The story of how Fussy's NaBloPoMo idea mixed with more people and more ideas changed my world. Part one is "The Rest of the Story."

Long Long ago in a little city in Texas a girl was born. As this girl grew up there were two things she did consistently: Teach and write. We all know that a prophet is not appreciated in her own town so we cannot say that her younger brothers were appreciative of her teaching efforts. She did, however, find an accepting audience among her dolls.

She grew up, got married ... it was the dark ages ... before Internet. She often felt she had a lot to say but no one to listen – except her three kids. So she taught them. All I can confidently tell you is ... they all survived.

Then life changed and her husband grew tired of her constantly ignoring the fact that she had always wanted to write. He also grew tired of her ignoring her artistic abilities so he bought her a camera. In the summer of 2003 a friend gave her a web site. So gradually she learned to sit still and write ... and she learned about photography ... and she slowly became ruler of her own web site.

But still there was no one to listen. Well, ok existing family and friends listened occasionally. But let's face it ... mostly they are spoiled and expect the lady (yes she did grow up to eventually become a lady) to bring any news worth hearing to them. They were not inclined to bring themselves to her web site in order to listen. That's a slight exageration -- two of them have been good to visit regularly ... plus her husband ... so three she had three "readers"!

The lady was whining one night about only having Photoshop 4 and how expensive it would be to upgrade and my husband introduced me to GIMP – which I didn't have the patience to learn while killing various laptop pc's and reloading others. And now that I have a computer that could run it ... I still don't have the patience ... (oh oops ... I've switched from third person to first person or some such grammatical blunder.)

But I did look at various Google searches for various bits of GIMP help ... and I'm fairly certain that's how I met up with Schmutzie of milk money or not, here I come. (It's a good story so I'm sticking with it.) We have many things in common but hmmm yesterday I finally came up with this ... She's like Saturday Night Live and I'm more like I Love Lucy when it comes to how we present our lives. And if you read our blogs side by side, you would swear that we would have to logically have a large amount of dislike for each other. The truth is ... we hit it off pretty well, thank you. We give each other room to think and things to think about. We have a very "Internet coffee shop" kind of relationship. We "bump into each other" from time to time ... have quick chats to catch up and trade ideas ... and then we're off again.

We've discussed mind control (ADD type stuff), how we should or should not treat our readers (largely exploring this really interesting blog media and how we can end up affecting people in ways we never expected), and we've discussed various ways to grow traffic to a blog (she's been at this much longer than I).

Fortunately on one of our visits, I noticed that she was preparing to participate in NaBloPoMo. And since I had been trying without success to "do a blog" on my web site for over a month ... without ever developing any type of discipline, I was onto that idea in a flash!

And so November came and I was still trying to redirect my flock from the idea of getting news from me in emails towards the goal of them coming to me to get the latest. It was not going well.

In the mean time ... on November 2, Merseydotes of Elevated Umbrella got a brilliant idea.

I browsed through the list of participating blogs on Fussy's page and clicked through a dozen or so to see who was out there. I've picked five new blogs to follow for the month. These are blogs that I'd never visited before yesterday, ...

The Odd Mix picked up on the idea and sucked me into his mix on November 6th ...

And somewhere along the way Lane of Pink Elephants created the NaBloPoMo randomizer ... and my reading life got very rich.

and now ... what is the results of all of this? Well that's what we're going to spend the day assessing. But it's pretty obvious what the morals to the story are: The smallest days of your life have seeds that bring forth big things. And, in a galaxy far, far away but somehow linked to you by the smallest little single link on the Internet, someone is creating ideas that can change your life forever.

Stay tuned ... the dog wants out, I need breakfast, and we have yet to analyze the ramifications and roll the credits ... we Have to roll the credits! All of this will be added below this post and before the entry about Mary-LUE.

A story about the ramifications of participating in NaBloPoMo ...

