Bridget Chumbley’s blog is called One Word at a Time. Every post she writes is on the theme of one word.
One day, in 2009, I was reading her blog and suddenly thought that it would be great if lots of people wrote on the same word on the same day to see what we would all come up with.
I suggested it to her and she thought it was a great idea…. that’s when I found out that the idea was called a blog carnival. Read the story here
We started the carnival on October 16th 2009 and instantly got a great response from our friends online. The word for the first week was obedience and we had twenty two people join us:
| 1. Glynn 2. Ginny @ makeadiff21 3. Sarah @ Living Between The Lines 4. Sarah of Sarah Bee 5. Anne Lang Bundy 6. Helen 7. Bridget Chumbley 8. |
9. Chrystie 10. Jaime 11. katdish 12. Billy Coffey 13. Fatha Frank 14. Steph @Red Clay Diaries 15. Kevin M. @Shooting the Breeze 16. Faith Barista Bonnie |
17. Maureen 18. jojoagot 19. n Anc Y 20. Jason S @br8kthru 21. Bridget Chumbley 22. Melinda Lancaster |
We rotated hosting the carnival between our two blogs for a while, but it wasn’t long after that first carnival that I had a bit of a mental meltdown and Bridget took over the running of the carnival completely.
As you probably know, Bridget and I have switched places somewhat and she has withdrawn for a while. So once again I have taken over the reins.
Here’s where we are:
- The carnival is currently every other Tuesday and attracts between thirty and forty entries.
- We have a facebook group with seventy five members and a facebook club with 117 people ‘liking’ it.
- We have a list of words that will keep us going for a few months – and more words are easy to come up with
What I’m trying to do though is find ways to improve the carnival for everyone to keep it going strong.
The carnival is an excellent way to share and learn from each other and is a great way for people to join the community.
What bothers me though is that with so many entries and just a list of titles to choose from, it’s hard to pick articles to read and the later entries probably don’t get many views.
I’ve been trying to come up with solutions for this and would love your input. All ideas are welcome!
One idea I had was to create a paper.li newspaper which will come out the day after the carnival. I did a test, example paper here: Blog Carnival Paper
The thing is, the paper has to know how to find the links, so I created a hashtag (#owaat)
(If your link isn’t in this edition, that’s because it was 1am and I was just throwing a few links in to see what it would be like)
I love the format of the paper but the problem is, not everyone uses twitter so not all of the links will get on there.
I love the way that the carnival shows us the creative talents and different perspectives of so many people. I think that’s really important and can really help us see and validate our diversity.
What I’m really concerned about though is ensuring that everyone gets an equal piece of the pie, everyone gets the benefit of others visiting their blogs and reading their words.
If you start at the top of the list, by the time you’ve got through the first ten or so blogs, you’re out of time and ready to do something else.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the lower down the list you go, the less comments there are.
We need to do something to share the love more evenly.
What do you think we can do?
It’s funny I don’t even remember how I got connected with you guys. I was a new blogger when I came across the blog carnival in 2009. I thought it has been going on for a while already. Even during those times when I didn’t participate, I have been reading most of your posts. Hope this will continue.
I think your idea for the paper is great, as a showcase of all the links. People who are on FB could see the paper via links and might then join Twitter. If you decide to do the paper, I would archive it so that it’s always available to anyone who, on finding a bit of free time, can go back and easily find the topic of interest.
The paper will not resolve the issue of everyone getting equal face time. That is always going to be an issue. There is only so much reading time in a day and thus only so many posts that can be visited. I post also at One Stop Poetry, where the number of links sometimes is in the hundreds. There is no way to visit every link and comment in a single day. I also post in several writers’ groups, and we all have the same issue.
I think too, that your question raises a consideration for each of us: Why do we write? For me, it is because not writing isn’t an option. It is for connections (my word for 2011); I know that more people visit my blog in a day than leave a comment, and that’s ok. It’s because the prompts are challenging and I want to see what I can do with them, to push myself into areas where I can, to use the cliche, grow. Writing isn’t about “getting an equal piece of the pie”; nor is life. It is about giving.
Another thought: perhaps have the carnival just once a month, and make the archive easily accessible so that people can visit that month’s posts throughout the month.
Also, I just want to add, I don’t follow a linear path when I’m checking out the link list for the carnival. I might start at number one but then head into the middle and next go toward the end. I do try to leave a comment when I visit, especially if the post has engaged me in a particular way, but I don’t always, depending on the time I have.
