How Blogging Has Changed Me

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today in her Sunday Poser, Sadje asks us how blogging has changed us and specifically our thinking.

This is a really tough one. I started keeping an online journal that gradually morphed into a blog at age 16 in 2002. Starting that journal wasn’t a surprise: I’ve always been a bit in your face with my issues, especially to strangers. Back then, I wasn’t ashamed to put my thoughts out there for the entire world to read. My English, though it was readable, wasn’t nearly at the level it is now and I had no concept of privacy either for myself or others. I honestly can’t say I don’t regret any posts I’ve put out there. I actually regret having posted some of the writings on my current blog.

As such, having written stuff online for 23 years helped me be slightly more aware of my own and other people’s boundaries. I still probably should be more careful. In fact, I considered starting a new, anonymous blog earlier this year, but I doubt how much that’d help me be truly unidentifiable. I, after all, share so much online about myself that I’m pretty sure my nicknames are easy to connect.

In other respects, blogging has helped me become a better writer. That is, before my days on WP, I did share the stories I’d written as a teen online too. However, these were written in Dutch. Blogging has certainly helped me improve my English.

I still rarely express myself through creative writing, such as poetry or short fiction. That’s a goal I have had for years, but somehow it feels embarrassing to do. That’s weird, isn’t it? I don’t feel ashamed of blabbering about my life, but creative writing scares me.

With respect to connections, WP has helped me immensely. As soon as I moved my diary to WP in 2007, I learned about the blogging community and have started making connections. Some of these people, like carol anne from Therapy Bits, I still talk to more than 15 years on. Blogging isn’t like real life for me, in that hardly any deep friendships have formed out of it. Oh wait, I only have one friend IRL too. 🤣 Maybe this means I’m too superficial for deep connections.

One last thing I learned from blogging is to keep my mouth shut when I have nothing nice to say. That doesn’t mean I can always do so in real life, but I learned early on that particularly when commenting on other people’s posts, you should always include something positive or encouraging. I was harshly criticized back in my early days online for honestly saying that some product wasn’t for me. Turned out the post was sponsored. Let me just say I will never do that kind of thing.

I did occasionally try to be a “lifestyle blogger” in Dutch, but it isn’t my thing and will never be. I’ll, after all, always be authentically me. As such, when I say something nice, I do mean it (it isn’t like I comment positively just because I need to).

That’s a good thing about WP as opposed to self-hosted blogging: there’s less pressure to become an “influencer”. That doesn’t mean you can’t be more or less popular, but I trust those on WP, including those who get a zillion comments, to be authentic.

The Wednesday Hodgepodge (January 3, 2024)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Wednesday, so I’m back joining the Wednesday Hodgepodge. I love this week’s questions, even though I’m pretty sure most came along during the first Hodgepodge of 2023 too. Here goes.

1. Every January 1st since 1976 Lake Superior University has published a list of words they’d like to see banished from the Queen’s English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse or just general uselessness. Here are the words/phrases they’d like to see banished in 2024-
hack, impact, at the end of the day, rizz, slay, iconic, cringe worthy, obsessed, side hustle, wait for it
Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Are any of these a regular part of your speech? Is there a word not on the list that you’d like to add?
I don’t care for the term “side hustle”. Other than that, I don’t really think any of these words/phrases are particularly cringe worthy (pun intended). I do use “at the end of the day”, but not any others out of this list. That doesn’t mean I don’t misuse or overuse words a lot. Think “particularly” above.

2. What do you wish you’d done more of last year? Less of?
More of: writing, both on my blog and in my journal.
Less of: worrying.

3. A place you’d like to visit in this new year? Do you think you will?
I really don’t know. I have no travel plans and actually don’t care for vacations.

4. What are three words to sum up or describe your 2023?
Emotional, stressful, hopeful.

5. What advice would you like to give yourself as we begin a new year?
Be open to the possibilities that come your way.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been trying out the WordPress block editor, because I wanted to participate in #Bloganuary. So far, it’s still quite the learning curve and I’m happy the classic editor is still available. In fact, I doubt I’ll move over to the block editor full-time anytime unless I’m forced to. However, I’m glad the two posts I wrote using the block editor haven’t been ruined (yet) or disappeared altogether, like happened to some I did several years ago.

