Tag: Blogging

Posted in Blogging

Pillowfort Launches Free Open Beta

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

Pillowfort is a blogging platform with a blend of social media features woven within it. Think of the old LiveJournal days of yore – if you happened to have one – with a smattering of Twitter and some Tumblr functionality meshed within it. The UI even has a lot of LiveJournal sensibilities to it (though word is, we’re getting a UI overhaul this year).

Pillowfort has just gone into open beta as of yesterday. I’ve had my original Pillowfort account for quite a while now, and have been actively supporting the platform for way over a two years. While a lot of features are still in the works, it does things that I appreciate and hope to see further developed.

For one, I feel as if I have much more control over my own privacy, filtered content and over what happens with my content. Don’t want someone reblogging something you post? You can turn that off. Don’t want comments on a post you make? You can turn that off, too. Don’t want messages at all? Turn that off.

I also love the concept of Communities within Pillowfort. I don’t know if it’s super obvious to a new user, but Communities really make up the heart of the platform. You can find a community on just about anything you’re interested in — and if you can’t, you can make and run your own.

An example of my community list

If you want your content out there in front of people on Pillowfort, joining and reblogging to a community is how to extend your post’s reach. While you can build a follower list, I find that reblogging to communities is really where my content gets the most traction.

But a community is more than just that. Each one has its own message board, for example, where the members can chat amongst themselves. Each community also should have a moderator who oversees the content and overall community environment.

Another nice thing about communities is if one starts getting a little loud or out of hand, you can Unwatch it (rather than leave it). This mutes the community in your feed without you having to leave it, and gives you a little room to breathe. Once you feel caught up, you can always Watch it again and jump right back in to the content.

Keep in mind that this platform has been fairly closed to new members, only allowing accounts made by purchase or by invite from someone who already has an account. So now, having opened the gates to everyone, Pillowfort is hoping for an influx of new users.

I know that the UI seems a little behind the times. However, another thing I really do like is that you can completely customize your sidebar, adding images and links as well as text. If you’re a creative type, you can go ham with that and have a lot of fun designing your own!

Pillowfort also handles most embeds to other social media and blogging platforms well — uploading a link to one of my blog posts here, for example, always turns out nice looking. I like that there’s a nice big area for posting things like screenshots and artwork – I can really see this as being a place for online artists to group together and share their work.

Anyhow, if you’re interested in trying it out, it’s free to sign up and poke around at it. I’m always looking for friends to follow on my Aywren account there (it’s my newer account). So if you launch a Fort, drop me a follow and I’ll follow back!

Posted in Blogging

2021: A Year of Blogging Simplification

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

I’ve decided that this year, I want to make this blog the center of all the things that delight and inspire me. Welcome to 2021.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve stumbled upon hobbies and interests that I didn’t originally have when I first created this blog. That’s a natural thing. That’s a healthy thing, too. After all, one cannot only game and game alone. *shock*

I’ve had a difficult time sorting out how to deal with these new interests as I discovered them. Being a blogger, my first instinct was to spin up a blog about the topic of enjoyment. But in doing so, I’ve ended up with so many WordPress installations, Tumblrs, sites and domains. As much as I love all the sites I’ve built, and enjoyed the time I put into them, it gets to be a bit much.

After a lot of long hard thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to do things differently this year. I still want to game and blog about gaming. But I also want to write about the other things I enjoy – learning to play fiddle, my ukuleles, diamond painting, neat-tasting teas I discover, and even looking forward to dabbling with learning embroidery this year!

This blog has always been a kinda catch-all for things since I term it a “Gaming and Geek” blog. There’s a lot of ways to stretch the definition of “geek” since one can be a geek of many things. One can be a geek fiddler. One can be a geek DIY crafter. One can be a geek of neat-tasting teas. Right?

Seeing that my fiddle blog domain is up for renewal in February, I felt it’s a good time for me to start working on consolidating those posts and my practice log here. I’ve already moved my ukulele content here, and plan on expanding that topic in the future. I also want to bring my diamond painting log to this blog, as well.

So this is just a post to say that this blog will be expanding on content and topics going forward. I promise that there’s a lot to playing the fiddle that’s pretty interesting if you’ve never considered it, for example! Or, at least, I think it’s interesting. Hopefully, you will too!

Posted in Blogging, FFXIV

Spot of Mummery– My “New” FFXIV Blog Project

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

Summary: I’ve imported two and a half years of micro-blogging content from my character-based FFXIV Tumblog to a WordPress blog – Spot of Mummery – where I’m finally embracing it as a full blogging project focusing on gaming experiences, creative stories, screenshots, character studies, etc.

