Double Whammy: Blast from the Past Meme and Carnival of Circular Communication

Jan at Circular Communication is starting a new blog carnival: the Carnival of Circular Communication. One of the themes is blogging. At first I wondered if I had anything to add to what I’ve already written about the subject.

Then Yvonne at Grow Your Writing Business tagged me for a meme to share 10 of my favorite posts from the past to showcase what my blog is all about. Looking back through previous posts, I’ve made some discoveries about my blog. So, thinking circularly, I decided to answer Yvonne’s tag, select 10 posts, and write about what I’ve learned about my blogging experience from reviewing my old posts.

I did not include any posts that were memes or group writing projects, though those are the posts with the most comments. All of the posts I selected are more than three months old as I wanted to showcase posts that most of my readers probably hadn’t already read.

As difficult as it was to narrow down my choices, here are ten posts from the past that give a representative picture of my blog:

• Editing: Turning Dreck into Prose: the first of a number of posts on how to edit
• An Anniversary: How I Became a Full-Time Writer: the story of how my stroke motivated me to follow my writing dream
• Every “No” Is Just One Step Closer to a “Yes”: advice for writers dealing with rejection
• Obits and Blessings: how I’m blessed by writing obituaries
• Rules or artistic license?: discussion of whether writers should be bound by rigid grammar rules or if creative writers should take artistic license
• Rebooting and the Fourth Commandment: my thoughts on how honoring the Sabbath can re-energize us
• Writing about Tragedy: my experience in writing about tragedy and discussion of when and how it’s appropriate to do so
• Self-Publishing Primer (14-part series): although this is a series of 14 posts, I’m listing it as one because the posts are interrelated and interdependent – I broke it into short segments rather than writing one v-e-r-y long post
• Slavery and Abortion: Moral Relatives: moral musings generated from editing a book with with slaves as main characters
• Should an author use language that is historically accurate or politically correct?: raising the question of historical accuracy vs. political correctness

My look back made me realize:

• A surprising number of my posts relate to ethics, morality, and faith.
• My posts are much more about me than I intended when I began.
• The largest number of posts are categorized as writing advice, so my focus is still on writing even though I’ve expanded to other topics.
• Early posts were one-way monologues – my goal was to share what I’ve learned through my life experiences.
• Posts have gradually evolved into conversations – I ask questions and learn from my readers’ responses.
• The first posts were mostly long blocks of text – later I learned to add images, quotes, and bulleted lists.
• Although I have lots of short posts, I often write longer posts and series.
• I like to showcase my clients’ work – many blogs talk about specific books and authors. Tooting my own horn?
• Some of the posts that I like the best generate few comments; some of the posts that I’m not sure about generate the most interest.
• Blogging is still fun!

Randa Clay has a post in which she quotes Copyblogger and Problogger. Randa asked if she was a Pollyanna because she didn’t agree that “If no one hates you, you’re doing something wrong.” The point being made in that statement was that bloggers should take strong stands for what they believe. In the process, they are going to alienate some people who have strong opposing views. Read all the posts for the full discussion. Although I hope no one hates me, my readers  have no doubt of my feelings and opinions!

My journey through the past may encourage you to look at your own blogging experience. Has your blog evolved? Are you writing in a different style or on different topics than when you started? What have you learned? Is blogging still fun for you?

The rules of the favorite posts from the past meme:

1. Please try to limit your post to 10 items or less. Tag 5.
2. Take your time. Do some digging in the archives and find the perfect ones – it’s to your advantage more than anything else.
3. Please if possible, link to this post for meme info, and please link to the post that you were tagged in. Memes go on for quite a long time and when trying to follow one backwards to see some of the other posts, it gets quite difficult when only the blog URL is used.. Just a request.
4. The people you tag, please let them know by email, contact form or some other efficient method.

I’m tagging the following bloggers to share ten past posts that will give us a good feel for what your blog is all about:

• Mig at eWritings
• Lori at Words on the Page
• Harmony at Writer in the Making
• Jeanne at Writer’s Notes
• Julia at Mrs. Write Right, Word Therapist

[tags]Carnival of Circular Communication, meme, blogging[/tags]