The first of the standard questions. Why do you blog?
It all started when I fell in the garbage can. Seriously. I came home from work exhausted one evening and fell off the porch backward. I landed in the garbage can, folded in half like an old newspaper. The garbage can fell over and I cussed and wiggled and squirmed my way free, with a little help from my neighbor once she quit laughing and could stand upright again. In no time at all my right knee doubled in size.
A couple of days later I went to the doctor. He said, "Sit. Stay." So for six weeks I was confined to minimal movement. I decided to leave my friend a note on her blog telling her about my rotten luck, but instead of posting in her comment box, I started my own blog. But wait, that's the story of how I started blogging. You wanted to know why I blog. I blog because people pay attention. If no one came to read, I wouldn't be here.
What's the story behind your blog name?
I change my blog name frequently. I started out with, "A Day in the Life ..." and discovered there were a dozen blogs with that name. My content, when I was teaching, was mostly vignettes from my classroom -- poignant or silly moments and witty sayings from the kids. I took the name, "Quilly's Quips & Quotes." Still, I never cared for it. I felt it lacked flair.
Then we moved to Hawaii. I changed my header to my feet in the Pacific and took the name, "Another Day in ... Paradise?" (Briefly, it was "Another Day in Paradise", without the ellipsis or quotation marks - but that was before we found out about the tent cities in our neighborhood.) Finally, just recently, I changed my template and with it my blog name. So far, "Quilly's Pacific ... Paradise?" is the name I like best. For now.
What is the best thing about being a blogger?
People! I have friends I have never met, yet I know them well and love them anyway :) -- and they love me! Then there's OC. We met right here online, blogging. He was in Maine and I was in Vegas, yet we connected and communicated. That was September of 2006. And 2008 finds us happy and together in Hawaii. Kind of like a fairy tale.
What key advice would you give to a newbie blogger?
Pretty much what everybody else says -- be yourself. So much of the world -- especially the media -- isn't genuine. Here online there is no reason not to be truthful. We can spill our guts or hang-out our hopes and prayers -- and only the interested come by to pick them up. And if somebody does leave a nasty comment, delete is only a click away.
What is the most significant blog post you've ever read?
I read about 70 blogs regularly and I have been at this for three years! There is no way I could just pick out one and say, "This changed my life." Yet many have .... although, OC wrote me a poem called Selah - (A Poem) when we were planning to meet for the first time. I think that one pretty much cemented my feelings or him -- as yet sight unseen, so I guess it had a pretty significant impact.
What is the most significant blog post you've ever written?
I have several blogs, and even though Quilly's Pacific ... Paradise is my most popular one, it isn't the one that contains my profound posts. Still, if we are talking about this blog, it would have to be my personal testimony (transfered here from one of those other blogs), and appropriately titled, #1. If we are talking about any blog, it would be Soup, Bibles & Blankets.
Today's Sunday Roast with Quilly is the 43rd in a weekly series of interviews with bloggers from around the world.