DRAFTS FROM THE PAST CHALLENGE AND 4 BLOGGING TIPS I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER

Was I surprised this morning when I opened up WordPress to clean up my site a bit and realized I had 88 drafts pending publication in my drafts folder? (and I don’t mean draft horses either) Actually, I wasn’t surprised. I knew there were a lot. Show of hands now – Who can beat me on that number or am I the only start-and-never-finish blogger out there? Be honest.

           not this kinda draft, draught, or dray

I started digging and found out the first unpublished draft had been written on May 9, 2013, titled, ‘Pay Attention – Life May Pass You By’. One day I plan to finish – before life passes me by. The last draft in my folder was from this morning (1/21/2016) and it’s almost finished. I just need to tweak a few things and add some links.

I started a turtle post 11/09/2013 (The Turtle Post) and never finished. Surely I was not going to use that title! We have turtles everywhere in the spring and summer and they hibernate in the yard under mounds of pine straw or the azalea bushes and in the creek in the winter months. One day I will finish this turtle post and you will be able to read about Franklin.

Some of my drafts have titles (One Out Of 3.7 Billion Screws) and no content, content with no titles, title and very little content, and some have been finished and published with a draft in my folder. What happened there?

A few I have found  completed, but I never published.  Seems as though I need to get organized. I can’t afford not to publish what I’ve written because there is so little time to write.

  To be published or not to be published?

HERE’S A CHALLENGE FOR YOU – Look at your drafts folder. It’s the one with more content in it than you care to admit. Find a draft you know you should have gotten in the publish line, but didn’t for some unknown reason. I’m sure there’s at least one good draft in that folder.  Finish it. Then link back to this post. Time to hit that publish button!  I’d love to see if I’m really not the only one with unfinished work out there. You never know. It maybe your best post yet! There’s a goldmine out there if you only look for it.

For those of you who do not know how to link back all you have to do is type out knowleselle, highlight and then insert the link from this post to link back. Easy, peasy.  The short-link of this post is http://wp.me/p36wOd-Qw.

Here’s the draft – now completed – that has been laying idle in my draft folder since 4/2/15 if you care to read what I overlooked. I wonder if its my best post yet?

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4 BLOGGING TIPS I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER

If you think about it, all the rules in life and the good advice your mother taught you also applies to blogging. My mother was an RN. She didn’t instill the love of  medicine in me, but she did teach me the right and wrong way to go about acquiring and keeping friends.

               good advice from dear ole Mom

Blogging is all about acquiring and keeping friends. In the blogging world your friends are your followers. They read you every time you post. They comment and share your posts (I’m hoping) on FB and Twitter (you can find me on the links) with their friends, who later follow your posts and then become another one of your friends….It’s a circle of friendship which also branches off in all directions. Kinda like a family tree.

Mother didn’t even know what blogging was, let alone Twitter or Facebook, but I think she would have been a great blogger. Maybe she would have finished that Alaska Book I’m working on if she had blogged.

Here are 4 pieces of good advice I learned my mother which also connects to the blogging world.

1. IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO SHARE – We were taught to share our toys, and our books, and our friends. If we didn’t, we heard about it. Now on a blog we are also taught to share posts we have enjoyed reading. Those SHARE buttons are down there for a reason. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Google. There’s some sort of social media out there for everyone.
2. DON’T AIR YOUR DIRTY LAUNDRY – Bambi’s mother had the right approach. “If you can’t say something nice – don’t say nothin’ at all.”  (Although I do vent quite often on here, I do try to be vague about it.) It could come back to bite me. 
3. BOOKS ARE OUR FRIENDS – “Take care of your books because books are our friends.” I must have heard that a trillion times in my childhood. Mother always insisted we take good care of our books for others to read. (Of course I know we went rampant with the crayons now and then on those blank pages before the story started. Isn’t that what the blank pages were for?) Promote your book on your site first and foremost!  Buy them. Read them. Review them. Share them. By all means take care of and love your friends.
4. INTERACT WITH OTHERS – Interaction with people makes you better prepared for life. There will never be just you so learn to make friends and keep them close. Post a comment on a fellow blog and follow that blog. You will soon see a rise in your stats. It never fails. I’ve made some good friends through commenting. Sometimes you just seem to connect.  

Who has something to add to this? I’m sure there are more than 4 good pieces of advice from the past for blogging.

~Elle