I have a new space to work in - I decided that the shared back room was not working for me and often found myself trying to write laptop or notebook balanced on knees - and with all and sundry coming and going around me - so I have found a corner and set up the camping table from the shed.
It works surprisingly well - is probably just psychological but sends out a clear signal to me and my family that I am doing something and shouldn't be disturbed.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Writing online
it is easy to just write and stick it up there and somehow because of its immediacy it can be thoughtless - a bit too unconsidered. When you blog for example there is no period of waiting and going back to redraft it -it is live straightaway. In a way this is good get things out and make space for other ideas - I do go back in though and edit later and sometimes use this blog to record a quick thought that I can return to later - I will for example return and re-write this - this does feel a bit like cheating? perhaps - At the moment I am confident that no-one is reading it and so it doesn't matter I suppose if you have a following you need to be more considered - You can write a draft and save it rather than publish it - maybe I should do this.
Blogs and time
Another issue for me is time - especially writing as a fictional character (http://sylvia-menorca.blogspot.com/) - I have had gaps when I haven't had time to write entries and have felt the need to explain them in the plot - I like this way of writing in that I have approached as an improvised - kind of random method - sitting down picking up the story and just writing - it's quite liberating - and so far I am quite pleased with it. But it does mean that as a writer you are not in control of part of the structure - it is time based - time recorded if it is two weeks since your last entry it is two weeks - there it is - you can't change it - you could if you needed / wanted to log on every day create an entry and then go back in and write at a more leisurely pace and consider each entry - but that would be time consuming.
The other issue is tine for the reader = The blog always starts in the present - so we in some ways it is like reading backwards - This is difficult with out careful plotting from a narrative point of view - I would like to try this one time - for now I am not considering this and just writing - As a reader I did find that it made the Twiller (http://twitter.com/#!/mrichtel)- impossible to read - I did scroll back to the beginning and read from there - but it was several pages- and annoying - Now it is bury deep in the blog and takes some scrolling to reach - I suppose one way is to make the navigation as easy as possible with the titles for each entry -
Writing for my site - I became very bogged down with the look of the site and also felt uncomfortable wiring about me - so sought refuge in the visual design - I couldn't think who would read this - finally I thought about sending out details to get people to read my work - so the idea was to place me and my writing in context - my background - where I was from - literally in terms of geography - I used google maps - and in terms of my interests - my work - my family -
In terms of the way I use the web - I use social book marking as a way of organising my bookmarks / links and as a way of sharing them with others and finding recommendations - A good way to waste an extraordinary amount of time is to look up links in delicious - anyway - this is definitely a current web trend to use different depositories for your content and link them via a central hub - your site and this works well - so video content on vimeo, photos in a fllickr album - writing in a blog and link it all together -
Also I wanted the idea of streams of writing - flowing in parallel and the notion of dipping in one and another and the direction your thoughts and therefore writing is flowing - again placing me in context of what I read and look at.
It does however all get lost in a sea of stuff and how to drive traffic to the site is an issue - I found few sites that I liked and was more drawn towards artists / designers sites like - http://www.wemadethis.co.uk - http://www.juliemyers.org.uk/flora.data/ - because the web is a visual medium.
I wanted the nostalgia of the old penguin books and the concept of travel - escapism going somewhere when we read - all fairly obvious stuff really - but I think this does fit with my writing -
Blogs and time
Another issue for me is time - especially writing as a fictional character (http://sylvia-menorca.blogspot.com/) - I have had gaps when I haven't had time to write entries and have felt the need to explain them in the plot - I like this way of writing in that I have approached as an improvised - kind of random method - sitting down picking up the story and just writing - it's quite liberating - and so far I am quite pleased with it. But it does mean that as a writer you are not in control of part of the structure - it is time based - time recorded if it is two weeks since your last entry it is two weeks - there it is - you can't change it - you could if you needed / wanted to log on every day create an entry and then go back in and write at a more leisurely pace and consider each entry - but that would be time consuming.
The other issue is tine for the reader = The blog always starts in the present - so we in some ways it is like reading backwards - This is difficult with out careful plotting from a narrative point of view - I would like to try this one time - for now I am not considering this and just writing - As a reader I did find that it made the Twiller (http://twitter.com/#!/mrichtel)- impossible to read - I did scroll back to the beginning and read from there - but it was several pages- and annoying - Now it is bury deep in the blog and takes some scrolling to reach - I suppose one way is to make the navigation as easy as possible with the titles for each entry -
Writing for my site - I became very bogged down with the look of the site and also felt uncomfortable wiring about me - so sought refuge in the visual design - I couldn't think who would read this - finally I thought about sending out details to get people to read my work - so the idea was to place me and my writing in context - my background - where I was from - literally in terms of geography - I used google maps - and in terms of my interests - my work - my family -
In terms of the way I use the web - I use social book marking as a way of organising my bookmarks / links and as a way of sharing them with others and finding recommendations - A good way to waste an extraordinary amount of time is to look up links in delicious - anyway - this is definitely a current web trend to use different depositories for your content and link them via a central hub - your site and this works well - so video content on vimeo, photos in a fllickr album - writing in a blog and link it all together -
Also I wanted the idea of streams of writing - flowing in parallel and the notion of dipping in one and another and the direction your thoughts and therefore writing is flowing - again placing me in context of what I read and look at.
It does however all get lost in a sea of stuff and how to drive traffic to the site is an issue - I found few sites that I liked and was more drawn towards artists / designers sites like - http://www.wemadethis.co.uk - http://www.juliemyers.org.uk/flora.data/ - because the web is a visual medium.
I wanted the nostalgia of the old penguin books and the concept of travel - escapism going somewhere when we read - all fairly obvious stuff really - but I think this does fit with my writing -
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