Over this weekend, I launched a “new” blogging project called Spot of Mummery. Spoiler: It’s not new at all.

In fact, I’ve been blogging Spot of Mummery for years on Tumblr. While most of this focuses on FFXIV content, there’s also a smattering of Minecraft as well as Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

You’ve probably heard me mentioning my role play alts on this blog – certainly in goals and in various experiences I’ve had in FFXIV. It’s not really fair to call them RP alts much anymore because many of them are almost just as geared as my main, have cleared content all the way up to 5.3, have relic weapons and some even do relevant raiding.

But most importantly, the cast of characters over at Spot of Mummery are a deeply needed creative and interactive outlet for a MMO that I’ve been playing for the past seven years. I’m less into the role play aspect (at least in-game role play as you might think of it) as I am into developing storylines and characters and meshing them with the lore and in-game environments. In those aspects, FFXIV offers a wonderful world to work with!

I’ve actually owned this domain for several years and have used it as a place to organize all of the stories I’ve developed in conjunction with my writing partner, Syn.

Last month I decided to bring over the rest of the content to this domain. This led to me spending weeks weeding through over 6000 posts (no lie) to ensure only my content remained (Tumblr has a lot of reblogs and interactive posts), pictures were imported properly, links went where they should… all that fun kind of stuff.

Now that the blog is officially released, I’m expanding connections through social media. Tumblr is obviously still a very strong interactive platform for me, but I’m also exploring Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, etc.

I’m also dedicating myself to blogging here more consistently going forward! I spent a lot of time and creativity on the Spot of Mummery Tumblr over the last couple years, which took away from the energy/time to write here. That’s not something I wanted to happen.

I want to turn that train around and get back to my blogging habits both here and at Spot of Mummery. I know it seems strange to think that adding another blog (rather than a micro blog) would make it more flexible for me to blog more here again but… just trust me on this. 🙂

Anyhow! If you get the notion, please feel free to check out my “new” blog. Give it a follow if you like what you see, and know that there will definitely be lots of gaming content and creativity coming since Patch 5.4 just dropped today!

Posted in Blaugust, Blogging, FFXIV, Gaming, MMORPGs

#Blaugust2018 Tally & August Gaming Goals in Review

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

Tally Tally!

Yesterday, I wrote a farewell post to Blaugust a day early, noting that while I posted 18 posts here (including this one) on this blog, I did the majority of my writing on my creative RP Tumblr this month. I didn’t think that counted, but the comments I got said the contrary.

So! I’m going to leave that in poor Bel’s hands (or whomever is doing the judging for the Blaugust awards this year). Here’s my Tumblr archive for this month for proof of crazy fiction and RP writing! 🙂

Based on fiction alone, I wrote a 7-part short story called “Chocobo’s Tale” and another 7-part series called “Decent“… along with about 6 more chapters that are in reserve to post over the next week or so.

I’m not really overly worried about the award, but just wasn’t sure what counted. I had a blast writing for my fiction/RP blog this month, and that’s really all that matters!

FFXIV Leveling Goals

  • Level Culinarian to 70 ✓
  • Level Dragoon to 70 ✓
  • Level Astro (maybe?)

Not only did I finish leveling Culinarian to 70, but I leveled ALL of my remaining crafting jobs to 70 and finished ALL of the job quests associated with them, too.

I was a tad lazy at the Alliance Roulette this month, so I’m about halfway through level 69 on Dragoon. But tonight should probably get level 70, or pretty close to it, so I’m going to mark it as a done deal.

Still haven’t touched Astro, but that’s something I’m going to be working on now that all of my crafting leveling is out of the way and I have more time.

FFXIV Cleanup Quest Goals

  • Summoner – Lv 60-70 Quests
  • Ninja – Lv 50-60 Quests
  • Culinarian Quest catch-up ✓

Again, I failed on finishing job quests… for everything except my crafters. BUT, I’m going really make an effort do work on these now that crafting leveling is done. I’m pretty confident I can knock some of these out finally next month.

And that was August in a nutshell!

Posted in FFXIV, Gaming, MMORPGs

A Farewell to Blaugust (Almost)

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

I feel a tad bad that for as much as I wanted Blaugust to happen deep down, I really didn’t do all the participation that I would have liked to in the event. It felt like there were tons of great bloggers out there keeping things exciting, though, so hopefully no one noticed that I’ll be ending up this month with only 18 posts (once I write the next one).

