Ally Aldridge Writing

Throwback to my best posts of 2019

I have grouped together the top 5 posts from the 120 articles posted on my blog in 2019 for you to enjoy.

The Top 5 Best Blog Posts of 2019

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What Banned Books Week is all about

Posted:  10 June 2019 (123 views)

I love sharing posts on my blog written by other authors.  This one was by Fantasy author Andrew McDowell and is the most viewed post of the year!  Follow the link to the post to discover more about him and his books.

Please let me know if you would like to write a post for my blog. 

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Literary Dates Calendar

Posted:  8 January 2019 (57 views)

I am pleased this post was so popular as it took a long time to create and a lot of research.  I basically wanted to help other writers by creating a calendar with useful literary dates.  For example it has Twitter pitch events and book festivals.

This now has its own dedicated calendar page.  Click here.

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Handwrite to Boost Creativity

Posted:  25 February 2019 (45 views)

I used to always write my stories by hand but since going digital I don’t have as much need for a notebook. I still get an excited feeling when I see one and after an Instagram challenge to write somewhere different I  rediscovered my love of notebooks.

This post reflects on how writing by hand can boost your creativity and my own personal experience with this.

copy of copy of copy of fbf local writers

Writers Hashtags Collection

This series started in October through to November.  The fact it was posted towards the end of the year and still made the list shows how popular it has been.

The most popular in the collection was Part 6 (Insta Hashtags for Writers For Each Month) with 38 views.  I felt it would be more meaningful to give you the full collection rather than list all the parts below that made the top 5.

Writers Beware

Writers beware! Know who you are querying…

This post is a cautionary tale.  I always research who I am querying and spend a lot of time on it.  I know how exciting it can be to hear an agent or publisher are interested in your novel.  But check out who else they have signed and how their experience was.

There have been a few occasions I have felt the interested party may not be who they say they are and it feels like pop-up publishers are becoming more common.  I have spent years on my novel and refuse to sign with someone I don’t feel confident can deliver on their promises.  This is one of the reasons I have now chosen to self publish.

My About Me Page

During 2019, I wrote a blog post (About Me – Spring Clear). It was about making sure your About Me page is up-to-date on your website.  It is one of the first pages you crate and easy to forget about.

I was shocked how out of date mine was and wrote a post to help prompt other to update theirs too.  I’m glad I did.  My About My Page has had 79 views!

Guess what? I checked it when writing this post and it needs updating again!  If you haven’t checked your About Me page in a while, go check it out.  In the meantime, here is mine:  About Me (page)

Click my link tree to discover more ways to connect

@Redfae

 

Ally Aldridge Goals, Writing

Blogging learnt the hard way

Happy Birthday to my blog

I can’t believe that today is my blogs first birthday.  I feel that I’ve learnt so much and yet, I still have so much to learn.

Here are the three lessons I have learned – the hard way:

1.  When three become one

I started with three blogs on Word Press. Three blogs!  I did it to split up the content:

Plus, I was still posting to Blogger as a back up plan… just in case I didn’t take to Word Press.

I now can see what a mistake that was. It was a lot of work to keep all of them running and current.  This year, I am planning to just post straight to ‘Alison Aldridge’.

2.  Be personal

I was trying to keep my blog professional and leave my personal life out of it. I didn’t think people would be interested in hearing about me.

But, when my life is busy, it’s hard to write about the other stuff and it would be easier just to share with my readers what I’m up to.  I can already see I’ve got an eventful year ahead so moving forward, you can expect to see a few more personal posts.

3.  Be brave

I’ve found that if I want to review something I should contact the company because sometimes they will support you with it.  Saal Digital posted on Instagram asking for bloggers and I applied.  I thought I had no chance but was happily mistaken and now I am the proud owner of a beautiful photo book of my son.

Bouncing of my previous success, I’ve bravely approached a company whose service I’d like to use and asked if I could review them on my blog.  They kindly awarded me ‘Gold Membership’.  Stay tuned to see my review of this – I will reveal soon…  (this is one for the writers).

The future

There is loads more I’ve learnt but the above are the three lessons that stand out the most.  I’ve also still a lot more to learn too.

I’d really like to get into vlogging too – I just cringe at the sound of my voice (and sight of my face – lol).  Plus, I’ve no clue about editing a video. Please comment with links if you can help me or to your vlog so I can see what you do and learn.