Blogging

This Week in the Life of Ronovan or How I almost became a Democrat.

Ronovan Thoughts , , , , , ,

Okay, so that title may actually not really apply to this post. I have no idea yet because this is what I call a stream of thought post, like a diary thing but in no way like one. It’s more like saying I’m just going to share whatever comes to mind because I’m just to lazy this week to go back and polish things up and make sense of whatever I write. This should be a blast for me and possibly painful for you if you actually read it.

You may be happy to know I don’t remember much that happened this week. One thing I’ve been working on is a list for you guys and ladies. I wanted it to be made of 10 sites but I’ve only found 7 that I want to use so I either will change the title or create 3 new sites just so I can use that spiffy title I came up with.

I actually did an entire post about how Kanye West was misrepresented by the press and Social Media regarding his history of slavery comment. It was a well done article, then he tweeted. The guy means well, he’s just not articulate off the cuff in interviews. So I had the post ready to go, I went to Twitter during a break, checked on Kanye for anything else and sure enough … he’d Tweeted. I guess you know what happened to that post that I spent hours on. I still may use part of it though. There are some great historical people I was not aware of that came out of slavery to become success stories … enough to encourage anyone.

Most of you know I’m a good Christian boy, to the point of having been a super Christian in my church a few years ago prior to my accident. I’m a Conservative, but not., but I really am. Actually I think I am a mix. I’m not sure if that makes me and Independent or what. I almost became a Democrat this week, thus the reason for those fist couple of very long sentences of intro. President DT backed out of the Iran Nuclear deal. Up to that point I was praying for hope. I actually mean that. I was praying that something positive would happen. Okay, so we did end up with the three detainees released from Korea, but I don’t think that had anything to do with DT, but more to do with North Korea doing a great positive PR program to the world. But in the moment that DT finally, and utterly ruined the reputation of the United States I was done with him.

I even went so far as to Tweet I might have just become a Democrat with a Tweet of a The New Yorker article about what it really means to the US with our pulling out of the deal.

But, at the end of the day and the week I have youtube to pull me through. I don’t have TV to watch. Yes, there is TV in the house but I just don’t watch it because of various reasons. I have Amazon Prime but often that takes a bit more commitment than I have to give. I sometimes just want those quick little bits of humor to let  me know the world still exists and is mostly a good place to be.

Leave a comment below with your favorite youtube channel for me to try out. I really love humor, trivia, history, and well it seems like I like everything.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and I’ll catch y’all next time.

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My Space Got Hijacked.

Ronovan Blogging, Thoughts , , , , , ,

When I decided to take a little break that turned into an over one-year break from active blogging, I intended to reenergize mentally and emotionally. I’m a blogger that started this adventure without boundaries in place. What that means is I was open to everyone who seemed to need help. And I got plenty of people showing up.

Of course, I kind of asked for it because I seriously put myself out there with my personal struggles. I shared history and current factors that led me to where I am now, or rather where I was then. But I made a mistake by shutting down entirely during my break and distanced myself from my blogging friends.

Amazingly I don’t think that I forever pushed some very important people away. Since my post last week, I’ve received comments and messages welcoming me back and some ‘you were missed’ sentiments. That was a big relief. Now I just need to become active visiting around the neighborhood without becoming addicted again.

One of the things that made this blog be anything that it might be is poetry. I never wrote poetry with maybe the exception of a handful years ago and then I started a blog. As I roamed around followers’ blogs I found poetry. It was then I decide I would give it a try and it became the biggest outlet for a lot of things going on inside of me. Shortly after learning what a haiku was I started a monthly haiku challenge. It’s been going ever week without fail since with week 200 coming up shortly. I even kept it going through a hospital stay and a tornado where I ended up evacuating my home to travel to a hotel for safety. That last one happened twice.

I’m an amateur at best when it comes to the rhymes and all of that, but I do think I ended up a nice level before I stopped cold turkey. Why do I bring this up?

Now I am finding it a struggle to do what was once my favorite thing to do on my blog. It’s as great lesson in even if you have a talent for something that if you don’t keep practicing you can lose it. I also stopped writing fiction and for an author with a book available on Amazon that hurts so deep I can’t even describe it.

I get an idea to write a piece of poetry or a story and before I can even pick up a pen or get my laptop going something clicks inside of me and the engine shuts down. Now as I attempt to get back into those good habits I once have I’m going to need to break with the old ones I’ve developed and that is the biggest piece of advice I can give anyone that is a creative.

You need to pick a creative space that is dedicated to your art, no matter what that art may be. Don’t allow any sedentary activity into that space. Why? You get an idea and then you go to that spot or you head to hop on your bed with your laptop and what happens? What happens is your body and mind slip into the habit that takes place most often in that space. You won’t even realize that is what’s happening.

For the longest time my bed was my writing space because it was the only place in the house that I could use, but I did an excellent job of writing and filling my days and evenings with creativity. Then during the break my little space in the house, I called my own, became a place for watching movies, reading books, taking naps, and simply resting while Fibro Flares did their thing.

Now I am rewiring my mind and body to be back to the olden days of blogging and writing books. Writing these posts each week are what you might call baby steps. I don’t advise forcing yourself into a creative space all at once. If you do you will end up so frustrated, you might just give up entirely.

So, if you are suffering from a decrease in blog output or other creative endeavors, see if you’ve hijacked your creative space for other things … then hijack it back, but in a nice and easy way.

See y’all next week.

Getting into a habit is a B*@#$!

Ronovan Blogging , , , ,

4 years? Yep, that’s how long I’ve been running this blog as of today. I’ve learned a lot during that time. I’ve gone through phases of being this person or that person in Blogland as I call it. Or did I used to call It bBogworld? Maybe now I’ll stat calling it the Blogiverse. Yeah, I like that. Anyway, I at one time was writing multiple articles a day about how to blog, poetry, writing, and anything else I could think of. Then I hit the wall. I made a mistake and didn’t even know it until way too late.

