#TopTags vs #Searching ~ A #Blogging Journey in #Reading, #Writing, and #Publishing

Counting the present post, this blog has 1,385 posts. 

Image Courtesy of pedro valdeolmillos ~ http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/pv-29785

You probably couldn’t have missed all the hashtags in the title up there—intended to help the folks on Twitter find this particular post.

Hashtags are one way to find what you’re looking for…

When someone finds a blog in the wild, they usually have the most recent post at the top and those preceding it streaming down the page…

If they come to a blog through WebSearch, they see the post in the link they clicked on and that’s it…

So, let’s assume they like what they read.

How do they further explore the blog they’ve found?

Well, since there are so many different ways bloggers set up their blogs, the first thing most folks do is look for a Search Bar to find topics of interest to them.

This blog has one of those in the upper right, under the Main Menu Tabs…

Of course, using the search bar may not find exactly what you’re looking for—most search algorithms, even Google’s, fail, at times,  in varying degrees…

So, some bloggers (like this one) use a Tag Cloud (Top Tags Widget) to give the traveller a way of finding collections of posts that have certain core ideas and topics.

These tags are selected for each post by the individual blogger, so they depend for their accuracy on the abilities of the blogger in question to select truly representative words or phrases for the Tags they apply…

So, back to the 1,385 posts on this blog and my Top Tags Widget, which is down a bit in the left side-bar.

I must add, since I’ve been very aware lately of folks who use their phone to get here, that the small screen user needs to find their general “Menu” button and look for something like “Request Desktop Site” so they can see the left side-bar…

If you scroll down there, you’ll see that certain words are larger. This means there are more posts with that tag (and, on this blog, letting your cursor hover over the words will show how many posts there are…).

I thought, beyond the possible over-abundance of hashtags in the title—intended to alert folks to the fact that this blog has lots of stuff about #Reading, #Writing, and #Publishing—I’d also put a few of the Top Tag links right here in this post—a mini-guide to what’s here—an author’s selection of “Most Important” topics…

Let’s start with a few for Readers:

Reading, Short Stories, Libraries, Literacy

Just those Tag Links will let you read 167 posts…

Now, a few for Writers:

Writing Resources, Writing Advice, Creative Writing, Book Promotion

Those links will take you to 194 posts…

Now, some for Publishers:

Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing, Publishers, Indie Publishing

Those links have a total of 202 posts…

So, I hope this post has been successful in helping you to navigate the blogging I’ve done in the last 5 years, 1 month, and 26 days  :-)
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A Blog for All Seasons

Click This Image for Some Fine Blogging…

This will be the 16th post I’ve done about Maria Popova—and, I should point out that if you take that link, you’ll see this post at the top of the other fifteen—I “Tag” my posts and they get gathered-up in the Top Tags area—down a bit in the left side-bar…

You may want to spend some time checking out the Top Tags since there are over 1,200 posts on this blog and, in all honesty, today is not my best day to write a post…

Just dealing with more than a bit of physical and psychological and emotional stress—I quit smoking about a month ago—I’ve been unkind (to say the least) to my Best Friend—I’m hoping her compassion will continue to protect her from the insanities of someone being devastated by withdrawal symptoms…

So, before I have to just lie down and swirl in the juices of my muddled mind, let me tell you why you should check out Maria’s blog, Brain Pickings.

One reason is who Maria is:

“I’m a reader, writer, interestingness hunter-gatherer, and curious mind at large. I’ve previously written for Wired UK, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, among others, and am an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.”

Another reason is why she writes her blog:

“Brain Pickings is my one-woman labor of love — a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why. Mostly, it’s a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually — and an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life.”

More on her mission and what creativity means:

“The core ethos behind Brain Pickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our mental pool of resources — knowledge, insight, information, inspiration, and all the fragments populating our minds — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new ideas.”

So, take a listen to Maria (while I go lie down…) and she just might convince you she has much to say that you need to hear…

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Sick As A Dog, Yet Still Faithful . . .

One of my jobs is writing stories and books—another, blogging 5 days a week…

Image Courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/anaophelia

Today I am sick as a dog and have been struggling just to find the picture for this post…

I do love my work and bemoan that I don’t have the energy to do all the work needed for a real blog post…

It’s probably just the flu…

Perhaps tomorrow my body will cooperate with my mind and heart…
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Friday Poll ~ Should All Writers Blog?

Before we get to this week’s poll, here are the results from last week—Protecting Creative Ideas:

Image Courtesy of Mikhail Popov ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/hoboton

37.5% voted for “Proper Copyright”.

And, the “Other” category had the same percentage, with these specific answers:

“Don’t talk about the ideas you want to copyright if you want to protect them.”

“A mixture, protect your novels, but some writings are just for fun.”

“I write in social media sites and through text message.”

“Don’t worry about Piracy” got 25%.

And, “File for Trademark” had no votes.

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Now, for this week’s poll…

Many “gurus” and “experts” on the ‘Net claim a writer Must blog, if for no other reason than to have a “Platform“.

Also, with all the screaming about writers using social media, many folks forget that blogging is a form of social media…

So, the poll will be very simple; though, there is the “Other” space that can be used to complexify it :-)

Now that you’ve voted, check out this article—Thou Shalt Blog?

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Read Some Strange Fantasies
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Friday Fantasy ~ Number Thirty-Two

The Befuddled Blogger

~ I didn’t think fantasy could exist in this world of digital money and vanished dreams…

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I couldn’t believe that an unfinished story could just disappear, like a puff of mystical smoke…

I’d been on a roll—about a quarter of the way through the first draft of a story about a mysterious man, “…dark on the outside yet full of light.”…

He was looking for a Monster that gored the young ones and ate their flesh.

He was just about ready to confront the Monster…

And, the story disappeared.

I know how to use a word processor—I had automatic saving set for one minute—I was manually saving at each critical turn of events…

I used the search-for-file function and came up empty—empty at first of desire to write, then empty of the need to worry—try again…

Began a fantasy in the modern world—saved a bit of it—wrote more, saved again—closed the word processor—went looking for the new story and found it—am writing it now—saving again………

Closed the processor, opened the file—here it is…

Damn!

What happened?

Where did the “real” fantasy story go?

Why is this Real fantasy happening?

Perhaps I should just publish this piece on wondering about a 21^st Century mystery and let that one about the Monster roam on the endless plain of conjecture…

Copyright, 2014, Alexander M Zoltai
Read More Friday Fantasy

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