Postcards from the Funny Farm

Lorelle answered my support forum question several weeks ago, and I was very grateful. It was frustrating that she couldn’t answer my question about date headings per diem, but she gave me some advice and wisdom I will forever benefit by. She first told me that the per-diem separator I was looking for was found in the “classic” theme out-of-the-box. She also gave me some really good advice (though it was a bit painful to hear). She said something to the effect of: “You don’t know what you are doing” with regard to tweaking Wordpress themes. She pointed out that I was using color codes in the page and not in the css where they belong and that my theme creation had a lot of issues. If any of you remember, I called it “Navy” because I liked that color.

It was at that point that something kind of clicked in me after 8 months of blogging and tweaking themes. I realized I am 100% a blogger and not really much of a webmaster. I know a lot about code - scratch that - I know a little bit about a lot of things related to Word.... Most of it I have learned slowly by reading online tutorials. This is a blessing and a curse because I end up spending (wasting) a lot of time trying to do things I can’t do. Sometimes I wish I knew nothing about code and was content to accept the code others make for me. I know there’s wisdom in that. While I can’t create powerful Wordpress themes (yet!), I can write my thoughts down. After all that’s why I started blogging in the first place back in December of 2006.

I know that about myself, and I have also come to know that I am not a commercial blogger per se either. I thrive not on money (MMOL) but rather on keeping a web journal of my life experiences and things that interest me. [quote]As the authors of K2 say in their setup info: “Now all you have to do is decide if it’s a blog or a journal.” I know without question mine, by my definition, is a journal. To me, that’s an exciting thing.[/quote] If K2’s terminology starts to take on wide use (and they might because they are world changers for sure), that’s what I’ll label mine as.

I know of at least one of my readers who says she comes to my site to see the layout and features, but for the most part, I know my readers come back to read my posts. If they do go to my site, I think they are more interested in what is written than in what the layout looks like. I have a relatively small “fan base.” I have at time of this writing 131 feed subscriptions and an average of 275 hits to my blog each day (as measured by Google Analytics). But I think it’s exciting that I am learning so much about journaling.

My goal is to make 1000 feed subscriptions and around 2000 page hits per day by Christmas 2007. I’ve come a long way, learned a lot and I wanna keep going.

I think when you start it’s so hard to find your online identity as a writer and it can be very discouraging. It’s been said that if you have a “why” you can get by with any “how.” Nowhere is that more true than in blogging/web journaling.

Another thing I can do as a technical novice is report to my readers the quality themes I find. When I write posts like this I place them in the blogging category in hopes that fellow bloggers will find them helpful. I give them a strict test, you can count on that. I don’t just go: “Oh, that has a cool red in it” and recommend it. I add widgets, tweak things here and there, run an archives page , post pics, test line breaks and sizes etc. until I feel like it’s well built and reliable enough to recommend here. To make sure you get these posts about quality themes, subscribe to my feed. I’m not sure if the webmasters out there will see huge value in my feed, but since every writer brings a new angle to the art and science, you never know who might like it.

In conclusion: Thanks to Lorelle for the tough but helpful truth! Speaking of Lorelle: If you all out there want one of the most top shelf, state of the art Wordpress bloggers on your RSS reader, add her. She’ll keep you up to speed on good stuff. And of course if you want to follow the wild wacky adventures of my journaling world, add me.