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Friday, December 12, 2008

Friday Blog Roundup

Good activity
Read through a year of your posts
And choose the best one

--Melissa

I was trying to come up with a good poetic form for this reminder for the Creme de la Creme list. I considered the sestina, but it was probably too long for what I needed to say. I started a villanelle but had a lot of trouble fitting the word "nineteeth" in iambic pentameter. Not to mention that few words even create an off-rhyme with the number.

This is the final weekend before the list deadline. The list deadline is a strange thing. All it means is that I promise to have you up on the list on January 1st if you submit prior to midnight on December 19th (next Friday). I'll still add people after that point and you may even be on the list on January 1st if you submit on the 20th. But more likely, you'll go up on the list after January 1st. Which simply means that you miss out on a few readers who burn through the list on New Years Day.

Directions for submitting are on the post--I would love it if we had everyone from the blogroll represented on the list. I've already started to read through and write blurbs and for the third year running, the list is incredible. I think the most amazing part is the diversity of topic on the list considering all are coming from inside the same community. I promise you, when you see the list on New Years Day, you will want to be on it.

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So, I pretty much only write non-fiction, but on Monday night, I dove onto the computer and started spewing out this tale of chick lit. Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that. Some writers hate the term chick lit, finding it demeaning. But I am writing the literary equivalent to People magazine. There is nothing deep about it, but it feels so good to read. And it's not about infertility.

Okay, who am I kidding? Her best friend is a single mother by choice who used IVF to conceive. But nothing about infertility other than that.

But, the fun part is that the character has a blog and in the spirit of the book, whenever I'm stuck on part of the storyline, I'm going to write in her blog. As her. I only have one post written right now, but once I start posting regularly, I'll post a link to the blog here. I'd love some feedback on my new alter-ego. Sort of like how Beyonce is Sasha Fierce? Except my alter-ego is a 34-year-old Jew...wait a second...

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Please continue to give your thoughts on this new idea for the LFCA.

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And now, the blogs...

The Waiting Womb had a post about returning to the clinic to try for child #2. She writes: "It feels a bit odd. Normally, I would have walked in with a page of questions. I didn't even have a pen. I'm glad the consult is over, I'm happy to be on our way." But it is the sentiment that ends the post that made me smile and see secondary IF yet again in a new light.

Outlandish Notions
had a gorgeous post called "Borrowing from the Future." The idea about borrowing happiness from the future and daydreaming about how you thought life would turn out is that the future becomes the present and suddenly, you are left with an emotional debt. Get it--if you take that happiness out of the future and you can't pay it back and the happiness is not existing anymore in those future days (that have become the present) because you've already spent it...you have a void. As I wrote on her blog: "This is one of the most amazing posts I've ever read. It is completely brilliant and I have returned to read it several times and I can still only say that I am moved beyond words."

Awful But Functioning has a post that is both well-written and also has a participation element that I wanted to point out because there are people in this community who could benefit from her generous offer. In "Scraps, Redux" she writes about attending a December memorial last year for all children who had died and having a family member cancel on attending right before the service. She writes: "I have felt alone in this journey, believe me. There is nothing so lonely as coming home from the hospital without your child...But I'm not sure I felt as alone as I did a year ago on that December morning, knowing that people were deserting us, they were jumping off the ship." Last year, instead of bringing her family member to the service, she brought a bag of papers with the names of children in our community who have died. She took her comfort from the tertiary mourners, when the secondary ones failed to rise to the occasion. As she returns to this service again, she is offering to take names with her. Please leave her a comment or email her (her address is in the post) if you would like your child's name added.

The Idle Mind of Beth had a brief post that made me catch my breath. The grief is almost tangible through the words. She writes: "I'm 30 years old, and I don't have a Daddy anymore." And that is the line that made me start crying because my heart was breaking for her.

Production, Not Reproduction had a post about adoption that is so quietly brilliant about the difference between becoming a parent through adoption rather than an adoptive parent. I love reading a new point-of-view and seeing the world in a different way.

Lastly, No Matter How Small had a post this week that still makes me laugh every time I click on it. She posts the most unusual search term she found on her blog this week (and you will need to click over to see it). So I plugged the search term into the searchable blogroll (y'all know that the blogroll is now searchable. If you look at that little box in the top right corner of my blog--top of the right sidebar--you will see a search engine that only contains the 1600 blogs on the blogroll) to see if she came up and obviously this current post comes up as well as another person who wrote about Aurelia (oh, this is another good use of the search engine--see if someone has written about you?). And then, AURELIA'S OCTOPUS POST COMES UP! Well, lookie there, she does have the most common blog in the ALI community to find this unique phrase.

Which I now ask of you, what is the most unusual search term for you FROM TODAY. And plug that phrase into the search engine and see if your post is the first to pop up.

Mine: "How to tell sperm from pee"...and yes! We have a winner. My Free the Pee post is the top one in the search engine.

