I noticed last month that my blog stats were a little light on the views. And by a little light, I mean it was the second-worst January I’ve had in ten years of Just Jot it January. 2024 was tied with 2015.
And only just now, I realized why.
(I’m so behind the times, but that’s what you get when you pretty much drop off the face of the blog-earth for three years.)
What darkness came to light?
It’s because of the whole subscription thing. The fact that we don’t follow blogs anymore, we have to subscribe to them.
When I look at my email opens, I find they sometimes weigh heavier than my views on my blog.
Friends don’t need to visit anymore. They can just read in their emails.
Which is great! Don’t get me wrong. WordPress is still as clunky and unreasonable as ever, maybe more so.
(Definitely more so when you have to sign in fifteen times a day because you made the mistake of trying to comment on a blog you’ve never visited before. Grrr.)
I’m just glad to have figured out why my stats were so dismal, despite following the prompts every day. đ
It’s Friday! And that means I’m here with your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I’m quite proud of myself so far with keeping up on the blogging. I hope it will last. Here’s this week’s prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heavy/light/dark.” Use “light” and/or its opposites. Bonus points if you use all three. Enjoy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here to 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 our beautiful 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!!
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what youâre going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence â one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry â it doesnât matter. Just let the words carry you along until youâre ready to stop.
3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a particular subject. For instance, I will not say âWrite about dogsâ; the prompt will be more like, âMake your first sentence a question,â âBegin with the word âThe,â” or will simply be a single word to get you started.
4. Ping back! Itâs 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. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If youâre self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other personâs blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If youâre the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, âStream of Consciousness Saturday,â which youâll find below the âLikeâ button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if youâd like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers youâll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Today (Monday), I was stopped at a light behind an SUV on which someone had written names in the dust on the back window. Of the seven names (including “MOM”), three of them were names of the characters in the book I’m writing: Blake, Mason, and Dexter.
What are the odds?
(Checks to make sure my OneDrive isn’t compromised.)
(Adds the other three names to my character list. haha!)
If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, 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. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday youâre pinging back to is this weekâs! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If youâre self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. Itâs bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so thereâs no need to stick to the same âtheme.â
The rules that Iâve made for myself (but donât always follow) for âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
It’s me, writing a SoCS post on a Saturday morning. On one cup of coffee (it’s not enough).
I’ve spent the last half an hour looking for the last time I participated in my own promptâbarring Just Jot it January and the occasional post, I think it’s going on three years.
Here’s what I wrote in April 2021 in one of my last posts:
“I’ve been paralyzed every time I’ve thought about writing something. It’s not fear, exactly, but it kind of is. Anxiety, maybe? I dunno. Maybe I’m just totally out of practice.”
And as far as blogging goes, that hasn’t changed. Until now, when I’m still running on momentum from January.
So I’m going to try to be here more often.
I wrote six (6!) posts last year that weren’t One-Liner Wednesdays or Friday prompts.
Hey! It’s our first regular Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt of the year. Thanks so much again to everyone who participated in Just Jot it January. It was great! Here’s this week’s prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “watch.” Use it as a noun or a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here to 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 our beautiful 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!!
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what youâre going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence â one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry â it doesnât matter. Just let the words carry you along until youâre ready to stop.
3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a particular subject. For instance, I will not say âWrite about dogsâ; the prompt will be more like, âMake your first sentence a question,â âBegin with the word âThe,â” or will simply be a single word to get you started.
4. Ping back! Itâs 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. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If youâre self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other personâs blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If youâre the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, âStream of Consciousness Saturday,â which youâll find below the âLikeâ button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if youâd like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers youâll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
I was amazed that I actually managed to post a response to every prompt this year. Yay for organizers! Mine are proving to be a lifesaver, or certainly a stress-saver.
So? How did you do? Did you post every day in January? Did you at least jot something somewhere? Let me know in the comments, or write your own “I did it! #JusJoJan24 Edition” post, even if you only posted once, and link it back here.
Congrats to everyone who joined in! Here’s your annual participant badge.
Photo: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Unknown
My new calendar for 2024, I’ve discovered, has a quote at the bottom of the page on every month. This one has an illustration of a child in a green hooded jacket playing with a toy dump truck full of snow.
If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure.
Here are the simple JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. Youâll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
2 a) The rules that Iâve made for myself (but donât always follow) for âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
5. Have fun!
Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if youâre blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan24 and/or #JusJoJan24.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
This post is the last of my regular Just Jot it January 2024 efforts, and it’s an effort…
When I chose the word “calendar” for today’s prompt, there was no way I could have anticipated how I was going to use it.
Although, I think I’ve been here before now … at least once.
Where is here?
Here is sleep deprived. Here is a mother who stayed up all night last night with her son in the emergency room. You’ve heard this song before, right?
Anyhoo, he wasn’t admitted to hospital this time, and we were in and out of there in just ten short hours! That might be close to a record.
BUT! It did mean I missed something important. To me, at least.
I made an appointment to get my eyes checked in Decemberâthe appointment was for January 11th. A few days before that, the office called and told me the doctor wouldn’t be in, so she gave me another appointment. Guess for when?
So I called this morning from the emergency room to let them know I had to cancel the appointment this time.
I have another scheduled for February 15th. Three times lucky.
But oh, my poor wall calendar and all the covered up appointments!
This exhausted post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!
Well, this is it. Your thirtieth regular daily prompt for Just Jot it January 2024. I chose the word of the day myself. I’ll be back tomorrow with the final prompt of the monthâthe combination One-Liner Wednesday/JJJ24. And then, of course, we’ll have the wrap-up/we did it/where the heck did the time go post. So stay tuned!
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 30th, 2024 is “calendar.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
If you’d like to see the full prompt list, you can find the list HERE.
Here are the rules:
1. Please be sure to link back to THIS POST for Tuesday, January 30th, 2024.
2. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
3. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. Youâll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
4. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if youâre blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
5. Tag your post JusJoJan24 and/or #JusJoJan24.
6. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
7. The prompts will appear every day thatâs neither a Wednesday nor a SaturdayâSaturdayâs JusJoJan prompt will be Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Youâll find the list of prompts below as they come in, which means Iâll be updating this post. Remember, you donât have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you. NOTE: If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
8. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt comes to us courtesy of Kim. Check out her blog here!
Some family members you can happily live with, some not so much.
But I don’t think you’ll disagree that there are some family members none of us want to live with: the members of the rodent family.
True story that happened many years ago:
I walked into my kitchen one morning in time to see a mouse run under my stove. I shrieked, not because I’m afraid of mice, but because it startled me. I immediately got down on my hands and knees to look for the little critter, but there was no sign of it. I pulled out the drawer under the stoveânothing. It had disappeared.
But there were droppings. Lots of droppings.
I had someone pull the stove out from the wall to see if there was a hole it could have gotten through, but nothing was obvious. The next step was to take the side panels off the stove. Sure enough, there were more droppings in the insulation between the outside and inside walls of my oven. They’d built a nest. In my stove.
So I sold the house.
…
…
Okay, the family of mice might not have been the entire reason I sold the house, but I never cooked in the oven againâI didn’t want to bake the little buggers alive!âand the oven stayed in the house when I moved.
I did leave a note for the new owners.
It went something like:
The stove is yours, but not yours alone …
This reminiscing post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!
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