I Like You

I imagine that the topic of the like button (or icon, or call it what you will), has been covered before, probably many times, but I don’t remember seeing anything, so I am going to discuss this and ask some questions.

What are you doing when you click like on a blog post? What exactly is it that you are liking?

So by liking a post are you providing support to the poster, are you saying that you like the message of the post, or that you think it is well written? I guess that it can mean different things on different occasions. It is a multipurpose like button. It can mean different things to different people and different things in different contexts. Surely I am not getting philosophical about the like button on blog posts, whatever next? Am I just over thinking this?

I know that I sometimes find myself feeling strangely guilty when I click like on a post where someone has revealed something bad or personal about themselves, or that they are sick. I know I am doing it as a means of showing them my support, but I always have that strange nagging feeling of guilt in the back of my mind that I am saying that I like the fact that they are sick.

Another related thought I was having was about how real is the number of likes that we receive for a particular blog post? How many people just go to a post and click like in support of the person that has written it, rather than actually having read the post? How many people go to blogs and click like with the expectation that the blogger will return and visit their own blog? Strange the thoughts that run through your mind at work, where incidentally WordPress never seems to work properly.

I wonder what other buttons I can pick on, or press. What is it with me and buttons, and particularly with pressing buttons? I seem to vaguely remember a post I did not so long again regarding the reblog button, or was that just about reblogging rather than the button itself, I forget. I do hope I haven’t developed a WordPress button obsession, that would be kind of sad. I prefer my fetishes to be a little more exotic than that.

So how do you view the like button, and in particular your use of it? Should I say ‘How do you like the like button?’, or is that altogether too many likes in one place? When do you click like? Do you always click like if you go to a post?  I must like questions – Is there a button for that?

Perhaps there should be some alternatives, maybe I support you or I’m thinking of you buttons.

Oh, and remember, you can always leave me a comment or click my like button.

So Who Missed my One Hundredth Post?

So who missed the momentous occasion of my 100^th post? Come on, admit it, you did, didn’t you? Well, don’t worry, it appears as though I did too, since it looks like this will be my 101^st post. I wonder if that includes reblogs or not. These little landmarks, although they do not really mean anything, do help to make you feel good and motivate you a little. The way I consider it is that if anyone is still reading the drivel that I come out with after one hundred posts, that’s kind of amazing, and I should continue. I admit I have been a bit lax lately with the blog, I have had lots going on. I am going to try to do better and start to post regularly again.

My reading goals haven’t changed, and I am progressing slowly, but surely. I have been supposedly working on an assignment for the creative writing course that I subscribed to a while ago, but in reality I have not gotten very far. This weekend I intend to get the main part of it written and then I will just leave it a few days, check it over, probably change most of it and submit it. Since this is the first assignment I have not got a tutor yet, but one should be assigned when I get the results of the first assignment back. Mostly it is providing them information about your goals and what you want to achieve from the course. Of course, there is the obligatory personal questionnaire to fill out too.

So these are my plans for the weekend. Reading and writing and playing with my new phone. I have finally acquired a phone that allows me to read my emails easily away from home. So after a little fun trying to get the wi-fi in my house working everything seems to be fine. Now to explore the wonderful world of mobile apps.

Useful Distractions from Writing

So you have been writing for an hour or so, when you find yourself just sitting staring into space, or out of the window. The ideas have stopped, the flow of words has been halted. It is time for a break. What do you do to try to clear your mind? How do you try to return to that position of constructively writing again?

I like to go and do something different, although I favour something with a creative bent to it. I will usually go and play the guitar for a bit. Others may like to go into the garden and pull up a few weeds or do the washing up. Usually after a few minutes my mind is clearer and whatever was stopping me from writing has resolved itself.

I guess what I am really asking though is, what do you do when you are lacking creativity and need a boost?

As a follow up to yesterdays post, I have reblogged something and written this today. Best of both worlds!

Reblogging vs Original Posts

Amazing! From my post calendar it looks like I have posted for the last six days in a row. One more post tomorrow and it will be a full week. I can hardly believe it. Well I can. I sadly know that most of those were reblogs and very few were original posts. Needless to say, although I am going to say it anyway, I have finally, after only five months or so, discovered that  reblog button sitting tantalisingly there at the top of my browser. And I just had to press it didn’t I.

So, I was wondering whether there was some sort of Golden Ratio of original posts to reblogs that exists. Mad idea, I know. I don’t want to allow myself to just keep taking the easy option, reblogging other people’s posts. However, sometimes there is just that perfect post, you know the one, that one right there that you wished more than anything you had written. A work of pure genius, or at the very least, damn funny. Either that or one that provides such vital information that you genuinely believe you cannot deprive your followers of it. In this case of course it is your duty to help it proliferate.

The original purpose of this blog was to encourage me to write more. To help me improve my writing and possibly, and that is a big possibly, launch it into the world, sharing it with others. To share my thoughts, scary. Well, that is still the goal, but until that I reach that point I will try to find a happy medium between reblogs and original posts. Hey, what do you know, an original post today.

And Now, the End is Near…

So, as all good things come to pass, my holiday reaches its conclusion. As I prepare for a return to the mundane tomorrow, I can reflect on the highlights of the past week. These have mostly been getting stuck into writing tasks that I wanted to complete, or at least progress a little further. And then there was the reading. This was a little disappointing since I found myself sucked into perusing the myriad of excellent blogs out there, waiting on tenterhooks for new posts to appear in the reader. Obviously this was also reading, but did not aid in the completion of the books that I had planned to get finished.

But I still have a few hours left to savour I suppose. How will I elect to spend these?

