One of my posts was freshly pressed on Tuesday, and I was happier than a puppy with two tails. There wasn’t anything that could steal the lollipops and sunshine from my day. I was sliding down rainbows and hugging strangers. I didn’t really understand what it meant to be freshly pressed, and what I did know was due to my blogging friend Brad over at www.blockader.wordpress.com who was freshly pressed a couple of weeks ago and got a bazillion hits on his blog.
For others who may not know, each day wordpress chooses about 11 blogs to feature and puts them on their homepage. So for about 24 hours, it’s like your blog is on the billboard of the world-wide web. Which makes for pretty good advertising.
My blog was also the featured post on the postaday challenge page.
The number of page views on my site for the day skyrocketed. Granted, I didn’t get nearly as many as other freshly pressed bloggers, but I’m not complaining. I got many subscribers, many wonderful comments, and lots of look-sees, and found lots of great blogs to read for myself.
The whole day I just kept repeating how happy I was. So very happy. Happy, happy, happy.
I was obsessed. I woke up in the night and snuck my phone under the covers to check my blog stats. I was like the boy who’s supposed to be sleeping, but instead is looking at a dirty magazine with a flash light under the covers. The whole time the thought of my husband waking up and catching me made it even more riskier. Yes, I live on the edge. I’m a wild one.
I relished the entire day, and never thought once about the ‘morrow.
And then the sun rose and a new day dawned.
And WordPress chose 10 different blogs to be freshly pressed.
And just like that, in the blinking of an eye, I was replaced.
Thrown out with yesterday’s slop.
As exhilirating as it was to watch my little bloggie towers soar, it wasn’t enjoyable to watch them shrink back to their measly beginnings.
I became blue.
My moment of basking was over.
My fifteen minutes of fame.
My mountain top experience.
It was wonderful while it lasted.
But last, it did not.
I’m thankful for the experience. I don’t know why my post on an antiquated green canister was chosen, or how it was chosen. But the feeling I experienced for the recognition of a piece of my heart-felt writing is indescribable.
And I’m convinced, now even more than ever, that I want to write.
I want to keep going, keep writing, even on hard days, long days, empty days.
I want to write words that touch people, that stir their emotion, that floods their memories.
I want to write for you.
And you,
and you,
and you.
Thanks for reading.
Angel Wheeler 
I will one day have to blog about the crash that follows being freshly press. For a while I felt like an addict trying to reach that rush again. I craved it. And was willing to do whatever it took to reach that mountian top again. Blog topics I had planned to write were toss aside, in favour of what I thought would be more appealing to the world. Things I was going to say were not said because maybe the person with the pretty avatar who commented on my freshly pressed post might not think it was funny. Blogging became a chore and I almost considered stopping for a time because I was not having fun. The spikes on my chart grew shorter and I thought no one likes me anymore.Then I blamed wordpress, for some technical reason, my blog must not be showing up the way it should, I thought. My page views dropped lower then they had been prior to my award. Then came all the spam in my comments, people wanting to use my post to promote thier causes, products, and porn. I made a decision. I am going to write like i did before. I am going to write for me, the stories I want to read. And if I get 50 people a day who willingly go out of their way to read it, thats more important then having 500 people looking at it because it happens to be on the first page they see when they log in. Most of all I want to be able to look back at what I wrote months from now and when i finish reading say, “I enjoyed that, again”
Thanks for the link Angel.
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I’m glad you didn’t stop. I still like you 🙂 It’s good advice to write for yourself, probably the best advice ever.
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Run Forrest run!!!!
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That really begs a question from me then: how did you do it so fast, so soon, while I myself have been writing blogs for over two years and have NOT made to Freshly Pressed yet? Any advice or suggestions?
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Anthony, I have no advice or suggestions. I don’t have any idea how/why it happened. I read somewhere to use lots of tags, good pictures, and catchy or different headlines. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Maybe it’s just luck. Just write for yourself and consider the readers you know you have, maybe that’s the best advice I can give.
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The graph says it all. The higher you go, the smaller the other bars look.
I am one of your new subscribers, because I really liked that post about the canister.
I feel the same way about the sound of crunching snow under my shoes when I (rarely) visit the snow. It reminds me of childhood and makes me feel giddy.
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All at once I want to say that I completely understand where you are coming from and that I too would like to be freshly pressed. Contradictory, perhaps. Honest, definitely. If it helps at all, I was thrilled to find your blog and I really enjoyed and identified with what you had to say. I will happily, for the minimal fee of having you tell me how awesome I am, wear a T-Shirt promoting your blog wherever I go. Now, I barely leave the house but, at least the mailman will see it :).
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Oh my, I just let out a big ol belly laugh!! The most awesome thing ever would be to get freshly pressed every day, or at least every other! I do think you’re awesome, so go ahead and get that t-shirt printed out 🙂
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You know I love ya and can’t wait to read your new postings. 🙂
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You definitely have a reader in me. I always read the Freshly Pressed blogs, but I rarely find one to which I subscribe. Your blog is a pleasure to read. :o) Hopefully the hits keep on coming!
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