Technophobia

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s topic for Sadje’s Sunday Poser is tech-phobia. Sadje describes having been encouraged to learn Linux for a while and having had a Macbook sitting around for several months now too, but both intimidate her. She asks us, and specifies that her question may be more relevant to those of us who didn’t grow up with modern tech, whether we’re tech-phobic.

I grew up with computers and got an Internet connection when I was fifteen. That’s relatively late for someone my age, but I attribute that to the fact that I’m blind. After all, my parents did have access to the Internet already, but my first private computer, or rather the Braille display that came with it, didn’t support Internet Explorer.

When I was fifteen, I acquainted myself with the Internet quite quickly, but still stuck to old-fashioned methods and platforms far too long. I mean, I had a DiaryLand diary until 2007, when I finally moved to WordPress. Currently, the fact that for this post, I’m still using the classic editor, is probably proof of the same. I think I’m quite old-fashioned when it comes to technology. I am rarely the type to try out new functions when they first come out, or even when they’ve been out for a while.

With respect to Sadje’s question of being overwhelmed by new technologies, such as smartphones, I can only answer in the affirmative. Of course, again, this is complicated by the fact that I’m blind. I mean, a regular touch screen can’t be worked by a blind person, so it was no wonder I felt hugely incompetent when my husband tried to guide me hands-on to send a text message on his phone when I was about 29.

I was nearly 31 when I decided I wanted to learn to use a smartphone after all. Thankfully, a blind person who was also a qualified computer trainer for the visually impaired lived in my town. He came by the psych hospital to introduce me to the iPhone. He allowed me to use his iPhone to practise on during our introductory lessons, because of course if I couldn’t learn to use an iPhone there was no point in me buying one myself. Eventually, I not only was found to have the skills necessary to learn, but I mastered the use of the iPhone in half of the amount of course time he’d originally thought I’d need.

Since starting to use an iPhone, I have overcome some of my technophobia, but not all of it. Like I said, I still dread the WordPress block editor.

I’m also somewhat anxious about possibly making the transition from touchID to faceID on a phone. I know, I don’t have to, as Apple released the third generation iPhone SE last March, but with the fact that I now have a second generation SE, it just doesn’t quite cut it, honestly. For this reason, I’m really looking forward to the models going to be released this fall. Then again, if I can’t get faceID to work for me, this might be a lot of money gone to waste (unless I find out soon enough and can return the thing).

I’ve also been thinking of buying an Apple watch. That’s less of a risky investment than the faceID iPhone, as firstly they’re less expensive and secondly it’s not as essential (yeah, I consider my phone to be essential now). Both of these pieces of technology though induce my technophobia. But they’re both also really cool.

Things That Have Changed Since I Started Blogging

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts for this week is to share what’s changed since you started blogging. My current blog turns four next month and not much has changed over those years. However, I’ve been blogging on WordPress for over fifteen years and a lot changed in those years.

Back in the day, blogging was still the main sort of social media. I think Facebook might’ve existed and Twitter certainly did, but neither was as popular a means of connecting with other people online as they’d become over the next couple of years. Don’t even get me started on Instagram, on which I uploaded five photos tops since getting an account in 2017. I just don’t get it. Not that I ever really “got” Twitter or Facebook. Give me my blog please.

Back in the early days of my blogging journey, I wrote mostly about my own life, but this quickly changed to blogging about disability advocacy. I participated in an annual event called Blogging Against Disablism Day on May 1 and would connect to many of the bloggers I met there throughout the rest of the year. Many would follow me on Twitter, Tumblr (which again I didn’t really get), etc. I loved being part of a community working towards the greater good!

I stopped blogging on that blog in 2011 or 2012. In August of 2013, I started Blogging Astrid, the blog I usually now refer to as my “old blog”. I started it on Blogger but moved to WordPress in November. This is when I started to interact with the Writer’s Workshop community and learned about link parties. For a while, I blogged more for my stats than for self-expression or the greater good. Getting tired of that was a big reason I moved on to my current blog, which had as its original aim that I could write from the heart. As had been the case in the very early days of my original blog and even before, when my original blog was still an online diary.

