Arguing with a brick wall

I will involved in a discussion through a Facebook group "Guy Who Threw His Shoes at Bush" about whether it was respectful or not to have done so to a leader of a country. In case you do not know, the name of the man who threw the shoe is Muntazer al-Zaidi and he is a journalist. The reason I bring this up is because it had my creative brain thinking - well at least 1 or 2 of those who were posting did. Not because I thought wow that is something I had never thought about before - it was more the fact that not only did they have a completely different perspective from me but they had long, very long, reasons to back it up. From the beginning of what became a very heated discussion I found certain flaws in their argument, not because I disagreed with them, but simply because they put something on a pedestal and then proceeded to insult anyone that disagreed with their point of view. Which is how I come to call this post "arguing with a brick wall".

I wrote a poem about it, which of course once I posted it was ripped to shreds: called Into the Wind. Though in the end that was more amusing than anything else, as truthfully this poem was a 1 in the morning sort of creation. I admit it is not one of my best poems but I felt like everyone was hitting their head against the wall and in some cases simply throwing up their hands and walking away: so I 'had to' say something about it. To the one that commented about the poem, it is full of "predictable lefty dogma" with "Utopian touches". I did respond to their feedback, which included thanking them for their feedback.

While tweaking the poem, with the help of my friend, I was reminded of another poem I wrote a while back and then recently re-posted when I made some changes to it called Walk the Line. I started this post because I realised I should share what brought about this poem. Like Into the Wind, this poem does not have to be only stuck and centred around my initial thinking. Others may read them and get a completely different image from them. I will not be unhappy or upset. I spent a little too long at University pulling a part too much literature, which in many ways took the fun out of it all. That is one of the reasons you can not really find much information on my blog of poetry about what inspired each poem. I want others to decide what they think it is about. I would also love to know what others get from what I have written and what imagery came to mind when they read it.

Walk the Line came into my life after I encountered a blog called Baghdad Burning, whose author called herself Riverbend. I found this blog when the book, which contains many of the earlier posts came across my desk. It was about her life after the US and other coalition forces arrived in Iraq. The last post was after her family left Iraq in October 2007. One of the main reasons that this blog has left such an impact upon me is because Riverbend has an amazing ability to see from many perspectives. She strives to not be 'anti' and shows true sorrow at all the lives that have been lost on all sides of this war.

I mainly read the book of the posts and then the 2nd volume that was published because the writer who brought the posts together also added information along the way about events that were occurring while Riverbend was posting. The 1st volume in 2005, won 3rd place for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage and in 2006 it was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Burning.

The most amazing thing about the thread was that someone else also posted a poem called Saracen, which is raw and beautifully written.

Keeping up with what I am following

As I have sought to follow more and more blogs. Especially the ones that contains poetry and stories of other authors, it has made me realise I need a better way to manage all of these blogs. The thing I have found with Web2, and helping others to understand Web 2.0, you need a reason to set up a tool so it works for your needs. Part of finding a reason is to not feel guilty about the time it may take to set it up. I know enough about Readers that I knew it would not be too hard to set one up, I just had little use for one before now. So the other day I made the time to set one up.

I already have many Google Accounts but through my job I had heard some great things about Netvibes - so I have gone with Netvibes. This does not mean I will not look into Google Reader it just was a good opportunity to look at a different tool.

I like what I have played with so far. I have created different tabs for my range of needs. So far I have set up things like friends' journals and creative blogs. When trying to decide what blogs belonged in each tab I made the decision to put a blog I discovered Don't Be A Slut in with my friends' journals. This decision was based on the fact that this is more like a journal of the author's life and the lessons she hopes that others, especially women, can learn from.

One other thing I have learned from my experience with delicious and helping others set up their own accounts: with Web2 you need to draw a line in the sand. By this I mean that Netvibes indicated that I had not yet read any of the blog posts, even though in many cases I had. I clicked them all to indicate that I had read everything so I can from this point on I know when each author posts something new. This does not mean I will not go and read a blog and older posts, it just allows me to do so when I have the time to.

The Commons: past, present & future

In the last couple of days I have added a widget to promote Creative Commons. I have done this because as a creator who posts their work online this movement has given me tools that let me clearly communicate what I am comfortable with others doing with what I post. I wonder what the next 6 years will be like for Creative Commons: I hope they do succeed in breaking down needless barriers in science and education. The following takes well over an hour to watch - though you should not let this stop you :-)

The Commons: Celebrating Accomplishments, Discerning Futures*


*this will also link you to the video on YouTube

Widgets and Gadgets - oh my...

