I was downtown again today. Just a trip out for coffee and a stroll around. No photos this time. It's funny how you can get intimidated and not take photos at times. I saw a few things and I thought about how I would take the picture but there were several people around and I let the chance pass by. I don't know why I cared that anyone was there. After all, what would anyone do, stop me from taking a picture. Not like it's illegal or immoral. I'm going to try to work on that.

Yesterday I read a good article in another blog about writers who have blogs. She said most of us just write blogs about writing. I guess that is what we think we know and have thoughts about most often. I think anything to do with blog publishing and SEO (search engine optimization for sites) comes a close second if not first even. But it is true that writers tend to make their blogs pretty predictable, topical blogs. I'm not counting this as a topical blog it doesn't have any real focus.

She said we should write about something else, a personal interest, hobby or cause. I think that is really a good plan. For myself especially as I really do like having a project on the go and I really do need to have a plan and keep myself stuck to it. So, I am coming up with ideas. I do have plenty to choose from, lots of things I am interested in. Too many and some which turn out to be short term or abandoned along the way. I am thinking most about a blog with photos of old things in Toronto. I really do like taking the photos of old buildings and there isn't any shortage of places and bits of places to choose from. I could have a backlog of photos on hand and just post one a day for a very long time. So that does seem like the idea with the most potential.

Makes me think about Skye and her blog for the town she is in. I check on her now and then. I would be lucky cause Toronto is massively big and a centre for a lot of events and traffic of people in general. I think she is finding that a problem for her smaller area.

Other topics I could write about are Pagan or women's issues/ culture/ something or other. I think the Pagan would be good for drawing traffic BUT I don't think I really have enough I want to say to make that a weekly column let alone a daily thing. Unless I added a wider focus for it, including some history and culture which would be borderline on focus for the Wicca/ Pagan topic. Still, it is something I am not passing off on. The women's thing I am passing on. I really don't want to blab on and on about online dating, periods, being a grrl or whatever else that direction would take me. I don't see that being a direction I want to go in. Besides, I see a ton of sites like that which are submitted to Dmoz and most of them are pretty trashy with spam and light/ lame on content.

I am still going to put thought into the Pagan thing. Even though I can't see it as a weekly column I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea. It's important to have someone out there talking about Paganism from a real perspective, not all about quick fixes with spells and worshipping gods. I don't believe in any gods and I am anti-spellcraft. Both seem really phony to me. You can't say you are for life and free choice and such and then try to force things to your will with 'spells' and blame it all on 'gods or goddesses'. Of course it is more complicated than that. I might try it and see how it goes. If I get into it or get wound out and have nothing left to say after a month.

I think I will keep the writing blog going. I renamed it Word Grrls this past week. So far it just has all my old articles with another dozen or so still in drafts to be stuck out there. I've been updating it each Monday. I'm not doing anything else cause I don't feel right to really grow it till I'm out of old content. For now it is fine. As with the Pagan plan, it gives me time to decide if I want to keep it going as a weekly thing. To see what commitment I really have to it all.

I do think the Something Old in Toronto idea is good, good for me as well as something I could turn into a popular site. People do seem to enjoy the photos I have done of old buildings. Although most are still the farmhouses from outside of Toronto. Anyway, it seems like a good plan.

Comment from happy and blue 2

I think the photo blog is a good idea as well. I also think you could write a blog on dating sites. Perhaps starting with your experiences and then letting others join in.. Just a thought..

I’ve had email from two insane people in a row today. One was through an online dating site and the other was a guy who invited feedback about his blog.

The first guy I met through a dating site and I had replied to him once and he sent a reply back. His reply had nothing for me to really build a conversation on so I left it for a time when I had something to chit chat about. I had planned to write some chatty emails when I had my other work done. It was personal, not an emergency and after all he didn’t come across as eager. Today he emails me calling me an asshole and saying how I’m pathetic and playing head games. Where the frick does this come from? I didn’t reply back the same day and I’m suddenly deserving of this? It’s insane! Thank God I didn’t ever arrange a date with this flipped out mess. Geez, he sounded like a psycho cause he hadn’t heard back from me after two whole days!!! Kind of scary.

