Blogger Recognition Award

I’m grateful and excited to have been nominated by the amazing blogger: Jan M Flynn!

Thank you so much Jan, at JanMFlynnAuthor, for thinking of Building a Better Story and nominating me for the Blogger Recognition Award. Jan passed on a quote from another blogger  I can’t top so here’s the quote from Reasons2Stay:

“The award is a way that we recognize and support each other as bloggers, and especially to show that we appreciate how much time, work, energy, and effort goes into producing and maintaining a high-quality blog. It is a humbling experience to be recognized from my fellow blogger.”

I agree with Jan when she says, “It’s lovely when those who share your zeal for a particular form of expression — be it writing, visual arts, dance, or whatever medium — take note of your efforts and extend their regard and support. I gotta say, it feels darn good.” Yes it does! I’m luxuriating in the warm fuzzies right now.

And because this nomination and award supports other bloggers and promotes their efforts, it has some rules  to follow if you want to participate:

Thank the blogger that nominated you.

Write a post to show your award.

Give a brief story of how your blog started.

Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

Select other bloggers to give this award to.

Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How My Blog Started:

I teach creative writing at a local community college. My students, retirees, demanded I stop lecturing on craft and deliver the conventions of writing craft (all genre, mind you) in context of the work brought in to class to “workshop.” Yikes! I still had to bone up on craft and decided to write blog posts on craft commonly misused. Nobody read it, and I stopped lecturing anyway. My first post was on September 14, 2011 on tension in your writing. My readership picked up when I branched out and opened Building a Better Story to student work. Later I added reviews of books I’ve enjoyed. It’s a wonderful platform for writings, reviews and yes, craft.

New to the genre?

Do as I say, not as I do. I’m slothful at keeping to a posting schedule. I get a bright idea, run a little series of posts on a topic and run out of steam or get busy with something else (like revising the 3rd JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventure about to be late to the editor) and forget the blog for weeks. If you want people to read your blog, you need to give it time to build a following and offer regular posts. You can blog about most anything that interests you, but if you don’t post on a schedule, you won’t keep the people who FOLLOW. An expert in WordPress, Linda Lee, and I sat on a panel together recently and the good news is, really we only need to post once a month—AS LONG AS WE DO IT EVERY MONTH ON TIME!

Invite guest bloggers to participate in your blogosphere. It’s fun to share and it promotes others’ blogs AND your own. Anyway, you won’t have to blog as often if someone else does it for you!

My Nominations:

1. ELIZABETH STOKKEBYE ART AND STORY TELLING
2. LAURA MCHALE HOLLAND

Congratulations to tow of my most inspiring bloggers! And a million thanks to Jan M Flynn for nominating me!!