What Matters to You Most as a Blogger?

I'll follow Darren Rowse's lead over at Pro-blogger, and start with a couple of his "most importants" that I share.

USEFUL CONTENT: The exchange of useful tools, websites and of specific technical help was crucial in 2002 when I started out and needed so much hand-holding. I've tried, in turn, to pass along some methods, ideas and software discoveries to my readers. But the crowd has changed, and the techy stuff seems to not get much response. So my USEFUL POSTS of late has turned more to the "check this out" variety, and more often than not, the topic has to do with air, soil, water, and health in general, planetary more than personal maybe. In coming months when setting up collateral pages is easier, I may set aside a page devoted to southern Appalachian natural history and environmental awareness. That seems to be where my heart is these days. And I consider my photography "useful content" from an aesthetic and educational perspective; but I could be wrong.

STIMULATION / CONVERSATION: This was probably both my end and my means early on: to stimulate my own thoughts by writing them out, and to cause my readers to turn their heads and look at the familiar in a different way. Looking back at my archives from the first two or three years, there was lively dialogue and interaction between commenters at Fragments. Friends met there and there for a while, it was truly the front porch conversation I had intended it to be. But over the past year or so, I feel the blog has become more of a one-way platform in which I expose my strong feelings about one topic or another, and that that intensity of passion almost guarantees it will be avoided for comments. So I do less of this, or at least post them less often, even after having written them. I still find the blog a wonderful repository for ideas I come back to, pick up again and follow a little farther. These from time to time become newspaper columns or maybe radio essays. So blogging stimulates my mind, whether it tweaks somebody else's buttons or not; and that's reason enough to keep it up.

SUSTAINABLE MODEL: I have to confess that I haven't given much (probably not nearly enough) thought to the "model" for Fragments from Floyd. It has been hacked, restarted, moved and morphed so many times that I have never sustained any momentum in one direction for very long. I truly hope that becomes a thing of the past. And in the future, while I don't intend to write to the audience, if I can keep my "brand" a bit more focused, spend more time getting to know today's bloggers, and work with a little more zeal and passion in the good parts of life on Goose Creek, I think readership will grow beyond where it has been stuck for more than a year. Yes, I'd like to do better at "sustainable" in terms of the blog paying its way. A stable platform in WordPress, as I learn the ins and outs, should let me branch out into other kinds of monetizing. AdSense is paying the DSL, but there are so many other options to explore, given a blog that works consistently over the long haul, and grows.

AUTHENTICITY: I set out to be as close to 100% fully Fred in FFF as was possible. That has meant venting, whining and an occasional mild rant. It has gotten me in trouble with my wife who would NEVER tell publicly the tedious or embarrassing foibles of our domestic life. I've also brought to the center of the blog whatever was in the center of my life at the time, and unfortunately for those who see it as crass commercialism, the writing, then marketing of the book and notecards has cropped up here rather often--because it crops up in my daily routine rather often. I've assumed, perhaps wrongly, that those who have come to know me are interested in following along in this uncertain entrepreneurial journey conducted from a very back road from a county with 15,000 people. Genuine, personal, mundane daily rambles will continue to be the source for most of what goes to the keyboard here.

How 'bout you? Where's your blog-center? Has it changed over time?

Well, that about does it for me, and crimminy, those paragraphs are way past the average bloggers dwell time | attention span. Soon, I'll be able to let you click a "read more" link to open the whole thing, then hide it again, like in the old Moveable Type days.

Sharing Some Good News

A few of you reading this have been following this dog and pony show since the early days (five years ago almost to the day). Suffice it to say that when this epic began, the destination was far from certain. In late March, 2002, the handwriting was on the wall, and it bode ill for my professional future.

I knew I would not continue to dig the same hole deeper. Just where I would plant my spade, and what treasure I would find there in the next excavation into the future, I did not know. But I had the strong and abiding notion there was treasure just outside my door, through my window that looks across at our barn and field. But what was it?

