Because of the recent new interest in my blog, I’m getting some questions from folks about how to access it and whether or not it’s okay to share my stuff with others, etc. A mentor of mine told me she has trouble finding my blog site because MIP is not a part of some massive blog site such as Blogger. Why?:

1. I decided to create my own site at the recommendation of the DSL who suggested I take ownership of my writing. To take ownership means that I need “creative control” of how things are structured or said in my blog. I can’t completely do that when subjecting it to a format controlled by a mega-blog site.
2. Another reason to do this is to keep any future ads (should I ever get this lucky!) from becoming annoying to my readers. I also want to guard my readers’ privacy and by having control of my site, I have the ability to do that (at least more than I would otherwise.).

So, how do you find me, since I’m not on such a site?

1. I have a Facebook professional page, known as Maryann In Progress, which regularly updates “Likers” as to when a new post is up on this site.  If a reader is only “Friends” with me on my personal Facebook page, I may or may not reference new posts there, simply because a direct reference is against Facebook policy.
2. Can’t remember the name of this site or my professional page? No worries! Just go to my personal page on Facebook and look on the left side of my page. There you will see (in the About section) that I’m a Writer/Blogger at Maryann In Progress.  And yes, clicking on it will take you to the professional page!
3. You “follow” instead of “liking” on Twitter? Yep—I’m there, too. It’s listed under “MaryAnn R. Arnold.”
4. Don’t do either of these? I am working on getting my posts to other social media sites, but this is a learning process for me, so bear with me. Right now my project is to learn Tumblr and by the end of today, I will have 3 posts on Tumblr. I probably will limit my posts there to the “Best of MIP”—fair warning! Some of these sites don’t support blogs very well (such as Pinterest) right now, so it may be a while before you see many of my posts on these sites.
5. Prefer not to be involved with any social media site? Go directly to this web site and subscribe to the email list on the right side of the posts. New posts will get sent to your favorite email account directly.  This is how my husband knows about my latest posts and he even accesses it on his smartphone. I do not send you any junk mail through this service. In fact I seldom look at who is and is not on my email list on purpose! Thankfully, the DSL has constructed a way for this to happen that makes it really easy for me to ignore!
6. Don’t want emails clogging your inbox? Just throw this search term in Google: “MaryAnn Arnold blog” Yep, that’s right. Google is finally figuring out that I write a blog. If you go to any of the first few links from this search, you’ll see the web address of my blog. And yes, this has been a goal of mine. So getting to it by searching on Google actually makes me happy, happy. (Duck Dynasty would be so proud.) Is it completely easy to get there from the search term? No, not yet. Still working on this and a lot of that is beyond my control!

Is it okay to ‘share” my posts on Facebook or Twitter or wherever? Absolutely. Fire away! Go for it. Again, this makes me happy, happy.  All I ask is that you remind folks “All rights reserved” by moi when you post. I do hope that what I write is something that resonates with others or is entertaining or helpful for others. So, please do share, like, and tweet whenever you want.

Who sees comments?  Comments are visible for all those who read the post where you commented.  Comments may start a dialogue with other readers, which would be awesome, particularly if it leads to even more “self-improvement” in the world.

Want only me to see what you write on the site? Go to the “Contact Me” tab at the top of the web site post page and fill out the “form” that is there. Then your comment, question, etc. goes directly to me (via email) and only me!  If I ever become successful enough for that to change (aka I need someone to help me answer emails) I will be sure to alert you first.

Clear as mud, right? Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m only 6 months into this blog. Pretty sure Rome wasn’t entirely built in 6 months, either and I don’t speak Latin or Italian.

Monday’s Post: What do you think balneology means?

You might also like: MaryAnn’s Hospital Survey, This I Just Can’t Resist, and How I Cope with a Heart That’s a Ticking Time Bomb

Can you call a blog that hasn’t even reached its first anniversary “Ol”??? Hmmm….

When I started this blog, I had two “content” goals: A) To honestly write what was going on in my life (with maybe a few exaggerations thrown in just for “laughs”) and B) To make it something relevant, useful, or entertaining to my readers so that they would also work on being “a work in progress.” The last goal is more difficult to attain, since many of you simply read my blog and move on in your daily lives. That is perfectly fine with me, but it does sometimes make it difficult to gauge whether I’m getting to that last goal or not. Soooo….thanks to all of you who so graciously answered my little survey! There were no incentives for free, cool stuff from MIP because A) I have no free, cool stuff to offer yet and B) I have no budget for “promotion” right now! So, those who answered the survey were doing it just to be nice (or because they were tired of me bugging them about it).

Why a survey now? Readership of MIP has been way up since my latest health adventures, causing me to rethink how I approach my posts and the health adventures have inspired a novel! This novel is demanding considerable amounts of draft time, which will continue, most likely, for the foreseeable future. Thus, I can’t post 6 times a week and also work on it with any regularity. (And, contrary to popular opinion, I do have a life outside of writing.)

So, what’s a girl to do? Ask her readers what they like and don’t like. I was shooting for about a 10% response rate—the typical response rate for surveys sent out the way I sent out mine. I actually received a 13% response rate! Yay! Graduate statistics was not my favorite course in my master’s degree, however, I did learn enough to know that A) Surveys simply emailed or promoted on social media with no incentives rarely yield a high “return rate” and B) That surveys sent to my readers are likely to be skewed in my favor. So yes, I’m taking these results with a “grain of salt.”

Here’s the first part of what you told me:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score, my blog posts are “liked”, on the average, at an 8.55! I’ll take that. Thank you, kind readers.
2. 60% of you feel the blog site is very engaging. That means a lot to me, since I went through hundreds of designs before settling on the one I use. That probably means a lot to the DSL, too, since he suffered through that process with me and then “tailored” it for my readers. And as I realize something that’s not “working well,” he continues to tweak it for me.
3. 80% of you felt the blog site was either extremely easy or very easy to navigate. I do feel we still have a little work to do in this area (and some of it I just can’t afford right now!), but I think this says that we’re getting there!
4. As for improvements, 85 % of you said to keep the humorous posts coming. Guess I’d better have some more heart attacks or really polish my funny bone, hunh? 80% of you said to keep the Word of the Week feature. I can do the Word of the Week posts in my sleep, honestly (No jokes about my definition attempts looking like I’m writing them from my nightmares, please). 75% of you said to keep the Lessons Learned series going and to keep the serious posts, as well. Whew! That’s a relief because some days I’m just not feeling silly and I like doing the Lessons Learned stuff anyway.

Tomorrow’s Post: More results and…my thoughts about them…

New to MIP? May I suggest: So, Where Are My Posts?, Lessons Learned from Heart Attacks 3 & 4, 2 Heart Attacks Too Soon, Part I,  and 2 Heart Attacks Too Soon, Part II

Because of recent events in my life and because it has forced me to change how and what I write, would you please be a sweetheart and take a 10-question (largely multiple-choice) survey for me on what you think of maryanninprogress.com? The survey is produced by surveymonkey.com, so you can be assured the link below is safe for your computer. I tried to embed the survey here, but it’s not cooperating (Probably blogger issues–not the survey itself!). Thank you so much. Your feedback is tremendously important to me!

Click here for the survey.