Owning Your Reader: Your “Pet” Topics

We’ve talked about exploring the WordPress.com Reader and making it your own — customizing your topic listings, and trying new search terms to find blogs that speak to you. Not only is it fun, but making connections with other blogs is the best way to draw people back to yours.

Since we’re all poking around the Reader, we may as well share the collective wisdom. What are your favorite topics to follow? What offbeat search terms have unearthed hidden gems? There’s no need to horde your finds; the more readers the merrier! Here are a few of my favorites; what are yours?

Weekly Writing Challenge: Using Forms Creatively

For some of us, blogging is personal. Others are trying to educate or entertain; many more are hybrids. Yet we’re all storytellers. Creative Writing Challenges help you to push your writing boundaries, show off your blogging chops, and, hopefully, spark more post ideas.

To participate, tag your post with DPchallenge or leave a link to it in the comments. (It would also be great if you could link to this post to encourage people to take part – the more the merrier!)  Your post should be specifically written in response to this challenge. We’ll keep an eye on the tag and highlight some of our favorite posts on Freshly Pressed on Friday.

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This week’s writing challenge forces you to think outside the typical “contact form” box. In our piece from Thursday, “Beyond ‘Contact Me’: Engaging Your Readers with Forms,” we explored the many ways you can use this often-overlooked feature. Whether you’re looking to gain insights into your readers’ wants and interests, come up with new post ideas, or interact with your community of fellow bloggers in deeper ways, using forms in your posts can get you there.

Beyond “Contact Me”: Engaging Your Readers with Forms

Bet you never knew there’s a whole world of creative possibilities hidden right in your blog’s contact form. Get ideas for new posts, go deeper than just “likes” and comments from your readers, and have some fun (really!), all with a few simple tweaks. Used in new and creative ways, forms can transcend their old function of primarily gathering contact info and open up a world of ideas for you.

The Ghosts in Your Dashboard

Your WordPress.com dashboard is the nerve center of your blog: it’s where your ideas come to life, and your creativity gives them shape. As writers, artists, and thinkers, we know inspiration can be sporadic and those moments of genius are fleeting — they come and go, which means that sometimes your literary flame burns out, and those bursts of creation are short-lived.

The result? An abandoned idea. The dreaded draft, sitting in limbo, staring back at you. And so, we’re curious: what’s lurking in the drafts section of your dashboard?

Weekly Writing Challenge: Through the Door

For some of us, blogging is personal. Others are trying to educate or entertain; many more are hybrids. Yet we’re all storytellers. Creative Writing Challenges help you to push your writing boundaries, show off your blogging chops, and, hopefully, spark more post ideas.

To participate, tag your post with DPchallenge or leave a link to it in the comments. (It would also be great if you could link to this post to encourage people to take part – the more the merrier!)  Your post should be specifically written in response to this challenge. We’ll keep an eye on the tag and highlight some of our favorite posts on Freshly Pressed on Friday.

In this week’s creative writing challenge, we’re pushing you through a door. Come on in.

Quick Tip: Plagiarize Yourself

Feel like writing, but can’t settle on a topic? Realize that you haven’t posted to your blog in weeks, but finding no water in the well? Mine your own ideas by going back through comments you’ve made, and you’ll soon be giving your writer’s block its what-fors.