My Writing

I reached another milestone on my blog which I started on April 23, 2017.  I feel that nothing is off limits when it comes to what I write about and over the course of my blog (with this being my 5,000 post), I have written some poems (none of them are very good), I have talked about my life, I have written about love and the lack of it, and I have responded to many prompts.  I have ranted about things that upset me and wrote essays about various topics and also talked about my three books of which none are published.  I wrote 135 posts that never received one comment, so even when a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around, it does produce vibrations, but concerning these posts without any comments, it feels like my vibrations went unnoticed, or were just ignored.  I have a few posts with one comment and zero likes, although these are my earlier posts from when I first started blogging.  I still have one post that never received a comment or a like and that post is destined to spend the rest of its life sitting on a shelf gathering dust.

My blog finally hit the big time 3 months after I started blogging and I had my first post titled What the Pluck receive over 10 likes and 10 comments.  I entered into a friendship with bloggers Sandi, Sight and Fandango and we all read and commented on each other’s posts and this interaction gave more meaning to my blog.  I was getting a lot more comments as each post started a conversation, but I was not getting many new viewers, so my likes were still very low.  Sandi, and Sight both disappeared and that happens in Bloglandia, as people come and go all the time, but I am still friendly with Fandango, and I have met many other bloggers since then.  I had a fluke post titled The Parking Lot App, which had 78 comments and only 3 likes and I have only had two other posts with more comments, and they were for my Song Lyric Sunday posts.  Half of my comments usually come from me, unless they are on one of the challenges that I am hosting.

My stats have been very steady lately with my blog getting around 120 views a day over the last month, although I have had some days where that number goes up to 200.  I am currently averaging 90 visitors a day, but a few days that has gone over 100.  A view is counted when a visitor loads or reloads a page.  A visitor is counted when WordPress sees a user or browser for the first time in a given period.  Since I usually write multiple posts every day, that means that I have more views than visitors.  My likes are all over the place going from 65 a day down to 8 a day, but I average around 35 likes per day.  My comments are a bit steadier averaging about 30 a day, but these fluctuated from 52 down to 3.  I have never liked any of my own posts, but I do see other bloggers doing that.

I have a phenomenal number of views on a post that I wrote titled Colder Than a Well Digger’s Ass, which never seems to get less than 100 views a month and it now has 27,712 views.  That is amazing since it only has 11 likes and 20 comments.  I feel that any post which gets 100 views to be successful, as in my first year of blogging, I never reached that mark and this number of views on one post is just insane.  This post actually had 2,724 views in a single month.  About 60% of my views come from search engines and Google seems to be the most popular one.  38% of my views stem from the WordPress Reader and the rest of them come from my followers.  I currently have 1,899 followers, but I only feel that I know a few of them by name.  Most of my likes come from this small group of people that are shown below.

I try to focus on producing good content, which means that I do my research, before writing about anything and I usually only write posts that I consider to be challenging.  I am not sure what my goal is with blogging, but if one day I were to walk into a blogger convention, and people would look at me and say, “There goes Jim Adams, the best there ever was”, that would be satisfying.  Ok, I have bored you enough with my stats, so I am going to leave you with a song.

Easy Enough

I never thought about this before, but I guess there are such things as small joys, and that would include anything that makes you feel happy.  We all have universal desires, which includes wanting food and water, and clean fresh air to breathe.  Anyways I was nominated by Carol Anne of Therapy Bits – Living life with dissociative identity disorder and complex ptsd to list fifteen of my small joys, so I will give it a shot, however as I explained in other posts that I don’t like chain mail, so I won’t be nominating any others. Thank you, Carol Anne, and here are my 15 small joys!

1. Having sex with somebody other than myself.
2. Writing music posts.
3. Reading the new book that Max sent me.
4. Hosting Song Lyric Sunday.
5. Petting the cat.
6. Jumping into the swimming pool.
7. Getting a normal range blood sugar reading.
8. Listening to music on Youtube.
9. Sending out birthday cards.
10. Relaxing with Netflix.
11. Watering the plants.
12. Drinking coffee.
13. Watching football.
14. Not having cancer.
15. Hoping that we will soon be rid of Trump.

