Happy BlogDay, on this fair end of afternoon of August 31st! In one of my recent posts, I’ve explained enough what BlogDay is, so I’m going to leave room today for the five blogs I want to recommend, and not gloss too much about what I’ve already written about. Have a good read!Read More
Some time ago, I’ve realized that when it comes to novels, one of my projects simply can’t be done in one book only. There is too much to be told, and trying to cram everything into 400 pages (or 500, or 600…) would be very detrimental to the story itself. This said, there is one thing I can’t determine: in the case of a trilogy, or of any other kind of series in more than two volumes, what is the consensus, if there can ever be any, on how each book should stand? What do readers as a whole tend to prefer? (I’m talking of fantasy and science-fiction mostly, as they’re the genres I like to write in, but opinions about every other kind of story are welcome.)There’s the stand-alone book, for starters. I’m not sure that lots of readers like to be left with the feeling of “having to buy” the next volume, and building frustration over this isn’t a pleasant thing. Evidently, here the marketer in each of us may chime in and say “but we need to keep the readers hooked, else they won’t buy the next volumes!”. To which I think I can answer by “then let’s write so well that they’ll want to read the rest of the series just for our style and brilliant ideas”. A noble goal, though really easier said than done. As a reader, I normally don’t have a problem with such stories, although I think they’re more adapted to a series longer than just two or three books. It works well, for instance, with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover world, but I wonder if it may not be a little weird for series with a “bigger picture” in tow.Read More
I realize I should have mentioned this earlier on, but there are so many things that cross my mind that I… forgot. However, it’s not too late, and BlogDay 2005 deserves a mention.To answer the evident first question about this, here’s what the BlogDay website has to say about it:
What is BlogDay?
BlogDay was initiated with the belief that bloggers should have one day which will be dedicated to know other bloggers, from other countries or areas of interests. In that day Bloggers will recommend about them to their Blog visitors.(Read Nir Ofir’s original post about BlogDay)
What will happen on BlogDay?
In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.
In a nutshell, BlogDay’s instructions are indeed easy to follow:1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting (possibly out of your usual sphere of reading, from another country…).2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2005.3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs.4. Post the BlogDay Post on August 31st.5. Add the BlogDay tag: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2005 and a link to the BlogDay web site at BlogDay website.I still need to decide, and I hope that I’ll make my mind in time… Regardless, this can be a nice way to recommend blogs and help people discover new ones.Y Tags: BlogDay2005 | blogging
Or, better, getting rid of it for a time, because the beast has been plaguing me for quite some time now. I simply didn’t have a name to give to it yet.As I was reading No Plot? No Problem!, I realized that often, I have a serious problem with my “inner editor”—this little voice that pushes me to take every text back again and again, even though it’s not finished, and polish it until it is “perfect”. Which in theory would be nice and useful, if only working this way didn’t mean taking my sweet, sweet time to finish something. Of course, it can never be perfect enough to my eyes, right?Oddly enough, I never have any problems with it when it comes to technical writing. Technical writing flows fast. Technical writing knows by itself where it’s supposed to head to. However, fiction is a whole other matter, and while I’m supposed to write well in both “genres”, it’d be really great if I could for once leave the Editor behind, and fully focus on writing. I can always edit later on, when it’s finished. Starting to do it while I’m still writing is just like shooting my own foot, preventing me from going further.Read More
Today’s entry is going to be a somewhat bitter reflexion, since I’m getting more and more tired of arguing about these things.Why is it that people keep on telling me that I’m too young to decide to remain childfree, but not too young to decide to take on the commitment of bringing up a child for 18 years? Why is it that they’re so sure that if I don’t have a child now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life? What gives them the right to speak in my name—and, come to think of it, is this attitude so natural to human beings, or am I just unlucky? Do we all have this tendency, about any matter and opinion that is?People seem to forget that I’m 26, not 16, with a professional life and a couple life as well since the past 5 years—not a kid barely out of her teens who doesn’t even know what to expect from life. Come to think of it, I’ve never had any desire to bring a child to this world. I’ve never even played like little girls did. When my parents offered me a carriage and doll for Christmas, I tossed the doll aside and played with the carriage’s wheels for hours on end. When “Santa Claus” came to our school, I cried because I couldn’t have a small car like the boys, and was stuck with ridiculous pink plastic pearls. The mock vacuum-cleaner? I turned it into a spaceship. The Barbie dolls? They became Lara Croft before Lara Croft ever existed. Anyone claiming that “every little girl already dreams of being a mother” should keep me out of this statement.Read More
Since I changed the graphic theme on this blog, I realized that I’ve added a little something to it that could maybe look confusing at first.See this little link under posts, where it says “trackback”? That’s it. So what’s a trackback, one might ask?Most people who use blogs already know what a permanent link (commonly called “permalink”) is: the direct link to a post. For instance, for this very entry I’m writing now, the permalink will be “https://ylogs.com/index.php/archives/trackbacks-unveiled” (easily available by simply clicking on the title of the post). Thanks to permalinks, it becomes easy to refer to entries from other blogs, and not direct your visitors to some front page with instructions of “scroll down to August 12th, the third article, made at 9:15” (which is, evidently, not convenient, especially knowing that blogs are very dynamic pages).Trackbacks act in the exact same way, with a notable difference: it allows a blogger to notify you that they’ve published an entry about a particular post of yours.Read More
I can proudly mention it: as a part of his 100 blogs in 100 days project, Duncan at The Blog Herald decided that my little corner of the web was worth a shot, and posted a nice little entry about it. To anyone reading these words and coming from there, thanks for paying a vist. I do hope that you’ll find here a few things that will get your interest.Once again, I’d really encourage anyone remotely interested in discovering new blogs to head there and pay a visit to the blogs who are and will be featured. Duncan sure isn’t here to pick the first random blogs passing his way, and so far the ones he’s linked to have all proved to be interesting.