Until I started this blog, I didn’t really know there was a community specific to WordPress.com and that it’s still alive and kickin’, despite the folks at Automattic trying to kill it off by making WordPress less and less attractive particularly to new customers. Then again, maybe blogging is dying after all. I try to realize people have said that for at least a decade and I still can find a pretty large circle of people to interact with in the blogosphere. They aren’t usually the same I’ve known since 2007, but that’s totally okay.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Gratitude List (February 5, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Saturday evening. I’m doing a gratitude list again. I don’t promise I’ll have time for another post for #Write28Days, but I’ll try. As usual, with this post, I am joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good psychiatrist’s appt on Tuesday. I went to the mental health outpatient clinic to meet my nurse practitioner face-to-face and we talked to the psychiatrist via the eHealth system, as she was working from home. I got a new medication, which should hopefully help reduce my anxiety.

2. I am grateful I got a license code for the latest JAWS, my screen reader. I don’t know how the screen reader company managed to arrange for it so quickly, as I haven’t seen the bill in my health insurance app yet, but oh well.

3. I am grateful WordPress still provides the classic editor as an option. The latest JAWS does work with the block editor, so I tried that for a few days, but I kept accidentally deleting random paragraph blocks and overall, I consider it still quite a cumbersome editor.

4. I am grateful I have been able to be crafty again. My flower fairy or whatever it was, didn’t turn out as good as I’d liked. Besides, in the tutorial, they did the body in light flesh color, same as the head, so it looks like the thingy is naked. For this reason, I’m not going to show it on my blog in case I offend anyone.

I did create a Disney princess figurine out of polymer clay on Thursday. Most staff immediately guessed correctly who it was when looking at her: Elsa from Frozen. Since it’s quite small (only about 3cm high), I wasn’t able to refine her facial features or whatever. That’s okay though.

Polymer Clay Elsa from Frozen

5. I am grateful for a trip to Action, a budget store, in a town about a 20-minute drive away on Friday. We do have an Action here in Raalte too, but the one in that town was larger or so my staff said. I bought acrylic paint to paint details like eyes on my polymer clay creations, thin paintbrushes to use with the acrylic paint or with glitters or Fimo liquid, a utility knife and some other things. I was looking for soft pastels too, since the site said they sell them, but apparently this particular store didn’t have them in stock.

6. I am grateful for decent sleep most nights this week. I slept really poorly on Wednesday, but the other nights, I slept okay.

7. I am grateful to have been accepted into some lovely Christian E-mail groups. I am grateful for the kind people on there and for the fact that they don’t judge me for not living with my husband, which I know isn’t a traditional Christian marriage setup.

8. I am grateful I have been able to blog consistently for a few days now. I am not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it up, but we’ll just have to see.

9. I am grateful I am able to make relatively healthy food choices on days even when I did have a “bad” food for lunch for example. I mean, I don’t do “cheat days” where I ditch the food plan altogether and that’s good. Every healthy food choice I make contributes to my ultimate goal of a healthier lifestyle.

10. I am grateful for no side effects from the new medication so far. I was supposed to get it at 5PM this evening, but due to some mistake the pharmacy made, it got in the system for 8AM. The staff gave it to me this morning and I took it without concern. I am so glad we found out before the evening staff gave me an extra dose.

What are you grateful for?

#IWSG: Success As a Writer

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

It’s the first Wednesday of the month once again and this means it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to meet. I don’t really have much to share with respect to how well I did in the area of writing. I mean, I did okay, having written 21 blog posts over the month of August. I didn’t really broaden my writing horizons at all, but that’s okay. Other creative outlets (ie. polymer clay) have taken priority.

So, with no further ado, let’s get to this month’s question. This month, the optional question is how we define success as a writer.

