Blog Exercises: The Royal We

People who refer to themselves as “yours truly.” What kind of grandiose crap is this?

Some even speak of themselves in the third person. Athletes and entertainers are big on this demented shit: “I’m going to do what’s right for Leon Spinks!”

I think people like this are mentally ill. And you can include those very special people who use the royal ‘we’.

- George Carlin

Do you “we” yourself or “I?”

The royal “we” on a person or single author site can be annoying, yet we all do it. It can be used judiciously, bringing your audience along for the ride as we explore a topic together. Or it might be presumptuous if you constantly refer to yourself in the plural, a community of one on your site.

Do you use the personal or royal pronoun consistently or inconsistently. Go through your site and pay close attention to which pronoun you use to refer to yourself – or if you refer to yourself in any way. Do you? Or are you invisible on your site?

There are no right or wrong ways, just consistency.

People take personal pronoun usage seriously. Speaking about your experience, using “I” is important so we understand that this is your journey, your perspective, your life lesson.

Using the royal “we,” you bring the reader in on the adventure, but you may also push them away.

Which do you use and why? If you are using it improperly, consider editing your past posts.

Your blog exercise today is to check the status of your royal we.

Be aware as you review past posts and write your next post of your use of third person and inclusive references. Are you being truly inclusive or annoying and presumptuous?

If you wish to blog this topic, remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

WordPress Introduction Course in Vancouver, Washington

I will be teaching the WordPress I Introduction course at Clark College Corporate and Continuing Education starting Saturdays, April 27 – July 13, 2013, 9am – noon, in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from the Airport at the Columbia Tech Center. What a great way to get to learn about how WordPress works without suffering rush hour evening traffic!

Help me spread the word. If you know of someone in the Washington/Oregon area in need of WordPress help, advice, and training, please let them know. This is a unique class taught by a long-time WordPress expert – me – and you know me already, so the class has to be good, right? Thank you.

How Does the WordPress Class Work

Similar to my college courses on WordPress, this course is a basic introduction to WordPress focused on content creation, management, development, and organization. It includes the basics of social media interactivity, web writing, WordPress Themes, and WordPress Plugins, all the core things you need to know to create your own site or update it to make it a more enjoyable and beneficial experience for your readers and customers. Unlike the college credit courses, this course proceeds at a slower pace, focused on the needs of the students rather than the goals of a degree.

The course is presented in several phases. The first few weeks, the focus is concentrated on your own class site, an experimental site on WordPress.com, to introduce you to WordPress core structure and content organization with the main focus on content, how to present it, organize it, and how to build your site around your message.

We literally go back to the A, B, Cs of WordPress so you learn the terminology as well as how to teach a client how to use the site you design and develop if you are a web designer or developer. Content developers and strategists love this part as we focus on what to put on your site as well as where to put it.

The middle part of the course introduces you to WordPress Theme concepts, designing, customizing, and styling your site around the content. We discuss usability, navigation, functionality, and features of WordPress design and development.

The last part of the course involves students working together on a team final project: building a commercial site for a hypothetical company. The last section puts together everything learned during the course and has you working with your team on content strategies, structures, design, layout, and production. Students will present their team sites as if they are web designers and developers, learning more about how the entire process, from concept to release, works, helping them also understand better how to make their own decisions for their own sites and how to work with web designers and developers.

By the end of the course, the participant will have an experimental class site from which they can build or transfer over to their own site, the experience of building a professional site, and a full understanding of how WordPress works, how to build a WordPress site, and be on the right track for developing WordPress sites.

Slow-Paced, Non-Credit: As this is a non-credit college course with a certificate available, and designed for the community, it is a slower paced class with much time spent answering questions about the participants personal and professional needs on their own current WordPress sites or transferring to WordPress. Each class is unique, paced and structured to meet the needs of the students.

The class is designed for those new to blogging, web publishing, and WordPress. The pace of the course is slow and focused on the individual needs of the participants. It is ideal for the personal blogger, family history/genealogy blogger, and small business owner or employee wishing to have an active site.

