Geek Critique

I'm having a bit of Geek pique. Don't those folks have enough to do? Why are they messing around with Blogger?

I've been blogging for about six years (I can't be precise because I can't find my stats) and I know the territory. Draft, post, label—I could blog in my sleep, and often have. But tonight I walked into Blogspot and almost tripped—the furniture's been rearranged! Don't webmasters understand that we don't want new and improved? We want familiar!

And the whole Timeline thing on Facebook is a fiasco for me. So we're creating scrapbooks now? All my photo albums are neatly stacked in iPhoto where the Mac people told me to put them. Six years ago the Geeky guys didn't give me directions to Picasa—is it in Italy? Why would I be importing my photos from there??
 

I feel lost and confused—there's no map to this new world. 

The Geeks are freaking me out!

Write Your Story

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

"We go to art museums, longing for a glimpse of the world through someone else’s eyes. The images we see of starry skies and fields of flowers are not valuable because they are truth. The yearning to see them is based ... on the desire to learn a different way of looking at the world. Memoirs provide the same benefit." ---Memory Writers Network

Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh

My mind is like a DVD player. I can slide in a memory and be entertained for hours by the colors, the fashions, the songs, the scenery—I'm never bored. I remember details: like the orange and red flowers on my parent's brown bedroom drapes. Or the sandpapery bottom of the swimming pool the first day of summer, before I'd developed any callouses. I can remember the last names of all seven Lindas in my 7th grade science class. I can even remember things that aren't memories. Like prom. (I was hiding out in my girlfriend's car watching Goldfinger at the drive-in, pretending I didn't care.) But I can still picture the bouffant hairdos the luckier girls wore.

Sometimes when I write these memories, I'm afraid someone else will remember it differently and call the history police. What if one of the Lindas reads my blog and remembers there were really eight Lindas in Mr. Stucki's class? Will I have to publicly retract my statement? Is it libel? Will I be sued? Will my work ever be trusted again?

The great thing about writing a Memoir is that it is, by definition, a biographical account according to your own memory. Nobody can second guess you. If you recall hearing about Kennedy's death while you were eating breakfast, it doesn't matter that it didn't happen until after lunch. Maybe you got up late or maybe you were eating an omelet at 2:00 in the afternoon. It doesn't matter because it's your recollection. It's OK to record an event the way you remember it. Don't second guess yourself, or postpone writing your memoirs until you check all the facts. Get those important memories down, in a way that others can catch glimpses of life in a different light. Your impressions will help both you and your readers see the big picture.

Bonni Goldberg said, "Memory is an aspect of imagination. For writing, memory is one of your most important tools. A phrase from the lyric of a song, a poetic phrase in a book, a fragment of a story, an object from the past is enough to spark the creative, intuitive mind ... Especially rich are incidents and images stored away that you aren't sure ever actually occurred ..."

Remember that!

A Walk in the Park

I'm debuting today. Garden Park (in Daybreak) has a fabulous new website and I'm the blogmeister! I'll be posting there every Monday, trying to make you jealous that you don't live in our community, and trying to convince you that you could if you tried.

Check it out (the photos are all of my friends!) and click on blog. Calendar it, bookmark it, google-reader it—you won't want to miss a single weekly word! I'll be writing about things like moving, getting acquainted in a new neighborhood, community activities—it will be applicable to people outside Garden Park, too. In fact, suggest a topic in the comment section and I'll write about it!

To visit me in my new digs, click here:

A Walk in the Park

You're always welcome!

Refresh

Yoo-hoo ... are you still out there? I've been buried for a few weeks, and I'm just poking my head up to see if life still exists in the blogosphere. TravelinOma needs refreshing!

I really miss writing. Tonight I sent a bunch of emails to my new-found real friends (as opposed to you, my long-lost virtual friends) and my fingers got carried away. These unsuspecting new friends got lengthy compositions (enhanced by my thesaurus, no less) as answers to questions like "When does the meeting start?" I realized it's time to get back to the folks who understand me.

I even brought refreshments!

You can choose from Chocolate Peanut Butter-filled, Pineapple Coconut, Lemon Curd or Chocolate with Caramel in the cupcake cabinet, or Madagascan Vanilla, Chocolate Brooklyn Blackout, or Red Velvet in the signature cake cupboard. I would highly recommend skipping the treats altogether and having something healthy, like the Magic Potato.

