Prince

The 500 club

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So, yay! I reached a milestone with my blog the other week…

My other blog.

Carcrashgratitude to be precise. This blog that I created, birthed from my parent blog, this smikg.com, has now amassed over 500 followers.

519 to be exact, as of this writing. 😁😁

And it’s great! My offshoot blog has almost doubled the followers of my original writing blog, and I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER.

And why? Because gratitude, that’s why.

I just wanted to write and celebrate my little win, my ‘happy progression’ as it were, but also speak to you about how I came to be here, and place some perspective, some thoughts on this experience, and maybe even offer some advice for some of you who may be starting out…

So how have I managed to exceed the number of followers with my second blog when it arrived on the scene two years after my first one?

  1. Consistency is key. I blog every single day about an item of gratitude. Looking at my latest title, you will see that it’s at 1887 days of consistency.

That’s 1887 days of gratitude in a row. If I said it was easy, I would be LYING. I’ve almost given up many times, and all those hard times was when life got really, really hard. But I was proving something to myself, more than anything else.

So, I’m still here.

2. Second. Photos help A LOT. I can’t tell you how often a well-placed photo gives me more likes.

Clearly, I don’t do it for the likes. We’ll come back to this one in a moment. But people are a visual species, and seeing something, even if it isn’t your photo (the Pexels free photos option via WordPress is great) encourages a person to click on your post sooner. The photo tells them the story, before your post does.

Also, food photos tend to be really popular. Just saying for any would-be chefs.

3. Don’t just follow for the sake of getting likes back, please. That is so trite. Be original for goodness sakes.

Just be honest. I think we’re all immune and desensitised to commonplace, fence-sitting ideas and thoughts. Be yourself. No one else will be.

4. I haven’t overly promoted myself in all this time. I haven’t promoted myself, really at all. In the WordPress world, I’ve liked blogs that I genuinely like, and let the blog grow organically from that.

Just remember… I have been doing this carcrashgratitude blog for 5 years now. So 500 followers in 5 years, is really not much…

That’s about 100 a year. Less than 10 a month. Of course more recently my reach has grown exponentially, but we are talking averages.

5. Why don’t I care about followers? Well let’s be honest, I do, kind of, because it means that people are appreciating what I’m saying and my words are having an impact. So that, I care for, greatly.

But if you are a writer, you are going to write, because you love writing. It’s something in you, and no matter how much you write and you write and you write, you will never ever get it out.

The writing bug that is.

Therefore, people clicking like or follow, is just the icing on the cake, the sugary sweet, superficial stuff.

It’s not the bread, the carb, the density of the cake. The whole piece that just took you hours to bake and get out of the oven.

So, if you’re a writer and just starting out, keep going. You’ll be glad you did.

If you just wanna join the ride, my carcrashgratitude blog can be found here, with a little story about how it all came to be, here.

And yes I am being cheeky and all self-promoting, I’ve done that before too, here.

Ha ha ha. Now I am being too much.

Anyway, thanks for joining me on this ride.

To quote a masterful genius…

“We are gathered here today, to get through this thing called LIFE.”

💖💖

Photo by Tessa Wilson on Unsplash

How I handled f%$king writing rejection and lived to tell the tale.

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Step 1: Stare at the computer in horror. Do this for as long as you have to, to let it really SINK IN.

pim-chu-245596-unsplash

Photo by Pim Chu on Unsplash

Step 2: Physically express yourself. Scream. Cry. YELL. Do all 3 and then some. If you are going to throw something across the room make sure you don’t have any strong attachment to the item, it is not heavy/sharp/strong, and also, you don’t care about your flooring/it is virtually unbreakable.

Step 3: Keep crying and telling yourself self-defeating words. Things like:

“I’m a failure.”

“I am shit.”

“I am a shit writer AND I’m just plain shit.”

“I can’t fucking write.”

“I got rejected for a fucking writing course…”

And so on. If you have come this far you are doing well. Your self-loathing is working brilliantly.

Step 4: Wallow in self-pity. Pick someone who has to put up with you (i.e partner, parent, sibling) and tell them how shit you are. Cry as you are doing so. Tell them all your sorrows, including that time in grade 4 when you walked into a pole at school and your canteen partner laughed their head off at you. Go on.

