Thoroughly Interrupted

Well, hello again. You might guess from one of my last posts that I came down with a particularly nasty bug. It turned out to be a chest infection thingy, also with fever, and that pretty much scuttled any plans I had for my brain to do anything. For weeks, as you can see. I’ve also got laryngitis and haven’t spoken a word in 4 weeks or so. Whispered, yes, but it’s not quite the same. Weird.

Anyway, time to start over, and on a Monday, no less. This forced break from blogging and writing and publishing has allowed me to step back and look at it all a little more objectively – not from the inside, as it were. I’ve recognised that there are certain strategies that make my work easier from day to day – for example, it’s a much better use of time to write and schedule all my blog posts a week’s worth at a time, rather than scrambling for something every evening. It’s also better to view my publishing tasks bit by bit, rather than the whole schamassel which can certainly seem overpowering at times.

So here’s to the next round of Daily Doctor, Photo Story, Reading Challenge, and whatever else I can cook up for you here.

An Effective About Page

Joel Friedlander writes here about the importance of your blog's About page. He includes some interesting pointers for things to make sure you include, and also the attitude the whole thing should take - i.e. it should speak to your readers and inform them what you can do for them.

An About page should be like a regular blog post, he says, with just as much cohesion to pull the reader into a story. As for me, I'm still pondering how best to put this advice into action. My About page here is certainly quite out of date!

Book stand in Paris, 1910, photo by Eugène Atget

Tech Tip: RSS Reader

Do you read a lot of blogs regularly? If so, I sure hope you recognise the symbol above. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It sounds all technical, and it is on the back end, but not where you need to worry about it. I couldn't get by without my RSS reader - or at least, life would be that bit less interesting.

An RSS reader, or feed reader, takes all the article titles of the blogs you are subscribed to, and drops them into a browser window or program - looking much like an email inbox. You can scan the titles, click to read any that interest you - most right inside that same window without going to the blog page itself (Jump code = the bane of RSS readers, but at least it's fairly rare).

I guess the best thing is that I can skip right by anything that doesn't grab me. No blogger is going to write something that fascinates me every single time. Therefore, I have saved hours I might otherwise spend in going to various blog sites one after another (and how often??) to see what they've got.

The reason I post this today is because I still see people talk about visiting blogs regularly. What a time-suck! Of course, if I want to comment or read comments, I have to click through to the site, too. But in this way I can at least keep a finger on a ton of things that interest me, from fandom news to the publishing industry, from typography to photography, from serial fiction to art and design. Yeah. Where did you think I got all this stuff? ;)

What about you - do you use a feed reader?

Hold it! Too many posts!

What the heck is that girl doing? I know, I can hear you all the way over here. I hear the scepticism too, I have some myself—I’ve tried blogging regularly before, tried and failed many times. But I think I was looking at it the wrong way, as if every post had to be a well-thought-out article of good length, and, well, that’s no fun to write. Not to me. I mean, really. Back to school, anyone? I hated essay writing more than just about anything.

So I’m going to stick to short posts, random thoughts, unprocessed spilling of guts, and I’m going to keep it fun. Of course I’ll often circle back around to topics of writing and books—I can never get away from who I am, and you won’t either if you hang around—but I also expect to be posting plenty of Doctor Who memes, my own photography, funny animals, fontspotting, perhaps an occasional poem or videoblog, and certainly some little tales of life in New Zealand. Because it’s a cool place and you all want to hear about it, right? Personally, I think you should all move here. I get sad living so far from so many of my friends (kicks self. Get back on track!).

Anyway, hold tight. This should be fun!