Before starting the NaBloPoMo I was doing research about SEO and various other aspects of growing a website / blog. The techie people kept trying to convince me that it's all about how you design your code, structure your sentences, etc. But then there's another group that's exploring the "viral" aspects of marketing. Personally, I was getting suspicious that it's some major combo of the two that more heavily depended on the people aspect than the code.

I believe that what happened between me and others during NaBloPoMo proves two things:

• If you want to have friends, you need to show yourself friendly.
• The Golden Rule still rules.

I can directly attribute 88.2% of my traffic this month to me going out and being social. And I don't mean just blog social. I also got hits from activities on 43things.com and BetterPhoto.com. There is a direct correlation between my social behavior on a site and the number of visitors I receive ... but also there is a direct correlation between my "social-ness" and the number of pages those visitors view.

Out of my total traffic from known destinations 11.3% came from the randomizer (Thank you Lane!) and 2.5% found just my name on the list at Fussy.org interesting enough to click through.

11.8% came from search engines. The hits I did get from the search engines were mostly, amazingly on target to the subject of my writing. One however was way out in left field but they came to my site anyway and viewed 7 pages ... so maybe if I'm not relevant, I'm entertaining? I've been trying to practice sticking mostly to one subject per post. So that's just an FYI for anybody who's considering adding ads to their posts.

Speaking of ads. In general, ya'll are not a curious lot when it comes to ads. But my click-through reports did reveal which ads even had a fighting chance with my current visitors. I was pleased because it's one of my faves, too.

Some of you may wonder why I have ads with such a low amount of traffic. I figure I gotta start practicing somewhere with something and a great many affiliates are willing to let me practice on the off chance that I'm lucky one day. It's a low risk venture all the way around.

Ok one more stat just because it pleases me ... 49.3% of you come to see me via Firefox!! 43.7% is MS's IE, and 4.6% is Safari.

The ramifications of certain activities and actions like the ones above are measurable as far as visitors aka "hits" go.

BUT how do you measure the impact of words and images? At the close of yesterday, my word count for my November blogging was 18,128. I have commented on more blogs than I can count (but I am so going to count them next year). I have posted in various forms and places ... for the purpose of this blog month ... 154 images. I am not going to count (ever!) the number of links I made.

The ramification of all those words and images is that I became, in a word, interesting.

Being interesting netted me some very nice people saying very nice things to me and about me. But being interesting and caring ... resulted in very nice, interesting, caring people saying very caring things to me and doing really great things for me. That's why I say the Golden Rule still rules.

I am thoroughly exhausted from working at being interesting and caring. Am I exhausted enough to give up? No Way! Because I am also madly in love with the people who come to visit me on my blog. In fact someone recently made a very bad mistake of referring to my blog as a thing. As in "that thing is really coming along." I nearly died. "Thing? Thing! That "thing" is my BABY!"

But it's not just my baby that I'm in love with. I'm in love with other people's babies, too – their blogs and their children.

So there's no way the exhaustion that can come from being interesting and caring is going to drive me away because obviously the ramification is that I get to enjoy hanging out with a whole bunch of people who are interesting and caring and are from all over the world.

Bottom line: I have no idea how to really measure the ramifications of this experience because of the people I've met (and the books I've read). I'll give a new evaluation before the next NaBloPoMo.

Ok next up: The credits (but first I need lunch and ibuprophen ... has anybody else taken to living on that stuft this last week?)

A story of Accompaniment. This is to acknowledge the people who came and kept me company on this journey.

First, I would like to thank my parents.
My dad has always read my web site.
My mom recently convinced my dad that I needed a replacement camera for the one I broke.

When my dad found out I was working on NaBloPoMo, he sent me some really funny comments and I kept thinking I would get to post them for him. But ... So ...

