Hello, 600th post

I started this blog in December, 2010 after hearing, as many of us do before starting out blogging, that aspiring authors should probably have some sort of online "platform". I think the general idea is to establish your online presence and 'brand'. I definitely started out with the 'online presence' thing in mind, but I never had a particular brand in mind, and I still don't.

Now in October, 2014, I'm still putting up posts about whatever I feel like on a particular day. I do participate in blogfests, book launches, tours, etc., so when it comes to those, my posts are a little bit - or a lot - pre-determined. But the only rule I really try to stick to with blogging in general is to post at least once a week. Previously I aimed for every 3 days, but I find having a general goal of one post per week works better.

It's a little way off my 4-year blogiversary, but 600 posts is a fun milestone to celebrate anyway! I'm so glad to be part of this community. You guys are awesome and I love reading your blogs & seeing what you have to say. And I really enjoy reading your books, too. ;) Particularly when I get awesome print copies of them. GO PRINT BOOKS, GO!

P.S. I'm not far off achieving my (admittedly quite modest) annual reading goal:

2014 Reading Challenge

Trisha has read 37 books toward her goal of 40 books.

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37 of 40 (92%)

view books

P.P.S. I am starting to think about what I want to write for NaNo, 2014. I have two ideas that are way ahead of all the rest. Haven't picked one yet, though.

A slight blogging slump

This was a screenshot from a few weeks ago,
but we do see a touch of it here and there still.
Summer can last almost 6 months here,
and I hate almost every second of it.

I actually wrote the bulk of this post near the end of January, but took it down when I realised I had another blogging commitment that very day. But I thought I'd post it now as it still feels fitting, considering I haven't put up a post here in 6 days!

Soooo, I am not in any hurry to post here at my blog lately. Maybe I'm still struggling to emerge from the daze that was the Christmas/New Year holidays. We also just had another public holiday here (Australia Day, for those who are curious, falls on Jan 26th every year). So I had yesterday off work and did yet more lazing about watching DVDs.

But probably one of the biggest miseries right now is the weather. To say the last I'm feeling a little drained - maybe baked or fried or desiccated are more appropriate words? Like every year in January, I am dying for autumn to come back around. I've shared my sentiments on this matter before, i.e. "I ... hate the sun (though I know I need it)". So far this year, WA's summer has been pretty mild, but we've still had some revolting 44c (111f) days. Plus, it seems to get more humid every year. One might consider that an effect of global warming, which our wondrously 21st century Prime Minister denies the existence of. Or maybe it's just the natural cycle of climate change. Either way, it blows. And it's one more reason why I just want to hide out till autumn comes.

Maybe as the weather cools and my holidays get further and further away, I will switch over to being more motivated to write here. I think it will definitely help when I actually get stuck into rewrites/revisions properly. I'll have something to talk about then - even if it's nothing good. ha.

So that's my update for now - just wanted to touch base. I hope you guys are all having a great January!

Update now that it's mid-February - I still get this 'slumpy' feeling, and am struggling to do my revision work. I think what happens is I might have a night or two in a row where I can't do the work because I have other commitments, and then I just lose the plot after that. But I'm determined to get some work done today - it's Sunday and after I come back from my body balance class, I don't have anything else on all day!

The Anti-Blogfest Gary Fest

The name of this blogfest - or rather, this Gary fest - caught my attention immediately, and I knew I had to sign up. In fact, I kind of decided I had to sign up even before I knew what it was about. Ha. So here I am today to participate, but first I'll tell you what this *fest's about.

Announcing the "Anti-Blogfest Gary Fest" on August 12, a blog hop in honor of Mr. anti-blog hop himself, Gary at Klahanie

Hosted by

• Mark “Madman” Koopmans (The brainchild behind the whole thing) 
• Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh 
• Rockin’ Robyn Engel 
• “Life is Good” Tina 
• Morgan Shamy

The rules are *very* simple.

