new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Bloggiesta, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 26 - 40 of 40
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Bloggiesta in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Maw Books's Bloggiesta has begun!
Here's my list of impossible-to-finish tasks (I aim big! Like the cheesy poster on the wall in the home-ec room in 8th grade, "Reach for the moon, because even if you fail, you'll still land among the stars")
1. Read 1500 blog posts. (I'm currently 1300 behind, but surely 200 more will appear in my reader by the end of this weekend. Heck, probably by the end of today.)
2. Write 65 book reviews.
3. Pre-schedule 2 weeks worth of reviews
4. Catch up on my record-keeping
5. Organize my google reader
6. Add reviews to LibraryThing
7. Challenge posts
8. Tell you about my SLJ reviews
10. Write 10 non-review blog posts
I hadn't intended to do a mini-Challenge for Bloggiesta, because I was swamped with Girl Scout stuff this week. It's the end of the year and we need to wrap up the accounting and bridge over to a new level and reflect on the year and all that jazz. And as I reflected, it comes to me in this real moment of clarity that my personal philosophy in running a troop is to stretch our comfort zones within a safe and supportive environment. Because it's in that space where we grow as people in testing our limits, trying new things, and taking the opportunity to be brave
And it hit me that bloggers can sometimes use that push too. It's so easy to go along, talking nicely about books or people or recipes or kids. And it's not a bad thing. But are you stretching? Are you growing? Are you taking chances? Are you being brave?
Your mini-challenge is to be brave. Write a post that takes a stand. Allow yourself a negative review, not for snark value but to be honest. Reveal something personal about yourself. Start the online challenge or contest or project you were afraid to put out there. Try something totally new.
You don't even have to post it yet to enter for prizes in the mini-challenge. I'll take your word for it that you've drafted something. I won't even hold you to posting it. I just want you to get that feeling of writing something that scares you a little bit. Let me know in the comments when you feel that you've met that challenge, and I'll pick a winner or winners at random and send a couple of books as prizes. Plus a spy pen!
I’m still recovering from the 48 Hour Book Challenge, with emails to write, packages to prepare, and books to clean off of my living room floor. I seem to have attacked the challenge with the organization of a teen getting ready for a big date — tossing books like T-shirts all over the room in search of the right one. I did well, in that I hit a run of eight great books. Amazing! But now I have to put everything back in order. Wah.
I do have a post up at PBS Booklights on books about bedtime. They aren’t the newest titles, and maybe not my absolute, all-time favorites, but some strong choices. Head over and add your suggestions to the comments.
This weekend I’ll be spending some time on Bloggiesta — writing up reviews (yes, of all those 48HBC books) and posts and presentations. If you need some time for blog housekeeping, head over to Maw Books to sign up.
Branding has come up again as a blogosphere topic. I saw it first with Maureen Johnson’s post — excuse me, manifesto — and I can just hear her whisper of “I am not a brand.” Important reading. Chasing Ray is taking up the topic, and wondering about the idea of blogger and author branding — like we can all be labeled like breakfast cereals. I’ll say that there are aspects of branding that are easy and helpful. My blog name, commenting name, and Twitter name are all MotherReader. No one has to think too hard about who I am in any of those places. But where I start to push back — or at least would ask us all to step back and think — is when I see that it is to publishers’ advantage that we be nicely, neatly branded. It certainly makes it easier for them to promote authors and to evaluate bloggers. And I’m not saying that it’s an absolute wrong. But is it good for the bloggers?
Well, I didn't get all my goals done, because my computer keeps being... stupid. It gets slow, it freezes, takes forever to reboot. It's been wonky for awhile and yesterday it just needed to be put on timeout all day so it could sit there and think about what it had done.
Now, it seems to be ok, if I don't try to do too much. Running iTunes is apparently, too much. (Amazingly, if I'm only listening to this week's Chinese lessons, then I'm ok. I'm sure the universe is telling me I need to study my Chinese more. But, I can't listen to my Chinese class and blog at the same time! My brain would explode!) So, as I blog today, I'm being surprisingly old school and... listening to my CD player. It's crazy, I know. Sadly, I only own Glee digitally.
But, I did get some stuff done. I did a lot of work my spreadsheets (and I'm working on a post on them, so you can see my full geekiness). I read about 1500 blog posts. I wrote 1 review. Not as much as I wanted, but pretty good work for about 12 hours...
Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.
