Tag: Blogging and Me

One million and rising

Posted on by Inara Pey

SLCP-1I’ve been blogging since 2007; from then through 2009, it was purely a personal thing on Blogger (or was it Blogspot? Truth be told, I can’t remember now). In 2009 I moved everything to WordPress, but was still very much a sporadic blogger. It wasn’t until the middle of 2011 that I really started blogging “seriously” (and by that I mean making a conscious effort to regularly blog, and about things people might find interesting!).

WordPress provide their bloggers with a range of statistics, and through these I’ve tended to note certain events, such as hitting my 2,000th post in November 2013, (having taken three years to initially hit the 1,000 mark in August 2012, and I’m already fast approaching 3K posts). However, in poking at the stats page late on August 26th, 2014, I found I’d reached what (for me) is another milestone.

I’ve passed one million page views (by a thousand, in fact…)!

OK, so page views aren’t the same as visitors, but that’s still a figure which boggles my little brain. What’s more, it boggles it on all four cylinders, particularly given the vast majority of views have taken place in the  three years between January 2012 and today.

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Out of curiosity, and allowing for the fact WordPress have only been providing figures on unique visitors since December 2012, I decided to try to average-out the approximate number of individual visits that one million represents. And, in rough terms, it seems to work out at 533,135, or 1.87 page views per visitor (well, the calculation actually worked out to 533,134.715, but I rounded whoever that .715 was to a whole person; my apologies if it happened to be a Tiny! 🙂 ). That’s another number which boggles my brain.

So, thank you to all of you who take the time to come read my ramblings, and to those of you who take the time to like and / or comment, and to all those who have subscribed. Your continued support really does mean a lot to me.

How I’m able to blog so frequently …

Posted on by Inara Pey

Strawberry Singh has run a couple of her Monday Memes on the subject of blogging. The first featured questions on why people blog – which I answered here, and the second was about the journey we’ve undertaken as bloggers, to which I also responded.

Since publishing the second article, several people have asked me how it is I can be blogging “constantly” (no, really, they have!). Rather than bore you with talk of planning ahead, having a production line of articles in progress, etc., I thought I’d just come clean.

You see, I’m able to blog so much because I have an army small number of minions helpers eager to write stuff up for me …

Inara's little helper (with apologies to Universal Studios)
Inara’s little minions helpers (with apologies to Universal Studios!)

Of course, I have to keep all bananas carefully hidden, so as to avoid total mayhem, but that’s a small price to pay.

So there you have it. The truth is out.

 

My blogging journey

Posted on by Inara Pey

typing_001 Berry posted another of her Monday Memes on (oddly enough!) Monday April 28th. This one, called “my blogging journey“,  is a follow-up to her “Why do I blog?” meme from 2013. As I responded to the latter a little late in the day, I thought I should also respond to “part 2” – and get it done a little earlier this time!

Which electronic devices do you use to blog with? Primarily my PC, but I also use my Nexus 7 HD when away from home. You can generally tell when I’m using the latter, particularly if I’m using the on-screen keyboard, as the Kween of TpyolandTM strikes again…

Do you have a mission statement for your blog, if so, what is it? Not really. I just try to be open and honest in my writing, whatever the subject of an article.

How do you feel about blogs that use their platforms to spread negativity? It depends. Those that have a completely myopic view of things or seek to be deliberately and negatively confrontational on matters, I ignore. However, there are some which are predisposed to lean towards the negative (notably when writing about LL) or which may proceed from a false assumption or carry misconceptions that I do read,  because they challenge me to try to look at issues more broadly.

