My Fifteen Minutes of Freshly Pressed Fame
42August 20, 2012 by Xenogirl
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” – Andy Warhol
Sunday morning while I slept comfortably in my bed, my phone tweeted in my ear. It chirped again, and then yet a third time. In irritation, I managed to crack one eyelid open and swipe at the little screen. Surprisingly, I discovered that three different strangers had just commented on a blog post from a couple of weeks ago. How very odd. Then my phone beeped again. After a long, confused pause, my impatient intuition jammed a handful of cherry bombs directly into my slumbering brain. KABOOM! I sat straight up in bed, gasped in comprehension, and scurried downstairs to my computer.
I was soon to discover that somehow, during one of my many late nights of wordsmithing, I had stumbled upon the mystical holy grail of WordPress blogging. My post “A Letter From My Future Self” had indeed been “freshly pressed”!
!!!!!!!!!! FRESHLY PRESSED !!!!!!!!!!
[cue large marching band, ticker tape parade, fireworks, and shameless tears of joy]
All of this is, of course, rather delicious irony. Just days before, I had published my post “What Would Hemingway Do?” Therein, I mused about the allure and dangers of writing for recognition and attempted to impale my desire to be “freshly pressed” on the sharp point of a fountain pen. I may have even poked some lighthearted fun at the freshly pressed process with said pointy pen.
Apparently, the literary gods were amused.
Thus I am currently in day two of my freshly pressed bliss and am still staggering about in shock and gratitude. Being chosen from among nearly a million posts a day as the “best of the best” is nearly incomprehensible, but the stats screen does not lie! Today my post has been knocked onto the second page of www.wordpress.com as new writers are highlighted each hour, so the overwhelming deluge of views and comments has slowed to a steady pace. By the end of the day, my post will be bumped off the freshly pressed podium, and life here in Xenoworld will return back to some semblance of normality.
If you are new to my blog, welcome! I am unexpectedly thrilled to have so many new followers. I must confess that marketing is not a skill of mine, thus I find myself unprepared and mostly unwilling to “leverage” the new “traffic” to my blog. From my perspective, readers should hardly be viewed as traffic. I know many of you are writers and artists searching for creative inspiration and hope in the written word, consequently the idea of viewing readers as a commodity seems almost offensive to me. Instead, I am deeply grateful to have been a source of such inspiration for some of you. Your kind words of encouragement have meant so much to me, and I thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my blog.
With that previous paragraph quite prominent in my mind, I will reluctantly make one very unsophisticated and awkward attempt to market myself as a writer. I hope you will bear with me. For those of you who are not yet regular readers of Xenogirl, please follow my blog! The link is over there on the right (blush). In return, I promise to write authentically from my heart each week. There may or may not be typos. Sometimes the words that bleed out will be painful and insecure, at times funny and absurd, and sometimes even surprising… but they will always be honest. It sounds quite cliché, but it would be an honor if you would join me on this blogging adventure. Ok… end of uncomfortable, self-promoting commercial. That is as far as I am willing to go.
Now comes the part of my post that will probably sound quite sappy to the more cynical ear, but so be it. My words are genuine and heart-felt…
I would like to extend my profound gratitude to the handful of faithful people who have been my cheerleaders during this dark and difficult point of mid-life. I am truly amazed at the power of positive support and encouragement. You know who you are! Also, I want to thank my husband for giving me the freedom to rediscover myself this summer. He has supported me emotionally and financially, and without him I would not be the person that I am today. I certainly would not be writing. It is also doubtful that my post would have been freshly pressed without him, since he took time to help edit “A Letter From My Future Self” word-for-word. Yes, there are benefits to having an English teacher for a husband!
In the big picture, being freshly pressed doesn’t really advance my career as a writer except to give me some boasting material and a lot of new readers. However, in my personal reality, this experience has meant much more than spiking readership statistics and recognition. I believe this event will prove to be the pivotal point for me as a struggling, uncertain writer. If I leverage anything in this, it will not be you as readers, but it will be the transformative power of your encouragement. These fifteen minutes of freshly pressed fame will serve to inspire me as I daily practice the art and craft of writing. I have painted quite an ambitious vision for myself! It is now time to accomplish the work at hand, hence brain to keyboard I will happily and thankfully go. Perhaps, if I am very fortunate and hard-working, I shall dare even tickle the toes of the literary gods once again.
as one of the people who discovered your blog through Freshly Pressed, and after perusing a very short few of your prior blog posts, the only question I had was “What took them so long?”.
hope you find lots of new faces that help encourage and inspire you as you continue down this leg of your journey … and congrats again on being Freshly Pressed!
I feel very blessed to have been freshly pressed so early on in blogging. Thank you for your encouragement!
Would you consider writing 5 things for my blog. Be great if you could.
Yes I would love to!! How can I contact you?
Bask in the moment. There are many more to come. :)
Oh gosh Leigh I hope so! Of course you know you are one of those cheerleaders to which I am referring in this post. Thank you!!
