All Bloggers Are Losers

Posted on October 30, 2016 by luckyotter

I don’t think this odious post deserves to even be linked to, but I’m reblogging it anyway because it’s one of those “things that make you go WTF.” The writer stopped blogging 6 years ago anyway so it won’t matter (their last post was written in 2010, which means this post, written in 2009, was NOT their last blog post.)

This post explains why he decided to quit blogging. Because “all bloggers are losers.” He came to that conclusion after ONE WEEK of blogging. And decided to write a blog post about it. Mainly, it seems they got frustrated because they weren’t getting many views. After one week of blogging. Newsflash: it takes months, hell, even years to build up a good-size following or a high view count. When I was blogging for a week, I had 12 followers. 12!!!! Was it frustrating? YES! I griped about it here. But did I give it up? HELL, NO. Now I have over a million views and thousands of followers. It takes time, people. And patience isn’t a virtue of mine.

The blogger also claims he got “only” 64 views a day. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s very high for a blogger who has only been blogging for a week. I don’t think I had 64 views until at least my second week–and that was per WEEK, not day.

I think the real loser was the author of this post. It’s a shame too, because this blogger actually had some decent writing skills.

A few other choice entries from this blogger-hating blogger:

5 Types of Blogs You Should Be Killed for Creating

People Who Set Their Blogs to Private Are Gay

The Evils of the “What I Did Today” Blog Post

Girl Bloggers Get More Attention Than Guy Bloggers

Shotgun Facelift

I’ve been blogging for just about a week now. My journey into the world of blogs has come to a close and the results are in. I now feel like I’m in a position to comment about blogs and bloggers in general but I thought I’d just start with a good, old fashioned blanket statement (or generalisation) and announce that: ‘All bloggers are losers’

I’ll tell you how I reached this conclusion, or discovered this fact, or solidified my hypothesis very slowly and very methodically – so by the end of it, you’ll agree with me and will hastily scramble to your Dashboard to annihilate your blog from the ‘Blogosphere’. (My god, I fucking hate buzz words.)

Irony at its finest

The first time I made my blog I couldn’t help but feel slightly weird. Why was I doing it? Why should I write things for other people to read? Is it for myself?…

View original post 300 more words

I am back WordPress…

Posted on September 10, 2016 by luckyotter

Jason a/k/a Opinionated Man, has moved back to WordPress.com! I’m curious about the reason for the change, since he was so excited when he decided to self-host, but I guess the HarsH ReaLiTies (sorry, could not resist) of self-hosting must have gotten to him after awhile. I know I wouldn’t want to try it.

I’m secretly glad he’s moving back, because somehow, when he was self hosted, he seemed somehow farther away and less accessible to all of us newbies, scaredy-cats, and technophobes still on WP.com.

Welcome back, Jason!

11 ways blogging has changed my life.

Posted on August 17, 2016 by luckyotter

Next month will be Lucky Otter’s Haven‘s 2 year anniversary! It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long. I started blogging only 6 months after going No Contact with my ex. It has become a real addiction, but much more than that–it was a game changer for me. My life is not the same as it was two years ago. Here are ten (plus one) ways blogging has changed my life.

1. I’ve become a much better writer. I’m rather embarrassed by how badly written some of my early posts were. I think I’ve honed my writing skills and use a lot less “purple prose” and unnecessary adjectives than than I used to–that has always been a huge weakness of mine when it comes to writing.

2. I’ve become more self confident and less shy. Writing about your thoughts and feelings teaches you a lot about yourself. You become more introspective and in so doing, realize a lot of good things about yourself, and that gives you confidence. You also get validation from others, and that boosts your self esteem. You also find out that most people aren’t going to judge you for things you thought were shameful or embarrassing. It takes a while to work up the courage to write about such personal things, but once you do, you realize that your words may have helped or inspired someone else and they will appreciate you for your honesty. This has translated into my real life to some degree–while I’m still shy and awkward in social situations, I seem to be a bit more outgoing and less awkward now.

3. I’ve made some wonderful friends. Although I haven’t met any of my blogging friends, I feel like we’re a family, and for a few of you, I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. Before blogging, I felt so alone and isolated, but in the blogosphere, I’ve found so many people who have stories similar to my own, have gone through similar kinds of trauma, and we’ve grown to care abut and support each other. We’re like the surrogate family we never had!

4. I’ve become more creative. Writing almost every day forces me to consult my “muse” and the more ideas I think of to write about, it seems the more ideas just come to me, and some of them are pretty wild! I go ahead and write about those crazy ideas too, and sometimes those prove to be my best posts.

