The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Writing

The Blog Posts No One Reads

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In the old days I used to refer to blog posts that didn’t have any comments as orphans.

People thought it was clever and sort of witty but they also found my audioblogging posts about wandering through Target or the grocery store to be exceptionally good too.

But in the good old days of 2004-06 comments were usually plentiful and it was unusual, cool and progressive to have video or audio on your posts.

Some of my international readers would tell me they thought my accent was really cool and I would laugh and say “what accent? You are the one with the accent.”

Back then I was just a blogger and I never worried about being ranked for Dad, dad blogger, daddy blogger or any other keyword. I just wrote my stuff and had fun.

The Blog Posts No One Reads

Back then if no one commented I figured it was a poorly written post or checked to see if Blogger/WP was having some sort of technical issue because that was almost always the answer.

Now the orphan posts are not unusual and I wonder more if people are actually reading the material I crank out and not just because I crank out a lot of it.

But because we are besieged by content, by bells, beeps and whistles that demand our attention and require our eyeballs, or at least try to.

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So here I sit, writing while on hold, listening to awful music sharing these thoughts with you, wondering how much of the noise catches our attention long enough for us to actually read what is out there.

Wondering if you are like me and have winnowed the number of things you subscribe to down because you don’t have time to read the things you really want to.

Asking myself how much of my best stuff goes unread, unseen and unheard because we just didn’t have the time to read it.

Thinking that it is not just about marketing our material and tooting our horns. That is a part and a piece, but it is not all of it.

I suppose it is also part of why I link to posts like Where Fire Meets Water and The Finish Line Isn’t As Close As You Think because it gives them a chance to be read and seen.

Lately I have done that less to get them read and more because they make sense to me, or should I say something I wrote calls out to me.

Something that I saw, said, heard or observed resonates now and so I put it out again because part of the reason I write is to learn about myself and clarify my thoughts and ideas.

Comment There & Get A Comment Here

Some of the newbies and the old timers will tell you if you comment there you will get a comment here, meaning you can drive traffic to your blog by commenting on others.

There is a lot of truth to that but some of it is growing old for me.

Maybe it is because I have a crazy amount of stuff happening in my personal and professional lives or maybe it is because 12 years into this game I am tired.

What I know for certain is I want comments here because someone was moved by my words and not just because I commented on their blog.

Comment here because the words made you feel, think or see. Comment because you want to be part of a discussion and not because you hope it will make me comment there.

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Final Words- For This Post That Is

The funny thing about blogging is that you never do know what will resonate with others and what won’t.

Your best work will be met with scorn and disdain and or ignored while your worst will receive the opposite treatment.

If you jump on the treadmill you’ll run with a million rats chasing cheese and fighting over some crumbs.

It is a cruel and obnoxious way to put it, but it is sometimes true.

Some bloggers will bully others or at least try to and they’ll go after you guns blazing if you disagree.

But there are other approaches and ways to view the world.

The pie is bigger than we think and realize.

There is an enormous opportunity and if you open your eyes and manage your expectations you just might find you get what you need and maybe even what you want.

It is a hell of a ride, this blogging game. See you in the comments….maybe.

987 Critical Challenges Every Blogger Faces

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Do you think that lion in the picture above is sad or just contemplating life?

Is he wondering why the King Of The Jungle still has to deal with the ticky-tack challenges and niggling details that crop up and prevent us from enjoying a smooth passage from point A to B?

I’m not a lion so I can’t tell you but I have some experience dealing with some of these issues and even though I am a Taurus that is no bull.

Because when you start delving into becoming The Best Daddy Blogger ever and start looking at how to make your blog into a Blog because you think it can be something more, well you learn a few things.

Hell, the truth is you don’t have to try to make your blog into anything special to understand and appreciate some of the challenges and hiccups that come with this because in many ways it is no different than life in general.

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987 Critical Challenges Every Blogger Faces

Some of you might think that is hyperbole and perhaps it is, but there are times when it feels like there are 5 million challenges.

Ask anyone who is self-hosted what happens when there is an outage and customer service at the hosting company isn’t able to provide them with a satisfactory explanation about what is going on.

