
Stephen, The Blur Minion enjoying his Tostitos Scoops while watching the mist rise on the mountain...
Cosmic Cow Pie Talking Point: Serendipity
Serendipity may be defined as "the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated." Pssst... You can read the full Wikipedia article here. ;-)
The "sagacity" of transparent writers to be able to link together apparently innocuous incidents, events, facts and obsrvations to come to what one may consider to be a "valuable conclusion" is part of interpersonal communication skills. You either have the gift of gab or you don't. You can't force it, you have to let it flow with your true voice and embrace your imperfections because all people have flaws and they can relate to matters of the heart (or dissenting opinions) if the voice they hear is an honest one.
Notice I did not say right or wrong. I said express yourself honestly. You, as a writer, have to learn to share a piece of yourself in such a way that you feel comfortable with the conversation while you share what ever it is you deem is interesting or important at the moment. Only you can decide to go forward with your writing project and only you can recognize the exact moment someone or something inspires you. Is it a rant or a rave that gets you started? Love your friends? Love your toys? Love food, pets, cars, travel? Obsessed about market reports? Do you attack, defend and/or support other writers? (I seem to do a little bit of it all- LOL) BTW, wanna help Candice monetize her blog by getting the virtual vote out? Bloggy-Anna does need your daily vote so why not blog-jack the re-blog button while you're voting for a stellar Rainer?
Who ever or what ever you decide to support says a lot about you. Sometimes your silence can say even more... If you are a pretender to the virtual throne people will eventually discover that as well so why not just speak with a honest voice? Why worry about keeping up with the politically correct proverbial Jones?
The thing you have to remember is you have no control of other people's reactions.You have no idea what paths the conversation will take or where the comment threads may lead. Kudos and congrats? Roast? Toast? Argument? Blog Wars? New group? Someone un-subscribing? New subscriptions? Litigation? It can go anywhere... You can go anywhere... My question to you today is are you brave enough to take that journey?
I hope so. It can be mad fun... Even when your Tomtom fails and you have to borrow a Garmin from your girlfriend, Margaret Rome (in MD) so you can get home safely to New York City because of road work and other unexpected detours (LMAO). Do you know my friggin' GPS is still waiting to find a valid satellite signal? I'm home, DumbDumb. It still doesn't know where I am... Seriously... I wiped the drive and started the download over and everything... (sigh). I love my TomTom. I want my quirky British voice telling me where to go. May have to buy a new one because I have another adventure to go on, but I digress (LOL).

You can get as silly or as serious as you want. It's your blog. You can support who ever and what ever you choose. You can advocate what ever you want. You can piss on someone's virtual grave then hug and kiss and make up later after resurrecting your cyber-relations. You can also decide to be a founder and create an ActiveRain Group so the people fascinated by your philosophy in cyber-space can gather and socialize into their own little virtual tribes to be nurtured and grown into a blogging machine hell bent on Google domination (e.g. look at Whacked and Club Chaos). If you do this well, then you will discover that other people will respond in the most surprising of ways... they will follow and have conversations with you (LOL). ;-)
The dynamics of groups interacting is what makes a network unique. Each group has it's own virtual DNA and the members associating within their structures is what makes the groups interesting. They take on a life of their own and birth other entities. For instance: What do you get when you combine BananaTude, Blogs Happen, Club Chaos, Whacked, Jacked, Cosmic Cow Pie and Happy at ActiveRain? You get The ActiveRain Gutter of course (LMAO). Think I am kidding? Apparently you haven't read the membership roll over there (LOL). Gutter Activepeeps are from those other fun, very active and sometimes controversial AR groups. Why do these groups even exist? Serendipity... They were each created because someone somewhere made that ONE comment that birthed an idea and inspired a call to action.
Who have you inspired today? How have you inspired them? Words are a sharp, two edged sword and ideas are bullets. Original content is not only king, it's your creative shield and if you are in these groups then you understand that it takes a peculiar individual to go way out on a limb into cyber-space and walk with a big blogging stick. We don't do half a$$. Even when we play... We walk our talk. Do you?
Do I blog by accident and sagacity, or am I shrewd writer pretending to be a boob? Inquiring minds want to know, which is why I get so much e-mail (LMAO). Psssst... can you keep a secret? Sometimes I do neither, sometimes I do both and on occasion I am a boob. There. I said it (LOL).
The trick of a good writer is to keep you guessing which it is. You have no idea what I am about to do next and it's distracting you... (LOL) If you can not make a person crave to know something more then you need to change your blog habits right now... May I suggest taking a road trip?
(Psssst... make sure you update your TomTom and Garmin before you leave. My maps expired on me. I didn't know they could do that. Geez... a warning would have been nice. I only drove over 1,500 miles blind - LOL)