800

“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”~  Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Last night I was looking at this blog and its stats and there were a few things that I noticed.

First and foremost, since the beginning of this blog I have now reached a total of 800 individual posts.

This being the 800th post. I find it amazing.

And in that time, there are 145 of you who decided that this blog’s content was important enough that you wanted to keep up with it and subscribed for whatever your individual reasons were.

There are blogs out there that have so much more for sure. But then there are blogs that have so much less. And I am grateful for all of you being here and sticking it out. Especially over the last three years or so that this blog nearly went silent and was on the edge of disappearing into extinction.

It is true. There were times where I thought about just deleting the entire blog website.

But I did not, and so here it is.

The other thing that I noticed was the list of countries where this blog website had been accessed. To me, seven years is a short time. Especially knowing the fact that this blog has reached every nation on the planet. With the exception of about seven countries in Africa. And the Federation States of Micronesia.

There are tiny islands are also not accounted for. For example: South Georgia Island. A tiny island that is claimed by the country of Argentina. Population of only thirty people! I don’t expect anyone to just happen to cross this blog from there any time soon.

Bigger surprises were countries like: China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba just to name a few. All of which had at least viewed the blog webpage ONCE.

Greenland was also a country that had not viewed the blog webpage for the longest time. But I guess it happened over the past year. So thank you, Greenland.

It was funny about Greenland because at the time nobody from there had read the blog webpage. And I thought about trying to draw them in by putting their country in the list of tags and then talk shit about them in the blog posts. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

Maybe I should for the Federation States of Micronesia to get them on board????

At some point around 2015, I stopped writing blog posts about different live music shows that I went to. It didn’t appear that they were getting a lot of traffic. And that greatly decreased the traffic to the site. I’m not sure if that was a mistake or not. I know that a number of you who are subscribed to this blog are from the music scene, but I just could not tell if that was something that people were reading at all.

As with everything in life, this blog constantly evolves because of time, source material, and the thought of “Will anyone actually read this?”.

There was a lot that kept me busy in life in between 2015 and 2017 that I was not able to write as much here as I used to. Maybe it can pick back up again?

Now that I don’t have that burning desire to just delete this entire beast, I can once again come back and fill it with content. I still struggle to figure out what will make it and what will not. But that’s for another time.

This is 800. It seems so crazy! But in all of its insanity, thank you to all of you. Hang in there. There is more to come.

When Blogging Doesn’t Go As Planned

“But I think it is always difficult to have high expectations of yourself or anyone else.”~ Uma Thurman

DEAR NEW BLOGGERS:

So you’ve had a blog for an extended period of time. And your own personal goals are not being met. Frustration has settled in for what seems to be a permanent vacation inside of your head, and is staying there rent free.

Your personal reasons as to why you began to blog in the first place are yours and yours alone. Nobody can take that away from you.

But it just seems unfair that it appears that you are not getting what you were hoping for to begin with.

I have also experienced the same frustrations and confusion over my own personal blog. I’ve had up to five different blogs at one time, and now I am down to three. Two of which are honestly seeing any kind of creativity or usage at any given time.

Three and a half years later after beginning DAMBREAKER which is the first and original blog, there’s only 125 subscribers/followers. Nearly 142,000 total views in that time, but I honestly would have thought that if  in three years or more I would have thousands of people reading, viewing, commenting, and participating. But I don’t. Not publicly at least.

Is it the content? Is it that I am not writing about the right things? Am I focused on things that are just boring?

Well, all that can be said in response to that is that there are different strokes for different folks.

I cannot count or remember how many times that I had thought about trashing the entire blog. DAMBREAKER was going to be complete and total history and I would have sat here in front of my computer fuming about how it would have been a huge waste of my time to have ever been involved in blogging in the first place.

But hold on!!! Before you go tapping away at that DELETE button you should probably consider a few things. 

This posted image is something I relate to when dealing with the so-called “success or failure” of my blog, DAMBREAKER.  The same could be related to your own blog in deciding whether or not YOUR page is succeeding or failing.

Let’s keep things simple for right now though.

#1- LIKES. There is (at least for WordPress) a “LIKE” button. We’ve all seen it on other social media websites. It works the same way on WordPress. If someone enjoys the post, they can click the “LIKE” button. Ask yourself: Have I received any of these “LIKES” to any of my posts that I’ve written on my own blog? If the answer is YES- You are successful.

#2- COMMENTS. Again, the same as social media websites there is the option for the reader to leave a comment. Some people use it for compliments to whatever it is that you have written. Others are adding their own opinions. Some still will relate to your post and will tell you about it, which allows for further discussion on the topic. Ask yourself: Have I received any comments on any of my posts? If the answer is YES- You are successful.

#3- FOLLOWERS. Ask yourself: Do I have anyone following my blog? Is there anyone that signed up to have anything that I put on my blog immediately directed into their e-mail inbox? If the answer is YES … even if the number is ONE- You are successful. It tells you that at least one person is interested in what you are writing about and want to know and read about more and more and more. And wish to keep in touch that way.