The mistake I made? I took a break from blogging except for my weekly haiku challenge. Even the challenge was a challenge to get out each week. Sometimes it would be 7:45 AM and the haiku is supposed to go out at 8 AM and I am barely able to find the energy or will to get the laptop and log in.

At first, I took a break to unplug for a while. I wanted to experience a bit of what normal people did. I wanted to watch at TV show, take a nap. I even wanted to work on writing my next book. Up to that break I had a daily habit of not only writing my blog but also being creative in working on book ideas. Then I developed new habits.

One habit was a good one, I read books. But then that turned in to an obsession almost, an addiction. Last year I read over 300 books. Now I can barely read a book. I start one and within a couple of chapters I already see where things are going, and I stop and then move on to the next book.

Oh, and then there were the naps. But then I have Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia, so I just end up sleeping whenever and often don’t sleep for a couple of days at a time.

Then there is the manic binge watching. I have this addictive nature, it runs in the males in my family, it’s why I don’t touch alcohol. Once I watch the first episode of something then I must see them all. Or if there is a genre of film, I just gotta see whatever else I can find in that genre or by that movie star.

Now here I am a year or so later and I’m trying to develop that writing habit again and thus find my friends once more. I did a little reading about developing habits and some of it is a bit daunting.  According to actual scientific studies it took people in the studies anywhere from 18 days to 254 days to create their desired habit. Now some habits are easier to achieve, and people are all different regarding ability, strength of will and determination, but it really is realistic to expect a habit to take anywhere from 2 to 8 months to create a habit. So, if you are as couch potato and you want to run an hour every morning before work, well look forward to a long haul but just realize that it’s normal to take a while AND if you skip a day you don’t have to start the months over again.

So here I am on day one of my new habit, or should I say old habit? I tried to do this last year, but I bombed. I chose to simply do a haiku in response to my challenge, just 3 little lines of poetry, and I couldn’t do it. Now I have no idea where to start except to write SOMETHING at least once each week.

I’ve put this out there to let all you newer bloggers and perhaps even some of my veteran friends know the dangers of taking that break. If you do take a break, set a time to start back up and stick to it.

The one good thing I realized after my break from blogging is … YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT BLOGGING! So all you addicts out there, just remember, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. I did, and now here I am better and more sedate than ever.

See y’all next time.

A new year, a new plan.

Ronovan Thoughts , , , ,

Well, it’s a new year. Time to dust off the blog and see what I can do. I’ve been absent for the most part for this past year. Time to explain myself.

It took me several months to figure out what my problem has been in the lack of writing. I haven’t written anything over the past year other than a handful of posts and a short story that was published in an anthology. The problem? Lethargy. The cause?

As some of you know I have fibromyalgia or what is more commonly known as chronic pain along with chronic fatigue. I don’t know from one minute to the next what’s going to happen. Well, my medications were increased a while back and increased again. It turns out those medications cause something called lethargy. I call it energy killer.

I have all these ides but as soon as I start to go and put them into words I feel exhausted. This year I’m going to get my old habits back and write, write, and write some more. Sounds like a good idea, but then there is the how of doing it. My first thing is to participate in my haiku challenge each week. Who can’t come up with three lines of poetry, right?

Second, I’ll be plotting a six book series of YA Fantasy/Realism.

Third, I’ll work on two books of YA I’ve already written to get them in publishing worthy state.

Fourth, I’ll start submitting that Romance novel I’ve written. I’ll take my time and not kill myself by doing the over submitting like a lot of us tend to do. Do a few a month, wait for reactions, then do some more.

Fifth, well, the fifth is a secret, but I have some writing ideas.

All of these are things I’ve been planning for a long time, but now they are out there for the world to see. Maybe that will get me to actually doing something about them.

Oh yeah, and I have to read books for reviews on the LWI site. Can’t forget that. I’m tired already.

Now if I can overcome the medications I’ll be good. Wish me luck.

How to do a Ping Back.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , ,

 

What does a Ping Back mean?

For our purposes a Ping is when one website speaks to another website.

How does that conversation take place?

You take the URL from one Blog Post and place within the content of the Blog Post of the other website and make sure it is active/live/working.

What ways can you do a Ping Back?

  1. Make the actual URL active within the post.
  2. Place the URL within a word of a sentence of the content of the post.
  3. Place the URL within an Image of the post.

WordPress Ping Backs Image

Numbers 1 and 2 are done the same way.

  1. You highlight whatever it is that you want the reader to click on in order to go to the other post.
  2. You then click on the Insert/edit link Icon.
  3. You place the URL within the Paste URL or type to search field of the pop up box.
  4. You then click the blue box with the white arrow within it.
  5. You are done.
  6. Extra-If you want your link to open in new tab click the Gear next to the blue box with the white arrow and check the box that says Open link in new tab then click Add Link. (Why do this? You don’t really want people to leave your site. So if the link opens in a new tab, they still have your site up and you have a good chance of the reader checking out other things on your site.)

For an Image.

You click the image and then repeat steps 2-5 above.

Why do a Ping Back in the first place?

The Ping Back will appear in the comments of the Post of the other site, letting the owner as well as any other readers aware that you have participated or made some type of comment regarding the post. This will encourage Traffic to your blog.

I ask for people to do a Ping Back in the various challenges I host on my blog. Some blogs receive hundreds of extra visits each year because of doing Ping Backs.

There are URLs that won’t send a real Ping Back to the original Blog.

If you were to use the URL of my Blog’s Home Page or the Category Page of one of my challenges, the reader of your post would be able to click the link and visit me, but I would not receive a Ping Back. If you think about it, it makes sense. There isn’t a comments section on a Category Page nor a normal Home Page.

