content

FOWC with Fandango — Content

Fandango15 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “content.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

WDP — If It Ain’t Broke…

Fandango6 Comments

What could you do differently?

If there is a reason for doing things differently, that’s one thing. But I’m not a proponent of change for the sake of change. As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And I ain’t broke.

If I think about the past, which I don’t often do, I suppose there are many things I could have done differently at the time. But then would I be who, what, and where I am today? Maybe. Maybe not.

But as things stand, I’m content with my life and see no good reason to do things differently just for the sake of doing things differently.

Share Your World — 10/10/2022

Fandango10 Comments
Share Your World

Melanie is back again with another one of her Share Your World series of questions. So let’s get to them.

Can we really know everything?

Know everything? These days I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.

Where were people before they were born?

They didn’t exist. The were the same place they are after they die: nowhere.

Does the Law of Attraction exist? (Law of Attraction, as I understand it, is a school of thought where positive thinking brings about good changes. Some say it’s made them wealthy. Others say it improves their health or their outlook on life)

Birds of a feather flock together, right? So it stands to reason that positive people attract positive people and negative people attract negative people. Or not. As I said, I don’t know anything anymore.

Do we love ourselves more in the virtual world and less in the real world? If so, why? If nay, why?

I have no idea how to answer this question, as I’m the same person in the real world as I am in the virtually world.

GRATITUDE SECTION

Are you happy?

I am content.

Blogging Insights — Let’s Talk

Fandango30 Comments

It’s Monday and Dr. Tanya is back with her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. She provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from blogger, journalist, and author Cory Doctorow.

“Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”

When I read the quote Tanya highlighted today, the first thing I thought about was that song from Jesus Christ Superstar that starts out with the line “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?”

It seems to me that, in his quote, Doctorow is suggesting that the content of your writing is less important than the “buzz” it generates. Conversation being king may be great for late-night talk shows hosts, but when it comes to blogging, I couldn’t disagree more.

When I started my blog, it was a vehicle for self expression, a way for me to put my thoughts, opinions, and perspectives in writing. As I got into writing flash fiction, it was a means to flex my imagination and to hone my writing skills. I never expected to attract much of an audience for my writing. That there are those who read and comment on what I write is a bonus, one that makes blogging that much more worthwhile as a pastime.

That said, I think content is king and if the content generates conversation (i.e., buzz), so much the better. If you truly believe that conversation is king, then you must consider what you write to be little more than clickbait, and were the name “Buzzfeed” not already taken, that’s what you should name your blog.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it, so let’s get this conversation going, shall we?

Blogging Insights — Window Dressing

Fandango11 Comments

For her weekly Blogging Insights prompts, Dr. Tanya provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from Gary Vaynerchuk, a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and internet personality.

“What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.”

I agree with Tanya when she says that the relevance of this quote depends on the kind of blog you have and what your blogging goals are.

For me, personally, I love writing and I love publishing what I write on my blog. That said, I don’t actively or aggressively promote my blog, and that, I believe, is what Gary Vaynerchuk is referring to when he talks about what you do after you create your content.

My blog has become relatively popular among a small group of people and I’m extraordinarily thankful for that. But it happened organically, not out of any definitive efforts on my part to promote it. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, so I don’t share my WordPress posts to either of those social media platforms. I don’t try to incorporate Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, by posting in such a way that would make Google like my posts. I’m not sure I would know how to do that even if I wanted to.

On the other hand, maybe what the quote is referring to is reading other bloggers’ posts, liking and commenting on them, and reading and responding to comments other bloggers make on your own posts. If that is what he meant, then yes, that is important.

But is that truly more important than the content you create? I don’t think so. You can promote your blog on other social media platforms all you want. You can use SEO tricks until the cows come home. You can read, like, and comment on other blog posts morning moon and night. But if your content sucks, by any measure, your blog won’t succeed.

My bottom line is that content is what truly counts. All the rest is window dressing.