No Commute! I chose to have this particular class offered on Saturday mornings rather than weekday evenings. I’ve heard from many people that they cannot make the long drive through rush hour traffic after work to get to the evening classes at Clark College, Clark Continuing Ed, and PCC. Many wanting this course live more than an hour away from Portland, making the trip during the week challenging. By holding it Saturday mornings, hopefully these barriers will be removed and you will have the time to take this course without the stress of the commute.

Join the Fun and Magic! On a personal note, rarely have I had more joy in my life than working with my college students to learn about WordPress. I think I have learned more about how WordPress works from my students than my previous ten years working with WordPress. These are people truly dedicated to having their say on the way, to sharing their passions and helping others to do the same. We have too much fun in the course, but we learn from each other, and our sites show the benefits of those lessons. Come join the magic.

REGISTER: You may register online through their site, Clark College Corporate and Continuing Education, or by phone, 360-992-2939, or in person at the new Continuing Education offices in the West Coast Bank Building.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Editorial Calendar Check-in

If you have been with me since January on these blog exercises, it is time to check in with your editorial calendar again. If you are new, welcome, and take time to read the previous posts on the editorial calendar to help you catch up.

• Blog Exercises: The Editorial Calendar
• Blog Exercises: Blogging with the Seasons
• Blog Exercises: Current Events January
• Blog Exercises: Honor the Past with Anniversaries and Birthdays
• Blog Exercises: Current Events for February
• Blog Exercises: Weekly Link Roundups
• Blog Exercises: Weather Reports
• Blog Exercises: Schedule Blogging Time
• Blog Exercises: How Many Posts Can Your Audience Handle?
• Blog Exercises: Blasts from the Past
• Blog Exercises: March Current Events
• Blog Exercises: Post-Op Care Content
• Blog Exercises: Add Industry Events to Your Editorial Calendar
• Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles
• Blog Exercises: April Current Events

So far, you should have the following as appropriate and applicable to your site on your calendar.

• Holiday-related posts
• Industry Events, Conferences, and Conventions
• Seasonal Activities
• Industry and personal anniversaries and birthdays
• Various current events and news stories
• Regularly scheduled link round-ups
• Weather articles
• Posts publicizing past articles
• Follow-up articles
• Article series
• Reference and resource articles to do

Your blog exercise is to review these and look for updated information on these events or additions. Many industries start releasing their schedules for fall, winter, and the following year about now. Get them on your list. Start making plans to attend, review, or cover the event in some way.

As you review your editorial calendar and task list, look for gaps in the material and subject matter. The editorial calendar and your project lists give you a big picture view of content on your site. Stand back and look for the holes that need filling and add these to your project and task lists, even to scheduling them on your editorial calendar.

If you blog about this, remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: April Current Events

It’s time to blog the news and current events for April in our Blog Exercises.

Has it been easy or hard to find news and current events to publish once a month on your site?

Sometimes the muse hits us when we learn of a newsworthy event that directly relates to us. Other times we have to struggle to find any connection with the world around us on our blogs.

Some bloggers do nothing but blog the news, each in their own way. Citizen journalists are spreading across the globe, reporting on the daily life of their communities as well as attention-getting news. Some report as witnesses. Others report from an observer perspective, commenting on the world and events around them.

Your Blog Exercises today is to blog about a current event that directly or indirectly impacts your blog and your business.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Increase Your Thank You Ratio

As a teacher, trainer, social media expert, and advice giver on many blogs, I don’t want to hear your excuses in response to my advice.

“Well, if I only had the money…” Really? Since WordPress, the tools I recommend, and the advice I offer is free. What does money have to do with anything I just said?

“I’m old so I don’t know any better…” Really? You are old enough and learned enough to get here – you turned on your computer, started the browser and made your way through search engines and referrals here – why waste my time with this excuse?

“It’s not my full-time job. I’m just playing.” If you don’t want to be serious about this, go play somewhere else and don’t waste my time as this is my full-time job. Respect that it took many years and even more mistakes to get to this point.

