Rejuvy Ten

Sorry I'm running late today, guys. Tom and his family are basking on a white-sanded beach somewhere right now, and they wouldn't take me with them, no matter how much I whined . . .

Ten Things You Can Do to Revive Your Blog

A to Z: make an alphabetical list of things you love, hate, want, avoid, or otherwise feel strongly about.

All the things I'll miss from summer: amusement parks, barbecues, corn on the cob, dog walks, every day home with the kids, flip-flops, gardening, halter tops, icees, jazz festivals, kites, LB&LI, museums, nectarines, opal skies, peaches, quiet mornings on the porch, rain storms, salad dinners, tacos, umbrellas, vacation, warm days, x-tra hours to sleep in, yoyo contests, zzzzz'ing in the lawn chair.

Contest: Ask your visitors an interesting question, and offer a prize for the most interesting answer or on a random draw, i.e. What's your favorite how-to writing book, and why?

Freshen Up: Give your blog a makeover by renaming it, putting up a new template, rearranging your content display, adding some new features or widgets, etc.

Greatest Hits: Go through your archives and pick ten posts that you like best, thought were the funniest, got the most reponses or something like that, and list them along with links to the original post (or do a best of the last year, like I did here.)

Meme Fun: Post the latest meme you've seen on your blog (here's one from Facebook, answered by a dude with the very interesting handle of Adonisdemon) and challenge your visitors to answer it in comments or on their blogs (don't tag me. I know where most of you live.)

One Year Ago Today: Revisit your archives and see what you posted about exactly one year ago to date (a year ago I was offline due to Tropical Storm Fay; and now we have three storms in the Atlantic: Tropical Storm Claudette, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, will make landfall Sunday evening in the Florida panhandle; Tropical Storm Ana was downgraded to a depression as of the 5pm advisory from the National Hurricane Center; and Tropical Storm Bill, which may be intensifying and making its way towards the Carolinas.)

Publishing News: Go to an internet search engine, type in the word "Publishing" and hit enter. You'll find the latest articles about the industry, and maybe find one that proposes something new or a new view (here's one on "cloud-publishing" by a self-pubbed author that I thought made an interesting argument for self-pubbing on the internet.

Serendipity Spin: Visit one of the blogs on your blogroll at random, read their latest post, and then write up a post about it or your opinion on the same topic (be sure to link back to the author and the original post so your visitors can go there to check it out.)

Ten Listmania: Make a list of ten things (like this one) about book, authors, or whatever that are funny.

Writing or Reading Stats: It's almost September; what have you gotten accomplished so far this month? This season? This year? Write up a post about where you've been, and talk about what you plan to do to finish out the month, season, year, etc.