Cancer Diagnosis Update. Garden. Using Mini-Hubs. Lasso, Link Whisper and Quillbot.

Cover image of bush beans growing in my garden.

Being Sick

It’s been a while since I posted about my breast cancer journey. I’m trying to get over a bad bout of bronchitis. I’m finally coughing less, but still have the infection. I may have to go on more antibiotics.

I wanted to use this time to mow and work on my survival garden but got sidelined by this bronchitis bug. My mind hasn’t quit working, though! I think about what to do every day and what to write.

I get started and then must rest. I sleep a lot, trying to catch up from when I couldn’t sleep from coughing.

My cancer diagnosis has been good, though. I don’t need chemotherapy, yea! I’m planning on having the other breast removed during the second week of September. I will have to take a couple weeks off at first since both sides will have surgery. I am getting the expanders which means I must go into the doctor’s office every week when expanding.

I’m not going to expand to my original size. I want to be smaller. I thought about going flat, but it feels like I need something for balance.

My Survival Garden

I've replanted tomatoes and beans where I had my greens. Beans are doing great, but not so much for tomatoes. I don't think there is enough sun for them to put on flowers that become tomatoes. Now that it's getting so close to my other surgeries, I will have to wait until next year.

Working with Mini-Hubs

During this time, I have been working on articles for three of my Hubs/sites. I also added a forth Hub for my name/URL. I need to redo this one with mini-Hubs as was detailed in Eric’s class on How To Build an Entire Year of Content with WA Hubs with discussion around 18 minutes about mini-Hubs.

This should allow me to organize content in different niches. For example, I want to have content discussing WA affiliate program, content discussing my exciting world with horses, my athletic background in swimming, dance, racing sailboats with my husband, and my foray into survival prepping.

Lasso Plugin

I also bought a three-site license for Lasso. I had it on one site and it shows a huge jump in visits. Lasso main draw for me is that it has a one-click Auto-Migrator tool which takes all your Amazon SiteStripe links, and turns them into Lasso links which are powered by Amazon’s API.

If you need to change your Amazon links after the180 days, it works with one click. I need this feature. I’m not getting Amazon clicks yet, but I’m working on doing better reviews.

Lasso really makes it easy to list your products in a review type format. I haven’t learned all of the features yet. I will do another post on it when I get more comfortable with it. Of course it has an affiliate program.

Link Whisper

Another plugin I got is Link Whisper, a smart internal linking tool. Powered by AI, Link Whisper starts suggesting relevant internal links when you start writing your article right within the WordPress editor. It’s a very time-saving feature! It also will do external links. Be sure you check the links before clicking okay. Some aren’t valid or link to the wrong things. More on this later. It also has an affiliate program.

Quillbot Extension

Next is Quillbot as a replacement for Grammarly. It’s an extension like Grammarly, that offers a variety of tools for your whole writing process, including paraphrasing, grammar checking, plagiarism checking, summarizing, and citation generation. The free version offers more features than Grammarly.

Grammarly is primarily a grammar, spelling, and punctuation checker, but also offers revision capabilities like tone adjustments and style suggestions. This is good for fiction writers.

Grammarly can update the misspelled word for you while Quillbot just shows you it is wrong. It will update it the word when you click on it, though. I’ve been using it mostly as a grammar checker. Quillbot has an affiliate program, too.

Are you or have you used any of these plugins/extensions for your work? Have you used the advanced processes of any of these helpers? Please let us know in the Comments section.