“I haven’t learned that yet.” You are learning now. That’s the way of learning. You don’t know, you want to know, you learn, then you learned and consider yourself educated. Be patient with yourself.

“I’m new at this.” Good. I like that. Now, shut up and learn.

The proper response to advice and instructions is always “thank you.”

Ask questions to help you learn more but never offer excuses which get in the way of you learning. Excuses tell the person you really don’t want to learn, and you don’t respect them or their time.

This may be one of the more challenging Blog Exercises this year. I want you to check your excuses at the door, on your blog and in your social web interactions.

In other words, learn to say thank you more.

Thank you is the most powerful phrase in the world in any language. It shows grace, kindness, respect, and acknowledgment. It tells the person they’ve been heard, which is what we all want, right?

I didn’t learn this naturally. Liz Strauss, a fantastic mentor, taught me this concept with a whip and chain on my virtual back. I was an expert at excuses.

As you go forward blogging and interacting on the social web, directly or virtually, increase your ratio of thank yous to excuses.

Start at at work and home. If you are going to be late for an appointment, instead of spending the whole time racing there thinking up excuses for your tardiness, concentrate on getting there safely and tell them “Thank you for your patience,” and move on to the reason that brought you together. If your children offer excuses, teach them to stop and stay thank you instead. Live by example and say thank you to them when they come to you with comments or information that makes your excuses rise to your lips.

If someone says something odd, nasty, or useless on your site, say thank you no matter what you think of their comment. They put a lot of thought and effort into hitting the reply button. Just because their words may not speak well of them, they tried. Thank them.

Thank those who blog about you on their blogs, sending their readers in your direction. They worked hard to collect links and the information in this article so give them the appreciation they deserve for their efforts to connect with you. You may never know where such a connection might lead if you don’t acknowledge their efforts with a thank you first.

Someone retweets a tweet or shares a Facebook post, or your own article across the web, take a moment to say thank you when you spot it. They are doing you a favor. Thank them.

Consider thanking your readers once in a while. They are the energy force that helps drives your site forward, giving you the feedback you want and need. Say thanks by recognizing them once in a while, in the comments and in the posts. You don’t blog in a vacuum. Thank them.

Find as many ways as you can to stop the excuses and start the thank yous. Trust me, it will change your life.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles

What are the articles that drive people to your site? What are the posts that help people understand and benefit most from what you publish on your site? What articles represent you as an authority on the subject?

These are your reference articles.

We all have them, the articles that explain who we are, what we do, why we do what we do, how to do it better, the tips, tricks, and techniques that define our purpose and mission, as well as our passion, on our sites. While it may appear that everything you right is a reference article, these are the landmark articles, the articles that introduce the subject matter and guide the reader through the process.

It’s time to create a resource guide of your reference articles to give your visitors a one-stop spot to find the information they need to know.

A resource, reference, or guide page on your site consists of link lists to the articles on your site that introduce concepts and provide helpful advice. Consider this a form of site map or table of contents guide to specific content on your site. The links are usually grouped by topic and often displayed in order from step one, two, and so on. The link lists guide the reader through the process and to the information on your site.

I need to update mine on this site called WordPress Resources, but you can see the many example resource pages I have on my education site Lorelle Teaches WordPress and Blogging such as WordPress Resources, WordPress Tips, Resources (general), Web Design and Development, Web Accessibility Resources, and WordPress Cheat Sheets, Checklists, and Infographics.

Your blog exercise today is to create such a reference list on a Page on your site for your readers, giving them a table of contents guide to the information they most need to know on your site.

Publish a Page on your site with a name that defines its purpose such as “How to Do X” or “What You Need to Know” “Help” or “Resources.” Be creative but use only a few words to simply explain what the web page offers and that this is a first stop for new visitors to learn more about your expertise.

On that Page, gather the links to your reference articles together into a list using properly formed links. The list should consist of articles on your site, but you may wish to include external resources. If you do, make sure you make it clear that these are links to information you trust that is not on your site.

Organize and group the links by related topics with headings defining their subject matter and a brief paragraph to explain the collection if appropriate.

If the articles are presented in a series of steps, put the list in an ordered list with numbers.

