Block Editor Hell

The One About Trying New Things, Setting Boundaries, & Taking A Respite, For Sooth

/ Ally Bean / 228 Comments

I’ve heard it said that when you get down to it the world is held together with safety pins and duct tape. There’s a truth to this idea, especially when I contemplate my personal blog here on ye olde WordPress.

Safety pin meet duct tape.

I’ll take credit for the safety pin part, that’d be my weekly blog posts ‘pinned’ here for all to read, contemplate, and comment on. Thank you, my fellow cool kids*, for doing so.

But the duct tape part? That’d refer to WP’s support of this blog, the way they attempt to ‘tape’ this virtual place together. And let’s just say bless their heart for trying to doing so.

Although I have to admit that some weeks I wonder how much longer WP will be around. There are glitches galore making it increasingly tedious to write, edit, format, and publish my pithy thoughts— and for you to receive them in the way I intend.

All of which brings me to the reason I’m writing this post. You see, my bloggy friends, I’m going to try something new, setting a boundary where I’m feeling drained, and taking an extended respite from writing this personal blog.

Because I’m tired of writing it**.

It really is that simple.

Tired.

As an introvert I feel that I’ve come to a point where I need a bit of space between me and whatever it is that I’m doing here. I want to relax into my real life, contemplate why I’m blogging at this point, and review what I hope to gain from writing. It’s time to reprioritize my blogging expectations.

Thus I’ll quietly duck out of here, probably returning sometime in 2025. Or maybe I’ll go elsewhere and find a new place to share my flapdoodle and twaddle.

I dunno.

And you know what? I don’t have to know right now because I’m keeping it loose, keeping it light*** by not worrying about the deets today.

Thanks to everyone who follows The Spectacled Bean, adding joy and laughter to my days. I appreciate that you’ve included me in your lives. I plan to continue checking in on yours every so often, enjoying what you have to say on your personal blogs.

Y’all are the best.

Later, kids.

* HERE is the explanation of what I mean when I talk about cool kids.

** HERE is how it has come to be that I am tired.

*** HERE is why I’m referring to wanting to keep it light.

A Simply Questionable Post: Answering Four Questions, Acknowledging One Reality

/ Ally Bean / 212 Comments

THE ANSWERING FOUR QUESTIONS PART

We’re on staycation again this week, busy morphing a guest bedroom into a reading/yoga room. More on that later. In the meantime here is something I found when I read THIS POST by Martha at Seaside Simplicity. Because of her I know about the Tuesday 4 questions and this week the 4 questions are about blogging.

1.  Tell us about your blog.  When did you start blogging?

I started my first blog in 2004. My intentions were good, but our computer was unreliable and our internet connection was dodgy, resulting in an arbitrary posting schedule. Still, I stuck with it.
 
2.  What prompted you to begin blogging?

Pure curiosity to see if I could do it.
 
3.  What was your first blog about and why did you choose that subject/title?

My first blog was called sweetlyPAZZO. I don’t remember much of what I wrote about but the title came from my point of view. I was much sweeter back then and I thought that ‘pazzo’ [which means crazy in Italian] was a cool word so I used it in the title of the blog.
 
4.  How has your blog changed over time, and has it done for you what you hoped it would do in the first place?

Like many longtime bloggers I’ve had a few different blogs. For me this has made sense because I’ve wanted to try different approaches to blogging, different points of view, different platforms. Over the years blogging has helped keep my brain clicking by satisfiying my curiosity, so it has done what I hoped it’d do for me in the first place.

THE ACKNOWLEDGING ONE REALITY PART

I sometimes say that irony is my closest friend. In this case I’m referring to how difficult it has been for me, an accomplished blogger, to write this cute little post. It has been anything but fun; in fact it’s been hell.

There has been nothing simple about it.

The WordPress Block Editor has thwarted me at every turn, often blocking me from editing my words in a block so that I had to rewrite what I’d written again… and again… and again. Also there are some links in this post, but the system has inexplicably taken away the blue color from the links so you, kids, cannot see them anymore.

I guess you’re just supposed to know they’re there.

Whilst I’d like to say I’m filled with righteous indignation and the fervor that comes from knowing that there’s something wrong going on and you’re going to stop it, I’m too tired to do so. WordPress is slowly stealing the fun from personal blogging. I don’t know why, but I know this to be true.

The One About My Change In Attitude & A Relaxed Spring Blogging Schedule

/ Ally Bean / 171 Comments

Plans change.

Wednesday’s post was the last one I had in my blogging files. Yep, for once I’ve absolutely nothing planned or researched or started. That is a rare turn of events for me, a wordy girl.

Then I woke up Thursday morning to find my WP editing page was different. Again. Of course.

Today I can’t help but feel that the events earlier this week were a sign nudging me to change my attitude about how often I post to this blog. Not a dramatic change mind you.

More like a sign encouraging me to SIMPLIFY, my word of the year.

So here’s the dealio.

For this spring, maybe summer too, I’m going to write and publish one post every two weeks, showing up here on Tuesdays [probably]. Nothing remains quite the same.

The posts will be my favorite kind of blog post, the ones filled with flapdoodle and twaddle. If we couldn’t laugh we’d all go insane, right?

Then with my free time I’m going to read what you, my prolific bloggy friends, write on your blogs. Not everything you write of course, but many things.

This relaxed approach to blogging will give me the latitude to stay in touch & share the comment love you all deserve– while politely stepping away from blog land every so often.

You understand. ❤️

Words Do Not Fail Me: A Study Of Wordiness In My Blog Posts & Your Comments, Forsooth

/ Ally Bean / 176 Comments

I got curious.

I got to a’wondering about two things about this blog’s word counts. I realize that what follows is a somewhat meta post, but it’s winter and I have time to think about word counts.

My two questions are:

  1. How many words have I written in the 962 posts I’ve published here; and
  2. How many words are in the average comment here.

• Answering the first question was easy.

WordPress provides information on word count by post and by year. Looking at the chart featured at the bottom of this post you can see that I’ve written & published a total of 962 posts with a total word count of 282,612 words.

This averages overall to 294 words per post, although last year I got wordier averaging 360 words per post.

A digression… according to this article, A Word Count Guide for 18 Book Genres, Including Novels and Non-Fiction, 80,000 words is the ideal length for a novel. “If you’re working on a novel-length book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least — but it’s better to aim for 90,000. Editorial trimming is inevitable.”

Ergo, keeping the above rule of thumb in mind while applying it to my blog word count [282,612 divided by 90,000] you can see that in essence

I’VE WRITTEN THREE BOOKS.

• Answering the second question took more effort and required a few assumptions.

Because there’s no stinking way I’m going through all the comments on this blog to find the total comment word count, I made a few, shall we say, educated guesses.

Thus I decided that I’d only look at the comment word count on my 2021 blog posts AND that I’d only look at the comments made by the top recent commenters [according to WordPress] because I figure those people are a good representation of all commenters.

The top recent commenters are: Linda, LA, Dan, Nancy, Tara, and Kari. Go visit them and say “hi!”

To wit, there are 38 comments from these individuals with a total of 1616 words. This means that the average comment word count is 43 words.

Do what you will with this statistic; I was unable to find any articles written on the topic of comment word counts, so I don’t know how to interpret this number. Other than to say

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTS HERE.

Curiosity satisfied. The end.

Questions Of The Day

When you write do you keep track of your word count as you go along? Are you aiming for a specific number?

Did you know that the word *forsooth* is an archaic or humorous word meaning “indeed”?

Do you have any idea how I made the pretty text box featured near the top of this post? I hit some buttons and it happened, but I’ve no idea what I did.

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