Experimenting with Twitter

I'm running a little experiment over on Twitter this weekend.  I'm tweeting a short story in VERY SHORT chapters.

You can follow me if you like at: twitter.com/BarbMcMahon

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

I've Been Away

My new job took me away to Africa for the month of March.  I was going to retire this little blog when I got home. But...

But I have so many ideas buzzing around in my head and nowhere else to really put them.  So let's try to keep this going awhile longer, shall we?

The regular posting will all be happening over at May December Home, if you like food/lifestyle/design blogs.  But if you prefer the occasional muddled ramblings of a middle-aged mzunga, well, this is the place for you!

Thank you for your patience. It's appreciated.  More than you know.

Note to Self

This blog needs a rethink.

Add it to your To Do list.   Possibly to be taken care of while working at the furniture store.  (What are they gonna do?  Fire me?)

Zam, Sha

As in, Shazam!  NaBloPoMo is done!

As in Shazam! I posted every day for 4692  367  30 days straight!

As in, Shazam!  I actually finished something I started (which, let me tell you, happens all too infrequently)!

As in, Shazam!  I had fun!  And met new people! 

As in, Shazam!  Finally a month to hate more than February!

Because, we're all going to be back here next year trying again, right?

Well, my tour bus is leaving.  Time to pull the nametag off my sweater and leave the convention centre.

Anyone else have a feeling the Internet's going to be really quiet tomorrow?

X!!??!?!

Yeah, right.

There is no word I could write about, starting with X, that would make it worthwhile for the Internet to raise itself from its tryptophan-induced coma and read it.

I'll try again tomorrow.  Sleep well, Internet.

V is for Virtual Friends

No vavoom today, thankfully.  The chicken turned out fine, the kitchen still stands.

When I started my first blog (two years ago this week!), I was trying to promote the food shop my husband and I were running.  I had read that blogs were a great way to promote small businesses.

I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I started reading other blogs, just to see how other people did it.  And then I got drawn in to their worlds.  Started leaving comments.  And sometimes, someone would visit my blog (and eventually, blogs) and say something friendly or helpful or funny.

And over time, some of these people have become friends.  Friends that I have never met in person and maybe never will.

People get really sniffy about the virtual world.  And make wild claims that virtual friendships aren't REAL and are a poor, flimsy substitute for the real thing.

These people have obviously not spent enough time online. 

No matter where this blogging adventure takes me, I can tell you, I treasure each and every one of the comments you leave.  And the friendships that develop are every bit as real as the ones that occur face to face.

Thanks for the tag, Jamie.  I'll accept the challenge - as soon as I figure out seven things I haven't already shared about myself!

 

Utterly Stymied by U

I mean seriously, people!  U?  I got nothin'.

So I'm giving you all the day off.  But please stop back tomorrow.  I'm roasting a chicken for dinner tonight. 

I haven't actually run the oven on the new stove by myself yet....

So if tomorrow's post is titled "V is for Vavoom", you'll know I blew up the kitchen.

 

NaBloPoMo - Day Three

After signing up for NaBloPoMo, I started to worry, just a little, about how I was going to manage. 

DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE THIRTY WHOLE DAYS IN NOVEMBER?  WELL THERE ARE!  I counted.  Twice.

How on earth would I find something to say, every single day?  I mean, let's face it.  I'm just not that interesting.

So I started leafing through my old journals (I knew they would come in handy one of these days!  That makes the hernias we've been getting lugging them from place to place to place so totally worth it!) and picking out a few ideas.

Now, before you get too excited, these are recent journals.  I actually got rid of all the ones I kept in high school, thank GOD!

Anyway, I started jotting down a few ideas and they seemed to arrange themselves most naturally alphabetically.

So that's how I'm going to run this.  An idea a day, in alphabetical order, from now till the end of the month.  And if my math skills are any good at all (and I doubt that they are), I'll only have a few extra days to fill in at the end.  Or I'll run out of month somewhere long about "W".

Stay tuned for tomorrow when the topic is - "Aging".  Unless I pick something else that starts with "A".