Much Respect

Ronovan

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

WordPress Post Editor Changes.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , ,

“There is nothing permanent except change.” – Heraclitus

With that being said, you may have noticed the changes in your WordPress Post Editor.

Let’s look at the two obvious ones.

First up, Text Color.

Font Color ImageI like it. Now I can see the colors more easily. There were a lot of shades before, which some may have enjoyed. Sure I did too, but now we have the added option of the next thing.

Custom Color

Custom Font Color ImageYou can change the numbers or click in the rainbow like color bar and then use your cursor to move around within the color box to find just the shade you like. We may have fewer shades preset but now we have so much more available to us.

Next up is the one that freaked me out at first. Yes, I got freaked out. Okay, I didn’t but it was weird for a moment.

Link Insert

link insert image

When you clink on the Link Icon up in the tool bar of the Post Editor, you now get that lovely little URL Box you see at the bottom of the image. When you are inserting a URL link in your post, like you might do with my Haiku Challenge, you highlight the words and click the Link Icon and then click the little left facing right angled arrow next to the URL box, it’s called Apply. You see it above in a blue box with a white arrow. A little round spoke gear looking thing is just to the right of it.

But you might need to insert a URL into a word or into an image. That’s what we look at next.

The Gear Box

Link Gear Box WordPress ImageThis isn’t all that complicated. It’s just an expanded version of what we had before. You get to this by clicking that little spoke like gear next to the Apply arrow I mentioned before. I like this because you get to see a list of recent posts you may want to link to, and it has that nice Search box as well.

Hope this helps someone. If you have any questions, leave them below in the comments, or fill out the comment form.

Remember to CLICK IT and GET IT. for a FREE copy of my debut novel.

Debut Novel Free image

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

5 WAYS TO GROW YOUR BLOG AUDIENCE.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , ,

I’ll be sharing how to set things up to attract attention with a post and what to do with it once you’ve attracted readers. Okay, so I don’t make money from blogging, but to me, the Readers are friends and encourage me to continue writing. How do you think the amnesiac finished a book and has it on Amazon? I was in limbo before I started blogging and found the community here.

5 Ways to Grow Blog Audience

YOU NEED TO GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE CASUAL READER (CR).

If you’ve been blogging a while and look around for how to bring people to your blog, then you’ve seen tips about catchy Post Titles. Yep, this is the big one for getting people to click on your post, to begin with.

  • Don’t lie or bait and switch. In other words, your title should be true about the post. If not, people won’t come back.
  • How do you create that attention grabber title? I’ll give you the three that work the best.
    • Use numbers if doing something like quotes.
    • Use the old ‘How to” if you are going to share a tip or advice.
    • Or use “What do you do …”

Do these work? Here are my top 10 most ‘Liked’ posts.

Anything I mentioned above stands out to you on that list? The question is, did I use those methods on purpose or not? The truth? I did it with only one, and that one I did use the numbering the way the tips I’ve read said to. I used 18 instead of using numbers such as 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on. What you see though is, that attention grabbers work. However, grabbing them doesn’t mean you keep them coming back.

YOU NEED TO KEEP THE CR’S ATTENTION.

To turn a visitor into a regular reader of your blog:

  • Follow through on what your title promised.
  • Make your post visually and mentally stimulating.
    • Get the readers eyes moving.
    • Mix up your post with Images scattered about and not always centered or all in a column along one side of the post.
    • Don’t have too many font sizes or colors. That gets annoying. If a list, like a list of quotes, perhaps alternate two colors, with odd being one color and even being the other.

YOU NEED TO PLAY THE NAME GAME

Sounds like I’m saying to spread gossip, right? No. What you need to do is make sure when you put an image in your post, you have filled in the Alt Text field for the image. Why? Do you notice that quite often people put images at the very topAlt Text Image in Media Library of a post? Have you ever noticed that I rarely put my images right at the very top? (WordPress has changed there Alt Text field to the top of the box since this image was captured. I’ll be updating it shortly._

There’s a reason I don’t. Search Engines crawl through your pages searching for key words a person is looking for. If you have an image taking up room at the top, and nothing in the Alt Text field, two things get messed up: the Search Engines may discover other more SEO friendly site pages and push you down the list during their hunt, and the other thing, nothing to do with Search Engines, is screen readers for the visually impaired don’t read that blank field and it throws them off a bit. Simply pick maybe the best five words to describe what the image is about in the context of the post. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It could be something like “Writers Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge Image”. Also, be certain to include what the post is about in the first paragraph as well as anywhere appropriate.

LINK TO RELATED CONTENT YOU ALREADY HAVE.

If people visit you looking for one topic, add a link at the end of your post to previous content of a similar nature the reader may find interesting. One thing you can do with the old post is to change the name of it to something catchier and more attention-grabbing for the reader to click on. The thing is, your content may be great, it’s just your title is bad. (See Blog Tip: Links to Blogs and Articles-How to and WHY to find out to link.)

YOU NEED TO INVITE READERS TO FOLLOW YOUR BLOG.

Make it easy for a visitor to click follow. You can:

  • Put a link to Bloglovin’ in your post and have people follow you that way. It’s not my preferred method but it is one.
  • You can also include your Twitter handle with a link included for people to follow you on Twitter. I do this. (Wonder how to add it? See Blog Tip: Links to Blogs and Articles-How to and WHY
  • You can also put a script in your post that when people click on it, they follow your blog. I do this.

I imagine you may be wondering what that script is I mentioned. Let’s see if I can put it in here and make it not work.

[ blog_subscription_form ]

Success! What you need to do is take all the bold you see and remove the space between the [ and the b and between the m and the ]. Place that in your post and it will appear as everything between my Book Cover below and my Twitter handle. There is no actual HTML scripting.