The bulls are saying, "One more step and your dead meat."
---
If we could read Shelbie's mind after Matthew [Daughter V's husband] put her on the plane, it would be something like this: "I thought that boy and I were getting along pretty decent ... I mean all things considered ... maybe I shouldn't have gotten into that fight with Z [their cattle dog]. But I must admit to myself, it took two dogs to replace me. I must be
pretty good. I will make it no matter where I land,- if this trip doesn't kill me."
.....Hours later....
THERE'S BILLY BOY! Now, there is a nice guy!
Yes, he sees me! He is coming this way! IT'S TRUE, ALL DOGS DO GO TO HEAVEN!!
---
As to the family huddle on the beach. It looks like they are taking a vote as to who is going in first to test the temperature of the water.......Poor Pamela.....

I'll come back and get the comments and put them where they should go as I finish re-doing my comment section.

This list contains the names of the people who came and commented on my site. Between their posts and my sporadic replies we generated about 85 comments ... and some very nice conversation ... and that's where I believe we become known.

Thanks you very much!!

oddmix
Daughter V (My middle child)
elaine (meebo)
meghan (My niece)
Sarah (She's my oldest)
Kit (Food and Family)
Melanie Watts (Caffinara)
Kim (Knitten Kittens)
Mary-LUE (Life, the Universe and Everything)
Tonyette (Random Spewings)
johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)
Barbara Heaney (Here at my Desk)
sari (The Geek Inside)
Vicki (Victoria Gaines)
Kris (to-Breathe)
Darren a/k/a Clare's Dad
Kathy B. (My Empty Nest)
e-Mom (Chrysalis)
Susan (Susan's Musings)
The Husband (Who says he loves me and I should keep writing :-) Any wonder I love him?
Sophie (A Hole in the Fence)
Dirk_Star
daisies (Pluck the Petal)
Liz (Looney Mom)
Barbara (Here at my Desk)

Thanks again!

I especially want to thank the people who have joined with me in making a public declaration of alliance. Yes, we're reading each other's blogs. Yes, we're commenting on each other's blogs. And we're also actively promoting each other. So, basically, I also look at my list of Blog Alliances as a little truth in advertising.

oddmix
Mary-LUE (Life, the Universe and Everything)
Sophie (A Hole in the Fence)
Darren a/k/a Clare's Dad

I can commit to a few more alliances so if you're interested drop me a note.

It's been a blast! So, One more quick thanks to

• M. Kennedy aka Fussy.org for creating NaBloPoMo
• Schmutzie of milk money or not, here I come for her coaching
• Lane of Pink Elephants for the randomizer
• Merseydotes of Elevated Umbrella for being an encourager of many
• and thanks to The Odd Mix for really getting me mixed up in it all!

I am SOOO taking tomorrow and the weekend OFF O F F OFF !!! well ... except there's this little thing I want to do for the holidays ... we'll see ...

A story about Darren as Clare's Dad.

Some alliances just make themselves. Darren a/k/a Clare's Dad falls into that category. I've throughly enjoyed his company on this NaBloPoMo adventure. Thanks, of course, to the great choices made previously by The Odd Mix. (See A Little Cheer for the explanation.)

I think we can firmly establish now that I do not read people's profiles. I read their blogs ... I read about their lives ... their stories. So, I was very surprised to read in Dirty Water Dogs and Black and White Cookies that Darren and his crew lives in CT and takes the train to Manhattan. If he's living there and doing that, he's practically a neighbor! Well except that I'm on the NY side of the tracks. Listening to him describe Manhattan gives me the ability to believe that it's more than "what I see traveling to and from the airport -- a distant row of very tall, very grungy brown buildings that make me shudder with claustrophobia." I find myself looking forward to my trip that my husband is planning for us as uh ... what was that ... oh yeah a "bridge and tunnel" tourist.

Darren as Clare's Dad is involved in his daughter's life and he doesn't mind helping her get in touch with her feminine side. You may explore how he accomplishes this in Costume Parade, and Secret Project – Part Two.

In She Made Cleaning Up After the Party Worth It, we see that Clare's dad is easily put on cloud nine by his daughter's hugs and praise. But even in the end of this post and even more so in Segregation, Part 2 we see that Darren is also "on to" his daughter's ways.

