Comments, ConCrit and Conversations

Hi! (That's me!)

I blog.
You read.
Together, we meet through these words.

Hello.

Sometimes we stretch beyond the bounds of the post. You may be one of the few I know without this screen between us. Chances are, however, that you are not. For most of you, it is through these words and these words alone that we know each other.

That can be a lot, if we use our words wisely.

I love that you are here. I appreciate that you are reading, but I so desperately want to hear (read) from you too! In fact, that's why I started blogging in the first place.

I was trapped in this house. I was sick and found one tiny window to the world through my keyboard and this screen. I found you here. And you found me.

I was looking for conversations. I have rejoiced over comments. Now that I am focusing on my writing, I crave concrit. YOU hold the keys to these three Cs in your hands, but rather than hope that you read my mind, understand my wishes and somehow decide to partake in this dialogue without invitation, I have decided to take the time to say let's chat!

Comments

If you are a fellow blogger I don't have to tell you how precious your comments are. I will be honest and say, in the last month or more I have held back on commenting myself based on a comment I read "out there" that made me feel just a bit self-conscious. I'm over it. I had a great chat last night on twitter during #blogchat that reminded me why (1) I love commenting on other people's blogs and (2) how happy that makes my fellow bloggers. I'm back, baby!

If you are not a blogger, but you are a reader of blogs, please know that YOU ARE INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE. If you are worried about privacy issues, then sign in as a "guest" or just e-mail me (blogwithnv@gmail.com). Your comments, thoughts, ideas and questions are important too. Spelling doesn't count! There are no points off for messed up grammar! And everyone is entitled to their opinion - even if it is different than mine!!

ConCrit

I have only been doing this whole thing for about a year now. I crave constructive criticism. I can take it, I promise you (remember, I was a high school mathematics teacher for 12 years!). I am constantly striving to improve my blogging and, especially my writing. In fact when it comes to my writing, there are at least two things I know I need help with that I am SURE you can help me with:

1. My crazy type-Os Everyone makes type-Os every now and again, but in my case they happen just a little bit more frequently. You see, mixed in with the normal human-error stuff there's the fact that my "e" key is wonky. You may have already noticed missing "e"s in some of my writings! I try to catch them all, but I'm sure some slip by. Let me know! Drop it in a comment, I don't care if everyone sees it. 
2. Punctuation pointers I have already admitted this in my comments in the past - I am not a friend of the semicolon. That's not all. I am fairly certain I abuse the hyphen. I'm not sure. If you see something, say something! (Now I feel like we are on the subway or in an airport terminal!)

There's so much more embedded in constructive criticism - length of posts, layout, content - if you have something to say that I can learn from (and, in turn, so can all of the readers here), then please share. I will be eternally grateful!

Conversations & Community

Finally, I think this last part will grow naturally, but I will leave nothing unsaid here today - please comment to each other! Part of the reason I switch over to the DISQUS platform for commenting was because it allowed for interaction between my readers in a way that the Blogger commenting system did not. You can reply directly to another's comment. You can give that person a "thumbs up" letting them know you LIKE their comment.

Have fun. Get to know each other. There are some pretty cool people here and I feel like I'm the only one that knows about them!

This whole post reminds me of my classroom. Almost everyone's shy until the teacher creates community. I have to say, if nothing else, I think I was pretty good at that each semester. The question is - Can I expand my skills to the virtual world?

Only time will tell. And, just like in the classroom, at this point, it is out of my hands and in yours. All I can do is make you feel comfortable while you're here.

So I'm here.
And so are you.
I'm glad you came.
How do you feel about it?