Bloglove

I found the post Bloglove on my wonderful friend Laetitia's blog and I wanted to share this with others as well.

--------------------
If I love you I will link to you.

If you link to me, I will feel loved.


Go on. Share some love.
-------------------

Of course, Laetitia's link's are different from mine and I am sure you can keep following all the Bloglove being shared. Check out her blog to see to whom she has linked.

Cooliris: pictures upon a wall

The Cooliris plugin is a web browser plugin made by Cooliris that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images (wikipedia). The instructions for how to install Cooliris in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari is located via cooliris support. If you find yourself enjoying using cooliris as much as I am then you can also follow the cooliris blog. Once you have installed cooliris you are able to search things like Flickr and Google Images.

Searching images through cooliris is fantastic in that the images you find can be displayed on a wall. Cooliris then makes it easy to scroll across many images, focus on a particular image, bookmark your favourites and jump out to the site the image is located on. I had seen cooliris demonstrated at a conference last year. However, it was only when a colleague dropped the URL on my desk and said try this did I give it a go. They gave no explanation beyond that and I think you will only truly understand what cooliris is if you yourself give it a go.

While looking at cooliris the first time another colleague asked me what I was looking at. I showed them and then asked if there was something they wanted to search. They suggested trying to find a photo of the All Saints Church in Dunedin - so I put in the terms Saints and Dunedin. Then the most wonderful thing occurred: the first result was of them in the church, which had been taken by the local newspaper. They were thrilled :-)

This in itself is a wonderful way to find images yet it gets better.
The power of cooliris comes into play when you discover sites that have enabled cooliris - how to enable your site. As already mentioned Flickr, Google and Facebook have enabled cooliris.

Now to start my blogroll to show you why I love cooliris so much.

One of my favourite blogs is Secret Agent Mama: shooting from the hip. The photography is breathtaking and there is sprinkling of poetry throughout, which as a poet I love. Now go to the photostream in flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/secretagentmama and activate cooliris. I have to admit it took me a bit of playing to figure out how to look at a site like this in cooliris. At first I tried searching in cooliris itself with "secretagentmama" but I kept picking up other images as well.

I have discovered that any blogs on blogspot also seems to let you activate cooliris.
For me this means I can see a wall of amazing doodles that Beck posts on her blog BeckaDoodles. And then for a change I can view a wall of gorgeous vintage postcards from Cpaphil Vintage Postcards.

If you love history then you will really like the last example I will give you, which is via the National Library of New Zealand in the Manuscripts and Pictorial Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library digitised collection. Once you arrive at the site search for something like "shortland" and activate cooliris. Though I have noticed you might have to refresh once or dig a little before cooliris realises it should be working. Dr Edward Shortland was the nephew of one of my ancestors and to see his letters like this is fantastic.

Finding time

I finally found some time tonight to delve into the blogs I am currently following. I have family staying right now so I go through the guilt of ignoring them so I can instead spend time getting lost online. I will try to post while they are here and I guess this will be a test of how much of blogger I have become.

I have set up a couple of things within my blogs like my twitter @ally_cat feed. I have also set up a basic Flickr account and from this I have added a poetry slideshow feed into my blog of writing that contains images I created with poems contained within. I loved creating those images and I think it is time I create some new ones, as I have found they make a great screen saver at work: they are my personal signature.

I loved changing the template to this blog and everytime I look at it I feel the warmth of the colours. Thank you again Graeme for letting me use one of your images which fit perfectly to the colours I had already picked out :)

A new look & plans for the coming week

After playing with the layout for a bit I think I have gotten Behind Dreaming to where I want it to be: at least for now. This means having the same template as To Write is to Dream but I have altered the colours to suit my current mood. Like my moods I may look at this next week and want to make more changes.

My next challenge is to figure out how to refer to the online petition organized by the Creative Freedom Foundation on Monday morning. In New Zealand on February 28 a new copyright amendment to the Act is coming into force - Section 92a. Even though someone will be given 3 warnings about downloading content that is copyright protected: the kicker is really that that a person can have the internet access cut without the sort of evidence a court would require. Welcome to the age of Guilty until proven Innocent and the innocent part - well it does not seem very clear how you can prove your innocence.

Creative Freedom Foundation has some fantastic information on their site about what is happening in New Zealand. If you are not from New Zealand this does not mean it has no connection to you as there are other countries like Australia that are facing similar laws. You can bury your head and think it will not happen to you but never say never and try to remain informed just in case.

My profile picture here, in twitter and on Facebook have been blackout as a form of protest. Many others have done the same, including Stephen Fry in twitter.

On Monday there are many sites will refer people to the online petition organized by the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Wordle view of Behind Dreaming

Wordle is a wonderful way to view delicious tags.



These are a few ways to see the delicous tags for Behind Dreaming.

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 :-)

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.

Portfolio - 1

There is a certain amount of damage I do to my writing by trying to maintain a blog of poetry. By posting over 40 poems I have taken away from what I could strive to have 'published'. Not that I am saying that many of those pieces are ready, but there are few that I believe have potential.

The question I need to ask myself is should I stop posting when I love doing so? I want to not just call myself a poet, I also want to know that it is not just a dream I once had many years ago that I never grew out of. I know that my poetry has grown; but it is not hard to move on from the darkness and anger of ones teens, it is called growing up.

This post is not - this is how you create a body of work to submit for publication. The post is trying to figure out where to go from here. Where do I separate what I post from that which I put aside to try and have published?

Where to from here? I have grown fond of my blog of poetry and I do not intend to stop. I just have to find time to write more. Then I need to resist trying to share with all of my friends in such an open forum.

Though truthfully only 2 of my friends have felt comfortable pulling my poetry a part, at least in this forum. The thought of telling me how to change my poetry scares most people. So I am lucky that I have 2 people in my life that have found ways to teach me things, while not losing sight of the core of what I write. Thank you to them. I will prod both and point out I posted my thanks so they know that it is them that I am talking about. I have other people in my life that have the ability to guide my writing, they just have not done so via my blog.

If anyone stumbles upon this seemingly hidden blog and knows the answer to the question: how does one maintain a blog of poetry while at the same time grows a portfolio of work that has the potential to be published? - Can you let me know.

Finding inspiration

All around us there is beauty. The trick is to both stop and take it all in while also capturing what you are witnessing. I am starting to finally realise that writing, even with very few words, is how I express the quietness from within. I like to watch the world and I need a way to speak up.

Another reality I face is that my job requires a lot of creative thinking. Where I am often mapping out plans for what needs to happen now and years into the future and I love the challenge and freedom I have been given. Yet because my job requires so much creative thinking I arrive home at the end of the day and do not want to think anything of great depth. So I waste hours doing nothing, letting myself escape from the world.

How do I find time to write? I have learnt that during the day to allow myself treats. When a line, an impression, or something else comes to my mind like a dripping tap: I need to stop and listen. It does not take a perfect moment, simply a moment in order to capture and let it wash over me. This means the tapping stops while not letting the moment be lost.

I have also tried to find tools that allow me to capture those thoughts. I have scattered Word documents that I may never open again and I also scribble notes on paper. In the last few months I have grown to love the small white board at my desk as it allows me to place tiny pieces into a corner of the world. In small ways Twitter has allowed me to peck at thoughts - to bounce between the ideas of creating systems for work and bewilderment at so much that happens in life.

I do not neglect my work to write, however I do find time to treat myself and allow myself to write ideas down. I am most importantly honest with my colleagues that some times I get captured by my writing, even while I am at work.

Treat your self and do not feel guilty for who you are :-).