Sit down by the fireplace and enjoy a sweet potato, dressed in buttery brown sugar and crusted pecans, topped with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Seriously, you have to eat it to believe it! Don't you wish I was more than a virtual friend? We could hang out together at The Chocolate, a dessert cafe.


For you locals, I'll give directions: it's in a cute little old house at 9118 South Redwood Road, West Jordan, UT. There's another one in Orem, Utah at 212 South State Street. And they have wedding showers and cupcake birthday parties! ($7 a kid) Check it out: www.thechocolatedc.com

The reason I'm telling you this is so you'll be inspired to treat yourself to something. It doesn't need to be chocolate covered—it could be a sentimental book, a spring-time drive with the windows down, or even an hour in the blogosphere. Anything that gives you a chance to relax and feel good about yourself. It's totally refreshing!

Is Blogging Dead?

Am I at a party that's turned into a wake?

Recently I've heard about blogging's demise ("Facebook and Twitter have taken over," they say. "Blog posts are too long to hold people's interest," they say.) So, I've been re-evaluating my blogging career. Are all the good blogging gigs being shipped overseas? Do I need to post in Mandarin?

I've come to a conclusion: Blogging as a fad is dead, blogging isn't. Here's why: A blog is a place to write, like a notebook or a billboard or a magazine or a postcard. It's also a virtual office, with file cabinets, display shelves, writing tools and folders for research. It's a creative space, like a photography workshop, a painting studio or a practice cubicle.

My mom had a big closet she turned into her sewing room. Pictures of the latest fashions hung on the walls, fabric was piled in colorful stacks, threads and bobbins perched on pegs. An ironing board leaned against a file cabinet stuffed with patterns and all sorts of sewing paraphernalia: measuring tapes, cutting wheels, rick-rack and bias tape. Mom was an organized and gifted seamstress, but this room would not have been featured in an issue of Where Women Create. Hers was a workshop. Pajama sleeves were in progress, along with mending projects and home-ec assignments. I'm sure Mom saw some spacious sewing rooms and compared them to hers. Maybe she envied new equipment, commissions for wedding gowns, time spent sitting at a Pfaff, accolades for talent. (I know for a fact her oldest daughter didn't give her the appreciation she deserved.) But shutting down her sewing room was not an option. It's where she did her sewing, where she stashed her sewing stuff. It was her creative space.

I visit other blogs, see how imaginative they are, how artistic and witty, count the advertisers who trust their skill, read comments by the dozen. What's the point of my daily meandering in this blogosphere of expertise? Who's reading it? Should readers even be the reason I write? I understand why bloggers are shutting down: their blog feels like a closet at the back of the house, and nobody cares what they're doing back there.

Thinking about blogs woke up my gratitude for this little place I've created. Stuffed in my blog are organized piles of my life's paraphernalia:

• Accounts of who I am, where I've been, where I'm going.
• Facts I'd tell a new friend.
• Facts old friends already know.
• How I've felt from day to day about my experiences.
• What I've learned from them.
• What I want to remember.
• Talents I'm discovering and plans for using them.
• Advice I can't share any other way.
• What I'd tell my psychiatrist.
• Hidden jewels from my childhood.
• A written record of our family.
• My knowledge of truths about God.
• A collection of my anecdotes.
• Stories about my ancestors.
• Trip diaries.
• Lists of goals.

I could go on and on, (and if you check my archives, you'll see I have.) These are the Brass Plates of Oma: my anthology is available to my posterity forevermore. It's already an organized resource for pioneer stories, family factoids, photos, vacation memories, tips, dates, names and lesson materials. Sure, it's rambling, boring, full of too much information, but so is every library. Workshops have dust and wood chips laying around, but does that make the furniture any less valuable? My blog—your blog—is a treasure house.

Oma's Blog Boosters

1. Don't compare my blog to others. I'm unique and so are they.
2. Don't judge the success of my blog by the numbers.
3. Tour my blog occasionally to see what gems I've collected.
4. Take a break from writing when I need to. (Who cares, really??) It'll still be there when I come back.
5. When my blog feels like a nag, set it aside, but don't question it's value.

My blog is a place where I gather, assemble, evaluate, ponder, wonder, brag, whine, remember, worry, chat, work, organize, practice and learn. It's mine.

As a blogger, I boldly declare: Blogging is Not Dead. Blogging is a living, breathing, vital pursuit, dedicated to enlightening the past, energizing the present, and enriching the future.