As someone who has only had one short piece published so far, I can’t really define success by how well-accepted my works are in the area of publishing. At least not unless I want to consider myself a massive failure. This doesn’t mean I don’t define success by external standards though.

When I first started writing for an audience with my online diary in 2002, I hardly had that audience in mind at all. The service I used didn’t have a comment feature or stats, so there was no way of knowing who’d read my writings except if they’d E-mail me about them.

When I transferred to WordPress in 2007, I still didn’t care about or even pay attention to my stats. I was delighted when my blog posts got featured on a popular-in-my-niche blog, but that’s about it.

Then when I started what I refer to as “my old blog” on this blog in 2013, I did understand more about blogging and WordPress, so I did pay attention to how many comments I got. That’s usually how I defined success at the time. I also checked my stats more regularly, but still didn’t really know what they meant.

I still to this day usually define success by the engagement I get on my blog. Since starting this blog in 2018, it has been steadily improving.

I do try not to obsess over my stats though. I mean, back in the days of my old blog, I would hardly ever respond to people’s comments because those comments would distort my stats. I have learned since that it is not just morally expected but good for your engagement too to reply to each comment you receive.

Besides the number of comments I receive, I would like to add that it helps boost my sense of success as a writer to see that people are genuinely touched by or interested in my writings. I feel therefore that the content of comments also matters.

How do you define success as a writer?

Tanka: These Weird Times

Posted on by Astrid 
Stay silent, listen
Hear the birds’ cheerful chirping
Hear the wind blowing
Hear the music of nature
Despite these times of crisis

I am pretty sure I already published this poem somewhere, but I can’t find it on here and I don’t post my poetry anywhere else. I found it in my Drafts app, which I sometimes use for creative writing. I originally wasn’t sure I wanted to post it to my blog and as I write this, still am not 100% sure.

It may not even be the most appropriate time for this poem. Most people are probably, understandably, tired of the pandemic and want it to end, not be at a crisis point. And honestly, I’m not sure where it is currently. I mean, I saw a headline today saying COVID is being fought well, but the virus fights back. Something like this. Let’s all hope this crisis is over with quickly.

I am using this as an attempt at working the block editor too, as on my iPhone I can of course no longer use the classic editor and the Drafts app works only with Apple devices. I was going to find a workaround, but then decided I would need to get acquainted with the block editor one day anyway. So, well… whatever.

I’m submitting this poem to dVerse’s Open Link Night.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 27, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to another #WeekendCoffeeShare post. I just had my afternoon coffee about an hour ago and am going to have a soft drink in a bit. Of course, I can still make you a Senseo if you want. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that I’m just about as well as it gets with respect to my cold. I am still a tiny bit sniffy, but I don’t think it gets any better anytime soon. I didn’t go to Lobith this weekend, even though my husband had promised me pizza at our house if I did. After all, yesterday I still wasn’t convinced I was well enough. Instead, my husband is coming over tomorrow.

If we were having coffee, I would say that this past week has been great in the walking department. Like I said yesterday, I’ve been quite active. Today was an exception, as it was raining on and off all day so far. I hope to still get some steps in this evening.

If we were having coffee, I would talk some about the political saga that unfolded after last week’s general election. The current prime minister, Mark Rutte, won the election again, probably because people are used to him doing the corona-related press conferences. Before the election, he’d hinted at some restrictions being lifted for Easter. Of course, that was just a political game to win voters, as in the last press conference, only the curfew got moved from 9PM till 10PM.

Speaking of the lockdown, my husband predicts from what he’s read that most of the restrictions will remain until mid-June. I really hope he’s wrong, but at least we can still see each other (provided neither of us is under the weather).

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve been loving reading other blogs as well as writing my own blog posts. I’m not yet preparing for the #AtoZChallenge. Maybe I should, as it’s in less than a week.

I’ve also been in contact with WP support again. The reason is the news that the classic editor might be disappearing after all. I’m not sure WP support itself knows what it’s doing, as I get mixed messages. I’m trying to let it go for now though, as so far at least I can still blog.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that we might get new staff here in my care home soon. I think I mentioned last week that a male staff was having a look around our home last week Saturday to see if he wanted to work here. Turns out he does. He’s been orienting here a few more times. He used to work in a home for people with intellectual disability who also have complex care needs due to behavior. I got the impression he didn’t like that anymore, so I feared I’d scare him away from wanting to work here. Turns out he’s going to work in both homes.

