Looking back

I have started looking through poems that I wrote over the last 3 years or so. It is an interesting thing to do, as it allows you to look at a piece with fresh eyes. I think the most interesting part of looking back is that you get to decide if something is worth working on further to enhance your thinking a couple of years down the track. Or instead I have found, with some pieces, I scratch my head and wonder: what was I thinking.

One of the pieces I just posted that falls under a "re-discovered poem" is Faceting a Friend and next is Roller Coaster Ride. There are other pieces on my list, but they need more work before I put them up.

Planning changes to my blog

I have run into a couple of problems with the template of Behind Dreaming and this has made me think about whether I should make some changes. I realised that the date I posted was not listing and now I have fixed that. While I was finding the code for this I also discovered that those looking at this blog through Internet Explorer have been having the right-hand sidebar pushed below the main body of the blog. I have now fixed this.

By playing with this template I have realised it seems to take too long to load. So I am now thinking about matching the template of Behind Dreaming to my blog of poetry To Write is to Dream... This does not mean they will look exactly alike but I love the floating template of my blog of poetry. What will probably be different will be the colour theme and background image. So I guess this is a "watch this space" sort of post.

The other things I want to change in both blogs is to make it clearer that the current Search Box is to search only each blog. I am also aiming to add a Google Search Widget so those who come across my blog can then keep moving along: though I would still prefer you to all stick around :-). I am hoping by posting these plans that it will motivate me or more even get my editor to have a reason to remind me that I posted these plans.

I have tried to avoid adding advertising though I am aware that especially in IE a pop-up add started appearing a few months back, maybe longer. Maybe I should start thinking a bit about advertising as well, though I will not rush into this.

The other long term plan is to add more to the connected delicious account and add a greater range of labels to different sorts of writing blogs. You can only have so many that only have poetry/poet and blog. Once I have enhanced these bookmarks I am thinking that I should make them easier to access on this blog. I would love if some of the writers of the blogs I may have bookmarked could give me some ideas of labels so others can find there blogs this way as well. If you also have a delicious account that is writing related please let me know so I can add it to my network. I have actually created this delicious account for this reason and have other accounts for personal and work bookmarks.

Finally I have recently added Feedburner to both my blogs but I am aware that it has been having problems lately.

Creative Commons: answers to my ?s

I was just at the ALIA Information Online conference 2009 and I took the opportunity to seek answers to some of my questions I have about Creative Commons (CC). One of the speakers was Jessica Coates who is the Project Manager of Creative Commons Australia. Jessica was at IO2009 to talk about preserving digital objects, when the act of preservation may run into conflict with copyright, but I will not go into that in this post even though it was fascinating and Jessica did a fantastic job.

I spoke to Jessica about CC after her presentation. Now I want to place a "I may have heard this wrong" statement at this point. Please feel free to correct me if I get it wrong :)

Some of the questions I asked about CC are:

• Q: I now live in New Zealand but I am Australian so I have been using a Australian Creative Commons license. Was this the right thing to do?
  
• A: Pick the jurisdiction that you would want to take legal action in if someone else happened to ignore the CC license you have selected.
  
• For me that would be Australia
  

• Q: I have run into problems with my blog of poetry in that I want to mostly apply a CC BY-NC-SA license to most of my posts but there are a few poems I posted that I selected the option BY-ND. What should I do in this situation and will one licence make the other void?
  
• A: Place a statement on my blog along the lines that 'Most content falls under a BY-NC-SA unless otherwise stated on a post'.
• I intend to do this as soon as I get my act together :-)

• Q: I have made the choice of Non-Commercial (NC) for my blogs under CC. My thinking behind selecting NC was so that you the reader can copy, save, share, and remix (unless otherwise stated) most of my content but you can not then go and make money from it. Does this now mean I can not make money from what I have put under NC myself?
  
