Pinkie’s Personal Rules For Blogging

Hello again sweet Island Guests, it’s Wednesday again so it’s time for another post on Pinkie’s grey-matter. Stuff that is in my mind. Last week we did something a bit whimsical so this week we are a bit more serious. My blogging anniversary is drawing near. So I started to think on what I have learned. There is a lot more to blogging than one may think and if you have a mind as weird as mine you might have to place some rules that work for you! Today I share some of mine, some sensical some .. less so.

I have this weird issue with favouring one of my own posts. Blog Tags where I have to pick my favourite. I feel it’s unfair to my other posts.. they might cry that I favor one over them. I know they probably do not have any sentience.. but who knows! I put some love into all of them so maybe on some level they are like my babies. This is also why I haven’t participated in the JCS in ages. I felt so conflicted on what to contribute! Something smart, something funny, something cute.Also by labeling it the best the other posts might feel less. I also feel that favouring a post for this is like leading a lamb to the slaughter. Some of you have seen so much more anime and have so much more insight in cultural stuff that anything I throw against it would be deemed.. worst in the showcase.. and I don’t want my posts to suffer through that! I hate putting my post in any form of list. If it would be the least liked on the line up ..it could feel like me in gym class.

It also saves me from a lot of stress. I could pick a post with the most votes and nominate that.. but let’s be honest here.. we are all in the same community here. If a post gets 30 likes you’ve probably all already seen it so than there would not be much reason for me to make my other posts feel like they are worth less to me. Of course it’s not only my post sentience that concerns me about this matter. It’s the community as well. Favoring of any kind only leads to polarization. If I pick Blog A as my favorite and show you.. while you favor B I only succeed in proving how different we are. I do not need to prove how similar we are.. because mostly care about the same things. If you are reading this.. there is a big chance you at least like either gaming or anime or movies even.  There already is common ground. Let’s focus on that. What post I favor is also based on my mindset and not constant. 

How I see my blogs If I break my rule!

Topics become more relevant or can become stupid in a heartbeat. It’s too much pressure. I never want to enforce my preference upon others as it stifles one’s uniqueness and can also put us needlessly apart. So no JCS for me, No final part of the Mystery Blogger award where you select 2 of your best post and no Top 5 of my favorite posts.  If someone thinks one of my posts is very special that is great.. but I do not want to ever enforce it upon them. Should it ever turn out to be that in some reality/plane beyond our own our posts get sentience trough our love and effort than I am sure all my posts are happy they aren’t the favored as well and everyone can smile and be happy.

I am not saying this is actually true but I feel we have much more control over reality than we realise. A chair isn’t a  chair because it has for legs and a sitting surface for a single person with some back support. It’s because we choose to acknowledge it as a chair. The word that happens to be chosen. If I see it as a stool with back support..  I aint that much more wrong.  Happy thoughts create positives energies. That’s why we have concepts like Karma.. but thats also why the people who are depressed keep getting negative stuff happen to them. So if I truly vividly imagine my posts asking me not to take favorites because the top 5 knows they would never make that!  Maybe I am picking up some actual energy and making it a thought!

I will my utmost to provide a safe haven for everyone. Everyone is welcome as long as they themselves also accept that everyone is truly welcome on my blog. I mean do make a normie joke every now and again.. but let’s be honest sometimes we can make a joke about our friends as well. While I do believe in causes and can support them, I will never do so in the capacity of this blog. I mean I am very much about equality for everyone and in that sense OWLS can be scene as political but that’s not how I view it. Will I blog to inspire you to be yourself.. yes.., will I ban you if you are racist or a bigot in my comments yes.

Yet I will never make my blogs about politics.  There is a lot going on in the world and I do have opinions.. yet that is something for the person behind the keyboard.. not for the person you see. No matter who you are, where you live or what you believe.. you are here because we have something in common. Let that be the thing that unites us, not whether you vote red or blue, left or right. I have 0 people from my own country that follow me now that Raist has been  gone. My real life friends don’t read my blog so my issues with such matters aren’t very relatable.This in a way goes the other way around as well. While I sympathise with your emotions wherever you come from.. as your blogging friend, I can never truly get the insight you have in your nations issues, I do not feel I get enough information to form an objective view. Simply because the world.. now basically consist out of nothing but extremes.

