Ha!! He laughs at the amount of time I spend blogging.
“What do you get out of it?” says my husband, John. “You should be penning a best seller, not giving your stories away for free. You don’t even have banner ads on your blog!”
John will eat his words when he reads how I can earn the big bucks. Because I just got this business proposition:
Hi. Good afternoon.
I am a blog administrator and I manage a team of solid writers who are passionate about a wide range of topics.
I was wondering if you’d be open to a guest blogging opportunity. We would pay you $30 for a post on your site (you may choose the topic if you wish) and a small link to our blog at the end of the post in an author bi-line.
If you are interested in working with us, please write me back.
Cheers
I’m going to make a fortune. At last, the big bloggy payoff. Nice!
Do you ever feel you are being bitten in the butt by your own advice? Well, that’s how I’m feeling right now. And it is, well, it’s a bit odd. Because as I’m sure you’ve noticed, my advice is usually something you can depend on. Live by. Hang your hat on.
You see, a while back, my blogging buddy TwinDaddy of StuphBlog wrote a post about how uncomfortable he is getting compliments.
Naturally, being the good friend/know-it-all that I am, I gave him a piece of advice:
“[G]et used to it, TwinDaddy,” I said in the comments. “We folks who hang out here think you’re swell. Now say thanks and smile.”
And isn’t that the proper way to respond to a compliment? No hemming and hawing, no self-deprecating remarks, no false modesty. Just a simple thank you and a smile.
But tonight I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. A quandary. A pickle. And well, I’m not sure if my own advice isn’t coming back to bite me. Because I’ve gotten a compliment and I don’t really know how to respond.
I feel like hemming and hawing.
I feel like making a self-depreciating remark.
I feel like being unusually/unnaturally modest.
You see, the last week was a fantastic one here at FiftyFourAndAHalf. Out of the STAT-is-sphere, if you know what I mean. And it follows closely on my tour of the ‘sphere, with Peg and Darla and Michelle. March has been a blast.
And it is ending just as well as it began! But it is a bit confusing. Because this past week, I’ve gotten more followers than I got in the entire rest of my nearly two years of blogging.
Cool, you say. Congratulations! I want to puncture her ego (oh, wait, you wouldn’t say that to me, would you — you’re my friend!) But the thing is, I don’t know how to accept this ummm, compliment. Why not? Why not just smile and say thank you?
Because in the last week, I haven’t written a word. Nope. Not one.
So I’m trying to figure out if the secret to getting more followers is to, ummm, not write anything.
To my new bloggin’ buddies – welcome. I’m in the process of checking out your blogs. Thanks for stopping by here and letting me razz you a bit. Thank you for following me. I’m smiling.
Do you know Michelle of The Green Study? I discovered her during the holidays when we were both hanging out at C4C, Company For Christmas — the open blog for folks who were alone on the holidays. Neither of us were alone, actually. In fact, I don’t think that I “chatted” with anybody who was alone. But I made some friends, including Michelle. We followed each other, and I entered her Christmas Story contest.
And I won 2nd Prize!
Recently, I entered another one of Michelle’s contests, this time for “The Worst Job I Ever Had.” And I did it again. I won second prize. But next time, I’m going to take this bit of advice:
Check out the first prize winner, The Wisdom of Life. That job was way worse than mine.
And check out mine over at The Green Study: The Gray Zone.
One if the best things about blogs/bloggers/blogging is the camaraderie. Because the more we all write blogs, the more we all read blogs and the more we all comment on each other’s blogs, the more fun we have. And of course, the more likely we are to meet fellow bloggers face to face in the unemployment line.
No, no, no. That’s not what I mean.
What I mean is that, we bloggers like to spread the wealth. Share the fun. Tell each other about other fun places to visit and enjoy. Other folks’ blogs. The more the merrier. (Hell, who wants to work at work anyway.)
Today I am honored to be pulled along in the wake of one of the funniest of all of my bloggin’ buddies, Peg O’Leg at her blog Peg-O-Leg’s Ramblings. Yup, today I’m posted over at Peg’s in her pretty darn new Wednesday feature called
“THIS One Should Have Been Freshly Pressed”!
Most of you know Peg as a gifted humor writer who can stand her ground among other brilliant Irish writers like James Joyce, Bram Stoker and Medbh McGuckian. Unlike Joyce, Peg is NEVER boring. Unlike Stoker, Peg never terrifies us. And unlike Medbh McGuckian, we all know who Peg IS. Plus we can spell her name, which is nice.
Now Peg created her “Should Have Been FP’d” feature after realizing that all of us bloggers, from time to time, hit the PUBLISH button thinking-hoping-wishing that the brilliant piece we’ve just posted will hit the Big Time. Reach the masses. Be Freshly Pressed. And then it misses. It doesn’t. It isn’t FP’d. Our hearts are broken when only two people end up reading that brilliant post, our STATS tank, and we need to drown our whines, in wine, ice cream and chocolate. Or, in Peg’s case, in anything Reese’s.
This has happened to you. It has happened to me. But Peg, with her big heart and blog feature eased my pain. So head on over to Peg’s to sample one of my favorite humor pieces and take in a big bunch of Peg’s. Please? I bribed her into including me in the feature by promising her brilliant stats. Don’t let me down!
The Ultimate Honor
Here’s the link in case you missed the other three links: http://pegoleg.com/. Not that I’m anxious, mind you. I just don’t have enough chocolate on hand to cope if you don’t head on over to Peg’s.
One of the reasons I started blogging is that everybody who knows me sooner or later gets to hear all my stories. Repeatedly. I needed new victims. Preferably victims whose eyes I do not see rolling when I pull out my story again. Victims who I won’t hear saying “oh, not that one again.” Victims who are out of sight and will therefore leave me unaware when they run screaming from the room.
My fellow bloggers.
So today, on the magic day when all of Hollywood turns out, dressed glamorously (or incredibly hideously) for the Academy Awards, I will dust the red carpet off the story of my own personal triumph.
It was an incredibly special night for me. An honor really. Well, actually two honors. Two Oscars. Two Awards. But I only got to make one speech.
It was the summer of 1983, and some really fun people worked in my office, one of whom, Jon, was a summer intern from the DC area. Carol, Mike, Jon and I all went to Jon’s house one night. You see, 1983 was still in the Bronze Age, and Jon’s parents were on the cutting age of technology, because they had a VCR. And Risky Business had just come out on video.
In the middle of the movie, we took a beer/bathroom break. And guess what I spotted, casually stuck on the bookshelf in the TV room of Rob’s house.
Oscar
And Oscar
It turned out that Jon’s father was a filmmaker. Documentary films. So, in honor of my acting career that died in a broom closet, my pals presented me with two Oscars for Documentary Filmmaking. Sadly, not one of us had a camera. Probably just as well, because my career would not have benefited by all the publicity surrounded my wearing blue jeans during my acceptance speech.
Receiving Oscar, and his twin, Oscar, was a special honor to me, since I had neither made, nor been in any documentary films, nor even fetched donuts and coffee for the real filmmakers. Regardless, I got to hold Oscar and Oscar, and I got to make a speech accepting my Academy Awards. So I am in an unusual club of people who have never actually acted or contributed in any way, shape or form to a movie, who has been presented an Academy Award.
Yes, I’mthat good.
* * *
If you’ve read this before, I hope you screamed quietly.
