I’ve been playing with words all my life, but no matter what genre I was engaged in, from limericks to legal thesis, there were always times of writer’s block.  Recently I began blogging and I found this phenomenon followed me there as well.  I’m honored that Bean has asked me to share about this issue, but frankly it’s most likely that she considers me an expert at drawing a blank.  I’m not sure what worked best for the college papers I wrote as that was long ago and the memory’s fading.  I just know that days would go by looking at the screen wondering “what now”.  Somehow I met all my deadlines, but that was then.  I also started a biography about a friend of mine, Midge who’d passed away many years ago only to encounter the same issue.  Then, at a conference near Durango this fall, Rhonda relayed information  that gave me an “aha” moment and broke that 10-year block.  She was talking about Historical Fiction and my brain went “aha”!  So although most of it will center around the antecdotes of her life, it will be historically accurate, but not exactly her life story. I may actually get that book done now.

In the Blogging Basics course there was instruction on this problem and several great links for ideas on combating the dilemma.  After reading the bulk of the articles on writers’ block for bloggers, I began perusing the internet and was instantly attracted to this article on Overcoming Writers’ Block because of the humor of the author.  Then, I began searching the whole website’s offerings and found a lot of informative and constructive help from clustering ideas to final completion and everything in between.  If you’re serious about honing your skills, it’s a super place to check out.

Who knew that physical exercise could be the first step to overcoming writer’s block?

Susie was a student in last session’s Blogging Basics course, she is now blogging about approaching life and art with a playful attitude at LafnPlayground.

Its a new school year and a new set of student blogs are on the horizon.
Put the URL of your brand new blog in the comments and I will add them to the blogroll. I am always excited to see what you come up with!

Welcome to Week Two and your new blog!

I will be creating a blogroll of all student blogs this session. Please add a comment to this post that gives us the web address/URL of your new blog. You can also use the comments here to find a classmate’s blog to visit and comment on for the last portion of your assignment.

Get blogging!

Welcome to Week Two and your new blog!

I will be creating a blogroll of all student blogs this session. Please add a comment to this post that gives us the web address/URL of your new blog. You can also use the comments here to find a classmate’s blog to visit and comment on for the last portion of your assignment. You can also peruse the Hall of Fame blogs for inspiration and practice.

Get blogging!

Controversy

Taking on a controversal topic in your blog requires a clear opinion or a keen awareness of your own ambivalence and indecision. Some of us shy away from controversy while others may crave the energy and attention that stirring up a hornet’s nest brings. Some bloggers will try to create controversal headlines to attract readers but fail to follow through in providing information or insight to the conversation.

Is it Art or Porn?

Recently, one of the LVS students successfully presented a controversial subject and offered both information and insight to the controversy while encouraging her readers to examine their own stand. Art is a very personal topic and has certainly been controversial for ages. Add in the religious, societal, personal and political values that we hold in regards to nudity and you are upping in the ante. Bring in the subject of children and without care you have such an explosive topic that emotions and outrage cloud all opportunities for meaningful discussion. In her blog post on the Bill Henson Controversy and nudity in art, she does a masterful job of bringing the current controversy to frame her own questions and musings about nudity in art.

Light and Shadow

From the artist’s perspective, the human form is a interesting collection of angles and curves, light and shadow. Like the choices they make in regards to paints and medium, an artist uses angles and curves to convey their message and to garner an emotional response. Sometimes the choice of nudity is a conscious one, banking on the emotional response of the audience to the nude. Sometimes it less conscious as the artist focuses on the subject not as a nude but light and shadow.  When an artist focuses on the latter, it can be a surprise to them when the audience reacts to the nudity instead of the shadows they lovingly created or captured. The same can be true of the blogger. 

Bringing it Full Circle

When dealing with a controversial subject, you might be posting with a particular focus and expecting feedback on that focus. It can be a bit startling to start getting emotional reactions to what you construed to be the minor facts of your blog post. Blogging can be an enlightening education on the views and ethics of many communities. Quirky Artist explores the diverse reactions to nudity in art, acknowledges her own journey to her current stand. This includes discussing her grey areas and her convictions are clear.  She brings her posting to a close by stating her own personal stand in the Bill Henson controversy. Her headline was not just to entice the reader, she used it to frame the entire post in a very successful way.

I encourage you to visit her post and join in the discussion. Look at how she handled controversy and how you might envision discussing controversal topics in your own blog.

Why in the world would I want to talk about someone else’s blog on MY blog?
Pingbacks or trackbacks are vital aspects of blogging because:

• It provides additional context to your own opinions and ideas
• Other blogs are a source of inspiration when confronted with “writer’s block”
• A means to share ideas, causes and products that you have discovered with your audience
• A very focused means of directing readers with similar interests to your own blog. Talk about your niche marketing!
• Jumpstarts communications with other bloggers. Where many bloggers won’t have the time to check out the links on all of their commentators, most bloggers will want to follow a pingback to see what others are saying about them. This is true for even the really famous ones out there. Check out my post on giveaways where I pingbacked Lorelle of WordPress fame.
• If you talk about other bloggers, and have something worth talking about on your own blog, they are more likely to be talking about you!

On this blog, you will often find that I refer to other blogs in my blog posts. I do this for two reasons. The first is that I want to bring certain ideas to your attention to certain blogging topics. Second, I am hoping that my post will inspire you to visit the other blog for additional information and to expand your reference resources.  Therein, lies the power of blogging.

So, if I wanted to show my readers an example of good writing and how to engage with your readers on a personal level I might write a post about Barb’s post on Scrapbook or Art Journal: Its a Personal Journey. To make it an educational post, I would identify key themes and techniques in the writing of that post that make it so successful. I would compare and contrast it with another great example of student writing with Shoshanna’s post Hiding out from the Third Millenium.

If I was stuck and frustrated with writer’s block, I could tap into Val’s post on Literary Finds and the post Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. Those posts might inspire me to think and write about classic books, the books that I grew up with or a lament on current literature. I could go a variety of directions from those posts from a critical literary review to a discussion on how popular books impact the culture of their day to…

We have a lot of instructors in this class. Maybe they have been too busy to check out all of their classmates’ blogs and have missed out on the great instructor references that Karen provides us with her post Use Free Online Resources to Teach Your Online Courses.   Because we know that no matter how busy they are, they will make time to read the all the posts in the class blog! ;-P

If you take a look at the posts that I have mentioned in this post, you will see that there is a pingback to here in the comment section of the post. Well there will be, if the blog owners decide to approve the ping back.

Welcome to Week Two and your new blog!

I will be creating a blogroll of all student blogs this session. Please add a comment to this post that gives us the web address/URL of your new blog. You can also use the comments here to find a classmate’s blog to visit and comment on for the last portion of your assignment.

Get blogging!