Posted on by Camellia's Cottage · 1 Comment

In the Age of AI, Your Voice is Your Legacy

Hi, I'm Brenda Wyatt Writer, Author, Blogger and Course Creator

To my Incredible community of writers and bloggers:

Thank you for being here. After over 500 posts, over a decade now- You have read my stories. I’m So grateful for the space you have given me, here. Today, I want to talk about the future of Words. We are living through a time, when a machine can generate content in mere seconds. The silent question we all share is:

Does my human voice still matter? Is pen to paper a Lost Art? The resounding answer is Yes. More than ever! Your unique human perspective is your greatest Asset in 2026. An interesting fact: Stationary Shops are having a big moment. Paper, Pens, Notebooks, Journals! Here’s Why your Voice, your genuine Words matter.

Human generated Words are Words written with a Purpose. AI is a Prompt that a Human has written.

My Journey:

I have always believed the my work should speak for itself. I focused on the craft of writing, words on a page. *Literally writing with a pen on paper before typing it here or as I wrote my book. I believed in the Integrity of the Stories. Even the humorous posts, came from ‘lived experiences’. The awards along the way were wonderful confirmations for me.

I need to clarify here: I wasn’t new to Marketing; I was new to Writing in a Public format. I had spent 30+ years in high end retail and also with visual display and branding. That experience is why I created my first online course: Be Unforgettable! A Guide to Visual Marketing.

Before that course, I had written a book, published in 2014, and struggled to Learn How to write a Blog in 2016. A few years ago, I realized something: It’s not enough to write a beautiful message if that message can’t find it’s readers. I had taken a wonderful Online Course for social media. I struggled with Social Media. I kept going. I had joined a few Challenges. I was building a community there.

The popular advice for writers was far too generic. The focus was rushed, focused on algorithm hacks over Authenticity. My motto became: ‘Become a Trusted Resource.’ Which I will always Believe. Now, we have been told the focus in 2026 is Authentic, Trustworthy, Real. That’s a Good Thing. Since Bots are showing up faster than even the best algorithms can keep up with or eradicate.

I decided we needed a better way for Writers, with Purpose. Apply Image Driven Words. We needed a place focused on legacy, not quick fixes or hacks. I created my second online course- ‘Writing Content with Confidence’. Born out of Years of Work and Writing. I knew I had Tools to Offer.

It’s a guided experience- more than a dozen ways to craft a message, plus Images drive the Written Content and Color starts Writing the Story before a word is written. It’s a blend of Writing and Marketing, authentically, in a Trustworthy way.

Writing now, as unsettling as it is, in the current environment of lots of noise, lots of hacks, lots of bots, lots of AI- our Perspective Shifts. Often, we are looking back with Nostalgia or adopting a forward-looking Mindset. We need both. We need Writers like you!

Perspective. Looking back? or Forward facing?

My Writing Course was soft launched in the Fall of 2025. I have had several beta testers going through along with some students. I realized something. Yes, it’s ‘go at your own pace, lifetime access’ and that’s great. And the introductory price is low at $47. Yet my intuition was telling me that Writers need a Sanctuary.

Are you asking: Why tell Bloggers, who are Writers about this? Well, even seasoned writers who have had a first look say, ‘Man, this has a Lot of Stuff in here!’ or that they never imagined it would also have Marketing Advice along with the Writing Content. *There is even a section on ‘Product Shots’ Yes, writers need solitude, yet they also need a safe space, with a community of other writers, who may also be artists and creatives too!

So, I am adding the Writing Sanctuary for the official relaunch February 10, 2026. I added a Private Chat Group for my first online course and most have told me that Private Group is worth the price of the course! With the new Writing Course, this private group will be called, the Writing Sanctuary, a quiet private space right inside Instagram. Find me @brendawyatt_

I plan to be in the Writing Sanctuary at least weekly, to have ‘Ask Me Anything’ or Encourage Writers to Write also offer prompts and more. In my other group, members follow each other and encourage one another, become friends, their most ardent cheerleaders.

I am opening the Doors to the Writing Sanctury:

The Doors are Open for the Writing Sanctuary

There will be a price adjustment from introductory $47 to $97 to reflect the added benefit on February 9. (There is Lifetime Access, the Course is completely open, no waiting for another lesson to drop, Go at your own pace. No zoom meetings.)

Founding Members will enjoy all of the benefits, including the Private Group at the Introductory Price. *of course, that also means extra support while it’s new.

