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My Inspiring Second Year on Hub Pages

Updated on November 18, 2016
Seafarer Mama profile image

Seafarer Mama has been a very active, prolific member of the Hub Pages community since 2009.

Images of Personal Inspiration - highlights from the past year

A bench to sit on while my daughter plays at Tower  Hill Botanical Garden
A bench to sit on while my daughter plays at Tower Hill Botanical Garden | Source
The flag made by a friend and I for our local children's librarian
The flag made by a friend and I for our local children's librarian | Source
Treasure box made for my mother, with plastic canvas and yarn
Treasure box made for my mother, with plastic canvas and yarn | Source
My girl scout sash, bandana, and "friendship stick"
My girl scout sash, bandana, and "friendship stick" | Source
My gardening tools
My gardening tools | Source
Rainbow in the primordial pool fountain at Tower Hill Botanical Garden
Rainbow in the primordial pool fountain at Tower Hill Botanical Garden | Source

An Amazing Ride

The magic 2 appeared in my accolade box and I sat back, appreciating with a heap of gratitude the journey I have taken in the last year. In my head, there was a hub brewing about the path I have taken to reach this milestone.

Surviving Google Panda Swipes

Over the past 12 months, I have participated in a Sixty-Day Challenge initiated by Sunforged (September 2010) and a couple of contests. One of the contests was X Marks the Spot and the other was So You Think You Can Write. I had a hub or two "unpublished" due to Google's Panda program, but fixed their "flaws" to have them republished: The Evolution of a Relationship and Of Pirates and Orphans. It took longer to "fix" the first one than the second one, but it made me happy that the Hub Pages editorial team gave me the chance to get them back!

Lessons Learned

The lessons learned through this endeavor involved the editing and revision process that all writers embark upon after they have written their first draft of a story or article. We ask ourselves key questions: What truly belongs and what doesn't? Where might I tighten the text to fit the subject more closely? Which tags would be most directly relevant to the content?

My issues lay mostly with the capsules. Some of the back-links created by my RSS feeds were not directly related to the articles they appeared in, so I needed to find tags and RSS feed codes that would tighten the criteria of which hubs were featured as related to the one I was writing at the time. This is no easy task. At times I just gave up on the RSS feed because there seem to be other features initiated by Hub Pages that lead readers to other related hubs written by the same author in the sidebars. I let that be, and worked to find links to other hubbers' work in the "Suggest Links" stage once I had published that article.

My Muses

I must admit that the contests keep me thinking of fresh hubs to write. They challenge me to look in my vast store of notebooks containing raw material from the past 7 years or so, to find pieces that could be fleshed out and expanded into a hub. There is a satisfaction that comes with being able to cull this material and create a story that touches others. Two stories that fall into this category are Brave Skippy and Of Pirates and Orphans. There is a new one coming soon that continues the adventures begun in Of Pirates and Orphans.

Over the past year, my favorite subjects to write about were Co-housing, Recipes, Crafts, Music, Lists, Home-Schooling, Spirituality, and Sea Stories. They may not be highest ranking topics and perhaps they are overused. I may be 200 years old before I receive my first Google payout, but I've stopped counting! In the next year, I may add to my collection of hubs with at least one of the themes mentioned above, or branch out to cover more subjects. In the process, I will enjoy getting to know more of my fellow hubbers, meet new friends on Hub Pages, and continue to have a brilliant time at it.

Namaste and Blessed Be!

© 2011 Karen A Szklany

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