Feb 10, 2015 / Beginner

Don’t Go It Alone: Four Great Blogging Events

Blogging is both individual and communal. If you’re feeling too isolated and not connected enough, try one of these supportive blogging communities.

Part of what makes your blog a “blog” instead of a personal diary is the way it connects you to other people: when you’re blogging, you’re part of a global network. Hopefully, you’re already making the most of that by reading other blogs, leaving comments, and engaging with your own readers.

Participating in community-run blog events is another fantastic way to connect with other bloggers. Along with The Daily Post‘s daily prompt, weekly photo challenges, and Blogging U. courses, there are many more blogger-run events on every topic imaginable, like:

Friday Fictioneers

A long-running and ever-popular event, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields‘ Friday Fictioneers brings together hundreds of writers from all over the world to share 100-word stories based on a prompt or inspirational photo.

Not only is Friday Fictioneers a way to try your hand at a new kind of storytelling — or a low-impact way to try fiction writing — it has a large and incredibly supportive community of participants who are always ready to visit fellow writers’ interpretations and leave both praise and thoughtful, constructive feedback. It’s fascinating to read the variety of quick takes on the prompt, and motivating to see how this community of writers lifts one another up.

Cee's Black and White Photo ChallengeCee’s Black and White Photo Challenge

Photographer and blogger Cee loves the art of photography — and loves sharing it with people almost as much. On Cee’s Photography, this community-minded shutterbug runs five different photo events each week to inspire and connect photographers of all levels.

We particularly love Thursday’s event, the Black and White Photo Challenge for helping budding photographers look at their subjects in new ways. Weekly themes as varied as “Shoes and Feet,” “Glass,” “Fences,” and “Faraway,” push you out of your photographic comfort zones, and her helpful tips (and the feedback of other participants) help you improve your eye.

The Blacklight Candelabra

Interested in giving in-person events a try in 2015? WordPress.com’s new conference series by and for bloggers, Press Publish, kicks off next month.

If you spend time on The Daily Post you’ve probably seen Bumblepuppies, writer of a blog by the same name, commenting or helping other bloggers in the Community Pool. Never content to rest on his blogging laurels, he now runs The Blacklight Candelabra, where he offers a new writing challenge each Monday.

Recent challenges invite participants to listen to a piece of music, sketch out a character based on your impressions of the music, and write a post involving the character; or to re-write a famous quote and then describe a world in which your new idiom is true. If you’re missing The Daily Post‘s weekly writing challenges, you’ll find some familiar faces and ideas to provoke and inspire over on The Blacklight Candelabra.

Around the World Reading Challenge

Challenges can go beyond the blog, too. On Booking It, blogger Debra shares her twin passions, reading and travel, and invites you to join in, with the Around the World Reading Challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: to read and blog about six books in 2015: one book by a writer, living or dead, from each continent.*

We’re barely more than a month into 2015, but the challenge page is already filling with links to bloggers’ takes on books by Nadine Gordimer (Africa), Haruki Murakami (Asia), Hilary Mantel (Europe), and more. It’s a great way to broaden your own reading horizons, get recommendations for authors you might never have stumbled across, make some new friends, and grow your blog — a win-win if ever there was one!

Been thinking about starting your own event, but not sure where to start? Try our step-by-step guide to being the perfect host.

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None of these floating your blogging boat? These four are just the tip of the blogging iceberg (bliceberg?). There are dozens more options in our Community Event Listings (and many, many more just a Google search away).

Is there a blogging event you love, or do you run one? Share! (And why not submit it to the Community Event Listings page?)

*There’s no requirement for an Antarctic author, but if you find a long-lost Emperor Penguin memoir, I’m sure you can petition for bonus points.

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  2. How honored I am to be mentioned in your post today. I would encourage anyone to host an event. I have a lot of fun hosting them. I also get to know a lot of different bloggers and that is very special.

    Thanks Daily Post and Michelle W. for all you do for us bloggers.

    Liked by 8 people

  4. I have given myself a challenge this year, which I entitled A Year of Reading Lewis, where each month I will read and review a book by C.S. Lewis, one of my favourite authors. Happy to have anyone else join!