He's also on to the ways of Clare's school. Now, Darren seems to think that much of this is because Clare is attending the same Catholic school that he attended and from which he "graduated twenty years ago." I don't think so. I'll let you read through his blog and decide for yourself, though.

As all parent's must, Clare's Dad is also remembering that he is a person – a human being. The parents who fare best in the short and long run of the parenting game are the parents that surface from the parenting trance ... as sweet and intriguing and binding as any trance can possibly be ... and realize that they are still adult humans who must have assistance from and give assistance to other adults. Amazingly enough, the world was not created to revolve around immature short people. They are fascinating and time consuming and endearing ... a worthy mission. But there comes a time when we "have to keep company with adults." And what we do with the adults during adult time "needs to matter – to count for something in this world." (Quotes denote phrases uttered by parents all over the world.) (OK and we aren't addressing the immature tall people in this post. Short version: Avoid them – run! The world implodes around them.)

The first clue that I had to Darren's abilities as a mover and a shaker in the adult world is his collection of Daddy blogs. My first thought when I saw it was "Alright! A Daddy Blogger who knows his fellow Dads!" Then I watched him interact with other parents in ways that both addressed what was real and strove to give hope or encouragement or just a simple Half-time Pep Talk: A Little Cheer. I look forward to having Darren's company on our continued blogging adventure (sans NaBloPoMo x-).

Launching into the holidays ... I wonder ....

What are you planning to do with your blog ... the holidays are just beginning to be demanding ... and NaBloPoMo is nearly over ...

How do you plan to keep the excitement in your blog?

I've been roaming around ... looking for ideas ... and there are some interesting activities going on out there ...

But ... can I be nosey and ask ... what are you planning?

Well, I spent my evening building a commenting tool that will live on my blog ... well and my web site for that matter.

The comments are still moderated so there will remain a delay. But trust me ... there are worse things in life.

The story of how I met my web site.

Well, back in the dark ages, way back in another place and time, we met this guy in a coffee shop. He moved away. We moved away. He moved back. We moved back. Then, we met this guy in a coffee shop.

We thought he was still in Colorado. He thought we were still in East Texas. But we were actually all back in Dallas and we were all frequenting a different coffee shop than the one at which we first met. It was bound to happen that we'd meet up again. When we did, Michael and his biz partner showed us what they were up to: Inventing HyperSites. I was excited out of my mind. I pestered, begged, and whined until Michael was convinced I'd make a decent guinea pig.

So I am using HyperSites to power my blog. I have the "make it from scratch" tool set. It is very powerful and uses programming languages that use all the letters of the alphabet. I however don't use the programming languages. I only use common sense, a dash of logic, and point & click and, just because I like to complicate things, I sometimes use an HTML tag or two.

So ... I haven't gotten around to building my own comment section with my "make it from scratch" tools ... which I could probably do in about the time that it's taken to explain this. But when I get through explaining this, I have more fish to fry and more projects than I can shake a stick at. In the mean time I've remembered there's away to make the manual HaloScan code show up by default in my new blog entries.

Evidently, I asked too many questions about the "make it from scratch" tools because Michael and his crew recently invented some "ready to bake" templates. They've given me access to the templates but I've become very attached to my version. On the other hand, if I were starting over today, I'd go with the templates.

The templates come with the commenting built into them. And a better "contact me" scenario. And great pics from Colorado (which are just there for demo-ing the tool) and ... the templates are available for you so you can go explore your options: HyperSites.com Starting Points.

If you are into graphic designer or web designer, these tools have some secrets and future plans that you need to know about. Drop me a note if you want to know more when the time comes.

Oh did I mention that we moved away again and Michael has moved back to Colorado? Miss those coffee shop days. For that matter, I miss coffee shops! I'm still looking for one I can just walk to.

And just because I know someone's wondering ... The reason I moderate my comments is to protect my readers from the robots that know where I live ... yeah, really, they have my URL and everything. It's one thing for the spam to arrive in my inbox ... another for it to arrive on my posts. And yes I know HaloScan has spam filtering but ... really ... it wouldn't be pretty.

|

Alright ... wow ... today is gone. I've been hunting down the last bits I need to finish an interview. I think I'll get to share it with ya'll on Friday.

