Tag: #BluSkyFriday

You Have the Right to Write

Attention: You Have the Right to Write or anything you don’t say will drive you crazy by intense desire. Creative ideas will overheat until they melt themselves into fragmented descriptions of confused thought and drip like perspiration from your brow. Words will escape your mouth in an explosion of writer’s language. Soon, you’ll start bringing up the names of books to four year olds and correcting sentences fresh out your neighbors mouth, “..not a eraser, an eraser..” you’ll blurt out uncontrollably. Your lips are so bone dry they have wrinkles, and you trip over your tongue as if it does not belong in your mouth. You can’t even blame Writer’s Block for the frustration since you keep missing your periods at the end of sentences. Poor words, left to run on in a string of thought; breathlessly pulsating through veins hoping to make it to the end of your never ending consciousness. The least you can do is appoint a capital letter to keep everyone in check, a comma won’t hurt you either. If you find yourself in this condition, you have the WRITE to consult inspiration before speaking anything into existence, and to have a pen and pad ready for any glint of light amidst the darkness, now or in the future.

His crime? Not Writing!
His crime? Not Writing!

Bloggers Bash 2016 – Venue Announcement

The 2nd Annual Bloggers Bash is June 11, 2016!! OK, I should calm down, no idea if I’m going lol. I would love to attend tho. Is there a list of funds needed somewhere? Registration fees? Cost of staying at the venue? Looking forward to hearing more about these awards too.

Sacha Black's avatarSacha Black

ABBA 2016The Bloggers Bash Committee said this year would be bigger and better – and trust me, it will be. We, the committee, have plans afoot to make it a cracking day.

If you don’t know what the bash is, it’s an annual get together for bloggers everywhere. The bash is open to everyone, whether you blog about writing, cooking, parenthood, beauty, fishing or anything in between, this is the event for you. AND irrespective of blogging platform – so if you have friends from other platforms please let them know.

The event is open to any blogger from any blogging platform – and please, if you aren’t a wordpress blogger – share this post.

This is the chance for you to meet (in real life) all those firm friends you have made through blogging. This year, the bash is on Saturday the 11th June, in London, England.

I said we had plans…

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Coffee Date

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It is only fitting to invite you to this morning’s coffee session. No need to pull up a chair, there is plenty of couch left. Yes, I want you to be comfortable. Cream? Sugar? Black? I’ll be having International Delight’s French Vanilla, no sugar. We good? Great, let’s begin.

If we were having coffee this morning, I would invite you out on the town with me today, where we’ll be picking up a few more posters for my upcoming book signing. It’s the first where we’ll be featuring all three Stella Books. The fundraiser is also going well. I managed to raise $700 in one month so far, over half of my goal. I’m excited because this will not be your traditional signing. Not only is it a book signing but it is a celebration for the completion of the series with the release of Book #3 in the Trilogy. We will have video presentations, picture slideshows, conversation and of course food. Oh, and indeed we’ll have coffee too. Open to the public, this will also be my first time in Atlanta!

If we were having coffee this morning, I would ramble on about my recent trip to New Mexico, also a first. I am scheduled to return this summer where I’ll explore many of the things I did not have a chance to take in. This trip was for a slightly different purpose. I was able to relax and refresh my mind; a time everyone needs every once in a while. It was the most peace I’ve felt in a long time. I did however get to do a little research which I am always seeking to do. I learned about The Blackdom Community, the first all-black settlement in New Mexico and of course the alien crash landing of 1947. Despite little green men on every corner I did not get to visit the museum (boo) but that is on my to-do list for this summer time permitting.

If we were having coffee this morning, I would tell you that my patience has been tested. It appears that I have misplaced a very important USB drive. This drive has a lot of critical work on it that I have not had the opportunity to back up. However, I am on a quest for a worry free life so I have managed not to freak out at this point. I know that everything happens for a reason and I am just thankful that my most important manuscripts are safe. Though I do have to re-edit everything I’ve already done to the novel I wish to revamp. The work I started on this particular project is on the drive.

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If we were having coffee this morning, I would give you the testimony of when I met my husband. You’d probably look at me funny and think “Why do I need to know this right now?” I’ll smile big and explain that this year will mark our 9th year together, with our marriage anniversary on February 17th  and our first date anniversary on May 16th.

If we were having coffee right now, I’d tell you that I’m going to be in a Play, my second acting gig before a large audience since High School. Last year my organization and I premiered our Stay Play Production: Blakk Amerika: From Prophets to Pimps before a 400 seated audience at the Dusable Museum in Chicago. Next month, we’ll be presenting at The Riverside EPICenter in Austell Georgia which holds 600 people! I appear in Acts 2 and 4 and I am also selected to close the play with a poem. The name of the poem is “Freedom: The Illusion” and it is my most famous one to date. First written and performed in 2009 for our first documentary, I have not written a poem that has garnered more attention. It is by far my most requested piece. Speaking of which, we’d better cut this date short and begin our day. I have to get ready for rehearsal tonight …and tomorrow night and Sunday night! More coffee please…

Blog Photos: I Scared Myself Away From My Own Post

OK, you may want to sit down for this one.

A couple weeks ago (or was it last week?? LOL), whenever it was, I had a blogger to comment on a post I wrote asking me to go into more detail concerning photos in a blog post. I never consider myself a “blogging pro” or “advice giver” so her question made me feel very positive about the post as feedback often does. Here’s her question and my response:

Q. Can you share more about your thought that sometimes pictures can take away from a post?

My response:

Sure. Pictures are a great way to compliment a blog post but photos in blog posts is about strategy and not just decoration. If the pictures don’t tie in well with the article it can take away from the written content and become a distraction. Photos chosen should have the potential to reveal something about the post even if there were no words because images set the tone for the post itself. Sometimes I decide not to include pics because I want the focus on the words and a photo in this sense can just be distracting. All in all bad image choices can have a great impact on how people see our blogs. 

This morning I did not intend on writing this post, but after scrolling through the reader I experienced something that validates just how important photos are in a blog post. I scared myself away from my own post.

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Yesterday, I wrote a post that included a picture of Flavor Flave. When I scrolled through the reader this morning I was shocked to see that photo front and center on my timeline associated with that blog post (go ahead, take a look). I startled myself because I would not have chosen for that picture to be the one used to feature the post. As I opened with “We all have our favorites…” needless to say Flavor Flave was not a good look. I do not nor have I ever been a fan. I do not take back my thoughts in the article and using the photo in the post did look good when I drafted it because it represents what I was speaking about, but it did not mix well with my opening statements or as an advertisement for the post in the reader.

Did I say advertise? Yes. It may not seem important at the time, but photos in blog posts tend to act as promotional items for our blogs before people actually click to see what the post is about. I wouldn’t say to stress out about it, but whether or not people are clicking to tune into our blogs have a lot to do with the way that people think in general and we all know by now (c’mon, say it with me) “Pictures are worth a thousand words”. Just keep in mind that the first picture used in the post will more than likely be the photo that stands front and center as representative of your post. My little experiment proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that image choices is not just about what looks good, but it is also about strategy because the photography tends to set the mood for the article itself. The photos you use in your post can have the potential to downgrade the quality of the article if it does not blend well with the written content.

Experiment: Conduct your own experiment. Write a blog post and use an image, any image. Go back to the reader and see which one shows up! If your not too chicken to risks a few likes and views, this can help you to see  how the pictures in the post shows up when people are actually scrolling through the reader.