Apparently, it is a Thing

I Googled “Who is Vincent Ehindero?” and although I did not find out all that much about him, what I did discover was that a lot of people have been honored with this prestigious Vincent Ehindero Blogger Award.  I was nominated by the author LYNCRAIN “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”  I will answer the questions that go with this award, but I will not nominate anyone else because, I despise chain mail and that is what I see these awards as being.

Lyn has asked me the following questions.

1. What genre is your favorite?

Action, comedy, drama, if there is such a thing.

2. If you could be a character in any story which one would it be?

I picture myself as a James Bond type of character.

3. Are you veggie lover or a fruit lover?

I do eat both, but mostly I go for meat and bread.

4. What era of music is your favorite and why?

Classic rock because most of the stuff that came along after that sucks.

5. If you change one thing in the world, what would it be?

Russian hackers would all be sent to prison.

6. Why did you begin blogging?

I started because I was looking for a platform to promote my books.

7. What makes you laugh?

Things that I think are funny are what makes me laugh.

Just so the First One Won’t Get Lonely

Lyn told me that she nominated me for a Liebster Award, because she always enjoys reading my blogs and I told her that I already have this award, but I will graciously accept it again, as long as I don’t have to follow all of the rules.  Thus, I will answer the questions, but I won’t be posing any new ones or nomination anyone else.

1. What’s your reading preference a physical book or on kindle?

I would like to try a talking book.

2. If books could talk what would they say about your reading choices?

Stop reading porn.

3. Cat or Dog lover? Or some other creature?

Dogs are best, but cats can be cute.

4. What’s your favorite comfort food? Is there a story behind it?

I enjoy a snack between breakfast and lunch and I never turn down a fresh Danish.  After dinner and after I take my second blood sugar reading, I can have some desert, but what I eat depends on the numbers that I just got.  I am always hungry and lately I have been eating a lot of fresh cut up strawberries placed on a shortcake shell topped with fat free whipped cream, but if my numbers were low, I could have a small cup of soft serve ice crème, vanilla and chocolate twist.

5. What’s your preference for travel… planes, trains, boats, or automobile?

I don’t enjoy flying, but it is necessary so you still have time lest for your vacation if you are going far away.  I always wanted to go on a cruise, but not with this coronavirus that we are dealing with today.

6. Married or single or in a relationship or non-applicable

Single and looking but not serious.

7. What was your favorite activity as a child?

I loved playing Monopoly when I was young and when my brother and sister got tired of playing, I made up an imaginary friend to play with.  I called him Ghosty, because nobody could see him except me and I used to cheat him because I liked to win.

8. If you had to pick one, would it be a blog entry or a poem for your epitaph, which one would it be?

Here lies Jim, he went for a swim in the ocean of life and he is not coming back.

9. Favorite song? Why?

This is a hard one, but I am going with Truckin’, because it was the first song that I heard at my first Grateful Dead concert.

10. Favorite author? Why?

R. R. Tolkien because I became engrossed in his stories.

11. What makes you smile, no matter how many times you see it? Why?

I think this has something to do with the muscles in my cheeks working in combination with my lips.  Do I look like I am an expert in myology?

I Was Busy

Yesterday I published eight posts, which is more that I ever did before.  I started off with Time for Fandango to Unpack which was written for Stream of Consc Saturday and it did well getting 8 comments and 15 likes.  Next I wrote Meaning in My Life for Bee’s Love Is In Da Blog challenge and it was about the Chicago song ‘You’re the Inspiration’ and it received 8 comments and 14 likes.  After that I wrote Back Off Jack for FFE Daily Adage and I shared some deep insights about reality, which may have been too deep foe most people as this post got no comments, but it did get 11 likes.  I moved on to the Saturday Mix where I wrote some nonsense words in a post that I titled With a Rebel Yell and it got 2 comments and 14 likes.  I decided to tackle the Teresa Grabs Daily Writing Prompt, which was a picture prompt and I wrote Hardships of the Fur Trade which got 7 comments and 12 likes.  Next I visited the daily/weekly/monthly prompts that are posted regularly here on WordPress and I wrote a post Get Up and Dance to satisfy the Daily Spur, FOWC, Monthly Writing Prompts, New Daily Post, Ragtag Community, Three Things Challenge, Weekly Prompts, Word of the Day Challenge and that got 9 comments and 16 likes.  I took on an easy one next writing for Friday Flashback and I posted A Day Late where I discussed the song ‘Indian Love Call’ and this post got 2 comments and 6 likes.  Wrapping this up I wrote my Song Lyric Sunday prompt post Personal Pronouns and that always gets a lot of comments and likes.