Random Musings

Els Mere Village

I've spent a lot of time in a foreign land lately. Kirby Puckernut lives on WordPress, and they speak a different language over there. After I post on Kirby's blog, I come back to Blogger whispering "There's no place like home, there's no place like home . . ." The icons along the top of the page are familiar, the publish post button is colorful, and save now is easy to find. Images don't jump randomly through the text, but land neatly where I want them to go.

My website is on Square Space, and I feel like a stranger there, too. It's a different culture. I love Blogger—plain old Blogger, not the new version. Why do they keep updating everything? Gmail changed things around just after I got comfortable, and Google Reader has a disappearing navigation system now. I'm an old dog and new tricks are confusing.

I'm getting tired of my ghosting gig. Writing is its own reward and I love putting words together, but it's difficult to write in another person's voice and wonder the whole time if I'm getting it right. Because they get the feedback, I never know. So far, however, people are more willing to pay me when my name's not on it. Just like William Porter—he was an ex-con and nobody wanted his name on stuff either. So he signed his work O. Henry. I guess Kirby Puckernut can work for me.

Since I pose as an elf, I did a little elfing myself today.

Oma's traditional Open Me Now package,
filled with trinkets, activity pages, stickers and bubblegum,
hit the assembly line.

Opa hit the post office line.

Back to my original theme: I love Blogger, I love blogging. And I love you for reading my blog, (even when it's totally random.)

Visit Kirby's blog
(See how music saved one family's Christmas.)

Ten Reasons to Blog

Here's where I blog.

I've been asking myself—why do I blog? TravelinOma is five years old next week, and this is my 5,000th post! Each post takes me at least two hours to write, so that's over 10,000 hours I've spent working on this little hobby—not counting all the prepping, designing and linking. Since I don't have ads, there's no money-making involved. So is blogging worth it?

Ten Ways Blogging Has Paid Off For Me

1. Blogging introduced me to one of the great loves of my life—Mac. You can read about him in a post I called An Affair to Remember.
   
2. Blogging is it's own reward—I'm becoming a better writer. I've got three shelves of books on writing that I'm always studying, and I use my blog to practice the techniques I'm reading about. Looking back at my early posts, I see improvement, and that's satisfying to me.
3. Because of my blog I take more pictures, download them that day (in case I want to use them on a post) and label them immediately so they're easy to find.
   
4. All my old photos are now organized in iPhoto. At first I was searching through boxes and scrapbooks for pictures to use on posts, so I started scanning them in and making digital albums, labeling them with names and dates. (Another bonus from blogging.)
   
5. I learned how to scan—and create files to store scans in. And color code my files. Initially it was just for my blog, but my eyes were opened to a world of possibilities. (You have to remember I was raised during the Dewey Decimal decades, and this is all new to me.)
   
6. I learned to cut and paste, and then to copy and bookmark and explore icons, which taught me to add images and make italics, and change fonts. That gave me confidence to try other writing programs like Pages and Scrivener. Now I can create my own templates for newsletters—and novels!
7. I haven't even mentioned what I've learned from your blogs. You find humor in the mundane and miserable moments, and you relish the joyful ones. Reading what you write encourages me, and I feel refreshed by dipping into your day. (Even though I hardly ever comment anymore.)
   
8. When something interesting pokes my mind, I think, "Blog." It's a great motivation for research. I wrote about Anne Frank once, and that post alone has had 51,000 hits!
9. Blogging has given me a new outlet. Even the bleakest of days can turn into a memorable post.
   
10. Finally, I love blogging! At the beginning of my blogging career the prevailing attitude (of non-bloggers) was that it was a waste of time. I felt defensive. One of my most popular posts is called Wear Your Paper Bag With Pride, and after I wrote it, I settled into my blogging grove—with pride.

"When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish.
I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life."
—Erica Jong

How long have you been blogging?

Leave a comment before Saturday November 5th at midnight,
and you'll be entered to win a copy of my book!

Buy it here!

Organization

Organizing is my homemaking chore of choice, so I was thrilled to find Jen's blog: IHeartOrganizing. I've been reading her old posts for three nights now. She is fabulous!

Pinterest has also caught my interest. Do not go there if you're not prepared to be addicted.

And tomorrow I'm getting balanced! (This post by Bernice Wood is inspiring.)

See You in September

I've got a lot on my plate right now.

1. Finishing a book.
2. Publicizing a different book.
3. Building a website.
4. Moving to a new house.
5. Giving a talk in church.