The blog started that month, and the mantra "write every day, write from the heart, write what you know" became the first thing in my mind when I awoke every morning.

And four years later, this week of this month last year, the manuscript for Slow Road Home was in the hands of Edwards Brothers, Inc. Soon, 1000 books would arrive on my doorstep.

And yesterday, five years from the inception of Fragments from Floyd, I learned that Slow Road Home - a Blue Ridge Book of Days will be acquired for distribution in all the Blue Ridge Parkway gift shops and book stores along the 469 mile length of the National Park.

The "reach" of the book is extended many-fold by this means of dispersal, and will find a population of readers to whom I very much wanted to speak. This news, for me, is a major encouragement and reassurance. And so, I wanted to let you know just where the slow road has carried us, you and me, here at the five year mark into the unknown.

And what chapter will unfold by this time NEXT early spring?

Hard frost last night. Sky is pinking up. The reflection of the woodstove flames dance orange against the windowpane, framing an utter calm, cold landscape beyond the glass. The barn roof is white, the butterfly bush outside my window limp with ice crystals fringing every curled and faded leaf.

How womblike-the warmth of the stove, the familiar touch of chair and desk, this old flannel shirt I wear as if it were my birth skin. I love this place, so constant, so fully known and at hand. This place: this room, this house, this valley, these mountains, this time in our lives. Especially now, as winter creeps closer and the days grow short, I appreciate the roof overhead, the full stacks of firewood, the canning in the basement and slow moments like this to see our blessings, the ordinary that we too often take for granted.

We can't know what's coming around the bend in the road. But it has been a very nice road, that's for sure.
from the last page of Slow Road Home ~ a Blue Ridge Book of Days

Why I Want an iPod: End of message

I've tried to convince myself that when my "egg money" built to a certain level, I'd look at getting an iPod. Why? Because radio reception is crummy between the house and work (though sometimes the static only enhances the mood of the oldies station from Wytheville.) And I have six CD's in the built-in stereo. And NPR always comes in good, even the other side of Pilot Mountain. So maybe this isn't a very good reason.

But I've thought man, it would be great to have an iPod to be able to listen to audio books when I travel. That would make the miles zip by. But other than to work, I hardly ever travel. And when I do, it's usually not very far.

And I have a CD player in the car--and the easiest way to get audio books is on CD from the library. (Tip: Converting CD's to iPod files) And I generally would rather be thinking about something I wanted to write about than being entertained by somebody else's thoughts.

But then, there are some really interesting looking podcasts available for download that I would never sit and listen to stuck behind a computer. Where would I listen to this kind of audio program except driving to work? -- so we've come back to caveat number one.

Well then. I feel better having had this little conversation. And I appreciate your contribution to the egg money fund by following sidebar ad links to the Biltmore House, Blue Ridge Parkway, Crooked Road, bed & breakfasts, and the good links to Virginia.org visitor information like the Virginia Travel Directory. (Sorry for too many that sell land or law or irrelevant junk, but they're getting more contextual over time.) I've been curious myself where some of these lead--like "hiking in Virginia"--but I can't go there per google's rules.

So the egg money fund will grow on little bit by bit, and I'll most likely look to invest in something related to either the photography or the writing. Or find a suitable local charity. When I decide, I'll let you know, and thanks again.

A Five Year Blog Retrospective

This was too much to post as a comment over on Nameless Creek as a followup to a recent "allegory about blogging", and perhaps a topic with which other bloggers might identify. Thanks Gary, Andy and others for your thoughts as I grapple with the purpose and end of blogging. Here I attempt to give voice to my vacillations pro and con about writing every day to this one-in-a-billion journal.

I feel such a strong ambivalence, not wanting merely to add to the noise of an increasingly bloated world of ego and opinion while having a self and point of view that wants to see the light of day.

I feel increasingly irrelevant in a world where more and more people are better qualified to discuss anything I would think to post. At some point, saving your own words is like saving barbershop floor clippings after a haircut. Yes, it's yours. But of what value is it?