Check out 10 Tips to Make Blogging Enjoyable. Traps to Avoid or 18 Quotes to Inspire Writers, Bloggers–Everyone. You choose which your in the mood for today.

Much Respect

Ronovan

Click HERE to see my Historical Fiction novel on Amazon.

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Fellow Bloggers Publish Book

Ronovan Interviews , , , , , , , , ,

Our friend Nato asked me a few questions for my book blog tour. Check her out. I mean the interview people! Geesh.

Chasing Life and Finding Dreams

What do you get when you mix a handsome virile sailor with the seductively beautiful wife of an admiral? You get an intense barroom brawl that ends in murder, and that’s only the first chapter! What happens in the second chapter? I can’t say. Well, not yet.

That’s because the book, Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling, just came out yesterday. The interesting thing about the book, well outside of the sex, lies and murder, is that it was written by fellow bloggers, P.S. Bartlett and Ronovan Hester.

One of my blog ideas for this year was to expand into doing interviews. And with the publishing of a new book, I knew I needed to start with Ronovan. As a fairly new blogger, I stumbled upon Ronovan’s blog in late 2014. For over 82 weeks now, he has been hosting a weekly Haiku Challenge. I can’t say I had really written many…

View original post 1,492 more words

How to be a Great Guest Blogger by author @RonovanWrites!

Ronovan Blogging , , ,

Visit my guest post on Hugh’s blog. Some great advice in the comments as well. Seriously.

5 Things I Take Away From 2015.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , ,

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for this past year who made it possible for Ronovan Writes to be the success it has been. For a site that started out as a sort of therapy for myself to battle through a lot of issues, it has not only accomplished that, but much more.

I want to share a few things now.

Ronovan Writes 2015

#1

There will be a proper Haiku Review this week.

I’ve allowed pressures to interfere with properly treating those of you who diligently participate in the Haiku Challenge with proper respect. I know there may not be a great number of extra views that come from it, but everyone does receive a few each week and a great many receive at least double digit extra views because of it, and with my dropping the ball that means some of you miss out on those extra visits.

I may not always be able to promise witty reviews with humor or the nice divisions by category, but I’ll have a review out each week from now on unless medical reasons keep me from it. I’ve only missed one so far, last week. And that is eating away at me for breaking that string. I may do one for that week anyway.

#2

I want to share the stats all of you created this year. I haven’t done it, you have. I created a place for you to visit and share your work and in turn others wander through and meander on to your sites, and hopefully become new followers. And in return some of your readers find their way to me. It is much appreciated.

#3

Hugh of Hugh’s Views & News gives me partial credit for helping spread the word about his blog early on with an interview. I don’t know about that, his personality kind of does the trick. He would be a success regardless. Well, I would like to pick up on something I truly enjoyed doing way back then and interview some of you. If you would like, I’ll have a form below for your suggestions of who you would like to see me interview. You’ll notice an email is not required. You can give one if you like, but none is required for something like this.

#4

I want to thank all of you who have visited my new Author site and read the first chapter of my novel. The encouragement I’m getting is a blessing and much needed to calm the nerves. I think we all get nervous during big events in our lives. Doing this as a co-author experience is part of the stress I think, because that means I am either partly responsible for a success, or maybe the cause of someone’s lack of success. The kind words and those of you who have stated you love it and are going to purchase it has help calm me at times.  Thank you.

STATS-Year In Review

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 70,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Where did those people come from?

That’s 138 countries in all!
Most visitors came from The United States. United Kingdom & Australia were not far behind.

My Top Referrers?

#1-Search Engines
#2-WordPress Reader
#3-Twitter
#4-Yahoo.Mail
#5-WordPress Dashboard
#6-Widgets.Wp
#7-PrairieChat.com
#8-Facebook

I mention 8 of these because if I went by the report we received from WordPress, 3 of those on the list would not have been included with Facebook coming in 5th.

And my #1 Comment Maker of the Year?

Author Annette Rochelle Aben, poet, author, radio personality and encourager extraordinaire.

 

Ronovan Hester is an author, with a debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life on his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of writing, authors and community through his online world has led to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, Weekly Fiction Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

MAKE YOUR FONTS VISIBLE ON IMAGES.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You have a great piece of writing and a great photo to put it on. You put the words on the image and what happens? You can’t seem to find that happy color of font to show all of your words because a normal photo has a great number of colors in it. Even if your photo is the sky, you have shades of blue ranging from so pale a blue it looks white down to the dark blues to almost dusk. The answer? Overlay images.

A Note: All overlay images were found in the public domain. The actual photo of the building is mine.

Make Your Fonts Visible

One thing to know, this post is not that long, it’s mostly taken up with image examples.

How do you make it work and still see your image? You know you could put a block of color in the sky and put your text in. But that ruins what you’re going for.

Enter picmonkey.com.

I use picmonkey quite often in tandom with pixlr.com, a free photoshop like product online.

Below is a photo from the top of a parking deck on the campus of UGA. You can see the stadium lights to Sanford Stadium over the buildings in the distance. As you can see, my name doesn’t show very well across the building but very well in the sky.

UGA by Ronovan Hester

Below you see the menu inside of picmonkey.com after you have loaded your image. The thing to know first is to create the overlay image/shape you want to use and then type your text. You can then manipulate all you like and the text will be to the forefront. Of course you can always do it the other way around as sort of a see through a veil or curtain affect.

A-Points to the Overlay Icon in the shape of a butterfly. The overlay does exactly as it sounds, it overlays something on top of the image already showing. You can even pull in your own image to overlay on top of the image you first loaded.

B- For the purpose of what I want to do with this image and text I’ll chose the Geometric options.

UGA Picmonkey Overlay Demo

C-I am choosing the rectangular Geometric option because it actually can be manipulated to any height or width. The square, for example, will obviously adjust to remain a square.