Or ask them what happens when they run into some other kind of technical issue and they can’t figure out how to fix it because they know there is a problem but can’t figure out how to identify what it is.

Hard to find a solution when you aren’t really sure what is going on.

Sometimes you know what the issue is but you still aren’t sure how to fix things.

but I don’t have links on my blog to most of those posts because many of those bloggers have taken down their blogs.

There was a time when I used to push people to check out my Other Places You Can Find Me page because I had guest posted at around 50 or so different blogs.

I thought highlighting that would help market my work and give something back to those other bloggers by providing them with a good link.

It worked for a while and then someone told me they had come across a bunch of bad links and I discovered a bunch of those bloggers had taken down their blogs or made them private.

Others were still live but the links to my posts were bad so I reached out and asked what had happened.

Some told me they had changed the URLs and some never responded at all. I wasn’t about to yell at them or whine about it so I just took down the links.

It is frustrating because what I really want to do is focus on my writing and becoming a better storyteller.

Isn’t one of the benefits of having children in middle and high school knowing they are responsible kids and you don’t have to worry about them the same way you did when they were infants and toddlers.

It is not like I have to ask them 10,000 times to clean their rooms or do their homework. Right.

Right. 🙂

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The last time I changed my theme I did so because I thought it improved the experience for those of you who are kind enough to read my words.

I thought that providing a way to insert bigger pictures would enhance the texture and add layers which would also benefit my ability to tell a story.

Based upon feedback and my experience it seems to have done that quite nicely but it also created a number of technical issues too.

I don’t have time to go through 10,000 posts to make sure all of them work as they should but I do try to do a little bit of work on it each day.

Sometimes I wonder if that means I am not determined to break through the brick walls.

Sometimes I wonder if it is tied into some of the disdain I feel about the need to always get first place.

I am not someone who requires a lot of validation. Doesn’t mean I would be upset if I was named the best whatever because that is always nice, but it is not what makes me wake up and get out of bed.

The Real Question

The real question here isn’t about creating a list of all of the challenges bloggers face and that is not just because list posts are the lazy bloggers ways to create content.

It is about asking what happens when you face one or more of these challenges.

What do you do when you discover your home internet service is down for an extended period (thank you Time Warner) or the kids are screaming while you try to write.

I do my best to look at all in the same terms my good friend Ralph suggests:

“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

And then I’ll tell you I’m also known to toss in an extended stream of colorful language.

Sometimes parenting, life and blogging are best described as not being for the faint of heart.

You will be challenged. You will be inspired. You will be angered and exasperated but if you do it right you’ll have a lot of fun too.

Confessions of Sexual Conquests In Social Media

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If you are here to read lurid and brazen tales of sexual conquests and social media I won’t be surprised.

That is because Five Stories Of Sexual Conquest In Social Media has been one of the most highly trafficked posts I have ever written.

Would you blame me if I tried to capture lightning in a bottle again by using a similar headline or would you accuse of me using linkbait and stupid blogger tricks to entice you to read my words.

If the goal is to get you to read and to think then there is nothing wrong with linkbait. Nothing wrong with pointing out that blogging became a popularity contestand sometimes we have to shake the tree.

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I don’t know who that woman is or if she knows how to play the guitar but I liked the segue into the next section.

It made sense to me to talk about how I wish I knew how to play the guitar and how I would use my music to shake the damn tree and make some things happen but the only thing I know how to do with a guitar is just strum it.

But that is not really playing it, so unless I pretend to play it all I can really do is use it as a hammer, a shillelagh that if could be used in a more gentle manner to make people feel something and or encourage them to change.

What Happens When Nothing In Your Life Goes As You Planned It To?

I asked the question in March of 2012 never realizing that in less than a year my life would change in big and dramatic ways.

Never realizing this blog would serve as  the chronicle of those changes and make it possible for me to look back and mark some key moments in my life.

One day my children will ask me if I can tell them about certain moments in time and how some decisions were reached and I’ll point to the blog and tell them to read about it.

I’ll tell them the blog can be one of the most powerful resources they have for understanding themselves and others and suggest they write their thoughts down.

If they agree to flip through the pages and see what lies inside I’ll probably tell them to read posts like The Lazy Guardian Angel and wait to see what sort of questions they ask.

