Changing the Blog (Change: part 2)

The blog is tricky business. It's tricky business, and I could go into a lot of detail about how and why it's tricky business, but I'm not going to do that. For one thing, some of my blog history and why I blog is here on the blog in older posts, especially since blogging about blogging was not uncommon in my earlier days of blogging, that being a common theme on blogs (or, at least, writers' blogs). blah blah blah presence blah blah blah branding blah blah blah

What it boils down to, though, is that the blog needs to generate traffic which needs to generate sales, and the blog wasn't doing that. Also, I was spending an inordinate amount of time on the blog in comparison to the non-existent sales it was generating. Spending time on the blog included spending time visiting other blogs. Obviously, something needed to change.

I announced the first change last January (that would be January of 2015). So many blogs, especially the blogs of writers, try so hard to be non-offensive, and I decided I was through with that. And I have been through with that. During 2015, I did a series about racism and started a series about the Church (which will be picked up again sometime or other fairly soon). I'm not sure if any of that, specifically, has increased traffic, but it certainly hasn't hurt it. I'm not planning on changing that approach any time soon. It just feels more real.

I cut down on the essay-type posts I used to do three or more times a week. They take a lot of time that is more productively spent on fiction writing, so I tend to not do more than one of those a week.

I do more reviews. Book reviews, movie reviews, other reviews. Reviews seem to be a good way to drive traffic. At least based on my page views for review posts, I'd have to say that's true.

I started covering more local events and artists and doing interviews. Those, also, have done very well. One of my interview posts with the guys from Parcivillian is one of my top 10 most viewed posts. This year, I'll be picking up again with interviews with the women from one of the local roller derby teams, the Cinderollas. I've done the interviews; I just haven't gotten them transcribed.

And I've started doing picture posts. Those have surprised me most of all. Every once in a while, a particular picture will generate a lot of page views or comments, like this recent one.

The final analysis is that I have been doing more post with less effort without losing any traffic. I don't have enough data, yet, to know if the traffic has increased or if it's just regular fluctuations. That it has not decreased, though, is significant. Probably, this year, the blog will continue in this pattern. I do have some other changes planned that are more geared toward actually increasing sales, but those aren't quite ready yet.

The take away for you? Well, if you are a blogger, why do you do it? Is what you're doing right now with your blog meeting that goal? If it's not, you should look at making some changes.

What Roller Derby Taught Me About Writing

I got to go to one of the practices for the Cinderollas.

I was watching them warm up, and they started doing this thing with a bunch of balls. Not what's in the above pictures, that was something else entirely. No, what I mean is that when everyone was just there skating around (and there were a lot more people than just the ones pictured because there junior team was there, too, along with some other skaters), they threw a couple dozen of those lightweight brightly colored balls for kids out onto the skate floor.

Let me back up a moment:
As I said in my first post about roller derby, I grew up skating and working in the recreation program at my church. We did skating in the gym, and I was often in charge. One of the first and basic rules of skating was balls and skates don't mix. When I was in middle school, one of my best friends broke his leg because he tripped over a basketball while he was skating. Well, perhaps tripped is too light a word. It's not like it was just there on the floor in front of him and he didn't go around it or something. No, it came rolling across the floor and hit his feet. At any rate, the rule was no skates and balls at the same time (not that we always followed that rule, mind you, but that was the rule, nevertheless).

Needless to say, I was surprised that they were tossing all of these balls out onto the skating floor during the derby practice. They were kicking the balls, throwing them at each other, and, generally, having fun with them. Eventually, when they got ready to actually start practice, they gathered up the balls.

About that time, Dirty Carie, the CEO of the Cinderollas (with whom I'm trying to get an interview), came over and asked me if I had any questions. My initial response was, as is always the case, "No, I don't think so," but I immediately changed my mind and asked about the balls, something like, "What's the deal with the balls?"

Her response was very interesting:
We try to get them not to think about their feet and what they're doing with their feet. Newer skaters tend to focus on their feet and think about how they're skating and not pay attention to what's happening around them. Of course, that doesn't work in a match. So, if we give them something fun to do, they are more likely to think about the game and let their feet just do what they need to do. If they get busy playing with the balls, they forget to think about their feet and just skate. The more we can get them to do that, the better they skate.

That's true for a lot of things, especially physical things for which muscle memory can take over. Often, thinking about it, thinking about what you're doing, can just mess you up. I think we frequently call it "trying too hard."

It works for writing, too. Writers often get too focused on the individual words and sentences. They think they have to only have "useful" words or just the right word or that every sentence has to further the story or be perfect or beautiful in some way. They do word counts on specific words and go back and cap that particular word at some arbitrary number of usages. Or other weird things. It's like thinking too hard about what your feet are doing.

Writers need to just tell the story. Don't think about the words or the perfect sentences or any of that and just tell the story. The better you get at telling the story, the more easily the right words and sentences will fall into place. All on their own, really. It's kind of magical that way. Sure, it takes practice and, sometimes, especially at first, thinking about the words helps, but you can't stay in that place. At some point, you have to play with the balls and forget about your feet. Just have fun in the game and tell the story.

Roller Derby!: Wreckless Wrenegade (a local color post)

What has been more than a few weeks ago, now, my wife and I went to our first roller derby match. As I mentioned in that post, we fairly quickly picked up on some favorite players, our most favorite of whom was Wreckless Wrenegade. It was clear that she was a notch above the other players in terms of skating, something displayed prominently when she did this rather spectacular leap (yes, a leap on roller skates!) to get around a block by the opposing team. It was called an Apex Jump, I found out, because I was able to set up an interview with her.

