The 7 link challenge

I only have about 16 posts so far being a fairly newbie blogger but what the hell, I am jumping in to the 7 link challenge  from Darren Rowse at problogger. I love a chance to reflect on where I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going in all aspects of life: writing, work, relationships, family, blogging. 

The idea from problogger is: 

‘to publish a post that is a list of 7 links to posts that you and others have written that respond to the following 7 categories. Your links should be to:

• Your first post
• A post you enjoyed writing the most
• A post which had a great discussion
• A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written
• Your most helpful post
• A post with a title that you are proud of
• A post that you wish more people had read’

I first came across the challenge at Susannah Conway’s beautiful site and here’s Susannah’s interpretation. As a regular reader of her blog over the past twelve months, it was exciting to see her first post, what it heralded, the intentioned first steps and the special posts chosen from so many. There are many comments with links from Susannah’s post and many more on the original problogger site posting. You can see the effect and the excitement. This idea is so clever in so many ways:

• it’s based on reflection on where you have been and what you have achieved
• it has a cumulative and connecting effect with others
• it enables you to find a whole lot of new people to read about, link to and talk to
• it’s a way of people linking to and learning about your own blog work
• it’s a way of learning about blogging itself: tags, memes, how the tech side works

Genius! I can’t wait to find some time soon to read through all the comments and links on both the problogger and Susannah Conway sites with so many potential treasures to be found. So here’s my list, albeit from a limited but special pool. To be honest, I have had the best time with blogging since I started nearly three months ago.

My first post: Welcome to Transcending – May 2, 2010

The post I enjoyed writing the most: Why Transcending?  – because it coalesced months, maybe years, of thinking and feeling and it felt very right when it came together

A post with great discussion: I loved the comments from my key influencing people on My seven stars – I was so honoured by the warm and encouraging responses from people I had learnt from. It was like meeting my favourite celebrities 🙂

A post from someone else’s blog I wish I had written: Many posts from my seven stars inspire me but I loved the post Transitions by Chris Guillebeau on The Art of Non-Conformity for its sheer brilliance in articulating an intensely felt thought I could relate to. Chris is excellent at that special skill. I constantly marvel at his writing and reflect about what he has written.

My most helpful post: I am noticing some interest in the post Planning to be fluid about goalsetting. The links in that post are very powerful sources of information that have helped me immensely.

Post with a title you are proud of : The value of howling into the wind – on one of her wonderful podcasts, Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn talks about the feeling of ‘howling into the wind’ to describe how she felt as a blogger when she started. I loved the phrase, it captured how I felt and I used it to think about the value of this space where you finally launch off but you know so few people are reading your words.

A post that I wish more people had read: It was difficult to write and probably difficult to read but The healing power of family history was about a critical journey for me through a (still) difficult time. I hope that it might help other people to find an anchor through their grief.

Off to read some other fantastic 7 link challenge posts! Thanks Darren and Susannah for all the fantastic leads!