I do not believe in a Binary world, with only absolutes, 1’s or 0’s  believe in a multi coloured world and I rather take the role of someone who listens to you when you had a rough day and gives a shoulder pad, or offer you a lighthearted blog post to keep your mind of it than me picking up a torch with you.  While I care about you all very deeply, I might also care about Otto Otherside, or Elisabeth Elsewhere. You are always free to ask me for my views and opinions on a issue trough a twitter DM or by the contact page.. and I’ll answer genuinely.. because I also believe in being truthful, yet I do not think turning my blog into something that can polarise.. while I am clearly not an expert.  This also goes for lesser debates like Jamie vs Vic, Pewdiepie Yay or Nay, or is what I feel about Queerbaiting in anime.

My content is meant is to meet fellow geeks and no matter if you are on team Jamie or team Vic .. both sides can still have amazing people still. If we focus on what makes us different and profile ourselves to specifically we lack the chance to have awesome friends. From friends that I disagree with I might learn some new insights while from friends I agree with I can get a sense of validation. Both are important. The episode of Family Guy where Brian befriends Rush Limbaugh is a great example.. both gain insights from each other and at least had a fun experience out the whole thing. Why should we deny ourselves that. Personally I would not have even known who he was before that episode and even after I hardly know his agenda well enough to judge.

One may ask me the question if I do not believe in absolute wrong? Like some of the absolute madness that is going on in the world right now, one side has to be wrong right?! Yes.. but does that make everyone on said side wrong and should we push them all out ? No! I obviously have my opinions .. and if you know me a bit you can get a sense of where I stand. For the most of you reading this, I stand with you. I will simply just never blog or tweet about it. Maybe my blog is being read by one who doesn’t stand where I am right now.. but by not focusing on what makes us different maybe they can one day see what makes us the same. 

So many of you make so many great articles, some of you come up with the greatest blogging topics and it sometimes is very inviting to write my opinions about those opinions or chip in. Yet I made it a rule to not do that . At least not directly. I recently referenced an Irina post as something that shaped my vision as a blogger but that was months apart. Honestly I do not feel a strong enough blogger to add to another bloggers work. I have difficulty seeing myself as your peer. My writing is a lot sloppier.

I have a lot of trouble reading back my own texts to correct them . I have a very strong memory and when I read back my own posts.. I just see the post in my memory again as I intended to write it.  So my blogs have plenty of errors. I know this and  it makes me feel unworthy to even stand in your shadows. By stepping on your turf , I amplify that feeling for myself. I would feel like the shitty sequel.. the  Son of the Mask to your Mask. The Book of Shadows to your Blair Witch Project. Now does this that mean it actually rings true and I can never add anything to others blogs? No not at all. but the stress and the pressure makes it not fun to me .. so I never will use another’s blog article as my stepping stone.


The exception being of course a positive review of a series I would watch but then I just say you inspired me to watch it.. and write it as my own article still. This is also why I gave up on Collabs for a bit.. I did not feel like I am good enough for that yet and it feels as if I would use a bigger blogger or a better blogger as a springboard. Now I am not saying that is a bad thing I am just saying, I do not want to add pressure to live up to self imposed standards and meet other peoples standards. I decided to write for myself and find my own batch of followers. I am open up again for collabs but I am still rather afraid to reach out. So for now I am not putting myself under that pressure.

I do not want people to follow me because they like Megan, Scott or Irina, Foovay or whoever I want them to follow because they like me! Though now I still hope to collab in the future, I’d probably prefer to start with a one-off Colab to see how things will go for me. I feel I have to earn my chops on my own so I can’t just borrow a popular topic! Now in the recent past I had a few topics similar to what other people did but that is a coincidence. I am at the moment of writing about a week and a half ahead with about another week of blogging planned.  I just have a similar mindset as some of you.. I never want to imitate you!

I’ll just do me! Teehee!

One of the most important rules I enforce on myself is to keep writing something. Sometimes it’s not as funny as I want, sometimes it’s not very inspirational and some advice can be very boring. However at some point somehow my brain felt like any topic was a good idea to write about. If you start doubting that instinct you open a floodgate and you can easily get yourself writers blocks. This isn’t good enough?! Let’s scrap it! Yesterday’s post was funnier.. I should axe this one then. If I censor my thoughts based on what I think is good enough or not , I keep imposing myself with standards that creep up a little bit each time. I did this in the past and it leads into a spiral of putting up walls. The higher your standards grow the less fun writing becomes, the harder it becomes.