I find, for good or ill, that blogging satisfies too many of my creative urges--to the extent that I don't have enough motivation to spill those energies over into anything concrete: a book, a magazine article, a for-real professional-quality gallery of images, a radio essay. Maybe that's okay. Sometimes I think so. Lately, not so much.

I don't want the blog to become a mere broadcast, and yet it feels far more monologue-ish and pushed compared to the multi-way, collaborative "front porch" it did at one time. There's still a point to using the blog as a simple repository for future reference or posterity (of uncertain value for either). But again, it seems a sad one-man band keeping time when nobody's dancing.

For the first three years of Fragments, I would have told you that there was at least one, usually more, reinforcing connections made through the blog every week--a new reader who was also a writer or editor; someone with connections in SWVA who felt reunited to place through the images on FFF; a "place blogger" who quickly became a kindred spirit and friend; a journalist, producer, photographer, writer, etc who was interested in or coming to Floyd and wanted to establish a relationship. Lately, not so much. None, actually.

For some of these deficiencies, I give myself credit. The teaching at Radford, the return to the PT clinic, the writing of the book, the marketing and promotion of the book, the Floyd Press regular column, the various other projects--all this has diminished my energies and focus for blogging. And rss readers put distance between me and the blogs I read in that way, and between those who read mine by newsfeed. There is a level of anonymity that didn't use to be there.

And some of the loss I feel is simply the nature of the beast, the nature of something become routine that once was innovative, cutting-edge and unknown. Heck, folks: five years of doing anything every day is a long time!

Above all, I don't want to become a blog that blogs about blogging.

Well, there you have it. I am my own worst enemy. And I apologize for this public navel gazing, and do so just to let you know I'm still home, still listening for the next traveler to pass down our slow road, still excited about this world-connection we have at our fingertips, and still just as confused as the rest of you about what all this means and where it is leading us.

What odd times we live in! -- Fred

Farmer's Tale

I woke up this morning thinking perhaps the wife in this little allegory from Fragment's ancient history was right.

When we expose our greatest hopes and precious things to strangers, we may be thought a fool. But the ordinary treasures we share may touch lives in ways we cannot imagine. This is the tale of one hopeful fool.

He prepared them lovingly, his precious mementos and carefully pressed flowers. He arranged them prominently on simple benches near the road. Just beyond, by the barn, a rough oak plank set across two tree stumps formed a crude table to display all manner of clippings and cards that flapped in the breeze-some brittle and yellow with age, others crisp and white from yesterday's journal.

Someone might care to turn the thin pages and read the forgotten stories, said the farmer to himself. Up around the bend near the low-water bridge, photographs were pinned haphazardly on the dark trunks of the maple trees-dog-eared, roughly framed or not at all; some new, most sepia toned from the passage of time, worn with a patina of love and memory. Trinkets and curios, found things and very private bric-a-brac lined the dirt road along a quarter mile of this seldom traveled path in a remote part of a sparsely peopled region of the rural land of Erehwon.

"Who will come?" she asked derisively. "You are a foolish old man" said the farmer's wife, "and if anyone comes, they will think you mad". read more...

Fragments Births Second Blog!

Overflow, I guess you could call it.

Turns out, there's more junk than will fit in the closet of Fragments from Floyd.

Actually, had I not needed to experiment with "new blogger" to help a friend set up his blog over the past couple of weeks, I doubt I ever would have felt the need for an "alter-blog".

But that's what I've got, and it's called Nameless Creek.

I confess, I like the ease of modifying the template without hacking code, though you can still get to the html of the template if you're a mind to.

Please stop by.

And notice--in a bit of a divergence from FFF--there are three AUDIO files within the first half dozen posts. So click away, and turn up your speakers.

And don't fail to note there are sponsored links over at Nameless Creek--an annex to the meager income that results from same on FFF. We appreciate your patronage, and check back here from time to time (I'm likely to point you in this direction) and see what shape it takes over the coming months.