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?

Daily Prompt: The Interview

Interview your favorite fictional character.

Thanks for the great idea, ranu802!

Please note that comments are always closed on daily prompts. Pingbacks are always enabled; if you link to the prompt post on your blog, a link to your post will appear in the list below the prompt.

Coming Soon: Photography 101

Photo by Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Here, we focus on the art and craft of blogging — sharing tips to write more and better, hosting writing challenges to push ourselves and polish our craft, and establishing a space to interact with and learn from others.

Everyone’s “blogging process” is different, from our approach and content to our reasons and goals. For most of you in this community, words take center stage. Yet blogs are very visual platforms, and telling our stories with images is a huge part of the process. Our weekly photo challenges, ever so popular, illustrate this.

Daily Prompt: Unconventional Love

Over the weekend, we explored different ways to love. Today, tell us about the most unconventional love in your life.

Photographers, share a photo that says unconventional. 

Please note that comments are always closed on daily prompts. Pingbacks are always enabled; if you link to the prompt post on your blog, a link to your post will appear in the list below the prompt.

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.

Daily Prompt: Fill In the Blank

Three people walk into a bar . . .

Please note that comments are always closed on daily prompts. Pingbacks are always enabled; if you link to the prompt post on your blog, a link to your post will appear in the list below the prompt.