Be a better blogger

I got a comment on my blog from someone not my sister.

Actually, it seems to be someone I went to high school with. I don’t know who it was because it was an anonymous post, maybe not on purpose because they said they’d been having trouble posting. Probably a fellow art major, since they mentioned not keeping up with drawing.

She (he?) said:
It’s comforting to know someone else is dealing with similar issues.

SO, I hope that this little “RAH Go Rowena!” Gives you a boost. keep writing!

Oh, it does, anonymous poster. It does.

So, with that, and all my commenting lately, and finally signing up for sitemeter just about 5 minutes ago, I think I am ready to mark this. goal.

DONE.

I spent a lot of yesterday looking at blogs. I even commented upon a few of them, like I said I was going to. That’s good, big step up in my not being a frickin hermit and hiding my head (and my writing) in a hole. I found this one blog that I thought was hysterical and brilliant. The best I’d read in… well, possibly the best ever, in part because she isn’t trying to be something that she’s not, and part because she’s just that good a writer, and part because she is, did I say it? HYS. TER. I. CAL.

Check out this post if that is in dispute… but don’t if you have a sensitivity about cuss words, condoms, or the torture of teenagers. http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/2007/03/filed-under-parents-1-smart-ass-teenage.html

I think she is so funny that it makes me all shy inside. I have my sense of humor, but it’s a much lighter, dryer, flakier kind of humor… like a biscuit.

A biscuit? What kind of metaphor is that? I guess I also just went to this blog http://www.thepioneerwomancooks.com/ so I’m feeling kind like blueberry cobbler.

Looking at all these blogs, though, got me thinking. I am no novice to this genre. Not to blogs and not to personal essays and not to journaling. Computers, I’m not so good with, but writing, that’s my thing. And journal writing? Well I’ve got about 70 hardbound journals sitting in a bookcase to attest to my experience with that. I’ve got just as much of a right to be seen and read and enjoyed as any other blogger. Everyone does, hurrah for the democracy of the internet, but why do I have this feeling in me that no one would want to bother with what I have to say? I mean, any more so than anyone else.

It’s time to take myself seriously as a writer—as someone who can and should be read be persons other than my immediate circle.

Get on out there, Rosy, the water’s fine (sharks? what sharks?)

Get a tracking program and comment on blogs. Do it girl.

Put it on my weekly list.

figure out how to track my readers, and then get into the habit of commenting on other blogs… then I will mark this as done. Almost there.

Customized the format, put up a banner, finally made some links to blogs I like. I even commented on a blog, which I rarely do. I have to do that more often if I want to step up the blogging.

And I really should figure out how to track my traffic.

It’s a business. A teeny tiny business, but a business none the less.

I like that it is focuse on DOING. I have a tendency to stew around in over analyzing things. The fictional character I used to relate to the most was Hamlet. Yikes.

I like also that the entries and the comments of 43T help my prose become fresher and more casual, without the weight of “serious Writing.”

And it is so hepful to have that little button for “also post this to your blog.”

Need to:

Post regularly—I’m posting often, I suppose, but I would like to make sure it is everyday

Increase my traffic—I’m already visiting some blogs that I enjoy reading, but I need to start commenting and leaving my url. I am linked through 43T and last year was linked through NaNoWriMo, which I enjoyed so much. I think this goal is really about building an online community. That means I should really stop trying to be anonymous and invisible. In order to get people to visit my blog, I think I have to be active in the blogging community.

Get a traffic counter of some sort—I think I want to use sitemeter. I used it for my old blog, but I stopped using that one when I got pregnant, since my life seemed to be so different, but now I am no longer pregnant and the baby is starting to be a real person, not a newborn, and I am starting to get back to myself.

Post Photos: Doing much better at this, thanks to my goal of taking photos everyday for a year. I just have to keep on top of posting them regularly. My goal of organizing the photos and starting a photoblog (which is a personal blog, not a public one or one for my career) have also helped with my ability to post.

Have a consistent voice and perspective: I think I’ve got this, although I’m not sure. What am I trying to say with my blog? I don’t think I’m funny enough to be a funny blog, and that’s okay. I guess it’s a Mom Creates blog. Not quite a mommy blog, not quite a crafty or artsy blog. I’m okay with that. Maybe I should work on making my posts consistent with that view.

Find something better than dial up: Can you believe it! Dial-up! ssssssssllllllllloooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. But this is not totally necessary, it would just make blogging and posting and downloading easier.

I’m blogging regularly again, but I don’t know if I like the direction that my blog is taking. It’s so depressing. I use my blog to work through my issues, struggles. It’s about overcoming, I guess, which is a positive thing, but it’s always about what I am having trouble with. It’s about process, not end product, which I philosophically believe in, but with my blog research this week, I’ve found my favorite blogs were about solutions, not problems. They’re about creativity and good ideas, and neat projects, and pretty end results and great plans, not about people overcoming their inner negativity to get there.

Hmm.

Another reason I might want to focus on positive outcomes is that focusing on the negative troubles is, well, drawing the negativity to me. If all I can see is my difficulty getting to an end point, then my attention is going to the difficulty. And so is my energy. That’s giving struggle too much power, no?

Stop talking about all the reasons “I can’t” do something, even while trying to shut those inner negative voices up, and start talking about DOING it.

I just fixed my 43T account so that I could send my entries to my blog again. There was some change on blogger that was making it impossible to send in my entries from here. That made it much harder to post. So I fixed it. That is not inconsiderable, because I am a tech idiot, but this worked. Woo hoo.

Now I can double duty my time and writing. Whoopee.

I tried to post on my blog, and couldn’t get on. It’s been almost 3 months and I feel neglectful.

I wanted to post about how this last trimester of pregnancy has been so unproductive. I haven’t been creative at all, too tired and dealing with winter sicknesses and baby sicknesses and just taking care of Gman while getting bigger and bigger and more and more ungainly.

I wanted to post about how my due date was yesterday and I am feeling like a plane that is circling the airport for hours and hours… feeling like I’m running out of gas.

I’m so tired. Worn out. Tired of false labor starts. Tired of not being able to move. Tired of the stress of trying to plan this birth and make sure Gman is covered for babysitting. Grandpa has decided that he is the primary babysitter for this, which is good, although I have reservations about his dependability. I’m hoping that my sister can be there for some or all of the time that my dad is there.

I would like to start this whole second baby thing and end this whole being pregnant thing. I would like to try to be creative again. I’m ready. Why is this baby not?

I’ll try to post this entry to blogger, but I have been having problems with that, too. I really am a tech idiot.