What I’ve Learned From Blogging

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It’s like going to war, fishing and never leaving the classroom.

 

I started blogging a little over a year ago right before my book was published.


The purpose being, to share my interests and personal stories along with promoting my memoir. I enjoy writing about topics involving family, friends and faith.


I am not sure how many people read my blog each week, but I know I have at least four readers. My Mom and my oldest daughter read my blog, along with a few friends. Occasionally, a comment gets posted or someone clicks on the “LIKE” button at the top of the page of my blog and I get so excited.

 

Blogging is kind of like fishing. You cast your story out to the world and if the fish are interested, they might respond by Tweeting, Commenting or Liking your story. There may be lot’s of other fish looking at the “bait,” but not biting. Perhaps they nibble at a sentence or two and then swim away. Because you can’t see them, you wonder who they are, where they come from, and what they think. Can you tell I love analogies?
Most of the time I don’t know what I am going to write about until a day or two before my blog goes live. My goal is to post my blog by Friday of each week. This usually causes a little tension within myself because I realize waiting until the last minute often creates stories that could be written better if given more time.
When something happens or someone says something that interests me, I say to myself, “Oh that would be a great topic to blog about,” but being hopelessly gifted with a short memory, I usually forget about the topic the following day. Sometimes I write the thought down, but you can bet I will lose the paper.  Just like I lost my grocery list this morning.
When I do decide what to blog about, I spend several hours writing. Half of the time, I turn into an English teacher.
Why?
Because I addictively write the words ” HOW,THAT and BECAUSE” way too much. I am constantly correcting, and fighting the abundance of prepositions and run on sentences.  It’s like a war with words. I go to battle with them every time I write.  I edit my story several times.
I have learned how to condense four sentences into two.  Condensing happens when in my mind, I clearly hear my three kids forcefully reminding me, “Mom…, GET TO THE POINT.“ They say this because, (see… I said because) I have a habit of dragging stories out when telling them, so I try to keep my words to a minimum and to the point when blogging.
They say a good blog should be kept to around five hundred words. In fact, I literally just learned after a year of blogging that the Word Press program I use, counts the words as I type them and displays the count in the lower left hand corner. This is a handy time saver and I now see looking down at the left hand corner that I am at 536 words. Better go. Have a great weekend.

 

Book News

A gentleman who read my book called me this past week and told me how angry he was at the nurse who told my son something she was asked not to tell. This part of my story touched him because he is a nurse. He could relate the forgiving and re forgiving in his own life.
The Goodreads giveaway is on. Enter to win a paperback version.
This week I am reading aloud  Chapter 12 of my book. I am half way through my memoir. Let me know if you are listening. The remaining chapters will be difficult to read just as they were to write.
Patience is a virtue and I should be most virtuous after STILL waiting the Kindle Version of my book to be available on Createspace. When it happens, I will let you know. Hopefully within the next two weeks.

 

Chapter 12
Words and Wisdom