Blogger Idol, Week 9
Blogger Idol is the brainchild of Darren at LivingRoom.

Each Sunday (Australian time) Darren announces a theme for the week. We have three days to work that theme into a blog post. We post the entry in our own blog and leave a link in Darren's blog so we can read what each other wrote.

If you want to read the other entries, the links are here.

I will read as many of the entries as possible. Later in the week I will list five entries of note.

This weeks theme is ‘Letter to a Celebrity’.

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Dear Biz Stone, Genius,

My goal was to get Seasons of Violet permalinks working before this Blogger Idol entry. So I grabbed my copy of Blogging, Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content, looked up "permalink" in the index, and there was the answer. It was a simple matter of moving the blogger tag. Your book explained why - in language I could understand - and gave an example of the required code.

Even after six months of blogging, I am still using your book for a reference.

Seven months ago, I didn't have a clue how blogs were created or how to code an html tag. I thought I wanted to start a blog, but I didn't know how.

As has been my lifetime habit, I went looking for a book to tell me what I needed to know. And I found yours, Blogging, Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content. In fact, yours was the only how-to book I found.

It turned out to be just perfect.

Your book was just as advertised.

"This book doesn't assume you know the seemingly obvious, and it provides how-to projects, sound advice, and inspiration for both beginners and experts."

I could be poster child for that sales blurb. For me, nothing about creating a blog was "seemingly obvious", yet I had a Blogger blog on Blogspot up and running in two hours after I started reading. My blog wasn't fancy - it still isn't fancy - but Seasons of Violet is a blog and it's doing (almost) everything I want it to be doing.

What turned out to be even more important than the technical information was your encouragement.

"Relax. It's Okay to make mistakes. It's okay if some people think you're a jerk, and it's fine if some people don't "get" you. There will be others who do. And you'll be happy once you get in and realize that the water's warm."

and

"Don't think about it too much; just blog every day and your voice will develop."

These words of wisdom have played a large part in maintaining my motivation and giving me permission to just be myself and keep blogging.

I haven't completely found my voice yet. Sometimes I get full of myself (I can always tell those posts. Noone wants to comment on them.) But every month I get a little more relaxed about what I write and have a little more fun with what I write.

Most exciting of all, my stats show that people are reading Seasons of Violet.

Some people even leave comments. I love comments! Comments implemented with the help of Blogging, Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content of course.

Thanks Biz. Great book.

To quote one of your favorite phrases, "Good stuff!"

A grateful fan,
Marguerite