Mostly I’ll wait and wonder if they have any sense of how influential this blog has been upon their lives and mine.

The Power Of Writing- 12 Years

I turned 47 today, assuming that the clock hasn’t rounded past midnight.

In a couple of weeks I’ll celebrate my 12th blogiversary and think about all that has happened since that 35-year-old man started writing on a whim.

That guy had an infant daughter and a son was barely out of his toddler years.

He had a father on life support and a ton of uncertainty, not just about whether dad would live or die but what he was supposed to do to support his mother, siblings and grandparents.

That kid barely knew where to turn and operated off of gut instinct and took his strength from writing crap down on a screen.

Who knew that others would read it and that he would become friends with some of them or that the experiences he had there would make him turn his life upside down and inside out.

Do Things Happen For A Reason?

If I knew how to play an instrument or could sing I would answer the question with music and words.

Instead I am listening to Led Zeppelin play Kashmir and smiling broadly because I have lived, learned and loved enough to know there is something more out there but just what it is I can’t quite say.

There is something more than just us floating around the ether, something that helps to explain the things that happen for no apparent reason and covers what science cannot.

It doesn’t matter whether you agree or believe because I am not here to try and convince you.

I am only here to say I am convinced we have free will but that there have been moments that make me wonder what magic has helped to move me from one place to another to have introduced me to something or someone.

Ask me if that means I don’t believe in science and all that is tangible and I’ll say you are wrong. I believe in science and I believe there is something else.

I don’t care if it sounds hokey or ridiculous to you or anyone else. I am an amalgamation of all that I have learned and experienced.

Hell, there have been people I have met where I discovered a connection that was deep and significant.

A connection that shouldn’t have been felt so deeply and so quickly but it was. All it took was a moment.

So I live my life based upon what I know and what science has taught me but with an understanding that sometimes I pull the Joker from the deck and that Joker is wild.

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There is someone out there I haven’t seen in years and I’d lay money down that if she kissed me once time would stand still and it would feel to us as if we were standing in the middle of a lightning strike.

That is the sort of moment and magic that convinces me there is something out there.

A Different Sort of Puberty

Steiner the minor has probably grown three inches in six months and his voice continues to drop octaves by the day.

He is not quite as tall nor is his voice as deep as mine but I see that happening sooner than later.

Sunday afternoon I watch him move some heavy items and I smile because I see how easy some of it is becoming for him.

His Steiner strength isn’t in full effect, but it will be soon and the day is coming when he’ll also be as strong as I am.

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I feel a bit like I am undergoing a different sort of puberty. My writing is better than ever and even though I may not always hit a homerun I feel solid and secure.

It reminds me of what it was like to be around 20 and to know that if I treated my body well it would take care of me.

This is why I have practiced and pushed myself to become a better writer. To move into a place where the skills were not that of a youth but the place that comes with adulthood.

What is coming soon will help me figure out if I am correct and if I have found the write stuff. We shall see.

Bernie Sanders Is Sleeping With Hilary & Trump

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Don’t tell anyone but a teenager just pressed every one of my buttons and three I didn’t know I had.

It probably doesn’t explain why I want to tear the door off of the hinges, throw every loose item in a garbage bag and start vacuuming at 4:30 AM or maybe it does.

Maybe it would be smarter and safer for all parties if I pretended aliens came down from outer space and sucked out the common sense from the still-developing teenage brain.

Bernie Sanders Is Sleeping With Hilary & Trump

You might wonder how a man like myself can move from the opening ‘graph into a subhead that should be taken as an example of hyperbole.

The reason you shouldn’t wonder is if you are reading this you are clearly surfing the net and are aware it is populated by nitwits, buffoons, morons and three village idiots who have yet to find their way home.

And some of the aforementioned folks seem to believe that articles by The Onion and their competitors are truth.

Hell, some of them clearly believe anything that appears online should be accepted as gospel and not questioned because logic and reason are tools that other people use, not them.

Did I mention I just broke a tooth and how much betrayal by my body pisses me off.

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I was tempted to put a caption like ‘Shofar sho good” on this picture but I don’t know how many of you would understand it, let alone find it funny so I didn’t.

