Yesterday was my happy blogiversary day (happy blogiversary to me!). This means that for one whole year I have been polluting the Internet with my witticisms, linguistic gymnastics and aimless ramblings. Yes, that’s right, I’ve been spouting out one whole piece of reading material every week, without fail for a whole year, and not one of you saw fit to stop me. Your punishment for this will be one more whole year of my misguided, over-inflated opinions. You have only yourselves to blame.
I spent the whole of yesterday wearing a party hat and drinking champagne while my nearest and dearest gave me fabulous presents. Actually, I spent the day wearing an air of spreadsheet-induced anguish and drank Diet Coke while my nearest and dearest gave me a cold. Never the less, I feel more than a little chuffed with myself for hitting a milestone of any sort that doesn’t involve me getting any older or poorer. This milestone got me in a reflective mood (usually two bottles of wine have that effect) and I looked back at how this all started and have decided, in a wholly self-absorbed fit of grandeur, to share some of the key elements for writing a world class blog (yes, I’m claiming global stature due to the fact I’m read in places I can’t even point to on a map. Totally valid).
Starting Out
I know what you’re thinking, I’ve been here for as long as you can remember, and you can’t imagine a world without me. Well, there really was a time before PFPT and then once-upon-a-fateful night, after too many champagne cocktails, a well meaning friend told me she would love to read some of my witterings and that I should put them on the internet for everyone to see. Being just drunk enough, I accepted her challenge and the very next day, while nursing a mild case of alcohol induced fatigue, Pretty Feet, Pop Toe was born (click here for the very first post – a moment sure to go down in literary history). So, it was a deadly combination of peer pressure, alcohol and boredom that started it all, making my blog essentially akin to teenage pregnancies and drug addiction.
Subject Matter
People often ask me how I pick the topics I write and where I find my inspiration. Well, I shall tell you; pure hatred and contempt for all society. Genuinely. People are, with few exceptions, utterly vile and I’m forced to spend my waking moments interacting with them. My choice, therefore, is to get sent to prison for several brutal biro-based murders, or I can write about these vulgar specimens of the human soup we call The World for the amusement of others. It was a close call but the thought of spending 20-to-life in an outfit designed to make you look like a sack of drowned kittens (not to mention being denied access to a decent high heel) just didn’t tickle my pickle, so the blog remains well fuelled.
I do have golden rules for subject matter though, and in spite of some serious encouragement from deviously wicked chums and from the vindictive devil perched mischievously on my shoulder, I have always maintained a “no naming, no shaming” policy. This has meant that I still have a few friends left after the year of writing, but only because no-one has irked me enough to warrant a public roasting. The time will come – you have been warned.
(By the way, for everyone who has ever said to me “You can put that in your blog if you like!” after saying or doing something particularly dull and inane, the reason you never saw it here was because you are particularly dull and inane. If you want to see your awful behaviour and rambling anecdotes up in writing, may I suggest you start your own blog or at the very least, do me the courtesy of soiling yourself publicly so I have something truly blogworthy.)
Dedication
Every week. Every sodding week, without fail, for a whole year. Do you people know how much of an effort that is? Do you know how many tears, how many hours of angui… oh, you don’t care. Fair enough. Anyway, I picked a day of the week (Wednesday), a time of the day (17:00 GMT), I picked a word count target (750), I picked a new word count target (1,000+) and I sacrificed my social life to the Gods of The Laptop. If you want to get hold of me on a Monday night, I’m writing. If you want to see me on a Tuesday, I’m wallowing in crippling self doubt and loathing. Wednesday I’m like the puppy who ate all the Skittles as blog o’clock approaches and Thursday, I’m bathing in the adoration of my global readers (did I mention that I’m global?). You can try getting me on Friday, Saturday and Sunday but I’ll be obsessing over my blog stats and seeking inspiration for next week’s post, as I roam the streets and bars of London, hating people.
Language
I swear. I swear a terrible lot and should probably come with a bell around my neck so parents have a fighting chance of getting their infants out of the way before I turn the air blue and their offspring into Oliver Reed-esque parrots. My Twitter feed is peppered with profanity and my iPhone has abandoned its standard predictive text in favour of things it learnt from the walls of a public urinal, so why then, do I never utter anything stronger than a warm cup of tea on here? Well, firstly I like the challenge it exerts upon my vocabulary and secondly, I know for a fact that the fairies come and steal your teeth and rip out your fingernails if you say bad words in a blog. Well, that’s what my mother told me so it must be true.
Audience
One of the key components to my blog has, and always will be, the audience. I think the biggest lie I ever told (other than about my lack of age), has been that if people didn’t read this blog, I’d keep writing it anyway. Clap-trap and piffle! I’m way too egotistical for that kind of inspirational cobblers! if the hits didn’t roll, the blog wouldn’t either. You, dear reader, are a part of what makes Pretty Feet, Pop Toe the world class, twice Freshly Pressed, humble, unassuming site it is today. So, you really do only have yourselves to blame for another year of wittering.
Pretty Feet, Pop Toe 