Day: December 8, 2021

The Accidental Blogger

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

I believe it was in the late 90’s that I was on line looking for an address when I ran across a now archieved  website called The Soul Food Cafe . 

It turns out  this Soul Food Cafe wasn’t a restaurant, it was a website for creatives and writers.

I started to click around and I found prompt after prompt for stories, for artwork even recipes. I was blown away.  It was as if I had wandered into a library and every single book I saw was one I wanted to read.

I was sold. I wanted in.

I found the contact info and discovered it was based out of Australia and run by a woman named Heather ( who is still my friend and mentor ) and in order to participate ( for free, can you believe it? )  you had to set up a blog and from there Heather would link your work to the website ( we called them ‘rooms’) and there was also a blog that served as our ‘ salon’ where we talked about our projects and posted our links.

Initially  were based on Blogger.Com and then shifted over to WordPress ( oh the growing pains we had with that move-lol)  I  landed  here sometime around 2006.

If you go to the site you’ll see that we had projects and areas we worked in- the goal was to write daily.  I was good for that. There were a few odd years where I did not post daily, sometimes I managed weekly. At my worst a post or two a month. But I picked up a lot of good writing habits and I had support from a great group so I am proud to say I’ve been writing and growing as a writer since the day I wandered into the Cafe over 20 years ago.

So this is the rub.

I started to blog because I belonged to an international writers group- and back then we didn’t have Zoom or Facebook. We didn’t really ‘chat’ on our blogs and I can’t say I paid any attention to my stats. Producing our work was the goal, not driving up our stats on our individual blogs.

Besides, I had closed my blog so you could only view it if I invited you on. But one day I was changing something or another and I took my blog from private to letting it go public.

This happened  around Halloween and I had a boat load of work up and Heather gave me a shout out on the webpage which took a ton of traffic and my stats went through the roof.

Funny thing is, I had kept telling her I was going to let my blog go public instead of private and I chickened out. I started to put my work out into the Universe strictly by accident and Heather just assumed I was going to do what I said I was going to do.

I guess that old habits die hard because I still look at my blog as a place to be creative and I haven’t made the biggest effort in the world to grow it stat wise. I figure that if people like what they read my job is done and if they don’t that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I love reading blogs where people are engaged and talk about the post and sometimes I join in. But the reality is, I really do work hard at my writing and I don’t always have the time to chat. I probably should because there is a community spirit to WordPress that Writers are a part of and it wouldn’t hurt for me to ‘get out’ more.

If you are writer you have to go somewhere to fill the well- I used to go to museums and I traveled a lot but in the last couple of years that’s changed. Participating on line with groups of writers is probably the smart thing to do.

So to answer the question for December 7th’s Truthful Tuesday “how important are likes to you on your blog, and how do you determine if you are going to click like on other bloggers’ posts?”

Likes and engagments aren’t why I started to blog,  and they’re not  the reason I work on  and plan posts to put up everyday. However, when I read posts that I like on other blogs I always hit that button and if I’m on my laptop I’ll leave a note ( it’s a hassle to do that from my phone ). I figure my blog won’t ever be a hub or a place where a lot of people go, but that’s okay because I know exactly why I’m doing what I do- but that’s not necessarily why other people blog.

So that like  is me saying I read your work, I liked your work and I hope you keep at it and hopefully we will run into each other on WP now and then.

anita

 

 

Chekhov Was Right

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In keeping with my winter theme, I find this quote by Chekhov reflects a sense of joy about the season and how we look upon it ( e mentions Summer, but I hate Summer so I’m ignoring that part ). I also think that the artwork I’ve chosen to go along with it illustrates that on a few levels.

anita

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”
–Anton Chekhov

The Chestnut Vendor by Vida Gábor

For Linda G Hill’s One Liner Wednesday

Let The Fun and Games Begin!

/ animar64 / 8 Comments

RDP Wednesday: REVELRY

Remember fun? I used to have it. Especially during the Christmas season- but that came to a screeching halt in2019-2020.

But let’s not dwell on that right now. Let’s think about the fun that can be had this year after the presents have been opened and the Christmas dinner has merrily scarfed down.

I’m thinking about games for after dinner because when I was little my family used to play parlor games after we ate- I loved playing parlor games. When I was a kid my Great Aunt had a wine cellar and my Dad’s family loved their sherry and bourbon and their wine so watching the adults playing word games or charades was a riot.

Sad to say the wine cellar is no more and watching your family getting bombed for sport while watching them trying to remember what an adjective is or act out a film without spilling their drink from the comfort of an antique chair  is no longer considered PC so-

My family bought one of those bingo sets and we play games for prizes- which we all contribute and if you want to know the truth we really go all out on those prizes.

My nieces love board games, which surprises me that anyone under the age of 40 plays board games so sometimes we play those but I still love parlor games so I’ve dug some up and listed them here and I’ve added some Christmas Flash Mob performances because – well.

Why not?It’s nice to remember that the world used to be a fun place and who knows,

maybe one day it will be again.

THE MINISTER’S CAT

The Minister’s Cat follows the formula of many classic word games: Players sit around in a circle and take turns describing the minister’s cat with a different adjective. Each adjective must start with a different letter of the alphabet, starting with “A.” For example, the first player might say, “The minister’s cat is an angry cat,” followed next by, “The minister’s cat is a brilliant cat.” Players are eliminated if they repeat an adjective or fail to come up with a new one.

 CONSEQUENCES

If you’ve ever made up a story one piece at a time as a group, you know the basic concept of Consequences. This version can lead to even more hilarious, and often horrifying results. The first player kicks things off by drawing a head (whether human, animal, or mythical) on a sheet of paper, then folds it over to cover the creation. After passing it on, the next player draws a torso, the next legs, and so on. Once the sheet has made the rounds, players can unfold it to marvel at whatever monstrosity they created as a team.

FORFEITS

A round of Forfeits is a fast way to loosen up your party guests. To start, everyone forfeits an item of value (keys, phone, wallet, etc.). A player selected to be the “auctioneer” stands at the front of the room and presents each item as if it were to sale. Players can get their item back for a price—the auctioneer might tell them to sing a song, share a secret, or do 100 jumping jacks. In the smartphone era the stakes of this Victorian parlor game are even higher.

I loved this clip because you got to have a sense of what it was like to be in the Flash Mob- plus the participants were cute and dressed festively AND this clip is from 2021 so that made it even more special to me.