Hello world. This is my very first blog. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing yet or how the heck this thing (WordPress) works. I’m learning so please be patient with me.

–The first sentence of my first blog post, Lucky Otter’s Haven, 9/10/14

5. I’m a better person than I was. Writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings, and exploring painful memories helps purge a lot of the pain that was keeping me from moving forward into real healing. Writing is powerful therapy and I find that today I’m less depressed, less angry, less fearful, have more moments of joy and serenity, and have even become more outgoing. I’ve also developed a lot more empathy, which was almost unavailable to me when I began blogging.

6. A blog is a great record of how you’ve changed over time. It’s always fascinating (and a little horrifying!) to go back and read over old posts and see how much you’ve changed. It gives you perspective and clarity. I can tell by the tone of my early posts that I’m not the same–my early posts were a lot more bitter, angry, whiny, and cynical, and a LOT less spiritual (I was agnostic when I started blogging). I realize a lot of that attitude was because I was only recently out of an abusive relationship and was still in shell shock, but blogging has definitely helped me overcome that.

7. My computer skills are better. Setting up and designing my blogs has given me more confidence in my computer skills. I can do a lot of things on a computer I didn’t used to be able to and thought would be difficult but are really not.

8. Blogging has given me a focus and a goal. All my life, I never had a real goal and never really knew what I wanted to do with my life. Narcissism and narcissistic abuse has always been my primary topic on my blogs, but lately my fascination with this subject is expanding into my wanting to help others heal, whether from abuse or from narcissism itself. I haven’t decided yet whether I will write a book or become a life coach or therapist. Maybe both!

9. My faith in God has grown. God gave me writing ability for a reason, and as I grew as a writer and shared my thoughts and feelings on an increasingly intimate level, I found myself actually listening to what God was trying to tell me, and realizing how much he really does care. I found other bloggers like myself whose faith was also strengthened through the gift of the written word.

10. It’s fun. Blogging is so addictive, and I’ve never had a hobby I’ve been more passionate about. In fact, I never really had any serious hobbies until I started to blog. I always look forward to coming home from work, opening my laptop, and starting to write, or reply to comments, or read other blogs (when I have time). I get so immersed in blogging sometimes I actually forget to eat!

11. I make a little bit of money from blogging. I can’t quit my day job, but I make about $50 a month from ads that run on this blog. It ain’t much, but it pays for my gas for a couple of weeks or a nice dinner out once a month! It’s always a great feeling to get paid to do what you love doing the most–even if you can’t live on it. But I’d blog even if I had to pay to do it. That’s how much I love doing this.

When bloggers just disappear.

Posted on August 1, 2016 by luckyotter

One thing about the cyber-world that bugs me is its unstable, temporary nature. You can get really close to someone online and feel like you’ve been best friends for years, but because you don’t really know anything about them (their real name, where they live, what their favorite color is, etc.), if they suddenly take down their blog or just stop posting anything in it, there’s no way to find out what happened to them. Did they die? Are they in jail? Sick? Hard drive attacked by a virus? Abducted by aliens? Just don’t want to blog anymore?

There’s no way to ever find out, and it sucks because you’ve grown to care so much about the soul behind the words, even if you couldn’t recognize them if they were walking down the street. This goes for frequent commenters too, who are very active for awhile and then suddenly vanish. Only in that case, you also wonder if they might have grown bored with your blog or if you said something that pissed them off.

Meet and Greet Weekend @ Dream Big: 4/8/16

Posted on April 9, 2016 by luckyotter

Danny’s having another weekend blog blast! Stop by and drop your link over there.
Comments are disabled for this post.

I don’t know how they do it.

Posted on March 20, 2016 by luckyotter

awe

There are so many great blogs I want to read and keep up with more than I do, but I spend so much time working on my own blog, and it’s so hard to find enough time. Bloggers who are far more popular than this one still manage to find time to read and Like their followers’ posts and even comment on them. I probably have one tenth the activity they do, but it’s a real challenge keeping up. I’m in awe of them. How do they do it?

Why I blog.

Posted on March 2, 2016 by luckyotter

blog_thinker1

I read a very interesting article today called Pimping for Likes (thanks again to Opinionated Man, I found another great new blog to follow). The post addresses the all too common frustrations we bloggers experience when our Likes, views or followers aren’t growing as fast as we’d all like them to and asks the question, would you give up blogging if no one read your blog?

