Category Archives: Blogging

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How do you know what to write?

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At a Christmas party a young man asked me, ‘How do you know what to write?’

My quick reply was, ‘I write book reviews’. Another friend said, ‘She writes poetry too.’

Round the turn of the year I ran out of book reviews and haven’t any poems I wish to share at present. My two most recent posts have been summaries or roundups. This one is attempting to answer the question I was asked.

Scrolling through Twitter, questions sometimes appear. Someone was asking for book recommendations about the Lake District. I realised that I have read and reviewed dozens of books either about the Lake District or written by authors living in the area.

I decided that a page collecting all these together might be useful. Pages on blogs do not appear in the WordPress reader, so this post is to introduce you to my pages. They appear in the menu for this blog, but that is more easily spotted on a computer than on a mobile device.

Here are links to my pages (and some more information below the links):

My A to Z Challenge 2013 used alliteration and linked to passages in the Bible. In 2021 I picked important words from the Bible for each letter. (Space did not permit longer titles in my menu.) I already have an idea for some very short posts for the 2023 A to Z Challenge.

I have recently overhauled my pages, checking that all the books I have reviewed appear in the Author Indexes, and editing a post, which had broken links. It is possible I have missed a few posts from my contents list. If you do find anything not quite right, please let me know. One or two authors appeared in the wrong place alphabetically!

I enjoyed reminding myself about some books I had read, but not thought about recently.

If you are a blogger, do you use pages? In my opinion every blog should have an About and a Contact page. Any other pages are at the discretion of the blogger.

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Looking back over 2022 and forward to 2023

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During 2022 I have continued to blog at least weekly on Sue’s Trifles and weekly on Sue’s words and pictures. Once again I took part in the blogging from A to Z in April challenge and was privileged to have two guest posts on the official A to Z blog – A reverie on 21st April and (with help from J Lenni Dorner) #AtoZChallenge An Alphabet of Blog Tips on 2nd August 2022. My theme for the A to Z 2022 challenge was Christmas, with posts including links to Christmas carols.

I am now a reserve for the Association of Christian Writers’ More than Writers’ blog and have had four posts on it during the year:

Are you thinking of blogging?

Meandering along the writing path

Genealogy then and now

Problems Pantsers avoid

Annmarie Miles interviewed me about my poetry and my faith. The radio interview was aired in a programme on UCB Ireland – The Writer’s Trail and repeated on Sunday 19th June 2022 at 7am BST. It was subsequently available as a podcast.

On 23rd July two of my poems were published in Agape Review Multifaceted Light and Space and Time and on 14th August a 75-word story on Paragraph Planet.

After writing a post about books on nature and climate change, I added a page, Books about Nature and Climate Change, which I am keeping updated with new links.

Many of my posts are reviews of books of my own choice, which I have read and enjoyed. I was also invited to review a few other books including the following four:

Brisbane: A novel by Eugene Vodolazkin translated by Marian Schwartz

Book Review: Popcorn Poetry by Brendan Conboy

Book Review and author interview: The continued times of Isabella M Smugge by Ruth Leigh

Book review and author interview: The Wanderer Reborn by Natasha Woodcraft

I have continued to write poetry mainly from prompts issued for an online poetry group affiliated to the Association of Christian Writers. Not many of these poems have appeared online. Some of them are part of a project I have begun, writing poems about our 900-year-old church building. One previously unpublished poem written in 2021 featured in my post: A surprising event

Away from the world of social media I have attended committee meetings, choir practices, church services and done some voluntary work. At home I have enjoyed gardening, knitting and local walks.

My word for the year has been generosity. This follows on from previous words I have tried to focus on in earlier years.

For 2023 I have picked the word Listen. I write in the living room and concentrate on what I can see rather than what I hear. When the news is on the radio, I don’t concentrate on it for long. I need to pay more attention when people are speaking as well. There is also the question of ‘listening’ to what God might be telling me. I believe that God speaks through the Bible, through other people and angels, and sometimes directly as to the prophets. The prophet Isaiah exhorted the people to listen. In Isaiah 48 he was speaking to the people of Israel and Judah, and in Isaiah 49 to people of distant nations.

My regular readers will know that words fascinate me. My three words (2016, 2017 and 2021)  have a progression of shared letters – ReST – TRuST; TrUSt – FocUS. My word for 2022, GenerOSity, and for 2023, LISTen, continue this trend.

My writing and blogging goals include finishing my poetry project and publishing it, taking part in the A to Z challenge again, reading and reviewing more books, including one I have been invited to review and have already read and enjoyed. This is Beneath the Tamarisk Tree by Rob Seabrook, which I’ll be reviewing at the beginning of February. On Sue’s words and pictures I intend to continue with Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge.

Thank you for reading. I am praying a New Year’s blessing on all my readers.

Photo of an orchid with hand-written text New Year Blessings

Rethinking my blogging aims

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Back in May I was full of hope that I could post twice a week here on Sue’s Trifles.

Well, I managed to write six posts for Saturdays in addition to my regular Thursday posts. Then there were two weeks when the paint chip words and phrases from Giggling Fattie did not inspire me at all.

I began to question my motives for doing poetry challenges. A topic is set for an online poetry group I attend once a month. This requires or encourages me to write a new poem. Sometimes I already have a suitable one.

As if I hadn’t enough part-finished writing projects already, I have set myself the task of writing a series of poems on a local theme. The time and energy I might spend doing Paint chip poems would be better used for that project. Perhaps I am growing up as a writer if I can think of my own prompts!

It will soon be ten years since I began blogging. My blogging and writing milestones appear on my ‘What’s new’ pages here and on Sue’s considered trifles.

I am still learning all sorts of things about writing, blogging and poetry. After deleting 55 comments Akismet had identified as spam I turned off permission to comment on the page concerned. Now why hadn’t I thought of that sooner?

Blogging has widened my horizons and taught me lots of things I’d have missed otherwise.

As I mentioned in my previous post I have plans for the next two weeks on this blog.
That will take me beyond my blogiversary. About this time last year I wrote about coming out of lockdown and which activities I had resumed.

This year I am singing in the Church choir again and another choir I belong to has resumed rehearsals. The Ladies’ Bible study group meets when enough people are free and well. We are currently looking at Spiritual Gifts with a study guide by R. Paul Stevens in the Life Builder Study series from IVP. My voluntary work has taken more time recently.

Apart from travelling to the local writers’ group in May, I haven’t been more than a few miles from home since November. As a result mainly photo challenge posts are appearing on Sue’s words and pictures, which was not my original intention.

On Twitter I have not been consistent in my posts. I haven’t contributed much to #wildflowerhour recently due to illness and other demands on my time. There are other hashtags I like to follow and use occasionally, mainly relating to the countryside. As with my photography blog, travel would give more opportunities for photos to tweet.

As I am now in an environmental group at church, I have become more aware of the issues around posting needlessly on social media. The World Wide Web needs a lot of energy and storage space to keep it running. Posting large photo files or videos adds to environmental damage.

This blog is listed on Bible Gateway’s Blogger Grid. Not all my posts are faith-related. The hashtag #bgbg2 is for those which are. Re-evaluating my aims is something I do prayerfully.

Looking to the future I may not blog every week here on Sue’s Trifles. Some of my other projects need to be prioritised over blogging.

Thank you for reading. Watch this space!