Then on Thursday, another prospective staff, also male, toured my care home. The manager informed me in advance that he was coming, which I liked. I’ll be curious to know if he decides to work here.

What’s been going on in your life?

#IWSG: Reasons for Writing

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

It’s the first Wednesday of the month again and this means it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to meet. I did pretty well in the writing department over the past month, although not as well as I’d hoped. I mean, I didn’t write a blog post for #Blogtober20, or at all for that matter, everyday. Particularly towards the end of the month, I was less and less motivated to write. Let’s hope for a good writing month for November then.

This month’s optional question is why you write what you write. Albert Camus is quoted as saying that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. Such a fitting quote on the day after the fiasco that is U.S. election day. I don’t usually share my political views on here, but let me be very clear that I don’t support Trump. Now I must say that Biden is pretty far from my ideal president too, but at least he isn’t as much of an idiot as Trump. But I digress.

Flannery O’Conner, an author I’ve never heard of, is quoted as saying: “I write to discover what I know.” This resonates more with me than Camus’s reason. I mean, like I said, I don’t share my political views on here much. In case Camus means that the written word is everlasting, I doubt mine is. Though I’ve been able to conserve most of my writings from the early days of my online journal and before, I’m not sure they’ll last forever or even close to it. The Internet evolves faster than we know, after all. WordPress may not be here for the rest of my life, or even the rest of this decade. With its stupid decision to enforce the block editor, who knows how long it will be able to survive?

I can, in a way, relate to O’Conner’s idea of writing for discovery. Or self-discovery, in my case.

However, I don’t just write for myself. In fact, I cannot keep myself from writing with an audience in mind, even when I write in my own private diary. It’s been this way even years before I knew about the Internet. In a sense, I write to discover what I know, but also to share what I know. Maybe that’s a bit snobbish, but oh well.

#IWSG: I’m a Hobbyist Writer

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

Welcome to another meeting day of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG). I wish I could share that I’ve been doing well in the writing department. Well, in some ways I have, but I still haven’t written the story I intended to write for Chicken Soup for the Soul. I’m not even sure I will, as somehow it seems so insignificant right now that we’re not in lockdown anymore and I can see my husband again. When I had the COVID scare a little over two weeks ago, I did want to write, but couldn’t find the motivation really.

That being said, in other ways I did pretty well writing-wise. I decided to join #Blogtober20 at the last moment. Of course, I couldn’t join earlier, as I didn’t know about the challenge until last week. So far, I’m doing well, writing a post each day. I’m not always sticking to the prompts, but that isn’t required.

On to the monthly optional question. The question is whether you consider yourself a working writer and, if so, what it means. Or if you consider yourself a hobbyist or aspiring writer, what that means to you.

I obviously am a hobbyist writer. I cannot even say that I’m an aspiring writer, because I haven’t submitted a piece in years. In fact, the only piece I ever submitted was the one accepted into the anthology on typed communication by autistics in 2015.

I did at one point list my blog as my place of employment on Facebook. Now I don’t, because I don’t want my family to read it. Not that they most likely will, and of course they can still find me if they truly want to.

Being a hobbyist writer doesn’t mean I don’t have goals. I mean, I participate in #Blogtober20 and the goal for that challenge is to write a blog post each day of the month. I also during the rest of the year have somewhat of a rule that I need to post at least twice each week. I don’t have set days to publish a post, but if I haven’t written anything for a few days, it tends to feel awkward.

Being a hobbyist writer also doesn’t mean I don’t care how my writing is doing. I got really excited when, last week, I got lots of comments on a few posts. I also feel disappointed when I get only one or two comments on a post. I love seeing my stats go well. I don’t use Google Analytics anymore, because I was struggling with it and didn’t want to pay the money for having it on my WordPress.com blog. However, my WordPress stats do mean something to me.