I've always admired the ability to bite off more than you can chew,
and then chew it.

Süsse

Life is particularly sweet right now,
but I've got some serious chewing to do!

(Excuse me while I take a little blog break.)

What's With Blogger?

I can't log onto my blog using Firefox (which is what I always use) and it won't accept comments. Safari won't let me cut and paste images, delete or move them around. Blogger keeps asking me for my password, won't accept the one I've used forever, and has emailed me the same one three times. I feel like someone is trying to sabotage TravelinOma! It won't work, people! I will be published!

I spent ten hours yesterday on a six-page newsletter for my church (I'm the editor, so I produce one every month.) It's amazing what I've learned just by trying something new. I use Pages and each time I discover new techniques for layout, text boxes, masking photos, etc. It is SO hard, and SO beyond my abilities and SO, SO FUN!

Plus, yesterday I got the mock-ups for the cover of Son of a Gun. This is the real deal! It's looking like a genuine book! Another example of learning by doing. Last year at this time I didn't have a clue about actually writing a whole novel (plotting, character development, conflict, setting, organization, etc.) And this fall it will be on shelves, (hopefully flying off shelves.) But Son of a Gun isn't where you'll see the skills I developed writing it. My mystery/thriller/spy work in progress (it hasn't got a name yet) is where my new abilities are being put to use. This time I know a little more what I'm doing because I learned on the last one. And again, it's so fun!!!

What are you working on? I bet you're getting good at it! That's the way it works.

"You can only learn to be a writer by writing."

—Doris Lessing

Now I can't get back to normal size font. Something's up with Blogger.

Blog Questions

My novel Son of a Gun will be released in the fall, and I've been reading about Building an Online Platform—the first step to online marketing. Because lots of you sell your creations online, and most of you buy stuff online, I want your advice, my dear blog friends. Please leave a wise (or otherwise) answer to one or more of my questions.

1. My publicist suggests an online presence: (Website, blog, social media, etc.) Is a blog like mine enough? Should I have another blog just about my book? Why? How will anyone find it? Should I have a professional website and my blog? What's the difference? Do you go to author's websites?
   
2. Is it worth the trouble to change my blog from Blogger to my own domain? Does it really make a difference? Would I lose readers in the transition phase?
   
3. Everyone says to get on Twitter, but I don't understand Twitter. How would tweeting that I found a great sale on bananas help sell my book? It's a blind alley for me. Do I need to learn?
   
4. Right now my Facebook is just whatever I write on my blog. Should it be different? (I can't think of anything else to say.) How do people do both? Is Facebook better than a blog for an online presence? (What is an online presence?) Do people read facebook entries of people who never read leave comments on their facebook?
   
5. If I'm looking for a book to read, I just go to Amazon and type in a topic, title or name. How do you do it? Do you go to Goodreads, book blogs, ask friends first?
6. Do you mostly buy books in bookstores, online, or do you download ebooks? How much would you pay for an ebook by a newbie?
   
7. What would entice you to read a book by an unknown, first-time author?
8. Have you ever gone to a book signing? Why did you go? Was it lame or cool?
9. Are you in a book club? How do you decide what to read?
   
10. On a different topic, why do people say snarky things when they comment on a blog? Just to hurt the blogger's feelings? A blog friend of mine emailed that she was closing her blog because of the hurtful comments she got from her ex-mother-in-law. Why don't people just stop reading if they don't like the content?

Now it's your turn.
I dare you—get carried totally carried away with your opinions!

Fill my box with ideas!

Postcard: A Mini Vacation

Back when I was having babies, Dee said, "Let's name the last one after you."
That's why we have a Mini Mart!
Marta's a master blogger, and knows her stuff. Read her post on:
Jealousy and Blogging.
(And tell her I miss her!)

Tell Me a Story

Marty six-years-old, 1955

"Is that you, back in the olden days?"
asked Lucy.

"Was that in the 90's?"
asked Chelsea

A bunch of my grandkids are losing their teeth, so I pulled out this picture to show them how I looked back in the olden days. "Did Opa really save all my mom's baby teeth?" Eliza asked.

"Tell us about when our mom was little," begged Lucy. From teenagers down to babies, kids love to hear about their mom's mischief, and their dad's escapades. And they're all blown away by our free and easy childhoods. The stories connect them to the children we've told them we once were. They respect us, knowing we were little kids, like them, and came through the challenges they're facing. It's so awesome to find out your mom had leg-aches, too, when she was growing, and your dad was also scared of wind. Suddenly everyone can relate!

