it’s all about you

Yes, you Molly Ringwald.  And you, with the eyes, reading this right now. 

The wise and insightful Todd, over at Todd Pack’s Messy Desk, has bestowed upon me an award.  He’s a super swell guy and you should really go check out his blog.  Tell him I sent you.

The award I speak of.

The small print (there’s always small print) states that I have to tell you something about myself then pass on the award to three blogs I deem worthy. 

First, the blogs. If I could, I would give this award to every blog I read, but I think that would be cheating or something, so instead I will narrow it down to three of the most recent blogs that have started to follow. 

1. Don’t Make That Face - She ain’t quite right and is wildly inappropriate.  So, what’s not to love, right?

2. Spectrum Woman – She cooks, she gardens, she designs zombie wedding dresses.  A true renaissance woman.

3. The Ramblings – Tori slings her words like six-guns and will hit you right between the eyes every time. 

Please take a few moments to go read what these awesome ladies are writing. 

Now, here is where I am supposed to tell you something about myself, but I am at a loss.  I’ve been blogging for four years and have pretty much laid it all out there for you fine people to read.  So instead, I thought I’d take a poll to find out what you, dear readers, would like to see. 

The poll will close on Saturday and the winning topic will be the subject of my blog post on Monday.  See? I said it was all about you.  So let your voice be heard.  Vote! 

 

the ugly truth

It may be declasse to talk about this, but I think my reputation can handle the hit.

Last Friday, after over three years of blogging, my humble little blog was Freshly Pressed.  There I was, on the front page of WordPress.com.  I was shocked.

Maybe they figured “Posts about zombies” wouldn’t be a big draw?

I was more shocked at how many people played along.  Almost everyone who commented posted a haiku.  Really good haikus!  It was so fun reading them all.  Everyone was so nice, too.  I don’t know why, but I was worried about trolls commenting just to be contrary.  I was also worried about tons of people commenting just to plug their own blogs.  No one asked me to read their blog unless it directly related to zombies or horror movies.  Everyone was very nice and polite.  One exception.

It was very exciting, but it was also very stressful.  Stressful, because I have an obsessive compulsion to reply to each and every comment.  I also had to visit all the blogs that linked to my post, read them and comment there as well.  I was grateful for all the exposure, but holy hell.  That’s a lot of pressure.  Heaven forbid I neglect to reply to a comment or thank someone for linking to my blog and they think I’m an asshole.  I couldn’t handle that. Literally, it would keep me up at night.  Yes, I care if complete strangers think I’m a bitch.  Is that endearing or psychotic?  Actually, I don’t want to know.

Well, I didn’t have to stress for long.

Yep.  There’s the ugly truth.  It’s a helluva ride, but it’s a short one.  I am grateful, however.  I don’t think I’m cut out for fame.  Too nerve-wracking.  Relative obscurity is more my speed. 

I would like to take the opportunity to give a shout out to Doug and his blog: We make it all better.  Not only is Doug a super nice guy who took time out of his day to give me words of encouragement, but he also plugged my blog like my mom paid him.  Doug is with Copeland Communications (how cute is the bike-riding dog banner?) and his blog is smart and funny and also has zombies.  What’s not to like?  I have my brief handshake with fame to thank for introducing me to him.

And to everyone else who commented on my zombie haiku post: I promise that I will try to visit your blogs soon.  I may have to quit my job and stop showering, but I will try.  I will also try to leave a meaningful and complimentary comment.  I swear.  Please don’t hate me!

how to write the world’s best blog

We all can’t be writers, but we all want to be bloggers.  It seems like everyone with an internet connection and an index finger has a blog.  And why not?  It’s cheap, it’s easy and you can do it while soaking in a baby pool of pudding in your living room if you want.  A lot more convenient than running off a thousand copies of your manifesto and thrusting them into people’s faces while they shop downtown, that’s for sure. 

But, how do you make your blog’s star shine brighter than all the others in the blog-o-verse?  In the wide, dark waters of the blogging ocean, how can you make your one little drop cause an internet tidal wave?

Well, knowing a couple of kick-ass metaphors helps, but there are a few rules you can follow to increase traffic to your blog and get you noticed. 

1. Write a “How To” post
Don’t make it too technical or sciencey.  You need to reach a wide audience, so your subject should be relatable to most people.  Like “How to Insult Strangers” or “How to Breathe With Your Mouth Closed.”  It doesn’t matter if you don’t know a rat’s ass about your topic because most people will only read your post in order to comment, point by point, how wrong you are anyway.  That’s okay!  There’s no such thing as negative press in blog-land.  A page view is a page view, right?