The roundup to the Roundup: use the weekend to find your submission to the Creme de la Creme. I started writing chick lit! Still give your thoughts on this idea. Lots of excellent bloggage to read--some with participation. And what was the craziest phrase that brought someone to your blog today? Catch you here Saturday night for Show and Tell.

20 comments:

Kristin said...

For once, I don't have anything too bizarre in my list of keyword searches...LOL.

loribeth said...

OK, I hate to sound totally out of the loop here, but how do you find this stuff out?? I've heard so many people talk about this on their blogs but I am clueless. Where do you go to see what keywords people are using to find your blogs?

Great picks for posts this week, Mel. I'm still mulling over what Sharah had to say...

Jendeis said...

No searches for the past couple days, but the weirdest from this week was a search for "t". That's it. Just the letter t.

Let's see if I come up. Nope. I am, however, the first person to come up for another search term "edamame beans and male infertility."

Ooh, regarding the Creme de la Creme, do you want a list of blogs that have gone dark? I have a bunch of no posters from my section of the blogroll and they haven't posted for a year.

Heidi said...

peeing while strapped to a chair.

It has been my weirdest one for months and months and months.

And yet, people keep searching for it and ending up at my blog.

luna said...

great posts today for the roundup, mel. I love that one of sharah's too.

can't wait to read the chick lit blogger.

today's search terms has 2 odd ones that both pop me up first. go figure:

"yum relaxing"
http://lifefromhere.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/forever-young-and-yum/

"busy FET porn" (I really don't get this one)
http://lifefromhere.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/busy-and-a-different-kind-of-lost/

Lisa said...

Who knew other people have blogged about Count Chocula?! But, I'm definitely the first hit with Jabberjaw!

Mrs.X said...

I was just shaking my head about this one:

"spanking stories of misbehaved youth"

It pulled up my post:

akamrsx.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/words-of-my-father/

Random as there was zero mention of spanking in that post! Weird Google algorithms!

Larisa said...

Wow, thanks for the mention. Appreciate it.

Rachel said...

I have the search function turned off, so only those actually searching for "raspberry chip" find it. The most recent was searching for "raspberry chip fudge", hope they found it.

BTW, I love the round-up, it was such a great idea.

Wishing 4 One said...

I typed in 'diarrhea anyone" from my post yesterday and it comes up as 6th in google. I'm going now to search and see if anyone cares to write about me...Oh i do know an "egyptian stuffed cabbage" search brings me up 2nd!

Wishing 4 One said...

I'll share a little secret too...the first site that comes when doing an "egyptian stuffed cabbage" search on google is mine too. so that makes me 1st and 2nd!

nancy said...

oh goodness.. My most unusual for TODAY?

"women pooping pics"

I put that into your search box and sure enough, thenewlifeofnancy.blogspot.com/2008/11/pooping-while-pushing-out-baby.html was it.

Aurelia said...

Well, thank you Mel for the visitors!

Honestly, this is a fun game. I've had lots of odd ones, but this one really did take the cake.

Thing is, this was from the regular Google search bar. I think I was on page 2 for English, and page 1 for spanish.

Some guy in Spain has some issues....

To answer Loribeth, to find this stuff out, you install Statcounter or Sitemeter or another service. That will tell you who is reading by clicking, and if they find you from clicks or links or searches. Feedburner will tell you how many subscribers are reading you on feed readers, and Feedblitz will as well.

Anonymous said...

funny cows. For some reason that keeps turning up in my search terms and as far as I know, the only time I've ever posted about funny cows is when I've questioned that search term. If I google funny cows, my blog isn't anywhere in the first 15 pages of results so someone is REALLY searching.

MrsSpock said...

My searches are never bizarre- I think most frequently googled is "stupid nurse", and, ahem, you'll never find THAT on my blog.

What is this Gordon Ramsay recipe?

Are you uploading your chicklit to the BBWG?

Emily said...

Thanks for this weeks roundup. I am obsessed with Sharah's post. I too keep going back to it...

I need to find out who is reading and how they are getting to my blog. Sounds entertaining!

Baby Smiling In Back Seat said...

I've got a bizarre one from yesterday.

jaymes foster has not abandoned her baby

Not only am I the #1 blog to come up in your search engine, but the only one. Ha!

Anonymous said...

Nothing bizarre today, but this week I got "milk story gigantic bo*obs amazon" and I'm the fourth link on the google list. I'm always getting these bizarre hits from Pakistan and Taiwan, etc. because I have a post from March in which I discuss adoptive breastfeeding and cloth diapering and I unfortunately decided to title it "Cloth and Bo*obs." I frequently get foreign hits from (men, I assume) searching for "bo*obs no cloth" or "bo*ob cloth." Seriously. I put the stars in so that you don't start getting the same hits. :)

Stacie said...

I put up my Show and Tell. I am so excited to show the ornament Kristin made me for her 200th post.

Mel, the tree was beautiful!

Heather said...

Thank you for including my post in the roundup. That means a lot. I was not expecting that particular dashed-off piece to receive the response it did. You never know what is going to hit people.

Several hits on my blog on Friday from searches for 'jemuhs.' I think someone is doing some self-googling.