Peter, another possibility: Give the Carnival its own dedicated page with an archive and in the days immediately following a particular prompt, highlight one or two posts, and eventually through rotation, everyone would have a post highlighted at some point. FB could also be used for this purpose.
what does one do, when something gets bigger?
i sometimes put a poem in a challenge called “one shot wednesday” where the rule is to look and comment on a few people every time you take part. the thing is, instead of the name of the post, we all use our names when we mr. linky up. this way we can see who it is. this way we can pick someone different each week, no matter where they are on the list, which now is up in the 100’s.
if we linked our names instead of the title of the post, this way we could all read five or ten different contributors each time we do the carnival. this way the we can spread the love around and choose to click on people that we are not familiar with as well as those that we already know.
we could do this as well as have a paper. i have one of those papers. it has been a couple of weeks now i think, and i also look at other ones from time to time. i find the paper to be an interesting way to see tweets to me as well as tweets like say… #art … or #poetry, which are hashtag papers.
i would be willing to hashtag my contribution on a tweet.
and i would also check out mr. linky post to read some names for that carnival.
it is a combined, EFFORT of those in the group to relate, and making it a rule to pick a FEW DIFFERENT people to relate with EACH time.
there is no way each of us can read all of the contributions and every canrival, especially as the group grows…but, over time each of us can read them all if we just read a few and mix it up a bit each week.
looks like maureen has some good ideas…
How about creating a Twitter account for One Word At A Time and tweeting out the posts?
On an unrelated note, I need to put these dates on my calendar. I totally missed out on the broken word and I REALLY wanted to write something for that. Boo on me.
Sounds like you’ve got some great ideas and I like Maureen’s as well. I don’t follow a linear path either when I’m checking out links. it has more to do with how the mood strikes and what king of time I have. 🙂 Anyway, I appreciate your hard work Peter! Thanks for carrying on such an encouraging thing.
oh yes… thanks for your attention and work on this.
jason reminded me to be thankful.
I’m like Maureen–I don’t follow a linear path either.
I’m on the fence about the title versus the name of the person. Sometimes a title will draw me in whereas a name won’t; however, I do like Nance’s idea. On “imperfect prose on thursdays” it’s always names and I just click wherever, trying to read different people. Chances are my favorites are on my sidebar, so I’ve read theirs already. Therefore, I check out new folks and I do try to leave comments especially if they’re at the bottom of the list. I think encouragement is important. Plus I’ve met new folks that way. I almost always click on the last person out of consideration for their effort. I like Nance’s idea
The Twitter talk makes me nervous, because I have no clue how to Twitter and I don’t want to lose access to this wonderful place.
Peter, I really appreciate you picking up for Bridget and keeping this going for all of us.
Did you say pie?
I skip around too, and don’t comment as much as I should. I like the paper idea, especially for slackers like me who don’t participate every time.
I’m sure I heard you say pie.
The paper looks really awesome. But I agree with the others, it won’t mean that all the posts will get read, there just simply isn’t enough time in the day. I take longer than a day to read them and also do not read them in order, so again, I agree with the others in that I don’t think where you are in the list matters at this point.
I love that it’s every other week, I love the challenge the carnival presents, I love reading all the different angles people have on a single topic, and I love the community it creates.
One suggestion on people linking… not only put your name on the link title, but also be more specific about what your post is about (I am totally guilty of this by literally posting ‘Broken’ etc.)
You never know which angle on the topic is going to reach people. Stay focused on why we write in the first place.
Thank, Peter!
Tuesday is my busiest day of the week, so I don’t usually see other posts before Wednesday, by which time I figure everyone who’s going to participate should be in. I am completely random, so that I get a sampling of people with whom I’m less familiar. I either flip a coin, or have someone pick a number for my starting place, and read about every fourth post, depending on how much time I have. I also see more posts via my RSS feed.
I appreciate all you’re doing with this Peter. I’d say do as much as you have time to do comfortably. I enjoy the blog carnivals, and would hate for you to burn out with too much work to do. : )
I love the idea of this blog carnival and would love to participate. Not sure how you can rotate the love, but perhaps you could use a cgi script that checks the previous paper to see where domains were at the top and which were not and perhaps randomize where they appear in the new paper.
Sometimes I comment on the five links directly below my link and the five links directly after me.
When I’m pressed for time, I’m guilty of only picking out the names of people I recognize. There’s something to be said for establishing tighter relationships with a few than just being a shallow commenter on a lot. Just a thought…
I love that you’re even raising the issue, Peter. Good job.
Peter, I really liked the paper. I think we can try out the paper and see the results on the next carnival.
I usually try to read all posts, even if it takes several days – I only have some free time to do my personal stuff (like reading blogs) at night.
By the way, I have to say that I am surprised by the quality of the posts, so much excellent material. I am humbled to participate in it.
Thank you yet again for hosting and taking action to make it even better.
I guess I am a plodder, because I start at # 1. and go down the list. I try to make a comment on each post, because that is encouragment to the writer. Here it is Friday, and I have about 5 more posts to read and comment on. I am blessed by each one because of all the perspective and directions different writers take. Facebook display is a great idea. I am on twitter, but mostly to announce my recent posts.
I have my blog announce my posts automatically to Twitter and FB (my wordpress blog) and my LJ announces to Twitter (and hopefully soon FB as well).
Hazel,
You are definitely an encouragement to the writers when you comment. I appreciate you and any of those who take the time to encourage every single one of us!
I second Lisa comments, Hazel, thank you!
I haven’t participated as a writer in a while but I still read. I’d like to participate more but often it sneaks up on me and in general the words require thought. I try to read as many posts as I can over time. I always read the one before me and after me and then I start thru the links. It might take me a week to read them all.
I’m not on twitter (gasp!) but I am on the fb page. Thanks for organizing!