UGA Picmonkey Geometric Demo

D-You are able to make the image height taller or shorter by placing your cursor on the point along the edge and dragging the edge down.

E-You are able to increase or decrease the width by doing the same as the above but along the side edges.

F-By placing your cursor over the small circle over the top of the box and then clicking and holding down your mouse you are then able to rotate or tilt the box however you like. Something to keep in mind is making the text and box lines parallel.

UGA Picmonkey Geometric Manipulaiton Demo

G-Here you see the Editing Box for the Geometric Overlay rectangle I used.

H-There are two boxes, one for the outline of the rectangle, and then below it is the inside of the box, the part we’re concerned with today. The box will start out as black, but you can click on the box signified by “H” here and choose a color. You may first want to use the part signified by the “I” first.

I-To make the box fade to transparent you increase the Fade. I left the color as black here and you can see the letters are still more visible as a whole than before.

J-You are able to do some different Overlay manipulation other than simple fading of a selected color by choosing the Blend Modes option. Simply select the different options within and see what they do. Some are very surprising.

UGA Picmonkey Demo

Below you see the final result with the box having been changed to the dark green of the trees in the background to the right of the building. I chose this color by clicking on the black box image, signified by the letter “H” above and choosing the eyedropper. I then clicked on the tree. I could have also let my cursor go over all the colors inside of that letter “H” box and the Faded Geometric rectangle would have changed colors as the cursor passed over each color.

UGA Faded Ronovan Hester Green Demo

And last we have the copyright in the sky with a red background of a box with the same blue lettering as above. Skies are difficult to have attractive lettering in and this will help you accomplish that. Something to consider with what I did here. I moved the box and text up and then tilted everything back to horizontal. Easy? Maybe for some, but what I did, to make certain the text and the box were in line with each other was drag them both to the bottom and line them up with the bottom edge of the screen. Then I moved them to the top.

UGA Ronovan Hester Sky Demo

You may pull in your own images as overlays by choosing the Your Own at the top of the Overlay options. Following are two examples. One is the UGA G, the image was found in the public domain. The photo is mine. It is followed by the same image with a curtain, found in the public domain, overlay over it.

UGA Image Ronovan Hester G

UGA G and Curtain Ronovan Hester

You may have a lot of fun with this feature. I did have to make the G and the Curtain fit the building image. To do that all I had did was take the corner of the image and drag it to increase the size. Try it, you’ll see how easy it is. The other Overlay image options do the same thing as the Geometric and Your Own.

When you save the image, remember to rename it to something other than the original name of the image. That way you keep your original image in its original form.

You are also able to use these techniques when creating book covers.

Enjoy!

Ronovan Hester is an author, with the debut novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in December. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com with the hope if inspiring others to overcome and continue on. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Perseverance-Or is it love?

Ronovan #BeWoW, Inspiration & Motivation , , , , , , , , , ,
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle

“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”-Thomas Carlyle

I’ve moved away from talking about my health issues in the specifics in recent months. I felt as though my health was becoming me. And honestly I thought I had talked it to death. Well, I wish we could talk our ailments to death. If that were the case I would have been healthy a long time ago. But anyway, I wanted to be more positive in my writing I shared. However, at times I realize one should open up and share to let others know what can be done. Things don’t  HAVE to stop you.

I’ve never given much thought to perseverance as a word to describe myself. It’s been said by others but I’ve always put it off as a kind thing to say. I don’t mean to say they were being dishonest and lying just to make me feel better by saying it, but being kind in how they viewed my situation.

Many don’t know what Fibromyalgia is, but it’s a health situation that umbrellas a great many things including Chronic Pain and Chronic Fatigue. Much more goes in to it than that, but those two cane be easily identifiable with. Combine that with Osteoarthritis throughout the spine, including the neck, herniated discs in the spine and neck, and various other ailments, life can be such a joy at times.

But then you add the concussion I suffered two years ago, a Grade 3 Concussion that led to Retrograde Amnesia, short term memory loss, migraines that never cease, yes I mean I have migraines 24/7, sound and light sensitivity, and something else I can’t remember, and you end up with a very interesting life situation.

I know of the concussion because it is a habit to know now. A journal I kept around that time, barely legible as I was writing with either hand depending on the moment, tells me what was going on. I’ve slowly begun to let it go, the specifics of things, I’m not a dweller. I’ve truly decided to move on and not allow man made guilt hold me back from enjoying life.

Why tell all of this?

I have a book tentatively set to come out in December. A second book in the final draft stage before proofing and editing, that will then be shopped around to agents/publishers. I have a fairly successful blog, a group of online friends, and much more.

No, I don’t remember my family. I remember my son. I make an effort to remember history of my life as I am told in order to fit in, or at least act as though I am normal enough in my son’s eyes so he an have a normal father. I don’t wear my sunglasses like I should, nor my earplugs to avoid looking like an oddity around him. Seeing me put into an ambulance and then following it, only to see it disappear was upsetting enough for him not to have to be reminded of it every time he looks at me.

With the very odd life I have, I still push forward. I never gave it thought as being perseverance. I wanted to write a book and have my son something in the world to say, “My Daddy did that.”

People write a book for a lot of reasons. Yes, I love writing, but I mainly want something left behind for my son to be able to hold up and always look to. I want to be able to contribute to his life in many ways.

Maybe what I’m talking about isn’t perseverance. Maybe it’s simply being a father. Maybe it’s love. Whatever it is, it has brought me this far, and I intend to keep going.

I still have to write that book he helped come up with.

Thomas Carlyle Quote Perseverance

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Check the comments for other #BeWoW posts and SilverThreading.com for more Writer’s Quote Wednesday offerings.

