Waiting for One more!!!

This one is for all the bloggers over there. I don’t know about you? But blogging has been an incredible journey for me. It started very tentatively. Like a young bride not entirely sure about her position in her new husband’s family.  I was unsure, almost shy about writing.

I have always written – since forever. Mostly, on tissue papers!!! Are you rolling your eyes!   “Tissue papers???” sounds strange, I know. Can I say in my defense that my husband and I run two restaurants and a cafe. Tissue papers are  easily available. And quite nice to write on, really! As long as you don’t insist on using a fountain pen.  Now, fancy fountain pens have never been my things. I am more of a use and throw ball point, ‘no fuss’ kind of a person. So, tissue papers worked just fine, for me!

The bigger issue was, that these square pieces of white flimsy absorbent papers that carried the imprint of my creative expressions carefully scribbled upon with ball points. Almost always landed in the dustbins. Unread by anyone but me! And I am not entirely sure whether that counts? I mean if you read your own stuff are you the reader? or the writer? – Complicated? huh!

Forgive me,  if I go a bit slowly over this. You see, I like to put  events, in the proper sequence, as  they happen. Don’t you always hate it? When authors jump between two or three decades. Going back and forth, without a care for the reader. Always leaves me in a bit of a tizzy!

So to put this in a timeline. In January, 2011, I  had been to the Literature Festival at Jaipur.   I live in a small town and its  a rare opportunity for me to get to see, meet, and listen to so many great poets and authors together. Writers who sit by my bedside, accompany me on holidays and long train journeys! People, I admire! I got inspired (Who wouldn’t?) and I promised myself that by the time I am back next year I would start writing, a bit more formally! The year went by – March , April, May, June ….. August , September.  I hadn’t yet fulfilled my  resolution!

Then something happened, something that left me feeling misunderstood, used and taken advantage of. Writing has always been the outlet for me. To express stuff that I can’t actually verbalize, cause I am too deferrent, timid or shy.  I decided to take the plunge. Killing two birds with a stone, ‘Just another wake-up calll’  (JAWC) was born. I didn’t give much thought to what I will call it or how it would look? Frankly I wasn’t writing to be read. Only to write in a way that didn’t land up in dustbins.

I am a ‘tech idiot’! I didn’t know about communities or followers or pinging or links!  I am ashamed to say that the initial posts were not even categorized or tagged. I used to read other blogs. But was too shy to comment. Not really believing that these beautifully creative bloggers cared at all for my opinion or comments.

Imagine my surprise when fellow bloggers started to find me. ‘Likes’ and comments fell in my mailbox encouraging me to continue writing.  Getting the  first follower was heady! I went to his profile and checked everything about him. Slowly  as the new bride became familiar with her surroundings, she opened up. A tentative hello here, A shy comment there, Soon I was in the middle of my own small community. I began to find bloggers, I liked to read and follow. JAWC too began to gather its own followers. 10 , 20, 30, 50….. I learned that every follower brought another pat on the back. Every award more encouragement and a drive to write even better.

you have a new follower! image courtesy i.techmadly.com

Then came last Sunday when JAWC got its 97th follower. I realized with a jolt, We are close to a milestone! There are bloggers, even in my own community who have 500+ or  1000+ even more followers.  I know to them 100 may seem like nothing!  But for me, whose journey began so humbly, 100 seems like  a magic number.

The magic number that still eludes me! Over the course of the week,  I’ve been watching closely. The Growth post got me a couple of  new followers. Welcome Sudhanshu and chabelyvalera. 

And now we are standing at this precarious position waiting for the 100th! Who will that be? (While writing this post, an idea occurred to me! why not give our elusive 100th follower something – a little gift? A dedicated post maybe? Or an honorable mention? ) But  would that be fair? Bribing our way to the 100th ? So we nobly refrained!

But, this we say – Whoever it he/she is, we want them to know that they will be special to JAWC and me … Always!

(Hey! that’s not a bribe!) – A bit of emotional blackmailing maybe! But not really a bribe!

Ciao! for now. Hopefully by the time we meet again, JAWC would have reached  the magic number

What have been your blogging milestones? How did you feel just prior to getting there?