The Garden Dawdler — 04/22/23

Fandango

Rory, the king of questions, also known as the Autistic Composter, has come up with a new series of questions that he calls “The Garden Dawdler.” Rory is posing “nine questions once a week for your leisure or pleasure.”

Here are Rory’s nine Dawdler questions today.

Do you think it helps or hinders a writer from having a big ego?

I don’t understand the question. Does what help or hinder a writer from having a big ego? Blogging? Writing? Good stats? Lots of comments? And is having a big ego relative to this question a bad thing or a good thing?

How often do you read your blog content from an outsider’s perspective?

I actually try to do that every time before I hit Publish. Will someone other than me understand what I wrote, what point I was trying to make, my sense of humor? Does what I wrote hang together? Make sense?

I view my blog as an allotment garden. How do you view yours?

This may sound unimaginative, but I view my blog as a blog. It’s a place where I can express myself, my thoughts, observations, opinions, and perspectives, and where I can exercise my short fiction writing chops.

What’s the first book you ever remember reading way back when?

I dunno. Maybe it was one of the “Fun With Dick and Jane” series of books.

Were you ever read to as a child, and by whom?

I don’t remember my mother or father ever reading to me, but I had two older sisters and I have some vague recollections of them reading to me.

Where do you like to read? At home on the couch? While traveling? In bed? Where?

Yes.

What are the most significant barriers to your creativity?

Time, and particularly since I busted my hip in January, focus and energy.

Do you think blogging is essential, and if you do, why?

It is essential to me. I’m a retiree and blogging is my only real hobby. I started my first blog as an outlet back in 2005. I was working and traveling a lot, and used my blog as a way to kill time at airports and in hotel rooms. I took a two year hiatus from blogging in 2015 for personal reasons, but after retiring at the end of 2016, and with Donald Trump as president, I need way to vent my outrage, so I started this blog in May 2017. It was essential (and still is) for my mental health and well-being.

There are many benefits to blogging; however, what are the three top downsides of blogging, in your opinion?

According to my iPhone’s screen time stats, I spend an average of nine hours a day on my phone and half of that is on my blog. So one downside is the amount of time I use up blogging, although I don’t know what else I’d do with that time were it not for blogging. The other two “downsides” are the effort it takes and energy blogging consumes. I’m on a streak of 2,144 consecutive days of having published at least one post a day. And while there are days that I don’t feel like making the effort or lack the energy, I want to keep that streak going. So I just do it!

23 thoughts on “The Garden Dawdler — 04/22/23”

  1. newepicauthor April 22, 2023 / 9:39 am

    I don’t think that Rory is very good at reading his own blog content, as I couldn’t usderstand what he was asking on that first question either.

    Liked by 1 person

    • The Autistic Composter April 24, 2023 / 1:04 pm

      Well with all due respect Jim, other writers understood the question well enough to answer it 🙂

      The question is simple enough does a big ego help or hinder a writer – is there such a thing as too much confidence when writing?

      Liked by 2 people

      • Fandango April 24, 2023 / 2:08 pm

        In all fairness to Jim, I was thrown by the way the question was worded, especially with the phrase, “…from having a big ego?” If it had been worded as you did above, it would’ve been clearer what you were asking, in my opinion.

        Liked by 2 people

      • newepicauthor April 24, 2023 / 2:09 pm

        Sorry, Rory I wasn’t looking to be offensive as I was just looking for a reaction from Fandango.

        Liked by 2 people

        • Fandango April 24, 2023 / 2:20 pm

          I just got back from PT and saw your and Rory’s messages. I just responded to Rory that the way he rephrased the question in his comment to you was a better way to word the question than how it was originally worded, which confused me.

          Liked by 1 person

          • newepicauthor April 25, 2023 / 12:37 pm

            I am not really interested in answering questions, so I usually skip your prompt, but many of the Bloggers that I follow really seem to enjoy it. I am already planning my April A to Z for next year and I hope that you continue running this as I have selected R is for Rory’s Garden Dawdler.

            Liked by 2 people

  2. Sadje April 22, 2023 / 11:31 am

    I can’t find any downside to Blogging. Must look harder

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Marleen April 24, 2023 / 9:22 am

    Aside from books meant to formulaically teach reading — in a high stakes phonics program called ITA for my first and second grades after I went to pre-schools and skipped kindergarten — the first books I remember reading myself and liking were 1) a nursery rhyme book and Disney storybooks, paired with vinyl records involving sound effects and reading of text (from which I mostly liked hearing the voices selected and turning the pages as a toddler until probably midway through first grade aka age five for me); 2) “The Secret Garden” (third grade, from the school library, at a different school); 3) “Stuart” (not sure when, exactly, but possibly still third grade). My parents bought into a membership whereby books arrived in the mail at home something like bi-monthly (I believe my school frowned upon these because they involved sight reading): these were maybe two-thirds Dr. Seuss and one-third from the same publisher but science based. For example, one was about traveling in space: “You Will Go To the Moon” (which I still have).

    When I was in fact learning to read, my dad was working on his masters degree (besides his day job) and didn’t read with me much. As for Mom, I guess she was tired from being a teacher all day long and five days of the week. She taught young kids; at a regular school that didn’t use ITA and in a district which wouldn’t permit someone my age to start into first grade. All of the books (both the serious and the colorful) that got unboxed were fine, not tremendously inspiring to me or motivating at all. When I later read the light-hearted ones — still in good shape — to my children, they enjoyed them. I put enthusiasm into it rather than approaching the print like the words are here, you know. When I read history and science-related books to my kids, they were more in-depth or hands-on. I’m glad that even my sixth-grade teacher, whose example caused me to want to be a teacher [which was unacceptable to my mom], encouraged a fun environment and once sat down to read aloud in front of the class. She was reading “The Hobbit” and loved it.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marleen April 24, 2023 / 2:37 pm

      My closest cousin — whose parents were recently divorced and who, along with her mom and younger* sister, was living in our house then for about a year — had the other sixth grade teacher, who displayed Mr. Kotter similarities and had one of two basement rooms in the school. Both were great teachers, in different ways, and fabulous people.

      *(a cousin who spent most of her formative years in a different district after that, and summers with her jerk of a father, but who I thought was closish until recently when I observed her judgment but not intelligence — similar to him — is strangely impaired beyond what I already knew due to her attending his funeral, her sister refusing)

      Liked by 1 person

  9. The Autistic Composter April 24, 2023 / 1:09 pm

    Interesting stats on days published Fandango – would it bother you if you broke it? I remember on the Guy blog having similar figures and realised l was quite addicted to seeing those figures, but the time l broke the schedule, l felt quite free,

    Sorry to read you are still not in 100% fine fettle 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Fandango April 24, 2023 / 2:12 pm

      If the streak ends, it’s no big deal. It just means that I would have missed one of my daily FOWC with Fandango prompts, which I’ve posted every day since June 1, 2018.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. leigha66 May 3, 2023 / 5:11 pm

    That is an impressive number of consecutive days! Well done!

    Liked by 1 person

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