Every post that glides into our Reader offers us a fresh perspective and an opportunity to peer into another blogger's mind. We're invited to enter new worlds, and examine the shapes, angles, and textures of the blogging craft itself. This week, once again, the diversity of the WorldPress.com community thrilled us. The three posts we selected are powerful examples of the different ends to which writers use their blogs.

Lines

No serum

can replace the living

drawn in these lines -

this is no paint-by-number

out of a box,

but an original,

a hand-drawn facsimile

We take great pains to project a perfect image of ourselves with our words, our clothes, and our manners, often forgetting that the cracks -- big or small -- in our facades reveal just as much about our true selves. In "Lines," a poem of few words and great insight, Melody calls on us to accept our blemishes and our wrinkles, both real and figurative. More than mere acceptance, her poem invites us to celebrate these imperfections, on and beyond our skin, as the cherished traces of a life fully experienced.

Fear and Trembling at the School Talent Show

"You have to do the show," I told him. I stood and went to get my own coat. "You have to do it, or you'll feel worse than you do right now. You'll feel regret. You committed to this, and you need to follow through on the commitment, even though you're scared."

I felt shaky saying this to him. It was either a great moment in parenting, or the worst; I wasn't sure.

Our hearts beat considerably faster as we follow the protagonists of "Fear and Trembling at the School Talent Show," a young boy having last-minute second thoughts about going on stage, and his mother, the blog's author, who sees her own anxieties reflected and refracted in her son's trepidation. It is a rich, patient portrait of the emotional turmoils of writing and of parenting, demonstrating the great narrative potential of longer blog posts (which are easy to mark and to find with our recently launched WPLongform tag). We leave this piece with a more nuanced understanding of the tension, intrinsic to all creative activity, between the fear of flopping miserably and the desire to reach -- and touch -- an audience.

On "Geek" Versus "Nerd"

Geeks are fans, and fans collect stuff; nerds are practitioners, and practitioners play with ideas.

I may be a science nerd, but I'm probably a music geek….

Mixing subtle cultural commentary (for the sociology nerds) with some nifty data mining (for the chart geeks), "On "Geek" Versus "Nerd"" is a post that both entertains and enlightens us. It forces us to reconsider terms we use on a daily basis, but whose deeper connotations we often fail to notice. The lively discussion it generated hardly comes as a surprise: as bloggers and as readers, we find ourselves constantly debating our interests, our allegiances, and our affiliations. Thanks to this piece, we can continue these debates with a clearer understanding of the passions that drive us; we will become nerdier, geekier, and, surely, better for it.

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For more inspiration, check out our writing challenges, photo challenges, and other blogging tips at The Daily Post; visit our Recommended Blogs; and browse the most popular topics in the Reader. For editorial guidelines for Freshly Pressed, read: So You Want To Be Freshly Pressed.