“Write drunk, edit sober.” Some say it was Hemingway who said it, some say Peter deVries. Whoever. More than this quote has made me wish I could handle being an alcoholic for the sake of my writing. When you consider how much genius has come out of known drug abusers (see any number of rock stars), you have to wonder if there’s anything to it. I mean, seriously, so much comes to mind when you’ve had a few that appears, at least in that moment, to be the most brilliant idea that anyone ever has ever come up with, that how can you possibly be wrong? What can you possibly say that’s not completely off-the-wall enlightening to the whole of mankind? Poetry flows, prose splats onto the page like the very sunshine that beams through your window – or would if it wasn’t actually the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping, like you should be…
But then.
You wake up in the morning and read that is which is splatted unceremoniously upon the page and you think… I need to be sober to edit this crap.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
Aaaand now for something completely different. I agonized long and hard over this prompt and finally I’ve decided to take the plunge.
Your final prompt in the 2015 edition of Just Jot It January is, sex.
Want some suggestions on how to use this prompt? Do you really need them? Okay, here we go:
1. The obvious.
2. The not-so-obvious. Try really really hard NOT to write something overt while sticking to the subject. In other words, keep it subtle.
3. Sex – everyone’s got one. Write something educational!
4. Don’t use the prompt at all! It’s not mandatory – it’s only if you get stuck. Alternatively, use the prompt every day for 10 days. It’s up to you!
5. I’m adding a fifth suggestion this time around. I strongly suggest that if you write something explicit, you write “Explicit” in the first sentence, so as not to surprise anyone at work. ALSO, if you write something non-explicit but you have a suggestive title to your post, write “Non-Explicit” in the first sentence so that your readers will know it’s safe to go ahead.
Please make sure you check back both here and at the pingback page and see who has posted – it’s a great way to build your blogging community and reciprocate. And don’t forget the most important part – have fun!! Let’s finish the month off with a bang, shall we? 😀
I thought as it’s the last day of the second Just Jot It January prompt, which is ‘Rithmatic, I’d take the opportunity to talk about a little website called alexa.com. Actually, it’s a huge website, dedicated to calculating every other website’s world ranking. Mine, this one you’re reading now, apparently comes in a little over 1.7 millionth in the world, and a little under a respectable 400,000th in the United States, where, according to Alexa, 80.1% of my traffic comes from. Cool, eh? It does the ‘rithmatic for you!
The numbers seem to fluctuate often – every minute perhaps? How accurate it is is anyone’s guess.
You can look up your site too. Just google “alexa rank” and your web address. There’s a search bar there too. If you find your site high in the ranking compared to mine, take heart. My fiction blog (at http://lindaghillfiction.com/ – go visit sometime!) ranks just under 17 millionth in the world – so high that it refuses to give me any more stats. (It seems the closer you are to #1, the more stats you get.)
If you’re interested in checking your own website, comment with your ranking!
It seems, to me anyway, that the last few days have been wrought with uncertainty and a balance in which negativity outweighed the positive. Time to lighten things up – who’s with me?
Almost everyone has a completely useless talent. It’s not easy to find an appropriate reason to show them off, is it? So here’s your chance.
My useless talent is the ability to recite the ingredients of a Big Mac – backwards. A girl who sat in front of me in the fifth grade had them written on the back of a t-shirt and, as boring as geography was, I memorized them.
What’s your useless talent? Show ’em off in the comments!
As I head off to the dentist this morning, free to do so since Alex is FINALLY back to school, I can’t help but think of a single, positive word. Most relevant at the moment for me, and I hope in some way for you as well. So without further ado:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heal/heel.” Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
A letter has been sent to the powers-that-be at WordPress. Please, continue to comment with your support and re-blog (especially re-blog) the post Save HarsH ReaLiTy; I believe the more it gets around, the less likely WordPress is to miss it. And who knows how long it will take for them to pay attention to my letter? Now the comments are in the hundreds – lets strive for the thousands before the lucky person who reads our petition gets to see the post!
On behalf of myself, all of you, and equally, Jason, here is what I wrote. I sincerely hope it is adequate to the task at hand:
Hi,
I’m writing to bring to your attention a situation which I and hundreds of other WordPress users with both free and paid accounts feel that has perhaps been overlooked.
A popular blog, aopinionatedman.com has been given a partial suspension due to flagging for excessive “follows” within a certain time frame which, I am led to believe, is a common practice used by “spammers.” The above mentioned site is, however, not one of these.
Mr. Cushman of the blog entitled “Harsh Reality” is a genuinely caring advocate of the WordPress community, a place where many people find entertainment, an outlet to share, and in many cases literally life-saving support, as I’m sure you know. Please find here: https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/14/save-harsh-reality/ a petition of support for what he does, his blog, and how much his practices mean to other bloggers. Advocates for Mr. Cushman’s continued full-service abilities can be found in the hundreds in the comments of my post. I understand that there have been complaints against aopinionatedman.com, yet I strongly suspect that the supportive souls far outweigh the negative feedback.
I, therefore, humbly request that you reinstate his ability to “follow” and “like” other blogs. I’m sure I am far from the only blogger who has been encouraged by Mr. Cushman to pay for his or her site – not that I nor anyone else would necessarily remove our “paid” status from WordPress, but it would be a shame if such an advocate, not only for bloggers but for WordPress themselves removes himself from your site.
Thank you in advance for your speedy attention to this critical matter.
Yours very sincerely,
Linda G. Hill
So I read WordPress’s Terms of Service. Fun times. Basically they cover their “assets” by saying they can do whatever they want – we agree to this when we sign up. Feel safe? Check section 16.
Termination. Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. If you wish to terminate this Agreement or your WordPress.com account (if you have one), you may simply discontinue using the Website. All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.