That's Wrenegade passing on the outside left from the match we saw.

And this is Wren in her everyday identity.

The first thing I found out is that she looks quite young for her age, which I just decided I'm not going to tell you. She fooled my wife, though, and my wife is usually pretty good at pegging that sort of thing. [I am not good at that. At all.] She likes Star Wars, so she scored points in my book for that; in fact her fiver-year-old son is totally into it. In her "real" life, she works in health care.

Of course, I was interested in her skating background because she was so impressive on wheels and, as it turns out, she used to do competitive ice figure skating. That's an impressive background. Here's her talking about that:

Wren:

I didn't ever want to be a figure skater. I wanted to do gymnastics or dance. I actually really wanted to do tap dancing, but my older sister really wanted to do figure skating, so [because the closest ice skating rink was so far away] my parents basically said, "You have to do what your sister wants to do." So we started going -- I started when I was five -- and I found that I really loved it and enjoyed it. The thing that was always funny, though, about figure skating is that I was always bigger than the other girls so, growing up, I felt like I wasn't the ballerina/figure skater type. I was a lot more powerful in my figure skating. [When I was a teenager] the boys always suggested that I should be a hockey player, that I should be playing hockey with them. I was more of a tomboy, a tough girl that didn't really fit the mold of a figure skater, but I always wanted to be the pretty figure skater.

Later, after not having skated at all for four or five years, her son's dad started telling her that he thought she'd be really good at roller derby, but she was really intimidated to go. Eventually, she made him and her son go with her to one of Resurrection Girls newbie nights.

Wren:

When you think roller derby, you think aggressive, powerful, intimidating women, and, then, you think, "Oh, my God, I'm not going to fit in here." So I went, and it was awful the first night. I was in rental skates -- you know, growing up in ice skating, I always had custom boots, and it was easier than walking for me sometimes -- and it was shaky at best. I mean, it was really bad. But I kept with it, and I liked the feeling of being on skates again. But it was really uncomfortable at first to get used to the quads. Going from a single blade to the quads was really hard for me, but I stuck with it.

Eventually, she got her own pair of skates and tried out and earned a spot on the Cinderollas.

Me: Have you been back on ice skates since then?

Wren: I have, and now that's awkward. It's really strange. It's funny because in ice skating, we stay away from our toe-picks unless we're jumping or using them for something like that, so I wasn't sure if we were allowed to use our toe-stops, and I was scared to use my toe-stop, so I was doing everything I could to avoid my toe-stop and, now, I live on my toe-stop. I'm always on my toe-stop. Now, [with ice skating] I'm like, "Okay, don't get on your toe-picks. Stay away from that. Don't tighten your boots so much." So, yeah, it's different. I'm still comfortable on it, but it's a different feeling.

Of course, because it's me, I also had to ask her about reading:

Wren: I love to read, although I haven't had the time to really pick up a book in a while, so my reading tends to be magazine articles. The one book that I still think about to this day, since I read it so long ago, is Z for Zachariah. It was probably the first book that I read that I didn't want to put down and actually piqued my interest in reading. I hadn't been a "reader" prior to picking up that book up. Another would be Catcher in the Rye. I don't have a genre or preference, but [a book] definitely has to capture my attention by the first 10 pages.

She's only been doing derby for two years but, already, she's coaching and is a vital member of the Cinderollas. As a jammer, it's her job to score the points. Of course, that doesn't come without teamwork, but I've watched her coach, and I think she's well on her way to helping to create a great team. I'm looking forward to the next time we can go see her and the Cinderollas play!

Roller Derby! (a local color post)

My wife and I have very different relationships with skating, both roller and ice. I grew up skating. Roller skating, that is. There was no such thing as ice skating where I grew up in the south. The nearest ice skating rink was in Dallas, nearly three hours away. And, when I say I grew up skating, I don't just mean I knew how. One of the things I did during high school (and after) was work the recreation programs at my church, and we did roller skating. I often wore skates five or six hours a day, three or four times a week. More on Saturdays. Sometimes, I had to adjust to just walking around. I think it's like having "sea legs." Or something.

Despite the lack of ice skating in the south, I made a fairly decent transition to it. Ice skating is more like inline skating, I think, except easier. Yeah, I have not enjoyed my experiences with inline skates, mostly because they just hurt. It's the way they hold the ankles. Just trust me, okay.

One of my wife's early experiences with ice skating (this was just a few years ago) involved having some kid do a power slide into her feet and her bashing her head on the ice. Yeah, she hasn't been back out on ice again since then.

We do go roller skating sometimes, though, and it's a thing my wife wants to be better at. All of which is to say that my wife has a kind of fascination with roller derby, and it's a thing we've talked about going to see for years, especially since a local league was started about four years ago, the Resurrection Roller Girls. Well, we finally went to see a match!

If you noticed the picture at the top, that was on the skating floor where the seats were set up because, yes, there is seating on the skating floor. We, of course, sat in the front row right behind that sign. But no one ran over us. Not this time, anyway. The couple sitting next to us, who were veterans of going to see derby events, did tell us to take the warning seriously because, although it didn't happen often, having players fly into the crowd is not unheard of.

Talk about excitement!

Roller Derby, at least the variety that we were seeing, flat track, was different than we expected. It was slower and had a lot more strategy involved in it. It took us a little while to figure out, at least the parts that we did figure out, but it was very interesting once we did, and we picked up a few favorite players (from our local team, the Cinderollas) by  the end of the night. Our team lost, but it was still very exciting.

I'll be covering some more roller derby stuff coming up in the next few weeks, but, for now, I'll leave you with some pictures of the match we saw.