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Keep On by @katcarpita of Dandelion Fuzz

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A great post that encompasses a lot but in so short a space. You just never know what your doing and for whom you’re doing it for.

Dandelion Fuzz

mlk perserverance 10.14.15

The past few weeks I have drifted and I have been pushed farther away from my blogging world that I am comfortable. I felt the distance growing as days turned into weeks and it was all I could do to eek out a post or two. I was behind in reading all of my favorite blogs. Photographs taken for upcoming photo challenges sat unused in their folders on my desktop. Post ideas fell by the wayside. I was not happy with the direction things were heading but I felt helpless.

I can give you all the excuses- I was preparing my house for my oldest son along with his family to move in indefinitely. I was needed to watch the baby. I had to attend my other two kids’ college family weekends. I had meetings. My best friend moved within days of my oldest son moving in. The list goes…

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Plan for Success!

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Did you read my 10 Tips to Make Blogging Enjoyable. Traps to Avoid? If not, it’s still there…waiting. Why do I mention it, other than hoping those of you that missed it go and read it? There is actually an 11th Tip. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it in the 11th hour, I thought of it after that. But that just means I get to write another Blogging Tip article.

Plan, Organize, Organize, oh and Organize!

We think we organize, but we don’t. We have some categories we click the little box next to for each post but we begin to write things and come up with random categories. Before we know it we have countless categories or we have posts in an existing handful that don’t make sense.

Organizing from the very beginning of blogging makes for a lot of great benefits.

  • Easier Reader Navigation
  • Better Reader Enjoyment
  • Easier SEO Results
  • Less Headache and Mess for You, The Blogger

This isn’t my first go around with an article about organization. My 3 Best Blogging Tips for a Successful Blog  was one year ago discussing menu structures, how to do drop down menus and create real PAGES and fake ‘pages’ as headings for drop down menu sections. Yep, step-by-step.

Now, if you’re new, the Category is basically like a folder you place a post in and you can then actually make a page in your menu using that category. You can look at my menu around my header image to see what I am talking about.

Mine looks simple, right? In reality, mine is a mess. I have over 1300 articles now, posts, poems, tips, videos, and whatever other random things I’ve come up with. I tell you that so you know when I talk about a need to organize I know from experience.

The problem? The mess?

I realized too late my system for organizing was not adequate. Why? There was no system. For someone who spent years organizing and mapping out things for Plan Your Blog for Successlocations around the country, I can’t stand the condition things are in. But the process of correcting all the mess is overwhelming. I’ll do it, slowly, but slowly is the key word.

If you are a veteran blogger, take a handful of minutes a day and do a page of your content in the Dashboard each day. No more than that. If you do more, you get tired of it, disgusted, and it becomes work. Blogging should be an enjoyable part of our lives, even if we do it as a job.

Now, I have great articles, and I’m not tying to be all boastful. People have truly enjoyed some of my work, but people can’t find those articles. I can’t sometimes unless I go into my Dashboard. (Sorry, Dashboard is blog-speak for where all of our tools and useful things are.)

So organization leads to easy Reader Site Navigation.

To organize your content you need to:

  • Look at what the post you’re doing is at its general level. Is it a Tip, a Writing Piece, Music. What is it? Now you have your Headings/Page Names.
  • What is the post specifically about? Is it a Love Poem, a SciFi story, or a Blogging Tip? Now you have your Categories.
  • Now, for Tags, you go into all the wide and varied things people might think of when looking at the post; Poem, Romance, Desire, Paris, Ocean. I only mention Tags because we are talking about naming of things. This has nothing to do with organization so much, but does in a way when people do a search of a word or you use a Tag Cloud. (For WordPress, don’t use more than 13 Tags or your post might not show up in the WordPress Reader.)

There are countless tips out there about how to organize and boost traffic by managing your content. Not long ago I met Janice Wald of MostlyBlogging.com. The topic of blogging seems to be something she is passionate about and seeks out things to know. As I wrote the article I thought it would be great to ask her for some articles she thought might be of use about the subject of blog organization. Here are some related articles from her site you MUST READ:

The first thing you need to read is; How to Build the Perfect Blog Even if You Don’t Know How This will give you a basic checklist to go through to make sure you have prepared a post worth posting and being read. What you post is your reputation, image, brand. You want to get it right from the beginning. Some readers will never come back if you are bad from the beginning.

Perhaps you are wanting to know if you are doing things right. You think you are but how do you find out? Well, teacher Janice has a report card for you to go by. How to Grade Your Blog  (By the way, I got an A.)

What is another form of organization? How do you know for sure you are doing a good job of it? The report card above won’t tell you if you are getting the results from your efforts. And really there are some less technical aspects that you need to look at. How to Get Loyal Visitors to Repeatedly Return to Your Blog Here you will find a real success  story from a real success blogger.

Now, one final thing from Janice I like is, How to Increase Blog Traffic with Content Curation. It’s not about organizing but how to get more out of those old posts you wrote that no one sees these days. No amount of organization will get all of your work seen. But if you know how to spread that content around, you can get results, maybe even better ones at times.

But not all success of a blog has to do with organization or spreading the word. I for one can vouch for that on some level. Sometimes a blog achieves success not by organization but by personality. My friend Hugh Roberts of Hugh’s Views & News focuses more on the personality and feel of blogging, a blog, and the blog life to be successful. Yes he does the organization but he likes to provide tips on a personal level. One popular article to check out  is, Is Your Blog As Friendly As You Think It Is? It is one of his most recent but high on his most popular post list.

From me you can check my Most Popular list at the bottom of the blog, currently. There are two that seem to get attention the most over time, How to Survive the Blog Life. and Blogging Personality: The Key to Success.

BONUS TIP!

While I was writing the above and reading old articles of mine another tip came to mind.