• A: I can make money but others can not

These questions have been on my mind for months and I have even posted about it in the past. It was great to finally have some answers and also some ideas of how to proceed from here. Thank you Jessica :-D

The other thing I have learned about CC from experience is that if you choose to use CC on your blog, especially if you are also feeding your posts to other places, it pays to place CC on each of the posts. This means that what others can do with the content always goes with the post and/or they then do not have to scroll to the bottom to realise that as a reader they have certain rights. I realise I have not been doing this with Behind Dreaming and maybe I should.

Rain

I moved to the New Zealand South Island almost a year ago. From the moment I arrived in Dunedin I felt at home. This city, though many would consider it too small to be called that, makes a creator feel like they can simply be themselves. The richness of the creative culture within Dunedin can be clearly seen by how it supports is writers.

In October 2008 there were celebrations held for the 50th Anniversary of the Robert Burns Fellowship. I was lucky enough to be able to attend many of the sessions that different Burns Fellows spoke at: poets, novelists, playwrights, ... so much talent in one room. Not being from New Zealand meant that this was my introduction to some wonderful New Zealand writers.

One of the sessions was to remember those Fellows who had died. It was in this session that I first heard a poem that let my imagination take flight. The poem was Rain and its creator is Hone Tuwhare. This post seems an inadequate way to share the poem Rain with you so I will end this post with a recommendation. Click on the link Rain and then find a someone else to read the poem to you, so you can close your eyes. I hope like I did that you will then hear, smell, feel and see the rain.

Confessions of a Blogger!

Do you want to know what I think the worse thing a blogger can do?

• Some would think that it is blogging about something you know will annoy others.
  
• I have a few people I know that would suggest it may be not re-reading what you post before pressing publish: though I have seen a few blogs that really could use an editor ;-).

I am sure you can add other things that could be considered the worst thing....

For me the worst thing a blogger can do is to sit there with your blog and expect others simply to come to you just because your blogs exists. The most important thing for a blogger to do is to appreciate that there are most likely 1000s, if not more, blogs out there that are just like yours - what makes you so special? Tell me if you think I am wrong.

The thing that can make your Blog special is that you are willing to participate! Yep that is right - get out there and network with at least a % of those many blogs like yours and other blogs that you think are worth encouraging to continue. No Blog is an Island - if you want it that way then I suggest you start a LiveJournal and lock your posts down to you, yourself .... : so no one else can read them.

My confession is: Up until about 6 months ago I was an Island. I sat there alone and did not show any, or really not enough, appreciation towards those who have supported me since the beginning. So what changed for me - well the facebook application NetworkedBlogs has recently helped, but I think it was simply that I realised there are some fantastic blogs that need myself and others to support them. Blogs whose authors need to know others care about what they post. Another realisation for me occurred when my Blog of Poetry reached the age 2 years old and I wanted to do something to celebrate - hence this blog Behind Dreaming. And working on this blog has made me want to become more active.

My other confession is more "Wow having a blog of poetry did not work out the way I intended when I began". When I started blogging well over 2 years ago I did so because I wanted to share my poetry with my friends, family and anyone else I thought might be interested. By posting my poems to a blog they are open to anyone I know to read and there is also a sort of interesting risk that someone may come along and tell you to get a life ;-). Well I am happy to say that being told to get a life and to not give up my day job has yet to happen. Though I do love my day job so I am not in a rush to give it up. I have realised that many of the ones I wanted to share my poetry with do not come to my blog, as they are simply too busy. Feeding my poems into My Notes in Facebook has helped, but I still have been known to prod friends on occasion to say 'hey look at what I did'. There are those solid group of friends who do actively read my post and they know who they are. Though if they want others to know who they are let me know and I will post a 'Reader Roll' so I can name names: my version of a Little Black Book.

This acceptance helped to get over my initial goal and to look beyond my Island and realise the world of Blogs and other such tools is a wonderful place to be. I now want to find others who may learn to care about what I have to say and for me to be able to find the work of those I can not help but love.

So on this day of confessions I want to send a BIG thank you to Barbara Flowers for emailing, on a work list, the idea of creating a community of blogs. This idea entailed Barbara running a core site and all our blogs would be linked to it. Now at this point of the post I will tell you the worst thing I have done as a blogger is to not show Barbara and the rest of the Queensland Writers' Group a greater appreciation for their wonderful writing. I have also not thanked them more for providing the chance to belong to a community of fantastic writers.

