Yesterday marked the beginning of my first cold of the season, so now I’m officially sick, and while not forced to stay in bed, I have to admit that my brain isn’t really able to, er, process important, complex and detailed information today. As a result, my usual reflexions on writing and the like will resume as soon as possible (probably this Sunday, given that I’m supposed to be away for the week-end on top of it).

However, because I don’t want to leave this entry at that, I’m also going to announce that the Niner Niner network doesn’t require any beta password to sign up anymore, from what I got told earlier on this week. Anyone who’d be interested to write for them, you can register at http://ninerniner.com. It doesn’t cost anything, the network’s owners are really nice folks, and they have a range of blogs on varied enough themes for everyone to possibly find at least one domain of interest there, even a very minor one. I’ve had quite some fun working with them so far, they’re pretty laid back, and it’s even pushed me to learn a few things I didn’t know before. If only for that, I have to be thankful. (And if you don’t want to post, you can of course read the blogs.)

Y Tags: blog | blogging | blog+network | writing

Alright, I’m a blogging freak these days, I admit it.

The thing is, as I mentioned some time ago, I have this Wordpress.com account sitting in silence, and I couldn’t decide on what I’d do with it. After having mulled over this during the week-end, I came to the conclusion that I could maybe use it to post about NaNo.

Let’s not be mistaken, I’m not going to post there three times a day, as I want to go on updating regularly here, and during November as well (if I manage to stop playing Might and Magic VI in the evenings for the Nth time, I’ll get more time for this kind of things anyway! Damned be this game for being so addictive). Knowing the way my mind works, I simply foresee that I may find myself wanting to babble about it more than would be healthy for the readers here—it is something specific, after all, and I don’t want to turn this place in a NaNo-only blog in November. By then, I’ll have lots of other topics to post on the Y Logs, too.

Besides, I really just wanted to use my wordpress.com account. Really.

So… Yzabel @ Wordpress.com will thus be used as “my NaNo blog”.

Y Tags: blog | NaNoWriMo | wordpress | writing

When I was younger, my dream was “to become a writer” (or should I use the word “author” here, since I was thinking of novels and of nothing else). To be honest, this is still my dream, and this is the reason why, after all these years, I’m still pumped up about writing. I’m a very cyclic person who jumps from one interest to the other in a matter of weeks, months or of 2-3 years at the most, but writing has never left me. Even when I’d spent time playing MMORPGs and tabletop RPGs, half of my interest in these was that I could write the adventures of our characters afterwards, or make up “parallel” or “intermediary” stories. I still have boatloads of these. It was still writing.

Here’s an interesting post—wielding quite an amount of questions— that I picked on Darren’s blog: signatures in blog comments.

Because I was too tired to develop in my own comment there yesterday, here’s my own opinion on the matter:

• I’m technically okay with signatures in comments on this blog, provided they’re not cumbersome: a name and a link is enough. However, so that you know, posts containing any link are screened and must be approved by yours truly before being published. This is an anti-spam measure.


• “Signature” does not equal “free pass for spamming”. Spammy comments will be immediately deleted, or never let in in first place (WordPress’ filter is a powerful one). Of course, what is considered spam or not is left to my own appreciation, but if the previous point is followed, you’ll be okay.


• Obnoxious signatures are a no-no, especially when they contain banners and other images, whatever their size. I’ve been editing images-signatures for a good five years on a variety of forums I’ve administrated, and trust me, they’re a serious bother.


• For me, it’s a matter of etiquette. I’ll courteously allow signatures in comments for people who’re courteous enough to keep it under sensible control.

Now, one may ask, what’s the point of adding a sig to a comment, given that most blog systems will let you enter a link to your website along with your name? Personnally, I know enough about blogs to know where to click if I want to visit someone’s webpage. One the other hand, not everyone knows that, and a commenter may want to leave a link to a different site of his, if it’s more related to the blog he’s commented on.

This said, don’t hesitate to go have a read at the comments on Darren’s posts. Many valuable opinions are represented there.

Y Tags: blogging | etiquette | signature

I’ve just finished reading Who’s There, the new ebook Seth Godin has put up on his blog, and I must say that it’s been a really interesting read, albeit too short to my liking, in a way. However, he goes to the essential, and in an understandable fashion: what more could one ask? The price? No worries, it’s even free, at least for the moment.

If, like me, you’re interested about reading here and there on the subject of blogging, don’t hesitate any longer, and download it here. The book isn’t about “how to blog”, but about why to blog, as a business owner as well as an indivdual who’d like to make his or her niche in the always expanding world of blogs. It also distinguishes the three “main types” of blogs, in a way that isn’t without reminding of the classifications theorized by John and Duncan.

On top of it, it’s nicely written and presented.

Y Tags: blogging | ebook | seth+godin