Step 5: More than likely you have just been yelled at and scolded by your loved one. Go off and sulk for about 37 minutes.

I’ll wait…

Step 6: Ok you’re back. Now I want you to ask yourself…

“Are you going to let this beat you?”

That just jarred you didn’t it? You expected me to tell you to go cut some onions and rub them over your eyelids after all that self-hatred and the pity party you just attended with yourself as the star D-grade celebrity.

But SmikG is getting glass half-full right now and she is gonna whoop your ass.

Sit down! You’re not going anywhere.

Step 7: Ask yourself some more questions. Things like:

“Are you going to let one individual/organisation dictate what you can do?

“Will you someone else control your belief of yourself?”

“Is this one incident going to make you stop writing? Really? This ONE thing?”

At this stage, you may want to wallow in some more self-defeating talk for a couple more moments. Go on, whimper. Sniffle. Get some Kleenex super soft tissues, from the Aloe Vera range you weak piece of shit.

Step 8: “Are you REALLY going to let this get you down?”

“You know… you’re not that shit.”

“You’re actually, not bad.”

NOW we’re talking.

Step 9: Time to recall some famous writer stories.

jkrowling

J.K Rowling. An unemployed and poor single mother goes from her Harry Potter manuscript being rejected 12 times before finally getting picked up… but even so, her editor encourages her to get a teaching job as it is unlikely she will earn much from writing children’s books.

She is now worth over 1 billion dollars (read, BILLION) with her name to one of the best-selling series in the world with 450 million copies SOLD.

stephen king

Stephen King. Rejected his own story, Carrie, only to find his wife had taken it out of the garbage with the note for him to finish it. It was rejected over 30 times, but was eventually picked up and even turned into a movie.

He has over 50 novels to his name, has written hundreds of short stories, and remains one of the great fiction writers of this generation.

drseuss

Dr Seuss. He had been rejected 27 times, and was literally on his way home to burn the manuscript when he bumped into an old friend. When he spoke of his woes from “a book no one will publish” his friend (also a children’s editor… how “co in-chi-den-che” – see the Tomei-Downey Jr. movie Only You for reference!♥ ) he read it and it was published.

He went on to write over 60 children’s books and remains a classic children’s writer through the ages.

Step 10: Woah. Now we are feeling just a little bit invincible. Almost like the way we felt when we first ventured into the writing world with fear and trepidation, hovering over the keyboard as we posed those first few words.

But we need something else.

Inject some creativity in your life… in the form of, MUSIC.

My fave go-to: Something loud and pumping, ROCK is real good.

Queen, for example.

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Prince doing his Beautiful Ones where he screeches at the end is also uplifting in a very RAW way.

Or you know, on the other spectrum we can go ‘alternative/new wave rock’ and play something like INXS’ Need You Tonight… you know the story, of how Andrew Farriss famously made the taxi driver who was meant to take him to the airport, wait an hour as he wrote the riff to the song? He then passed it onto Michael, who quickly penned the words to what would become the song… incredible.

You need to surround yourself with genius. Genius thoughts. Genius inspiration. Genius creativity.

Step 11: Ok, we are HERE. Perhaps you feel so unstoppable, so charged, the muse starting to move within you, that something you scribble on toilet paper while passing a bowel movement (why do you have a pen in there?) can be considered LEGENDARY.

“What am I going to do next?”

“What course will I look at?”

“What can I learn from this?”

Start work-shopping ideas to get around your initial rejection.

Step 12: Start with this quote by Albert Einstein: “Failure is success in progress.”

NEXT, sit at your computer.

And start writing.

🙂

 

 

 

Lovely Lyrics Intro and #1

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I’ve been thinking of doing this series for a while now, but until George Michael’s sad passing a few days ago, I haven’t had the proper motivation to start the venture.

I love music, and I highly respect musicians of all kinds. I would love it if I could actually perform, play an instrument of some kind or sing – I find it a beautifully expressive and creative form, which is why I particularly pay attention to the words sung in songs. Often a song will be “meh” to me, until I really hear the words spoken by the artist, to which point I then go “wow.”

This has happened with musicians I regard highly, my ‘Faves’ as it were, but also with those I don’t follow too closely. I respect all the songs, all the music out there, and with this regard I present to you the first entry in my Lovely Lyrics series.

