The other day I received a paypal gift from an old h2g2 friend with a note saying “With thanks for the beauty of your writing”.
And well … huh? When I told him that I didn’t think my writing was anything special, that I’m just “talking” and putting the words down he replied with this…
I’m not sure what it is about your writing, but I find it no chore to read. It’s invisible writing, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t call attention to itself by either ostentation or awkward sentence structure or grammatical sloppiness. It cleanly and efficiently gets your thoughts across. And your thoughts are interesting, so that’s good.
Anyhow, I wanted to share this, not to boast about my “beautiful writing” or fish for compliments, but to show that you never know who is reading your blog and what they are getting out of your posts, or how much they are enjoying them. Especially as it seems a lot of people read blogs without ever leaving a comment and so often it may seem like we are writing in a void. So I am also reminded to leave comments more often myself.
What’s your reading to commenting ratio?
casa azahar 
I read much more than I comment, and when I do comment it can be pretty short, so the ratio is quite huge.
Sometimes posting even just a 🙂 lets the writer (here, you) know that the piece was read and enjoyed. Sometimes I don’t post because everybody else said it already and much better than I could. And sometimes, none of the above 😉
By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with this quote from your mysterious friend.
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Your mysterious friend isn’t a half-bad writer himself!
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Well, I think I’ll let my friend identify himself if he wants to. And yes, he is a good writer – I loved “invisible writing” and took it as quite a compliment.
Yesterday I was having a Skype chat with a friend in Toronto who told me how much she enjoys reading my blog and … what? I had no idea she reads my blog because she never leaves a comment.
The whole reason I call this blog “casa az” is because it’s like home to me, and I hope others feel comfortable enough to join in here.
For the record, I almost never try leaving comments on Blogger blogs anymore because it’s such a pain and half the time it ends up not recognising my OpenID … grrr. As far as I know, there are no such issues when commenting on WordPress blogs, even if you don’t have a WP blog yourself.
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I had observed that quality in your writing myself. You’re right, it’s easy to enjoy something and forget to say anything.
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Well, I also think that with you, and a few other friends, the “comment” is often included in an email. Which is great but, I dunno, there’s something special about also seeing it here.
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I agree with you about blogger blogs – very frustrating.
I also agree with your friend – sometimes a blog is so easy to read there are no protrusions on which to hook a comment 🙂
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Sounds like a bit of sneaky excuse making to me, young man!
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Hmmm.
I have a new project online which is a WordPress but maybe I should migrate the older, personal one over too.
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Another thing you do well (and far far better than me) is keep this thing active and alive and going, which is very important.
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Takes five minutes to import your Blogger blog to WordPress (hint hint).
Where is your new project?
I keep several blogs going at the moment, but this one is my personal scrapbook. My favourite. 🙂
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Oh, if I move it, I’ll make DancingTree do it…he’s the WordPress guru in the family.
The other project is still in the build stage but will eventually be a website / blog for the designs I do and a portfolio site. Eventually being the operative word.
Now all I need is someone gagging to buy my designs, ideally from Habitat, but IKEA would do too, and then I’d be a happy bunny.
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I actually made a Blogger profile just because Blogger had such a hard time recognizing my wordpress id and my open id. so I just log on as a Blogger. I still don’t like all the bells and whistles that some Bloggers make you go through, the recognition word thingie is a pain. WordPress’ spam function is so good I rarely have problems with spam getting on my place.
My commenting/read ratio is probably over 95%. I feel that someone has put effort into making their blog readable and interesting, so I try to “talk back” so they don’t feel like they are working in a vacuum. Of course, this has been know to get me into trouble at times.
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Pingback: I write like… « casa az
I read way more than I comment and I comment for different reasons. Sometimes I just want to say, hey I’m still coming around here and other times I comment because I have something to say or a strong opinion about a post.
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And I appreciate both. I do wish people would just say hi more often than they do though, because I think many don’t comment because they feel they “don’t have anything to say”.
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…and I do comment on blogger blogs too, even when it seems to take way too many steps.
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Yeah well, you made everyone else do it for years… 😉
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Thinking it over, I would say that my reading to commenting ratio is about 50/50, which clearly isn’t good enough for someone like me who values receiving comments so much. And so I promise to do better (except on Blogger blogs).
One of the reasons I do light stuff like the quizzes is because I’ve noticed that some people who otherwise don’t comment much *aways* do the quizzes, and I think that’s great. So I like to mix it up, which isn’t hard to do as this “scrapbook” is really just about stuff in my life – either things I’m going through or just stuff that interests me. Doing a daily post became extra important to me after I got sick, because sometimes it was the only thing I did all day, and I really needed that. And well, now I can’t seem to stop…
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How cheeky of them 😉
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Oh, where is that tickle smiley when you need it…
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I very rarely comment, and it is as you said, I feel I have nothing to say, or what I want to say has already been said much better than I could put it. I come here every day, though, it’s one of my “standard” sites I read of a lunchtime (a couple of webcomics, then h2g2, then Casa Az, then Diary of a Dog Walker [Mina from h2g2]). If I do comment here it’s very straightforward.
I agree with your friend about your writing. I’ve never really thought about it before, which does indicate that it just flows and doesn’t cause irritation by being too convoluted or flowery. Just nice and easy to read and, as your friend said, your thoughts are interesting and often make me think.
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Now you see, I had no idea that you dropped in every day … that’s so nice to know!
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Hi. xx
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😛
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Well, this should make things easier for people who either don’t have time to comment or feel they don’t have anything to say … the new WordPress Like Button! All posts have them as of today. 🙂
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