Zero to Hero- Day 3: Bypass the Gatekeepers!

Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to ‘write the post that was on your mind when you decided to start a blog’.

OK, well I didn’t really have any particular ‘post’ on my mind when I decided to start a blog. It was more like a general idea.

I have been trying to find a way to make a living without having to be out on a boat all the time. Yeah, I still like sailing. Yeah, I still like my job (most of the time, most of the things about it). But I’m getting to the point where I’d like to do something a little different. At least for a while.

I’d been hearing for a while about how it’s possible to earn a decent living by working online. Writing, stock photography, copy-writing, etc. I’ve even taken a few short courses/workshops to try and learn how to do it.

I’ve enjoyed going to the workshops. I’ve learned a lot in each one of them. But I’ve never managed to pass muster (yet) and get anything I’ve done accepted for publication.

I admit, I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to ‘sell’ my product; my writing and photography. I tried a couple of times to get some of my photographs accepted onto a couple of the stock photography websites like istock.com.

So far, I haven’t had any luck. My photos were rejected and I had to take a course to even begin to understand what the heck they were talking about when they told me why they rejected them all. 😉

I haven’t even sent in any of my articles to anyone yet, tho I have sent a few queries to a couple of magazines I thought might be interested. One magazine even told me they were interested but they never got back to me and I let it fall by the wayside due to all the other things I’ve been busy with.

FOCUS! I think that’s what I need. I’m pretty sure if I had all the time in the world and no ‘real’ job and wasn’t busy with a dozen other projects, I could find the time to hound the gatekeepers of the publishing world until they let me in. 😉

Too bad I don’t have that kind of schedule right now.

SO……

I decided to start a blog instead.

My plans for the blog have changed a little bit. I’m not focusing so much on putting my magazine type writing on here. Maybe one of these days I’ll post one and see if I can get some feedback from the blog world. I’ve been spending a lot more time just posting about things I find of interest.

I’ve really been posting a lot more about what gets ME going, what interests me, what turns me on, what turns me off. I enjoy catching peoples attention and trying to make them think.

Of course, I am still trying to work on my writing and photography. I still plan to try again to get my photos accepted online and my articles by some magazines. I work on that stuff when I can find time too.

I figured if I started a blog, I could get my work out to people WITHOUT having to go through an editor. Just get it out there and let it stand on it’s own merit. Either people will like it. Or they won’t.

Of course, the original purpose was to find some way to make an income. I’m told you can do that as a blogger too. So far, I haven’t the slightest idea of how to do that, but still hoping to learn. 😉

In the meantime, I’m enjoying myself here. I especially like interacting with people all over the world. It’s really fascinating to me when I look at my blog stats and see people have visited my blog from places like Namibia, or Ghana, or Pakistan, or Ukraine.

I wonder what was it that interested those people and why? I have seen a lot of people online who have so many similar interests. It seems a great community here, even if it’s only ‘virtual’.

It’s great that we can all have blogs now, no need to hold back, just get ourselves out there and the whole world is open to us! 🙂

 

Zero to Hero

Here it is, the start of another new year already. I guess I’m like most people and start thinking about past, present, future at the turn of the year. So, like with the Christmas posts, I’ll probably be posting about things I’m thinking of for the new year, new beginnings, endings, etc.

I got an email a couple of days ago from the Daily Post at WordPress which I follow. It was about a project that I thought would be interesting and I hope it will help me be a better blogger.

It’s called the ‘Zero to Hero 30-day Blogging Challenge.’ 

Yes, I am signing up for it. I am starting off with this, my first post for the challenge. Todays prompt is to publish an introductory post. To tell the blogging world about who you are and what you would like to accomplish with your blog.

Since I’ve already done that (check my ‘about’ page), I thought I would just do a little update.

I’ve been busy. Very busy! Since I started this blog at the AWAI Boston Workshop in mid/late August this year I’ve been out to work on the Ensco 8506, Crossmar 21, Ensco 8501, and Ensco DS-5 (twice).

I’ve done a beach cleanup at Surfside Beach, gone to the Bike and Blues Fest in Freeport, the county fair in Angleton (twice), the Houston Zoo and Museum of Natural Science (couple of times), and the Workboat Show in New Orleans.

I’ve missed out on sailing with Sail La Vie but I’ve made it to a few of the Campaign For Liberty meetings and a good one on healthy food and nutrition by another local group.

I never knew it before, but they put on a good presentation about a dentist by the name of Weston Price who did studies on traditional societies and compared their health to modernized peoples. I LOVE junk food and sweets but now I’m learning more about how that stuff really is killing me. It really made me think.

I’ve had to take care of a few projects at my house and at my rental properties. We almost completely re-did the beach house: painted, new flooring, new kitchen cabinets, new window treatments, fixed electrical issues, fixed plumbing issues, fixed sewerage issues, fixed shaky decks, etc. I’m looking for new tenants if you know anybody! 😉

As for the blog, I am still concentrating on my 3 big passions: traveling the world, sailing/working offshore, and FREEDOM to enjoy living life to the fullest!

As you can tell, if you poke around a little here, I have other interests as well. I love to eat and drink so I post good looking recipes here. I love music of pretty much all genres, so I post about that. I like to take pictures, so I’ll post some of them here. I love to read, so I might post about a good book I’m reading. I post about anything I think is interesting and I think other people might also enjoy.

I hope I can learn through this Zero to Hero challenge to be a better blogger. I hope I can learn how to keep things interesting, entertaining, enjoyable enough to keep the readers I have coming back and that they’ll tell their friends. I’d like to be able to grow my blog and interact with more people from all over the world.

I’ve been so encouraged and excited to see that already in just the 4.5 months I’ve been working on this blog, I’ve had people from 85 countries visit me here! I’d love to have more interaction with all of these people. I’d really love it if more people would comment and let me know what they think of all the things I post about (especially politics). 😉