I joined the A-Z Challenge as a way to get back into blogging. Since returning from Rome, I’d lost interest and couldn’t rustle up any enthusiasm for it. Once I’d committed to the idea, however, I thought, ‘Aha!’ (As in a sudden realisation, not as in the lovely 80s band. Although, to be honest, I do quite often think about Morten Harket, who has aged remarkably well.)
Anyway, I thought, ‘Aha! This might also help me develop a huge new readership. Almost 2000 bloggers take part in the Challenge. If I could attract a few of their readers, I could become a force to compete with the likes of Zoellla or Perez Hilton, making thousands of pounds each month, enabling me to give up work and spend my days in my PJs, tapping away on my keyboard in-between fielding phone interviews from the Times and lunch meetings with sponsors.’ Then I rubbed my hands together and laughed loudly in the usual evil baddie manner.
Sadly, that hasn’t been the case. I think many of my normal (not huge, but not too embarrassingly small*) readership has been put off by the daily posts – ‘Bloody hell, not HER again!’ – and are keeping away. I usually publicise my posts on my Facebook account and I haven’t been doing that because I was a bit worried about finding myself with zero friends at the end of the month. I haven’t quite got the hang of Twitter or Instagram or any of the other social media names that my children bandy about (and then roll their eyes when I haven’t heard of them) so the social media avenue is closed to me. I was starting to think that instead of adding to Barbed Word’s success, the A-Z Challenge would result in its demise.**
But that was until yesterday, when I made the genius decision to include a cat in my post. Along with a super cute picture. Wayhay! Double the number of visitors! Who knew that the key to my success lay in cat lovers??*** So from now on, whatever I’m blogging about, I will cram a cat into it somehow. Cat. Cat. Cat. I love cats! And here is today’s cat picture:
*This refers to the size of the readership, not the size of the individual readers.
** I heard someone on the radio last week who pronounced this word, ‘Deemeese’. Anyone else do this?? He was extremely posh if that explains anything.
*** I do actually love cats so I don’t feel I’m exploiting their owners too badly…
BARBED WORDS 