To blog hop or not to blog hop...

                          
                         Have you been asking yourself this question? I know I did.

When I first created my blog, I had absolutely no inkling what I was doing. So I fell back on my 'ol standby --the internet. I spent hours researching, trying to find that perfect template, figuring out code, trying to get out there, to brand myself--which is near impossible when using an alias. I worked and worked, until I had it how I liked it (or so I thought at the time), and then I published my first post.

It was nerve racking. I was honest, painfully honest, and I wondered what kind of response I would receive.

The next day I checked my blogger account with trembling fingers. What I found there was shocking! Lo and behold I had a follower. Boy did I feel special!

 I had that one follower for a couple of weeks. And then a friend joined the group, and my sister. So there we were, the four of us. It was awesome.

And then one day I was tooling around the internet and came across a post that spoke of blog hopping. What was this foreign idea? What? I was supposed to sign up and then go from blog to blog following perfect strangers, hoping for the same in return.

No! Way!

Like I would ever do something like that! People were going to follow me because they wanted to follow me, because they were interested in what I had to say. Not for any other reason.

I waited a while longer, maybe a week, but my little blog made absolutely no progress. I was talking, but no one was there to hear me, and I found the void striking a death toll in my heart. I was failing.

What was the point?

Yes I love to write, but I would be better off working on my manuscripts--not spinning my wheels, shooting the breeze with nary a soul to respond. (my lovely followers weren't exactly vocal)

Then one day I had a thought. (This happens to me from time to time, weird) How were my prospective readers to even know I exist? It's not like I'm Lady Gaga. If I were Lady Gaga, I'd have all kinds of people chillin' on my site. But that wasn't the case. I'm a nobody growing into a somebody, and if I ever wanted to make friends I needed to be the one to introduce myself.

So I did exactly that. I stood tall and went knocking, hoping that I wouldn't be ridiculed for being so forward. And that day I discovered something...there are other people out there. People who not only wanted to meet me, but people who have interesting, exciting things to say. Oh my...a long, fabulous list of inspirational posts began to fill my reader. The funny thing is that some of my absolute favorite bloggers are the ones I never would have followed otherwise. We all know you can't judge a book by its cover, and never has this been so true!

If you're interested in making new friends, check out the blog hop link above. There's a slew of great hops going on every day of the week. Hope to see you there!