Truth is I am writing this post in large part to clear my head and calm down because I truly am frustrated with multiple things and people.

Instead of going to a second seder we went to a wedding tonight.

Typically that is not something that would happen but this was a special occasion and something that required adjusting schedules around.

Ten minutes within arrival I was introduced to a man who I took an immediate dislike to. Can’t say if intuition told me that he was going to be a jerk (he was and he is) but I can tell you I had a visceral response to meeting him.

It surprised me and when I walked away I felt like I hadn’t been fair and made a point to go speak with him again.

I was disappointed by his proving my initial assessment correct and frustrated that I was seated at the same table.

Part of me felt guilty because if my kids told me they didn’t want to spend an evening with someone they disliked I would tell them they could manage it for a short while.

I’d say that we aren’t going to be sitting the whole time and tell them part of growing up is learning how to be civil with people we dislike.

Well, I wanted to civilly tell that schmuck to smile while I jammed that ram’s horn up his rear. I didn’t want to jam it up there to hurt him, but to help him.

How else would I help pull his head out of his ass?

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I am not going to lie and say I don’t have a temper because I do and you don’t want to be on the wrong end of it.

But I can say the benefit of having some life experience is it takes some doing to bring it out of me.

Generally if I focus my ire upon you it is because I have made an effort to remove myself and you have refused to allow me to do so.

As I told my teen, that doesn’t mean I am not human and that I don’t get angry or that I never fly off of the handle.

I have done so and will do so again.

Can’t say when, why or how, just that I will.

But I can say I am very aware of how I feel and hold myself accountable for my behavior and my actions.

It is just part of being a responsible person and understanding that acting out of anger is probably going to lead to consequences I prefer to avoid.

How Do You Find The Write Stuff?

There is a story called Timing that I have run several times here.

Technically the first time I published it was on the old blog way back in 2010.

It receives comments and compliments every time I run it and I am proud of the writing. It is a fragement of a bigger story and a reminder.

A reminder that I need to bear down and take the time to write the whole damn thing. I need to do more than just publish the fragments.

I pay attention to the posts where I feel like the words flow my fingertips. Spit or Swallow is another one of those too.

The question I ask is what distinguishes these from the average post and how I can duplicate that each time I put pen to paper.

No need to reinvent the wheel, especially if I don’t have to.

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I can tell you there is No Cure For Blogging and say I walked away from the computer for a moment because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about good writing and how to wrap this post up in a neat little bow.

The beauty of blogs and blogging is that it provides us with a cybersandbox in which we can both practice and experiment with our craft.

That is what I here and a big part of why I write.

And now my friends it is time to go see the teen and talk about this last moment and see if we can come to an understanding.

If not, well someone will be reminded about who is called dad and who isn’t.

(P.S. Yeah little sisters, I know I sound just like dad. It happens. 🙂 )

The 10 Minute Blog Post

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I don’t write solely because I want to, but because I have to. It is an  involuntary exercise like breathing to me except

It is an  involuntary exercise like breathing to me and though I won’t physically die if I don’t do it I will see my heart and soul shrink a size or two.

For a long time I forgot about the importance of writing but twelve years ago I started blogging and in some ways I was reborn.

If that sounds like hyperbole to you I am guessing you are not a writer and that’s ok. Or maybe you are a writer and it still sounds like hyperbole, that is ok too,

The world would be dull if we were all the same.

A Blogging Experiment

I decided I wanted to link to some old posts but that this time around I would experiment a little bit with how I do it.

We’re going to create a list with pictures and links and see what happens.

The Birthday Party Dilemma

The Shackled Writer

The Cure For A Bad Day

The Great Dad Blogger War Of ’06

The People In Your Life

It Happened One Yom Kippur

Time Is Almost Up

My ten minutes is almost up so I have to decide if I should talk about the value of comments, whether Twitter is still a valuable platform or children and social media.

Chances are I will focus on the children and social media angle in a post later today. Got a situation here that is unfolding that reminds me about how happy I am that this sort of cyber world didn’t exist when I was a kid.

It is not easy helping my children navigate it either and sometimes I find it disheartening to see how cruelty can be extended throughout the night and day.

