Sunday, January 10, 2016

It's all about the blog

New to me: guest blogging

At the end of the year I wrote my first ever guest blog post. It was published on December 18th on the wonderful Kathryn Vercillo's Crochet Consupicence website. The article is entitled "The Back Story of my Growing Blog". Why don't you head on over to read it? If you don't already know Kathryn (pictured below) you should really get acquainted. She is a freelance writer, blogger and fellow crochet lover and I first came across her when I spotted her book "Crochet Saved My Life". In my mind, she is the leading authority on the health benefits of crochet and my holiday reading has been her latest Hook to Heal book which I've enjoyed immensely. What a treat! 



It took a long long time to write my guest article. I just wanted it to be perfect because I was so keen to impress Kathryn. I was also visualizing a huge number of people finding out about me for the first time via my guest piece and worried that perhaps they wouldn't like me. Anyway, I mentioned my block to a professional writer friend and he advised me to just write the guest post as though it was for my own blog Crafty Escapism and his advice worked! The words started to flow again. Phew!

I've just finished my second guest post for a brand new crochet magazine being set up by a good friend and talented hooky lady Catherine and I'm repeating to myself "it's going on MY blog, it's going on MY blog..." to prevent any further blockages. It's a big topic - the health benefits of crochet - so keeping to the word limit is the challenging element this time. Of course I'll let you know where it is, when it's live.

All my blogs in one place with Bloglovin'


I've just discovered Bloglovin. I am now keeping all my favorite blogs in one place - genius! I do enjoy reading other people's blogs. I guess that's one of the reasons I'm blogging too, having been inspired by others. In Bloglovin you can search for any blog by name, click on the follow button and new posts will appear in your feed. I've installed the app on my phone and I am loving it.

In the past I've been a little haphazard in the reading of my favorite blogs. For some, I receive emails but they tend to get overlooked in the email deluge; others appear occasionally in my Facebook newsfeed but Facebook decides on what I see based on a complex algorithm so I suspect I miss a lot. I have saved some as icons on my iPad screen but I have icon overwhelm so these get missed. Bloglovin keeps them all together. The design is cute and clean and I'm a sucker for a user friendly interface.

Finding other yarn-related blogs


Bloglovin are also suggesting blogs that I may like based on my existing blog choices. I can enter a search term and search by category. It's all very helpful. Another place I go to find fellow craft bloggers is my favorite go-to-craft community Ravelry. There is a Ravelry group Blogging: a place for and about blogs with over 2,300 members. Not all of these members are bloggers! The group is for crafters who blog, read blogs or want to start a blog. I'm excited about adding new members to my new easy-to-access blog feed. Members of the Blogging group are invited to post their blog articles each month so it's really easy to see to find recent posts in a single thread.
 
 
 

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