I’m sitting here in a coffee shop about 100 miles outside
Asheville, North Carolina at one of America’s oldest craft
schools – Penland School of Crafts.  It’s a beautiful mixture of
old buildings and studios, ranging from clay, to woodwork, to
metal craft, and looms and stitching (among others).

Not that I’m doing any of that, craft really isn’t my thing.
My craft is on the web, so here I am with the free wifi and
caffeine.

But it’s awesome to be around so much creative energy.  Last
night I was hanging around with all the teachers (one of the
perks of being married to Melinda, who’s teaching stitching) and
the school’s director, and she asked me if I could feel the
creative energy flowing.  Of course I said yes without any
hesitation, and everyone laughed at me.  I guess they didn’t
believe me, but that’s okay.

So what do you do if you’re not a crafter but you have 2 weeks
in the Blue Ridge mountains at one of the world’s greatest craft
schools?

For starters, you take advantage of the fresh air and slow
things down to a crawl.  We’re pretty far off the map, so it’s
not hard to slow down and just take in the clouds rolling
peacefully through the green valleys.  I know, sounds kinda
hippy dippy, but trust me it’s relaxing.

Then you spend a lot of time walking around and checking out all
the cool stuff that people are making.  Stuff like pottery, and
wooden book covers, and narrative maps that are hand stamped,
stitched, and evolving before your very eyes.  One lady even
managed to weave her own cloth, then stitch micah rocks and pine
needles into patterns.  Pretty amazing.

But one of the best parts are the slide shows every night.

They’re simply outstanding.  Here you have the teachers and
artists themselves, showing their body of work from all these
different disciplines.  Last night, we saw work from Fritz
Hoffman, who has been taking pictures for National Geographic
magazine in China over the last few years.

In fact, in 1995, the first time he moved to Shanghai, he
realized that he was the only western photographer on the ground
and just went to work.  At that time, he didn’t speak a lick of
mandarin, so don’t let not speaking the language hold you back
from anything – it can be learned.  And he learned it.

Among the many, many amazing photographs he showed us, was one
that had me laughing.  It was an aerial view of a guy laying on
a bed, getting acupuncture treatment.  Nothing weird there, in
China.  Except he was being treated to cure his, get this,
Internet Addiction.

I suppose we humans can make a disease out of anything.  After
all, once you’ve got it, someone’s got to heal it.  But of
course my ears perked up when I heard “Internet Addiction” and
immediately wondered if perhaps I should travel to China and get
some treatment.

Instead, I’m going to be spending some time treating myself (and
you too) by getting the Wally the Web Guy blog up and running,
which will be a good way to burn off the caffeine.  It’s also a
good way to increase readership of these email newsletters, a
fact I’m only mentioning because I want you to know that YOU can
do it too.

You’ve got a good message to get out there.  So get it out
there, and know that if you are putting out good content, you’ll

have some “internet addicts” following you too.  Especially if
you liberate your content to do some work for you through
the Ultimate Blog Add-On Service.

Enjoy your week,
-Wally

P.S. – Check out how the “Prime Minister of Pawn” was able to
create a following almost immediately using his custom Blog.
If he can do it, you can too: http://www.pawnonomics.com

P.P.S. – It’s all about getting your message out there, getting
found by the right people, and having them buy from you.
Easiest way to do that here.