The other one was a website I have read a few times, found through another blog but had not bookmarked or ever left a comment. This time I thought I would email a comment to the site owner. I didn’t say anything particularly inflammatory but the guy had a hissy fit. I had said I liked his blog but I thought he should move his content higher so it wasn’t buried under his spam/ ads. Well, it is good advice. No one can say they like digging down through spam to find content on a site. He called me a troll and a lot of stuff which was not called for. People, if you have a site and invite feedback don’t fly off the handle when you get it. Not everyone is going to think your site is great, some might even offer constructive criticism. I had actually said I liked his site and only offered feedback cause he had asked for feedback.

I know I will get comments now saying what a nasty bitch I am, how unrealistic or arrogant I am and so on and so on. Some people just seem to want to be negative and make sure to rub off on everyone they can. The new bloggers seem to be a lot more about spamming than blogging and people online are a lot angrier than I remember them being just a few years ago. I miss the blogging community, when it was about fun, free writing and exploring what was out here.

Although I'm not getting a lot of progress on my book writing I am writing and working for several other sites plus a few of my own. I think I am stretching myself thin and working on projects which aren't really giving me back enough for all the time and energy I put into them. I need to step back and think about which of them matter enough to keep working on.

Here is the list:

The Open Directory Project - heading the list for a reason.

BackWash - Bewitching Vagabond and Adult BackWash and several newsletters and a few communities there too.

Suite101 as a Contributing Writer. Featured Writers are what they now call those who dedicate themselves to keeping a topic going.

LockerGnome - Creative Fat Grrl which is one I think I will keep going.

There are and were others but I've already left them fall off the back burner. Some I would have liked to stick with. But, there is just so much you can do when it's all freebie work. I count those ad share sites as freebie cause I've never seen a cent from Google or any other of those scam-sense things. BackWash is the only site that ever paid, but they went back to not paying.

I was reading about someone who has posted to a freelance job finding site, trying to get someone to list their site in the Dmoz directory. This person wants to pay someone to get the site listed immediately. There were five people who replied. One claimed to have done this before, for payment. The problem with that is a Dmoz editor is unpaid. If an editor is caught taking payments or bribes they will be removed from the directory. It helps keep things honest and fair for everyone submitting their site. Of course, this doesn’t happen much outside of the business sites.

For me it is interesting to read about these plots and plans. I can’t remember being offered a bribe before. I have been pressured to list a site. Whether I do or not depends on the site, if it’s a decent site or a spam farm. It icks me that people try to be so spammy and pushy. I think they have it all wrong.

First, a business should be focused on getting local attention. How does it help a business in Toronto or Montreal or New York to have people from Brazil finding your business. How likely is someone from Brazil to hire a copywriter, a bottling company or a shoe designer from outside of their local area? It’s silly to get so caught up on being listed in a search engine. What does placement matter if the people in your own town have no idea you’re there and available and looking for their business. Focus on what’s right in front of your face and stop obsessing about search engine optimization. Talk to your local newspaper, radio station and the people who hired your competition. Put your time into real promotion rather than something that has you spinning your wheels and wasting your money.

In the columnist message boards at BackWash, someone said "Don't you just love the media." They meant it sarcastically in reference to how an interview was handled. But, what they didn't consider is that WE ARE the media.

I think a lot of writers take shots at 'the media' and forget to count themselves among them. Do you? Have you thought of yourself as a writer or publisher or member of the media in general today?

Well you are. Each time you put something out there for the masses to read you become the media. We may not all carry cards saying we are writers or publishers or editors, etc. But, that doesn't mean we aren't just one more member of the media.

Anyway, the discussion in the boards was about how someone was credited in an article. That is something to consider as you write an article using sources for information such as quotes or statistics. Always make sure you know how your contact sources want to be credited and then do your best to see that it comes out that way in print.

On the other hand, when you are the contact, make sure you tell the writer how you want to be credited. Make sure they have your URL along with your other information. Make sure they know it's important for your website to be included as part of identifying you as a source of information for the article.

If it comes out in print you can't do much to change it. You can get them to add it to a future issue but that's not very useful without the rest of the content of the article. However, if it's on the web you can get them to update the HTML or text quite easily, it just takes a moment of their time. So there is one more benefit to writing for online publications.

Well, members of the media, that's it for this week.