I heard some Professional storytellers discussing the value of stories. One woman said:

"Separation of church and state has come to mean we can't teach values at school. Since values are all part of one religion or another, they're not allowed. Consequently, many children are growing up in a void—they don't know how to live, and they don't know how to die. They don't know how to treat aging neighbors, or little kids being bullied on the playground. They don't know how to stand for something, or how to deal with their own fears. They have no maps."

Stories, especially family stories, help fill this empty spot. How did you feel when your dog died? The kids in your life need to hear about that. What did you do after school? Why did you get in trouble and how did you get out of it?

We spoke a different language than the kids of today—teach them in your language. "Creepers! That flick was boss!" or "Wait-up. I've got a snuggie." Show them how you danced, let them listen to your music, and treat them to some vintage dishes like spam sandwiches, chipped beef on toast, or Ovaltine. It will be like time travel.

I have a new blog friend (she's my new real friend, too) and she has a blog called Back in the Olden Days. It describes her childhood in the 50's and 60's and it will take you back to a simpler time, when priorities weren't discussed as much as lived. The details are ordinary, yet extraordinary nowadays.

If you lived during the good old days, you'll love strolling down her memory lane. You used to live there! If you're younger, looking for good old ways to raise kids and strengthen families, you'll find dependable, old-fashioned ideas peeking through her paragraphs.

Click and read. You'll be inspired to tell your own stories. When I get carried away I almost imagine that I'm six again. My audience sits across the table, wiggling their teeth, and I notice one of mine feels loose, too. The magic of stories . . . oh wait; it really does feel loose! I wonder if the tooth fairy leaves enough for a root canal these days!

Now it's your turn:
Start with the phrase Back in the Olden Days . . . and:

Tell a detailed description of a regular Saturday morning when you were a kid.
or
Tell about the first funeral you ever went to and what you honestly thought.
or
Tell about something you were caught doing, and then punished for.
or
Tell about visiting your grandma and grandpa. What did you do there?

(of course, you could write any of these stories down, too.)

Have You Been Googled?

Teacher Feature

Wondering how somebody finds your blog?

If somebody googles:

• "Anne Frank"
  
• "Toys at Grandma's House"
  
• "Mother Goose Costume"
• "Lifesavers"
• "Paper Bag"
• "Punctuation"
• "Miles Goodyear Cabin"

and a bunch of others, my blog is listed on the first page of the Google Search Results. They are pretty random topics, and I don't know why they have made the big time, but it gives me a total thrill! Every once in a while I get an email from somebody saying they wrote a paper on Miles Goodyear and used my post, or used my Anne Frank post to teach their history class. It's pretty fun!

My posts never get tons of comments (thank you to everyone who does comment) but lots of people read them. My advice:

Never judge your readership by the number of comments!

Here are two ways I've figured out to see if anybody's reading. (There are probably more accurate ways but I don't know them.)

This is how I track using my Blogger account:

1. On my blog I click on New Post (as if I'm writing a new post.)
2. Across the top there are little tabs: Posting, Comments, Settings . . . Stats
3. Click on Stats.
4. There is a list of Popular Posts, telling how many page views they've had.
5. At the top I can click on Now/Day/Week/Month/All Time.
   
6. When I click on All Time, I can see how many times someone has been to that particular page.
   
7. I wonder why, and try to figure out what works and what doesn't. I give up.
   
8. Then I explore and click on everything in there.

This is how I find out using New Stat Counter:

1. You'll have to google New Stat Counter and join up. I can't remember how to do this, but it must be easy because I did it. I don't have a fancy account I have to pay for. The free one is fine for me.
2. In New Stat Counter there are features down the side. I click on Key Words. That tells me what key words people googled that led them to my blog post.
   
3. Clicking on Popular Pages tells me how many times someone has visited a certain page. I can click on daily/weekly/monthly, etc. at the top and it gives me the statistics.

To see where the post was ranked, I typed the key words into Google and read down the first page of listings. Try it! You might be pleasantly surprised!

How Do You Google?

A while ago I wrote a random post called A Letter to My Grandkids: Anne Frank's Diary. It's been googled 25,000 times! I get emails about it almost every day. What makes a post catch fire?

Did You Hear?

