Today I met a senior, a man who has a profitable art business he's been working at for over thirty years. He buys canvasses from Mexico, spending $5000 at a time, then transfers pictures to them in a way that makes them look like paintings… very beautiful, detailed paintings!

He has a route on the USA west coast going to restaurants to hang his pictures, and they're priced low so people buy them frequently. The only problem is that this year, because of the recession, many restaurants are closing so his income has gone down.

I love the creativity of small business people. It is great to know that people are making money with art. Art contributes to the well-being and sanity of people, treating their souls to the solace of beauty.

When I started a small business for the first time in 2003, I also sold an art - the art of webdesign. You might think of that as a high-tech skill, but I always felt it was an art form, to create a beautiful and attractive website for a client's business.

After I closed the business in 2007 I wanted to continue using my webdesign site for something useful, and decided to blog about how to start a webdesign business. I also made a lens to go with it on starting a webdesign business. I've been surprised at how well that lens has done!

People want small business ideas and inspirations. There's so much uncertainty going into a business, prospective entrepreneurs scan the web looking for help and advice. I very much recommend making a lens about how to build a small business, especially if you know something about a specific type of business people need information on.

Have you made any goals for 2012? Um... resolutions? I know that's a bad word to a lot of people. It is discouraging to make new year resolutions and then forget them two weeks later.

I made a page about my 2012 goals because I believe that if you don't have goals you're not likely to get there... or something like that. My goals include things to read, books to publish, and of course, some more online money-making success.

I want to be reminded often of my 2012 goals so I've set that lens as my browser's home page. This means it will open often automatically and I'll be reminded of the priorities I've set for this year. Of course life is unpredictable, but it helps to have a few objectives in mind.

Some lenses linger at the bottom of the list for months, but others fly to the top within only a few days. It always makes me feel good to see that happen. Recently I experimented by making a lens for a niche that I thought was totally glutted with similar lenses. If you look at the Kitchen Mixers category on Squidoo you'll see several dozen lenses about kitchen mixers. Undaunted, I made another.

My lens, Top Ten Kitchen Mixers, was not an immediate success but I've steadily added it to my secondary sites and a few directories during the last few weeks. I'm keeping track of all these backlinks in OneNote and Excel. Once a lens has twenty backlinks I record them in the Excel spreadsheet then move that lens into a secondary category where it will stay until it has fifty backlinks.

I don't know why, but many of the backlinks I make for my lenses never show up in SquidUtils' backlink checker. It is a good idea to ping the backlink sites. Over the months I've picked up many of these tricks and incorporated them into my workstyle until they became second-nature.

Anyhow, researching the kitchen mixers was a trip for me. It has been a long time since I even owned a kitchen mixer, and I miss having one! I long for the days when I had a big family and could have gotten some use from one. Now it would seem superfluous!

One thing about the kitchen mixers - they're popular subjects for lensmakers because when you go to Amazon's affiliate page, they often show as the most popularly sold items in housewares. Everyone wants a piece of that pie. So far I haven't sold any kitchen mixers but I long for the day! Maybe I should make some cookie and cake recipe pages so I can put links to kitchen mixers on them!

So anyhow, the lens started up the lensrank ladder slowly, but now a week or two later is at 13K meaning it might be a second tier lens soon! Woohoo! I'm kind of excited that it is doing so well. Right behind it is my new lens on the best-selling telephones. So these two new lenses are doing well and I'm happy with the results.

When you make new lenses, don't stop backlinking. It really makes a difference! Sometimes we get so many lenses we're overwhelmed with the backlinking process. The best way to deal with that is to have an organized way of tracking your work, and a list of sites you can work with... like this one.

I've discovered that flash fiction is a lot of fun to write. I've been writing it for several years now during my "writing practice" time of day. I like to write fictional situations, as wacky and far out as I can get it... and my little stories manage to resolve themselves within about five hundred words, which is perfect for flash fiction.

Flash fiction is generally defined as being less than 1000 words. I prefer less than 500. Some people like flash fiction that's considerably shorter. It is an art to pack as much emotion and action into as few words as possible.

When I write my flash fiction I focus on characterization. I like to develop characters that are slightly odd but very believable. I don't try to sell these stories - they are mainly for my own entertainment. I think perhaps someday I'll put them into a chapbook or anthology. Something I can sell at the local market without ever having to stress about trying to make a huge profit.

For me, flash fiction is for writing practice. It helps me grow as a writer and sometimes I meet characters in flash fiction that I like enough to keep around for much longer stories.

We who write need to have websites to advertise our work whether it be blog and content writing, novel writing, or article writing. We who are serious about the work we do will want to share our writing with others. After all, we didn't write it for ourselves. Writing is a communication tool! It implies that we are putting something out there for others to read.

A writer's website needs certain characteristics - such as a bio, writing samples, and sales pages. I've discussed the basics of webdesign for writers on How to Create an Impressive Writing Website and given examples on Websites For Writers.

If you're serious about being a writer, make yourself a website. It may not be the greatest creation at the beginning, but over the months and years you can add to it.

You could start with a one-page brochure website - perhaps including only a photo of yourself and information on your current writing projects. Next, perhaps a bio page. You could write about yourself and tell people why to feel compelled to be a writer. People want to know.

Next perhaps a blog would be a good addition. Tell people about what you're writing as you write it. Blogs are great fun but do require upkeep. Frequent blog postings are very much appreciated by your friends and family.

Writing is an awesome hobby and an even more exciting profession. Once you start bringing in the bucks thanks to your writing you will value your writing website as a necessary professional writing tool.

I'm thinking about Christmas, and kittens, and cat adoptions, and want to remind everyone that this is a great time to adopt a black cat. They often languish in shelters far longer than cats with pretty markings.

About ten years ago I adopted a beautiful black cat from a shelter in Antioch, California. We changed her name from Spook to Aretha. Her picture is on that lens I just linked to. What a great cat she was. I also called her "girlfriend cat" because she followed me around and loved me so much.

This Christmas we have four kittens to give away - the gift of a stray cat who decided our home was a safe refuge. One of them is black and a scardy cat... her siblings are all males, and uber-friendly. I hope our little Dartha (the black kitten) will get a good home. She needs lots of extra love.