Aug 25, 2017 / First Friday

First Friday

New blogger? Welcome! Share a link to your first post, say hello to other new faces, and find your first few readers.

For other help:
If you’re not new and are looking for support or feedback, the Community Pool is the place for you!

For technical questions, visit the WordPress.com Support Forums.

To learn more about blogging, take a Blogging U. course.

To find, copy, and paste your link:
Head to your blog’s home page — not your dashboard, your blog itself. Click on the title of your post to open the individual post.

Highlight and copy the URL you see in your browser’s address bar, and paste the entire URL into a comment here.

Welcome to First Friday, a weekly open thread where any new blogger can share a link to his or her very first post with the larger WordPress.com community. To share your first post with us, copy and paste the link right into a comment here. If you’re not new, you can still be a part of First Fridays: visit a link or two, and leave the blogger a like or comment.

Please don’t use this as a space to share your first post…. that you published three years ago; ditto for simply sharing your latest post. Posts should have been published within the last month, and should be your first post. We’ll remove other posts to keep this space focused for new bloggers.

We ask that you help us keep this space focused by following a few additional guidelines:

  • We encourage anyone who shares a link to visit a few other bloggers. New readers for all!
  • When commenting, the third time is not the charm: don’t share the same link repeatedly, or in multiple First Friday threads. We’ll remove repeat posts.
  • Link directly to your new post, rather than to your blog generally — it makes it that much easier for folks to like the post or leave you comments.
  • Avoid repeated “Follow for a follow!” comments. (Tip: if you’re trying to build a readership, it’s much more effective to visit and comment on individual bloggers.)
  • To keep from losing your place while you visit others’ blogs, right-click on links to open them in a new tab or window.
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    1. Hi Jackie! What a great start 🙂 I love your simple theme, but plenty of pops of color with those pictures. It would be great to see you add a bit more about yourself to the “about” section, just to give readers a more personal view. Good luck with your blogging journey!

      Liked by 13 people

      1. Thank you, Laura! And very good advice, I completely agree. Need to think of things to ‘bulk’ up that section of my blog, and add a bit more personal context. Thank you very much for the feedback!

        Liked by 7 people

    2. Jackie, I like your writing style. You have a good command of the language. I especially liked your Portland blog post. My objective is to do something similar with my Blog.

      Liked by 10 people

      1. Good Morning Lauren. It looks like you are off to a great start. I enjoyed your Sisterhood post most, with two sisters of my own, I can relate to the tension as well as the lifetime forgiveness pass they get.
        Welcome to blogging. I look to reading your future work.

        Liked by 7 people

      2. Hi Charlene, I am also new to blogging and about to set off to travel so I can relate to your blog! Based on just reading your introduction, you seem to have some oaks in mind, and have self awareness. I think These two qualities will take you far. Maybe continuing to incorporate these into your blog will keep a general topic for you to blog about, and also a good opportunity for the reader to connect with you. Cheers!

        Liked by 3 people

    8. Jackie
      Your blog is clean and elegant. Bravo! I enjoyed the post immensely as I can certainly relate. The only thing I see is a very small font. It was a bit tough to read in bulk. I look forward to more posts. You’ll be in my reader.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Thanks so much, Tim! I really appreciate you taking the time to read and also leave such thoughtful comments. I’ll be following you as well and look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

        Liked by 2 people

      1. That is wonderfully high praise. Thank you for reading and making my day with this comment! I’ll be following your blog as well and look forward to seeing more of your posts.

        Liked by 2 people

    10. Your writing and tone is great! I read part of your portland story snd nay come back later when I have time. My only feedback is consider word count…in my opinion the post was a little too long, but having said that, if a topic is of interest to a reader, your writing is definitely going to keep the person reading so maybe length doesn’t matter. All the best! 😊

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Thank you for the great feedback and I will definitely keep this comment in mind when writing future posts. I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it overall and I look forward to checking out your blog as well!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. You’re welcome. Sometimes we just have a lot to say I guess…please take my feedback with a grain of salt- there really was nothing else to pick and others may relish a long read- it also depends on the frequency of your posting.

        Liked by 2 people

    12. Hey Jackie, just checked out your blog and most recent post “The Imperfect Time is Now” and I have to say, you have a very unique and highly engaging style of writing! I also liked your overall theme and am glad to have come acrossed your blog.

