Category: Q & A

This week Tanya over at Salted Caramel asks:

How would you describe blogging to someone who has never heard of it before?

It is a form of social media, just a form where posts tend to be that much longer. You’re not expected to limit yourself to 3 characters, you’re expected to maybe string a few more together. So, for that reason, more patience is required.

For me, perversely, the act of blogging, rather that writing, is 90% reading. But I don’t think others agree. I read a post the other day, along the lines “I haven’t been on here much as I couldn’t think of anything to say”. A one-way street, talk, talk, talk. Not a “listen” anywhere.

I’m not sure that there is an awful lot else that is different to other social media platforms. This community in particular is more polite, at least, but peel off the veneer and there is still the same hatred and intolerance that exists in the big, wide world. I read another post last week which started off “Trump should be hanged”. If that isn’t an incitement to violence, the very thing Trump syands accused of, I’m not sure what is.

This week Tanya over at Salted Caramel asks a couple:

Do you like reading posts written for prompts? If so, what kind?

If I take part in a particular prompt, I try to commit myself to reading other people’s responses. I sometimes miss one or two but I’m usually pretty good. So, reading prompt responses comes with the territory.

That also means:

• if I don’t think I’ll have time to read other responses, I’ll usually skip the prompt.
• when I do sit down to look through other responses, I’m going to be reading ten, twenty, maybe even thirty responses to that prompt. So, however long a post is, multiply that by thirty, say, and that’s how long it’ll take me to plough through the bunch. Bottom line, the kind of responses I like are short ones!

Poetry is a good one there, as poems are usually a quick read. But here I must admit to being a bit simple – I prefer direct language and I often don’t understand some of the poems I read. I do write some poems myself – you can’t beat a good limerick – but I deliberately try to be obvious, in your face. It’s very “schoolboy” stuff.

For long posts, whether I even try to read them depends on how much time I have abailable to me.Bearing in mind that WordPress is not my main activity.

When you publish a piece in answer to a prompt, do you read entries by other bloggers? If so, do you read them before or after you have written your own?

After. I try to catch up with my daily prompts the same day, but weekly prompts. I tend to wait four or five days. This is because responses tend to come in dribs and drabs, so I try to wait until “most” have come in. I don’t get stressed about those I miss.

Especially with the music prompt I used to take part in, I used to think of a response and think “that’s so obvious, everybody will think of that one”. But, they never did! It was rare, anyway.

I’d tag onto this that I’d expect the person who issued the prompt to read the responses, even if nobody else does. If people have taken time out to write a response, then I think the prompt-issuer should at least take the trouble to read them. In fact, I once stopped taking part in a prompt for that reason. But… it won’t be anybody who finds themself reading this, this goes way, way back. I think that’s really the committment you make when you decide to host a prompt.

Addendum

The next day. I’m sorry, I really don’t like adding to posts, once they#re live. But I realised there was a glaring hole above.

Some bloggers will say, I’ll read other responses if I have the time. My view on this: if there’s time to write a post, then there’s time to read a post.

Tanya over at Salted Caramel asks interesting questions this week in her Blogging Insights series:

How organised are you when it comes to blogging? Do you have a blog schedule or do you play it by the ear?

How often do you’ tidy up’ your blog? e.g. go through your Drafts Folder, or go through old posts checking for broken links etc.?

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I try not to publish more than three times per day, for no other reason than I figure that people will get fed up if I post more often. Well, there’s also the matter of having time to write. That number is not hard-and-fast, so if I publish four times on a particular day, it’s not a big deal. But I aim for three.

Of those three posts, some of these are challenges I like to regularly take part in. I also have a regular post I put out each week.

I figure my week is as follows:

Day	Planned Posts
Monday	2
Tuesday	1
Wednesday	2
Thursday	1
Friday	2
Saturday	2
Sunday	3

In addition, there are prompts I take part in occasionally, such as this one. So I figure, if I’m sticking to my 3-a-day, that only leaves a few slots per week for anything impromptu.

I tend not to schedule anything other than my regular post, because I like to publish privately first, which allows me to listen to the post. Then I can iron out as many typos as I can, before I make it public.

I use categories and tags to keep posts organised. That’s as much so I can find posts again, as anybody else finding them. With my poetry, for example, I’ve a mind to self-publish some of them, when I have enough good ones to choose from. So I’ll need to be able to find the poetry in amongst all the other stuff.

Regular housekeeping tasks include sifting through spam comments, and spam contact form submissions – I do all that a couple times a week.

I don’t check for broken links in old posts. Here’s why:

When I looked at 6PM, only 8% of yesterday’s views were on posts that were more than a week old. I assume that’s pretty typical. On those numbers, I’ll take my chances.

I haven’t answered one of these for a few weeks, but I had some unexpected free time come up, so decided to participate. Tanya over at Salted Caramel asks an interesting question this week in her Blogging Insights series, and I wanted to respond, especially because none of the responses I read so far puts things quite like this:

Is your blogging personality the same as your real life personality? If not, how is the blogging you different from the real you, and why?

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Remember that legal expression: the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Well, in this blog, you certainly get the truth. My truth, anyway. Yours is probably different.

Nothing but the truth? No, there’s a lot of nonsense thrown in. Hopefully, it’s obvious which is which. That’s deliberate, because I think life is a bit more bearable if we can see the funny side of it, so I hope to promote that.

And, the whole truth? Nah. you guys only see a small part, the stuff that I want you to see.

You didn’t see that it took me half an hour Sunday to put the cover back on my duvet, after I washed it. That this is a single duvet, because I can’t manage anything larger, period.

You didn’t see me try to tidy up the patio Sundayafternoon in preparation for a firewood delivery today – but had to give up because it was too difficult. Brushing.

You didn’t see that I had to hunt high and low for somebody who will not only supply the wood (there are plenty of them) but who will also stack it for me afterwards, because to do so myself, last time, took 4 days.

So, admit it, aren’t you glad I keep that shit out of the blog? Because nobody likes a whiner.

I swear, if ever we met in real life, you’d walk straight past me.