The two men in front of me sitting at the table in the bar couldn’t be more different. One was dressed in flamboyant clothes like he couldn’t spare a thought for what anyone cared. The other was dressed more conservatively, wearing a button down suit and an what looked like a Calvin Klein tie. They both looked very handsome despite their very contrasting clothing styles, like just out of a movie. I was with my boyfriend. The man in the conservative clothes looked haggard.By what I could gather , he had lost his apartment to a devastating fire. The men ordered a pitcher of beer and started talking, The conversation soon turned to consumerism. It was pretty clear that one of them had pretty anti-consumerism views. The flamboyant guy , in a very passionate manner over a cigarette, started explaining to the other guy how materialism can end up consuming…
Love the sound of the music here. Who better to tell us what is authentic Hawaiian than someone from there. Click and Listen and read. Follower her if you aren’t already.
“Take the pills. They’re supposed to help you,” she said.
The pills looked familiar to me. The kitchen windows had that morning light blue glow. I like that time. “Why are there so many of them?”
“Because the doctor said you have to take all of them,” she said. “We have to go through this almost every day.”
I looked at her. “I just like to know is all.” I took the small medicine cup full of pills. Some of them were kind of pretty to look at and had cool shapes. A mouthful of water and I swallowed them all at once.
I love the drawing. This is from a real teacher as well. Speaking from real life. Welcome her to the community. Okay that picture is just so cute. (Yes I said ‘so cute;, what of it?”
Another hilarious but true take on life by Amanda at Inside the Life of Moi. Thank goodness women blog or men would be bored to tears. Follow her on Twitter as well @AmandaLyle86.
Amanda ant Inside The life of Moi is on vacation so I’ve been nosing through her articles to tweet and reblog to help keep things out there. Oh My! I am so glad women write blogs because sometimes mean just can’t say things. She’s hilarious. Read it and Follow her, and on Twitter too. @AmandaLyle86
If you haven’t read this before and even if you have, read it. Inside the Life of Moi always has an entertaining take on real life things. You’ll enjoy. And if you aren’t following already…click it.
At 12 years of age your priorities for home are different than as an adult. My father wanted land and a place for a huge garden. That meant country. For me country meant no friends, and no cable TV.
15-20 minutes outside of the nearest town is where we ended up. Not another kid for me to play with anywhere around, even though the school wasn’t far from the place. We lived in a trailer back then. It was nice and my father expanded on it quite a bit, I think that’s why I dislike the sound of power saws and that burning wood smell that it produces.
You’re new to the Blog world or even been around the Blog a few times and you wonder “Where are all the people that should be lining up to read my work”. (See what I did there, “Around the Blog….Around the Block. No…I tried. And I have no idea why L. L. Cook J’s ‘Around the way Girl’ is going through my head now.)
Blogging is like a lot of things in life:
It takes time
It takes practice
You have to work it
And it takes great patience
When I started blogging I just wanted people to read my creative pieces. I didn’t really think about how many I wanted to read it or how I would get them to read it, I just wanted to create and click publish.
We like to say we don’t care how many people show up to the party. As long as we put out the nachos in case someone decides to join in we think we’re okay. But we all know we really like to see those faces show up, even those we don’t know. This article is mostly for people who want to increase their readership.
I want to say one quick thing. If your home page is where your most recent posts go then here is what might happen. A person goes to the page, reads the top article, then reads all the ones below it. You get one view for all of those read articles. Some people put in a ‘read more’ break that you place in during your posting process to shorten what’s on that page to create more space or they do it to actually force a click to the next page. I personally no longer do the ‘read more’ just because. I’m happy people showed up and try to make it easy as possible.
The truth is, most of us have content in our articles that is good. We’re going to connect with someone and we’ll find our niche or group we seem to speak to. But it doesn’t happen overnight.
Time
Like I said you can’t bring in hundreds of views of your articles overnight unless you just write some hot button issue and get it out on social networks properly at the right moment. Perhaps hot button is your theme. If so then make sure you do something unique with it to stand out from the crowd.
Practice
Getting your format set up just right takes time. I’ve been through several themes for my blog and tested the waters on what I write. I know what will bomb and what will receive some generally decent response for my site. I still don’t mind bombing as long as I have fun and don’t do it too often. I want my readers to know they can always show up and have something good/useful to read. That is one reason I put out as much material as possible. The other reason…I’m insane.
Work it
It’s tough to say this but just putting your content out there doesn’t mean people will show up. You need to do some work and help people find you, in other words, get the ball rolling:
Visit other blogs and comment: You are thinking you barely have time to do your own blog but you would be surprised at the ideas you come up with by taking a few minutes to visit elsewhere. Blogging isn’t just about blogs, it’s a community of supporters.
Link back to other blogs but only if relevant: Don’t just put a link to another person’s blog in your article for no reason. Make it be because it pertains to your article. Honest blogs get honest followers who stay with you.