I did know, Made me tear up.
I had such a great time celebrating with you yesterday from behind my computer! I am beyond proud of you. I can’t wait for more!
Love you so much sister… your encouragement has meant so much to me! Thank you!
congrats you!!! it’s such an awesome experience being ‘pressed’! i was floating for days afterwards so i know EXACTLY how you feel!!! it was august 11th – and for me as well, it was only a short since i had started blogging – how do they find us???!!! i also took screen-shots of my blog on the homepage of wordpress! i actually laughed out loud when i saw you had posted yours here! you go grrl! i also sent a gushing thank you to the wordpress goddess who found me :) bask and enjoy! and yes yes yes! so well deserved. you are a thoroughly enjoyable and completely wonderful writer and such a delicious read :) write on baby! write on! and kudos to hubby on the edit but mostly, for his support! ya hubby ;)
HA thank you! It is really an amazing experience. I have NO idea how they manage to select so few posts out of the hundreds of thousands posted each day. Congratulations on your freshly pressed success and thank you so much for reading and posting. I look forward to following your blog.
Congrats! I feel the green eyed monster lurking behind me. You have realized my goal! Keep up the great writing and thanks.
Ahahahahaaa… well I wrote about that very green eyed envy in my post “What Would Hemingway Do?” http://xenogirl.com/2012/08/15/what-would-hemingway-do/ I totally can relate, and frankly I am SHOCKED to be selected for the freshly pressed pages. I would let go of the goal and just focus on writing from your heart! The rest will follow…
How exciting! Congratulations! Glad “Freshly Pressed” help me find your blog :)
Thank you for reading Fortyteen!
Im super glad I did find your blog! My husband also edits my blogs,, he gets a crack out of my spelling when im in my own world :))
HA well normally I edit my own work, but he did happen to help me with the freshly pressed post. I can always use an extra set of eyes, because I *always* have at least a couple typos or poor comma usage in every post! Stupid commas!
Oh yes!! We are in the same jungle with commas.
I am so very happy for your!
Well Done,
Daniela
Thank you Daniela! I know you understand the experience, having been freshly pressed yourself!
Woo-hoo!! Well done.
I love the subtle, almost subliminal, request for more followers too :) Were I not already following, I would have done so immediately!
Hahaha ok well it wasn’t so subtle… I warned you it would be awkward and uncomfortable! Thanks for putting up with my pathetic attempt at marketing. It won’t happen again! And thanks for reading and following!
Congratulations! Here’s to exposing ourselves to the world.
Sometime I cringe when I think about all the folks reading my blog… especially friends and former colleagues! But I have reached a point in my life where I am over hiding parts of my personality to anyone.
I think that’s great, Xenogirl! remember ~ “It’s not easy being good.” *bow*
^_^ ,peace
(blush)
“I know many of you are writers and artists searching for creative inspiration and hope in the written word, consequently the idea of viewing readers as a commodity seems almost offensive to me.”
Well said. I am new to your blog and I don’t know how I didn’t stumble on it sooner. I find your work witty and conversational, and you’ve definitely given me some inspiration.
I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Well I am fairly new to blogging, thus it is a miracle that anyone has stumbled upon my blog (especially the freshly pressed folks)! Thank you so much for reading.
Ok, you’ve sold me — consider yourself followed! :)
Yay! Welcome to Xenoworld, French Frye. :)
I am so proud of you, Amyjan. Really, really proud of you. I’m following you officially now :). Much love and many more moments of fame for you, friend.
Ahhhh Tanyajan… I have been dreaming of telling the stories of AFCA children someday…
The fresh press is well deserved.
Thank you! Such sentiments still sound foreign to my ears, but I will happy accept your kind words!
It was an amazing day, wasn’t it? I should have taken screen shots as well…
You said you were going through a “dark and difficult point”. I hope Freshly Pressed helped. I read some of your articles and will now be following it, so consider me one of those cheerleaders too. :D
Thank you Chris! It was an amazing day… and yes it was exactly the encouragement I needed to move forward. I am looking forward to following your blog. Fall is right around the corner, and cooler weather means it is time to fire up my XBox…
I’m loving the cooler weather already, but you have a temperature limit for your gaming?
Heh no… I just tend to be outside more during the summer. There is something about the colder seasons that makes curling up with a new game quite inviting. :)
Congratulations! you shouldn’t be surprised though… Love reading your blog!
Thank you smazicles!
Thanks for popping by and sayin’ hi – a) for sayin’ hi, obviously, and b) for leading me here. I like this place.
It smells funny, but in a nice way. Walls are a nice colour. Writing font is easy on the eyes. And I got your name before reading the description. Don’t know why that’s relevant, but I’ve always seen myself as a xeno-fella, so I guess that’s where the link lies.
Yasou! (Hi/bye in Greek – in case you’re not actually Greek)
Thanks for the visit! I am not Greek… but I am quite happy you understood my moniker right away.