Blogging Angst and Triumph

[Kathy Maxwell]

What has worked and hasn't worked for you in your blogging world?  Talk about your "best of times and the worst of times."  Nothing is trivial so share your experiences!

[Kathy Maxwell]

Now that this discussion is featured, I better make a comment.

Triumphs: All of the great blogger friends that I've met- KW, RYCJ, Shawn, Mouseprints, Jenna, Sidne...

Angst: Born of my anal nature- standardizing the blog post.  Headings, type, bold, italics, book image placement.

That's a start!  I'll think of more.

[Kathy Maxwell]

It's difficult to have both sides of the brain warring with each other.  Left side say, "Be practical.  Simple is best!"  Right side says, "Be artistic.  Make it memorable."  I don't have so much trouble because I'm very left brained.  I'm an anal analytic.  Is that alliteration!??  LOL

[Bri Meets Books]

Triumphs: Blogger friends, author friends, meetups, books I adored (and probably wouldn't have found without blogging)

 

Angst: Not learning how to balance work/life/blogging.  Worrying constantly if my posts were "enough" of a review. Fretting over numbers.  (Not anymore!!)

 

 

[Kathy Maxwell]

Thanks for the share!  The BOOKS are part of the triumph for sure!  And balancing time...always a struggle.

[Allison D. Duncan]

I actually am doing a blog series on this, but I think the worst bit was when I had a blog with 500+ posts hacked and deleted out of hand by an ex. Twice.

 

The best of times? Definitely the last year and a half. I've doubled my footprint and cracked the 130,000 views wall which was something that's never happened to me in my 10 years of blogging.

[Kathy Maxwell]

Congrats, on the great stats!!! 

[Allison D. Duncan]

Thanks!

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

 

Oh, gosh. That's an awful story! =( I'm glad Blogger gives you several months to undelete a post. I have hundreds of posts on my own blog, and if they were all irredeemably lost, I'd be out for blood!

[Elsie Love]

I love to blog. I actually work off of two blogs. one is part of a national group...the other is a blogspot blog that I won a makeover for (Didn't have one when I won, so I had to create one to cash in on the package). My national blog gets way more hits than the other.

It seems with blogspot it is impossible to get followers! I do all the recommended stuff, but alas, it's no good. Doesn't stop me from trying though.

~Elsie

Elsie Loves Fiction

[ManOfLaBook.com]

Great discussion.

 

All of my triumphs are also my angst.

 

I finally found a nice clean template I like but now it seems too slow to load (let me know if it's just me www.manoflabook.com)

 

I feel angst when I thought I wrote a really great post but it gets no comments.

 

My biggest disappointment from the blogsphere is the "cliques" - people who just go around commenting on one another blogs ignoring everyone else.  That's fine and dandy and there is nothing wrong with it - but it feels like high school.

 

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

 

I can relate to your second point. 

 

Sometimes when what I think is a really great post gets no comments, I think, "So much work for so little attention." =P

 

But then a "throwaway" post triggers an insightful discussion and I become happy again. (LOL!)

 

As for the "cliques" . . . I don't think I'm part of one myself, but I know that I'm more comfortable commenting on the blogs of people I already have a rapport with. And I find I can build that rapport only with bloggers who are happy to answer comments and have discussions in their comboxes. If I visit a new blog with great posts, leave comments to engage the blogger, and get nothing in return, I probably won't come back. (Of course, I understand that some bloggers get too many comments to respond to every last one--but I don't mean them.) What I think I'm part of is a small, friendly community of people who comment on each other's blogs. I'd love to see it grow to include others, but oddly enough for the blogosphere, chatty commenters are hard to find!

[ManOfLaBook.com]

LOL, that's one thing I learned over my long career. All the great, thought out ideas might not work as well as an off the cuff idea which you implemented because you had a bit of spare time.

 

If I'd get a dime every time that happened I'd be a millionaire.