Source: 3rd WordPress anniversary
Celebrating today and tomorrow. Join us on this WordPress flight into the future.
3rd WordPress anniversary
Celebrating three years with WordPress
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI- On this day three years ago, I boarded the WordPress flight 101 to destination unknown.
I came across WordPress just by pure coincidence as I was doing research for my memoir “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga.
The Hawkins Chamber site had a WP like box. In order to like it, I had to get on the platform. So, I did because I needed Internet presence anyways according to the agents whom I approached about the book.
It was an easy pick compared to the other complex blog/web building sites. Plus it was free.
Looking back at those three years, there were definite milestones when I wanted to just plain quit without explaining anything to anyone. There was this strange voice that kept whispering into my ear, “Give it up, you can’t do it. Go back to the store.”
I actually even attempted going back to the store where I worked in the nineties, but the manager discouraged me.
“You can do better,” he said. “Keep trying what you’re doing. You will master it.”
Initially, there is a steep learning curve on WordPress, just like with anything new. I compare to a child learning to walk. All those bumps and falls and getting up, crawling along the walls for support, and then suddenly a bang. The child stands up and takes his or her first steps.
I spent hours behind the computer with tutorials and the support team as my wall. I was dealing with an avalanche of information trying to sort through it all.
“Why don’t you let someone else do it for you?” asked my husband Ludek shaking his head when he saw me crunching my teeth and pulling my hair out.
“Like who,” I said. “And mainly where am I going to get the money to pay a person for a decent job?”
No, answer.
My persistence prevailed. I finally had the first post ready “About” on Jan. 14th with a Jan. 15th date.
The WP team welcomed me along with other newcomers into the community graciously with the slogan, “Thanks for flying with Word Press.” I still didn’t know what to expect just like when you take off on a plane for a long journey across the ocean.
As time ticked away, more things became clear. Having a traditional publishing background with knowledge of QuarkXPress and InDesign, the real design on word press became easier.
I have to say that I never had serious trouble coming up with copy. And as serious, I mean not being able to pound out a story or a post every day. Traditional newspaper journalism was a lot like an army boot camp.
“A story and a photo a day will keep the editor away,” we used to say at the Ionia Sentinel-Standard newsroom.
Easier said than done and that goes for both worlds; ink and the grid.
I find it helpful to have the right mindset even before I get out of bed. The right mindset was, is and always will be that, “Content is the king.”
I always think about that before I sit behind the screen and as I look at the Stephen King calendars filed in my library, year after year, until they finally stopped publishing them in 2014.
“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that things can only get better,” wrote King.
I agree. Whenever I have trouble coming up with ideas or writing, I start procrastinating. To avoid procrastinating further, I go for a ride, take a walk, and swim a few laps if I am lucky enough to find a pool or dip myself in a hot tub.
Once I physically exert the inner frustration, the writer in me is reborn. I shake everything off and step into a new world of creation. The destination remains unknown.
To be continued with “Milestones” and “If I could turn back time.”
Copyright © 2016 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
If I Could Turn Back Time
Turning back time
I am going to work on this daily prompt by Daily Post because it is so close to my heart especially at a time when I am starting the second half of my memoir “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga.
Stay tuned for the full story as I develop it to fruition.
If you could return to the past to relive a part of your life, either to experience the wonderful bits again, or to do something over, which part of you life would you return to? Why?
Source: If I Could Turn Back Time
Goal 2016
Source: Goal 2016
Goal 2016
Main goal in 2016 targets the elusive reader
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI- If we only knew what people really like, the creative business would be much less trickier. It’s not just that we as creators don’t know, but sometimes the receiving side doesn’t know either.
I found out this from my experience while trying to select a movie to stream from YouTube. My husband and I go through hundreds of movie selections both in English and in Czech. Quite often we end up not knowing what we want, and we switch lazily back on the TV programming to do the picking for us. It’s easier than making up our own minds.
But, taste is also a matter of the moment that keeps constantly changing. On the other hand there are nights, when I immediately know what I want to see even before turning on the screen. Luckily, we usually agree on the choice.
That brings me to my major goal for 2016 and that is to write what people like to read.
“What is it?” I ask. “Does it mean that I am catering to a trend?”
Not, necessarily. Gauging what people like and don’t like is important just like in the food industry. Recently, I found out that the frozen Ristorante pizza is not as good as DiGiorno. They look the same, they cost the same, but they don’t taste the same. Ristorante is missing something. What is it? It’s like with a good story or a bad story. What is missing and why is it bad?
Finding that missing ingredient is in the psychology or knowledge of your character and your reader. They have to match up. We need a perfect match.
But, writing isn’t just point-blank, let’s say, for the firearm hunter of deer but for the entire hunting category. Just like the pizza example appeals to a wide group of people, if not to most. But remember that both are frozen.
When I think of writing to a certain interest or maybe a trend, I always think of an entire group or a segment of population.
“Okay, who is going to read my next short story, “270 Degrees to Beach Pines?”
It could be the largest segment of American population. That is the baby boomers. The short story is about aging and what a tragic comedy it is; watching it, living it and trying to cheat it. Totally, Shakespearean or Marquez style. It will be humoresque and very light, almost as light as the “Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Kundera.