Okay, so I did good work for Bloggiesta, but not excellent work. I'm also not sure I'm done yet, but it seemed like an update was in order.
How sad is it that my note for the first hour simply says "reviews" and I have no recollection of what reviews I was doing?
My second hour I spend cleaning up my blogroll a bit. I removed some blogs that aren't posting and added a few that I never got around to adding. I don't know if anyone looks at blogrolls anymore, but I'm not ready to part with mine. It doesn't have everything I follow on my blogreader, so I updated that too. It was actually in pretty good shape, though I suspect the Comment Challenge will see me adding blogs back to it.
My third hour I spent on some of the mini-challenges. I checked my copyright info, corrected post labels, added to my cheat sheet, and dumped dead links. Then I took a break for dinner and Lost episodes with the family. (We ended with the one where Sahid shot Ben. Remember watching that and just going nuts?)
Last night I spent two hours on updating member links in KidLitosphere Central. Twenty minutes of that was beating myself up for neglecting it for so long. I also spent an hour clearing my Google Reader, though I did star a fair number of posts to go back to when I have more time. (Isn't fooling yourself like that a hoot?)
I had high hopes for today, but so far I've only given two hours to Bloggiesta - one for typing reviews that I had scribbled in a notebook and one for cleaning up blog-related emails. With only eight hours so far, I'm hoping to come back tonight - after more Lost.
In other news, the Comment Challenge is rockin' with the crossover of the Bloggiesta and the promotion by the KidLit/YA book bloggers. So, thanks!!!
Today at Booklights I’m sharing three of the Cybils Fiction Picture Book finalists. At least one of these will be on the Caldecott list — mark my words.
Tomorrow begins Comment Challenge 2010. Look to the FAQs for all the info, and join us in our community venture.
This weekend is Bloggiesta, hosted by Maw Books. It’s a chance to spend some time improving your blog, catching up on your reviews, and taming your Google Reader.
Next week is National Delurking Week, so plan on coming out of the woodwork and making yourself known.
Of course, we’re continuing with Freeze Your Tail Off Month, brought to the United States straight from the Arctic. Lay your bets now that the cold front will be used to dispute global warming.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It was my full intention to post this yesterday. But after typing like a madwoman for two days straight during the Bloggiesta, my body decided to punish me. My carpal tunnel flared up really bad yesterday, and my left hand was pretty much numb the whole day. So no blogging yesterday. :-(
But today I am feeling much better! So here we go. And really, this post should have been up ages ago. Let me explain. Perhaps you remember the post in February where I asked you what questions you had about me? Yeah, totally forgot about it. So when I found those questions again during the Bloggiesta (funny what you find when you're cleaning things out) I wanted to finally get around to posting them.
So here's the answer to your questions about me. Thank you to everyone who sent them in! And if you have follow-up questions, leave 'em in the comments below. Maybe I'll do a post like this again. And I won't wait four months this time (hopefully).
From Erika Lynn:
I am always curious where people are blogging from so where do you live?- Right now I'm in Northern California, where I grew up. However, in the past three years that I've been blogging I've done so from my school in Eastern Idaho, and I had a three-month stint in Orlando, Florida while I worked for the Walt Disney World Resort.
From donnas:
What made you want to start blogging?- I'd been doing reviews for a Young Adult website for about 8 months before I started my own blog. Through the forums of that site I had become friends with Jocelyn over at Teen Book Review. She had posted one day that she started a blog, and I went "Hey, I can do that!" So here I am, almost 3 years (and a whole lot less free time) later.
And what is your favorite color?- Pink! I know, I'm such a girly-girl. However pink is closely followed by purple and green. Hence the blog colors.
From Senfaye:
What is your favorite book of all time?- Phew! That's a horrible question! :-) That's like asking me to pick a favorite child. Hmmm... if I had to pick one pick that's remained a favorite for the longest time, I would have to say Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. Does that count as favorite book of all time?
From Yan:
What's your favorite book that you've reviewed so far?- Wow. Umm... (flips through blog looking for reviews). Okay, I have a hard time choosing just one because they books I review are so different in their own ways, so I'll compromise and choose one of several categories. My favorite fantasy so far has been City of Masks, my favorite manga/graphic novel has been Emma, my favorite non-serious book has been I Can Has Cheezburger?, my favorite historical fiction has been Doomed Queen Anne, my favorite obscure book is The Last Grail Keeper and my favorite children's book has been The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies. But that's just what I've reviewed. I have lots of favorites that I haven't reviewed yet.
