For the First Time, Recently Again

Language is an art. You can make it say anything you want it to. Fiction and non-fiction, they just work a little differently. Fiction can be anything you can imagine and manage to describe to readers. Non-fiction relies on explanations. But writers can play with words and make them say or sell anything.

I read this at Wikipedia this morning.

On a side note, I have contributed several times to Wikipedia. Notes like this seem to pop up a few times every year. I do get a little annoyed by the begging and they claim almost no one contributes. Well, I have and this does not make me feel like contributing again. So, it might not be a really smart note to leave up.

The interesting part of this note was "for the first time recently". Of course, they can’t say "for the first time" because the first time was several years ago and this doesn’t even happen once a year any more. So, "for the first time recently". Such a clever way of making it seem like this is a first time, again. But, there can only be one first time. It’s not false advertising and it’s not untrue but it is pretty schemy. I chose not to contribute after reading this.

I appreciate Wikipedia. I don’t appreciate feeling that my past contributions are just a drop in the bucket for them and weren’t enough that they aren’t right back begging again. Also, this scheming with words, doesn’t impress me much.

Liking the Creative Struggle

I lost track of where I found this. But, I like it.

Typing in the text for those who can’t see it from the image:

Through this mild and harmless struggle, I acquired a hobby. “How agitated I am when I am in the garden, and how happy I am to be so agitated,” Jamaica Kincaid writes in My Garden Book. “Nothing works just the way I thought it would, nothing looks just the way I had imagined it, and when sometimes it does look like what I had imagined (and this, thank God, is rare) I am startled that my imagination is so ordinary.”

WordPress Plugins That Might Work for Selling Your Photographs On Your Site

This is not a review, just a list. I haven’t decided which of these to even load up and try first. But, here for your amusement or practical use, are the plugins I have found for the idea of selling my photographs online, on my own site instead of Etsy, CafePress, and any other similar sites. In the past I tried Zazzle for selling my art on things. I was the only one who bought anything over several months. So, I’m not too keen on using one of those third party sort of sites again. I don’t know how this idea, selling them myself, will go. But, I don’t think it can be any worse. In theory.

So here are the links, not in any order of interest or usefulness. (I’m not 100% sure all of them are still active enough to use, so consider these "use at your own risk"). Some are free, open source, and some are not. I’ve added a couple which don’t work with WordPress, they are stand alone for your website domain.

Symbiostock

Sell Media – Graph Paper Press

NextGEN Gallery – Imagely

CP Image Store with Slideshow

ClassicCommerce – for ClassicPress

WooCommerce

Photo Video Store Script

WordPress Photo Seller Plugin

WP iSell Photo

Easy Digital Downloads

thirty bees

Sunshine Photo Cart

How to Build a List of Resource Links with WordPress

I don’t think a generic web directory is very worthwhile these days. We are still keeping the old Open Directory Project going, now at curlie.org. But, now it is owned by one person who has their own idea of what matters. Software seems to matter more than getting people involved or helping them find it (again, or ever). One way or another I think the old directory is a bygone thing. Although I still like working on it and still (for some reason) can’t leave it behind, I don’t believe it is important any more.

But, I do think a list of links, better to think of it as a list of resources, about a specific topic, is a good thing and very useful. So I am still keeping and building my links for urban exploration and ASCII art and a few other things.

I have found that just an HTML list of links is a bit iffy. For some reason they end up a mess almost every time I have tried. Unless it is a very short list, three or so links. Larger lists seem to get muddled with HTML and one link gets the URL of another link and the original URL is lost, until you hunt for it again. It’s frustrating. So I am using software, which has its own little battles and hurdles.

Here is my current list of useful software for keeping a list of resources (or web directory), specifically for WordPress and ClassicPress sites.

Link Library – I’ve tried others, may others, but I come back to Link Library. Not only is it steady, reliable and free to use (be kind and donate to support the plugin) but it brings out more features and is still in development and it works. It is huge when you first load it and try to work your way around. There is some help at GitHub, a wiki, which helps. Don’t get discouraged or flustered, just keep working at it.

Simple Link Directory – I paid to use the pro version of this plugin. But, setting up links with categories is so confusing… I just wanted to stop spending so much time on just understanding how it works. I wasn’t making progress, my links were sitting in text files waiting for me to add them but I kept having to add more categories that weren’t categories because that’s not how this works. Maybe its because I’ve worked in a web directory for so many years and got used to doing things in that way… but this never got simple for me.

Simple Links by Mat Lipe – This plugin is now closed, as of this month. I don’t know why, likely assorted reasons. I still have my paid version. But, I never got it to set up my link lists the way I wanted them, even with the addons. It is a simpler plugin to work with than Link Library. If you can get, or still have, the paid version keep going with it.

Simple Link Library Plugin – Right now I’d say this is a back up plan. I did try it a little but it seemed to rely on the old core WordPress link plugin, which I already had. The screenshots look good and it says it has a broken link checker. It’s one I’d keep a link around for.

Lastly, for people who keep lists of links I highly recommend Broken Link Checker. Although Link Library has this feature, others do not. Or, if you want to keep lists of links as regular posts to your site instead of using plugins, you really need something to help you keep track of which links have moved, changed, or bit the dust.

In the past I have posted other lists of software for this:

Building a Web Directory with WordPress (2013)

For Web Directory Builders (2010)

How to Build Your Own Web Directory (2009)

Bad Ideas for PenPals

I found a list of "Things You Should Not Send Your Penpal" at CityMity Penpals Blog. It was a good, sensible list.