Leave Your Post to Marinate

We write a post and want it out NOW. Big problem with that is the ugly word TYPO. Nothing worse than doing a Writing Tip article and you have typos everywhere.

Let your article sit a few days, a week or more if you can. Then you come back and read it and you see the problems, and read it in the Preview window, like it would be on your blog, NOT in the Post Editor. Post Editor windows allow for easy skipping over words and even sentences. Our eyes are more accustomed to truly reading something on a Blog page as opposed to the Editor page.

(All images created by Ronovan unless otherwise noted.)

REBLOG, TWEET, FB it, or GOOGLE+ it. Share it however you like so all those linked get clicked.

Much Respect-Much Love

Ronovan

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Easy Connecting and Disconnecting: The Problems.

Ronovan Blogging, Thoughts , , , , , , , , ,

They come and go, sometimes without our even knowing it. The social connections, the tangible next door friend and the stranger a world away who friend in a click and are gone in another. Do people disconnect on a whim or is it for a real reason? What has the ease of Online Social Interaction and Easy Connecting and Disconnecting: The Problems.Disconnection done to us socially as a society and perhaps even morally?

Thinking about things like this puts a knot in my stomach I can’t get rid of until I sort it out through words. Admittedly when I have someone disappear from my social network of “friends” I don’t always ask why. I know the coming and going is a part of the world and of this modern way of forming connections. But sometimes I do wonder.

On Facebook you must deal with people you’ve allowed into your circle of reality. When those people decide to drop you, then you wonder what happened. There is no explanation and thus the knot in the stomach begins. And dropping is the feeling that one may feel.

“What did I do?”

That’s the question that comes to mind first. For me my online social connections are my lifeline. When I lose one it rattles me somewhat and I dwell a little bit.

For someone like me, when someone, especially a female, decides to no longer be a friend you then wonder that very question above. Then you wonder what has been said. I’m a pretty appropriate guy when it comes to online social communications. Maybe in the past I’ve had moments. You would have to ask that old me. Like the one from a few days ago. That’s about how far some of my memories go.

Those social contacts keep the memory lines open. A lot of people don’t realize it but for some of us we may visit various social platform profiles in a rotation to keep people familiar to us. For a memory problem sufferer it can be important. A disconnect can throw things haywire in a major way, especially for someone who is sensitive and has actual feelings.

What has easy detachment brought about in society?

For one there is a lack of working through a problem. A person now unfollows a person and the argument or discord is over. Or it is as far as the un-follower is concerned.

In the celebrity circles it’s an easy way to get publicity and start a celebrity feud to drive up public interest in yourself. Pick the popular flavor and attack them and people will then take notice of you if you have begun to slip in notoriety. VMA awards anybody?

But for the rest of us it is more than a platform. We may have thousands of “Friends” or “Followers” but we have a lot in the offline world, the online world may at times be like a phonebook of all our old and new friends. Facebook is like that for me.

With the not needing to finish a conversation, or work out a situation, society is slowly becoming less and less able to resolve conflicts to the needed end. They still float around and build up into a frenzy. You can look at society and see how things spread like wildfire but no one ever took the time in the very beginning to try to stop it from happening—they went straight into the fire.

When once we had the chance to think overnight and arrive at some common sense we now have people go off onto Twitter or Facebook and speak emotionally.

I mentioned morality.

The ease of online sharing of EVERYTHING with ANYBODY has brought about many problems, even its own show—Catfish. If you have one person you share something with because of distance, I get that. Some relationships are separated by miles because of many reasons. And I do believe there are cases where online capabilities has made for some relationships to stay close and survive instead of drift apart during times apart.

But online has given some this sense of power and invulnerability that one can say and do anything without repercussions. They carry that over into offline life and you can see in society how some things spread and get out of hand. When certain agencies need social media experts just to do their jobs properly I think we have a problem.

I am thankful for online social connection. But I do have problems at times with the Disconnectors. But I suppose we all do it at some point. It’s easier than facing someone and telling them whatever the problem is. If you ever get disconnected by me, put it down to a memory thing. I pretty much stay connected to everyone. Well, unless you are like an uber-jerk. You know who you are. Muahahahahaha.

(Um, that last part was a joke people. So stop thinking it was you I was talking about. Paranoid much?)

There of course is the idea of Ease of Social Connectivity leading to Societal Disconnect. That’s another topic my thoughts are circling around and I may discuss another time.

What do we do?

Keeping a protective barrier is one idea. By barrier I mean have emotional security checks in place people need to pass through before entering that real Easy Connecting and Disconnecting: The Problems.“Friend” circle. Not everyone will hang around but using our mind and not heart will protect that heart. Yes, I know…sometimes that heart is going to take over. And sometimes it will be correct. But with the majority, treat your heart and self like you would treat a child in your care and who you would allow them to be with. In other words, Guard Yourself by taking your time in who you let into your private circle of true friends and remember that social network is like social anything, it’s just an every now and then thing. Just like social drinking though, it can get you in trouble.

Oh, and write a lot about a lot of things. That always helps. I mean who can socialize when they write all…the…time. I’m looking at you, and you know who you are.

Much Respect

Ronovan

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

5 New Things About RonovanWrites Blog and Why. #Blog #Tips

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s time to take a look around the blog. I know those of you who regularly visit have noticed the changes, but here is the official unveiling, and shame to those who peeked.

First, why the change?

Everyone needs a fresh start at some point and it was about time. I could get into some marketing and even managerial reasons, and I might as we go, but for now, let’s leave it as I just needed a change. Maybe as I talk about each change I’ll mention the why.

The Header

I have a header finally. What? Ronovan Writes didn’t have a header before? Nope, it was all in the header image. Now I have the image from my Haiku Challenge that I like so much gracing the abode on a grander scale. Well…at least until I get to learning how to be artistic with my new laptop!!! Why did I change? I decided it was time to be less me centric in the look and I wanted a brighter feel to things. My purpose for this blog isn’t such that it requires anything specific. I’m going to have fun.