Are you a grammar junkie? Do you thoroughly check your blog for errors before posting and/or do you judge other people’s posts if they contain errors? I am the world’s worst when it comes to checking my own my own writing. Send me yours with a request to edit it, and I’ll go through it tooth and nail and correct, offer alternatives where meanings might be confused, provide grammar hints and tips. My own? I’ll run it through a spell-checker, I’ll read it 2-3 times, that’s it. Then I’ll generally go bonkers with myself when someone else picks up a typo I should have seen, or when I spot a grammar error. When reading other blogs, I can’t help picking-up on typos and grammar errors, but I rarely poke the writers concerned, as I’m so aware of the huge plank in my own eye …

If you could switch blogs with another blogger who would it be? Not sure about “switch”, but there are two bloggers in particular I admire and I’d name here: Honour McMillan and Tateru Nino. Both have a wonderful capacity for insight and observation and beautiful word craft. I also envy Honour’s eye for photography (and Ziki’s, and Bear’s, and Berry’s, and Loverdag’s, and Derry’s, and Asa’s, and Thorin’s, and Miles’, and ….).

Has your blog/blogging style evolved over the year(s)? How? I hope so. I started blogging on a specific subject (drawing on articles I’ve had published elsewhere & then re-wrote to give them an SL focus). Then I started writing more widely on subjects, and as my ignorance of certain aspects of SL became increasingly apparent, I tried to educate and inform myself. I hope that’s reflected in my writings here over the past few years.

What is the most extraordinary thing that has happened to you because of blogging? I got indirectly retweeted by Drew Carey. Seriously. Both Dennis Harper at OnLive and Peter Gray at Linden Lab e-mailed me when it happened. The tweet was actually from Indigo Mertel (so she has some pretty awesome followers!), and referred to a piece I wrote about OnLive’s SL Go service. No idea if Drew actually read the article (or if he did, whether he comes back and reads more), but still …

Almost famous: Drew Carey re-tweets from Indigo (who is famous!) mentioning my blog ...
Almost famous: Drew Carey re-tweets Indigo (who is famous!) mentioning my blog …

When it comes to Second Life blogs, there are different styles: Fashion bloggers, Lifestyle & Travel bloggers, Informative bloggers, and more. Which style do you prefer and where do you feel your blog fits in? I hope my blog covers a number of these areas. The only things I’ve made a conscious decision not to blog about are fashion, product reviews and in-depth content creation pieces. I’m not particularly fashion conscious in RL & I’m not the world’s greatest creator of content. So in both of those instances, anything I blog would be a grandmother and egg-sucking scenario. While I have been known to review products, with one exception, I’ve only done so for items I’ve purchased and really liked for myself. That exception was a review of Erick Gregan’s Spitfire Mark IX. That did come to me as a gift from Erick, but not in any expectation of me blogging about it; it was purely a “thank you” (and quite unexpected) for some assistance I gave when poking at some region crossing issues in 2013. And even then, I wrote the review because I love flying it in SL!

What has blogging taught you? Consideration and forethought. I hope.

Share your top 3 tips for new bloggers. Write about what interests you. Don’t be afraid to buck the trend; just because people are all blogging on X or with opinion Y, doesn’t mean you have to as well – just be true to yourself and speak from the heart. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes, and take the time to understand a point-of-view or a topic before you blog.

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Top image with thanks to Alina Lyvette

New blog banner – thank you, Loverdag!

Posted on by Inara Pey

I had a lovely surprise on Thursday April 10th. Loverdag, a Second Life photographer I greatly admire, dropped me a Flickr mail with a link to a photo of me she’d taken (in secret!) while we both happened to be visiting Done Wiv A Twist.  The photo simply stunned me and left me with my jaw hanging open – I say this without any vanity on my part – it’s simply gorgeous.

I’d been thinking about revamping the header at the top of this blog for a while, and seeing Loverdag’s photo was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. So, with her permission (and due credit in the banner!) it’s now a part of my new blog banner.

Thank you, again, Loverdag for taking such a marvellous photo of me – and for allowing me to use it like this 🙂 .

Getting a little bookish with Berry

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bookworm?
Bookworm?

Strawberry Singh offered another of her Monday Memes. I don’t tend to do a lot of them, but every so often one grabs my attention and does prompt me to actually start, well, thinking. Her Book Meme is one such example, in which she asks her readers to divulge their reading habits through a series of questions. So here are my answers…

Are you a bookworm? Probably, yes. There are bookcases crammed with books in almost every room in the house.

