Shannon and I got to know each other as well as a ton of other wonderful bloggers during the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge. This was an idea that I came up with in order to celebrate reaching 200 followers. I proposed that I, and anyone who wanted to join me, would blog every day except Sunday during the month of April using the letters of the alphabet as prompts for the topics we posted. Nearly 100 bloggers of all types joined up and we had an absolutely grand time. We all added many more followers and learned a lot of good stuff about blogging. I entered my first blog post on September 20 of 2009 with no clear idea of what I was doing, but since I was writing I wanted that writing to have some level of substance and quality. After all, someone somewhere might read what I wrote. Early on I declared my mission statement which in essence stated that I wanted to present the best writing of which I was capable and I began posting every day.
Those posts of the first two months or so were barely read and perhaps even unread. With no comments coming I began to wonder about the time I was spending writing these blog posts, but still I persisted. In November I decided to organize my posting into a schedule--each day of the week would have a particular theme. Not wanting to be caught up in a rut, I kept up an eclecticism that some may have seen as a hodge podgery of content. For me the variety helped me maintain my interest and keep the ideas flowing--and I hoped some of my topics would begin to catch the attention of other bloggers.
Something was apparently working as I began to see following increase and readers actually leaving comments. I was learning the secrets of networking and I was becoming established in a blogging community. Having set a goal for 100 followers by the end of 2009, I reached that goal a few days into the new year. Readership was consistent. Some of my blog content could now be found on Google. I had established a presence.
I have continued to plod onward, hopefully with many blog posts of substance--I try my best to make each post interesting and with decent writing. I want to thank all of the loyal wonderfully kind readers who continue to comment on my posts and who provide me good reading with their posts. And I do want to give credit to the guy who got me started blogging in the first place--Stephen T McCarthy whose two blogs Stephen T McCarthy Stuffs and Ferret-Faced Facist Friends are also pretty darn special blogs that should eventually be recognized by the Words of Wisdom Bloggers of Note series.If my Tossing It Out blog is new to you, I hope you will become a follower and continue to come back to visit. As many different things as I post about, I'm sure I'll be talking about something that interests you. To give some idea about what I post, I've been asked to provide links to my best or favorite posts. That's like asking which of my kids are my favorites. Here are some that I like:
An early post that few people read and no one commented on. It was kind of special to me. Feel free to leave a comment:
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2009/09/walking-in-dark.html
Here's one that a lot of readers enjoyed:
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-moms-dancer-photos.html
And one more that several readers seemed to enjoy:
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2010/01/big-box-blues.html
Coming up on Monday May 17th I am hosting Fifteen Fantasy Island Favorites where you can post your fifteen favorite albums or CDs. Feel free to join us if you'd like. Be sure to add your name to the Linky list at the top of the page.
And don't forget to sign up on Sandy and Pam's Words of Wisdom blog site. You too can enter your own blog to be a future featured blog or you can nominate another blogger whom you feel is particularly worthy. Thank you, Sandy and Pam for featuring Tossing It Out on your site today. I hope you readers will stop by and thank them as well.
