Friday Show and Tell Saturday Confession

Hi. My name is Marcy, and I am a blogger.com addict. Oh, it all started out innocently enough about four years ago when I started my first blog. I posted very sporadically and started following the blogs of family members and close friends. Sometimes I would read a book that I loved, and then look up and follow the blog of the author.


Soon I decided that one blog was not enough. I needed a separate blog to chronicle the news of my extended family and share photos with those who live on opposite sides of the country. Then of course I needed another blog for the other side of the family. Now I was actually posting to my different blogs on a somewhat regular schedule.


One day I noticed a little tab entitled “Blogs of Note”. This led me to the blog Baking My Way Through Germany.  I love to bake! Baking in Germany sounded interesting, so of course I started to follow this blog, written by someone I had never before met. Soon I was following other blogs about sewing and quilting such as The Doodles of My Mind and Why Not Sew?  Someday I really do want to make more quilts, and these blogs are brimming with wonderful ideas. This was really starting to be fun!


Several months ago I found Tristi Pinkston’s blog where I was introduced to blog hops. Free books? Of course I was into that, and soon I was following even more blogs of readers and writers. I kept finding great writing advice and more books that I wanted to add to the growing stack of “to be read” next to my bed, and I found myself spending even more time reading and following blogs.


This, of course led me to fun activities such as Rachel Harrie’s Third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign.  Now I was following even more wonderful blogs, and taking on new writing challenges as well.

Along the way I learned about commenting on favorite blogs, but sometimes they wouldn’t let me and I would get this message:


“We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.


The following errors were found:


Input error: Cookie value is null for FormRestoration”

Yesterday at Boys Buttons and Butterflies  and Spotted Stones I found the answer!  if you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox, just go to your privacy settings and set them to accept third-party cookies for http://www.blogger.com/!  Thank you!!  I can now post comments!



Back to my story. Things were now getting a bit hairy. All of my spare time was being used up by either reading other campaigner’s blog posts or writing my own. This seriously was cutting into my morning writing time, my reading time, my family time, my gardening time, my housework time (already very limited!) and my precious sleeping time. This was even more addicting than Farm Town on Facebook!


Every evening I began promising myself that I would only blog for an hour or two after dinner, but many nights I would be surprised to find it was 1am and I was still trying to finish reading through the blogs that I followed, and adding even more wonderful blogs to follow. Each morning I would promise myself that I would not even check my email until I had written a substantial amount on my WIP, but then I would think of something that I needed to blog about, and before I knew it the morning would be shot.


Now I discovered that I was following the blogs of several fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also sometimes known as Mormons), and I found The Book of Mormon Forum    Of Course I had to join and take the opportunity to share my testimony  of The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, as some of you may have already read. I’m finding more wonderful blogs there, and I hope that you will take a few minutes and read some of the posts of others participating in the forum.


This brings me to today, and the fact that something has to give, and soon, because next month is:


NaNoWriMo  I was introduced to NaNoWriMo by DD1 several years ago and I have been a participant for four years and a "winner" twice. I thrive on the word wars against other participants, and am motivated to keep my word count above the line of death as I try to write 50,000 words during the month. My current WIP is a revision of the results of the last two years of NaNoWriMo. I have had a very slow writing summer and I am looking forward to the boost of participating again this year. But now I have a dilemma. In the past I was not a blogger.com addict. This year I will need to take drastic steps during November in order to reach my 50,000 word goal, and I will probably put a hold on my blogging during the month.


But, in making my blogging rounds this week I have found suggestions for preparing for NaNoWriMo. Elizabeth Spann Craig’s recent post listed links to many helps for preparing for NaNoWriMo, including links to Larry Brooks’ posts at Storyfix.com.   These almost constitute a book in and of themselves!  Zan Marie  blogged about the Books and Writers Community 30-day Character Building Exercise for September.  I missed out on doing this during September but am definitely going to make the time during October to get to know some new characters in preparation for National Novel Writing Month.


See you around! (At least until November)


Marcy