New Blogging Spot

It’s been a year since my good writing friends over at AgentQueryConnect started their own group blog, From The Write Angle. Three times a week they post great info for writers. And now, I will be joining them!

I’m trying hard not to be the over-excited new kid, but I’m super thrilled and totally honoured. My first post will be next Friday, the 17th of 2012. It will be part of my Fabulous Five Fridays which will be five tips on various writerly subjects. The first post will be five tips on making memorable, layered characters.

The reason I’m telling you all this is because today they are ‘introducing’ me over on From The Write Angle and I’d love it if you stopped by to say, “hi!” See you over there. (Are you going there yet? Yes? Okay, I’ll zip over and say, “hi!” back!) Click here.

When the ‘Social’ Drops Out of Social Media

“The more followers and friends you have, the more awesome and important you are.”
–Clive Thompson (In Praise of Obscurity WIRED Magazine, Feb 2010, page 30.)

This begs the question: Is it true? (Sure!) Or more importantly, what is the impact of being that Pied Piper of Social Networking Awesomeness?

According to Thompson (quoted above), somewhere beyond having a few hundred/few thousand (depends on various factors) Twitter followers the social aspect of social networking breaks down. When you have a small gathering, like any social event, conversations happen and the group becomes a bit of a community with regulars throwing out ‘crazy’ ideas, bantering, and the building upon the thoughts of others. But once the event reaches a certain size, it becomes difficult for conversations to happen over the din and for those who know each other to meet up and converse. The example he uses in his article involves a Twitter maven who lost her small town feel around 13,000 followers (which is quite impressive actually–how she managed to keep that feel among so many followers makes her a rock star!). For her Twitterverse things went from a social event to dead silence.

To bring it down to a more personal level, when you see a blog with a ton of comments, are you likely to leave a comment? Or do you feel as I do–there is nothing left to comment upon and that you will simply get lost in the shuffle? As Thompson says of big audiences, “Not only do audiences feel estranged, the participants also start self-censoring. People who suddenly find themselves with really huge audiences often start writing more cautiously, like politicians.”

I’m not saying that amassing followers, friends, or blog commenters is a bad thing, however it is an interesting idea that the social aspect can reach its limits and fade away. I suppose there are limits to everything.

Adventure Land

Oh man, moving from one computer to another is a pain in the A-double dollar sign.

Don’t get me started on why it is a ‘bother’. You don’t realise how many different software programs you use until they aren’t there and you have to download them. Or even better, until you discover that they don’t work on Vista. And you have Vista. Of course. Or the ‘new and improved’ version is different enough that you can’t find the effin print button or do the things the manual says it should. Not that printing is a possibility since our network is in various states of disarray and I’d have to download drivers anyway…

So I went out for coffee with a friend today and since we went to this really cool little cafe that I like, I did my adventure in coffee land thing that I usually do. Today, I forked over $3.25 for a Green Tea Latte. I looooove their Chai Tea Latte, so why not green tea? I go through enough of it at home. So how was it? Well, let’s put it this way…I drank it because I paid $3.25 for it. So what did it taste like you ask? Well, seaweed actually. I know! Seaweed! “Hello? Yes, my green tea latte tastes like seaweed. Um, I know you don’t have to be a mermaid to like seaweed, but um, well, I don’t really care for seaweed in hot milk.” Oh well. Those are the risks you take in coffee adventure land.

Over in blog adventure land, there is this one IP address that keep spamming my blog. At first, I’d get the email saying there was a comment awaiting moderation and my stomach would do that little excited hiccup–you know what I’m talking about, right?–anyway, then I’d open the email and find it was this annoying site again. I’ve gone through the menus trying to see if I can block a URL or IP address. So far, no luck. But there has to be a way! There has to. And I will find a way. Oh yes, I will. I mean, I got spammed 9 times in the past 12 hours. 9! Yes, NINE! By the same site. Honestly, I’d like to march over there and tell them to ‘f**k right off.’ That is if they were within marching distance, which I am pretty sure they are not. So, I will get to the bottom of this even if I have to march electronically. My inner geek has some wicked inner resolve. (It’s the whole ‘inner’ thing twice, which means you’ve gone one ‘inner’ too deep and you’d better seatbelt up honey, cause you’ve gone too deep.)

Never Satisfied

So now that I have my site all revamped and this blog software down pat, I want to change it all. I have new ideas in mind. Ideas which, of course, will require me to learn all sorts of new stuff. That means that I likely won’t actually do it. Not yet, anyway. I think I will change the ‘theme’ of my blog page’s style though. I have decided that there are much nicer ones out there.

 There was an interesting post in the Ask Daphne section on KT Literary’s website which has got my stomach doing little flips. Here is a link: http://www.ktliterary.com/daphne.html. It is the posting on ‘what is published’. There is a growing debate in the comments section on whether to post writing samples or not on your website. I have posted mine and I think it is a good idea. At the same time, my stomach squeezes like a dishrag full of water at the thought of someone plagiarizing me or me doing something ‘wrong’ and wrecking my chances of getting published. Eeek!

I went blog hopping this morning and ended up on a blog that was really good. And it made me feel inferior. Which is silly because we all have our own style. I think fighting this cold has got me a bit down. Maybe I shouldn’t edit my own work this morning–I might slash and burn everything!

In the end, I think today is a day to hole up at home. Well, except that I have to go wrestle 20 4-year-olds wielding paint brushes this afternoon. That should be entertaining. I think I had better take some cold medication before I go. I will not succumb to this cold, I will not!