To me writing is something that should come natural. Sometimes I will write a dead post, sometimes I will write a good one.  Since writing is my hobby that need for everything to be good or amazing isn’t exactly there. It is nothing but a self imposed threshold that limits practicing that hobby.  Blogging should not be about how much likes you can get with a post. It’s about how much fun you had writing and editing. So nowadays I just write! I write something for a day and if it’s good , that is great.. if it’s a bit less.. I keep it and in case I write something better I just keep pushing the worse thing backward.. coming back to it to make it better later.

If I can’t do anything with the subject I will post it anyway. Something that I dislike might still really resonate with someone else, leading up to chances to meet new friends. Maybe someone will point out the flaws of such a post in a comment and I get feedback that helps me get better. At the very least it will help my consistency and SEO , whatever that stuff means. We are amateurs, not everything has to be good or sleek. Concept art  can sometime be worth something to and it’s worth to publish in it’s own right. A bad post in factuality does not really exist. Bad writing is mostly an opinion. For example I really do not like how Lord of the Rings is written at all. I vastly prefer James Clemens Wit’ch series. Most would disagree but how I feel is still a fact.

Perhaps you learn people don’t like that type of content.. perhaps people go crazy for it and you find you have been too hard on yourself.  To me killing of an essay a project is often a gateway to  cancel more, you add more pressure to yourself while gaining nothing. Sure killing something off is the way to a “save” face.. but do we need that as amateur bloggers? Isn’t the writing experience and the feedback way more important?  Isn’t keeping writing accessible more in your benefit? While writing like Tolkien might give you 10.000 followers, writing like James Clemens may give you 300 others. You do not know! You can’t know.

To me it is, I write because it clears my head, I get to relax, chuckle at my own jokes, give me back pads for my infinite wisdom and check on my own growth as an alien princess from planet k400.  I mean ..  growth as a human… my backspace button broke , so I can’t delete that.. but I meant to write human! I am definitely a human not the princess of K400’s Pynk-Eno kingdom. Forget you ever read that! Whoever I am.. I am someone who will not censor myself. I keep writing until someone makes me cry so hard I can’t take it anymore.. or until the day I die. Whichever comes first! Some like excellent grammar, others do not care about it that much and even find a deeper meaning in the Tales of Scrotie Mcboogerballs (google knew that name and corrected it for me..which makes a perfect case for standards)
Thank Arceus that I can write on my laptop and the blogosphere .. because otherwise my house would be filled with paper and mediocrity!  Now it’s just filled with pink pillows and plushies.

And I am definatly not an Alien!

So there you have it! A few of my blogging quirks and personal codes written out for you! So now you know where I come from! Now you know why my posts suck so much OR why you find them awesome! Now you also know why I don’t participate in showcases .. I am weird huh! So do you have some personal rules? What does work for you?! Let me know in the comments!

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Princess Pinkie

A 34 year old, super pink, Geek blogger, from the Netherlands behind the keyboard. A 21 year old , Unicorn-Duck Princess VBlogger on the border of imagination and reality!

18 thoughts on “Pinkie’s Personal Rules For Blogging”

  1. Loved this article so much! 🤍 It really got me thinking about what rules I have in place when it comes to blogging, I never use my blogs for political reasons either, it’s mainly because I am not politically minded so don’t really understand much about politics so don’t dive into them headfirst. Especially with the way the world is at the moment, all I would want to do is find a nice relaxing blog that isn’t all about politics and just read through the posts 🙂 We have enough of politics being posted all over social media anyway!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Aww thank you!

      Yeah same here about politics, I have an idea of how I want the world to be but it’s not a very realistic shout, so I prefer to shout how I wanna be.. or how I want my friends to be (without changing them of course) I think that gets us a lot further.

      I also think think it’s nice to have places where we can escape that. We need places like that .. (also places who do shout for bigger things of course) but I want to be one of those places.

      Happy you agree! I can’t visit your blog though trough that avatar link! I assume you are still around though?

      Like

      1. Strange about the avatar link, I may not have done that right! I see if I can sort that out! Thankyou for mentioning it!

        Same here, we all need some places to escape too from all the drama!

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Very wise, I think these rules are very smart. I think it’d benefit you to realize that most people around here have pretty low standards, I mean they seem to tolerate that stupid wannabe film critic (what’s their name C to the Cinema or something) and they’re a complete joke.

