Welcome Polli from the pond to a Blog Interrogation. Relax and tell us all you know about your blog and your approach to blogging. This information is better out than in. 5 questions, 5 answers - shoot !



Polliwog's Pond. I think my 'Saturday Stuff' feature would best illustrate me, my life and the flavor of my blog in general. I'm an information junkie, and I like quick bites of interesting stuff. Heck, I just like stuff!

Um ... starting it? Hee hee! I am a behind-the-scenes kinda girl so having my OWN blog has been a bit scary and overwhelming. I'm having fun, but I still feel really panicky and sweaty every time I hit that publish button. Other than that, I think I should have gone with a 2-sidebar format. My sidebar drives me batty. I'm always fussing with it and never really liking it.

Hmm ... maybe Polliwog's Bog? I like my blog name. It will always remind me of my dad -- who gave me the name Polliwog -- and my life is rather like a pond. There is always a toad lurking 'round the corner isn’t there?

My blog takes ZERO writers! Really! I'm not a writer, though I do have access to an editor for a little help here and there. I prefer to think of what I do on my blog as 'talking' rather than writing. Hopefully no one will tell me to shut-up anytime soon.

Ooh good question. Honestly, if I ever wrote something so funny that our friend Bob of Bobbarama.com felt compelled to publish it on his blog, I'd die and go straight to heaven. I'm a wanna-be humorist you see. Oh and maybe The Anchorage Daily News because all my ex-boyfriends would see it.

Ed extracts the bones from the blog interrogation

Thanks, Polli, for entering into the spirit of the questions and taking literally 5 minutes out of your life on the pond to reveal all. Well, almost all!

Despite intense interrogation, we still don't know how much you keep in the Polliwog's Pond "Swag" shoebox under your bed, and we never got to know the names of those poor besotted boys from Anchorage who never got to marry you. Maybe one day?

And what is this about not enjoying the limelight? You better get used to it en route to becoming the Accidental Blog Queen of the internet . As you take your Oscar for best ever blog, you are going to announce, "Let this be an inspiration to you all. I didn't mean to be this successful, really, I didn't, I don't even like writing and I achieved all this on one little sidebar!!! Just imagine what you real writers out there with two sidebars can achieve."

(And at least the winning prize will be publicly known, and answer that other nagging question we had too.)

Thanks a lot, you can relax back into anonymity now.

So, who is next up? Lord Likely is the next person who dared to send me the answers to the 5 questions. To be honest, he is a despicably funny and way too witty cad for me. I feel the interrogator may well be the humiliated one in this next episode. Short ,sharp and to the point - a blogger's dream with a few backlinks for good measure.

When Polli won the prize for most traffic sent to The Pisstakers following her mini review on MyBlogLog Sunday, she was entitled to a pound of gummi bears and a review. Without a blink, she snapped up the gummi bears and wrote a typically fun and motivating post to reveal she was a winner. But far from falling headlong into yet more fame with an Ed review, she asked for the review to be put on hold. Ever open to ways of getting out of work, I didn't disagree.

3 weeks on, however, I feel it is time to shed a little light on Polliwog's Pond, because now I think I have enough info to allow me to work out how on earth a new blog could attract so many meaningful comments from day one. (And literally within 48 hours of her launch, dozens of people loved her, admired her and idolised her. That really isn't normal!) Today, Polli let slip a few hints that clarified why she has so many fans.

Polli has a past!

Polliwog was here, is a telling banner headline to be seen over at LiveJournal. Tracking back, (because she is indeed, no longer there) I saw her contribution to a 43-sentence collaborative story undertaken by a writer's group. She unleashed a tale of Burger King Guy, a feat she is evidently proud of. However, I get the impression she is a little puzzled by its popularity? Burgers, cheesy king, more burgers - makes perfect sense to me.

Anyway, that LiveJournal link provides the key to the Polliwog popularity puzzle, I think.

I suspect that many of the commenters and omnipresent fans on Polliwog's Pond are members of that big big group from Polli's past? Her network helped the new blog hit the ground running? If so, brilliant networking. If not, brilliant witch craft to conjure so much traffic from nowhere.

Polli has a future as a blog guru?

Although Polli is pretty clever at web design, she doesn't profess to be a blog guru-ette. However, it sounds to me that if she told her story in some detail, wannabe bloggers everywhere would benefit from her tactical awareness before during and since the launch of a blog. I know the Pisstakers traffic has been on the up and up ever since we crossed paths, I have learnt how to be a lot more inclusive and blogger-like too and I sort of get the hang of Stumble Upon. Spread the word, Polli!!!

What's next?

In a wee while, when Polli has a few more posts, I'll be back with a review of life in her pond - life that has developed rapidly past amoeba status, for reasons that should be a little more clear now.

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search a keyphrase MyBlogLog Sunday. It is a win-win, perhaps!