blogging

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

 

 

Written By Me

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

Fandango’s Provocative Question#109

How many hours, on average, do you spend per day (or per week) on blogging-related activities? And, what do you think you might do with your time if you didn’t spend it on those blogging-related activities?

” Moth Dress ” by Louise Richardson
Photographer Unknown

When I am not writing/blogging/working on an idea:

I am walking my dog, working on art projects ( I really really suck at that but it’s fun ) like model building or drawing or photography ( I suck at that too, but again it’s fun ). I also like to watch ghost stories or suspense movies on Netflix.

My favorite, by far, are the movies about the supernatural  from India- OMG they know how to tell great ghost stories over there! I also enjoy Japanese movies about ghosts and curses because I’m familiar with those ( my Mom grew up in Hawaii and she and her family LOVED to tell ghost stories) and stories about Japanese ghosts and demons are bone chillers.

Sometimes I just sit back and listen to music- random tracks- because when I hear music and sort of clear my head, random images pop up and sometimes those images are so weird that I get stories from them.

So when I am not actually writing, or working on an idea I suppose it’s easy to see I’m putting myself in places where I get ideas for things to write about. It’s all I ever really do.

As you can see on my blog, sometimes I come up with some great stuff and sometimes it might not be as great as other times.

But I feel about my writing the way people feel about their babies.

You might think your baby adorable but other people will look at a baby and see something that looks like a smooshy naked monkey that smells like milk and pee.

That’s how I look at my writing- it’s like a smelly, adorable smooshy thing that smells like milk and pee.

But I love it all the same and I’m proud of it, even though it isn’t perfect, or even sort of perfect.

After all, I put a lot of time and devotion into making all of it happen and that makes me feel like I am making my life count for something worthwhile.

The Cemetery Cat

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Fandango’s Dog Days of August Prompt #2: Blog

Evergreen Washelli Cemetery: Photo By Anita Moscoso

I didn’t mean to blog.

Over 15 years ago I had joined an on line writer’s group called ” The Soul Food Café ” so that I could start writing again- I had done a lot of writing when I was kid and all the way through high school. But then I started to play in bands and then I got married and the writing fell to the side of the road.

Anyway, one of the tasks I had to do was to set up a blog- which at the time wasn’t something a lot of people did. In setting things in this wilderness I forgot to make my blog ” private” and within a few weeks it was getting ‘hits’.

I was a little mortified.

Not that what I was writing was shady or weird in an anti-social sort of way, but my friends who did write got to ask people if what they did was good, or should they post it. They got feedback and support.

I just put myself out there with no plan or direction for what I wanted to ‘say’

I guess I was like that neighbor that had the crazy dog that ran free in the neighborhood and whizzed on somebody’s prize Roses and dug holes in carefully manicured lawns.

You know what I mean.

So every exercise I wrote – for better or for worse went live.

I guess that was good. I jumped right on in and just started to write away- there was no turning back and I couldn’t wish anything I had written away into the cornfield so I just kept moving it forward

and here I am.

You might be wondering why I titled this post the Cemetery Cat.

I used to have bookplates that I only put in my favorite books of a cat sitting on top of a stack of books and in tiny print under the place where you wrote ( see how old I am? You had to actually ink your name in with a pen ) your name it said ” The Literary Cat “

I’m not going to pretend I’m striving to hit literary heights and be the next M.R. James ( but GOD I wish I could be ). I just sort of do my thing, most of it has is about cemeteries and ghosts so that’s why the title.

Plus.

I just like the picture.

Why Is There A Book In Facebook?

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Monet 5 (Blue Water Lilies)

 

There are some nights when I sit down to write that I wish I could Facebook it  on my blog and just quip and re-post what other people have already posted and write about that. My brain and imagination could just kick back, eat some pizza and watch one of those movies I bought on DVD and never get around to watching.

I do wonder as I eat Pizza and noodle around for a story or poem  to share,  if everyone is busy “talking”  on Facebook does anybody listen? Does anybody read what’s been quipped? I’ve noticed that people comment on the posts  they catch on Facebook, but if you read what some of  the commentators are saying,  in some cases it’s obvious they didn’t actually read the article in question.

As a writer that rattles my cage.

I feel like the character in the Twilight Zone, ” The Obsolete Man ”

Do you know, sometimes when I’m the bus to work I’ll pull out my phone and surf the net.

I do it because I really do want to fit in. I want to know what it feels like.

I do it because I don’t want to drift, to float, to become obsolete.

 

Daily Post Prompt: Float