The Doors are Open now, until February 10,2026. *To take advantage of the additional benefit of the Writing Sanctuary- Join us now, before the Rate Changes.

I am here to help you feel confident enough to share your Legacy. You’re writing one, you know you are.

Your Stories need to be Written. They need to be Shared. Even your Recipes! Those Stories may not even be in the genre you’re writing now! All the best in 2026!

Love y’all, Brenda aka ‘Camellia’ and yes, I still make cornbread!

REMINDER: Founding Rate: $47 USD *rate adjustment deadline is February 9. $97 USD. I hope You will join us! If you would like to receive my Newsletter: send me an email! brenda@brenda-wyatt.com

Find out more about the course here: Write Content with Confidence

And, if you’re on Instagram Find More @brendawyatt_

Posted on by Camellia's Cottage

A Cybersecurity Engineer, a Food Inspector and a Tugboat Captain…

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How to Run a Successful Giveaway!

My last post was about My March Madness Giveaway! Thank you if you entered! The winners were notified personally and in my last newsletter! I had a great time! And I promised I would let you know some things I feel you need to run a successful giveaway. So here goes!

Choose a Prize for Your Giveaway – This may seem obvious, yet I think there’s a skill to it. Choose something or things that will be valuable to your audience. Valuable enough that your audience will want to win what you’ve offered.

Decide on the Outcome You Want and Where Your Results will show up best– For me, I wanted to increase the number of folks who receive my Newsletter! I try to do this newsletter once or twice a month. It’s full of tips you can use in your ‘Cottage Industry’ , small business and more.. And, that’s where the Details for my Giveaway appeared! That and some posts on Instagram.

Best Tip: Make sure you make the Entry to your Giveaway, easily achievable– and I have to add this, please, please value every email address you have! Folks don’t give those away lightly- we’re already overwhelmed as it is! Right?

Choose Which Social Media Platform(s) you’ll Use for Your Giveaway I used my Blog- right here! which automatically posts to several social media sites! I promoted it on my Blog and the other social media site I used regularly was Instagram. Why? Well, it’s my favorite along with this blog, yet I think Instagram is the best social media platform for me to use right now, and some think Giveaways are more successful on Instagram and Facebook. Of course, use the best platform for yourself- where you have the most growth and interaction.

Decide on Length of Time for Giveaway I ran my giveaway for 10 days.. personally I think this may have been too long- though I was going by a statistic that only 4% of your audience even looks at your posts daily. So, that guided my decision on how long to run the giveaway.

I’ve seen two giveaways lately- one for a Travel Sitewith lots of prizes and their’s lasted a Month! It was highly interactive and frankly too much trouble for the average product or service giveaway. The software alone would take a major amount of time to create is you’re running your business mostly on your own. Another Giveway I saw was a 1:1 with two major retailers who joined forces and offered this! They were Mickey Drexler and Bobbi Brown. This giveaway was for? 5-7 days.

What will be Your Entry ‘Fee’?– Be sure to list the Rules for your Giveaway– As I said before, my Entry ‘Fee’ was to sign up for my Newsletter! Yours could be an actual product you sell, it could be a coaching session, a PDF with valuable information. It could be a short video training… just make sure it’s Good Enough that folks will really want what you’re giving away!

Why sign up for my Newsletter? Well.. I’ve been giving out Marketing Tips for well over 2 years! And, with a 70% plus open rate- you may want to add it to your reading list! Also, when I did the giveaway, I wanted to reward my existing newsletter subscribers! That’s coming up soon- If you sign up- well, you’ll get the Bonus too!

Tip: Make it Easy! Mine was very easy- I have a Sign Up Form that is linked on my Instagram and I put links where my blog was posted and I’m very happy with the results! Here’s my link again:Sign up for my Newsletter! I hope you’ll sign up for mine!

here’s that link again; https://skilled-author-7671.ck.page/74d4fe914d

You will need to Plan Your Posts! Blog, Newsletter, Social Media This is important! When you decide to do a Giveaway- Plan plan plan! Plan the Images, Plan the Wording of the Giveaway (mine were actually done in a Quote Format, Plan your Content. Send out multiple reminders- for me this meant sending out additional emails. It also meant doing the posts in different formats- I wrote a Blog post, I wrote a Newsletter, then sent out an ICYMI repeat of my newsletter, I did at least 5 posts on Instagram and multiple Stories, even a Reel or two! It wasn’t hard to plan, yet I realized that the preparation for it- made it easier while the Giveaway was running.

