When it\u2019s time to hit the hay on Tuesday nights, the last thought running through my mind is this: \u201cWhat the hell are you going to write for the blog tomorrow morning?\u201d Last night was no exception to that rule, but this morning the answer was there, clear as a bell, the moment I opened my SPAM file.<\/p>\n
Yes, I read my emails each day, but I always check the spam file as well because sometimes there are important items in there. This morning there were several, and most of them were … well \u2026 the usual suspects. <\/p>\n
Two came from people letting me know that they\u2019re willing to pay me $2000 a week to place ads on my Facebook and website pages. Number one, I don\u2019t believe that\u2019s true. And number two, even if it is, I have zero interest in having ads, complete with photos, for people doing tooth implants or for a product guaranteed to \u201cempty my bowels\u201d every morning. Due to dental care in my childhood, I am now and always have been what is called a \u201cwhite-knuckle\u201d dental patient. When those implant pictures show up in my various news feeds, they give me the willies. As for the other? Some things fall into the category of \u201cgoes without mentioning.\u201d I don\u2019t want that product, either!<\/p>\n
Next was an indignant note from someone who wants to redesign my website so it can hit the “top ten of the Google search list. This morning that anonymous writer was offended because I hadn\u2019t responded to his or her earlier correspondence. Number one: Correspondence is a two-way street. If someone who doesn\u2019t know me writes to me offering a service I\u2019m not interested in utilizing, I don\u2019t have to reply. I get to hit DELETE! And I do. Number two: Surprisingly enough the exact same sets of emails, word for word copies but coming from different names, appear in my SPAM file with astonishing regularity.<\/p>\n
Then there was someone who wants to design an app for my business. I don\u2019t need or want an app. My son and my former daughter-in-law do a fine job on maintaining the website, thank you very much, and I don\u2019t need to complicate my life by adding some complete, random stranger into the mix.<\/p>\n
And last but not least, there was the message from someone who wants to write \u201coriginal content” for me to purchase and post on my blog. Unfortunately, the person offering the content had limited English language skills and would have had a devil of a time making it through Mrs. Medigovich\u2019s senior English class at Bisbee High School. So no thanks to that, too. Delete, Delete, Delete.<\/p>\n
But today, as I was out walking and getting my steps (I\u2019ve passed the 11,000,000 mark now!), I was thinking about the words \u201coriginal content,\u201d and because last week\u2019s blog was about Pima Hall, I started thinking about the weekly letters my mother wrote to me faithfully the whole time I was away at school.<\/p>\n
Tucson is only a hundred miles or so away from Bisbee, but it was also the first time I had ever been away from home for an extended period of time. So although it wasn\u2019t that far in distance, in those days of expensive \u201clong distance trunk calls,\u201d it could just as well have been forever. So the letters Evie wrote to me each week were treasures. They usually arrived on Friday mornings, and I remember rushing home from morning classes eager to see if there was any mail in my box behind the reception desk.<\/p>\n
My mother was a stay-at-home mom, but a very busy one. She had grown up as a Midwest farm girl. She washed on Mondays and ironed on Tuesdays. She had an automatic washer by the time I was in college, but she still hung the wash on a clothes line to dry. She cooked three meals a day. She didn\u2019t have a microwave, but she was a whiz with her pressure cooker. As for having an automatic dishwasher? Never! She didn\u2019t need one. She had seven kids who were on hand to eat those home-cooked meals and who were called upon to set the table, wash and dry the dishes, and take out the trash.<\/p>\n
When I went away to college\u2014the first one of her seven kids to do so\u2014Evie still had four kids at home. Nonetheless, once a week, she set aside all her other task assignments to write to her daughter. Despite having only a seventh grade education, her grammar was perfect and her penmanship impeccable. She filled two or three pages with what was happening at home: who had a baby; who made the honor roll; how the Boy Scout mistletoe sale was progressing; what was going on with people at church.<\/p>\n
Nothing in those letters was earth shatteringly important. Her notes were full or ordinary stuff that made me feel less homesick and more connected. They made me feel loved. They made me feel encouraged, and they lifted my heart.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what I try to with my own \u201coriginal content\u201d each week. In a very real way, my blog entries are a continuation of the letters my mother wrote to me\u2014filled with ordinary, mundane stuff but also, at the same time, encouraging and maybe just a little uplifting my readers. Each of the blog postings is a letter from my heart to theirs.<\/p>\n
So no, I don\u2019t have any interest in \u201cmonetizing\u201d my website, because, as it turns out, it already is. The people who read my entries know a lot about the person who writes the books, and many of those folks have gone on to become friends as well as fans, and friends buy books.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ll continue to write my own truly \u201coriginal content,\u201d and we all have Evie Busk to thank for that.<\/p>\n
Keep reading. See you next week, although I have NO idea what I\u2019ll be writing about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it\u2019s time to hit the hay on Tuesday nights, the last thought running through my mind is this: \u201cWhat the hell are you going to write for the blog tomorrow morning?\u201d Last night was no exception to that rule, but this morning the answer was there, clear as a bell, the moment I opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bisbee","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-AX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2292,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions\/2292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}