I started this blog to be like the other cool writer wannabes. But I’ve been spying on checking out their blogs, and it’s clear I’m doing at least three things wrong:
- I’m squee-impaired. When someone writes the word ‘squee’, I want to tweet back, “Bless you.” (Sometimes, I take a surreptitious hit of hand sanitizer.)
- I don’t call people ‘beotches’. I’ve known many bitches (and many… er… male offspring of same), and none of them spell it with an ‘o’. Or three ‘o’s… Not to mention the fact that after my formative years on the south side of Chicago, self-preservation leaves me reluctant to apply the term to their faces, whether as perjorative or endearment.
- I don’t drop the f-bomb.
Okay, those who’ve driven with me on a motorway here in England know that I’m lying about at least one of the above points. (Make that two of the above…)
Here is the real reason I’m not going to make it as a blogger. I don’t have a cat. I can tell this is important because among the blog-stats from the geniuses at WordPress is a list of search terms that led people to my blog. An astonishing 25.5% of them were looking for cat pictures like the one here. Plus one confused searcher was looking for a persian dog. Clearly, the more kittens you have working for you, the more people will visit your blog. Of course, 62.5% of search engine traffic was from people looking for my reasons NOT to have kids. Given that I have four children, I’m either the best or the worst source to consult on that topic.
So in the interests of driving traffic to this blog, I offer the following all-purpose gif:
If you’re part of the teeming hordes of viewers this picture brings in, I hope you will take a moment to look at excerpts from my work in progress — Null City, written with Hannah Taub. We’d be especially grateful if you could let us know your comments, suggestions, or critique. Thanks!
Learning the hard way said:
Just whose blogs are you reading (recoiling from)? I agree there does seem to be a preponderance of cats and profanity, but I am yet to discover the squee (WTF…see what I did there…that’s one for the kidzzz). I have realized that while there is a fairly collegiate attitude amongst the Northern American bloggers out there…read mutual appreciation of dross, I am also following some wonderfully witty folk from all round the world who don’t find it necessary to bang on about their mother-blinding fur- babies. Like you!
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barbtaub said:
As far as I can tell, the squee is something that cute fangirls did to show their cute fan joy. It has apparently made the (not large) jump to YA writers. They lost me at cute.
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Learning the hard way said:
As in witty blah blah…you got that right? Or else I just look like a rude antipodean. 😁
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Mary Rosenblum said:
I so needed a good laugh tonight! That’s what’s missing from my blog!! A beotch cat!
Okay, what did you do to that cat’s face as he rolls off the sofa arm?
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Amara said:
Yes, what’s a squee? Is it furry? Is it edible?
As for cats, I totally agree. People come to my blog looking for depressed cats. I have no idea why you would want a depressed cat, but I guess it’s always better than a chirpy one – that would just be creepy.
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barbtaub said:
Worse. It’s a terminally cute sound of girlish joy. (I know. Me either.)
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Amara said:
Ah… I guess I haven’t encountered it yet because my target readers aren’t really the squeeing types
.
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Terri L. Spilman said:
Your video to “lure” traffic is hilarious. I’ve been having a similar ongoing conversation with a friend who also blogs. Surely, there’s a large audience for writer’s who don’t feel the need to be crude…said by someone who is certainly no Pollyanna. Keep blogging! Writers like you make them worth reading.
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barbtaub said:
Thanks for the encouragement! Squee! Nope. That still doesn’t work…
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Ron said:
It seems like you’re lacking all the requisite skills. You might consider living beneath a dugout canoe on a Pacific island. Or you could try a hand-written blog and distribute it via (extinct) carrier pigeon. Just a couple thoughts. Cheery day. Oh, and I quite enjoy your palid attempts at blogging.
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barbtaub said:
Um… Thanks?
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Real. Life. Parenting. said:
This post really struck me as funny. As I was laughing, my cat was looking at me like I was annoying her. She was busy sleeping and I was interrupting her work. Maybe I should slap a pic of that on my blog so that I can bring more traffic!!
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barbtaub said:
Great idea! In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve been informed that for maximum cuteness so intense you’ll need an insulin injection immediately, you’ll want to also involve a bulldog puppy in your gif. The traffic increase will probably take down your server. Good luck with that.
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Amara said:
Now I am curious… did the cat pic work??
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barbtaub said:
Well, it’s only been one day so hard to tell. I can see that two search engine referrals were for angry cat and angry leader cat… Sadly, the rest of the referrals are for people looking for reasons not to have kids. I think my next post will be very short. “You don’t need reasons not to have kids. You just need good condoms. The end.”
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Amara said:
I guess you need reasons to use condoms though… or perhaps they couldn’t have kids, like me, and are looking for reasons to convince themselves that it was just for the best?
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duncanr said:
Ah, so that’s where I’ve been going wrong – no cats, just dogs in this house 😆
http://madhatters.me.uk/2013/02/23/ill-show-you-mine-if-3/
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barbtaub said:
Incredibly cute dogs! (I can’t reveal my desktop pictures because they are painfully sentimental mom-pix. There is a chance rainbows are involved.)