And which book are you most excited about to be released!- When Yan asked me this question it would definitely have been The Diamond Secret by Suzanne Weyn. Now... hmm... I really want to read The Pale Assassin, which just came out in the UK, but I have to wait until November to read.
From Paradox:
What's your favorite genre to read?- Fantasy. Hands down. Though I've found that most adult fantasy is a little too deep for me. If I can't pronounce any of the names, I usually put it down. Close behind fantasy is historical fiction. YA, of course.
I won't ask about favorite books, because that is almost always an impossible question, but what about favorite books you've read this month? Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce. Well, I started it last month, but I did finish it this month. In fact, this book is what caused my book slump I mentioned two weeks ago (I'm over it now though!)
From deltay:
What types of blogs do you personally enjoy reading?- To be honest I don't really read a lot of stuff beyond book blogs. I just don't have time to find more than that! My experience in the blogosphere focuses on one realm only because otherwise I would spend wayyyyyyyyy too much more time on the computer than I do now.
Do you like/dislike when there's pictures in the entries?- Personally I love pictures. But I think it depends a lot on what you're writing about too. Some posts aren't picture friendly, and some deserve more than pictures.
If you could meet someone, anyone, who would it be, and why?- Walt Disney. I am enormously impressed with him, and I think he would be a wonderful person to meet.
From Michelle Kuo:
Even though I'm sure many others are asking the same thing, what is your favorite book of all time? Or if that's too hard to answer, who's your favorite author?- It would be a toss up between Patricia C. Wrede and Tamora Pierce.
I'm also curious as to what your favorite genre of books is--romance? Action? Humor?- Ooh, humor. That's a good one too. I forgot about that one. So fantasy, historical fiction, and humor. Or a combination of all three would be good.
From H:
You said you like crafts. What do you make/draw?- I've dabbled in pretty much everything. I stay away from the drawing/art aspect mostly because I have absolutely no talent in that arena. Beyond that, I go in cycles. Right now I'm working on a huge cross stitch project, and I love making cards with a process called quilling.
Also, because the favourite book question has already been asked I thought I'd go a bit different and ask what is your favourite book COVER and why?- Hmm... another one that's hard to choose. I'm actually very picky about my covers. I'm one of those nuts who will rebuy a book if they change the cover because I like the new cover better. I'm not sure what makes me like one cover over the other, it's more of a I-know-it-when-I-see-it thing. But to pick something, I love, love, love Kinuko Y. Craft's covers for the Once Upon a Time Series. Headless girls precluded, I love the amount of detail she does for everything she paints. She also did the cover for Wildwood Dancing and Cybele's Secret, both of which I like so much I bought jigsaw puzzles of both paintings.
From the epic rat:
If all books had to be burned save one and you could pick which one to save, what would you choose and why?- I'm going to have to go religious on one. I know, I know, I picked the easy way out. But I'd save my scriptures. You know, eternal salvation and all that. :-)
Which literary character do you most want to be or be friends with? For the risk of sounding cliche, I would really like to be friend with Elizabeth Bennet. I have a tendency to be rather introverted in public, but I think she would bring out the adventurous side of me if we were friends.
What's your all-time favorite Disney movie? Whose your favorite Disney princess?- Well, I'll answer the princess question first, because that's easier. Aurora is my favorite princess, followed closely by Belle. My favorite movie changes yearly it seems. When I was little it was Cinderella, until The Little Mermaid came out, until Beauty and the Beast came out, until Aladdin came out, until The Lion King came out.... well, you get the idea. I can tell you that Pirates of the Caribbean and Enchanted will always be at the top of that list. And right now my favorite is, of course, Up, which I saw two weeks ago.
What book(s) have had a major impact on your life or the way you think?- This is going to sound cliche again, but I really like Shakespeare for this reason. Another example is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. I read both for an American Lit class and we had some great discussions. Another interesting one, although it's not a book, is the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell.
How did Contest Monday start, and how do you manage to keep it going?- It started as an idea that popped into my head as I was moving after graduating college. Despite the fact that I had only brought about 10 books up to school with me, I had over 100 I had to cart back home (most of them were Cybils nominees, which I was smack dab in the middle of at the time). It was one of the many things that made me realize I have way more books than I will ever have time to read or keep track of. So I thought of, "would it be fun if I held a weekly contest on my blog to help give away some of the books I no longer need and/or want?". I thought that idea was cool, so then I thought what day should I have it on? Well, nobody really likes Mondays, so why not brighten up a least favorite day by giving someone a prize. And so Contest Monday was born.