HarsH ReaLiTy’s access to “follow” and “like” blogs was suspended. This is why, and I quote from a letter made public in the forums:
Hello,
We have noticed unusual behavior in your account, and have disabled several social features of WordPress.com, such as liking and/or following, as a result.
You have agreed to our Terms of Service which specifically says your “blog is not getting advertised via unwanted electronic messages such as spam links on newsgroups, email lists, other blogs and web sites, and similar unsolicited promotional methods”.
Your rapid pattern of liking or following has exceeded our hourly limits many times, which caused your account to be flagged.
Your ability to follow other blogs will not be restored. If you genuinely need to follow so many blogs, we would encourage you to use an external RSS feed reader (eg. Feedly.com).
Lisa | Community Guardian | WordPress.com
As a result of this, Jason Cushman, aka Opinionated Man, owner of HarsH ReaLiTy, has said he will close down his site – and I can’t blame him. He has done more for bloggers on WordPress than anyone I know: what enabled him to do so is the very thing they are accusing him of doing wrong.
One would hope that the above is at least in part a form letter, sent to those whose blogs are flagged. One would also hope that there is a real human being investigating these automatic flags – a human being with compassion, common sense, and an eye for discerning what is truly malicious and self-serving and what is genuine human interaction, as evidenced by the comments here: Save HarsH ReaLiTy!!.
It is with this hope that I will send the above link to the Terms of Service people. I can’t help but believe that they will see that their automated systems have picked up on a unique situation and that the matter needs to be dismissed as a non-issue.
Please – I ask you one more time, if you haven’t commented on Save HarsH ReaLiTy!! do so now. The more support this gets, the more chance there will be to get Opinionated Man back.
No one likes spam. In internet terms (as opposed to the stuff you find on the grocery store shelf) it’s the bane of our existence. Its sole purpose is to get our attention and once it does, it either begs us to buy something or gives us something we would never pay for – something like a virus.
Then there is the exception to the rule. In fact, there is only one exception that I’ve found in over a decade of browsing the web. It may have seemed like a “spam follow” at the start, but when I followed the cookie-crumb trail that led me back to its source, it ended up benefiting me beyond my wildest dreams: it was HarsH ReaLiTy.
Jason, also known as Opinionated Man, has a huge (over 50,000 blog, twitter, and Facebook combined) following on his blog, HarsH ReaLiTy. His passion for connecting with other bloggers is instantly recognizable by the way he interacts in the comments. How did he get such an audience? By following other blogs. By doing the exact same thing our self-serving spammers do. The difference is, Jason gets the attention of other bloggers and once he does, he helps them! Not by selling them things they don’t need – by guiding them to find followings of their own.
He has dedicated hours and hours to create places for bloggers to find their communities:
The trickle-down benefits alone are nothing less than astounding. If you have ever read any of my helpful hints on blogging, you can thank Jason – he taught me three quarters of what I know.
Why am I telling you all this? WordPress has seen fit to suspend HarsH ReaLiTy’s ability to follow and “like” other blogs. It’s a crime. WordPress is taking away one of its own biggest assets – a service provided to its own patrons, FOR FREE, and out of the goodness of one man’s heart. I wrote a post myself about how hard he works to help others grow their blogs here: https://lindaghill.com/2014/09/23/wordpresss-own-welcoming-committee-harsh-reality/
If Jason C. Cushman has ever helped you, if you have ever read any of his blogging advice, if you have ever guest posted for him, if he has ever re-blogged you, if you have ever commented on HarsH ReaLiTy and met another blogger there, please sign below.
Comment – leave your words of support or just write the words, Save HarsH ReaLiTy. I will make sure the WordPress powers-that-be see this post and all the support that goes with it.
Re-blog – make sure this goes out to every corner of WordPress that Jason has reached.
HarsH ReaLiTy is not a spam blog. It is WordPress’s shining star.
Edit: I’m purposely NOT responding to comments here so as not to dilute the message: WE SUPPORT HARSH REALITY AND WHAT JASON DOES TO HELP BLOGGERS!! Thank you to all who have shared and commented so far, and thanks in advance to all who will. Please keep commenting and re-blogging! Let’s keep this at the top of the Reader!
Edit: Now that HarsH ReaLiTy’s suspension is lifted I’ll turn off the comments here. This post will remain, however, as testimony to what Jason means to us! Long live Opinionated Man!!
Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented and re-blogged. Your support is both overwhelming and heartwarming.
Now pass around the cookies!! 😀
Edit – April 20th: Jason re-blogged this with the following comment:
I actually didn’t read this until now because I was moody at the time. I feel the love from this post and the comments here. Thanks bloggers. -OM
I’ve turned the comments back on. You’re very welcome, Jason. It was the least I could do for all you’ve done for this community. 😀
For some random reason I was thinking today about a series of prank phone calls I received a while back and, as I often do, I thought about what I should have said. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Thinking of the perfect response half an hour – or half a year – later is one of my pet peeves. But I digress.
These particular calls came one night when I was alone in the house, trying to get some hard-earned sleep. They started after midnight with someone, a party blasting in the background, asking me for somebody I wasn’t. Apparently it was so hilarious that Mona or whoever they were looking for wasn’t at my number that they called back again. And again. And again. Drunk out of their gourds, I think they were passing the phone around each time they dialed.
Back to my brilliant idea. What I should have done:
Me: Domino’s Pizza
Them: (or so I imagine they would say) Hey, you dialed Domino’s!
Me: How can I help you?
Them: You guys want a pizza?
Me: Will that be for delivery?
Them: Sure!
Me: (muffling a giggle) What’s your address? Phone number?
Ah, drunk people are just too easy. At least in my imagination. If I ever get a chance to try this, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Just Jot It January – it’s the bomb! Join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/
lindaghill.com 