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Bastet said:
Oh my…this does explain a few things… I was surprised to see that within about 10 minutes of the publication of my story about my cat there were a bunch of likes and the stats jumped! Sometimes I’ve gotten the feeling that blogging is like running an elaborate Facebook wall! Someone even decided to follow the blog because I wrote a thing about being an Aquarius….which was actually a story more about my Mom and beliefs…but they’d obviously not read it at all, it was just the word Aquarius that attraced them…Still, you write a fantastic blog and i think you should keep it up, who knows, maybe with an f-bomb now and again…..and another cat picture. 🙂
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Bastet said:
Oh…and don’t write more than, let’s say 300 words….
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barbtaub said:
ALL my posts are under 300 words. It just happens that in the interests of economy, I publish as many as five or six of them at once… (This one, for example, is 1.5 posts.)
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Bastet said:
😉
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JulieFaith said:
Oh dear! Considering I have just started a new blog this very day and I have no intrest whatsoever in a) Squee, b)cats or c) f-bombs (ok, well, I kinda do have an intrest in those) it seems I haven’t got a shit-show of succeeding in the blogosphere.
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barbtaub said:
Personally, I think those three things give your new blog an excellent chance of success. Please let me know when it goes live.
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JulieFaith said:
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Tongue in cheek or not I find this to be a super helpful post. It totally explains why my last effort at blogging went largely unnoticed.
I have some work to do but you can find the new blog at http://magiclist.wordpress.com/
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Matthew said:
Thanks for liking my post http://tbi69.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-hip-young-priest/. You don’t need to get any cats to make your blog a success — I have enough cats for all of us!
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linda1633 said:
I’m in trouble. I may never have a successful blog.
I can’t stand squee or other “cute” expressions. I’ve used the real word for “beotch” (under my breath and while driving away from idiots) so often that it no longer means much to me. And I save up my F-words to insure that people know I really, really mean it when I say it.
And my only cat is a handmaiden for Satan. If there’s some way to piss me off, she’ll find it. Her only saving grace is that the stupid dogs adore her. Anyway, there’s no chance of cute cat pictures there.
I do have a lot of pictures of my horses with their tongues sticking out. I have no idea why, but it’s darn hard to show them as intelligent creatures when they’re doing that. Anyway, I’m pretty sure there’s not a lot of people looking for pictures of horses with their tongues hanging out.
I’m going back and study this post again. There’s got to be something there I can steal. Er, borrow?
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barbtaub said:
Actually, I think you could go really far with a satanic kitty. I’d get out the old camera and get started. (Then I can
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linda1633 said:
Hmmm….she is truly evil. And she doesn’t even bother to hide it. Maybe I could get some pictures of her before she attacks me.
Of course, if I anger her, she’ll go into the kitchen and jump up on the counter (a place she knows I HATE her going) and then she’ll start pushing things off the counter. The dogs like that because sometimes she’ll push something off that they like.
There’s always the chance that all of this will just make her mad enough to finally kill me in my sleep. But, what the heck, having a busy and fun blog would be worth it. You’re welcome to steal/borrow any pictures that I get of her.
And, if I didn’t tell you, I liked this post. I have no idea what I’m doing in the blogging world; you’re giving me some direction. Thanks.
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Laura Hedgecock said:
Ok, I’m convinced. I might have to quit too.
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ablessedpilgrim said:
Well Barb, from the looks of all your positive comments in such a short time I believe you should continue to blog. I love your sense of humor and think you have a great deal of talent. I also think your picture with the horses is really great. I don’t use any of the three you listed either but I am not giving up my blog. I have been at it less than two months, however I do tend to get wordy. Gotta work on that one. There are plenty of folks out there who like to read good stuff that doesn’t need those two words or the bomb thing you mention. Now, I am off to read your reasons not to have kids, though it’s too late for me, already have three. Keep writing lady!
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barbtaub said:
Thanks so much for those words of encouragement. I have to admit, with the news about the Boston Marathon, today is a very difficult day to try for humor. So I really appreciate your kind thoughts.
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ablessedpilgrim said:
Yes, I do understand. That was a senseless tragedy. You certainly are welcome.
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Elizabeth Rose said:
Love your blog. Hopefully, this will brighten up the grey skies a bit: You’ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award at http://elizabethrosemysteries.com/awards/?preview=true&preview_id=251&preview_nonce=27b10a2298! 🙂
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barbtaub said:
Thanks for the award. I think. (I tried to look at the link you posted, but somehow I keep getting message that I don’t have permission.) But I do appreciate the thought!
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Elizabeth Rose said:
Yeah, I think I might have screwed it up… this whole blogging thing is a learning process… You are so welcome. 🙂 I think I’ll move the award out to my main page, so maybe try again there… Thanks!
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Bastet said:
This post came back into my memory today, and I was all of a sudden very worried that, you may have only been half joking…I really hope to see more of your punget humor in the future! I’ve used (I’m afraid without asking) in my ESL conversation groups (the one about the Unicorn DNA and Boston)…my students were impressed with “the typical English humor”, I of course patriotically correctec them. So, hope to read something soon from you! Oh…the lady flubbed it…the address should be: http://elizabethrosemysteries.com/awards/ all the rest is where her draft is and there one cannot go. Congratulations!
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