Which do you prefer: hardcover, paperback or electronic? Depends. My reference books, cookery books, history books, biographies etc., are almost all hardcover. Novels, anthologies,  etc., are almost all paperback, as they’re the ones that travel with me on holiday, etc. I’ve yet to really like electronic formats. That may eventually change now I have a tablet.

Which book is your favourite? That’s a tough one. I’m not sure I have “a” favourite, but there are a number I love to read and try to make a point of diving into every so often just for the “old friend” feeling I get from them.

Which children’s book is your favourite? That’s easier: The Hobbit, because it takes me back to my childhood and Dad reading it to me at bedtime.

What’s the last book you’ve read? Criminal Shadows, Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer by David Canter, the UK’s pioneering expert in psychological profiling. Prior to that, Lucky Man, Michael J. Fox’s memoir.

Name your top five favourite writers.  I can’t do five! Arthur Conan Doyle, P.D. James, James Ellroy, Patricia Cornwell , Colin Dexter; J.R.R. Tolkien, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, David Eddings, G.R.R. Martin; Greg Bear, Kate Wilhelm, Melinda Snodgrass; Douglas Adams, Tom Holt; Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer, Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan,  …  I’ll stop there … 🙂

Name a book that had a strong impact on you. Fiction-wise, probably Juniper Time, by Kate Wilhelm. A little dated nowadays, but a powerful story with compelling characters.  Non-fiction, there’s more than one that stands out to me, all for different reasons.

Favourite & least favourite book genres? Favourites: fiction-wise: crime, science-fiction, fantasy; I also like biographies, and I read a lot of reference works. Least favourites: historical romances, romances, anything to do with Harry Potter (see, you’re not alone, Berry!) …

Favourite & least favourite book-to-movie adaptations? In terms of number of times watched, probably Lord of the Rings (there’s a surprise!). I’ve been enjoying Game of Thrones (GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire), and have DVD boxed sets of things like Sherlock Holmes (Brett & Hardwicke) and Inspector Morse, which can be the visual equivalents of sitting down with the books.  Least favourite: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. No studio can match the power of one’s own imagination when it comes to travelling through Adams’ wonky galaxy.

Have you ever bought a book based on the cover alone? No.

Where do you usually buy your books? Waterstones for the most part, or on-line.

Do you go to the library? No.

How many books do you own? A lot. Seriously.

If you were to write a book about Second Life, which topic would you focus on? The history of the platform and its social positioning.

2001 a blog odyssey

Posted on by Inara Pey

SLCP-1Without me actually realising it at the time, this blog passed the 2,000 published articles mark. I’m a bit boggled by that figure.

It was in August 2012 that I reached the 1,000 published posts mark – and that took some three years to achieve. So doubling it in just over a year tends to tell me two things: 1) the volume of my blogging has dramatically increased; 2) I really need to spend more time away from the computer screen! :D.

I’m actually not a great one for blog numbers; however, when I passed through the 1,000 published posts mark, I noted that this blog had some 250,000 hits in the 12-months between August 2011 and July 2012, so I thought it would be interesting to run a comparison for the same period in 2012/2013. I was not a little stunned to see that figure had increased by over 100,000. That so many so read and continue to find this blog interesting and look to it for information really does amaze and humble me.

It is the level of feedback that is given which encourages me to keep on writing and to make sure I make time on a daily basis to do so.

Another distinct pleasure I’ve had from all of this is being able to get out into SL and wander “the highlands and islands”, discovering some remarkable places and builds and meeting a huge number of creative and fun people. This in turn has helped put SL into a better perspective for me and remind me that, warts and all, it’s still an amazing place in which to spend time, and I’m again flattered that people do find my wibblings about places to visit worthy of note, and who show their appreciation for my photographic efforts via my Flickr stream and profile feed as well, all of which are very much appreciated.

It’s been quite the odyssey so far, one I currently don’t plan on stopping. To all of you who have encouraged me by reading, commenting, poking and suggesting, I again offer my sincere thanks.

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