As far as how I keep it up, that's a little more complicated. I don't think I will ever have a shortage of prizes, but postage can get really expensive. I do make a (very, very) small commission using Amazon Associates which helps me pay for postage some months. So if you are planning on buying something from Amazon, using the links found here helps a lot. And the more stuff people buy, the more prizes I can afford to send out. In the end though, the thing that keeps me going is the satisfaction I have knowing someone is getting a book that they are excited about reading.
With the whole Father's Day thing I wasn't able to put as much time into Bloggiesta as I had hoped. Well, and the trip to Ross and the stop at Petco where I had to hold a kitten up for adoption (no, I didn't bring it home). And of course the sheets needed changing and the newspapers needed recycling and The Colbert Report needed watching.
I didn't keep good track of my time, but I think I've spent about four hours on the computer today. I don't feel that I accomplished much for that amount of time. I deleted some bad links from my blogroll. I read some posts I'd been meaning to give a more concentrated look. I deleted a lot of emails. In the month of May, I must not have deleted anything except spam.
The best thing I did was add some of the parenting blogs and general interest blogs to my Google Reader. Originally, I had wanted to keep my reader for book blogs only figuring I'd use my blogroll to visit the others occasionally. Instead I found that I haven't been to them at all. As I was checking out the links, I found myself laughing and realized how much I'd missed the humor and variety they lent to my blog diet.
I also had a lot of time on the computer getting used to the touch pad. It's kind of driving me crazy now, but Bill swears I'll learn to love it. I'm pretty enamored by my laptop in general, so I'm sure we'll be fine together after we pass the getting-to-know-you stage.
I'll end my Bloggiesta participation with ten hours and some light blogkeeping completed. I participated in eight of the mini-challenges - which were all excellent. The challenges were helpful in giving me some focus, because this weekend I wasn't up for thinking through the things I needed to do. I know that the idea came from catching up on reviews after the 48 Hour Book Challenge, but I guess I'd rather do this kind of blog upkeep in the dreary winter months rather than the first days of summer. Overall though, a good opportunity to get some things done.
Well, it's time to wrap up the Bloggiesta. Unfortunately, I got rather sick on Friday, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped. But, having just added up my hours, I spend a total of 12 hours and 15 minutes on this challenge. Which was just barely over my goal of 12 hours. Yes!
So here's what I got done:
Blogging- 28 posts written (29 including this one).
I completed 6 mini-challenges: Clean Up Your Feedreader!, rainy-day post, Google Alerts, Elevator Pitch, blog directories, creating links using anchor text, and Grade Your Blog.
I only made two blog comments. I was more focused on writing than reading other blogs. :-) I certainly hope that was the case around here too, since I noticed there weren't as many people this weekend. However I did spend about an hour or so in conversations with people on my new Ning profile.
Layout- I fixed the sidebars on both blogs and signed up for Feedburner. Now you can subscribe by email if you are so inclined! I did re-add the followers widget here and it did fine for a few hours and then gave me problems again. So I had to take it off again. Grrr. I hate technology sometimes.
I only go two reviews written. This is the big bummer. But considering the huge number of posts I got written, this isn't a surprise. Every time I tried to sit down and write a review something else would pop into my head and demand attention. I think I have Blogger ADD.
All in all, not too bad! The mini-challenges were a great addition, although I only took on half of them. Hope everyone who participated had a great time, and if you didn't make it this year, join us next time!
Well, I have to say that, in the end, I only ended up only devoting about 10 hours to Bloggiesta. I had hoped to do more, but it was a rare weekend when Dan and I were both in town, so that had to be taken advantage of, plus my body wasn't letting me skimp on sleep.
This is what I accomplished during Bloggiesta-- I got my feed reader organized and down to 500 unread posts. Doesn't sound like much, but it did take me 10 hours! I had posts that were unread from mid-May! Now, I'm only about a week behind. Also, I usually spend maybe an hour, if anything, on bloggy things during the weekend, so 10 hours was a lot of time.
Anyway, there's still a good part of Sunday left, so I do plan on working on this some more, even if Bloggiesta is all done.
I've spend six hours on Bloggiesta, much of it on mini-challenges that were offered by various blogs.
