Who ever said blogging was easy! Ha. We've had massive problems here clearing up a bad install. It took days to find help because we have our blog on WordPress.org which is like the Wild West. You need to know code and you need some technical people on hand.
WordPress.com is different. That's where folks go and are hosted with set Themes and little customization. Maybe none really.
So learning about plugins and code and all I want is to just be a writer on here. Not so easy. Since we want the flexibility and the control so we're taking the high road.
I am going to start posting again because when you phase out like that it's not good. Things slow down.
Next, we'll be changing our theme here. We could do that in a minute - but you have to check on your every move. Don't want to jam things up like we did before.
Anyway, I love having a blog. And I hope I am back at the keypad again!!
Set my blog up on Technorati today - and I learned more about what I am doing here!
You know I was the type of student in high school and college who hated writing an outline for an essay or term paper before I wrote it. I was the daughter of two English teachers and I thought I had outlines just streaming out naturally from my brain. Some exams required you to hand in your outline with your essay.
Making an outline scribbling down bits and pieces and assembling them into an orderly fashion never worked for me. I like to write full ideas and discover more as I write. So I'd ramble on in my essay in pretty good form and then write the outline from the essay and hand that in. It worked. I graduated with honors from high school using that technique.
Why am I telling you all this? Because when I started this blog I really didn't know what I would cover here. I had a regular newsletter from 1991 - 2005 first called Marketing with Technology News later The E-Tactics Letter a lot of which is archived on my site.
These issues covered news I gathered and an editorial I wrote each month. But a blog? There's enough news out there - what could I contribute now?
So without a written plan, because I am still that rebellious high school kid now boomer marketer, I had no neat definition for this blog. And then, voila, you have to register you blog, or "claim" it as Technorati phrases it. All in 250 words or less. I now was faced with the task of telling the world what my blog is about before I've done 6 posts!
Well, I sweated through one description only to have it wiped out by the site telling me it was over the limit. All that work and my first attempt gone. Finally, I mastered the art of having the correct count in the description box before I hit the submit button and here's the blurb I left there today:
Musings of an internet marketer who began email marketing in 1985. Time to dive into the social media realm as it has come of age. I learn by rolling up my digital shirt sleeves. Read as I blog about the upgrade and depth of my learnings.
I may be too elementary for some, I may have thousands who need to take the plunge with me. We'll see.
So far I write to my audience of one (?) and on this Xmas day announce my blog to the digital world - low rank and all. Let's see where I am by next Xmas.
I had this idea today to post a lot of research updates I had blasted out to my clients via email. I had trouble getting one to fit into the post window and I've stored what I did somewhere and I can't find it.
I peaked into the documentation for some clues. I hate reading documentation, never mind that I wrote it professionally for five years for behemoths like Time Inc and the NY Times for industrial software installations back in the Eighties.
I've made a commitment to spend some time with this WordPress software over the holidays. This quiet time hasn't started for me yet. Or maybe I'm forever a techno-ruin here wasted by nanosecond inpatience.
If something takes longer than 30 seconds (gosh, even that's long!!) I have to switch windows do something else. How am I ever going to self-tutor myself with an attention bandwidth like that? Maybe using Twitter is driving me to micro everything.
I have to master this space. If you've struggled like this too - send me to a good place! I really would rather have a mentor and not use a book or online documentation.
Writing I know how to do. Blogging is something else. I hope you'll notice my progress ad I move along here.