“Never lose hope, my heart, miracles dwell in the invisible. If the whole world turns against you, keep your eyes on the Friend.” – Rumi (from Rumi’s Little Book of Love)
Dear Fellow Warrior and Friend,
I just wanted to keep you posted about something with respect to this website.
The social network icons are no longer working on my site, alongside the site analytics I established since the beginning of this blog, in early 2016. It is unfortunate, because that really helped me see which posts would generate more responses and also indicate that people were actually visiting, connecting it to the social media as well. The site stats, blog stats, hits, etc. before was showing for each post and page before. The Blog Stats (displayed at the footer of the site) stopped at a particular number earlier this year and was no longer updating. That’s unfortunate because I think I had more blog posts on my website in this year than most other years since 2016.
I should have looked for a way to fix that at that time. I have tried working with the host and looking into forums and it has not been helpful and productive, and I just don’t have the means right now to hire a web developer just at the moment. I hope to hire one in the future, and still hope at some point I can retrieve that data. The last time I checked, I had over 7400 views/visits/hits on my site and that itself was perhaps small, but still special to me and I really cherish and appreciate everyone who came to visit this space for the past 6-7 years, and made the effort and time to read my words and give my voice a chance.
It is the worst time to have website issues during the holidays, when you need the technical support and they are very slow and need to publish all your pending blog posts that you put off from the year, and want to get posted before the new year, so you can “hit refresh” again and start on a clean slate. I have another domain connected to this website and web host, greengeeks.com, and having some major problems with important plugins that are not working for something very important I have been trying to put together for months now (on my free time).
Writer Jeff Goins, a blogger I have followed, just said goodbye to all his social networking platforms as well as his blog spaces, and explained his reasoning. One of them being all the tech issues that make writing so complicated. These are platforms to send a message and connect to the world, but I understand his reasoning. And it was interesting to see his final blog post when I am looking to blog more… LOL….and feel like I am just starting to break through in this process…
I cannot agree with him that blogging is dead. I do connect with the idea that the blogosphere is a space that continues to exist and can hone and refine talent in writing and sharing stories, and it is fine to keep going on these spaces. I initially started in 2009, and then I removed my site and then started again in 2016, and have produced some great articles that I could transform as guest posts in the mainstream outlets. Just because Jeff Goins, the “intentional blogger,” the man who taught and inspired so many people to blog, says that blogging is dead, does not mean it is true and that we all should just stop… it means that we need to regroup and rethink our strategy.
Jeff Goins is moving now to substack.com, and I might consider going their too, but I am not yet ready to give up on finding my TRIBE for my writing here and in my social networking platforms just yet. As you recall, I even started my YouTube Channel this year and posted my first article on The Medium as well this year. Over the past year or so, I have been in the process of giving up posting “less meaningful posts,” and more importantly, not caring that people don’t engage, which admittedly, I must say, has caused the limitations, paralysis, and more…
I have been trying to master the wisdom behind these words from the great Stoic Philosopher, Epictetus, on many areas of my life, as I noted in previous posts: “Persist and Resist.” But it is hard not be discouraged or disheartened or distracted by some things at times….
I wrote a piece connected to this concept of “losing engagement” earlier this year: http://www.warrioretkqueen.com/high-school-popularity-contests-and-the-politics-of-the-like/
I was sad to lose the stats and engagement on that post as well…among all others…
Over the 6-7 years, I have completed posts and lost the photos I would share on the posts in both my professional and personal blogs. Tried to get help with that too, and it was not fruitful. It is why you may see many photos that are lost as well. Now for this blog, I have not only lost photos from the earlier posts, but also lost all the stats and social media engagement i received on my website, which wasn’t much, but still important for the analytics and record of the site I have managed for 6-7 years.
I have stated before how this has been an important space for me, and while less people engage it, and I have not properly configured the SEO, and updated it and maintained it in the way I want to, due to time issues, working independently, it was another space for me to be empowered through writing and access my creative side, and hone my craft of writing, in general. Just to keep writing.
Maybe it is not worth all the time trying to focus on getting that engagement to show again, and just continue to focus on the writing, and maybe with the new year, I can start fresh again. As I said, I was at over 7000 hits/visits to the site, now those analytics are gone. Maybe letting this go, and starting over, might be good. It is just unfortunate that the technical problem on my site has led to the evaporation of my analytics and it now appears that no one has visited my site before. But maybe I just need to take the hit, let go, and start fresh, like on most moments we try to do at this time of the year…
In any case, amid all the other stuff, for my real “vocation” and calling that I wanted to complete before the new year, these problems prevented several things I needed to get done on the side from panning out…
I think one hard reality that I have had to accept and admit is how much the lack of engagement on my blog posts, on social media and in my blogging websites would cause dismay and disappointment and a state of paralysis in both my independent blogging, guest blog posts, and academic writings, fueling the “imposter syndrome” I have felt over the years even more… Maybe “losing engagement” and the “signs” and the “stats” that I had all that engagement in this space is “the Universe” telling me to stay focused on the writing and not on whether someone out there actually reads it…
I will cherish this space, even if no one visits…. And that is why I must let go of losing that “proof” and the signs that people engaged this space in the past when blogging was more popular and alive, even as that served as a sense of motivation and positive reinforcement that is so hard to find (not even from your personal networks) when you don’t have “your writing tribe” established yet. I am still determined to find it.
There is a good week left, and I have this holiday weekend, since I am not going anywhere or celebrating the holiday or seeing other human beings, LOL, so I am now going to suck it up, forget this problem and focus on the writing (both the academic and creative). And if I cannot get anything major completed before the end of the year, other than these blog posts on my independent site, at least I can just set myself up for a strong, prosperous new year. The new year reflections and other posts and updates will come in the coming days/week.
Thanks for reading and giving my voice a chance.
Thank you, my dear reader, fellow warrior, and friend for stay engaged, staying connected, staying empowered, and staying resilient, and for doing it with me here.
We cannot allow the small technical glitches, that serve as distractions, to stop us from propelling and moving forward. We have to push forward nonetheless, even if we lose a little something in the process… We keep starting over, again and again, and that is totally okay… On the blogging efforts and more, I am starting the engine yet again now, and if I stumble, I will try again, and again… strategically and tactfully considering the different spaces and tools, and will keep pushing forward.
“There are always distractions, if we allow them.” – Tony la Russa
“I’ve trained all my life not to be distracted by distractions.” Nik Wallenda
“Never feel guilty for starting again…” – Rupi Kaur, The Sun and her Flowers.
Peace, Warmth, and Blessings,
Your sister,
Dr. Elsa, the Warrior KQueen
“She wasn’t looking for a Knight. She was looking for a Sword.” – Atticus
**** UPDATE****
I am happy to say that all the engagement, at least the FB engagement I had, of visitors is now restored on my website all simply due to fixing a plugin that was disconnected and adding a completely new plugin that offers everything. I wanted to go ahead and just start new with a new plugin and it seemed to restore all the stats and capture ALL the previous engagement back again from before.
WOW. It is crazy now that all engagement now shows with respect to Facebook in particular at least for my posts if not the pages…still need to fix some things, but it is nice to see this problem resolved or at least temporarily fixed …
With regards to the lessons of the larger picture behind this post, the experience is still a reminder to focus more on the writing and not on whether people see it. Naturally that may come as we evolve!
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