Share in Social Networks: Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn, whatever your options are use them and share your articles there and spend a few minutes just being at least remotely involved.
Tag your articles properly: This one is a work in progress for everyone. You have to look at your work and see what it is and what words best describe it. Visit other blogs similar to yours that are successful and see what kind of tags they use.
Patience
You have to be patient. Once things start rolling…they roll. But it will take some time. Just keep working and putting out a lot of content, but quality content.
That’s all for this time and I hope there was something useful for you. Just remember that it’s not always about the content or the writing.
The US let Iraq down. Yes, the US is the big brother in that we like to act like it.
People are seemingly amazed at ISIS and the advances it is making in Iraq. Really? Seriously? Wow.
This is RonovanWritesRanting time.
Hey, enemies of the new Iraq government, you guys just wait and plan because we’re going to pull out our troops by this date! Is that cool with you guys? Yeah? Okay, stock up.
Okay and before I go on, I am ticked off. I am mad. I am angry. Yes, RonovanWrites is angry. Think of all the troops, US, Iraqi and all the other countries involved that lost their lives just for this to happen. Yeah, ticked off is my polite way of putting it.
Oh, and before people start blaming Obama for pulling the troops out, Bush actually signed the order with the date on it for the troops to be removed before he left office. And no, this does not mean I am an Obama supporter or a Democrat, it means I like facts, I guess it’s the Historian in me. But does that mean I am a Bush supporter or a Republican? No, it means I like facts.
You cannot set a date for something like what happened in Iraq. You stay until they ask you to leave or the situation is well in hand. Now the US is storming to the area with a warship. I hope no more lives are lost.
I read a book a while back, took some notes on it, and it said that the reason terrorists from that area of the world are turning their attention to the US is because we keep stomping around in their yards. If a country asks for help, sure, go for it. Was there a legit reason to go into Iraq in the first place? I’ll never know.
But this I do know; once you are there you stay there without an expiration date until the job is done. One president caved to the pressure to set a date, and another caved to the pressure to follow through with it. Both were wrong.
I don’t understand everything going on in Iraq. We get the news here in the US with a western take on things. I try to look at a lot of sides. Regardless of what’s going on ISIS has been wrong so far. And really the whole idea of ISIS from my understanding is wrong, especially there methods.
I think the US needs to change their foreign policy in the future about how to deal with things. Don’t mess in other people’s muck. Take care of number 1, US, and each country would call themselves number 1 so don’t start with me on calling US number 1.
And here is my biggest Foreign Policy change. Whoever the president is consider this; if we cannot get it right in this country why are we going elsewhere to think we can fix it there?
I’m not tough. In fact I’m the exact opposite. I’m what you might call The Sensitive Blogger. If you’ve read my work and had interactions with me you may have put together a picture of what I am. I wear my mind and heart on my sleeve. They are both out there for the world to see and stomp on.
And sometimes people trip over one or the other without knowing it.
When the intentional hurt happens I can deal with that, most Bloggers can. We know there will be people who disagree with us or don’t like our work or are just intentionally trying to pick a fight. They want to be THAT commenter.
I can handle that. It’s those blindside ones that make me almost give up. When that happens I turn to typing. I write. Why not turn that hurt into something I can use on my Blog?
You get judged at times by history, a history that is not your own. I wrote an article called ‘I’m not THAT man’ recently and I find that phrase works in many areas of life. Before I go on, don’t get me wrong. Something said today was not said in a rude or impolite manner but it caught me off guard and well it’s going to stay with me for a long time and I will question my judgment for a long time.
I still feel sick. You know that sick disappointed feeling that you get when you are hurt. My initial reaction was “I give up, delete blog.” Since my accident thoughts turn into actions quickly. I stopped myself this time. I just didn’t want to be known as someone who a person even thought remotely might have been doing bad practice.
No, I wasn’t being bad or anything. It was just said that it could be seen as such. So don’t think anything like that. I didn’t post bad stuff, or comment badly to someone. It was just a moment that hit me.
It made me realize my judgment isn’t what it should be about things.
You probably clicked this looking for tips about blogging. I don’t know if you got anything out of this. But sometimes I just need to write and post something that is just a ‘me’ thing. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually done that until now in a non creative format, but isn’t that what having your own blog is about?
Writing 101 has been a breath of fresh air and a cesspool of rank fumes. On the one hand I am renewing a lighter side of my writing at times and meeting different and amazing people, while on the other…I’m wading through things I don’t want to know again.
Looking at my work over this past week there have been some ups and downs. I do like the fact that I’m not afraid with different formats and topics. Everything is a learning experience and nothing is a failure as long as you take it and move on.
Free the Nipple? Hmm… This is an opinion piece giving my opinion of the Scout Willis publicity event recently, not her actions but the general topic itself.
ronovanwrites 