Friday Potpourri Chapter 10
Lets see if I remember how to do one of these.
Originally, this was going to be a Thursday post, but I read the latest installment of Lucys Football and it was so great that I just closed my laptop. I know that I am preaching to the choir here, we share a handful of the same readers. But if you haven’t read Amy’s blog, you are missing out on some of the most original and inspired writing on the net.
It occurred to me while I was thinking about her blog, that blogs are really bringing back an old staple of writing. I am talking about the “short story”.
Many years ago, magazines used to carry short stories. Several prominent writers got their start in that fashion. Hemingway. S.J. Perelman. Robert Benchley. Dorothy Parker. Fitzgerald. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a short story, for example. A long movie, but a short story. As the number of literary magazines dwindled, the short story became a casualty. And that is really a shame. Not everything can be a book.
Another form of writing that fell by the wayside is the serial. Multiple part series about one subject. That is what I just tried with Finding Love. I took that approach because it bought me some time to decide on what to write next and I wanted to see if I could keep people reading all the way through to the end. I enjoyed writing it. People were very kind to me during the run of the story. I might try something like that again. Maybe .
I somehow got pulled into a discussion on Twitter about the relative pros and cons of Pinterest and Google +.
Google + was something I got into when it was a beta offering. I thought it had promise but since I don’t know squat about most internet things, it seems I was wrong.
Pinterest, I just don’t understand that at all.
It is so easy to have a blog and put your stuff on it for all to see, I don’t see the need for Pinterest or any of the others. But, again, I am probably wrong about this also.
So, I am just going to stay with this blog and Twitter. Anything else would reduce the number of times I can check back here and see how the stats are doing.
Speaking of stats, for the last 30 days, I have had as many people from outside of the U.S. read this as people inside the U.S.
One day, I had 20 views from Germany alone. I like the idea of having that kind of mix when it comes to readers.
But listen, you silent folks, please feel free to leave a comment. I would like to hear from you. Maybe something you say will spur a conversation here. That would be very cool. Or look me up on Twitter @jbrown3079 .
Well, that’s it for this week. Be good, kids.
Peace.
Bellbottom Blog 
The decisions we make about which sites/platforms to use are personal and interesting.
I could never take the plunge and make a MySpace page, but I took to twitter rather easily and quickly.
Wish I could explain your spike in German readers, but it appears I’m not the only one curious what a fellow in Indiana is up to. Keep it up. It’s a joy to read.
I think Twitter for me was a gateway drug to the harder stuff, like writing this blog.
Aw, thank you! I’m so glad people like the bon vivant stories. They’re so much fun for me to write.
Also, I find it humorous that I never, ever thought I could write a short story. Or any sort of fiction, actually. But those really are fiction, aren’t they? I mean, weird, but fiction. Huh, look at that!
You’re not missing much with either Pinterest or G+. Pinterest is just pretty pictures. G+ doesn’t have much going on. Twitter’s the best, in my humble opinion. But you already know that.
I think what blogging and Twitter have going for them is there seems to be a freedom that Facebook or some of the others don’t have.
You can slip in and out on Twitter and nobody knows if you are reading or not. You don’t leave a trail, unless you want to.
And you are writing short stories. From fiction to stories about your dad.