lo and behold

Part of the motivation for my new time management scheme is that I need an hour a day for my blog.  Since January, I have been dedicated to posting frequently, and I have to say, I get it now.  I get why it’s fun to blog. I get how it becomes a habit and a part of your life. I get how blog readers become friends. 

When I was a teacher of writing, I told my students that “the more you write, the more will you have to say.”  I was a disciple of the Natalie Goldberg, Donald Murray, National Writing Project school of thought:  writing is a practice and also a method of discovery, not just a result of learning.  

The thing is, I never really got to practice the practice myself. The closest I came is when I was in my MFA program for poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, but I never really had the time when I was a teacher, nor ironically, have I ever been very effective at keeping a journal. 

Now I get that this blog is a midlife gift to myself, one of the tools my life has been leaning toward, but which I have never quite reached.  Odd that choosing a visual art has also brought me back to my oldest and deepest love: writing. Also, since I opened a freelance writing business nearly 8 years ago, I have thought of myself as a “pen for hire.”  I can write about anything and do a decent job, but I did not ever, in that business, succeed in both earning money and writing anything I really cared about.  I did occasionally land assignments that really turned me on, but not sustainably.  I am not in the business of blogging, but I am writing for both myself and an audience and that works for me.  

All that said, I recently read Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey.  It’s a great guide for someone starting up a blog, gives good overview information about the kinds of decisions you have to make: the technical platform, choosing a name, making a banner.  The book also provides a good blueprint for keeping a blog going:  establishing your voice, crafting photos and images, drawing traffic.  For me, one of the best parts of the book are the profiles of other bloggers that are woven into each section. Even though I think of myself as a part of the “creative blogger” community, most of the folks in the book were new to me, which meant I could also go online and hop around among them for a few – or a hundred – hours.  I guess, in reality, “the bloggers in my neighborhood” are more specifically jewelry oriented than the general crafters in the book.  Also, a big part of Tara’s interest is vintage stuff, and I am not drawn in that direction at all.

One of the puzzling things I read in Blogging For Bliss is the following statement in a chapter called “Beauty and the Blog:”  

For my own blog, I decided to take down my fancy sidebar decorations and just be me.  I’m not a plain Jane by any means, but I like things simple, casual, and elegant, whether it’s my home, my clothes, or my blog.  After making this change, readership doubled and I was getting thousands of hits a day from all over the world.

Tara shows a screenshot of her blog when it was called Bella Pink and was filled with visual froufrou, and then she shows a  shot of the “after” design for Tara Frey: Typing Out Loud.  I love the cleaner look she evolved to, but of course, that’s me – I always choose bold, colorful, and clear over frilly, fancy, and cute. But when she says her traffic doubled after the redesign, it sounds like one action caused the other.  And that can’t be.  There had to be many different factors that came together and boosted her readership like that.  And if she’s saying that readers in general like a cleaner look, I don’t get why so many of the other bloggers featured in the book are visually of the Bella Pink variety.  I mean, I agree with her:  as a reader I do not like cluttered visuals in a blog. I love striking photos, I like a design that’s cohesive, and I hate dark or black backgrounds.  Sometimes, I have liked the content in a blog whose design I hated, and unfortunately, the design wins out.  I just can’t fight the graphics to read the words.  So, I while I like the opportunity in this book to hear how other bloggers got started, chose their names, and made a blogging a part of their lives, I think you have to also look carefully at the profiles and not take each one as a good example of design. 

And now that I’ve just said all that, I’m going to try and turn a fresh eye to my own blog.  If you think there are any distracting design elements, please feel free to let me know.  I am definitely still working on it.

Tonight for dinner, I made soup from some leftover turkey I froze at Thanksgiving, but this weekend, I worked on my Bead Soup, which was way more fun!  Just ten days until the big reveal when 84 bloggers show off their artistic creations made with beads received from another blogger in the swap. 

There is also a Bead Soup Flickr pool and had a look around there tonight.  I have to admit, I have not yet visited all 84 bloggers and I liked seeing a bunch of soup pots all in one place. 

These two partners swapped components in the same colors.  That happened with my partner and me, but it was total coincidence.  I wonder if it was the same with these two, or if it was planned? 

You might also remember that I got a heart in my package.  Hearts seem to be a common ingredient – because of Valentines Day coming up?  Or just because beaders love to LOVE? 

Visit the Flickr Pool to find out who got and who gave the soup mixes pictured, and come back here later in the week to see some hints about what I am cooking up.