    JCS is something I’ve struggled with as well as I don’t like choosing the best way to represent myself and what you said but there’s something unifying about it and I know the charm and effort in your writing is something everyone would be glad to see there. (Be careful though that C guy has been notorious for submitting other people’s work to celebrate their talent, ask your senpai about it).

    As for collabs I think it’s best when you see two distinct personalities coming together so you gotta key on yourself…but at the end of the day everyone no matter how big the following or build up persona is just a person and with a good topic or idea would probably be interested to try and come together. I personally think you’ve already done phenomenally at expressing yourself and building a personal brand that you’d make a great collab partner…as someone who has a bit of impostor syndrome and sort of feels guilty for gaining my following through igniting exchanges, don’t let yourself stop you from making friends, and growing as a writer and a person because of frivolous self-doubts holding you back. If you ever wanted to collab I think that C character would be glad to, among most writers around here, and I’m sure everyone’s seeing how far you go so please don’t hold yourself back!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Aww thanks for the kind words! I do agree people here don’t require master pieces they can enjoy themselves fine with low brow posts as well. That doesn’t always help the fact though how my writing will compare to native speakers.. as it were.. or persons with a better sense of grammar. I do feel like you all think I good enough to be read, I just question if Uwe Boll can be called a director in the same breath as Steven Spielberg.

      I do not mind other people submitting it for me.. my posts will not be sad that others prefer posts.. but these are all mine.. my babies! .. So even if I showcase (not just JCS but any form) something I will hear them say “but what about me!” It’s weird and I blame my mom.. I also feel the community is fairly tight knit already. If I write something good, 90% of you will kinda know it anyway..so why put me trough the pressure of picking I guess.

      I try to interact with blogs and stuff so my fear of asking for a collab stems more from the fear of being rejected.. as in “I do not think you are good enough.. or I do not think your style fits me very well” .. I am making steps to conquer that though! I am planning to do something special for my 1st anniversary next month so maybe for then I will be looking for some collabs and or something in that vein. Haven’t fully worked it out yet but I will!

      Thanks for the wisdom drop! I somehow think that C character is quite alright as well !

      Like

      1. You’re welcome. Some of my rules on Iridium Eye involve mainly focusing on obscure works obviously. Haha! I think I try to be critical, yet equal in what I watch. I don’t really get political unless something has more political elements, but that’s rarer than one would expect.

        Like

  3. Love this! You are the kindest blogger I know so I definitely get why you have your own rules. What rules do I have? Hmm. Off the top of my head: 1) I never set a word count. I just let it flow and whatever happens, happens! and 2) I only write about things I care about. I can’t think of anymore at the moment! Thank you for the food for thought. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Same for you! I also never set a word count! .. Though for the friday after the next (the 19th I think) it had some serious consequences xD )

      I must say I aim for about 3 /4 pages in Google docs., but if stuff is in my head I clear it.. it goes in there.

      Your second rule is also a good one! I sorta do that but sometimes I plunge myself into something random and I just go with it as well!

      Liked by 1 person

  4. “they might cry that I favor one over them. I know they probably do not have any sentience.. but who knows! ”

    Wow, this sounds familiar! I was lucky enough to get tagged for JCS, and when I had to decide which post to share, I may have imagined the posts discussing it among themselves to see which was the best representation of my blog’s perspective for that month. If I leave it up to the posts, it’s less likely anyone will feel slighted.

    I think I need to get out more.

    “While I do believe in causes and can support them, I will never do so in the capacity of this blog.”

    My opinion of this has evolved. I used to want to keep detailed politics out of my posts for the same reason you mentioned — I honestly want to be inclusive and supportive of many different communities.

    Lately, I’ve come to a conclusion. There’s a difference between politics, which is people doing things in groups, and objective evil. Fascists, racists, misogynists, and others whose intent is to harm others are in no way welcome on my blog. I doubt they’d find anything interesting there anyway. Choosing to harm another human is not politics. It’s evil. So, I will occasionally speak out against objective evil.

    Though I try to keep even that civil. I want to have some standards, after all.

    “I just see the post in my memory again as I intended to write it. So my blogs have plenty of errors. I know this and it makes me feel unworthy to even stand in your shadows. By stepping on your turf , I amplify that feeling for myself.”

    This sounds familiar, too! I’ve hated everything I ever wrote. With one or two exceptions, and then it’s more of a “I really don’t like you but we’ll have to get along, I guess” sort of thing. But I think you just articulated why I react to my writing the way I do. When re-reading it, all I can see is how it didn’t live up to what I’d originally envisioned.