      Keep writing & do pay my blog a visit. I recently started out as well! 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thank you so much for your kind words! I’ve started following your blog and look forward to reading more. I love the images you use to accompany your posts, which are beautifully narrated!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. “The American story has been forged in the fire of the human spirit and shaped upon the anvil of its landscape.” How poetic! The site looks good so far, looks like you are definitely on the right track to have the setup user friendly and visually appealing. Can’t wait to read some of your posts once you get it up and running!

      Liked by 6 people

    3. Good Morning Larry and Welcome to Blogging! Your about page was so well written and thought out. I’m so glad you’ve chosen to go yondering and share the experience.

      The promise of photos, historic information and travel tips are all great and I cant wait to follow your travels. That leads me to my one suggestion. . . Make sure that the way to follow your blog is easily found on your page. I so want to follow your travels but couldn’t find a widget to click follow or a link to subscribe. I did see your words at the bottom of the page encouraging readers to subscribe but it does not appear to be a working link.

      For now, I’ve bookmarked your page to check later for that follow button.
      Good Luck and safe yondering!

      Liked by 4 people

    4. It’s a well written introduction. I didn’t see a follow button and you hit upon a few subjects that have always been close to the heart. I’m looking forward to more soon from you.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Hey! I’m new to blogging and posted my first proper blog today. I would really appreciate honest opinions and also feedback on my writing style and English as it’s not my first language. I would love it if you could take some time to read my blog as I write about things that I passionately feel about and all my emotions are raw. I would appreciate all the feedbacks that I get because they’ll make me grow as a blogger. Thank you so much.
    https://ventingthoughtsblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/equality/
    And also leave a link of your blogs which I can read 🙂

    Liked by 17 people

    1. Hi, welcome to the blogging community! The passion in your post shines through, which is great. There are a few english nuances that might be getting lost in translation, but overall your english is great! I think the only glaring things are that you may want to cut your paragraphs down a bit. I would try to split them up into 4-5 sentence paragraphs. Also I know you did not mean it in any offensive way, but saying “The transgenders” is one of those english nuances that is hard to learn. It is fairly offensive to people as if you are categorizing and objectifying them, kind of like saying “the mexicans” or “the gays”…..it just doesn’t come across well in the english language. It is best to say things like, “individuals who are transgender”, or “those of mexican descent”. Again, I know you actually are advocating for equality and did not intend it this way! Just something to consider as you continue to work on your english.

      Liked by 6 people

      1. Omg! Thank you so much. I’ll correct it asap. And I’ll surely keep that in mind for future and also about paragraphs. Thank you so much for taking the effort to read it and for your feedback I really appreciate it 🙂

        Liked by 7 people

    1. Hi Tamara, your site looks great. You may want to customize the widgets to remove the text place holder on the right. I would love to hear more about you in the “about” section! Good luck 🙂

      Liked by 3 people

    1. Hi there! These are great short reads. I love that it takes just a few seconds to check them out. I might be going crazy, but I can seem to find a page that has all of your posts. I found them by scrolling to the bottom and clicking “previous”. Perhaps I am missing something, but if not, you may want to add a homepage for all your blog posts to be listed!

      Liked by 3 people

    5. Great stories! Particularly love the ones with the “unexpected twist” 🙂

      If I may make a suggestion – there are WordPress themes that allow you to show an excerpt of your post on the home page with a “Read More” option, instead of the full post as is being displayed right now. It may give a better look to your home page as you add more posts, faster loading times etc etc.

      Do check out the short stories on my blog “Globetrekking”!

      Liked by 2 people

  7. I love meaningful abstracts and also create some(not necessarily meaningful). This virtual space is going to be filled with articles on random topics (mostly unrelatable or out of any living person’s concern) and in case I am feeling a bit too artistic, then you may be able to witness some poetry too(not necessarily bounded by the rhymes). Anyways don’t bind yourself with any expectations.
    Here are links to my two lateset posts:

    Thoughts of a stranger you know…

    Mild Thoughts #001

    Liked by 13 people

    1. Hi Amy! Very cute site 🙂 I enjoyed your post, I can completely relate. I graduated college in the states the same year, and I remember having a spreadsheet with over a hundred jobs I applied to, and was tracking follow-up on. It can be quite the process, but learning to deal with that type of rejection is important, we won’t always get the jobs we apply for.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. whoops, meant to mention, you may want to enable comments on the posts. It is very simple, just edit the post and scroll towards the bottom. There is a little, “enable comments” check box.

