This week turned out to be a whirlwind for me and Huffygirl’s blog. It started out ordinary enough. I usually don’t get huge traffic on my blog, but I know the readers I do get seem to enjoy it, so I keep cranking out as much as I can for those who are kind enough to read it. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, something happened. I had a couple of comments, not from my usual readers, and one of them said “Congratulations on being FP.” FP? FP? It took me a minute, but I, like most WordPress bloggers know that FP stands for Freshly Pressed. WordPress picks several blogs they like a week to feature on their home page, Freshly Pressed. Kind of the WordPress equivalent of being nominated for a Pulitzer. I couldn’t believe it – me on FP? Finally? I did not expect this to ever happen. I clicked on the home page, and there it was, a picture of my latest post at the top of the page, my post about a story I shared about once lying about my age. Then, the flurry of blog activity started in full force. I watched in amazement as comment after comment appeared on my blog, as my stats went from the usual 3-30 a day to over 4,000 over the next two days. I felt honored, exhilarated and terrified all at the same time. As I answered comments and wrote my next post, I thought “I’ve really got to make this GOOD because now real people (I mean people besides my friends) are actually reading it.” I worried about typos and apostrophes and whether my grammar was correct. Even though I always care about those things, now it felt even more important. PEOPLE are watching. And then, as all good things do, the flurry of fame came to an end. On Thursday afternoon I clicked on the WordPress home page to see a whole new set of blogs featured on FP. My fame was over.
That's me at the top - with the picture of the phone!
But it’s not. Not really. I’m sure I’ll never see 2,400 people read my blog in one day again. But I have some new faithful subscribers and got to read kind, thoughtful and interesting words from a lot of people. I read their blogs too. These are folks, who like me, work hard on their writing to do exactly what we all should be doing: making someone laugh, cry, think, learn.
The folks at WordPress do a great job of putting out a blogging platform that offers lots of slick features and works great. And they seem like a nice bunch of folks too. The greet me on my blog with “Howdy huffygirl!”, answer my help requests promptly, even the really stupid ones, and put out lots of tips and helpful videos to help bloggers make the most of their blogs.
So, I’ll do my best to keep writing something thoughtful, useful or entertaining, and promise to always spell check, watch my grammar and hold myself to high standards. And I hope you all keep reading. Thanks readers, and thanks WordPress.
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/freshly-pressed/
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