Oma's featured in the Casual Blogging Community!
Click over for a visit!

The Write Way

Author Lucy Sprague Mitchell

"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say."

—Sholem Asch

(I'm blank.)

Where do you get your ideas?

Symbols

These are symbols that many people can read.

Without a word said, there's understanding.

I'm posting this week about
writing symbolically,
(metaphors, weather, similes, etc.)
But first I need your help.

I have a cool little app on my Mac computer so that I can type some symbols. But I always wonder if they show up the way I want them to on your computer. In the comments section could you tell me which of the following six symbols you see (or what you see instead?) And tell me if you have a Mac or a PC.

☂ This is an umbrella

★ This is a star

♥ This is a heart

♫ These are two musical notes ♫

☺ This is a smiley face

❀ This is a flower


Tell me if my cute little symbols show up.
(They mean I care about you!)

Blogging: The Big Reveal

Marta in layers

The What Not to Wear Reveal is the best part of the show. Under all the layers of insecurity and self-consciousness, a sparkling, talented, beautiful person is hiding, and the audience finally gets a chance to see her inside-personality reflected on the outside.

Blogging is like a Reveal. I've been to blogs where peeling the layers away becomes too tedious to actually stay for the reveal. Apologies ("Sorry, I have nothing interesting to write") push me out the door. "Thanks for telling me before I waste my time here," I think as my pinkie stretches toward delete. Other blogs look interesting immediately and I want to get acquainted, read everything they have to say. What makes the difference?

This week Marta came to Oma's Inn to prepare for her reveal at the ALT Design Summit. Her topic was Blogging Personal Stories, so we had plenty to chat about while she got ready.

Talbots on sale!

I chased baby Benji through Talbots while Marta searched the racks for her Red Carpet look. "How do you suggest what's underneath without letting it all hang out?" We were talking about blogging, not cleavage, but the answer was the same: add sparkle.

The glimpse of a sequined tank underneath a low-cut blouse has an alluring modesty factor. When writing a revealing blog, don't display all the family jewels, warts and scars. Hint at the underpinnings of the story with careful words that won't offend someone you love, or embarrass you when it appears on your resume years from now. Your own style comes into play, of course, but the rule might be "less is more" when showcasing your personal stuff.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall . . ."

The guy at the Mac counter perked up when he saw us coming. Sketch, Soba, Swiss Chocolate, Cork—do green eyes look greener with purple? Do blue eyes look bluer with brown? Is Sketch purple or brown? WE NEED THEM ALL!!!!

What words reveal your inner colors? Rants are therapeutic to write and fun to read—sometimes. Sarcasm is hard to gauge through a blog, and often comes across whiny and negative to a stranger who isn't familiar with your sense of humor. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but maybe you want people to come back and read your blog again. In that case, use a little foundation to even out your tone, dab some concealer on your blemishes and use color strategically to enhance your smile. Don't worry, your flaws will still show in the right light; you'll look real. You can still blog without makeup from time to time, but readers are more attracted when your words POP with enthusiasm.

Rock it, Min!

The Reveal is all about confidence. When you put all the pieces together, your blog will shimmer with confidence. Marta said, "A blog is like a party. You invite people to come, and as a good hostess, you want them to feel welcome and comfortable and to feel like you care about them. You try to be your best self."

Benji's Past, revealed.

Do readers get acquainted with you by reading your blog? Are you showcasing the look you want them to see? Do they leave saying, "I need to bring my sister over. She'd love it here!" or "That place was a mess!"

"You are what you blog," says Marta. "Since you're always looking for blog posts in your regular life, you start seeing your regular life with the attitude you have when you write about it."

Example: A three-year-old drops a gallon of orange juice in the fridge. A Woe is Me blogger sees this as proof that motherhood is miserable and spends an hour writing about her miserable life scrubbing inside, around and under the refrigerator. Will her kids ever grow up?

An Isn't Life Funny? blogger takes a bunch of photos, and even recreates the fatal drop with her giggling 3-year-old, then spends the afternoon smiling over staged pictures of her kids mopping up the OJ. She bites her lip realizing that someday they'll grow up.

Whether you want it to or not, your blog reveals you to your audience, and also to yourself.

Smile for your fans!

Reveal the real.

P.S.
My Quirky Giveaway ends tonight at midnight! Make sure you leave a comment!

Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Can you leave extra presents for the people who write the blogs I read, and read the blogs I write?

Love,

Marty