No sidebars here.

But all the old information is still here to find, just scroll to the bottom and it’s all in the footers now. Did you really think I would do away with talking about myself and advertising ME completely? Shame on you. No sidebars gives a larger feel to the reading area, cleaner appearance, and simply has that inviting look as far as I am concerned. But then again, to each their own.

Blog Tip

One thing to think about if you change locations of your Widgets and that is the  width of any of your Widgets that have images related to them. If they are too wide then they throw everything off. If you don’t see your Widgets when you change, check that width and reduces to a small size for the moment. Then check your main page again.

Only 5 Posts on Main Page

With the Footers added I decided to limit the number of posts appearing on the landing page to 5. This allows for quicker loading time for the blog and isn’t too much to look at. Also, a reader can get to the Footers a bit faster.

I’ll be doing some other changes slowly to move to as professional and peaceful appearance as I can. That’s what I am going for. I want peace. With a dash of explosions and excitement at the same time. Kind of like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot. Hey, I saw what I saw in that movie, you see what you want to see. Agreed? Good.

Want to read my best Blog Tip article lately, How to Hashtag Blog Tweets? Click here to visit my guest post on Hugh’s Views & News where you can also check out some great tips of his own while you’re there.

Much Respect-Much Love

Ronovan

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Finding Time to Blog. Huh?

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , ,

(A post from my drafts folder to share until my laptop arrives.)

“My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results.”~Seth Godin

I’ve been asked in the past about how to find time to blog. Do you have time to ask me that question? If the answer is yes, you have the time to blog. Do you have time to read a blog? If the answer is yes, you have time to write a blog. I don’t think people are really asking me about time. Then what are they asking me about?

“How do I come up with ideas?

“What do people will like to read?”

“Ronovan, WHAT DO I WRITE ABOUT?!”

I have no idea what you should write about. Why? Because I’m not you. But I suppose like any other blogging non-expert I can tell you what I have done.

The truth is when you first begin to blog you might end up writing about a lot of different things until you find what you are most comfortable with. I was heavy into some dark poetry. It was basically a time I was dealing with my amnesia and before being diagnosed and treated for various health issues. But a great many people identified with it. I have no idea why nor did I attempt to keep writing it in order to keep a certain audience.

I can’t write poetry quite like that now because I am in a much better place. I obviously didn’t give up blogging or writing poetry. Now I write whatever comes to me, regardless of subject or audience. It’s my blog. Thus I blog what I blog.

The first thing you need to decide, once you get down to actually wanting to write a blog post is to decide your purpose for blogging.

Your purpose.

Is your brain hurting yet? Don’t worry, it isn’t that bad. It’s just that some people have blogs for professional or semi-professional reasons. My blog has many purposes.

Some people want to share a hobby, some a cultural or family history. Well things based on that culture.

Many like to explore writing. This one is greatly accommodated here in WordPress. There are many blogs with writing prompts you use and then link back to the original prompt and receive some visitors to your blog. Of course the Daily Post also has prompts. My Haiku Challenge is a Daily Post Event.

WordPress also holds Blogging 101 and 102 to help people get started. I personally found my own way to where I am. Personal interests will lead you to your topics.

If you like a topic then most likely there are others who do as well.

After Your Purpose.

If you are blogging for professional reasons, stick to that topic. People will be visiting you for that specific reason. As for a blog of whatever, much like mine, stay honest and real…you can’t go wrong. People will pick up on fake every time.

As for time?

You can speak more words in 5 minutes than you think. Just type. Don’t write to your audience…talk to them. You don’t have to entertain, simply share. You don’t have to have long posts. They can be no more than 300 words if you like. I did that for a time. I kept my posts under 300 words. It was an exercise in writing as much as it was in not having to write long posts.

“There are 100 million blogs in the world, and it’s part of my job as the co-founder of WordPress to help many more people start blogging.”~Matt Mullenweg

More to come another time. Hope this helps a little for now.

Much Respect

Ronovan

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Meet The Bloggers Who Attended The First Annual #BloggersBash Held In London on August 1st, 2015

Ronovan Blogging , , , , ,

My reblog for today. Yes, I stole the tablet while son works on summer project. Did a few RTs on Twitter so I could be of some use.

Thanks to those who have donated for a new laptop so far. Florence set a goal that would get me something nice and give me freedom again. I can’t tell you how moved I have been. Well the migraine is spiking from using this thing and typing on a screen with knuckles is harder than you think. (I can’t unclench fists due to the arthritis and fibro sometimes but I keep writing anyway,or did.)

Much Love to All
Ronovan

VOTING NOW OPEN – Annual Bloggers Bash Awards

Ronovan Blogging , , ,

Go vote for your favorites for the First Annual Blogger Bash Awards.

Sacha Black

Who-will-you-vote-for-

You nominated in your hundreds – literally! I had to enlist a committee of fabulous bloggers (Ali, Geoff and Hugh) to help organise all the nominations and sort them into this, the official voting post. To find out more about the #BloggersBash event have a look at this, this or this.

11733474_10207031963138573_162371955_nBefore we begin voting, there’s one more thing to add. The lovely Geoff decided we needed to stand out from the crowd so that y’all can find us at the British Library on the 1st August. So he has ordered some Annual Bloggers Bash t-shirts. The committee will be wearing them, but it was cheaper to bulk buy, so inevitably we have spares. SO, if you win one of the awards then a t shirt is yours! But if you would like a t-shirt anyway then they will be £6 on the day. Geoff is…

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The Annual Bloggers Bash Awards – Join Us On August 1st 2015

Ronovan #BeWoW, Blogging , , , ,

My #BeWoW Post this week.