Day: March 9, 2020

Share Your World — Dispositions and Accents

Fandango24 Comments

Share Your WorldIn this week’s Share Your World, Melanie wants to know about our dispositions, our take on the coronavirus, our snoopiness, and our favorite accents.

Are you a sweet, sour, tangy, or other type of person? Take that as you will! 😉

I’ve been all four at different times, but today, with the Dow industrials down another 2,000 points and my retirement nest egg disintegrating right before my eyes, I’m pretty sour.77963D98-80B8-47F4-B01A-0AA459BD96C8

Does the whole coronavirus phenomenon worry you? Or are you more a “meh – it’s just another severe flu scare” type of person?

To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” I think right now we are experiencing the worst of times.

I am of the opinion that the threat of the coronavirus is real. I’m not an expert and I don’t know if the disease will be as bad as some of the prognosticators are saying it might be. But the worst part of this whole mess is the totally inept manner in which Donald Trump and the Trump Administration are “managing” it. They’re not trying to manage the spread of the coronavirus itself, they’re only trying to manage the messaging about the coronavirus. And it’s not working.

When was the last time you were snooping, and found something you wish you hadn’t?

I’m ashamed to say that I once followed a girl that I was dating one night when she told me she had to study for an exam and found her at a bar kissing another guy. Needless to say, that ended our relationship.

What’s the most pleasant sounding accent in your personal opinion? Everyone has a pleasing accent to someone!

I suppose, if I had to choose one accent that I find most pleasant sounding it would be a French accent. Très sexy, oui?

Blogging Insights — Sizing Up Your Blog

Fandango17 Comments

Blogging insightsIn her Blogging Insights series this week, Dr. Tanya asks us about post length, which she explains is often characterized as either short form posts (typically 300 to 400 words) or long form posts (more than 1000 words). She asks us to share our perspectives by responding to these questions, some of which I answered in this response to a previous Blogging Insights post.

1. Do you prefer writing long form or short form content?

In my early days of blogging, it wasn’t that unusual for me to hit 1,000 words or more in a post. But since I started this blog in May 2017, I generally write shorter posts. My average words per post so far this year is just 250. And that’s up from 237 last year and 235 in 2018.

I think it takes more skill to write a compelling, entertaining, informative, and engaging post in a short form than it does in a long form. You need to write in a crisp, concise manner and you need to choose your words carefully in short form writing, whereas you can blather away when writing posts of 1,000 words or more. To that end, I’ve actually made a concerted effort to be more concise in my writing. I had always considered myself to be a writer who has a way with words, when what I should have been striving to be is a writer who knows how to do away with words.

2. How long, in your opinion, is the ideal blog post?

To me, it’s not how short or long a post is as much as how engaging it is.

3. What do you prefer reading, shorter or longer posts?

I hate to say it, but I have neither the time nor the patience for reading “long-form” posts. Unless it’s an extremely compelling post, I tend to prefer to read posts that are 500 or fewer words. But that’s just me.

4. What are the topics on which you would like to read longer posts (say, more than 1000 words)?

You know, this is an interesting question because I’m not sure that there are any specific topics that would prompt me to read blog posts of more than 1,000 words. Unless, as I’m reading a post where the writing grabs me. Then I’ll read it, regardless of its length.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #56

Fandango5 Comments

FFFCWelcome to “Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.” Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or poem inspired by the photo. There are no style or word limits.

The image below is from the Brainsparker app for iOS.6025AFD5-E24B-4E90-8AAC-05DFCDBDDCCBFor the visually challenged writer, the photo shows looking down the center of many flights of stairs.

If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post. I hope it will generate some great posts.

Thanks to all of you who have participated in these challenges. Your posts have been very creative. Please take a few minutes to read the other responses to this photo challenge.

Please create a pingback to this post or manually add your link in the comments.