But there have been positives that are tied into it all too, but we’ll save that talk for later.

For now I will leave you with this thought which applies to writing as well as to photography.

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What Is The Proper Length For A Blog Post

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My favorite posts are raw and authentic. They are the ones where we don’t hold anything back, pieces where you place raw emotion upon the page and say ‘this is me.’

I have one of those floating around inside my head, a post that is intimate, personal and painful but I haven’t figured out yet if I am going to publish it publicly.

But I’ll write it down and put it upon paper because that will help provide clarity and understanding and maybe it will illuminate the path I need to walk upon to get to the other side.

Sometimes the way forward requires looking back so you can see where you have been.

In the interim I’ll share a piece I wrote a few years back that people still talk about because it is timeless.

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The Proper Length Of a Blog Post

She accused me of plagiarism and gave me 12 ‘F’s. Don’t ask me to try and explain how I received those 12 failing marks on one paper because I can’t tell you.

It happened twenty-six years ago and I simply don’t remember what sort of cockamamie grading system she had in place. I remember her black wig and how she liked to eat raw sticks of butter.

And I remember how she told me that my writing was inferior. It made me angry but I didn’t let that stop me. When she refused to listen to me and insisted that I had cheated on my paper I decided that she was unhinged.

Of course that was before I noticed the wig and sticks of butter. When you are a 17  year-old boy you tend not to notice that kind of stuff because you are too busy trying to look cool in front of the girls.

I don’t know that I ever managed to pull off cool, but I think it is fair to say that I learned how to write. That is assuming that you accept her insistence that my writing was inferior.

I suppose it is possible that it was, but I doubt it. Since I don’t have any of the papers I wrote for that class you’ll have to decide if you accept her word or mine.

Writing Isn’t About Limits

Every week I try to participate in several different online writing groups. Some of these groups provide writing prompts for us to write about. In addition to a topic they usually provide a word count and ask that we not exceed it.

I hate word counts. I don’t like limits. Writing isn’t about limits.

Writing is about telling a story. It is about using words to paint a picture inside the minds of the readers.

Word counts create limits that impact the tales that must be told.

Don’t limit yourself. Don’t let your stories be ripped apart, shredded and destroyed by the limits of length. A tale must be as long as it needs to be to be told.

Tighten Your Tale

A while back someone told me that word counts were a good way to instill discipline in our writing. They said we should limit our words to only those we require to tell the tales that must be told.

My response was that “brevity can bite me.”

That is because my stories are going to be as long as they need to be. I wish that I had told the Butter Eater to adjust her wig and suck on another salty stick. She wasn’t supposed to try to crush the imaginations and dreams of her students.

Don’t get me wrong because she didn’t crush mine. She lit a fire under my ass and made me want to prove her wrong. But that is neither here nor there.

When you are telling the tales that must be told you need to just write. You need to put pen to paper or fingertip to keyboard and let the words flow forth. Write first and edit later.

Word counts cause confusion because they create a condition in which you let your internal editor take creative control. Don’t do that. Write with reckless abandon and use as many words as you need.

I am not repetitive because I am forgetful. I am repetitive because it is necessary.

Tell A Story

A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Every story you write needs those three things. Go read It Was Logical and you’ll find them there waiting for your visit.

Word counts are for bad stories. Word counts are for worriers who wonder how they are going to read 100 papers. Word counts are for very specific papers and purposes but they should only be used as guidelines and not as law.

Learn how to tell the tales that must be told with talent and you won’t ever have to worry about a word count again.

And now if you will excuse me I am going to start stretching because in a moment I am going to be chased by a thousand angry editors. So I am going to run and lead them on a merry chase hither and thither.

Once they are exhausted and worn out from our time on the road I shall sit down and let them know that I believe in brevity. I will tell them that we should all work on tightening our tales and using fewer words to tell them.

But it should only be done after we have spit out how ever many words it takes to tell the tales that must be told.

Just write my friends without wonder or worry. Just write without regard for word count, editors or readers because when you do that your passion will come out and your personality will prevail.

Success shall be ours.

P.S.  Don’t forget to take a gander at A Confession About The Secrets We Share.