California Girls...... We're Undeniable.

There is a good reason why it has almost been 2 weeks since I last posted. 

Reason #1: 

Cause for ten short days, I'm a California Girl. My my very fantastic and very fun family are along for the ride. 

 Ten year old sister, Me, Soccer sister, Music sister, Step-mother, Father. 

Disneyland. June 13, 2011

Reason #2:

I've been too busy chillin with these 3 beauties to even think about the blog.

They.Crack.Me.Up.

  Disneyland

Resaon #3:

The Charming Huntington Beach called to us. And we answered.

 Reason #4: 

We decided to hit up some Knott's Berry Farm as well. And I decided to make the worst decision of my life and get on this bad boy:

 I'm up there somewhere, just about ready to DIE. And in case you want the full effect, here is the entire coaster: 

TERRIFYING. terrifying.What was I thinking?

And we swung by Universal Studios Hollywood today. It was a lovely time.

And father thought it would be funny to take a picture of me and Frankenstein and then tease me for like the next hour that he was my date last night. Ha dad. HA.
{I find it even funnier that the rest of my family was posing there with Frankenstein but father only got me in the picture. He cut out the rest of the lovely ladies in our group cause he thought his joke was so funny.}

We've still got some Huntington and Disneyland on the menu. Its a niiiiiice loooong vaca.

I've got sooooooooo much I would like to be blogging about, Top Ten Tuesdays, Flashback Fridays, Life's Little Moments, Embracing the Camera, Shine Challenges, and a million other things that are on my heart...
But I don't want my blog to come before enjoying my life, so I refuse to stress about keeping up. I get done what I get done when I get it done. Its better that way.

So, since I am taking a break from blogging heavily in the present and probably for the next 2 weeks, {maybe more} I am just going to post this little "filler" post that I made about a week before we left.
Basically its boring blogging advice that I wish someone gave me 6 months ago.
If you are already pleased with your blog you can just exit the blog right now. 
But I conjured it up mostly because bestie asked for it. Go check out her new born baby blog. It's cute.

So, without further adieu, Blogging advice from a not so famous blogger.

When I first began blogging I didn’t really know what the heck I was doing. I had no idea what a button was or a link up party and I had no idea how to link something in a post. I barely understood how to control the layout. I didn’t know what people actually wanted to read {obvious by my “soapbox” posts} and I didn’t know how to turn my life into an interesting blog form.

In the past months since this blog was born I have learned lots, blog stalked A LOT, come to some conclusions and have gotten some valuable pointers from even more blog stalking. living half alive is still evolving but it’s evolving in a direction that I am happy with. I don't know nearly as much about blogging as I’d like to. I don't have quite as many golden posts that I would like, but I'm headed in the right direction.

I have a good friend just starting out a blog and she asked for some advice from fellow bloggers. So I got to thinking what I would tell her and what I have learned. Those thoughts just sparked this post. Not that I have anything profound to share here with an experienced blogger, but there are a few things I wish I would have known 6 months ago when I was first starting out. These are conclusions I came to after I realized the kinds of things that kept bringing me back to a blog.

 The first big challenge for everyone is picking a topic. I call this Finding Your Voice. It took me a little while to find mine. I still have some searching to do. This is tough because there are hundreds of topics out there and thousands upon thousands of blogs for each topic. Your blog or your topic might not stand out but that isn’t something you should get hung up on. If you are blogging to become famous, you are in it for the wrong reasons and people are going to see right through that and you will most likely have a lame blog. Sure everyone dreams to have 5,000 followers and have material that just keeps sucking people back in. But the truth is, there are probably 1,000 blogs per 1 that is really popular. It just isn’t going to happen for everyone. The more you force things the less people are going to come back. Just pick a topic that you are passionate about. Pick a topic you feel comfortable with. Pick a topic that is unique to you. Pick a topic that will easily harbor creativity and passion and just see where it leads you. If your blog was meant to capture an audience of thousands, it naturally will.    

Next you have to decide why you want to blog and just keep that as your main goal. Do you want to keep your friends and family current on what is going on in your life and just blog “newsletter style”? Is it a creative outlet? Is it a place where you are looking for a community of friends? Do you want to inspire others? Is it your journal? If that is what you aspire to, you will most likely reach that goal, because all of those goals can be obtained without 5,000 followers. Don’t be phony on your blog either. Some people have the talent to draw audiences back, others do not. I have found that I can’t copycat what I admire in other bloggers. It's obvious when you are not being yourself. The closest that I can come is blogging about something that I've seen on another blog, a topic that I enjoyed that I could implement in a personal way on my blog. Like, I saw 30 days of photographs on other blogs and transformed it into my own version. I saw others make a ‘life’s list’ of 100 things they wanted to do before they died and decided I could make my own personal life list without copycatting theirs. 3 in 30 was another feature I saw on another blog that I fell in love with.  I could go on but you get the idea.

