • Creativity
  • Family
  • Food
  • Hitwave Alison
  • Inspo stuff
  • Kids
  • Life
  • Music
  • Secret Asher Stories
  • Travel
  • Weekends
  • Writing

© 2020 Alison Asher | Privacy Policy