a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
©
Jacqueline
‘Don’t die in silence. Domestic abuse should never be condoned. Get out alive.’
Staggering statistics show the rise in domestic violence. This could be your neighbour, your best friend, your coworker, your sibling, and so on. Don’t ignore it.
No one told you that it would be a slow climb of grits, cramped fingers and the snail pace attention from your expected dream audience.
No one told you that finding fame or making money from blogging is not easy pickings and that there are many days the thrill would fizzle out faster than the time it took the ink of your words to dry.
No one told you when you started blogging, all awash with excitement and so much to say, that time might come when you find yourself writing terse sentences such as:
If you are contemplating tossing in your paddle and jumping out of the choppy waters of your blogging boat; I would say, halt!
As a matter of fact, according to online research, most bloggers struggle and 95% of bloggers give up and abandon their blogs within six months of starting.
They open a blog, post with enough enthusiasm to keep a steam engine running for a while, then they either find a niche and a particular way of expressing themselves, or they run out of steam, lose heart and walk away.
The highway of the huge worldwide web is dotted with blogs abandoned by their owners and sometimes, it gives one a reason to pause and ponder why.
We all want a successful blog, but the difference between success and failure lies in doing the needful to succeed.
Success in general, regardless of the area it is in life, requires dogged discipline and consistency. It requires applying the right strategies and sticking with it for the long haul. People don’t become successful by giving up too soon.
I know that there’s a huge difference between saying “be patient and keep going”, and the reality, but with a pragmatic approach, your blog can survive and thrive. It need not become a statistic.
Harsh reality destroys innocence. Jacqueline
Chastity breached;
innocence is stolen;
when no eyes were looking.
Bewildered child-hood;
bore pain of betrayal;
with the mask of innocence.
Beneath multi-layers;
lies an embittered spirit;
deprived of girlhood innocence.
It’s never a comfortable topic to write about the abuse of the girl-child and even grown women and an issue most would like to wish away and hide under the veil of humour. Yet, the statistics and spate of abuse and violation of females are horrendous.
A lot of times, violation comes from close quarters. These incidents leave a not so strong female broken, disillusioned, embittered and bearing the burden of guilt and shame. Her silence costs her everything and it takes a lot of grace for a victim to overcome the burden of violation.
Society has not helped by casting silent and even vocal blame on victims, thereby making their burden a lot heavier and their silence more ominous.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
When I started blogging, I used to agonize over my blog stats so, I’m not going to tell you one big fat lie that it didn’t mean anything to me; it did at that point.
Then, it started taking a center of focus which was anti what I wanted and my objectives.
I want to be able to do my blog posts without thinking for one second if the views would go out of the roof or not.
I didn’t want to lose sight of my main reasons for starting this journey in the first place and that’s to connect with like minded people, whilst nurturing my passion for writing.
Bothering over stats was such a joy-killer.
Even though hundreds of views mattered, it was not my primary goal. If the art of blogging wouldn’t lead me to the road of achieving my writing goals, why then should I bother over stats?
So I put my stats right in my face where I see it every second that I log on to my blog and bingo! I stopped agonizing over it.
I stopped poring over the figures and wasting God-given precious seconds trying to understand how and why and who and what and all the innumerable reasons why someone read xyz that I wrote and the jargon of search terms that one could find.
I just wasn’t about to start writing out of context and playing an orchestra that was tuneless.
The Lesson in this and note to self is, don’t lose sight of your blogging objectives.
Make sure you are enjoying the experience as you keep to your primary objectives. That’s what really keeps you going.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
I absolutely love this book of poems. My favorites are “Love Rations” (for those who love to give the silent treatment) and “Beggars Supper” (which definitely pulls at the heart strings). Two thumbs up!!
So, I received this badge today and I honestly don’t understand what it signifies and why that specific number 1,337?
I have blogged for precisely 392 days and I receive this notification congratulating me on my 1,337 posts.
Does it mean there’s a cheque in Fedex winging it’s way to me in Dubai? I wiggle my eyebrows in anticipation 😉
Let me toddle off to help desk and ask. I like knowing stuff for knowledge sake. Who knows what I might find.
Well, I’ve been writing quite a bit 🙂
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Should I rant? Shouldn’t I?
I had no idea that I had hit 1,000 posts on this blog which I started precisely eleven months ago. Actually, this will be my 1,022 (one thousand and twenty-second post).
For some reason, I kept plugging away without taking note of the numbers. I have been weaning myself from stats bingeing. Stats are important quite alright, but I don’t want it to rule my mind.
WordPress what gives with the lack of notification these days? 
My thought is that 1,000 posts is a milestone in blog-land and would have loved to know for knowing sake.
Gosh, that alone tells me how much I have written in this space in such a space of time especially given the fact that 99.9% of my posts, aren’t reblog and are written fresh off the printing mill in my head, except for photos which are also taken by me.
This girl’s got a lot to say. Oh well, let me say a belated YAY to me and NAY to WordPress!
Now, on to the matter that made me laugh out real loud.
I know some may wonder why I talk about money, so just in case you need to know, ‘money is the oil that runs the machinery of most of our basic needs in life and I, Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha, would like to earn some income from the hard work of my fingers.’
In February, I applied to have WordAds included on my site given that my site is a premium site and after their background check or whatever it is they do, it was approved and I promised to speak out on how it goes.
Interesting to know that for that month with 16,000 views, I had 3,449 impressions (whatever that means) and thus earned 34 CENTS. What a hoot!
Now, in all fairness to the man who told that he sucks some time ago, I understand better now why you were fixated with your stats.
I have no plans to get stuck in the bog of stats and peanuts, so there’s got to be better ways and it’s a nut that I must crack.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
![harsh_reality[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/harsh_reality1.jpg?w=663)
a cooking pot and twisted tales 