As you create this list, pay attention to the gaps you may have in the information. Have you missed a step or is there an article you need to write to fill in a gap? Add this to your editorial calendar and task list.

Once done, write a post about the page and point to it, directing people to your resource guide.

Then head out to your social web connections and community and let them know you’ve created a great resource guide to help people learn more or solve their problems with X, Y, and Z.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: How to Add Headings to Your Post Articles

I’ve mentioned using headings in your post articles throughout these Blog Exercises. Let’s look closer at these HTML tags that help you structure and increase the readability of your blog posts.

Headings are HTML tags used to set the section or subsection titles within your blog posts. They divide your content into sections, but they also help to keep related content and concepts together.

Headings are not for every article on your site. They are used for longer articles, especially with those covering several points or concepts that should be broken up into sections.

Search engines look for headings within your web page code, matching the same or related words within the content, links, and post title. Matching terms helps with your SEO ranking and content Trustrank.

Screen readers for web accessibility changes the tone of voice slightly when encountering headings.

Most importantly, headings are often glanced at by readers before they dive into the content. The headings summarize the topics covered in the post, giving the visitor information quickly about the concepts within this post, helping them decide if this page has the answers they are seeking.

Headings also visually pull the reader’s eye through the content to the very end, guiding them through the article.

On WordPress, you can find the headings HTML tag feature on the second row of the toolbar of the Visual Editor. Click the Kitchen Sink button to reveal the second row of the toolbar. The first box on the left is the format dropdown menu. Select the text you wish to be the heading and click the menu to choose the appropriate heading size.

In the WordPress Text Editor, you will have to write your own heading HTML tags as they are not featured on the toolbar, though they should be.

Blog Exercises: Add Industry Events to Your Editorial Calendar

In the blog exercise to create an editorial calendar, I gave you many ideas for setting self-assignments and deadlines for content throughout the year on your blog. Don’t forget to investigate your industry to discover events, conferences, and news to add to the calendar.

Whether you go or not, take time to research calendars and schedules for activities, meetings, events, and conferences associated with your blogging topic(s).

If you go to such events, blog about them in anticipation of the date, possibly live blog or tweet the event, and then follow-up with a summary of the event. Add these to your calendar.

If you don’t go, promote them for others who may be interested in going. Join the groups or follow them so you can report on the news and resources they make available to members and the media.

I regularly promote WordCamps around the world, WordPress regional events, to help those living in those areas to attend and get to know and learn from fellow WordPress fans around them.

You can find WordCamps and WordPress Meetups at Meetups.com, along with many other group and association events and activities in your community. Start there to find industry events and groups.

If you blog about chocolate, did you know that the Fine Chocolate Industry Association meets two to three times annually, once on the west coast and once on the west, to honor chocolatiers and contributors to the fine chocolate industry? Moonstruck Chocolate Company, based in Portland, Oregon, only a few miles from me, has been honored repeatedly at these conferences and is rated as one of the 10 Best Chocolatiers in North America. Fascinating that a search for events in the chocolate industry brought me right back home!

Into tea? Seriously into tea? The Tea Association of the USA has it’s annual World Tea Expo in June this year in Las Vegas offering a variety of certified tea training and educational programs and networking opportunities.

If you are a parent blogger, BlogHer is the leading network for you in North America. They hold many conferences and offer news and resources especially to help the parent, mommy, and daddy blogger.

Just by digging into the calendars, my mind is spinning with blog post ideas. I hope yours is, too.

Blog Exercises: April Random Editing Day

It’s the April Random Editing Day in our ongoing series of Blog Exercises. With Spring in the air, flowers and trees blooming, it’s time to flex your editing muscles on four blog posts this month.

If you are having trouble finding random posts, think of a keyword that best describes your site or a topic you blog about frequently. Type it in your search form and edit the first four posts in the search results. Or go through to the end of the list, the first posts you published on the subject and edit four of those.

As described in the original exercise, your task today is to find four random previously published posts and edit them. Use the list in the original exercise as a review on what to look for when editing the article.

