Thankful for... More Blog Traffic?

The other day someone asked me how to significantly increase blog traffic. I sent a long email in response, then decided I really needed to do a whole post.

Thus, Increase Your Blog Traffic: Top 5 Book Rec's.

At first blush, it could seem rather selfish to focus on a goal like increasing one's blog traffic. As if such a goal would be all-about-you.

I like to think about that differently. And so do the writers of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. In this book, Brogan and Smith ask (and answer) something remarkably refreshing, something I've been waiting to hear because I know it to be true...

"...aren't the people who spend a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks being ANTI-social? In a word, the answer is no." They continue, "we're not sure the community is disappearing. Instead, we think it is slowly, quietly making its way online." And their relationship is one proof. Two authors, one from Boston and the other from Montreal, wrote the book together.

Today I'm not at a Thanksgiving gathering, because our local one is going to be on Saturday. So here I am, able to be social in a different arena that spans geography and connects me with others who are also free today.

So, yes, I'm thankful that over the past few years my blog traffic has grown, because it means I know, or am getting to know, you.


Corn at Harvest Time photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Thanks, Unsolicited

The pile was getting too high. Messy.

It was time to sort.

So I sat in silence and began. This-goes-here, that-goes-there.

In the middle of the pile, I found it. Simple brushstrokes. Raw line and color. Her painting asked nothing of me. I simply held it in my hands and looked. And looked.

This is my Thanksgiving, I thought. And in that moment, I did not feel the need to explain why. So I shall not, now, try.


Fall Abstract, by Sara, 12. Used with permission.

____

Come share your Thanksgiving reflection or tradition at HighCallingBlogs. Just drop your link in our comment box...

Why Do You Write? (tweet, blog...)

The path meanders upward, embraced in shadow. A red-winged blackbird lights on the underbrush where pearl-orange berries hang. Further on, red berries dangle too, like liquid glass. Poplars and firs give way to bamboo, and through a gap I see fields of roses, pink and wild. The air carries their scent, even as it moves cattails now full with ivory cotton swelling.

A single cardinal punctuates grass, turns his head to the side, just after the pond. Oh, the pond! Brown fish like blunted chopsticks sit motionless, while powder-blue dragonflies whir and dip. A naked branch, dead to the year, becomes a landing dock. Dragonflies, dragonflies, like blue-powdered leaves, clutter the skeleton branch. And here is a cluster of golden brown mushrooms. Or there. Look! Yellow flowers like banana bunches, and lavender too. Banana flowers. That's what we called them as children.

My girls go before me, biking through time, past creeks and swamps. They like the tunnels, shady and cool. I hear them up ahead, whistling in the dark.

-----

Why do I write this for you? Tell of my Sabbath biking? I write because I suffer.

Suffer? you say. What have cardinals and red berries got to do with suffering?

Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift has an interesting observation about gratitude. It is, he says, what we 'suffer' between the time we receive a gift and the time we pass it along.

So, yes, I write of girls on a path, of wild roses and dark tunnels... because I have suffered gratitude. For these Sabbath gifts. And now I find relief, in passing the gifts to you.


Fairy Forest Painting, by Sara B. Used with permission.

RELATED POSTS:
High Calling Blogs The Gift: Generous Elves