Remember how fun it was when you first started your blog? Writing great posts was effortless , and connecting with your audience was a pleasure. In a classic scene in the movie Drop Dead Fred , Phoebe Cates and her imaginary friend Fred build a colossal mud pie on the dining room table. They revel in the messy joy of creation and the fact that it's going to infuriate her mother )aka the "Mega Beast"(. Starting a blog is like making that massive mud pie.

Like a lot of people, every year my husband and I watch Miracle on 34th Street during the holiday season. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is right at the end when Natalie Wood is riding in the car with her mom and Fred Gailey. The camera focuses in on Natalie sitting in the back seat of the car staring out the window looking bored and kind of annoyed, mumbling "I believe, I believe '" Then,

Paris Hilton has one. Rob Lowe has one too. Even Sharon Osbourne's got one. Get your mind out of the gutter people " I'm talking about books . Even with all their money, fame and extreme overexposure, these people )or, their people( went to the effort to become published authors. Why ? These celebrities already have more money than they know what to do with and dead tree book publishing is supposed to be dead.

I refer to my dog Tika as my "learning experience" dog. In her youth, she made Marley of Marley and Me fame look like a paragon of obedient canine virtue. Tika had a troubled past and by the time I adopted her, she had pretty much every behavior problem in the dog training books. My husband couldn't actually touch her for the first six months we owned her. Want to test the health of your marriage? Get a bad dog.

It's Valentine's week on Copyblogger! This week's posts will focus on how to improve reader and customer relationships to grow your business. Dating and business are both all about forming relationships. You need to get out there and be seen. You need to "romance" potential customers and get them comfortable with what you have to offer. If you've been in business for a while, you've probably heard the concept of know, like and trust .