Questions Answered!

1. What part of blogging brings you the most joy and satisfaction? Relationships? Having an outlet for writing? Reading? Commenting? Building your traffic? Something else?

2. What is the most frustrating part of blogging for you?

3. If you had to give someone one piece of advice about blogging, what would it be?

4. What do you know about blogging now that you WISH you had known when you started your blog?

5. What draws you to the blogs you read regularly? What elevates a blog to “daily read” status?

BooMama asked these questions in her blog, and I was prepared to leave a comment, before I realized how L-O-N-G of a comment it would be. My solution was to answer them on my own blog, so I could ramble to my heart’s content.

1. Having an outlet for writing is what brings me the most joy. I wish (like most bloggers) that I received more comments, but I have resisted putting even a counter on my blog, because if I did, that would immediately become my focus. Right now, I can just enjoy saying my piece and posting pictures of my children (even if it’s the injured parts of them I’m showing).

2. The most frustrating part of blogging for me is finding the time to do it. More than once I’ve had a blog post in my head all day long, but when I get home from work it never actually is written and posted. That makes me sad.

3. One piece of advice is protect your privacy. There are too many horror stories about people online for me to risk saying my children’s names online. I do recognize that my children pretty unique names, which adds to my caution. And while I’ve never posted anything that could get me fired from my job – I’m also very aware that things in cyberspace do not disappear, so I’m careful of how I speak of my place of employment and the people I work with.

4. I wish I had known that it was better to be regular than to only post when I thought I had something important to document. I wish I could go back and read more posts from when I started, my life has changed quite a bit since then.

5. There are two reasons why I would read a blog regularly – first: excellent, witty writing and second: I know the person in real life. When I’m very lucky the two merge into one! Daily read sites are few and far between. I check my sister’s site often, and my friend’s. Then there are the sites that are “popular” (ie: BooMama, BigMama, & Ree). I read those, and so do my friends, so we can talk about the interesting things written. Finally, BigMama hosted a Fashion Fiesta, and my sister and I made a few new blogging-friends. I am currently visiting their sites on a daily basis, to see if we have as many things in common as it initially seems. Those could blossom into daily reads, just as any relationship blossoms over a mutual love of something.

~Lone Butterfly )i(