        Liked by 5 people

      1. Hi, insatiablefantasist! We’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave links to your latest post in all your comments — we try to keep this space as focused on the brand-new folks as we can, and the repeated links will cause you to get caught up in the spam filters. Keep being awesome and supportive, and you’ll find people visiting you whether or not you post a link!

        Like

      3. Hi, thanks so much for your kind words, I’m really enjoying being a part of the WordPress community already. I’ll be sure to have a look through your posts 😊

        Like

    1. Nice write up 🙂 I haven’t heard about this movie, but it looks like something I would enjoy! I noticed you don’t have the like button enabled. If you open the post to edit it, and scroll towards the bottom, there is a checkbox that says “enable likes”. That way people can quickly let you know they like it, even if they don’t comment! I am not sure how to resolve this other issue, but when I click on your blog name it links to “okenol.wordpress.com” which seems to be a blank blog page, and not your actual blog. Perhaps someone else here, knows how to fix this! Googling answers can also be helpful!

      Liked by 4 people

      1. whoops, sometimes I forget not everyone uses bluehost. On wordpress.com you actually just want to edit the post and on the right hand side you should see a tab that says “sharing”, this is where you will find the like button check box. sorry about that!

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Thanks Laura for mentioning this other issue. I will surely fix it, my friend Google will help ☺ and about the movie, I’m sure it will be great!

        Liked by 4 people

    3. Hi Tim, your blogs have a lot of variety which is great. You don’t seem to use any categories, nor the continue break in your blogs, so people have to scroll through the entire blog and everyone one of them to get to the bottom. That’s great to ‘force’ people to read your posts but may also work against you.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. ¡Hola/Hello!
    Aquí presento mis noticias y comentarios sobre Viaje a las Estrellas, para los trekkies hispano parlantes. Somos muchos los que seguimos esta saga, y muy poco lo que se publica sobre ella en castellano. ¡Saludos!
    Here I present my news and comments about Star Trek, for Spanish speaking Trekkies. There are many of us following this saga, and so little published about it in Spanish. Greetings!

    Liked by 9 people

    1. Sounds like you have all the fun areas of life covered! Looking forward to reading posts as they come out. You may want to consider enabling the like button for your posts. I believe it is located under “sharing” when you edit the post.

      Liked by 5 people

      2. I find it hard to do anything on the app except check stats and respond to comments! I’m no mobile genius, so I stick to all the technical stuff on my desktop 🙂 Not that I am much of a genius there either!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Nice work! It is great to hear of people being so kind. You may want to take some time to play around with the customizer for your site. There are some cool widgets you can put in there to replace the text holder one. Good luck!

      Liked by 3 people

    2. Welcome 🙂

      I noticed that you still have some placeholder text in your blog’s sidebar, over to the right of your posts, as well as at the bottom of your blog — you can remove or edit that by going to My Site > Customize > Widgets. Look for the Text Widgets!

      (For more on widgets, what they’re for, and how to use them, check out https://learn.wordpress.com/get-flashy/)

      Like

    1. I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself “experienced” but hopefully I can still help! I must say, this is a great challenge. Daily posts! Good for you. I can appreciate the tone you have set, I know to expect that your blog is going to tell it like it is 🙂 Your setup looks like it is good to go, you may just want to enable the like button for your posts.

      Liked by 3 people

    1. I like the simplicity of your blog, and the step by step photos of your recipes. One thing I noticed is the drop down options in your menu items . .i love that and have been trying to figure out how to get mine to do that.

      I don’t have any suggestions for what to improve. unless is more, more, more recipes! That chicken avocado burrito made my mouth water! Can’t wait to try that recipe out!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. When on your main page click on menus and choose a page and click add underneath choose a item you would like to add and then move it a little to the right and it will pop up as a drop down item

        Liked by 2 people

  19. Hi everyone, my name is Beatrice. My wordpress blog has been up for about a week and a bit now. I would like to focus on my travels and photography, but I am really open to anything and don’t really have a niche yet. I’d love for people to check out my blog and for some feedback if I’m doing well so far.

    http://paperybox.ca/welcome

    I hope everyone has an amazing day and I can’t wait to look through the new blogs!

    Liked by 10 people

    2. Hi Beatrice, the first blog I read was your visit to Hong Kong, my previous home for a long time! You certainly have been spoilt out there😀.

