Jun

Half empty, or half full?

Content is a battlefield!

Well, I am sure that the original lyric was “Love is a battlefield” (by Pat Benatar) but then maybe the line wouldn’t be so relevant to my present situation.

You see, I love writing and this page is supposed to be about my experiences as a writer. The problem comes from the fact that writing is a solitary pursuit. I mean, sure, the final product is meant to be read and enjoyed by others - hopefully lots of others, but the actually activity itself is a solitary one. As such there are no pretty pictures to link to (so no Flickr) and definitely no video. I mean, how interesting would two or three hours video of a guy staring at a screen, typing a bit and then staring at a screen some more be?

As I am still very much a wannabee writer a list of my previously published work would also be pretty short. Very short… Even if there was a long list of credits, surely the idea is to get people to go look up and hopefully buy/loan the original publication: as that publication previously paid you something for your work and the money you received allows you to eat?

Next up: Self publishing of material you hope to sell in the future voids first printing rights and so the whole area seems to be a bit of a dead end until you have a large back catalogue. It also seems a bit daft, to be honest. I mean, if it was assessed by a professional editor and found wanting in some respects then perhaps the best place for it really is the anonymity of your personal hard drive? It seems to me that too many people want to publish all kinds of rubbish already, some of them even have blogs!

Hmm.

Articles relating to the writing process itself seem to be out too. As I am newbie it seems absurd to offer “advice”, especially as I am the one in need of it! So maybe there is a slant to be had from writing about learning lessons? Well, maybe. Except, again, I just can’t see how that makes worthwhile reading for other people right now. It seems too personal and idiosyncratic. Also, advertising my ignorance of the whole subject might be kind of like shooting myself in the foot if this page is ever act as a positive advertisement for my skills.

The best use I can see, at least right now, for this website is the development of “voice”. As such, it becomes a public journal kind of thing. Maybe this is true to the original idea of blogging, maybe not.

About the only thing I can solidly promise right now is that I will try my best to make it more interesting to read than “Dear Diary…”

Thoughts anyone?

(original image of Pat Benatar from Flikr via linked wikipedia article.)

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Apr

No such thing as a free lunch

Posted by: Dave in Internet

Although I have used Wordpress before and am passingly familiar with html/php etc., I have no desire to relearn coding in order to present this blog to a reasonable graphical standard. I believe that doing so would mean putting this blog online was actually stopping me from writing rather than helping me. The end product is words on the page, right? Not a retraining exercise…

For this reason I have been looking for decent pre-made blog themes that don’t make me immediately yawn or look exactly like every other blog out there. Another consideration is that the theme should use standards compliant code and present well in a number of browsers and resolutions. A final although perhaps paramount point, is that that it should be relevant and maybe even suggest writerliness (is that even a word?).

Admittedly, the final point is more to convince myself than any possible readers!

In the long term, I will eventually use a paid theme or maybe even hire someone to code something unique, but as a stop gap a free theme seems ideal, as it saves time and costs little apart from some minutes spent in the search itself.

Wordpress.com does of course offer a number of free themes but apart from a couple of magazine/newspaper themes nothing seemed appropriate or grabbed my attention. Searching on Google I came across a number of free wordpress theme sites such as themeforest.com, wp-themes.com both of which deserve a mention along with some other sites that do not.

Incidentally, the theme that this site is currently using (11th April, 2009) came from http://rednano.us/paper1/

Giving a link to a themes author or website, especially when using a free theme such as this, is a good and necessary thing. It gives back to the author for their work and it is for this reason I supply the link here. My only criticism of the theme is the use of base 64 encoded links within the template code. This is sadly a common occurrence which I feel merits some discussion.

What I find objectionable is links in similar obfuscated code to other sites where the content is unrelated to the author or the website using the template. Although the embedded links in this template were harmless, links in other templates were less so.

Why do it at all? Search engines such as Google have long been able to tell a legitimate link placed in context from a link randomly placed in the code of a webpage and so it does not help the ranking of the page that is linked to. It is also a relatively simple matter to remove the offending code using Wordpress’s inbuilt template editor.

OK, so the theme is free and maybe I am complaining about nothing. After all, if I don’t like it, don’t use it, right?

Well, it is just that I find the underhandedness of offering something for free and then putting in unasked for and unmentioned “extras” objectionable. Either tell people that the template contains hidden links (this admittedly defeats the object of hiding them) or ask users to make sure they link back, such as I have done earlier in this post. This way the transaction is honorable for all parties and no one feels cheated.

Do I dream an impossible dream?

Tags: base64, free theme, Wordpress

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Apr

Writer’s write, right?

Posted by: Dave in Writing

I have heard a rumour that if you want to be a writer the best way to achieve this is to write something. Crazy huh?

Of course, it might be better from the point of view of anyone reading what you write if you have something to say, but looking around at the world, maybe I am being to much of a “purist”?

Tags: Writing

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Apr