If you’ve done the previous three months of random edits, you should be improving your editing skills by now.

Take extra time to ensure the four random posts continue to represent the tone of voice and style you are using today, especially if these are older posts.

Want to show off your editing skills, add a hat tip link to the edited post(s) to this post to generate a trackback, or post a link to the edited posts in the comments. Include an explanation of why you are proud of your editing skills. If WordPress moderates the comment because of the links, be patient as I’ll be here as soon as possible to approve the comment. Thanks!

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Does Your Site Look Spammy?

Does your site look spammy?

How would you know whether or not your site looks spammy?

It’s time for a spam check.

Web design is hard, especially if you aren’t an expert. Yet, in many ways you are an expert if you are a fan of the web. You’ve seen enough sites to know the difference between a clean, professional site and a spam site.

We also tend to fall in love with our sites, cherishing every pixel, or fall in love with gadgets and gimmicks, that moving icon in the sidebar, the bright colors, or that border that took you a week to figure out how to do on the menu bar…you often start seeing your site too closely, enjoying the bits and pieces you like and ignoring the rest.

It’s time for a big picture view, time to step back for a fresh look, seeing your site as new visitors see it.

Site Design Checklist: Looking for Bad Design Elements

Over the many years that I’ve studied the concept of trust when it comes to websites and blogs, I’ve heard from many their definition of what a spam site looks like. Let’s go through the checklist to see if your site qualifies in any way.

Too many ads: Too many ads compared to too little content or advertising that overwhelms the content qualifies as a spam site in many people’s opinions. It’s a tough balancing act but consider the loss of visitors compared to the pittance most sites with ads generate. Some professional bloggers have done away with all contextual and junk ads due to the poor impression they leave with readers, so look closely to see how your ads compare with the content. Some call it the “Goldilocks Test” to determine too much, too little, just right.

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our WordPress sites.

It is really self-explanatory, but if you need translation, I will do so after the following quoted comment. I’ve broken it up into sections to make it easier to read.

{{I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me.
{In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners} and bloggers made good content as you did, the
{internet|net|web} will be {much more|a lot more} useful than ever before.

I {couldn’t|could not} {resist|refrain from} commenting. {Very well|Perfectly|Well|Exceptionally well} written!

{I will|I’ll} {right away|immediately} {take hold
of|grab|clutch|grasp|seize|snatch} your {rss|rss feed} as I {can not|can’t} {in finding|find|to find} your {email|e-mail} subscription {link|hyperlink} or {newsletter|e-newsletter} service. Do {you have|you’ve} any?

{Please|Kindly} {allow|permit|let} me {realize|recognize|understand|recognise|know} {so that|in order that} I {may just|may|could} subscribe.
Thanks.|

Blog Exercises: How to Respond to a Trackback

In the first blog exercise on trackbacks I explained how trackbacks work and how to respond to trackbacks. It’s time to revisit the concept of how to respond to a trackback.

In the exercise, I described the unique quality of trackbacks for tracking conversations across the web. You publish something, someone likes it and publishes something about it, linking to your site, and a trackback is generated on your site linking to their article, letting you know someone is “talking about your post.” So where and how do you respond?

Here are some general guidelines for responding to trackbacks.

First, never respond to a trackback in your site comments. A trackback is not really a comment in the traditional sense. Consider it an invitation to a party in your honor. Click the trackback link to visit the party at their house.

Commenting on your own site would be like the party guest of honor sitting alone in a room when the party is next door. If you comment on your own site, the comment author is unlikely to respond as the trackback is generated automatically with no action on their part. In fact, we often forget our posts generate trackbacks.

Many website designs and WordPress Themes separate comments from trackbacks. Your comment would appear in the comment section of the response queue with no threading or direct connection to the trackback, looking a little like you are talking to yourself.

Blog Exercises: When Will You Not Link?

There are few people I hate in this world. I think I can count them on one hand, mostly on two fingers. We all have them, people who did us wrong and taught us to disrespect, dread, dislike, and even hate them. As tolerant as we wish we all were, that’s just the way of the world.