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Thanks for posting. I hadn’t heard of Friday Fictioneers or the books around the world challenge. Those are great ideas! I’m up for making my blogging experience even better.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. I dont really know how this works yet, I started my own blog but Im little confused on how you get people to view your blog. Can any one help me?

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I am with diamontesantana…. It’s been just over 3 months I follow more people than follow me (as of today only 60 followers despite my efforts and despite the fact that my entire life people have told me I should be a writer. I constantly comment with sincere thoughts and feelings, publicize on Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and have recently added Twitter. I began an event at midnight last night and have thus far, 13 hours later, had only one person participate.

        So yeah, what am I doing wrong?? Thanks, Michelle.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. First off, it can take time to find “your people” on the internet — it’s a big place! Second, and related, three months isn’t very long at all; outside of the rare viral sensation, it takes most of us longer than than to gain some traction (and there are plenty of people who have far fewer than 60 followers three months in). If you are enjoying blogging are proud of what you publish, that’s what counts. You’re not doing anything wrong, you just haven’t found your community yet; that’s more a function of how vast the internet is than anything you’re doing/not doing.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Thanks Michelle. I kinda thought maybe my stuff wasn’t showing up or something. When I did blogging 101 I noticed some of my fellow participants had hundreds if not thousands of particpants, which seeing as it appeared they’d started at roughly the same time as me felt very discouraging. Thanks for reaffirming that it truly is really about me and making myself happy. Everything else will come, in time, if it is meant to be 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

    2. We’ve discontinued the writing challenges for now, but we continue publishing prompts and posts on the craft of writing and finding inspiration, along with Blogging U. writing courses. If you miss them, I really do encourage you to check out The Blacklight Candelabra.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. Dear Michelle,

    It’s hard to believe I’m into my third year of facilitating Friday Fictioneers. During that time I’ve made some lasting friendships.

    Thank you for the nod. It’s a lot of fun as well as a great writing exercise.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

    PS There’s no ‘c’ in Wisoff 😉

    Liked by 5 people

  17. So people are “liking” my event but not joining the event. I am not sure that people understand that participating is what gives them the success from the event… that liking creates no links or following. Am I just being impatient? I have already done two other events and the one I created. Nearly 16 hours later, still only one person joined my event. Which yes, I know poetry is not for everyone nor are relationship topics something everyone is interested in. However the majority of people I am following seem to write poetry about relationships! I thought I was making it easy on them and myself. Using analytics really didn’t tell me anything other than that when I have guest bloggers my traffic goes up but there are no comments. My stuff gets comments, guests stuff does not. I think I need more of a following to see any regular helpful patterns popping out. Rant out! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  19. I’d like to say I love your blog Michelle W, I was unaware of the weekly challenges but sounds like fun and a great way to communicate with other bloggers, I am excited to begin participating!

    Like

  20. I think Cee’s photography challenges are great for photographers of all kind. I have occasionally participated and enjoy her blog and community.
    Friday Fictioneers by Rochelle is also a wonderful blog and is great for writers. I like reading her blog although I haven’t yet participated maybe someday I will… till then I’ll enjoy reading.
    Thanks for recommending all these blogs, Michelle. I will check them to participate in them.

    Like

  24. These are some really cool ideas! Thanks so much for sharing. I think I might just hop over to the photo one. I loved doing b&w (film) photography when I was in school. It would be fun to get back into it.

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  25. Hello, I’m new to blogging and my intent is to inspire and encourage women. I found your blog to be insightful. Is there a way to find a community of bloggers that are interested in collaborating on what I’m interested in doing?

    Like

  27. So glad to see you recognized Cee’s and Friday Fictioneers. I just joined the latter but have been following along with Cee’s challenges just a bit longer. They’re excellent ways to push yourself and your craft, and so much fun.

    I’m happy as well to learn about these other events, they sound quite interesting. Thanks for pointing spotlights on some cool events, I do admire the people who keep them going. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  28. So glad you recognized Cee for her amazing giving spirit here on WordPress! She has kindly participated in my After-Before Friday Forum, where photographers submit an after and before image and write a post about their post-processing. We’re into the 37th week. In January, the first ABFriday of every month became the One Photo Focus challenge, where everyone post-processes the same image. The after photos are then posted together on my blog. Visit visualventuring.com/after-before-Friday-forum for all the links and information.

    Like