While trying to add code from a widget that allowed others to save/share/bookmark my blog I also added another subscription widget. Now there is more than one widget that lets you subscribe on both of my blogs. One thing I have noticed is that the template for this blog Behind Dreaming calls a Widget a Gadget - there is really no difference between them but it is a thing worth noting.

While adding the code for these to widgets I also noticed that Blogspot now have more widget options. I can let people become Followers of my blog. This made me think that if I was not willing to follow both my blogs why would anyone else - so I am now following myself. I am already doing this in twitter because I have both a work and personal account.

Another widget is My Blog List which is also known as a Blog Roll. I am so glad I did not have to figure out the widget code for that one, as I was intending to figure out how to add a blog roll to both my blogs.

Though the thing that surprised me is that I had forgotten to add the Archive Widget to Behind Dreaming. That was an oversight on my part and it now has one.

I thought it was worth mentioning where you can access the widgets that I have added. One of the main reasons being that I have seen other blogs mention them, but not actually where you can find in some instances the code or if they are simply part of the options that comes with the blog account you have.

The Writer's Guide to the Galaxy?

The Australia Council for the Arts have created a resource for writers in the digital world called The writer’s guide to making a digital living. I am slowly working through this guide and it has already provided with food for thought. Even if you are not from Australia this guide is worth a look. The poster that you can also get from here New WRITING Universe is a brilliant snap shot of different paths for writers in the digital world.

If you want to know more about Creative Commons from an Australian perspective then I recommend following Elliott Bledsoe's Creative Commons blog. It was through this blog that I found out about The Writer's Guide to the Galaxy?

There is also the option to get updates directly from Creative Commons Australia via twitter.

How Facebook is helping me to find a new audience

I have been feeding my blog of poetry into the Facebook application My Notes for a while now. This has been a great way to make others I know aware that I have a blog of poetry.

I have now also discovered another application in Facebook called Blog Networks. Actually I have known about it for a while - I simply had not really explored its potential until about a week ago. This application has allowed me to list both of my blogs and say a little about each one. I have also found myself communicating with others who have simliar blogs. The added bonus of this application is that it has given me fantastic blogs to bookmark in my delicious account behind-dreaming, as well as adding many to my favourites in To Write is to Dream.

I wonder how far this application will take me. It has already reminded me that by having a blog I am part of a community and I should do more to support others.

delicious

I think I am finally getting some interesting blogs added to the behind_dreaming delicious account.

I think the next thing I will need to think about is looking at each site and the authors' writing style and giving better keywords to describe the site in delicious. Right now I think I have used the tags poetry/poet, blog and writing a little too much :-)

Slowly I hope to add to this account more sites that give advice to writers from all walks of life.

Finding a template that suits your mood

I started a few months ago wanting to find a template for my blogs that fit the mood of each blog.

The most important blog being To Write is to Dream and finding the perfect template for that in the end meant a lot of searching. I kept thinking I wanted a background with clouds and so I used that as a keyword in my search. I ended up finding the floating template that I am currently using - however there was a problem. The image used as the background would break if you viewed my blog through IE or had a larger monitor and so forth. I knew that the template was what I wanted and could figure no easy way to fix the image problem.

At the same time I wanted to make it easier to browse my blog. The first widget I used was the cloud tag widget and I have included this widget in all my blogs. However, this still did not seem enough. The answer to how I could make my blog more searchable came when I found the template for this blog Behind Dreaming. This template had tabs that I could name myself and add URL that I wanted. Further stil,l there was a widget that meant I could search the blog's content. Now this is where I admit that I took the code from this blog and added it to my main blog. However, by doing this I had created a new problem. The black colour of the tabs and search box also came with the code as it was a part of their images.

I would like to say at this point it was my genius that helped me figure out how to remove the black images - but I am a wee too honest to let the occur. The links to the images broke within this template and of course within the code I had transferred across. It made this blog look silly but meant I now had the tabs and search box looking perfect for my main blog. So I was very happy on one hand and annoyed on the other. I found where the creator had moved the template images and replaced all the links. I then left main blog alone with the broken links. Now I was truly happy.

So a note at this point: you should save your templates for your blog somewhere else, especially the images embedded within the template. There are different accounts that you can store the images like photobucket or if you have a paid LiveJournal account.

The last stage of creating a blog template that suits the mood is to think of combining a template you like and then changing things like colours and images to fit what you want. This is why you need to back up your template. The other night I have a moment of clarity and realised that the perfect image for the background of my main blog To Write is to Dream was something my friend had taken. After going through many of Graeme's photos we selected the one we thought worked best. If you like the background image then you can see more at Araquel's Pictures, which I have directed you to the landscapes.

This same friend kindly has provided a link to the high res image from one of his accounts. So thank you Graeme for allowing me to use the image and also providing access.