Blog often! I am a total blog stocker, as most fellow bloggers are. If you make me wait more than a month for a new post, you will quickly loose me. Blog at least once a week. {Unless you are a Friend of Family member of mine’s blog.} Those blogs I will always go back to because I am interested in the lives of my F&F. But I love it when I get to read their posts often it makes me feel connected even when I don't get to see them often. Even to them I would encourage a minimum of 1 post per week. {Do it for us, for your loyal fans.} But to those people whom I don't know: I will quickly lose interest if you don't let me read something at least once a week. Preferably several time a week.

 I word: HUMOR. If you can get people to laugh, they will come back. Just about every single blog on my stalking list has made me cry with laughter at one time or another. Letting my own sense of humor come through on my blog was a foreign concept to me, but as I learn to do it, it makes for posts that I enjoy, even if no one else does. And at the end of the day, really only I have to like my blog.

Make your posts neat and organized. Whether you center your fonts and photographs or swing them left or right make them neat. I don't like messy blogs and most likely won't return. If you are not sure how to make things neat, learn. Mess around with things. Use the ‘Preview’ button because things always look different in blogger while you are writing versus the finished product. Use good grammar, make sense, spell check. Re-read your posts at least twice before you post them. Read out loud if you are worried about something making sense or get a friend or family member to proofread. Don't mis-spell words {unless it is on purpose, in which case we know and we love you for it.} Don’t be lazy. If you wouldn’t turn it into your English teacher we don't want it either.

Also use the different tools in the tool bar at the top of your blog. Use different size of fonts, use bolding and underlining and italicizing. Make your font fun, add emphasis and personality that way. Since you are not talking to us and your tone of voice gets lost, make up for it by finding a tone of voice with your font style. I like to be able to imagine just how this post is being spoken. It makes it more interesting.

Make sure there is at least one photograph in each post. And if they are photographs from your life, all the better. If they are pictures of you, your children, your husband, your messy house, your stained clothes, your greasy hair they are going to suck us in all the more. I learned early on that every post needs a photo so for a long couple of months all I did was find a picture online that was relevant and posted it. It's alright, but I realized the blogs that I love were the ones that put pictures of their lives in their posts. I want to get to know those whose blogs I stalk. I want to get to know them through their photographs, their life’s experiences and through their humor.

Learn how to utilize the blogger tools. You don't have to know and use all of them, heck I only know a small fraction, but get to know the most popular ones. If you don't know where to start, you can Google search anything about a blog and you will be given very specific step by step instructions on how to do anything at all.

Have an archive on your blog. There are some blogs I stumble upon and immediately fall in love with and want to go back and read every. single. post. I hate and I mean hate when there is no blog archive on there and I can't easily do that. Also, I am curious to know how long said blog had existed. I like the blog archive okay. So do it for me. Everyone in the entire universe with a blog. Kthanksloveyoubye. 

Just for your protection: never write a post in blogger. Always write it on a word document and then transfer it over. I have lost too many precious posts cause I just got carried away writing in blogger. Without fail I lose internet connection and lose my post. “Saving it” in blogger isn’t good enough backup. I've still lost too much by saving it in blogger. Learn from my mistakes on this one K?

Get out there and read others’ blogs. Especially those blogs that have thousands of followers. What is it that they are doing that is getting attention? What sets their blog apart from the thousands of others that are not interesting?

The most common theme I personally found when I went out in search of what sets those blogs apart can be described in 2 words:

Exposing oneself. 

We want to read about your embarrassing moments. We want to read about your meltdowns. We want to read about your failures. We want to hear about the fights you had with your husband or the food poisoning that had you coming out both ends for an unpleasant evening. {Ok, honestly we only want to hear that if you can tell us with humor unsurpassed and no pictures.} We want to hear how you eat food off your toddlers face because you are too tired to go throw it away. We want to hear about how you have no peace for ‘number 2.’

We want to hear about the challenges of sending your lover to Afghanistan and we want to see the tears you shed. We want to see the pictures of the black eye you and your husband gave your 12 year old son while trying to crack the egg {him} on the tramp.  We want to read about how we are not the only people on earth that stays in their pajamas all. day. long. We want to know that we are not the only ones who threw a party that no one showed up to.

We like to find comfort in your failures, because it makes ours easier to handle.

People want to get to know you through your blog. We want to see photographs from your life. We want to hear the confessions of the imperfectness of life. We want to hear the truth about challenges you face and mistakes you make. We want to laugh at the hysterical mishaps of your life. We want to read the good things too. The cute things your kids said or the love note your husband left you. We want our heart strings to be tugged at when you share personal stories. We want to be inspired.

And finally, spread the love. If you find a blog you love, follow them. {It's like Christmas morning when we get a new follower} and comment. But only nice comments. It's like our birthday when we get comments. Spread the love and support the community.

Hope that helps.
Does anyone else have any other good advice any other new bloggers out there? Anything I left out?