      You may want to consider including the read more button in your post so readers can get a taster of the post, hence more posts, instead of having to scroll through the entire post.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks Pauline for the suggestion! I was actually thinking about doing that, but I’m not sure if the style of having “read more” and excerpts of my posts that can be clicked on is template-based.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. The read more function is done when you write your post so I don’t think it’s template based. You can try and see what it looks like, and reverse it if it doesn’t look ok. My other suggestion is to check it out on somebody else’s mobile or PC as I find sometimes things might look a bit different because I’m logged into my own account

        Liked by 2 people

  22. Hello and welcome, new folks! We’re really excited to meet you.

    As usual, I just want to remind everyone that we moderate the comments on First Friday pretty heavily to remove blogs that are more than a month old, per the guidelines — this is really a space for brand new people to introduce themselves and meet one another, and for others to welcome and support them.

    If you’re not here to either share your (recent) first post or leave a supportive comment, please head to the Community Pool, which is where any blogger can seek feedback on any aspect of blogging. And if you’re not sure what the guidelines here are, please read the above post — or just ask!

    Happy blogging, y’all:)

    Liked by 4 people

    1. I really enjoyed this read and it’s very inspiring. I’m a completely , “beat the clock” person. I set like 20 alarms then rush in the morning to get ready. It’s so hard for me not too. I’m sooo not a morning person. I like your layout as well. Keep up the great work 😀

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Right!!!?? lol oh my goodness waking up in the morning has been my biggest struggle. I’m so glad you found it relatable. Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I appreciate the feedback very much!! 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

    1. I love the title of this post. Waffling on. Haha. It’s very catchy and I think I’m going to use it from now on. When did you move to Dubai? That’s awesome. I look forward to seeing the area from your point of view and your money saving ideas. Keep up the great work and happy blogging.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Such a lovely idea for a blog. I’m def waiting to check out some wonderful cakes, especially the icing and fondant 🙂 I would suggest eventually adding categories based on your different recipes.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Thanks so much! I’m definitely going to have to try that out. And I’m so glad, for my next post I’m doing a tutorial on buttercream flowers and drip style cakes!

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Yum! Definitely need a tutorial…. I’ve a weakness for buttercream… but since moving to Dubai… the heat makes it hard to maintain (even with the A.C. on) would love some tips … last time mine was a disaster…. sugar splitting from the butter because of the heat 😦 lol

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Ah man that’s the worst! I totally know the struggle, it’s the worst when the cake falls apart because of it. I’ll be sure to experiment with that and include that in my next post!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Welcome! The photos on your blog look great! Man, it took me a minute to find that sea urchin hiding in the rocks.

      One suggestion I have is to consider that many people will be viewing your blog on their phone or tablet. Consider breaking up your paragraphs into shorter ones for your easier viewing on mobile devices.

      Liked by 2 people

  28. Hi there, I’m Nicole. I started this blog last Friday as a way to help others from my own experiences in facing divorce. I’m going for a cheesy universal appeal and plan on blogging as things pop up in daily life as a single mama.

    Supportive Hugs: Divorce & The Single Mom | All the Advice I Wish I Had Received
    https://supportdivhugs.com/

    Liked by 7 people

    2. Really life-saving blog! Your words and experiences are worth a lot, and the fact that you have the courage to share them is a really good sign for the hope to humanity. Great start. Hope to see more from you. Have hope, write on!

      Liked by 1 person

    1. What an interesting blog! Loving the style of your posts, with a quote, and a piece of your art attached to it, you really are a talented artist. Really love the theme that you have chosen and the way that you have organised your blog. Hope to see more from you. Have hope, write on!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thank you so much, this is all very new as in this week new and I hope to get blog tips and ideas from reading and looking at other blogs. Most importantly I hope to be able to help others realise their own potential and creativity through tutorials and posts 😊

        Liked by 3 people

  30. Hi all, I posted my first blog a few weeks ago, and needless to say, I’m still ruminating on how to improve. I’d love feedback on ideas, it is meant to allow others to catch a little glimpse into a life-style that many would never choose: to be married to pilot.

    First it was love

    Liked by 7 people

    1. Wonderful blog! Loving the original content that you have on your blog. Really love the theme, the pictures, the writings, the everything of your blog. A little footnote, your about page is in need of info, you can edit it by pressing the customise button on your blog. Hope to see more from you. Have hope, write on!

      Liked by 1 person