Choosing Winners isn’t Easy. This was perhaps the most difficult part of the Giveaway for me. So? What can you do to alleviate the stress of it? I had some input from someone I trust. I also ‘gave points’ for the Enthusiasm level for the contest or what their response was to a certain gift I was giving away! And.. I also gave points for folks who shared my giveaway to their Instagram Stories or shared a post I had done about it. Because after all, that speaks to how much they value their community and the prizes they needed or wanted!

Contact Winners, they may or may not Accept the Prize Before I ever awarded the prizes, I had narrowed my ‘winners’ down, some categories had several people who had earned the ‘points’ yet, and this is a Big Yet- Would they accept the prize if it was offered? Because let’s face it- it they don’t want the prize- it’s not really helpful to you and for sure puts that person in a bad situation, if their name is announced and they just can’t accept it because of personal or professional situations that just aren’t right at the time of the giveaway. Be sensitive to that- I think this part is important.

Where will you Announce the Winners? I chose to announce my winners through my newsletter because that was the way participants entered the contest. I also sent that out twice because there were a few that had signed up yet for some reason, the newsletter bounced or even may have gone to their spam boxes if the newsletter was new to them. I also followed up with the winners through a private direct message.

Check Your Results! This might be the most important part of the Giveaway! Did you achieve what you wanted the giveaway to achieve for you? I checked my analytics. I had gained subscribers to my newsletter! I was actually amazed to see it in black and white. And… the newsletter has grown even more since the the giveaway has ended? Why? Well, it’s because I had told my loyal newsletter winners that they would also Win? Whether they won a prize or not, I will be giving them something special through my newsletter- (a link to this blog post for one thing) and a short video training and PDF that they can download!

So! Do I recommend doing a Giveaway? YES! I hope you’ll try it, and I’d love to know how it goes!

Love y’all, Brenda

Posted on by Camellia's Cottage · 3 Comments

You don’t have to Know Everything to get Where You Want to Go…

Hello!

Is January over? Wow! That went by fast! I hope you’re doing well and the New Year is kind to you already. Here? It’s been sort of crazy, the kind of crazy that’s left me feeling grateful, anxious and my inner perfectionist reared its head several times. Basically, I believe that Procrastination has its roots in Perfectionism, I’ve felt stuck, and overwhelmed more than once! Not to mention a few other personal things going on- that needed to be seen about!

Anyway… first of all, to those Mentors who’ve made wonderful suggestions- thank you and please know- that my high anxiety and perfectionism delayed implementing your suggestions! Getting back on track now!

Now- the Gratefulness has to be told! I put out a Free Pro Tip Masterclass and! Almost 300 have checked it out! Unbelievable for me. Why?

Well, the first announcement was sort of crazy. I didn’t like the way it looked- not my style. Then, I did another one… Yikes! I misspelled the word Marketing– ha! Ditch that one! I redid it and that one has been deemed Ok. However, the Pro Tips Masterclass had been released in Beta Format and to be honest- to me? It just wasn’t pretty. Ok I cried. A little. Now, the Masterclass has been redone and if you’ve gone through it (thank you!)

Still. If you signed up before last Friday January 27- you may want to go through it again! You have unlimited access!

Now, about that Quote- I used it almost 4 years ago! Someone new to my site- took the time to read it, I thought – ‘Maybe I need another look at it too! ‘

You don’t have to know Everything to Get Where You Want to Go’

Brenda Wyatt

Here’s part of the post-

‘Life is my favorite adventure! And the beauty of it is this- ‘You don’t have to know ‘everything’ to get where you want to go.’

 

A Caterpillar has a good plan… Eat all the Leafy Greens you can without knowing how to spin a Cocoon, until the time comes to attach itself to a stick and bit by bit- spinning a Cocoon seems the most natural thing in the world!

The Caterpillar does all it knows to do- living its purpose, without knowing one thing about Flying!

The Cocoon knows nothing about Color Schemes, flight engineering or spreading it’s wings- living in cramped quarters and all…

The Cocoon might look like it’s just hanging around, not doing much of anything- yet inside- an amazing transformation is taking place!

There’s always the struggle to do more, be more than the Caterpillar ever dreamed or planned. The Cocoon looks like it’s doing nothing- It’s all happening in the Dark!