I've gotten several questions about my Blog Alliance idea.

The first being "are your comments off?" welllll not exactly. They are code from HaloScan that I have to remember to put into every post. Since I just started using them, I tend to forget. This is the second time. So I'll put the code in this post and ya'll can talk here ... since I'm on the same topic anyway.

"I have a Blogroll. Do you need a separate blogroll?" No, I personally do not need to go under a new header in your blogroll. I don't want to be lonely – the lone one. If you create your own alliances outside of the one with me – then how (even if) you display your list is up to you and your ideas and plans.

My answer for me: Yes, I do plan to list separately the bloggers who make an alliance with me to signal that we have a mutual agreement. They are not just names I've gathered.

"What is a blogroll anyway?" Ok. Keep in mind I'm new to this stuff but I've been doing some reading ... so I'm going to do what I'm expert at ... disseminate the info.

Blogrolls are lists of blogs that the blog owner aka blogger

• Likes and wants to recommend. Hopefully the blogger is reading the blogs and contributing to the conversations on these blogs.
  
• Adds because the blogger is a member of a group and the group has a blogroll display box code thing. (Alright let's remember I'm also leaving geek-dom and I can use average user speak anytime I want to.)
  
• Thinks it will make a good impression on others or the search engines.
  
• Adds because he/she isn't aware that they could be confusing the dickens out of the search engines. (Ok so let's say that I'm way into photography, wanting to go pro, etc. It would help if I had more blogs listed about photography than say oh pizza. And if I could also add the mommy-blogs of my clients who are recommending me ... that would be gold.)

I believe that blogrolls also function in another way ... as social signals that say ...

• I've been around long enough to have garnished these uhmm "badges of roaming"
  
• Look I know people you know ... we can be buddies ... we have similar networking habits.
  
• I'm important because I hang out with the big dogs ... well at least I have enough sense to know who the big dogs are.

Basically, Blogrolls can act as third-party validation: You see me. You see a name you know in my blogroll. I must be at least worth giving a short listen to.

Some bloggers are getting specific in their labels: Recommended Reading, Resources, etc. And I will be one of those kinds of bloggers. And I will start with "Blog Alliance Roll."

I'm going to start announcing my alliances on Monday. To my surprise, I already have a few ... even without the comment code :-(

Yes, the ad is projecting a subliminal re one of my needs. Can you believe this is half way?

|

I am relatively new to blogging. I relish having my own web site and my own blog because I like for my writings to live at home with me ... no doubt about who owns it. But I've missed the company and conversations of forums. Until November. Until NaPloPoMo. Until Mr. OddMix came along adopting me into his little project that he adopted from Merseydotes of Elevated Umbrella. Also, several books and resources have been weaving their way through my goals. And it's all got me convinced. I want more!

OddMix has his group, and I have my own group. His group of bloggers and my group of bloggers are beginning to mix and mingle. They come and go. Our groups are not committed to each other. But my commitment is to keep up with OddMix and the rest of my group and his commitment is to keep up with me and the rest of his group. This is exactly what I want all the time. Alliances like this. But I want to take it to the next level.

Currently my list in my group are people I chose in a day and I adopted them ... without their permission. Just poof there they were. It's kind of the way blogrolls are being built now. Many people either inherit a roll from a ring or group or they surf around until they have a list that they read from-time-to-time or that they think will make them look good. In other words, the value of the blogroll, in my ever so humble opinion, is not necessarily as benficial as it could be.

The point I'm trying to get to is I want a group of bloggers on my "Blog Alliance Roll" who have agreed to actively promote and encourage me as I actively promote and encourage them. I don't want to adopt unsuspecting bloggers. I want a partnership.

I am looking for encouragers and promoters who are intelligent, life-crafters, storytellers, and conversationalists – I am looking for diversity in thought, activities, culture, and location – who are willing to partner with me to the mutual benefit of both of our blogs.