#4- PERSONAL FEEDBACK. Sometimes people do not subscribe to your blog or follow your blog. Sometimes your blog doesn’t go to someone’s e-mail inbox directly. They don’t leave you comments. They don’t click the “LIKE” button if one is available or rate your post. But they come to you in other ways and forms of communication and provide you with feedback. They either found it on their own or you have published the post publicly somewhere else and they followed the link to your blog and now they are talking about it. Good or bad- whatever it is that they have to say is evidence that they are at least reading your blog. If they are reading your blog- You are successful.

You don’t need thousands of followers with thousands of comments and thousands of people clicking “LIKE” to know that you are doing something good.

Yes it would be nice to have those things, but they are not completely necessary to have success.

As a matter of fact, I’ve come across a lot of personal feedback in which the person admitted to reading this blog and then gave their feedback in what they did like about it or how I have been such an inspiration to them which caused them to change their lives for good in some certain way. When you hear things like that ….. you know that its all worth it in the end. And sometimes that’s really all that you need.

These kinds of things are what we as bloggers should remember whenever we get down about what we are doing with our blog posts and thinking that its not doing anyone any good because there’s no “activity” and we assume its a failure. To remember this checklist is all the validation that we will ever need.

A Landmark In Blogging

I just reached over 100 subscribers/followers to this blog.

I’ve been reaching around the blogosphere and I have found some really AWESOME people! Not to mention BEEEE-AUTIFUL people!! They have me in stitches with their content.

Ironically enough, the 100th follower is someone who writes the blog called “You’re Just A Dumbass.”

Its just really good stuff, especially if you’re the relationship type. OR if you’re the single type wanting to be the relationship type.

http://yourejustadumbass.wordpress.com/

Tell her DAMBREAKER sent you.

And now with 106,085 total views and 103 followers, I am grateful and want to take this moment to say THANK YOU SO MUCH! And I hope that you continue to read here.

For those of you who have been transplanted from the other project: Welcome. This is basically a PRIMARY blog for me. But I will do work in both. And thank you for your double duty dedication.

Until the next time, which will probably be another SIX MINUTE CENTURY post. I’m excited to have to get up in the morning and get on a bus to go rock out with my friends, and hopefully see Little Baby Froth. He’s such a cute little boy from the photographs I have been seeing on Facebook.

But thank you for helping me make this step. And I hope for many, many more.

Writing Thoughts

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”~ Isaac Asimov

 

Yesterday, I received a message that was in reference to this blog. The person had mentioned that they thought that I should write a book because of all the topics and subjects that I have already shared in this blog. Their thinking was that I could still do what I do, but instead of just allowing it to be shared on a website, that I should write it all in a book, and make some money in the process.

 

The thought had never crossed my mind to do that. Yet the feedback was overwhelming and positive. Something that is always enjoyable to read.

 

Writers/bloggers live off of feedback. Whether they tell you that or not. They are always encouraging for their readers for feedback, even if it is nasty and rude. The fact of the matter is that when they receive that kind of feedback then they can decide whether or not they are on the right track and know as well that what they are writing about is actually fulfilling the readers. And not to mention that they will know that they are not wasting their own time and efforts, and fulfilling themselves by writing.

 

Feedback and subscribers are the two main things that a blogger would want. It is something that helps the blogger more than the average person, or reader, would think.

 

Quite honestly, I’ve been receiving dozens of comments to my blog in the past few days. Others have been bold and brave enough to e-mail me to tell me what they think. And for each and every one of them, I am totally filled with gratitude.

 

But the idea of writing a book is rather intriguing. Many people have told me that I should. It is always nice to have that kind of support.

 

I know that I would have the capability to write a book. But I do not know about how to do that. I could write all day long and finish the composition and revisions. After that, I have no clue how it would work.

 

So I guess that since the idea actually is fascinating me at the moment, that I could look into it. I could ask my writer friends who have published books in the past and find out just how they did it.

 

Needless to say that I enjoy writing in my blog. And I am always excited to get feedback from it, especially if someone is telling me that they’ve either learned from it or it had helped them in some way. I think that for me, is the most rewarding part of it.

 

My only concern about my blog is within these scores of blog comments, I tend to wonder if they are simply spam. I’ve caught several of them saying the exact same message over and over again that were left on random blog posts. They are written exactly the same, verbatum.

 

So how do I know what is real and what is garbage? And would this person’s message to me be the same thing? Even though it was received in my e-mail which would kind of assume that it was a genuine comment. It has not been e-mailed to me again the same way though.

 

Also, with writing a book- who would read it? Who would buy my book because they are interested in the content of the book and who would be the ones that would buy it because they know who I am and what I have done in the past with my blog?

 

Generally, my thought was to take some of the more important blog posts, or more popular blog posts based on how many views they received, and put them in a book. But also include plenty more topics and subjects in the book that I have yet to write about in this blog.

 

Writing a book has endless possibilities. But I would not want it to take away from me writing in this blog. Even though as I’ve said that the idea of making a little more money off of writing a book sounds thrilling. I would be able to take those important posts and reach more people, maybe… I don’t know.

 

So I’ve got something to think about, I suppose. With the few subscribers that I have right now, is still amazing to me. This blog really did something that was positive for me, and I enjoy that. Therefore I continue to write, and write, and write. And hope that each and every one of you who reads it, is actually either enjoying it or learning from it.

 

What do you think???