- You have a global audience. I remember being startled after posting a posting of a snowy New England day and getting a comment from the Philippines, “I’ve never seen snow.” In my life, I’ve always taken it for granted. And professionally, my daily journalism career focused on a well-defined circulation area, perhaps a single county or an entire state, depending on the newspaper at the time. My Red Barn posts, on the other hand, often get read on five or six continents.
- On WordPress, you’re part of a community. Sometimes posting can feel a bit like corresponding to pen pals in the old days. And it’s important to see what they’re up to as well and letting them know you’ve stopped by, too.
- At first, I didn’t understand “likes.” Yes, I was that naïve about social media. They do help me know who’s tuning in on a given day or topic, even though the number of hits now is generally lower than I had five or so years ago – I take it that’s one thing happening across the board. But I’m also surprised by the number of new likes on archived posts.
- Tags. They help invite readers. Just don’t use too many or too few. These days, I’m finding readers show up less frequently but then stay around longer, sampling other recent posts or digging into my deep past. I do find tags quite helpful in navigating the WP Reader for fresh voices.
- Categories. I find them quite useful in navigating the Barn, so I assume that applies for others, too. With the Red Barn’s unique merry-go-round approach to topics, I find them quite helpful in organizing the ongoing mix.
- Scheduling. Unlike most other bloggers, I often work on posts long ahead of their release. It’s one way to create time for my other projects, admittedly, as well as to juggle topics for a better rhythm of presentation. The practice also allows me to go back and polish a post before it goes live or to add from additional reflection. And paradoxically, it can also have me releasing in a more timely pace with the changing seasons – working “live” would actually put me behind the action.
- Classic editor, rather than the newer “block” format. Old-timers here at WordPress will definitely understand. Ditto for the Administrative working option.
- Reader’s comments are important. Some days they’re the best part of a post. But they’ve definitely declined, and I’m not sure whether that’s a consequence of the Barn’s current appearance or of its shifting round of topics or just something else in general.
- Photography. Despite a lifelong love of visual art, I had intended the Red Barn to be a text vehicle. But then photography crept in, first through a borrowed digital camera and then a cheap point-and-shoot Kodak leading to an Olympus and now an unbelievable smart phone. In short, I now list photography among my hobbies, even if it does seem like cheating compared to the historic and very real craft of light meters, f-stops, and darkroom developing of film. As for texts, length remains a puzzle – sometimes a longer “think piece” gets more hits than the bright briefs that seem essential on other social media. And photography on WP? Let me suggest it seems to be more thoughtful than gossipy or copped from other sources.
- I’m still ambivalent about the decision to branch out into related blogs. Should I have kept most of their posts within the Barn? Or would that have cluttered the mix? The genealogy of Orphan George does seem to demand its own bookshelf, as it were, as do the free poetry chapbooks of Thistle Finch, but I do wonder about the money-and-your-life project now archived at Chicken Farmer as well as the Quaker spirituality and Bible reflections at Sowing Light.
Oh, yes, it does take far more time than I anticipated, even when I had a backlog of poetry and correspondence for republication. And I do miss the Fresh Pressed selections in the Reader feed. But not so the self-congratulatory “awards” nominations that made the rounds.
Jnana's Red Barn 