If you love short stories then I recommend Barbara's latest post The brothel-keeper's tale, which is a story that captured me. I especially love the character Tillie. There are many stories on Barbara's blogs. Barbara has also posts poems and the one I want to highlight today is The usefulness of thoughts.

To help Barbara, Skye Gurtner and I have been added as authors of the Writers' Blog. Skye has added her first post about a wonderful book she found called ''Bird by Bird: some instructions on writing and life'' by Anne Lamott. You can read more of by Skye at her blog. I am mulling over what I will write for my first post and I am thinking about writing of my experiences as an Australian Poet in New Zealand or more specifically Dunedin.

So was this a shocking confession: you are probably thinking no. I was not actually striving to shock. I simply thought is was worth admitting my mistakes. However, I am willing to take suggestions for how I can make my posts more shocking :-)

Contributing to Creative Commons

• Do you use Creative Commons?
• Do you have an interest in using Creative Commons?
• Do you want to know more about Creative Commons?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then you should check the Creative Commons wiki out. The CC wiki contains a vast range of information for all types of CC users, which has been created to help you make the most of Creative Commons.

I also recently posted about the 'Case Study' Creative Commons has produced about how CC been applied in areas like Music, Literature, Visual Arts and Education. My post Building an Australasian Commons: Case Study will direct you the Case Study which can be downloaded in PDF.

Winters Sonnet 2.0

Through the Facebook application NetworkedBlogs I met Carol Ward who invited me to join Teesside Writer's Network. Recently she messaged all its members and asked if anyone had poems about Teeside or winter in general.

It just so happened that about 6 months ago I gave myself a poetry challenge - to try and write my first sonnet. Winters Sonnet 2.0 was the outcome of that challenge. The 2nd sonnet I wrote while I was completing the challenge was Enduring which I posted on my blog of poetry.

The reason why I have not posted Winters Sonnet to my blog was because I was not sure what I wanted to do with it. So when I saw Carol's request for poems about winter I thought why not :-)

You can currently read Winters Sonnet 2.0 on the Teesside Writers Network Latest news - Teesside Poems page - it is the 3rd poem down. Let me know what you think.

I want to thank my 'own personal editor' Graeme for helping me with this challenge. I also want to thank Carol for not only inviting me to join Teesside Writer's Network but for also posting my poem on the Teesside page.

Writers' interaction with the Digital World

In December I posted about The writer’s guide to making a digital living, which are tools for Writers that the Australia Council for the Arts has produced.

This not only contains a very detailed Writer's Guide for many types of Writers but it also has other tools such as the poster and video.

However my favourite of these tools would have to be the interactive one as this makes me realise just how many opportunities there are for Writers in the Digital World.

Welcome to the New Writers Universe - where the Galaxy is your playground...

5 Lesser-Known Benefits to Creative Commons

5 Lesser-Known Benefits to Creative Commons is an article at the Blog Herald which covers some unsung virtues of CC licenses for bloggers.

So for the 2nd time today I found something about Creative Commons I wanted to share. I found out about both these things through Twitter - @creativecommons and @CC Australia.

Building an Australasian Commons: Case Study

"In August 2008, as part of the new CC Case Study Wiki initiative, CC Australia published the accompanying print volume Building an Australasian Commons: Creative Commons Case Studies Volume 1. Edited by staffer Rachel Cobcroft, Volume 1 includes more than 60 case studies - http://creativecommons.org.au/casestudiesvol1"

The readable PDF version is available here
(Note: this PDF is quite large so it may take some people a bit of time to download)

This Case Study "provides detailed evidence of the ways in which CC licences is being used by creators and institutions along with an explanation of their motivations"

If you use Creative Commons or have any interest in doing so then you should visit the Creative Commons wiki

Rachel, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and everyone else that worked on this have done a wonderful job :-)