I have been writing this blog, on and off, for a few years. It was an idea after I published my book....more like a recommendation from the publishers. It gave me an outlet for my nostalgia, my missing the island where I had lived for so long, the people, the beach, the sunsets. It was also a way to put my work out there, so I went for it.
After a few months, I was hooked...in a small way I now know, since I needed to be constant, right? No use having a blog if you don't keep up and you abandon it for weeks at a time. I digress, as I have been known to do, but you get the point. Still, I kept hoping people would flock to my blog, make it a huge success and my book would sell in the thousands ...or hundreds? Never mind that, it was necessary to keep up, make it interesting and attract people with similar interests or that wanted to see themselves in the places I wrote about....I do not think I got the memo on that. I just plowed along and things just moved very slowly.
In the last few months, though, there has been a tiny ray of interest! I have some followers and people are leaving comments. Some by dear friends that read this blog regularly, some by people that genuinely have some interest in what I write or have bought my book. Then there is a group of comments that are just in a category by themselves: the advertising kind and the ridiculous kind. Those you expect, I have been told. Now I have learned of a new kind: the religious zealots.
On my last post, someone anonymously posted a really strange comment about television programs, the Bible and other things. It really blew my mind. How do these people find blogs like mine? or do they just go down the list of all blogs on the internet? A daunting task, if I ever heard of one! I firmly believe in Freedom of Expression, after all, I am exercising mine! Now, what I do not understand is using this freedom, to put out hate there or to judge people.
So in the interest of my sanity and my (few) followers and readers I exercised another right. The right we have all learned from out dealing with social media, especially Facebook: delete, ignore, remove and unsubscribe. Felt great!!!
After a few months, I was hooked...in a small way I now know, since I needed to be constant, right? No use having a blog if you don't keep up and you abandon it for weeks at a time. I digress, as I have been known to do, but you get the point. Still, I kept hoping people would flock to my blog, make it a huge success and my book would sell in the thousands ...or hundreds? Never mind that, it was necessary to keep up, make it interesting and attract people with similar interests or that wanted to see themselves in the places I wrote about....I do not think I got the memo on that. I just plowed along and things just moved very slowly.
In the last few months, though, there has been a tiny ray of interest! I have some followers and people are leaving comments. Some by dear friends that read this blog regularly, some by people that genuinely have some interest in what I write or have bought my book. Then there is a group of comments that are just in a category by themselves: the advertising kind and the ridiculous kind. Those you expect, I have been told. Now I have learned of a new kind: the religious zealots.
On my last post, someone anonymously posted a really strange comment about television programs, the Bible and other things. It really blew my mind. How do these people find blogs like mine? or do they just go down the list of all blogs on the internet? A daunting task, if I ever heard of one! I firmly believe in Freedom of Expression, after all, I am exercising mine! Now, what I do not understand is using this freedom, to put out hate there or to judge people.
So in the interest of my sanity and my (few) followers and readers I exercised another right. The right we have all learned from out dealing with social media, especially Facebook: delete, ignore, remove and unsubscribe. Felt great!!!
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