The thing about this is that it’s not that I wasn’t writing. It just that I was absolutely consumed by fiction writing for my RP blog. Just about every bit of creativity I had this month went into that, and I was having an absolute blast!

So, technically, I was writing far MORE than I usually do in a given month. It’s just not obvious when you only look at this blog.

I don’t know if that counts towards Blaugust? But, hey, I’m not going to feel too bad about it. When you’re inspired to write something in a specific way for a specific audience, you’ve got to take that inspiration and run with it. No buts about it.

Right now, I’m still heavily engaged in that blog, but I still have some topics I want to post up here in between things. I want to talk about our FC airships and, once I actually run The Rising, I want to blog about this year’s anniversary event.

I also have new goals to try and set for next month — we’ll see how far I get with those! The one thing I do know is that my interest and time in FFXIV has increased significantly, and I do not regret the choice I made to make a change in how I play.

I mean, what other server can you just be standing in your apartment, minding your own business, and get robbed?

wantedposter

Posted in Blaugust, Blogging, Gaming

Blaugust: Keep Your Finger Near the Print Screen Key

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

The first week of Blaugust is officially Topic Brainstorming Week. So I wanted to talk shortly about one way of generating ideas for your blog. While this seems to primarily focus on gaming blogs, this can carry over into real life, too, if you just keep your phone camera handy at all times.

Now while this isn’t true for every day and every post, I’ve found a lot of my blogging content comes from just having an awareness of what’s going on around me, and being ready to capture that for future reference. 

In short, whenever I’m playing any game, part of my mind is on what experiences I might be able to share on my blog the next day. My finger is always near the screenshot key. I’m always looking for a topic starter or a story. For example, many of my FFXIV Tales from the Duty Finder stories are just the You-Had-To-Be-There moments that I captured via screenshot to bring back the next day as a post.

You might be saying, “But if you’re always thinking about blogging, how can you just enjoy the game?”

As a blogger, part of what makes me enjoy the game more is hunting down something that I think will be fun to share. The more you practice looking for the story in something, even mundane situations, the easier it gets. It’s really never a bother.

So I challenge you to think like a blogger and search for stories in everything you do during Blaugust.

Be it gaming, other hobbies, your work, or social interactions. There are so many stories hiding there, stories that only you can tell the world from your point of view… but only if you’re receptive to finding them. If you start to practice that mindset, you’ll often find the stress of “What do I write about next?” starts to fade as it becomes replaced by a more productive desire to find stories to share.

So, go out there and bring us back some stories! I’ll be reading!

Posted in Blaugust, Blogging

Blogging: Importance of Voice & Choosing your Audience

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

It’s prep week for Blaugust Mentors, so I decided to sit down and write about something that’s been on my mind lately. Prep week focuses on giving some advice to new and upcoming bloggers — so you’ll see a lot of useful information about blogging platforms, choosing topics, consistently writing, picking your blog name/URL — very important stuff!

I wanted to tackle some things that aren’t always so obvious to think about from the start: Voice/Tone and Audience.

These are actually concepts to think about no matter what kind of writing you’re doing — blogging, fiction, bussines, etc. And while you might be going… “Oh gosh, I’m just trying to put some words on the page, when do I have time to figure this out?” …I feel that establishing your blogging voice and knowing who you’re writing for early on makes things easier.

What Attracts People?

Think about those folks you follow on social media. Think about your favorite streamers or YouTubers. What do these usually have in common?

They’ve established a personality (voice) that’s unique to themselves, and that’s something you’ve connected with. You start to like them as a person, and therefore, you come back to see what they have to say again and again.

They don’t have to share anything super personal for you to feel like… Hey, I jive with them, and they’re cool to listen to. If they take time to interact with their audience, oh man, they’re really a hit then!

There’s really no secret to what they’re doing (though it’s not always easy to maintain). They’ve just established a voice/personality and they’re consistent with producing content around a specific audience that responds to it. YOU!

Granted, this can take time and effort to achieve. Often, your own writing voice will evolve and change the more you learn about the craft of writing and the people you’re talking to. That’s totally okay! It’s a part of growing as a blogger.

But that doesn’t mean that when you sit down to roll up a blog that you can’t already be thinking: Hey, who am I writing this for? Who do I want to reach out to? 

Do you want to approach things with humor and an honest down-to-earth slice-of-life personality?