Ultimately the Cocoon’s shell cannot hold the Butterfly back as it’s Life’s Plan unfolds… Without ‘knowing everything’ the Butterfly Soars! A Flower in Flight!

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Nope, Life isn’t perfect, yet hopefully it’s better than when you started, right? Every step along the way has a purpose! I believe that!

And here’s a little tip: You’ve written lots of content- even the Big Brands use and reuse their content! Just rearrange it a bit to suit the moment! I tend to forget that myself!

Again, if you would like to take a look at the FREE Pro Tips Masterclass –

  • It’s full of Color Tips,
  • has some Design Tips,
  • talks about Props, Images and Materials,
  • an easy Writing Lesson,
  • an Easy Way to Find Your Ideal Customer,
  • Carousel Posts,
  • Hashtag Training and
  • Marketing Tips-
  • You won’t want to miss the PDF’s that go with this Masterclass!

Here’s the Link: for Be Unforgettable Pro Tips Masterclass! It’s Free and here’s the Link:

Be Unforgettable Pro Tip Masterclass

 

I hope you find it helpful and don’t forget it’s Free!

Love y’all. Brenda

Creator of Be Unforgettable Beginner’s Guide to Visual Marketing (it’s still in Beta Format too! Updates coming soon! Here’s the link if you’d like to take a look:

Be Unforgettable Beginner’s Guide to Visual Marketing

Posted on by Camellia's Cottage

Don’t Wait until it’s Perfect..

Don’t Wait until it’s Perfect, just get Started. This is a quote I wrote as a reminder to myself. Am I a perfectionist? I don’t think so, yet when I’m writing I want to express myself in a way that serves the reader and not myself. That’s always been true, no matter the subject.

Do I have bouts of procrastination? Yep that happens. Am I anxious about things? Yep, that too.

Okay- here’s what happened recently. I had set a goal, a deadline also. I needed to add some new segments to my online course- Be Unforgettable Beginner’s Guide to Visual Marketing. https://camellia-s-cottage- blog.mykajabi.com/about-course-copy-1-ed7ee1ac-4438-4133-968b-ffee43106f2b

It was in the Launch Phase and had had wonderful reviews and good results- I wanted it to be better, more informative. I had done the work. Still. I wasn’t going to meet the deadline or the goal. It wasn’t perfect. My timing was awful it seemed to me.

After stewing about it. I regrouped and thought- ‘Well, I could add all of these Pro Tips and put them into a Free Masterclass‘- which I have done. I still missed my deadline on that project too.

Let’s just say, I’m still tech challenged! Does that matter? Maybe. Who knows? What really matters is..

  • That it Serves Folks and helps them with what they post and how.
  • That it’s helpful to the ones who need to uplevel the looks of what they post.
  • That it helps folks learn a few things about Writing Content.
  • That learn an easier way to share their Values in ways that aren’t offensive.
  • That they learn a few Easier Ways to Market (sell) their products and services.
  • And more…

So, even though it wouldn’t be perfect or meet the deadline- it Would be a Way to Serve. And, I decided early on- that I would offer it Free. Yes, that’s right. Free.

2023 isn’t going to be a Year when we want to do fancy stuff- it’s Back to Basics Time. Money may be tight for those who Offer Products and Services. It’s going to be a Year when we all feel like Beginner’s again or Even Dreamers. I love those folks. I hope to Serve them. I hope to Motivate them too. In fact, those are my ‘Words of the Year’ for my community. Motivate and Serve.

So- I decided Voltaire is Right- ‘Perfect is the Enemy of the Good.’ I hope you will too.

If we wait until it’s all Perfect? There may be people who need what we have. Need what we have to Write or Say. Think of those folks. Decide right now, that it’s less important that we are Heard and far more important that we make them know they are Heard.

That in our Listening- We make them Feel that we can be part of their Solution rather than sitting on our hands, our words, our solutions and waiting for Perfection. We decided to Motivate and Serve.

Love y’all, Brenda.

PS the Pro Tips Masterclass is Live! And yes, it’s Free! It will take about an hour to watch or you can stop and resume as you have time!

If you’d like to see what it’s all about, here’s the link for Be Unforgettable Pro Tip Masterclass:https://camellia-s-cottage-blog.mykajabi.com/sales-page and no, it’s probably not perfect, but that’s ok too! All the best in the New Year!