When it comes to fellow bloggers and web publishers, I can only think of one that would make it onto my list, which actually puts me into quite a quandary. He and his minions publish quality content worthy of linking and promoting, but I have to debate every time whether or not to link as I want to do nothing to support, endorse, or connect with this person.

You may never have this situation, but you might.

Let’s take this down a few notches. Just like you wouldn’t invest in companies dealing with oil, tobacco, guns, or other things you object to on ethical or moral grounds, there may be bloggers or blogs dealing with those subjects, or those who blog with a bias slant to whom you won’t link.

What are your guidelines, rules, and lines you will cross to blog or not blog?

Consider to what you will or will not link? Personally, I won’t link intentionally to porn sites or blogs, gambling, cigarette and tobacco, violent, and fear monger sites. I’m sure there are other categories of content I will not endorse, but those are my core nots.

I also make it a standard to not link to sites with plagiarized content or those abusing trademarks such as spelling WordPress with a lowercase “P.” The latter is a tough one as there are some great articles out there on WordPress written with the lowercase P. I believe it is a sign of disrespect as well as a failure to pay attention to details, which matter greatly in web design and development, so I always have an inner date over whether or not to link.

Blog Exercises: What Words Do You Abuse Redundantly?

So, it’s word check time. Well, time to check all the words we abuse. Specifically, all the words we abuse redundantly and unnecessarily.

And I’d like us to focus on the little words we add to our content, words like like, and, so, because, cause, cuz, specifically, well, and so on.

In the last two paragraphs, other than the examples, I used too many of these little, useless words, didn’t I? Oh, I did another. Another two. Wow. Sheesh. Darn. Sigh.

When you write like you talk, even though you may clean up many of these words, they still slip in if you aren’t paying close attention, you know. So, it’s time to pay attention to these little slip-in words so you can edit them out of your post content.

We all have these words. Mine are so, you all/we all (the plural yous), and, well, and let’s. What are yours?

Your Blog Exercise today is to really re-read some of your posts to check for these useless little words you slip in, words we use in our day-to-day conversation as fillers, helping our brains catch up with our mouths. Yank them out of your content and turn your words into powerful authoritative statements, not conditional, passive tone babble.

As an example, my opening to this post would sound so much better written:

It’s word check time, time to check the words we abuse redundantly and unnecessarily when we write like we talk. The list includes small, often overlooked words such as words like like, and, so, because, cause, cuz, specifically, well, and so on.

Much easier to read, huh?

And clean up those smilies, the useless emoticons, while you are at it. As if.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Fools, Pranks, and Jokers

April 1st is April Fool’s Day in many countries. Also called “All Fools’ Day,” it is a chance to pick on people, to play pranks, jokes, and hoaxes on friends and family.

Historians say that the concept of a Fool’s Day has been a part of European History and other cultures for hundreds, possibly over thousand of years. The 13th day of the Persian New Year is celebrated as their Fool’s Day dating back to 536 BC called “Sizdah Bedar,” credited as the oldest tradition of pranksterism in the world. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392) is given much credit to the annual holiday related to the tale of the fox tricking the rooster Chauntecleer. Others claim the date came from those debating over which date to celebrate the New Year was more foolish, March 25th or January 1st, until 1564 when Roussillon designated January 1st as the official date of the New Year throughout Europe.

The date for April Fool’s Day is different around the world, as are the traditions for permitting such outrageous and sometimes borderline illegal acts against others.

Many families and companies have their own more recent traditions over celebrating Fool’s Day. Do your family, business, or friends have a tradition of poking fun and prank on each other?

Whether or not you choose to participate in this annual day of hoax and prank, your blog exercise today is to blog about the holiday, your traditions associated with it, or a hoax or prank that was used on you or one in which you participated.

It’s storytelling time – and confession time!

Share your experience. Did you enjoy it? Or not? What was the most exciting and fulfilling part of the experience? Or did it leave a bad taste in your mouth. We all love playing jokes on each other, that’s the way of humans. We love laughing, often at the expense of another, but most of the time it is good fun.

Share your experiences with fools today.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.