I've been helping my mom with her posts because I want her to get Freshly Pressed again. To be honest with you, she needs my help more than she realizes.

I’ve been helping my mom with this post because I want her and all her blogger buddies to get Freshly Pressed. Well, I want her to get FP’ed again. It’s about time. To be honest with you, she needs my help more than she realizes.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been reading a ka-ton (for those not familiar with this non-metric weight, it’s similar to Stonehenge) of posts about being Freshly Pressed. Mostly the posts are about not being Freshly Pressed.

I’m getting a little sad about this fever that seems to be spreading among my blogger buddies.

As a blogger who got FP’ed during my first days of blogging when I didn’t even know what the heck it was, I’m feeling the equivalent of “survivor’s guilt.” I guess I have “FP guilt.”

I don’t know what to do about it. When I got FP’ed, I really thought that WordPress broadcast one of my posts to everyone because I was new to the site as a “Welcome Aboard, Lorna!” gesture. “Gee,” I thought, what a friendly and supportive site.”

I can tell you this: the Freshly Pressed Overlords haven’t been nearly as friendly and supportive to me since then. But still the guilt lingers.

So I thought I would try to give you bloggers searching for the FP Holy Grail or Grill or whatever, the benefit of my advice about how to get Freshly Pressed.

But before I do, please keep in mind the following:

  1. When I got Freshly Pressed, I didn’t know anything about blogging.
  2. I also knew nothing about what it meant to be Freshly Pressed.
  3. I haven’t been Freshly Pressed since, so I’m a “one-hit-wonder.”
  4. Since my hemorrhoid surgery, I tend to talk out of my rear-end a lot more, if you know what I mean.
  5. I’m basing my tips on what Word Press tells us are their FP guidelines.

Okay, are you ready for some tips on how to write a post that will get you noticed by the Freshly Pressed Overlords?

“Write unique content that’s free of bad stuff.” Golly gee wiz, you should know not to use mean or nasty language. And using other people’s ideas or pictures is just plain wrong. Forget that almost everyone does it, even posts that are Freshly Pressed all the time. It’s called judicious use of artistic and creative license. At least that’s what I call it.

“Have a point of view.” Imagine, telling bloggers to have an opinion. But opinions apparently matter to these people. None of that “Just the facts Ma’am” Dragnet stuff if you want to be in the running.

“Don’t be afraid of your voice.” Even if your voice sounds all high-pitched and like fingernails on a chalkboard, put it out there and loud and proud. Let us figure out how to deal with it.

“Paint us a picture.” This may be the one that rules a lot of you out. If you aren’t handy with a paint brush, you may want to take an art class or two.

“Make it easy on the eyes.” By “it” I imagine they are referring to the post, not the blogger. But it couldn’t hurt to doll yourself up. I don’t care what those self-help people say about what’s on the inside, appearances matter in this blogidty-blog-blog world.

“Add relevant tags.” Regardless of the content of your post, might I suggest these tags: “Definitely Freshly Pressed Material Here” or “Life Changing Post” or “Kate Middleton Having Quintuplets.” They said “relevant” tags, but you need to get noticed.

“Write a headline we can’t ignore.” See above.

“Aim for typo-free content.” Good luck with that.

Well, if you’ve done all of these things consistently and have gotten nowhere with the Freshly Pressed Overlords, I have one more suggestion for you. For this one, though, you have to be very open-minded, even more desperate, and shove aside any concern you may have over your reputation (whatever your reputation may be).

Ready?

On the evening of any full moon, strip down to your undies and wrap yourself up in a plain white sheet. While barefoot, gather sticks (both large and small) and build a fire around which you will dance and chant. To light the fire, you may use matches, but not a butane lighter. The chant must come from you and the spirits you call to empower you to write a Freshly Pressed worthy post. Don’t worry if the chant doesn’t come right away, just keep dancing and calling the spirits. The chant will arise. Do this until the moon is high in the sky and your feet really hurt.

Then write a post about it. Be sure to include the tag: “insane ritual just to get Freshly Pressed.” It just might get someone’s attention.