(This series will contain many explicit lyrics, so please, if this offends… oh well).

 

Who else to commence this with than the beautiful, expressive, soulful-singing voice of George Michael.

Oh George. I have been in a real mess since I heard of his passing on Boxing day. With Prince, I was immediately hurt and in shock… yet with George, the shock is still very fresh, still very raw, and the pain of losing such an amazing artist is only starting to take form. Because with Prince, I felt lucky that I even got to see him live in concert years ago… whereas with George, I had seen him, and yet always believed I would see him again. I wanted to see him and hear him sing the following song, so I could cry with happiness and appreciation and enjoy it in all of its live glory. I really, really believed I would see him again. It was a truth that hadn’t yet happened, but I felt in my gut that it would.

He was 53. It was natural to think he would go on for a very, very long time.

The song I’m speaking of is A Different Corner. I speak of him, and this song, in my dedication to George Michael which I wrote a few days ago, over on my carcrashgratitude blog. But this song, is so magical, so pristine in its musical arrangement, and his voice so clear and bright, yet also holding such heartache and yearning, that it is hard not to be moved by such powerful lyrics and music.

The lyrics speak of a love so moving and strong that you are fearful of what it will do to you. And wondering, whether the fear of losing such a love, that it is better not to have love and lost, as the popular quote tells us otherwise.

See it here:

I love all the lyrics of the song. But the ones that speak loudly to me are these:

 

At .53 seconds: “I’d say love was a magical thing; I’d say love would keep us from pain, had I been there… had I been there.”

 

At 1:30 seconds: “’Cause I’ve never come close, in all of these years; you, are the only one to stop my tears, I’m so scared, I’m so scared.”

 

At 2:29 seconds: “Take me back in time maybe I can forget; turn a different corner and we never, would have met… would you care?”

 

At 3:26 seconds: “And if all that there is is this fear of being used, I should go back to being lonely, and confused…. If I could, I would, I swear.”

 

The delivery of those last words

 

“If I could, I would, I swear.”

 

Do yourself a favour, whether you have seen this clip before, or you are new to it, watch the video and enjoy the clarity with which George sings of a love so deep, that you, just, can’t. You will not be disappointed.

R.I.P George Michael.

 

Bring back the school photos

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I was chatting to a work colleague today when I came across an interesting thought. As usually occurs post-coffee consumption.

We were discussing the years that go by way too quickly, and I noted how I seem to be stuck in the year 2001. Every time someone mentions the ’90s, for a brief moment a part of me recollects ‘ahh, just a few years ago.’

Mmmm, nope. Try going on 15 years ago. 2001 coincides with my last year of high school, and for some reason, my head just wants to live in that time.

I mentioned how the start of high school is so drastically different compared to the person you are when you leave at the end of Year 12. There is so much growth and development, so many changes, physically, emotionally and mentally, that occur in those 6 years. And then you leave school, go on to further study or find work, yet those following years are kind of a bit of blur. You get married, and throw in some more unfocused years, where everything just seems to blend into the next.

Thinking of the image I had of each high school year, it hit me: photos. We had photos to mark each year of our school lives, something that abruptly stopped when we entered the real world. That photo wasn’t only a snapshot of the physical (and horribly awkward) changes we were undergoing at the time, but if you recall your school photos, take out the old album and leaf through the pages, you’ll have names, scenarios, moments and feelings come through to you. That one photo represents your entire year, your entire state of being, not just at school, but in this “thing called life” (as Prince says).

We need the school photos to come back.

That’s what’s missing. That’s why the days, weeks, months, years, all blend into one another and follow the other in this indistinct conga line of blur.

Recently, the years don’t seem so blurry, and that’s because they have been punctuated with approximately 5,610 photos of baby girl since her sweet arrival into our world. All those photos of a girl who isn’t even two, paints a strong picture of the time before her birth, her first year with us and these current months as she develops into a vibrant, happy, energetic and beautiful soul.

But I still kinda need the 12 years in between, the ‘missing’ years : from the end of year 12 to actually having her.

A yearly photo will fix all that. Where we can get dressed up in appropriately-themed yearly uniform, don our sporting cheesy smiles and get into position for a pose that when we look back, will tell us all we need to know about that year that was.