I Was Told There Will Be Prizes

I signed up for NaBloPoMo this morning.  Well, when I say signed up, I sent in my URL, as instructed.  It's not listed in the blogroll yet, but it is Saturday and I see Eden hasn't even updated for today ("post before lunch", she suggests helpfully), which makes me wonder a bit about the validity of this whole NaBloPoThing. 

I tried to sign up for the NingRingThing, but that was just beyond me and since I've no idea what it actually does, I just went all old-fashioned and formal and sent an email instead.

But still.  I was told there will be prizes.  And I hope I win one, because there is nothing more likely to inspire an epic, no, in fact a completely Biblical case of writer's block in me than promising to write for or at a set time.

Truly.  Anyone at all could shut off the supply of words (but why would anyone want to?) by just saying something like, "I need three words by six years from Tuesday," and, KABOOM!  Six years of total silence.

And since, in my secretest corners of me, I like to call myself a writer.  No a Writer.  No! A WRITER!  A case of writer's block can bring on The Doubts.  The Misery.  The Despair.

So, there better be prizes, cuz it's gonna be a helluva month!

 

Can't Blog. Reading....

When the call went out for submissions to You're Not The Only One, I thought it was a great idea: lots of cool bloggers, all gathered into handy book form, in support of a really good cause.

 

My copy arrived at the post office yesterday.  And I was really excited.  It was as much as I could do not to skip through town showing it off to everyone in my path.

The villagers already think I'm a little strange, so I managed not to do that.

When I got home, I ripped open the package and started to read.

And I haven't been able to do much else since.

These stories?  Are SO good!  The best of the blogosphere, all in one spot.  I am honoured and humbled to have been included.

If you don't buy it, you will be denying yourself THE read of the summer.

Just click any of these handy "Buy Now" buttons to get your copy (but be careful to check how many copies you're ordering - Lulu likes to make suggestions).

So You Want to Start a Blog

Blogging is a great way to advertise your business.  It can also be a business in itself.  Starting is ridiculously easy.  Maybe a little too easy.  There are a few things I wish I'd known when I was first starting out.

1. The first week of your blog will be fuelled with adrenalin and dreams of glory.  You may want to post for two weeks before sending out announcements.
2. When you leave comments on other peoples' blogs, if you've signed in correctly, your name will link back to your blog.  You don't need to add your URL at the end of your comment.  I wish I'd known this one sooner - there are a few embarrassing early posts floating around out there.  But I've noticed that I'm not the only one who doesn't know this.
3. At some point, your elderly Auntie will find and read your blog.  Think about it.
4. People surfing for porn will also find your blog.  Do not take this personally.
5. PAGE BREAKS!!!!!  They're a really good idea.  Without them, your blog takes forever to load and new readers may get bored and wander off, never to return.  A week, at the most, per page.
6. No one wants to read about your kids!  OK, there are a few corollaries to this one.  If you're writing a personal memoir blog and you have kids, they should appear.  If you have a baby after you start your blog, then, yes please.  We'd like to see pictures.  But remember two things: they're cuter to you than they are to total strangers.  And they do grow up and those pictures?  That were so adorable you had to share them with the world?  They'll still be out there as evidence of what a terrible parent you were.
7. Strangely, pictures of your pets are always acceptable.  Can't think of what to say today?  Scoot up a picture of the cat doing that thing that he does and we'll go away happy.

There's so much more I want to tell you.  But I like to keep these posts short and snappy.  I read somewhere that that's a good idea.

So I'll add more later, as they occur to me.

 

The Joy of Blogging

I was sitting in the living room, cursing at the computer yesterday.

Alan called from the office, "Blogging again?"

Ooops.

Blogging For Beginners

I had planned to post from Monday to Friday and take the weekends off, but when you find something this good, well, you change your plans!

All Things Bright and Beautiful (a lovely decor blog) has started a series for new bloggers, to answer all those million and one technical questions that you think you somehow should know, but don't.

So, if you're new to blogging or (like me) you just want to learn some new tricks, add this one to your favourites list!