Jenn's Bookshelves

It’s the beginning of the new year.  What a perfect time to do a little blog maintenance!  Natasha from Maw Books Blog is once again hosting Bloggiesta, your excuse to spend the entire weekend working on your blog (like you needed one!).

To assist you in improving the look of your blog, ten mini-challenges have been established:

• Rebecca from The Book Lady’s Blog – 2010 Resolutions.  You know you got them!
• Pam from MotherReader -  Blogging is about community, so check out this Comment Challenge (watch for a Mr. Linky to be up on Saturday for you to complete this challenge).
• Danielle from There’s a Book – Blogging takes time & I’m sure we’d all love to blog faster.  Using a cheat sheet is just one idea of how to save time.
• Pam from Bookalicio.us – There is nothing worse than seeing your post on somebody else’s blog.  Talking about blog copyright and what you need to be doing to protect yourself.
• Beth from Beth Fish Reads – Using categories & labels to find what you’re looking for.
• Jackie from Farm Lane Books – Do not lose it all!  How to back up your blog.
• Karin from Karin’s Book Nook – There is nothing worse than landing on 404 error pages.  It’s time to go on a dead link hunt!
• Chelle from Tempting Persephone – You have some great content.  But can people find it?  Here’s showing off the best of the best.
• Kristen from Bookworming in the 21st Century -  Introducing a new blogger mentoring program and forum.
• Jenn from Jenn’s Bookshelves (ME!)– Got nothing to say (not likely – that’s why you’re blogging in the first place!) but here is an opportunity to brainstorm blogging topics.

Be sure to check out these great challenges. If you participate and comment, you will be eligible to win some great publisher-sponsored prizes!

I participated in Bloggiesta last year and, admittedly, came up with some pretty elaborate goals for the weekend.  I’ve learned my lesson this go round and come up with six fairly easy goals:

1. Clean up images: When I moved to self-hosting from my blogger blog, I lost a lot of images.  I’m going to go through all my old posts and fix the images.
2. Fix Formatting: Yet another thing that didn’t transfer over well from Blogger was the formatting.  Several posts have wonky spacing, etc. that needs to be corrected.  So, while I go through all my old posts to fix the pictures, I will fix the alignment as well.
3. Write Reviews: We’re barely in to 2010 and I’m already behind on my reviews.  I plan to write at least five this weekend.
4. Reply to Comments: I love it when my followers leave comments! I did have a process of going through posts weekly and responding to comments, but this process has fallen by the wayside! 
5. Launch Tales of a (Former) Reluctant Reader: This is my ten-year-old son’s new feature in which he, as a former reluctant reader, will spotlight books that got him excited about reading.  I still (HELP!) need a button for this feature and need to schedule the posts, but I’m really looking forward to this project!
6. Clean up Google Reader: I can admit that I’m subscribed to way too many blogs.  I can’t remember the last time I cleared my reader down to zero (without marking all as read).  So, it’s time to unsubscribe to those blogs I don’t really follow anymore.

Sound easy enough?  I hope so, because I also have to take down the Christmas tree and do all sorts of work around the house!

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It happens to the best of us.  Life takes over your blog gets neglected.  One way to prevent this is to come up with posts in advance and store them in your drafts until needed.

Problogger lists an excellent idea: mapping out future blog posts based on previous posts.

1. Set-up:  Get a piece of paper and draw five circles vertically along the paper.   In the circles, write the titles of your last five blog posts.
2. Extend Your Posts: Take each post and brainstorm ways the post can be extended.  Answer a comment left on a previous post. Expand upon your answer. Expand upon an idea or opinion that you may have briefly mentioned in the previous post.  For each idea draw a line out from the circle, draw a square (or use a different color) and write the idea inside of it.
3. Extend Further: This step is optional.  Expand upon the topics you have come up with and you’ll end up with even more post ideas!

Now to the challenge part!  You have three  options:

* upload an image of your mental mapping onto your blog.  Comment on this post and include a link to your post.
* Create a new post based on your mental mapping. Comment on this post and include a link to your post.
* Leave a comment listing at least five of the ideas that you came up with as a result of your mental mapping.

Individuals who complete this challenge will be entered to win a publisher-sponsored prize.

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Situated in the free state of Ohio, Tawawa House offers respite from the summer heat. A beautiful, inviting house surrounded by a dozen private cottages, the resort is favored by wealthy Southern white men who vacation there, accompanied by their enslaved mistresses.

Regular visitors Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet have forged an enduring friendship. They look forward to their annual reunion and the opportunity it affords them to talk over the changes in their lives and their respective plantations. The subject of freedom is never spoken aloud until the red-maned, spirited Mawu arrives and voices her determination to escape. To run is to leave behind the friends and families trapped at home. For some, it also means tearing the strong emotional and psychological ties that bind them to their masters.

My thoughts so far:

I’m halfway through my reading of Wench and I can’t help but state how drawn I am to the characters already.  Each of the women have a compelling story and a specific reason for not opting to run when the opportunity presents itself.  The storyline itself is heart-wrenching and powerful.  Never before have I read fiction about slavery that haunts me so.  When I’m not reading the book, I can’t get my mind off of the characters and their brutal histories. When I am able to devote some time to reading it, I instantly become absorbed in each of the women’s lives. I guarantee this novel is going to garner a lot of well-deserved attention and praise.  Please come back on January 25th for my full review of this novel.

About Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s fiction and essays The Kenyon Review, African American Review, PMS:  PoemMemoirStory, North Carolina Literary Review, Richard Wright Newsletter, and SLI:  Studies in Literary Imagination.  She is a 2009 finalist for the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Award.  A graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dolen splits her time between Seattle and Washington, DC.  She is a faculty member of the University of Puget Sound where she teaches Creative Writing.  Wench is her first book of fiction.  You can visit Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s website at www.dolenperkinsvaldez.com, her blog at www.dolen.blogspot.com or connect with her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dolen.

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