This is the plan that I would want my alliances to follow. If you like it, you can adopt/adept it into the alliances you build.

Promotion:

• I intro you to my crowd.
  
• You intro me to your crowd.
  
• When I write about something that I want a wider circle of readers to know about, I will send you a note and ask for a mention – not more than 6x in a year.
  
• When you write about something that you want a wider circle of readers to know about, you will send me a note and ask for a mention – not more than 6x in a year.
  
• When we discover we are writing about the same subject matter, we will use crosslinks, trackbacks, or pingbacks to increase the subject's credibility, buzzi-ness, and hopefully increase the search engines curiosity.
  
• I will never spam the people on your blogroll, you will never spam the people on my blogroll.

Encouragement: We will offer soothing words in times of trouble, hope in times of gloom, and best of all celebration in times of victory.

Intelligent: Using the organs above the neck to consider life's options. We will talk to each other and our readers in tones that request that our ideas be considered. We must be able to say "have you considered ..." And when we state something as fact ... we are prepared to locate and share the relevant sources. If we disagree about religion or politics, we will do so without name-calling or ridicule ... our blogs entries are creative and interesting enough without needing to be mean-spirited.

We are picky about what gets dropped into our heads and hearts. Life is difficult enough without requiring others to take on misplaced anger (hate & ridicule), body parts, and excrements. ... we do not force these on each other nor our readers.

Life-crafters: We are aware that we are creating our life stories. We are actively creating stories by purposefully choosing life's activities and direction ... as best we can. We enjoy art &/or beauty and are doing what it takes to create it &/or enjoy it (like get outdoors!). We prefer to have hope but we also don't mind being honest about when we are struggling ... and when we struggle we hope to move toward some sort of improvement. We do not whine by stating a problem and then sitting there making mournful noise over what could have been instead of stating the problem and then looking for what can be.

Storytellers: We tell the stories about what happens when you try to craft your life. It has it's ups and downs and ins and outs. We also tell stories about what we've observed here and there about people and life.

Conversationalists: We say more than "me too." We ask questions. We want to know more. We share ideas. We talk to each other and to the other people who've already written comments.

We don't comment every day. We use RSS feed readers and stop in when there's a topic of interest – which hopefully will be at least one per week. More than anything we want conversations because conversation is when the magic happens. Conversation leads to knowing and being known which is the essence of life ... or in our case the essence of building our blogs.

Diversity: We probably won't think alike on every topic. We may differ in age (Yes young people are crafting their lives ... and "old" people have stories to tell about a crafted life. All ages can tell about what it really takes to step out from the crowd.) We may be from different cultures and continents ... we may share a few things in common but we are not carbon copies.

I want to make this clear: I am not looking to create a closed group. I am looking for individual bloggers who will enter into an alliance, a partnership, with me. But each of them is responsible for assembling his/her own network of alliances – of which I will be one.

If you want to consider an alliance with me, please drop me a note: Contact Pam.

A bit back I started talking about my Adult ADD. I am not writing from solid ground of research and I am currently separated from one of my favorite books on the topic. So right now, I am just talking about me. But one of the things about ADD people is that we crave challenge.

About six years ago I made a momentary reconnect with my first grade teacher. Perspective ... think 1964. There were several things that made me rememberable. I was one of her first ever students. My mom actively participated in my education. My mom put flowers in my hair. My mom remained friends with my teacher for several years. They lost touch through various changes in life. I rediscovered her through the Internet. And then she disappeared. I pretend she lives on a remote island off the coast of Washington, now.

It was a great conversation as we quickly caught up on all those years that flew by. Anyone watching the conversation should have been able to diagnose me right there as ADD. I pace when I'm on the phone. This particular moment I was trapped in my bedroom for the sake of my husband's work pace ... so my conversation wouldn't interfere with his own phone calls and thoughts. So yeah I pace ... I was pacing up and down my bed!

