I’ve been thinking about blogging ever since I woke myself up to post on Monday night. I’m sort of a terrible blogger, obviously — I do none of that “building community” stuff, nor do I try to “provide value” for my readers. (Sorry! No value here!!)
I blog about whatever’s on my mind and erratically. Some years I had lots of posts, some years I had almost none. In 2016, I’ve tried to blog every Monday and Thursday and have tried to be restrained about posting more than that, not wanting to bore the audience that tolerates me. (Thanks for tolerating me!)
But when I sleepily decided Monday night to reassess my posting come the new year, it started me thinking about what I want out of blogging. I’m obviously terrible at the whole author business aspect of blogging — well, the whole author business in general. Really, the basic, bottom-line, requirement to be a successful author is to finish what you write and I’m not doing so well at that. But I also don’t do the promotion and outreach and giveaways and that kind of thing that one is supposed to do. When it comes to “growing my audience,” I am pretty much a complete fail.
So the question is, in 2017, do I want to grow my audience, build community, and provide value? I’m sure that those of you who know me or have been reading a while already know the answer: that just sounds like so much work. It’s never going to happen. Besides, if I can’t even finish a new book, what would be the point? And really, I like my blog because it’s a record of my life. It’s an online journal. Maybe I’ll be the last online journal keeper.
But I did realize that I really wish I was at least writing something — a few notes if nothing else — about each of the places I’ve stayed. I haven’t because I haven’t wanted to be boring — how many entries can I write that start with “I stayed…”? Answer: lots! Probably too many. But still, I’m already forgetting places. Last week I was thinking about all of the beautiful sunrises I’ve seen and two days later I remembered the wonderful Harvest Hosts farm in Vermont. How could I have forgotten that so quickly? And what will I remember two years from now if I’m forgetting places already?
So in 2017, I’m not going to worry about posting every Monday and Thursday (although I’m going to for the rest of 2016, just for the sake of finishing what I started.) I am, however, going to write at least a paragraph or two about every place I stay, and I’m going to start now, with Lake Griffin State Park.
Is a picture worth a thousand words? If yes, I should probably post an image of a tree instead of a sunrise, because Lake Griffin’s claim to fame is the second largest live oak tree in the state of Florida.
Oh, look, a tree pic! I have not yet run out of data in my data plan for the month, but with posting all these pictures I probably will soon. But anyway, second largest live oak tree. I tried to keep the Californian in my brain shut up as I admired it (not entirely successfully — redwoods really are very large trees, even the little ones). According to the sign, it was probably used as a landmark for the native Americans before Europeans settled Florida. (Although, really, wouldn’t it have been a lot smaller back then? Isn’t the impressive thing more that it’s survived for so long rather than that it might have been big even a few hundred years ago? It’s only supposed to be 300-500 years old and you’d think that 400 years ago, when it was maybe 100 years old, there would have been some other 300 year old trees around that were bigger than it that are now gone… Yeah, my inner critic is always noisy.)
Anyway, nice tree! Nice park, too. It’s small — I think that Z and I managed to walk every trail this morning and our total walk length was still just under a mile when we made it back to the camper, but it would be a great place to kayak if I was feeling that ambitious. The campground only has about 40 spots and they’re fairly close together, but — as always — they’re much nicer, greener, and more interesting than the typical independent campground parking lot.
My highlight of this stay was probably my new grill. I used it (a little Coleman portable propane grill) for the first time yesterday. It worked remarkably well, so yay! I’m looking forward to the increased kitchen flexibility — I’m eager to grill fish on it, because smells linger in Serenity, so I’ve been avoiding cooking things that I don’t want to smell the next day. But I miss fish. A lot.
As with every state park in Florida that I’ve stayed at, I would happily stay here again. But this trip is only for two days — tomorrow I head out for Thanksgiving at my dad’s house.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I appreciate the variety of blogposts you generate; travel logs, writing updates, dog stuff, food stuff, this is what I feel posts. All of it. You are not terrible at blogging. I am terrible at blogging.
You allow me to be witness to your life. Thank you. And Happy Holiday.
Thanks, Judy! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
I agree with Judy. I enjoy your varied posts. We may be a small audience, but we’re choice!
