An Influencer? Hardly.

I read about “influencers” on the news with hundreds of thousands followers, and I marvel at some of the idiocy they propose, and people seem to oooh and ahhh about all that rubbish. That’s not me.

Those folks could seemingly write a post about how pesto is implicated in making those addicted to it glabrous, and all the baldies out there would be suing pesto makers for criminal acts. The newspapers would echo the claims that there were popular allegations that a byproduct of basil production caused baldness. And Presto! It would be horrible. Gardeners would rip up rows of innocent herbs from their garden plots, and then question whether the adjacent rows of thyme and marjoram were in on the plot. It’s scary. And our diet would turn bland!

I don’t have that sort of influence. I’m here to do a bit of introspection, exploration, and discovery. On a good day, a hundred people read my scurrilous texts, and they may go away scratching their heads – “What the heck was he going on about today?” Not exactly super influencer territory. On any given day, the guest writer may be one or the other of my cats, or my dog. They have much to complain about! Then I am on about the old days of hitchhiking and playing guitar in suspect and dark coffeehouses. I write about the garden, tell tall tales, and generally write on a whim; the prompts and my imagination direct me.

It is pleasing to me that a select group of discerning fellow bloggers and visitors have decided to stop in regularly, read my maundering, comment, and then return for repeat visits.

The blog started in 2018 with material about woodcarving, but I couldn’t resist the odd story. Then other bloggers were posting prompts, and they were interesting. The fact that so many people read this stuff is very satisfying to me. As satisfying is the fact that we seem to belong to a digitally moderated community. Few of us have ever actually had in-person meetings with the others, but if Susan fails to write her daily post for a day or two, we wonder if she is OK and worry.

On any given day, I write where the muse, the prompts, and whatever pops into my head lead me. But I am also interested in the reaction to those things that I get in return from the community of other bloggers and regular visitors – it’s not just a passive audience; it’s a participating community.

Daily writing prompt

How do you write what people actually want to read?

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