To top off my day yesterday Lisa Coleman of oureyesopenblog.wordpress.com nominated me for the Bee Love Award, because she said that I am an inspiration to her. “How sweet it is” in the words of Jackie Gleason, or the James Taylor song.  I found out that this award was started by Yeka, and it is one that I have not received yet and I also found these guidelines:
1. Attach the BEE LOVE AWARD LOGO on top of your post.
2. Ping back to YBP, IT’S ALL ABOUT LOVE.
3. Thank your fellow blogger who nominated you.
4. Share your Definition of LOVE and How You Live Out LOVE.
5. Nominate your fellow bloggers who live out love and inspiration on WP. (Love knows no limits, so nominate as many fellow bloggers you’d like to shine your light on!)

I will start off by thanking Lisa and then I will try to share my definition of love and how I live out love.  Love is an intense feeling of deep affection that encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection and to the simplest pleasure, well at least according to what I found on the internet.  I guess I have always thought of love as being a romantic attraction that includes sexual desire, but it is way more than that.  I love writing posts and that has nothing to do with attraction or sexual desire, so this is complex.  I guess the Four Aces tried to sum this up in their hit song.

I have no idea how I live out love, so maybe I am not worthy of this award, kind of like a Wayne’s World meets Alice Cooper thing.

Seriously, which is something that I rarely do, I try to be kind to others. I feel that if I am good to others that karma will return it to me and I pay it forward and if it does not catch up with me in this lifetime, then at least I probably won’t return as a cockroach in the next.  I am going to pass on the nominations part of these guidelines, as I hate to pester other people, but if you want it, then come and get it, as I nominate everyone who reads my blog.

Another Milestone

This post makes me a 2000 man, as it is my 2000th post.  I have come a long way since I wrote my first post back on April 23rd of 2017 and I think that I am a much better writer now, than I was back then, but sometimes I still feel like the Rodney Dangerfield of bloggers, not getting any respect.  It is not like I am being lazy by not giving you a bunch of statistics in this post, like what was my favorite post, how many poems I wrote, which post I wrote as a response that contained the most prompt words, or any other details like that, it is just that I don’t want to beat my own drum.  I did write a lot of music posts and I am the current host of Song Lyric Sunday and Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie MM Music challenge, but I am not writing this post to brag about my accomplishments, as I am nowhere near done yet and I have a long way to go.  What I am trying to achieve is that one day when I walk into a blogger convention, that people will look at me, point and say, “There goes Jim Adams, the best there ever was.”

Blogger Recognition Award

I don’t have one of these yet and just yesterday I was complaining about all the wonderful posts that I have been writing which have basically gone unnoticed, so I will humbly accept this award which willowdot21 at An insight to a heart mind and soul has nominated me for.  I am supposed to do 6 things, but I will only do the first four.

1. Thank the blogger(s) who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

Thanks Willow

I started blogging after I read an article which stated that every author needs a platform to promote their books.  I published my first post on 4/23/2017 and this post is number 1930.  This time period amounts to 971 days, so I average about 1.987 posts per day.  I wrote three very long books, all of which remain unpublished.

My first tidbit of advice for new bloggers is to look for prompts and react to them.  Prompts are fun and this is a good way to get noticed.  My second thought for new bloggers is to write for your own enjoyment and not worry about not getting views, likes or comments.  If your writing is good, people will start following you.  Concentrate on writing a quality post and make sure that you review it before you hit publish.