She said to me ... "One thing I know about you is that you are never happy without a challenge." My mind flew back to first grade reading circle. To something I'd never understood from any point in the time line – first I couldn't understand why they didn't understand ... later I couldn't understand why I didn't understand.

Back in those days sight-reading was making it's tour. I was one of the Dick and Jane children. In reading circle there was a chart ... a path winding it's way across the bulletin board. The adult version of the plan was that we the children would learn a word or two every day and move along the path.

My version of the plan was simple: Pick the most difficult word. Learn it. Be done. Obviously if a body could know the longest, hardest word, then they were the best and didn't need to be bothered by details. Ironically, back then, "cannot" was always one word and, of course, it was the word. My teacher and I had discussionS about our plans. She was stubborn. So was I.

I remember some tid-bit reaching my ears ... my second grade teacher said to my mother. "Oh don't worry about it. I have to reteach them all anyway. This reading method that they're trying out doesn't work." hmmm so ... I'm thinking that in some form or fashion ... I won some sort of uh victory?

My second grade teacher's methods were tedious. My whole impression of second grade is a long long road of tedious little pencil markings. But she must of won because now I read ... 10 or so books at one time. Yeah. Depends on mood, topic of research, location, etc. I also don't really consider a book read until I tire of it. This does not mean that I've read every word in the book, front to back. I do not tire of a book until I do not need it as a constant source for my ponderings. Then the book goes on my bookshelf. It is not sold. It is not given away. It is off-line storage of my thoughts and emotions.

So ... now we have it. In the past few months I have discovered all manner of challenges that involve blogging, writing, monetizing my writing ... etc etc. So ... How do I tell ya'll this? Oh I don't know can anybody guess? I'm having focus issues! The blog is winning. I want to keep playing with my blog ... and all my new fellow bloggers. Blogs are always surprising. Never tedious. Bloggers who are blogging about just stuff are fun.

I want the story that chose me this year for NaNoWriMo to be told. But NaNoWriMo is tedious. It feels like second grade. A novel is suppose to stack one thing upon another. I hate tying and stacking and bundling. I have proof of that. There's a little storage space that's rapidly filling with boxes that need to be tied, stacked, and bundled and recycled.

My loving husband would love for me to figure out ways to bring in money with my writing. He's convinced I should be writing ... writing my own stories ... but that I should be making money off of it. And I have some ideas that I find interesting and challenging and I want to play with them. And, yeah, I know. You want to know the secret of it all as soon as I find it. Okay ... but I'll have to charge you for it.

No, really, seriously, my stomach is in a knot over this. Sigh, the dog wants to go out walking. The dishes from yesterday are still not washed. For some reason three loads of laundry yesterday wasn't enough. I keep wanting to feel "let off the hook" re NaNoWriMo but all I feel is angry that I'm sitting here whining and not writing the novel.

So anyway, part of having Adult ADD and finally knowing it, is knowing that I am in a double resentment stage of the novel 1) it keeps presenting itself as either tedious or the straw that broke the camels back (the challenge I should have left alone) and 2) I resent that I'm suppose to be mature enough to understand this about myself and figure out which one is the lie ... is it really more than I should take on? OR am I just finding ways to procrastinate against it because I'm convinced it has to be tedious?

Dog and I have gone walking. ... with my timer aka cell phone.

Never mind ... I think that knot is a stomach virus ... I'm going to bed.

|

This note is for my RSS Feed Readers ... Just come here and see what's up.

Today is ketch-up day. I need to ketch-up on my housecleaning, my laundry, my email, my NaNoWriMo (I knew there was something I was forgetting to do), my web site features .... Hey! If you drop by and have a navigation issue/suggestion, let me know. I use to test web sites but now I can't figure out my own design. The irony of it all!

I'm also behind on watching some DVD's ... I have one I ordered from NetFlix ... and then ... there's two very very special ones that I've received last week from my father. One is my son's wedding in May and one of my second daughter's wedding in July. I know I'm going to cry. Don't get me wrong. I'm not upset about the weddings. And let me assure you ... these will be very excellent videos ... my dad should go pro ... even if he is uh ... retired.

