Tag: Blogging

  • My Social Media and Blog Footprint

    I suck at social media. Part of it is that I keep thinking no one cares what I do or like, let alone what I am currently eating. Yet, I feel the need to get better at it. As if it were an art form which needs to be mastered. Though, I feel one cannot master it, but can only be innovative with it.

    I know that everything on social media is some form of a lie, but the same could be said for marketing, and I do believe that is what social media really is. People who are good at social media are very good at marketing themselves.

    I am not good at marketing myself. I want you to pay attention to me, but I don’t want to do anything to make you pay attention to me.

    I am a conundrum to myself.

    I feel self-conscious when I ask people to pay attention to me. This might be why I enjoy acting, and puppetry so much when it comes to theatre. I could either hide myself in a character, or literally, hide behind a puppet and never be seen. I could be the center of attention, and no one would get to know me.

    But I have a public blog. A blog that has increased its views by 50% in the past two months. So, that means there are more of you coming by to look at me. (Well, the stats are saying you are here to read the short story reviews, but a few of you venture to the other posts. In that sense, greetings!) Still, I feel very uncomfortable about mentioning this blog to the people in my daily life.

    I have been thinking about that lately; why aren’t I more aggressive in sharing this?

    Part of it is that I am still not sure if I believe that I am a professional, a hobbyist, or if I am a hobbyist advancing towards professionalism? And if I don’t believe that what I am creating has value, then how can I ask anyone else to believe it is of value?

    Maybe it’s not self-consciousness, but a mere lack of self-confidence?

    But I do like it. I like writing a blog every day. I thought about cutting back to just three days a week, but it felt weird not to post daily.

    Hence, why I am here today.

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  • Not Enough Time

    I am stealing a moment to type this out. I didn’t do my homework last night. My homework being to make a meal plan for the week, a grocery list, and writing a blog to be posted this morning. What I did was binge three episodes of Ted Lasso with my wife, and then fell asleep on the couch.

    So, now I am running behind. I still have to do the aforementioned tasks, but I also have to take the kid to her dentist appointment later today. As this is titled, I don’t have enough time to get everything done.

    And I had two really great ideas for a blog. One was about showing how over the past 30 years homage, parody, and ripping-off in media have become blurred. The other was how I was completely judgmental toward guys who work out all the time at the gym. Both I thought were great ideas.

    But now I have to go.

    Maybe I’ll get to it later in the week.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Nightmares, Blogging, and Shop Local

    (Some thoughts that don’t involve Tottenham or Alt Side Parking.)

    The kid woke me up at 1am. She had a nightmare, and I tried to get her back to bed, but she was too upset. So, I did what any good father would do, we sat on the couch until we fell asleep watching MST3k. “Mitchell” was on and that calmed everyone down. In the morning, I asked the night what her nightmare was about, and she said that she dreamed she was an artist, and kept failing over and over again to paint a perfect picture. Yikes! I tried to talk to her about how failure is an important part of the creative process as it allows an artist to know what doesn’t work, and to keep trying. I don’t know if it took hold, but I did think she was a little young to be worried about painting a perfect picture.

    I started thinking again about switching to a paid blogsite, and getting away from the free WordPress.com thing that I am on now. I do this every couple of months, and I always get back to asking myself, what is the point? I have written about this on twenty different occasion, if not more, and I can never come up with a persuasive argument for myself, one way or the other. I am continually sitting on the pot over this one. I don’t know how to do what I want to do, which is what I am doing right now, sitting on my couch and writing, and make a living at it. Will a better blog site get me any closer to that goal? Honestly, I don’t think it will. BUT… I do have some free time, and it is something to do. Ahhh… I’ll sit on the pot awhile longer then.

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