It should feel like a feather in the wind, like a butterfly’s kiss as it slowly dissipates into thin air.
Copyright © 2016 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Top views in 2015
Check out top views in 2015
Posts with human appeal attract the most interest
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI- I’ve noticed a pattern of interest in different stories over the years. There is a good old journalistic saying, “If it bleeds it leads.” That goes for traditional media.
That is true for news stories on major TV networks and in newspapers. People are hungry for crime, tragedy and its impact. They’re glad that it didn’t happen to them. It’s psychology at its best.
Second comes in weather, and glamour takes the third place. Sometimes these two are interchangeable.
The digital world is different, where technology posts take the first followed by everything that is connected to IT. Then comes everything else.
In my own little world of EW Emma’s Writings, this is how my posts fared from bottom to top on a scale of 5 to 1.
5- Alphorns at the Grand Rapids Octoberfest in September…
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Top views in 2015
Posts with human appeal attract the most interest
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI- I’ve noticed a pattern of interest in different stories over the years. There is a good old journalistic saying, “If it bleeds it leads.” That goes for traditional media.
That is true for news stories on major TV networks and in newspapers. People are hungry for crime, tragedy and its impact. They’re glad that it didn’t happen to them. It’s psychology at its best.
Second comes in weather, and glamour takes the third place. Sometimes these two are interchangeable.
The digital world is different, where technology posts take the first followed by everything that is connected to IT. Then comes everything else.
In my own little world of EW Emma’s Writings, this is how my posts fared from bottom to top on a scale of 5 to 1.
5- Alphorns at the Grand Rapids Octoberfest in September 2015. It was a well-rounded German event with Erdinger on tap and schnitzel with potato salad on the menu.
Watch “Alphorns at Grand Rapids Octoberfest 2015” on YouTube
4- The page About local entrepreneurs & artists takes the fourth place. It profiles regional inspiring people from entrepreneurs to staple artists in the West Michigan area.
3-The Kropf Apple Farming legend. A touching story about an apple farming family spanning four generations while overcoming the big Chinese apple juice dumping crisis in the late 90s and early 2000s.
2- The home page/archives takes a second place. People like checking this one out periodically. That’s why periodic posting is important. It’s a very popular station.
And finally drum roll..
1-Top post with 113 views on Sept. 28 about local entrepreneur Nancy DeBoer. The post about the owner of Station Salon, a popular beauty shop in Lowell, won out of 160 posts in 2015.
The above ranking of top posts shows me that human interest stories have the most views.
It warms my heart because I came to the same conclusion in print media after years of experience. On a long term basis, not at a particular second, people prefer the human over the dead, success over failure, tenacity over weakness, continuity over the beat of the day.
Copyright (c) 2015 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Happy New Year from Emma Blogs
I would like to wish a happy New Year 2016 to all from Emma Blogs, LLC. May all your wishes come true.
On this last day of the year I always look back at the previous one. Year 2015 was very good and productive on both professional & personal fronts.
With this post and thanks to the 30 Day Content Challenge, I have reached 346 posts.
I sought out new clients, the Fallasburg Historical Society (FHS) and created the Fallasburg Today campaign. I continue to work with CJ Aunt Jarmilka’s Desserts and with new prospects and that is Lynn Mason 2016 campaign, Tri River Historical Museum Network, Americas Voices and more.
The 30 Content Writing challenge by Learn to Blog was inspiring and it transformed me in many ways. The challenge taught me the discipline of everyday writing.
The challenge encouraged me to explore new avenues such as writing for children, writing about fear and persistence. It was a powerful force in a sense that 400 people were writing and posting on that same day.
During the challenge I made many new friends such as Pittsburgh Grammy, Peter Safe, Annie Conboy, Jan Booth, Deanna Burton, Nan Raden and Nicole Varge, Lisette Jenkins, Kathy Thompson just to name a few.
Then I participated in a heated political debate in the group Czechoslovaks on Facebook. It warrants a separate post. Watch for it soon.
Another surprise came just last week. Bene Hofmann, a German architecture student contacted me via FHS Facebook page. Hofmann will be building a model of the Fallasburg Covered Bridge for a school project. So, I wrote about that as well.
Peggy Topolski contacted me that her husband wen to the one room school in Fallasburg. I will be doing a story on that.
Twenty people came to look at the historical buildings in the pioneer village during the first annual Fallasburg village bazaar.
So, to wrap it up as the clock keeps ticking, I found out that social media marketing really does work. It has its own bizarre ways, but it works.
Visit pioneer village of Fallasburg on Fallasburg Today on http://fallasburgtoday.org and on http://www.fallasburg.org
Thank you all for reading and reposting. Looking forward to 2016.
Emma Palova
Copyright (c) 2015 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Happy New Year from FHS
Source: Happy New Year 2016
Happy holidays
I would like to wish everyone happy holidays on behalf of Fallasburg Historical Society. May peace and kindness prevail in this world. Best wishes into 2016 and beyond.
Source: Merry Christmas
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