If you’re only blogging to be popular or attain a web presence, I think people can tell. Your heart won’t be in it. It won’t be honest and it won’t be engaging. People are smart. They will pick up on your lack of passion for your chosen topics and go elsewhere if all you care about is gaining a web presence without actually caring about what you blog about.

There are lots of wonderful bloggers who don’t have many followers or views. That’s not because their blogs are bad. It’s because either they haven’t been blogging long enough to attain a web presence, or because the blogger is mostly writing for themselves and isn’t actively trying to promote their blog. Some people don’t care about popularity. And there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re blogging for the best of reasons–because they love to write and blogging gives them a voice and a way to express themselves. .

It’s the reason I blog. I really can’t think of anything I love doing more. It’s also been very healing for me. I’d keep writing and blogging even if I was the only person in the world reading my posts. But I’m only human and it can be very discouraging when you feel like your online voice is falling on deaf ears. At first, it was frustrating when I’d spend a couple of hours perfecting a post, choosing the perfect picture for it, editing it and re-editing it, and then post it, only to get no likes and only a few views.

Here is a post I wrote when this blog was less than two weeks old, when I had a whopping 12 followers and hardly any views. It makes me laugh to read this now, but I’m sure most new bloggers can relate to these feelings of frustation:

I’m frustrated.

It was the first time Opinionated Man reblogged a post of mine. With his 50K plus followers (at the time; now he has nearly 60K), he seemed like a blogging God to me. Because of his generous nature and willingness to help new bloggers succeed, this post (which sounds very whiny to me now) wound up getting a ton of views, Likes, and comments, and I got my first sizeable batch of new followers. What a great way to start your blogging career!

Although being popular isn’t my primary reason for blogging, I have to admit I’ve come to care about this blog’s growth too. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as it doesn’t become your main reason for blogging. I’ve been blogging for a year and a half now. During that time, my stats have grown steadily, to the point where I’m averaging 50K views a month. A year ago I never would have believed it.

http://luckyottershaven.com.webstatsdomain.org/

Source: http://luckyottershaven.com.webstatsdomain.org/

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a little help along the way, thanks to other, more popular and established bloggers reblogging or linking to my posts. I learned about sharing to social media (something I was reluctant to do at first) and linking to other blogs. I’ve made a lot of friends among other bloggers and we’re like a big community who help each other get seen. Yes, of course there is envy among bloggers, but fortunately I haven’t seen too much of it and for the most part, there’s more of a desire to see your fellow bloggers do well than to see them fail.

There are blogs far more popular and successful than mine. This blog is really pretty small potatoes, but watching it grow is still incredibly encouraging and exciting, like watching your baby grow up. It’s a heady feeling when you type a few words into Google and see your own blog come up at or near the top. Although I would still blog even if I only had 10 views a month, these incremental rewards have a way of motivating you to keep writing even more. It’s also very cool being in a position now where I can begin to help other bloggers the way I was helped when I was new. It’s wonderful to be able to pay it forward and help others get more of a web presence.

I’ve been accused of caring too much about my stats. Maybe it’s true. Watching my stats has become one of my favorite hobbies, but maybe that’s because I’ve always been a numbers junkie. The growth of this blog didn’t just happen on its own though. I had to work hard at it, and the hardest part for me was getting over my fear of sharing posts to social media. I don’t have enough of a Google presence to just sit back and let things take off on their own. I have to keep working at it, keep sharing, keep connecting. It’s almost a full time job. Even so, while watching my views and web presence increase is a nice side benefit of blogging, it’s not the reason I blog.

If you only blog to see your stats grow, and care nothing about what you write, not only will people be able to tell your heart isn’t in it, but chances are you’ll get discouraged and give up the minute your stats take a downturn. I’ve had slow months and a few with no growth at all. It hasn’t all been a smooth ride uphill. Some of my posts that are personal favorites just don’t seem to resonate with others that well, while other posts that I could care less about, seem to take on a life of their own. It’s always a surprise seeing what others like and what they don’t. You can certainly try to concentrate on writing more of the types of posts that seem to resonate more with others, if being popular is your thing.

My other blog, which documents my journey in therapy, is nowhere near as popular as this one. It hasn’t really grown at all since I started it in August, and that’s okay. I don’t share most of the posts on that blog to my social media and I don’t promote it at all. I only write about 1 – 2 posts a week for it, while I write every day on this blog. It also has a much narrower topic focus, while this one covers a much wider range of topics. I figure, if people want to read the posts on my other blog, they will find them, but I don’t worry about it too much or try to call attention to it. I mostly write it for myself.

In summary, I blog for four reasons, in the following order.