Or do you want to be known for someone who says what’s on their mind, no matter how brutally honest it is?

Maybe you want to establish yourself as someone who provides ground-breaking strategies and has an powerful authority over the topics you choose to write?

tone-of-voice

Different approaches will connect with different kinds of readers. It’s important to consider the pros and cons of the voice and approach you use — will you be able to maintain it over a long period of time, for example. Or will it exhaust you (or confine you) to try to step into the persona that you’re building?

Sometimes even refreshing an existing blog is just about taking a different point of view and changing your voice. 

With my blog, I’ve chosen to establish a casual and laid-back personality. It’s very much in line with who I really am IRL, so it’s easy to maintain.

You’ll hear me talk about what’s happened in my gaming life. I like to post things that make people laugh, if possible. I stay away from more somber and serious topics, even if that’s the direction everyone else seems to be taking. And if I do write things like a game review, it’s generally something based on how it made me feel, rather than a professional take on the game.

Thinking about your blogging voice and audience from the start will also help you decide on the overall feel and presentation of your blog. Once you know who you want to be, and who you want to write for, you can center your theme, blog name, and everything else around that to present a consistent face (a brand) to your audience.

 Join us at Blaugust!

Posted in Blaugust, Blogging

Hey, Listen! Blaugust is Reborn!

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

If you’re a reader of other blogs across our lovely blogosphere, you may have already heard the news on the wind: Next week, Blaugust is returning! 

Though I haven’t written about it yet (was waiting till it was a bit closer to time… like now), this is an event I’m really pumped for… and that I hope that other bloggers will get excited about, too! I signed on to be a Mentor this year, so it’s probably time I start putting on my Mentor hat.

Prep week starts now. You’ll find a ton of great prep-posts ramping up already on the many mentor blogs that are participating — check out a spread sheet of who is who and where you can find them!

In the past, Blaugust (started by Belghast at Tales of the Aggronaut) has been focused on challenging folks to reach a certain number of posts within the month of August. This time around, he’s shaking the formula up quite a bit, and tossing in a pinch of Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI) into the mix.

See more about this here.

This time, there are several levels of participation to take part in:

  • Newbie Blogger Award – You did it, you created a new blog and by god we are going to sing your praises for doing it!
  • Bronze Award – You made at least 5 posts during the Month of August 2018.
  • Silver Award – You made at least 15 posts during the Month of August 2018, go you!
  • Gold Award – You made at least 25 posts during the Month of August 2018, you are a badass!
  • Rainbow Diamond Award – You did it, you posted every single day during the Month of August 2018 and deserve accolades.

So even folks who ramp up a new blog or just post 5 times next month are all rockstars!

To help out through the month, we have the Mentor system and a structured set of themes to roll with:

  • July 25th – July 31st – Blaugust Prep Week – posts about the technical details of getting started in blogging.  Tutorials, advice, tips for naming your blog… that sort of stuff to get people ready to hit the ground on August 1st running.
  • August 1st – August 7th – Topic Brainstorming Week – posts about ideas for topics that the participants can then mine for the rest of the month.
  • August 8th – August 14th – Get to Know Each Other Week – hanging out and meeting other people in this new fledgling community and hopefully gaming together a bit!  Also highly support doing some sort of collaboration on shared topics!
  • August 15th – August 21st – Developer Appreciation Week – post about the things that you really appreciate in gaming or any other community… because chances are there is a developer or designer behind the things you love.
  • August 22nd – August 28th – Staying Motivated Week – tips and tricks that you might have to stay motivated and keep creating content against the tyranny of a blank screen.
  • August 29th – August 31st – The Final Stretch: Lessons Learned – as a way of getting us across the finish line, talk about some of the experienced you had during the month and maybe things you learned about yourself.

If this sounds exciting and interesting to you, by all means, please, please join us! Even if you don’t have a blog now, or need to blow the dust off an existing blog, we will welcome you with open arms!

Bel has a signup sheet to officialize your choice to participate, and a Discord where you can connect with fellow bloggers and mentors across the globe!

Hope to see you there! 

Posted in Blogging

200 Followers — Thank You!

Posted on by Aywren Sojourner

I just got a note that said this blog has reached 200 followers! I know that’s not huge, but it means a lot to me!

Back when I moved this blog from my self-hosted to WordPress hosted, I lost all my followers. So I’ve had to build them back up again from scratch. While I don’t focus on my stats as much as I do just putting up posts, it’s still nice to be reminded of milestones.

Thanks again! 🙂