2. Write a “list” post
Movies you love, books you’ve burned, foods that make you sneeze – list it out.  Lists are easy to read, which is important.  Lengthy paragraphs with no breaks frighten blog readers which makes them clutch their bag of Smartfood and click elsewhere.  You want them to wipe their hands on their pants and stay a little while. 

3. Have pictures
As I inferred in item #2, people who read blogs have short attention spans and need pictures to break up the words.  Blogs are not novels.  They’re more like comic books or those pamphlets at the free clinic that teach you the warning signs of a raging meth addiction or that it’s not your fault your uncle is handsy.
If your blog post is “Top 10 Ways to Train Your Pet Weasel” do a Google image search of weasels or scan Flicker for weasel pictures.  Just be sure to give an image credit so you don’t get sued.  Or, just draw the picture yourself in MS Paint (or whatever paint program Apple has that I’m sure is soooo much better). 

4. Link to something else
It’s not necessary to write much of anything at all if you just link to someone who already said it in a smarter or funnier way than you ever could.  Or, take a cue from item #3 and link to, or embed, a video.  People love watching videos because it’s much easier than reading and there’s sound.  Like TV!  Why spend 500 words that no one will read ranting about Justin Bieber, when you can just type, “Look at this douche” and then post a video.  Blog post: Done. 

5. Mention Justin Bieber
Or whatever embryo currently has a hit song on constant radio rotation.  It’s called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), people.  You gotta know what’s popular in order to be popular.  Some of you are already screwed, I know.

6. Have a child
I don’t condone spawning just for the sake of blog fodder, but it is an insanely popular genre and if you can’t get a handle on SEO, you may want to consider it.  For maximum post material, have more than one, a boy and a girl, if you can manage it.  Plus, you will never run out of copyright free pictures to use.

I had a few more tips, but this post is already on the near side of 1,000 words which is critical mass for most readers so I’ll wrap it up.    How To’s, lists, pictures, links, Bieber, kids.  Got it?  Great!  Now go blow up the front page of reddit. 

 

Or, if you would rather humans, not automatons, read your blog, write whatever you like, however you like.  Just be true to yourself.

you gotta talk to people to make friends, who knew?

Until recently, I’ve been a blog hermit.  Typing away in the dark, hitting “publish” and hoping that someone out there in cyberspace that wasn’t a blood relative would find me. 

Lately, I’ve found a handful of great blogs written by people who, other than not being related to me, are funny, smart and not too famous to acknowledge my existence.  It’s harder than it looks, finding these blogs.  Believe me, I’ve looked.  The blogosphere is populated by narcissistic fame whores who are only interested in making the front page of reddit and upping their stat counts.  (Burn!)

A nice side effect to finding these great blogs and commenting on their posts, is that they, in turn, are kind enough to read my blog and give me comments that feed my ever-growing desire to be loved and adored.  Win-win!

So, here they are, my new favorite blogs:

Melissa at live life. addicted writes about her life in an open, honest and funny way.  With pictures!

Living Dilbert and The Orifice let me know that I am not alone when it comes to dealing with life in a corporate office.

Tom (possibly not his real name) at Shouts from the Abyss rants and raves and cracks me up.  He makes me look like Mary Sunshine. 

And Katie at you are what you eat…or reheat is a food blogger who isn’t pretentious and doesn’t intimidate (perfect for a bumbling cook like myself).  In fact, we (along with Melissa) became acquainted over juice box wine!

Not new, but equally loved are my dear friends Alicia and Jeff who have the blogs Joyful Abundance and Of Moons and Movies.  And there is my friend Stevie over at The Book of Stevie.  I don’t know them personally, but Margaret and Helen are a couple of old broads who tell it like it is.  Last, but not least, are Toothpaste for Dinner and xkcd which are web comics that are always good for a laugh. 

All these blogs are listed over there under my Blogroll.  I visit them every day and I think you should, too.  I hope to continue my lucky streak of finding great blogs and add to that blogroll soon. 

Also, you might notice that I added a new page up at the top labeled “Culled, for your enjoyment.”  This is just a list of my personal favorite blog posts and I feel they are fairly representative of my personality (that is, they have no cohesive theme and tend to ramble).   As always, your comments are welcome and obsessively read over and over.