But ... well for example ... I keep up with some marketing and some design blogs. One of the blogs is John Moore's blog: Brand Autopsy. He has started getting his mom to tell him about all of the family photos – starting with her wedding. When I watched it, I started crying before she did.

Here! While I watch my children's video, you go to Glenna's Wedding at Google Video. If you start crying, you have to give it 5 stars. If you don't start crying, go get a heart transplant. Then go to John's post about the The Wedding Story and tell him he's a very good son. Besides, there's some other news you should know in that post.

Goodness ... 3pm already ... I started this post at about 8am. But ... well the laundry kept needing attention and the heater repair guy was here (yea for a very excellent landlord! And for a 70 degree day on the southern rim of upstate NY!) ... and then the financials had to be done ... so that ... orders could be placed .... and so here we are. And next ... there's this shot i've been hoping to get ... and maybe today's the day ... I keep watching the window ...

But oh hey ... I did remember ... ya'll need entertainment too!

Have fun!

|

Well, I think I'll write on my own blog now. Anyway ... I was visited by OddMix on my An Experiment post. He is doing this little project ... he adopted me into ... and I thought it was a really great idea ... so today I went around and adopted a handful of blogs into my part of the project.

The hope is that you pick five or so blogs and try to visit and maybe comment each day. It's kind of a little bit of a challenge ... but let me give you an idea of what I've learned and how the practice of commenting increases your exposure. And how and why commenting should not always be accomplished on the blog that is inspiring you to comment. Sometimes you should comment on your own blog.

Sometimes I'll go visit someone's blog and they'll just hit a cord with me and my comment on their blog starts to take on a it's own persona ... like story length. So that's when i know it's time to stop, collect up my comment aka story, and go home to my blog and write there. But this is actually a friendly thing to do. It builds community two ways. First, I give credit where credit is due on my blog. I tell my readers where I was, and why I'm writing what I'm writing, and where they can go to read the original for themselves.

Second, I go back to the original and I either give a backtrack ... which is a very under-used, under-understood tool ... or I just add a comment that basically says "I'm talking about you ...here... and here's an excerpt." Backtracking and cross-linking peeks search engines' interest ... they see it as credibility building. So, it gives you both a little boost up on that particular topic.

So ... let's see for my list I picked a few from OddMix's list. I picked a few from the Christian Women Online Blog Ring. I picked one or two straight off the list. I picked one or two by randomizing. I snagged one off of 43things. I picked some that are mommies and some that are through or almost through raising their kids (Like me). And ....one or maybe two who aren't in the US.

I picked a few fathers, OddMix being the first. Fathers who unabashedly write about their children and their love for their children make my heart sing. Ok so nobody's perfect and I don't want you to think that I'm requiring the fathers I'm about to include in my list here to be perfect. In fact ... probably part of my admiration probably comes from knowing that fathers are seldom perfect ... but the fact that fathers try so hard ... and I'm glad some of them actually document this fact.

Obviously there's a more than a few of the blogs that fit into more than a few of the categories. And I reserve the right to play with the randomizer and make comments on other blogs.

In playing with the randomizer and the list, I found two amazing things. Most people are still in. I think maybe it's because we're meeting new people all the time thru this experience. And there's an amazing number who start their posts by saying (whining) "I don't have anything to say ..." And then the let loose with a perfectly entertaining slice of life story and often end with a perfectly-stated, obvious truth that makes me say ... "Yeah!!! I get that!" and then I get to feel normal a little. I like that. A lot. So, Thanks!

Secondly ... there's an amazing number of perfectly intelligent people out there blogging about perfectly amazing things in life ... things that are not business tips!
Ok ok my list:

I reserve the right to add to it or drop anybody who drops out.
Life, the Universe and Everything
What I Learned Today
The Grand
Food & Family
Knitten' Kittens
Imperfect Christian
My Empty Nest
Clare's Dad
And last ... but far from least ... one of the best writers I've ever been discovered by
The Odd Mix

|