I need a big push today to try to finish off that scheduled reading. I am a bit of an obsessive planner about these things and if I don’t tick off all of the boxes, I end up getting stressed by it. I end up feeling guilty that I haven’t completed everything I planned to, putting myself under undue pressure. I should perhaps set myself less taxing objectives!

I also passed an enjoyable evening listening to Audrey Niffenegger speak. My short post on that can be seen here. Last night was spent taking part in a quiz in order to help raise money for my nieces’ nursery. It was entertaining, although sadly our team came in a miserable fourth. There was no round on literature or books that I would have hoped for. The science round was good for us, as I work in that field, but sport and celebrity dating rounds were poor.

And so from tomorrow I shall be mostly back to the usual schedule of work, study and reading. Maybe then I will be able to work on some more interesting posts. For everyone’s benefit, I certainly hope so!

Strange WordPress Behaviour

Ever think that you are being got at by technology? Sometimes I feel that WordPress is doing some strange things, behaving weirdly. For some time I have been getting comments from a blog that I have not signed up for and do not really want. Odd. Then I have been sitting here thinking that this person, or that person, hasn’t posted for a while. I go and check their blog and find that they have been posting and I have just not been receiving emails when they do post. I investigate further and find that for some reason I am no longer following them. How can this be. I have not unfollowed anyone that I have started following. So unless multiple people are somehow blocking me or stopping me from following them, which is certainly possible, but since I have now refollowed them ok, seems unlikely, then something very strange is going on.

In addition, a couple of weeks ago my twitter account became disconnected from my blog. For no apparent reason.

If it seems like I have only just started following you, when in truth it has been a while, I apologise. I didn’t unfollow you, please believe me.

Is it just me or has anyone else experienced odd behaviour from WordPress? Please comment and set my mind at rest that is not just some spiteful trick that WordPress is playing on me personally?

 

The Fifty First Post

When I published my previous post, Another Title (and Scrivener), I noticed that it was my fiftieth post. That feels like quite a landmark to me. I started this blog in August 2009. Up until Jan 2013 I had made a pretty feeble 20 posts in 3 years and 4 months. Since then I have made 30 posts in two and a bit months. This is a lot better and I am positive, at least hopeful, that it will last. I have been enjoying writing these blog posts. Whether anyone enjoys reading them I am less clear on, but I do get the occasional like, so I suppose they must be of some interest!

I figured that my next major goal would be one hundred posts and then one hundred followers. So I checked my followers and found, to my surprise that they had already exceeded the one hundred goal. That one had kind of slipped by me. It feels great that so many people have, rightly or wrongly, decided to receive email updates of my posts. This fills me with joy, and not a little surprise. So thanks to everyone that reads my posts and especially those that follow my blog. I will try to keep posting and find some interesting topics to write about.

As for now I am still working hard on getting through Proust’s ‘The Captive’ and ‘The Fugitive’, along with brief forays into E.M. Forster’s ‘Aspects of the Novel’. I am going to have to start on a few easier to read books after I have finished the ‘In Search of Lost Time’ series (or cycle), otherwise I will not meet my 2103 Goodreads reading goal. I am currently quite a few books behind schedule. I am sure that ultimately I will complete it though. Still nine and a half months to go I suppose.

Review Time

Well, I made my resolution (not a new years resolution mind you, I do not think that the turn of the year is in any way special enough to require a change of habit or the like) to try to blog a little more regularly. Let’s face it, it couldn’t have been anymore irregular could it. I now appear to have made a post almost every two days since the 4th January. That to me is good progress, a definite improvement on the past. Now I just need to keep up the momentum that I have built. But what to write about!

I finished ‘The Way by Swann’s’ by Proust finally yesterday and am going to get started on the next installment ‘In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower’ fairly soon. I am not convinced that I really know what is going on though. It strikes me as the type of book that you need to read a few times to have any idea what it is really about, and more will be revealed (or at least makes more sense) each time you read it.

I have started to take a lunch break at work, something I haven’t done for years usually lunching at my desk whilst working. I am going to use this time to get away from the desk, relax and read. I have managed two days so far, let’s see how long I can continue it for.

So we now have two things to monitor. My posting regularity and whether I can manage to continue taking a lunch break. Exciting stuff! Well if the last week or so is any indicator I will be posting again in a couple of days, but what the heck, I may surprise everyone, myself included, and post tomorrow. But somehow I doubt it.

A new resolution

Well, is appears that I have not managed to put anything up here for ages – well six months or so. Perhaps I need to make a new years resolution, something I am not keen on doing, to post more regularly on here. I have a lot of things I would like to write about. In particular I would like to blog about the reading that I do and the reading lists that I am working on. I am also interested in writing and have started working on a few things. This is a bit of a miracle since I was always told at secondary school that I had no imagination and could not write (essays). Technically I had little problem, but the imagination side of it always let me down. I preferred to write factual things. I always found a way to turn at least a few of the essay questions in my exams into a means to write factually and so removed the requirement for much imagination.

Nowadays I find that I spend a lot more of my life fantasizing and imagining things (dreaming) and with a little luck my ability to write fiction has improved. I suppose I always liked the truth and could not bring myself to make things up. Now I am older, perhaps more bitter and cynical, I find that making things up is a lot better than facing the truth of real life sometimes.

So, here is what I hope will be the start of a little more regular posting. Maybe I should try to post once or twice a week to start with and then work towards daily posting. Really it should not take a lot of time out of my day. The real struggle will be finding things to write about that might interest anybody other than me. Still, I shouldn’t worry about that. If I write what interests me then people have the choice to read if they are interested, or to not read if they aren’t. Of course any comments, especially positive, constructive ones will always be gratefully received.