BBAW - How Do You Do Community?

Today's topic for BBAW is "How Do You Do Community?" This was a huge question for me when I first started. How do I become a part of this group of people who appear to be having so much fun? Fortunately, I had two people who gave me all kinds of wonderful tips, Mari of Bookworm With a View and Lisa of Books On The Brain.

The number one thing both of them told me was comment, comment, comment. I was game for that but one problem was finding new blogs to comment on, a way to expand the blogs I might want to visit on a regular basis. Enter blog rolls and comments already left on the blog. Any time I found a blog I liked, I figured there was a good chance I might like some of the blogs on their blog rolls or the blogs of the other people that comment there. Sure enough, my own blog roll continued to expand.

Lisa also recommended I look into challenges, memes and weekly posting topics. Clearly I've gotten a little carried away with the challenges but it has allowed me a way to meet a lot of other bloggers as did the memes. I wouldn't recommend doing them too often, but it is often easier for someone to interact with you through comments on a meme post than it is to interact on a book review. I tried the weekly things (like Mailbox Monday) but I've never really been able to stick with any one. It does, however, offer a great way to find new bloggers and make new friends.

One of my favorite ways to build community is to participate in the big blog events (like BBAW and Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon) and smaller events (such as any one of the smaller readathons or the blog hops). It's a great way to meet new people and find new blogs that interest me. I'm already looking forward to the fall edition of Dewey's Readathon. And when is that next Bloggiesta coming up?

I've been largely AWOL for the past few months from the blogging community. But this week is convincing me that I need to make more time for blogging. It does a body good!