Create the titles of three PG-13 rated blogfests you would never join - and then add a descriptive sentence or two. That's it! (see some hilarious examples here)

So, with that in mind, I would not recommend or participate in the following blogfests. Not ever.

1. The Celebrate Your <3 of Hawaiian Pizza Blogfest - "hate Hawaiian pizza? get lost!"
2. The Great Knit-Along 3-Week Blogfest - "knit as if your life depends on it"
3. Stand Up Comedy Blog Festival - "post video of your own stand-up routine!"

DISQUS is annoying!

I participated in two blogfests back on 31/5, and encountered two different blogs that required you to post via Disqus comments. Well, I have to say these are becoming my new pet hate in the blogisphere. For one thing, when I'm at home I can't even get these comments to load, so can't leave a comment! Then, on a PC at work where I can get them to load, only one of them let me post as a guest. With the other one I tried signing in with Google+ and Twitter, but they still required me to have a Disqus account. To me, this is just too much hard work, so sadly one blog missed out on a comment from me...and I really wanted to leave a comment there, too! I even have it still cut, ready to paste.

That's really all I wanted to say for today - but I may as well give an update on my BuNoWriMo writing while I'm here:

SMALL TOWN
is 13% complete

6746 / 50000 words written

And yeah, I am now calling it SMALL TOWN (formerly ELLA), but that is still a non-permanent title. I'm enjoying the story though I am having that familiar "this is crap...isn't it? maybe it's not" feeling as I write. But that's perfectly normal. ;)

Some things I've learned so far (about blogging)

I thought I'd put up a quick list of things I've learned since starting my blog. Some are pretty obvious but they're things I didn't know at the start of my blogging adventure:

1. If someone follows you, it's polite to follow back - if I forgot to follow you back, do let me know please ;)
2. It's good if you have a link to your blog somewhere on your Blogger profile (or Google+ profile as the case may be)
3. When you switch your blog's URL

• you need to change a lot of links from previous posts, as well as in your blog pages
• all your stats get brought to the new blog, and yet Google still knows that your old blog is the one that got all the visits, so it takes time to get the new blog as well known by the Google bots - a really good way of helping this is participating in the A to Z challenge ;)
4. You can list your most popular posts by weekly, monthly or "all time" popularity (thanks Father Dragon for the tip!)
5. Captcha is really annoying and you can't even tell if you have it set to "on" without checking, because your own comments post just fine. Also, for some unlucky blogs, not having Captcha on means getting heaps of spam (so glad this isn't me!)
6. There's no accounting for which posts of yours are going to get the most views - sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it!
7. Blogfests/hops are a great way to meet new bloggers and get activity on your blog! Plus, they're excellent for those times when you're having a lack of inspiration and need ideas for what to post!
8. Image copyright is something really important to respect
9. The top commenters widget I'm using appears to be buggy :)

I'm sure there's heaps more I could add, but I can't think of it right now. And yes, that is meant to be a lightbulb. :)

Blog stats - a vicious cycle?

Have you guys ever checked out your blog stats and gone, "Why the heck is THAT my most-visited post?" I've been doing that for many months now, and wondering if my most visited posts are only that because they've been the "most visited" in my list for a long time now, so they are naturally the ones that new visitors are going to check out when they first pop over to my blog. To get further into what I mean, these are my top 6 posts:

• The ay to zee challenge (2011) wrap up post! (4553 visits)
• Every time I think I don't have to post for at least one day... (3240 visits)
• Travel Series: NEW ZEALAND (650 visits)
• A-Z blogging challenge "V" - Voltron (and...) (539 visits)
• Did I Notice Your Book? - blogfest (473 visits)

Some of those I can understand being popular on their own merit, i.e. the one about my 1998 travels in New Zealand (NZ is so in right now, thanks to LotR and so on), and maybe the Voltron post - I mean, Voltron is legendary! Seriously, though, I really do think that these posts get so many visits only because they're listed as most popular and already have heaps of visits. For e.g., the "Every time I think..." post consists of very little of great value, and yet it's my 2nd most popular post by far.

What do you think?