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When I started this Blog, I remember first reading the Freshly Pressed posts with a sense of awe and wonder. It was like someone had taken the very best writing on any given subject, all fresh, shiny, different, wonderful and so original and FUNNY and smashed it into a smorgasboard of loveliness.
Today, I read Freshly Pressed (as I usually do when I log into WordPress) and found myself drifting….. Two paragraphs down, in four out of the top six posts, and I’ve found my attention stuttering and my eyes wandering away like nomads. It’s been the same for the last week or so.
So is it the length?
The average length of a post on FP is a minimum of a 1000 words now. Most are 1500. Were they this long before, I don’t remember there being so many words, all blurring into each other?
Now before the hatemail starts arriving in the comments section below, I am not saying the posts are badly written. They’re not! They are extremely well-written, perfect grammar, spelling and punctuation in every one. They are also just a touch self-conscious. A little too worthy perhaps to fully hold my attention.
I hate to say it…. But they bore me. Whereas I used to read every single post up there and cry, laugh and wonder… Now it’s more MEH? than amazing.
So is it the format that’s not working for me? I notice there is poetry and fiction featured quite heavily now. Part of me, wants to say “Yes, finally some representation for all us creative types!” The other part is running screaming from the laptop. Why? Because “FP” used to represent the best writing from a bunch of plucky amateurs who were giving fresh thought and ideas on ordinary and not so ordinary daily life or writing about issues that they felt affected them. Now it’s all poetry, worthy literaryness or long university style essays on topics. I know literaryness is not a real word (which is probably why I’ll never be freshly pressed)….
And before I would have said that it bothered me, now, getting Freshly Pressed…. Meh!
So is it just me? What do you think about FP?
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tryingtowriteit 
I’m so glad you’ve said this. I will never be among them because I don’t write long posts, and I don’t want to write long posts. I don’t have time and I don’t want to take up your time with a post that says the same thing three ways. I too am bored by the time I get a 1/3 of the way through FP posts so thank you for saying what I was thinking when I logged in today and went straight past them.
Hi Kate, I know exactly what you mean and I used to love them? I swear I would always read them and I held them up as an example of what really brilliant blogging could be. Especially as there were so many different types of post, funny, smart, critical etc. Now, it seems to take itself so seriously.
Is it bad that I stopped reading through them a long time ago? Not so much for the meh factor but mostly because I’ve been steadily squeezing out less productive internet browsing time (maybe it is meh factor then, since FP falls under “waste of time”)… I’d rather be writing, honestly. I’ve finally gotten through the latest Morass of Despair and started enjoying telling enjoyable stories again. Hopefully it lasts a while before I’m neck deep in the next swamp! 😉
Here’s to a wordy and productive day for you! I enjoy the blogging and I guess as I’m resting the novel for before the last quarter gets put down in draft, I am enjoying thinking about stuff and then putting that down… Just for a little while.
Definitely. I’m working on an ending right now. At least, I think I am 🙂 It keeps going and, I think, it is getting better and better! St. Paddy’s weekend is a better time for thinking than actual writing anyhow 😉
I never read FP. Do I want to be FP? sure, for the traffic…and this is what I have decided about long posts in general: the ADHD factor of the end user is a given–the shorter said, the better, on the web.
sort of not really answering the question, but vaguely related..hehe. Hope you have a great day!! 🙂
I’m with you on the traffic! I was quite shocked by the warm welcome I received after my little sabbatical. I like that it felt social and like a community.
I love your limericks they so make me smile and are definitely a well spent browsing time, I’d much rather read your stuff than FP. 🙂
I never heard of Freshly Pressed. I don’t know whether I am lucky or dumb. 😦
FP is a microcosm of the WP blogosphere. Some of it I find interesting, some not, and many are definitely self-conscious/righteous #rollseyes. It seems to me that the selection process is politically slanted. I have to disagree with your statement, though, that all the FP’d posts are well-written. That has definitely not been my observation.
Hi Mags, firstly thanks for commenting and secondly I wonder if you agree that the quality of the posts contained within FP has declined? I’m not talking standards, although I do think on the whole they’re fairly well written. More about the content, i feel it is now a list of essays rather than creative and original thoughts on both the tedium and burning issues we all like to sometimes write about?
It does seem as though I am not finding them as interesting as I used to. Not sure why, but they just don’t grab me.
Preach it! Couldn’t agree more. Subtlekate’s comments are right on too!
I finally decided to join wordpress this month and start a blog, despite being electronically challenged in all aspects of my life. After reading a few posts on FP, I found myself drifting (and yawning) as well. In a strange way, FP feels more like the popular table in high school. Many of the blogs already have a ton of followers, and although well-written, they can be quite dull. I agree with you on this and appreciate reading it!
Hi SY, Thanks for commenting. It’s great to get a newcomers perspective. Welcome to WordPress and I’m sure you’ll find a wonderful community here to get involved with. 🙂
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The whole freshly pressed thing has me baffled. I am told they look for something in particular, but then it also seems really random. I have also been told that I will never feature because I have too many followers. There is a snobbishness about the whole thing. I don’t look at them and know I will never be FP, so I pretend the whole thing doesn’t exist.
It has started to smack a little of elitism. You have too many followers. Oh to have that problem! 🙂 Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for liking my blog post, today, which helped me make time to come and visit yours. I really liked this post! I hope that when I get some time in a few weeks (I’ll be on vacation), that I will spend it reading some bloggers I like, which would definitely include you.
And that’s what I’m picking up about your post today — which has to do with where I am, of course. I’m not reading any Fresh Pressed stuff, at all, because I Don’t Have The Time Right Now. I’m working too hard AND I’m writing a blog post daily. Plus everything else that human beings have to do in order to meet their obligations in the Life-O-Sphere.
I’m still new enough here — at WordPress and to blogging — to feel like I don’t know my way around. (Plus I haven’t had time to learn more about this place.) I don’t know about how people get chosen to be Freshly Pressed. I don’t know if I would even know if I was chosen. (I probably would, because my readership would leap precipitously, wouldn’t it?)
Anyway, thanks for Liking and thanks for writing. — Ann
Thanks for stopping by Ann, you would get an email to inform you that you had been FP and it would boost your traffic like a gazillion to one. Or at least it used too. Not sure what the uplift would be like now.
I’ll cut to the chase, I use my blog to advertise my cottages, what’s going on & what’s wonderful about a holiday in Cornwall.( apart from the odd complete ramble) Chances of me being FP’d are as distant as me and my horse winning the Grand National.Unless an FP interests me, for whatever reason, usually random, I don’t bother. All the same I’m sure it’s wonderful for bloggers out there to feel they have been recognised for something, shame non of us read them anymore! So to end where I started, if holidays & Cornwall interests anyone……..?!!!!
Well I can personally vouch for the Cottage and Cornwall bit. Both of which are lovely!
Thank you very much, ;~)