Reading Stephen King in March & figuring out how blog hops / linkies work.
Posted: March 7, 2014 Filed under: *Macabre Media, Books & Authors | Tags: blog hop, blogging challange, King's March, linky, reading challenge, Stephen King 16 CommentsDespite having a link tool “group” of my own available (WriMoProg) I still don’t really understand linkies / blog hops very well.
As usual, when that’s the case I feel compelled to figure. it. out. I keep think that such events should be great for expanding one’s network, and that I’m missing an excellent opportunity to meet new like-minded people by not using the tool. Perhaps jumping into this event will teach me what I need to know about how link-ups work.
Recently, I stumbled across an event that is dedicated to blogging about Stephen King, and I can’t resist. Just lately, I’ve been on a King re-reading jag anyway … I’m working on Christine now, and just finished The Tommyknockers. In the last couple of months I’ve also read Different Seasons, Pet Sematary and The Shining. I’ve got the audio of Dr. Sleep available to me on my cell phone. (‘Good excuse to log some miles on the treadmill, right?) So here I go:
The bloghop is hosted by Rory of Fourth Street Review and Wendy at Wensend. You can click either of those links to read about the event and add your name to the Mr. Linky list.
It look like the format is to enter (your first name) @ (the name of your blog) into the “your name” box and to enter your URL, starting with the http://, into the “your URL” box. That’s all you have to do to have your name added to the list of participating bloggers.
After that, you’re supposed to leave a comment on one of the host blogs and make a blog post like this one. (I guess.)
I don’t really know what this means:
Every week during the event there will be a link-up on both our blogs where you can share your reviews, info posts and any other King-related posts. (Wensend.)
But I guess I’ll find out, come Saturday, the 8th.
I assume it’s going to mean that you all will see a post related to Stephen King here at my blog on Fridays in March, starting with this one.
Anyone care to join me?
UPDATE:
Well, on the appointed day – Saturday – I visited the home page of one of the blog hop hosts and there was a new post with a new Mr. Link thing where I could add the link to a blog post about King. I linked to this one. There was also a list of others who had done the same thing. So I visited those listed posts and read and left comments.
I’m still not really getting it, because it seems like a lot of steps that you have to remember to do. I mean, it’s not like you get a reminder or anything. Kinda weird, but I’ll stick with it to see how it goes.
Renae Rude - The Paranormalist 
I’ve read King – not a huge fan, although I’ve enjoyed some of his novels – The Stand, Thinner, The Dead Zone, and Under the Dome. I’m more interested in what you’re doing with linkies/blogs. When you figure it out, I hope you’ll write about it!
I responded to you with an update on how the linky / blog thing seems to work, but decided to add it to the body of the post instead.
I think I will write about the system in a future post, but I may have to try participating in several so I’m confident I “get” it. (Right now, I still don’t really.)
Oh, man. Not another crow!! 😉
I recently finished Dr. Sleep. I would say I liked it but didn’t love it. The best recent Stephen King book has been 11/22/63. That one blew me away. And of course, you can’t beat his classics!
I do the crows just for you, Mark. 😀 I’m sure that’s what caught my eye with this thing.
I loved 11/22/63.
It’s fun to re-read the old ones that AREN’T my absolute favorites … I was surprised by how much I appreciated The Tommyknockers on a second, slower read.
I may join in. Going to take a look and figure out how much time I may have avail. to read.
It’s it crazy that we need to read in order to improve our writing skills, yet we should use our spare time for writing? God, when I was a kid I read all the time; now I almost have to make an appointment with myself.
I have about 6 books in my Kindle I haven’t read yet – I’m slowly making my way through them. I know it’s bad, but I haven’t even read all the short stories in some of the anthologies I’ve been published in :0
You know, I’ve always been a little mystified about blog hops (keep thinking about sock hops). One of these days I have to try my hand at one.
A Stephen King reading jag is ALWAYS a good thing.
We are from the same school. Sock hop echoes through my head every time too … and we are both too young for that to be so firmly ingrained. (Another thing to thank King for, I suspect.)
I still don’t get the blog hop, and I’m in it. I think I did one 2 years ago, without even really knowing what it was … something about Zombies. I remember because I posted the pictures from the Zombie Pub Crawl on the appointed day. That one seemed to work … I picked up a fair bit of traffic and a few new subscribers and had no trouble finding the other blogs that were participating. Maybe a one day hop is just easier?
Ok…I’ve been soooo out of the loop lately. I really need an explanation to blog hops and what linkies are. When you get the gist of it, shoot me a clear message on it – now I HAVE to do some research of my own since I feel compelled to get it too. LOL Anyway, I was a bigger fan of King in his earlier days than in the past 10 years or so. This may just mean that I have found other authors I am more impressed with reading lately – no slight to the “King” of horror (you can groan out loud now with that bad joke). Thanks for the post – even though it is clearly something I have no clue on what you’re talking about. LOL
I will Debbie. (You know me, there will probably be a post about it :)) I am starting to get it better already.
I will never groan when someone acknowledges the rightful place of my beloved Constant Writer.
I’m not a huge fan of this particular link system that we’re using, but it’s free and works for now. In an ideal world, anyone participating would stop by once per week and leave their link so other people can find related reviews. Anyway…
Thanks for participating. Pet Semetary is one of my favorites and I feel like I should re-read The Tommyknockers at some point, just to see if I appreciate it any more now than I did initially.
The 2nd week posts that you and Wendy put up helped me understand it so much better. I think I get it now.
The Tommyknockers was a surprise to me. I rushed through it the first time and wasn’t impacted. Some time later I learned that King said he doesn’t remember writing much of it. (He was drinking a lot in those days.) Knowing that when I went back made me appreciate just how good the man is … half out of his head, and still there’s plenty of magic there.
Thank you for hosting such a cool linky topic. (And I loved your post last week.)
The idea is that everyone shares their King posts every week (there will be a new link-up online at my blog today!). The reason for not having that many rules about participating is to encourage people to join in without restricting the possibilities. You can write about anything King-related and just link up. I’m compiling a list of people who linked up in the week after. 🙂
The 2nd week posts that you and Rory put up helped me understand it so much better. I think I get it now.
I love the topic (and the open nature) of your linky. I hope I don’t come off sounding like I don’t. I’m just figuring out how the concept of a linky / blog hop works. If you hear frustration, it’s all about the system.
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