Velvet Verbosity

Who are these, my teachers? Not who I expected them to be. Not who anyone expected them to be. Lessons learned on love from a triad and a single journeying man. Lessons learned on parenting from a teenage boy. Lessons learned on patience from an angry, venomous girl. Lessons learned on forgiveness from a hypocrite. Lessons on grief and softening from a stranger let in. Lessons learned from the paradoxes of life, from the in-betweens and opposites and unexpected hidden corners. Who are these, my strange and wonderful teachers? The greatest lesson? Everyone has something to teach. Be still. Listen.

Last week’s 100 Word challenge was “Lessons”. The greatest gift to me in giving this challenge is getting a window into other’s thoughts and view on the world, and how that differs from my own.

Lceel uses a comical and light approach as he tells about early lessons in parenting.

Home from the hospital just a few days before. Our son, named after me. He was so small and helpless. And Annie was nursing. They would lay abed. And she would suckle him. And I would be shushed to silence. I was seldom there when he was awake. I ached to hold him, to touch him, to bond with him. Finally came the call. “Will you change him?” At last. My time with him, alone. Diaper off. I turn away for a moment, reaching for a diaper. I feel warm wet falling on me. Just one of life’s little lessons.

Secret Agent Mama (aka One Cool Secret Agent Mama) uses poetry to express frustration over others’ judgement on the important decision she has made for her children and family to homeschool:

You’re going to what?
Why would you want to do that?
I’d just send them to school,
Then you could get a job.
You know it’s going to be hard, right?
What about friends?
What about riding the school bus?
The cafeteria?
I think you’re being cruel.
Why on earth?

Do I care what you think?
How crazy you think I am?
Decisions not made lightly;
Life’s all about choices.
We’ve chosen what we feel is best for us.
Lessons learned, here at home,
Are applied everywhere, all the time.
Cruel, wrong, strange, or imposing?
It’s your judgment that is!

So, let’s see, what books do I have around here…ok, just looking over at my bookshelf without opening a book this time, the challenge for Thursday is:

Atonement

Happy writing, and please do pass the challenge on! Tell your friends, your neighbors, your bloggily buds. Oh, and news! Blog O’ The Week, One Sentence, has linked to the 100 Word Challenge on their About page. Onesentence.org is a place where you are challenged to sum something up with one sentence. There are no specific challenges, just whatever is on your mind. The majority are somewhat confessional, giving it a Post Secret feel, only not so heartwrenching.

This gal was one of my first and only readers back in the day.   That day was a year ago, and it was a Wednesday.  Or maybe it was a Tuesday.  Maybe it was a someday.  Anyway, she doesn’t blog often, only when she’s really got something to say.  It always packs a punch, tugs at the heart, makes you go hmmm, or haha, or “oh me too!” or “I wish I could fecking write like that”.

But I Digress…

Tell her Velvet Verbosity sent you.

Some things you just don’t want to know.

And don’t forget this week’s 100 Word Challenge. It’s not too late and don’t you want the opportunity to pick the next great challenge? Oh, I dunno. 100 Words on Ennui, or 100 Words on Belly Button Lint, or 100 Words on Small Things? It’s up to Larmsterpoet this week, join the challenge here.

I asked this question of some fellow bloggers over on the NaBloPoMo forum. Like, should I tell you, dear readers, that I blog in a bowtie and striped socks…only? Or that this morning I ate a double whopper from three days ago for breakfast? Or that I live in MaryMark Pennsylvania at 204 Iron Rod Lane? Or that my boyfriend likes to wear my bowtie and striped socks on Wednesdays at 7:32 P.M.?

Just how much should I tell a bunch of strangers, any of whom could be my next great stalker?

The truth is, I think I already have some answers to this question. And the answer depends largely on what you want to accomplish by blogging.

If you want to have an audience, a real audience, there are three known formulas that seem to work. 1. Have a topic or theme, and be an authority on it. 2. Get personal. 3. Be scathingly funny. It goes without saying that all three require good writing. And good writing combined with all three of the above is bound to be a hit.

Think about it. From a reader’s perspective, you might catch them once, but what will keep them coming back is either a desire to know more about your topic, or a desire to know more about the writer. Funny is just funny and people always come back for funny.

Blogs are a form of media and it stands to reason that what has always worked through history will work for blogs. Take television. The general categories of choice are news (informational television), drama (including the bane of our century, Reality TV), and comedy. You could break it down further, like into cartoons and music television, but these really still fall into the three larger categories.

Anyone can blog, and everyone seems to. However, not everyone is being read. (Whether everyone should be blogging is a topic for another post.) Gaining an audience requires emerging, through strong writing, into one of the general media categories. Establish yourself as an authority on something, reveal the drama of your own life, or take comedy lessons from Citizen of the Month. He’s even mastered how to harness all three here. (Look, it’s about his ex, her bra, and how he mastered the art of unhooking said bra so just go read it. You’ll learn, you’ll love, you’ll laugh.)

Myself? I don’t care if I have an audience. But if you do happen to be reading, perhaps you could say hello? You know, just a little comment so that I can see you’ve been here? Not that I care or anything.

I guess I’m still in Halloween mode. Maybe it’s because I have one more party to go to. If I’m going to be accurate here it’s a Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead party. And Dia de los Muertos is pretty different from Halloween in history and tradition.

Dia de los Muertos, a primarily Mexican holiday, originated with the Aztecs who believed death was not to be feared as it signified the entrance to higher consciousness. Higher consciousness…Heaven? What I want to know is why all the good stuff happens after we die? What is UP with that?

Get back to me on that.

For now, for your entertainment, check out the Skull-A-Day blog.

I offer you this link http://furyouhin.blogspot.com/ even though it comes at the risk that I will lose all (7) of my regular readers.

Is there a publisher in the house?