    Don’t let those feelings get in your way, though. You mentioned that you “do not feel a strong enough blogger to add to another bloggers work.” This is just my perspective, but I don’t see it as you adding to their work. I see it as you adding your voice to the chorus that is this community. It’s all about your unique perspective. It’s like Rush’s song “Chain Lightning: “The spark still flies, Reflected in another pair of eyes.”

    “Whoever I am.. I am someone who will not censor myself.”

    You should read Dangerous Visions, the book that Harlan Ellison edited. Just don’t do it after a big meal. Some of the stories are _really_ out there. But they’re a good example of what can be done.

    But your advice to never stop writing? That is the absolute core. Get the words on the page (or screen, or whatever!). Then the magic can happen.

    “and check on my own growth as an alien princess from planet k400. ”

    The last surveys I saw say that world’s uninhabited. Y’all must have some great camouflage.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Aww that you so much for this thorough response! I am glad I am not the only one who sees sentience in my posts! It does enforce my belief why I do not highlight anything myself though! Maybe we do not imagine things but pick up things others do not 😉

      While I do think you are right that there is objective evil, as I mentioned in the post, I also feel like I am not the voice to break that… I’d rather be the voice that welcomes someone from the evil side and shows them..those people you dominate are part of this place to. They are geeks as wel and are pretty amazing. That is my vision or chosen route a it.

      Like I mentioned in my own post about adding to another blogger the fact that I do feel I am not strong enough, doesn’t mean I am not. It just means I am uncomfy doing it.. costing me fun. I have only been here for almost a year now though.. so it will come in time. I still feel like the Kohai but that will change.

      As for the planet, who says that what you earthling call planet K400 is what we call it. Perhaps it’s our name from the planet.. and maybe we indeed do have great camouflage. Or we are completely subterranean

      Liked by 1 person

  5. I’m upset that I’ve never seen your blog before until now, because this is good information for new bloggers, like myself. I agree with the rules you’ve made out, and I definitely agree about the one regarding political content being placed in blogs. As my own blog is my safe haven to talk about games, fanfiction, and podcasting, and lots of fangirling.

    Lastly, never stop writing. I agree with that entire section, like, yes! That!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. There is no “worst” in the Showcase or for blogging. It’s really *jazz hands* a product of a blogger’s imagination *ends jazz hands* but I don’t think bloggers themselves realise that until they gain…maturity (is that the right word?)…within the craft.

    Since Megan referred to word count, somewhere along the way (from my fanfiction), I (rather unconsciously) developed a minimum word limit of 300 words and I have a daily goal of 200 to encourage myself to write regularly, although I miss it a lot because I actually don’t have a set word count, despite all the numbers I just threw around. Just as an indication, for weekly blog posts I currently do about 500 – 600 words, but some of the smaller studio posts hit slightly over 300.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Having recently drafted my weirdest story yet, modeled after anime like bananya, my limited knowledge of Seuss and the current heatwave, I briefly asked myself, what are you doing.

      The answer was, having fun! I loved making that post to be so much I do not care how well its received. Before I was writing content for others and needed it to be good for you guys, it devasted me if a post did bad, that poor little thing got no love!

      Now I write to have fun, I love doing the posts I do now, I am that odd ball, and while I did notice a 25% or so drop in average likes, said likes mean more now! I know some of my lessr liked pieces resonates strongly with someone and I do feel that even if no some of the posts I like less myself can still be good for someone else, it’s all relative.

      I try to write a post a day, with my word count average, that is a good chunk out of the day, but it makes me happy. I am not one for putting a word limit on my blog, it costs me readers, but I do feel better understood.

      Word count is something I will tweak when I get there, I am improving other things first , growing my style, my structure and mostly my fun! My blogs are my babies, and though they might not win pagants, perhaps should not even compete, I am proud to have them out there!

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Don’t change a thing about your beautiful little pink island of love, whimsey, and contentment. Unless you want to, because it will be even better, long as you only do what you want to do. I love this little inclusive bit of the universe, where kindness rules. Kindness to yourself, your posts, your readers. The world needs more and it doesn’t even know how much it needs them. Most of all it feels like a little hangout with friends. We can hangout, drink pink tea and talk Pokemon or anime or whatever and leave all the other stuff outside. Bless you and thank you for creating this place 😀

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