This is a rather unusual Thought this week. It rambled in my mind over so many areas that I decided to see how it rambled out in words. This will be about Blogging and about Life. For me the two are mostly the same. What dictates what appears on my blog is also what dictates my life.

The Reason

I don’t know about you, but I receive emails asking for tips on how to build a successful blog. They then go on to define successful by how to increase Followers, Likes, people to Comment on their blogs. Well they normally do it through the comment form on my About page but it shows up in my email.

Success is a term that is defined differently by each person. For some reason people think I  have successful blog. I am not exactly sure why. I don’t know really what measures you would look at for that. And in all honesty, I don’t concern myself with it unless I am doing tips. It’s not something I think about every day. People don’t know my numbers so I suppose they have an impression of what they must be. If you have been following me long enough you will have noticed I don’t do Follower milestones any longer. It’s just not a thing. Perhaps I should do Comment milestones but I don’t think WordPress has those.

The Secret

Anyway, here is something people might find surprising that I have done. I don’t look at my stats any longer. Well, I did once this past Thursday because of a recent hashtag movement I started and wanted to see what happened, but that was more out of curiosity than hope or gauging success because the hashtag part is secondary to what I am doing on Wednesday.

How do I know if I am doing okay with my blog in regards to reader visits? I look at ‘Likes‘ and ‘Comments‘ IF I have a desire to know. And I notice in the notifications if I have people ‘Following‘.

What does this have to do with a Sunday Thought?

“In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.”~Titus2:7-8

How I write and what I write about I do with honesty, sincerity. I don’t do that intentionally most of the time. I write what I think and see what happens. If I have an opinion I write I will go and check some facts before I move on with it.

Sincerity

I can read a post by someone and tell if it’s sincere or not. Or I suppose I should say I can get a feel of sincerity or not.

How? Well there is something you have to consider, does the post match the personality that’s been displayed? There are some great posts out there but when I read them I can’t quite fall in to the grasp of them because it doesn’t fit with the regular content or the actions, or the comments of the person. There is just something missing.

Integrity

Another part mentioned above is integrity. There are just so many ways you can say something about blogging. It’s difficult to be original, however I don’t steal ideas. I experience the things I put out there and then write about them. In fact I intentionally don’t read the experts blog tips because I want to discover things on my own.

And if you really want to know the truth, those experts aren’t so expert at times. I like to give tips the real bloggers can do, not those with nothing but blogging to do in their lives.

I write novels, so I can’t blog all the time. It seems like I am around a lot but I’m not here as much as people think. Also with my health issues I am actually unconscious for more hours than I care to comment on.

Many people can read tips from me and know who wrote them when they are on another person’s blog. Imitation is not the highest form of flattery when it comes to things like that. At least not so much to me.

The Work

Sure, people notice I can write an article in 10 minutes and put out 20 of them in a day with no problem so they don’t think I work at it, the thoughts behind it.

I think all the time. It has taken time to develop my style and voice in my writing and although I don’t say anything to people that copy me, I still am not a big fan of the blatant copying. You know, if you do something, if you copy an idea, if you even copy phrasing, why not put a footnote in the post giving credit? I’ve done that. (Yeah, remember I was a History teacher that graded reports and gave a zero to a kid for taking a book and writing word for word. And yes, it was 40% of his grade.)

I wrote a poem once that was inspired by two other posts I had read. I gave the two bloggers credit and linked back to their blogs right at the beginning.

The Why

Why do people click Like or Comment on my things and perhaps not the copycat’s? Everyone that visits my blog knows that I put every ounce of heart into every sentence. Even if it might make me look bad or it means the reader doesn’t agree with me, they are fine with it because they KNOW I am for real. That’s the only reason I can think of.

Sincerity and Integrity goes a long way in your life. If you follow those two things it’s difficult to be spoken against. We all mess up, but we all should try to get back to the S&I in our lives.

I’ve messed up over time but I’m good now. I stick to what I am and don’t stray from it, even when people are angry at me for being the who I am now.

 

 

 

 

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