The first time I ever read one of his works, I was in junior high and the book was called Martians, Go Home—where little green men out of the imagination of a failed author appear on Earth, driving everyone crazy by their silly attitude. Weird? Yes, weird, like many of Brown’s stories, from the knee-slapping funny ones to the disturbingly somber atmosphere instillated in the others. Weird, but so pleasant to read.At the time, I probably was a little too young to really appreciate this book. Fast-forward to high-school, when I picked one of his collections of short stories. At the very moment I was putting the book down, I realized that I liked this author, and that what I preferred above all were his endings. Each time I finished reading one of his short stories, I had one of these “I should’ve known it’d end like this!” jolts. They’re surprising, somewhat amusing, somewhat bittersweet, somewhat even more than that.It’s not only about science-fiction (he wrote in the mystery genre, too).. It’s about his writing as a whole, about his way of taking everyday people and situations, wondering “what if?…”, and firing off the pen and paper (today we’d probably say “the laptop”) to give them a much unexpected turn. Granted, not all of his works are of even quality, and the fact that he wrote in two different genres (science-fiction and mystery) may make it a little hard to fully dive into either of them, if one is a “categorizing reader”, that is.For whoever wants to search around, there are plenty of websites describing his life and works more in depth. However, I’m going to primary link to a few of his short stories. They’re indeed very short, not necessarily his most known ones, yet they’re already a good way to familiarize oneself with what is to be expected from his other works.
It was almost a given that I’d write about this soon, given how much I like using WordPress and am convinced that it’s really one of the best free blogging platforms available out there at the moment. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to test it myself as of yet (it’s not live yet, and on invite only at the moment). Not a problem, though, I already know enough to realize that whether I can test it or not, it’s going to be great.So what’s the fuss about WordPress.com? All that simply, it’s a system very similar to TypePad, in that it will host a blog for you in exchange for a payment (how much will this be, I don’t know yet; Typepad is 4.95$/month for the basic membership, if this can be a tool for comparison). The difference, evidently, is that said blog will be powered by WordPress and not Movable Type. The user doesn’t have to worry about renting webspace, tinkering with databases, going through the whole installation, and the likes. Sign up, create a blog, pick a theme, start blogging: that’s all there is to it. It’s not really a complicated process, is it?For more information, you can head at Lorelle’s blog at WordPress.com, where she posts about what you can and can’t do with this “new” installation. Sure, it won’t be free like, say, Blog*Spot. However, it’s also way better, and depending on the pricing and what one’s ready to invest, it can be a very valuable choice. Time will tell (soon, I hope) how this venture is going to turn out.Y Tags: wordpress
As you, faithful readers, can tell from the new layout here, I didn’t have too much time today to peruse more in depth the woes of the writer or the Secret Art of Blogging. My apologies for this. It’s past 10 pm, and I very much doubt that I’ll still have the energy to write a long, meaningful post before bedtime.With this said… Did I grow tired already of my former layout? Not exactly. I simply had this urge to tinker more deeply with a completely different kind of theme, this time in three columns (and not purple!), as it had been a while I was considering one. I did test it on a… test blog, yes, and with three browsers (namely FireFox 1.06, IE 6 and Netscape 7.0). However, if you were to notice any problems with it, please let me know. I’ll feel obliged to learn more by breaking the theme into pieces again and trying to fix the problem.Y Tags: theme | wordpress