Reflecting on …

In the middle of March I signed up for the A – Z Challenge that takes place over the whole month of April.  You can read some of my stuff here.  Not content with working full time and having to find inspiration each night to post something pithy as part of the challenge, I decided part way through April to embark on yet another challenge in April.  Blogging 201 – two weeks of auditing my blog, looking at its branding, figuring cunning ways to lure you in and even more wiliness to keep you coming back.  How am I doing?  Is it working?  Your feedback is most welcome despite what follows because I don’t regard you as strangers, we’ve met before and continue to be visitors to each other’s blogs.

The WordPress facilitators put up tasks for each day in the fortnight that encouraged us to place our blogs under the microscope.  Yep folks, it was a painful and illuminating process to have QP’s tiny little bits and pieces, it’s nooks and crannies and it’s warts exposed and examined minutely.  Not for the feint-hearted especially when the A – Z Challenge topic wasn’t coming together as easily as it could have.

It was tough going and a more than a smidge unnerving having strangers offering the ‘monkey’ in my pram a banana!

To say I relished the fortnight would be an outright lie.  It made me squirm with discomfort as I braved the forums’ scrutiny and feedback (in the olden days we called it criticism but it seems we’ve become too weak-kneed in the 21st century to allow ourselves to be criticised; might damage our fragile self-esteem).  In reflection, I think I handled the whole deal like a boss.  I sucked it all up and even took some of it on board.

As any parent will tell you, criticising our own child is permissible but when someone else offers an opinion, no matter how kindly intended, it makes the hair on our backs stand straight up.  I wish I could say that after two weeks I got used to perfect strangers offering the ‘monkey’ in my pram bananas at every opportunity, but I didn’t.

Now that that is out of the way I admit I learned a few things along the way too.  Some of the tricks and secrets behind the scenes of our blogging themes (how our blog looks with banners, clickable side bits and bobs) have taken my on-line experience to a new and exciting level.  Knowing how certain elements of a weblog are achieved entices me to have a go and dabble in new technology to alter certain aspects of QP’s appearance.

Some of you may have noticed changes so your ‘feedback’ is appreciated.  There are a number of changes on the list with more topic-specific pages and reorganising of posts.

So while my poor ‘monkey’ got more bananas than she could handle there were some positives aspects that I have taken on board; and some I’ve left behind.  You know what they say:  Take what you like and leave the rest.  

One final thought, I could change QP’s name to … MONKEY BUSINESS, maybe?