Since I get a few questions every now and then as to my own projects and how they are faring, I figured I’d try something new, at least for me. You see, I’m a pretty private person, and I rarely want to talk about how I’m doing, especially when I’m doing good or great. Boasting is a bad thing where I come from, and sometimes this is holding me back. In short, I don’t like to pat myself on the back.
However, given the amount of e-mail I’m getting (not overwhelming, just enough for me to consider as a “problem”, for lack of better word), there is some interest as to what I’m up to, so I figured I’d try and do monthly status reports for a while, see how it fits. I might also work as a spur for me, something I’ve tried before with the OrnTales.com project, now a part of this very site.
So this is the first status report, tackling July 2008, even though there are a few days left. I doubt everything will change in that time, but if it does, I’ll let you know for sure. Read more
Mondays suck, I regularly have that awful Garfield moment where I realize it is Monday, and that I just don’t want it to be. It’s not that I hate my work week or anything, or that the weekend is such a killer that I want it to never be over, it’s more of a feeling of having to pick myself up. All the way up.
I really hate Mondays.
The good part about these blasted days is that it is when I do my weekly planning, giving myself weekly goals, and a todo list. I have done this for years, trying various ways to manage this system, and have found a model that works for me. It might not work for you, but if it doesn’t, you can always port it to some other way of managing it, to fit your workflow. Read more
Jason Calacanis quitting blogging has been widely reported, switching over to a newsletter format instead. I’m on that list, and I’m happy to say there’s been plenty of interesting e-mails from the Mahalo guy already. This isn’t surprising, the e-mail format doesn’t stress you to write on a daily basis, so Jason can stick to the good stuff, leaving out things not being as necessary to comment.
The last e-mail was on Knol (Wikipedia entry), Google’s “we’re not in the content business” project that so obviously is in the content business. I think that Knol is a step in the wrong direction for Google, if they want to keep their search domination. Think about it, how reliable is a search engine if some sources of information will be valued higher because they are owned by the search engine itself? We already get YouTube results pushed out on every search, and Knol is ranked high already, of course. Read more
The heat is making my head hurt today, totally killing my focus unless I take breaks. Taking breaks is always good, but mine get longer and longer, until they totally makes me fail my goals.
Wikipedia started it. I wanted to check up on that Robin guy who apparently left Guns n’ Roses, going back to Nine Inch Nails. Now, Axl Rose might be crazy or just slightly too much of a perfectionist, but why you’d want to go to NIN is beyond me… Anyway, that lead to the Guns n’ Roses entry on Wikipedia, which sent me to the page for upcoming album Chinese Democracy. I should’ve known where that would lead, should have just closed my browser and dived into the WordPress codex solving issues with the upcoming Blog Herald design. Read more
Laura Spencer over at Business and Blogging did a follow-up on my Would You Trust an Online Friend post, but with a slightly different twist. She takes the business blogger angle, naturally, and rephrasing the question like so.
In fact, I would ask the question in this way: Do your readers trust you enough to do business with you?
This is a valid question if any, for any blogger really, although the business could be swapped for if there is trust enough to follow a shopping advice, or even returning to your blog for more at all. Laura provides five suggestions on how business bloggers can build trust:
1. Be genuine.
2. Be reliable.
3. Be consistent.
4. Be responsive.
5. Be current.
Naturally, she’s got explanations for these in her post, all worth to consider. Read more
The sun had already set, and a chill wind caressed the Moranian lowlands, making the sharp plains grass lay low. It was a cold night, and a night for contemplating.
Stiel of Uthrom, the green-haired Knight-in-Waiting, hardly felt the cold. It was partly due to his heritage, the highlands were a harsh place to grow up in, but also because his mind was far away from the present. He sat on one of those rocks, said to be the scattered remains of the giants’ big mountain, gazing into the starry sky, not caring nor noticing that the fire had faded into glowing embers, biding their time or gasping for wonderful air to flare yet again.
The Knight-in-Waiting thought of his mother, of the Noble Brotherhood, and the stupid tradition of a people who really didn’t have the luxury of turning away a strong warrior. Stiel was honest with himself, he had excelled at the Academy, and should he only be able to prove himself in this, his Ceremonial Stand, he’d be on his way to greatness and glory. He didn’t doubt that. Read more
Let’s say you’ve got a friend (several, probably) that you’ve corresponded with online for years. You know how it is, a bunch of e-mails, maybe a group blog, some instant messaging, “digg this for me please”, hanging out in the same discussion groups and forums, those kind of things. You think you know him, he’s a friend.
However, you have never actually met this person. Maybe you’ve had a voice or video chat, but that’s it. Your primary way of communication is IM and e-mail. Read more
I had no idea that TechCrunch content was syndicated to Washington Post, but apparently it is. However, the solution seems a bit broken, just look at the screenshot below:
It is a syndicated version of this post, and the culprit is obviously the formatting of the line-breaked e-mail sent by Jason Calacanis (who incidentally quitted blogging recently), blockquoted in the TechCrunch post. Read more
I really should be getting my Moleskine notebook and see what I had planned on writing, picking anyone of my ideas, and get down to business. Unfortunately, I’m not going to do that, due to the slightly feverish state that I’m in.
I’ll let you in on a little secret instead, a technique I’ve used over the years to change my writing, and my experience overall.
I use music.
That’s right, the noise rushing out of my speakers is affecting my writing. There are albums that I, to this day, still connect to the work I did 10 years ago.
It is not so weird when you think about it. Say I’m writing fiction, say I want speed and action, a tense and dangerous situation. Listening to music with a rough beat will help me get to the right state of mind, whereas a slow love song will definitely ruin it all. Right now I’m not feeling too well, as I said, and the slightly disoriented mindset that this sets me in is something to use as well, so I’m making it even more unfocused and tumbling by listening to a PJ Harvey album. I have no idea what to do with it, other than to wrap up this blog post.
Music can help you get a sharper edge to your writing. Try it, you just might be amazed.
