Let me preface this post by saying…
This is not one of my traditional posts. You will not laugh, you will not cry, you will not be overly entertained. This is just a little self promotion, perhaps a little self reflection, perhaps a little request for input. I realized today as I was adding my latest rhyming poem, “Things on me are changing…” to my page “Rhyme Tyme” that I now have 18 poems on this page. As I am close to reaching my 200th post, that’s roughly 10% of my posts that have been rhyming stories, which is either really cool… or which means I have a serious mental illness.
Anyhow, I’ve never really added them up, I just add the links as they are published and hope that some naive reader happens by and hits the page and reads some of them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to happen very often. Today, I added them up and was frankly kind of impressed with my little self!
During my recent six-week hiatus from blogging, (which I was happy to discover that many of you noticed) I have to admit to going through one of those blog-polar spells, where on a daily basis I wondered what the point of this whole writing gig is and why I spend so much time on it. It happens every once in a while, as I suspect it happens to all of us. As usual, something clicks and the ideas and the motivation come roaring back and the posts start flowing again.
My motivation?
I think about this a lot and although it’s a complex mixture of ingredients that get me to the keyboard, for the most part, it’s a need to entertain, to write something that has an impact on someone, that makes people laugh or smile or cry or think. The interaction, the comments, the “likes” the subscriptions, the tweets… that’s the reward and just like when we get a paycheck, or a thank you, or a pat on the back… it makes us feel good and keeps us going.
But there’s also, in the back of all of our minds, that idea, that maybe… just maybe… we can write something good enough to be noticed on a larger scale.
I have always felt if there was anything remotely marketable from my blog, out in the real world, it would be some of the rhyming stories I have written, either individually or as a group. Some are these are personal, some are fictional, some are influenced by stuff that happens in my life. Some are legitimately kid’s stories, some I would classify more as “kids stories for adults!” As these poems will no doubt continue to grow in numbers, I wonder sometimes if I should do something with them.
What? I don’t know. Sometimes I consider consolidating them all onto a separate site geared specifically towards rhyming stories, but the thought of building and maintaining a second website is horribly overwhelming to me. On the other hand, I do feel badly that, for the most part, they will continue to be housed here on Brown Road Chronicles only to rot away like a field of dead zombies during a zombie apocalypse!
So… if you have a few minutes today and want to read some fun rhyming stories, please check them out. If you are a parent, share them with your kids… or share them with your dog… or your turtle… or whatever. If you don’t want to, that’s okay, I won’t be offended, I’ll just hold a grudge on you for the rest of my life.
Kidding…
A few favorites of mine:
Or click on the Rhyme Tyme link and you can see all of them.
Have fun… and of course… THANKS, as always, to all of you that read this blog on a regular basis!
The Brown Road Chronicles 
I remember these! So well written. I especially loved the audio version of Roadkill Stew.
Good to see you’re back from the hiatus. Every few weeks I feel an intense urge to give it up completely, and I swear I will, only to get a flood of new ideas and I’m sucked back into the wordpress vortex again.
Why do we feel that urge to give it up? We have lots of other hobbies that we don’t consider giving up. That’s what it is, right, just a hobby??? It’s because it’s more than just a hobby, there’s that need to make it grow and I guess that ulterior motive that somewhere, down the road, there’s something BIGGER out there!
True. Also the voices in my head keep insisting I let them out every week or I’ll end up in therapy.
Yeah, there is that too…
Hello. Just listened to “Roadkill Stew”. More than a hoot. Here’s an idea to kick around. Recently put some poems from my blog into a ebook on Amazon. (Going to publish a novel later and wanted to see how it worked.) Your work deserves a wide audience.
Hi John, thanks for stopping by. I honestly don’t know anything about the Amazon eBook world. I’m sure there’s plenty of info just a Google search away. Perhaps I’ll look into that. They issue, as Mikey eludes to, a couple comments below is illustration, which I think would be necessary on many of these. Thanks for your input, that’s what I was looking for here. Glad you liked Roadkill Stew!!
I’m with John. You could TOTALLY put these rhyming stories (or even combine audio) into an ebook. You might want to contact @elliesoderstrom. She knows all about this new medium where you can combine sound and words. I agree, your work deserves a wider audience. That said, no one is going to come and find you. You’re going to have to pound the pavement to make it happen.
I agree with renee. It’s a decent piece of Children’s Lit as is. All it needs is illustration.
Hi Renee, I will check out Ellie Soderstrom. I knew that name from somewhere, maybe from Twitter? I get the whole pound the pavement thing, I just haven’t figured out, yet, where the pavement is!?!?!
Love your goats and wish I had some ideas for you. I really enjoy your rhyming stories and hope you can find the pavement to pound to get your work in front of a larger audience. Then you can write a “how to” rhyming story to share with the rest of us. Please.
Stay tuned… I guess! 🙂
I made a little book a few years ago. It didn’t go anywhere, but it’s nice to know there a few copies out there floating around.
I feel the same way about your blog motivation incites.
Blogging is sort of the problem, isn’t it. We are only as popular as our last great post, then we fade away until we write something again. Maybe something goes slightly viral for a while, but mostly not.
A blog is not something that someone downloads onto their e-reader, and we rarely rank very high on a Google Search. Yet, after time we have a body of work that we are happy with, but how do we appeal to a larger audience?
I have no answers, but maybe one suggestion. Personally, I would like to click one button and see a number of your poems or songs all at once, rather than having to click on one, then go back to the page of contents, then click on the next, etc. You could use a Category or a tag as the jumping off point, rather than a list of posts on a page. (Readers are generally in a hurry – they want to see the goods as easily as possible!)