Bloggiesta 2012: Goals etc.

I've been checking in on the Bloggiesta off and on all day but was unable to sit still long enough to make a post. I've just in the last few minutes reached the point in my packing for tomorrow's trip that I can start doing some things I want to do instead of the must dos. My sister is packing the van with my stuff as a type.

I'll have to shower and wash my hair in a few minutes so my hair can air dry before I sleep but then I'll have a few hours to play on my blog or at least do some more reading on the participant blogs gathering ideas and leaving comments.

Leaving more comments is my No1 task for Bloggiesta and going forward.  I am such a lurker.

2nd most important to me is learning some ways of putting posts together quicker.  The three to six hours I devote to my blog each night is not how I want things.  I want the blog be secondary to my creative work in writing, reading and fiber art.  I want to get where I can spend an hour or less per post so I can invest the rest of that time into writing stories and poems, crocheting book marks and reading novels.

3rd but related to above is learning how to whip out book reviews in an hour or less.  That is in addition to putting the post for the review together.  I have dozens and dozens of partially prepared book reviews.  Most are a collection of note, quotes, links and images related to the book and author.  Some have a good start at writing the review and a few just need final edit and fact check which often needs the book which is in the library.

Which wouldn't be an issue if I could get the reviews done before the books had to go back or failing that at least know which facts I'm likely to need so I'd have them collected in reliable notes.  Things like character names, occupations, locations, dates, page numbers.  I'm thinking maybe I need to create a form I can fill out for each book as I'm reading it.  Or is that getting too OCD?  Would it end up being just another task that would consume more time than it saved?

4th.  I want to learn how to use social networking.

5th.  I want to learn how to use the Pages feature that Blogger now has to organize my blog

6th  My side bar needs updating and decluttered

7th  I need to go into my archives and resize images and videos that are too big for the new template which I switched to two years ago.

8th  I need to label posts before 2007 and consolidate the labels I have which means rethinking many of the posts since I began using labels.  I've got so many labels that it takes forever to find the ones I want for the current post.  So sometimes I think it isn't there and I make it only to discover that I've added or subtracted a plural s or a capitalization so that my label list now has one of each:  i.e. label and labels or Label or Labels

9th  I also need to organize my blogging related email and create a calendar for commitments.  Earlier this month I lost an email in the clutter of my inbox that had the date I'm to post for an upcoming blog tour and I had to email my contact to get a reminder.  So embarrassing.  So unprofessional.

Well that is way more than I can hope to accomplish in this weekend seeing as how I have only a couple more hours to devote to it tonight and then can't get back to it until after my husband is in bed tomorrow night.  Still hard to believe that in only fifteen or sixteen hours I will finally be back home.

I hope to spend a lot of time at this on Sunday but that is also the first day of Script Frenzy and my first full day at home in three months.

So to summarize,  my main goal for this weekend besides breaking the lurker habit is to get educated on all of the above so I can continue to work at the tasks over the coming months.