Tag: blogging

Remembering 2011

Today is the first day of spring, and exactly one year since I switched the design on my blog from Twenty-Eleven to Franklin. I thought I’d take a look back at how if all else fails… looked before the facelift, you know, for the sake of posterity.

if all else fails…top

if all else fails…bottom
This look into the past brought to you by The Wayback Machine

 What was I thinking?

Really. I thought that was clever branding? Thank goodness my taste has developed over time.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Twenty-Eleven. I still think it’s one of the best and most versatile themes we have on WordPress.com, and I regularly recommend it to people. But I think I’ll be sticking with Franklin for a while 🙂

2015 in review

And it’s that time of the year again where blogs across WordPress.com are invaded by fireworks.

I’ll forgive you if you skip this – I hardly expect you to obsess over my stats – but I’m posting it here for easy reference for my own sake.

Short version: total views are up, in spite of number of posts being less than half of last year. The number of countries visited has also gone up, and the map on my stats page had several new spots filled in this year.

Thanks to all of you who kept reading, sharing and commenting. I hope you’ll keep doing that in 2016. Blogging isn’t any fun if you do it in isolation, after all 🙂

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

New Workshop: Blogging Basics for Writers, with the Vancouver School of Writing

A rare reblog on if all else fails…

Are you a writer? Are you plodding along with a blog because you heard a writer needs to have one, but you’re not really sure what you’re actually doing? Raincoaster is one of four people who taught me most of what I know about WordPress.com, and if anyone can teach you how to have an effective blog, she’s it. So check this out…

raincoaster media

Lorraine Murphy by Robert Shaer Lorraine Murphy by Robert Shaer

Yep, it’s happening! After a two-year layoff from teaching, I’m doing a new workshop, Blogging Basics for Writers, for the Vancouver School of Writing on October 1.

This one-evening course (which can be taken in person or virtually) will teach writers what they need to know in order to create their own blog, fill it, and use it to promote their writing, teaching, and other endeavors. Here’s the official blurb:

This virtual & live course is for writers interested in blogging. It lays out the basic principles behind building a blog which accurately and
professionally expresses you as an author. You’ll learn about the ins and outs of digital copyright, best practices for guest blogging and outreach, and how to handle the dreaded comments section. This is a non-technical course that will give you a solid grounding so you’re ready to move on and…

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