Love the pictures!
I have to say I always enjoy reading your blog… much more so than most of the blogs with people that are focused on growing an audience, getting a larger mailing list, putting click-bait titles on things, etc. I love your honesty, the way you describe things, and the way I can often relate to the thoughts, feelings, etc that you talk about.
I’ve been contemplating my own blog goals too. I guess since actually starting my blog it’s been something I think about a lot. I do read up on tips, and all that advice on what you’re ‘supposed’ to do… some of which I absolutely despise, while at the same time wondering if I should do it!
The other day, I made a little turkey drawing to go with a ‘Hoppy Thanksgiving’ post. The turkey looks ridiculous, but it was so much fun to make. It made me think about how I want to have more fun with my blog. I want to create more and enjoy the process.
As to audience growing… this is something I’ve been thinking about too. After all, the whole point of point putting it online rather than just keeping my writing private is to share. But I’m not on Facebook or other social media and I don’t really want to be. I don’t have a huge group of friends in real life and even most of the ones I do have aren’t that interested in my blog. I don’t guest post for other people or do any of that other stuff really.
That pretty much leaves the suggestion of leaving comments on other people’s blogs. And you’re supposed to pick the popular blogs that lots of people visit, most of which I honestly don’t really enjoy. (Although some of them were the ones that inspired me to start my own.) I don’t want to read posts I don’t enjoy just to comment on them and advertise myself.
But I really like it when people comment on my posts. I don’t get a lot of comments, but it means a lot when somebody takes the time to let me know what their response was or that they enjoyed something I wrote.
So, what I’ve been thinking is that I do want to find a handful of blogs that I really enjoy and comment on those. Yes, there is some small part of that that is about hoping maybe somebody will click through the link and find my blog. But more than that, I want to find people who are posting stuff that I genuinely enjoy reading or that inspires me and I want to support them by posting comments and letting them know when I enjoy something they wrote. I want to leave comments for the up-and-coming bloggers. The ones that actually still read, and respond to the comments they get. The ones for whom my leaving a comment might make a difference. Not the ones who get 200 comments they don’t read. (90% of which come from other bloggers hoping to advertise their own blog.)
So far, the list of those blogs I really enjoy is pretty short. It’s hard to find new ones to add to that list. There are so many cookie-cutter blogs that have the same sort of posts (5 ways to have nicer smelling socks) and pop-ups asking for your email in exchange for a .pdf guaranteed to make you younger and more successful in 5 minutes or less.
Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog. I hope you keep the focus on what you want to be writing and don’t listen too much to all that advice about how you should blog. That said, I’m sure there are other people out there that would enjoy your writing, so maybe think about if there is one small thing you could do to grow your audience. Maybe you don’t have to take all the advice, but maybe there are little pieces that would be manageable and beneficial to you.
And… Happy Thanksgiving!!
Commenting on the blogs that you really enjoy is a really great idea, Kyla! I haven’t been staying on top of following other people’s blogs because I’ve got too many in my RSS feed and it’s overwhelming when my internet access is limited. There are many blogs I like but if I try to read them all, I run out of data so very, very quickly. But I should find a way to sort the ones that are… I want to say more human?… from the ones that are book business or magazine-like and remind myself to tell their authors when I appreciate what they wrote!
Happy Gobble-gobble!! I like your blog — no matter how much or how little you write, it’s always good to hear from you. We’re still here in Tehachapi and will be for the interim as Robert will be undergoing surgery to remove a kidney that died who knows when. Story of our lives to be late getting to our winter home–makes one think we’re not supposed to go at all. :/
Wow, that sounds like a scary discovery! But I hope the surgery goes well and smoothly! And I hope you do get a chance to get to Arizona before the winter ends! I know you like it there.
Know just what you mean about not being the “business end” of writing type. And I’ve tried. Oh, lord, have I tried . . . but aside from the hard work (meaning basically that it takes a long time) you never know if you’re “doing it right” and the promotion and social media and keywords yadda yadda yadda . . . it’s never really finished so you can get back to writing the stuff you really want to write . . . . At least so it seems to me. :-/