I cleaned up my Google Reader a bit by using the "trends" tab to find and remove inactive blogs. Then I added a couple of new blogs through looking at random blogs participating in Bloggiesta. (I tried the Lost numbers first to select my blogging visits - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.) I checked up on my Google Alerts, though I'm finding that they are not catching my blog mentions and I don't know why. I added my blog to various directories, and I secured a blog buddy. (It's you!) I learned about anchor text at GalleySmith (see, that was using anchor text correctly my making the link the blog name). I read some blogging tips articles at Problogger, including a great one on increasing blog traffic from SEOmoz. I also used website grader to run a report on MotherReader and to make some changes to improve my marketing by search engine. This was my favorite tip that was given by Bookish Ruth.
I'm sorry, but I ran out of steam to provide all the links to the many bloggers providing the mini-challenges, but they are all listed at Maw Books. If you are looking for concrete tasks to improve your blog, check them out.
Tomorrow I'll work on typing in some reviews. Maybe I'll even play around a bit with templates and such. You know, typical Father's Day activities.
Ok, I worked out, took a shower, walked to the movie theater, watched I Love You, Man (funny) and then walked to Thai Square, then walked home. Now back bloggiesta-ing.
Will not accomplish any goals by 8am tomorrow. But I did buy a new roof, so that has to count for something.
So, 7.5 hours devoted to my blog reader, and I'm down to 673 posts.
In my defense, I follow a lot of China blogs and am so far behind I *just* this afternoon read most of their coverage of the 20th anniversary of Tian'anmen Square. That takes a while.
I'm now going to go take a break to work out.
Okay, so here's my introduction post for the Bloggiesta. Although I officially started at 10:00am this morning, I am late putting up this post. I didn't think to check the host blog until just now. I know, ironic isn't it? So my official end time with be 10:00am Sunday morning.
My goals
Time: I'm not going for any prizes here, because I already know I won't win. I have way to many things to do this weekend. Unfortunately, more than I thought I would when I signed up last week. Oh well, I'm going to do what I can! I think if I can pass 12 hours (6 each day), I'll be doing really well! That's how cluttered my weekend ended up.
Reviews: I have (hold on, let me count) currently 43 (!) books sitting on my top shelf that need to be reviewed. Beyond that I have another 27 books on a list of books I have returned to the library/borrowed/etc. that also need to be reviewed. Yeah, not going to get that all done. But a girl can dream!
Posts: My big o' notebook of blogs has 22 ideas in it. Plus I would like to get ahead on creating future Contest Monday, Waiting on Wednesday, Funnybone Fridays, and LOLs of the week posts. I want to plan them out at least if not write them. Plus I have two series on my Disney blog I want to get started on, as well as a regular feature for the summer I'd like to plan out. I also have a little something I'd like to do for Father's Day on Sunday, but we'll see what happens.
Layout stuff: I think it's time to add a feedburner to my blog. So I'm going to investigate that. I also want to re-add my followers widget and see if I still have problems "aborting". I also need to update my Disney blog. I'm going to add a follower widget over there, as well as a subscribe button. And maybe a feedburner. Also, as a sidenote, I'm having problems claiming my blog with Technorati. If anyone can help with this, please
send me an email!
Social networking: Nothing planned really. I need to update my profile on a Ning group I recently joined. Other than that, not really anything planned.
Mini-challenges: I just found out about these. Arg! One more thing to add to my list. I don't know how many I'll even try, but we'll wait and see.
Wow, now I feel even more overwhelmed now that I've written all that down. Time to get cracking!
It's noon! That means it's Bloggiesta time! I'm starting with Rebecca's Feed Reader mini-challenge. I had wanted to do this anyway this weekend-- I'm way behind and need organizing and cleaning. Here we go!
I thing my eyes just bugged out at 65 book reviews. That is aiming big! I have that many reviews to write myself but no way I could do it in one weekend. But I always aim big too. Good luck this weekend Jennie! Let me know if I can help you in anyway.
Good luck..I hope that you're able to get a lot accomplished.
http://amomentwithmystee.blogspot.com/
OMG! and I thought I was aiming high! You go girl!!! Good Luck this weekend!
http://tilwereadagain.blogspot.com/2010/06/bloggiesta-starting-line.html
Bobbie
65?????
But maybe they are all wordless board books with no plot to summarize.
Or 5 sets of encyclopedias.
Good luck, regardless!
Wow, you're definitely aiming high! I can't even imagine 65 reviews. Good luck with your goals this weekend!