Not many people are writing letters which are mailed though the postal system these days. I did, years ago and I started thinking to do so again. If I find someone I’d enjoy writing with. We used to exchange more than letters, stamps or postcards. There were friendship books, mail art and anything else you could fit into an envelope without too much of it sticking up from the flatness of the envelope.

One thing which is risky to exchange, seeds, or anything plant based. Very sad. Some plant things are ok, usually something which has been processed. I think you can send tea bags, but not loose tea. So, you could exchange seeds if they came from a seed company, but not seeds you collected from your own garden, or seeds you found on a road trip, in the neighbourhood, etc.

Currency is ok if it is very small in value. Very small, being less than a few dollars. I used to like seeing what change/ coins looked like from other countries. I still have some of the coins I collected from penpals.

As a teenager with a tiny budget, my biggest expense for letter writing (other than postage) was stationery. I would shop for boxes of stationery and especially if it came in its own pretty box I could keep long after I had mailed the last of the writing paper and envelopes away. You can still find beautiful or customized/ unique paper and envelopes online but a lot of it seems too girly for me now. I may end up sticking with postcards for awhile.

53 Word Short Story

I found a 53 word short story contest. I like limited word story writing. You need to consider each word, work with the order of your words and still have it all make sense and be a good story. Short stories are very under appreciated.

This is the story I wrote. It’s based on an idea I had very early this morning. A longer version would give details and explain everything. But, I think this short version gets the idea across.

I hadn’t planned to spend my night waiting with the Witch and spoiled Asian cuisine in the abandoned restaurant.

“Bad business plan, cursing their annoying customers.” The Witch toys with her magic glass jar.

A tiny Oriental doll in the jar, screams, unheard. Creepy. Will my bitchy little sister even say thank you?

Is ASCII Art Open Source?

Some people get peeved because I don’t offer my art in a plain text file. I don’t like having my ASCII ripped off, as it so often and easily is. So, for the past few years, I only post an image file (a .png screen capture from NotePad). It still gets ripped off because people like to assume any ASCII art is free, like free software in price and availability. One person even claimed, "no one owns ASCII art".
I don’t want people to assume it is free. Not free in price. Not free in value and not freely available to be copied or taken. Each person is different in this way. I do not see my ASCII art as free software. I’m not that generous. Mostly, I don’t like feeling taken advantage of when someone else is using my art and it makes me angry when it is being sold, or given away in a product without any consideration to myself. Financial consideration yes, also at the very least, an artist credit. How stingy is someone who takes something offered to them, claims it as their own and sells it at a profit to themselves only?
I would rather ASCI art was open source (the image file which at least still has my artist initials rather than the text file so easily "edited"). Any image online is pretty much open source, whether the artist likes it or not. Watermarks can be removed with software or scissors.
If it were possible, I wouldn’t have ASCII Art as open source either. Respect the ASCII artist, any artist, don’t steal art! You may want to think it is all open source, the person who created the art probably does not see it that way.

You Don’t Have to Keep a Diary One Page at a Time

One reason people don’t stick with keeping a diary/ journal is the habit of writing everyday, filling at least a page each day, and other rules. A diary is personal. So make it personal and set your own rules and guidelines, subject to change without notice. Make it your own and write it (or draw, scrapbook, etc.) your own way.

Best tip from a ~~SnapGuide~~ post: How to Write and Keep a Diary by Heather Olson-Trow.

I think it also helps if your goal isn’t to get to the LAST page of your diary, but instead, to try to use each page the way you want, which will slowly but surely fill the whole book!

I do write in a journal way, making each entry for each day. At least I don’t restrict every day to one page. I write until I’m done, regardless of how many pages it fills. But, I do have a hard time stopping before the page is full.

So, instead of filling it with more writing, leave space you can fill in later with details like mementos, after thoughts and updates.

Keeping a Bullet Journal Sounds Like a Digital To-Do List

I keep private (unpublished) posts in my sites for making notes like this. I always know where they are and they are in the place I will (eventually) use them. At some point I found PressForward as a way to link to the source of my inspiration and make my own notes to go along with it.

You may have noticed that there’s been something of a resurgence in journaling lately. If you’re ever on Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube, you may have seen people who keep “bullet journals” — Ryder Carroll’s name for an originally simple set of ways to keep lists and notes.

Some people’s bullet journals are Instagram masterpieces, with color-coded tracking systems, calligraphy flourishes for every day, and “spreads” showing impeccably illustrated weekly grocery lists.

In my experience, creative people need journals. They’re the greenhouses where we grow ideas. And the laboratories where we practice fiendish experiments.

My (very ugly) bullet journal has to-do lists, project notes, content plans for the blog and the podcast, thoughts about habits, thoughts about my business, quotes, doodles, sketches, workout notes, the recurring script for my podcast intro, product ideas, call notes, grand ideas for the future, and all manner of lists.

If you keep a journal like this digitally, and you haven’t tried paper for a while … allow me to suggest that you try it out. There’s something deeply creatively satisfying about an actual object stuffed with ideas — a collection of digital notes just doesn’t spark the same excitement.

A creative journal is a place to capture the sparks that float past. It’s a space to experiment, plan, or just goof around. It’s a home for random thoughts and interesting brainworms. It’s where you store dreams that scare you a little.

Flip through your journal sometimes. (You’ll find yourself doing that automatically when you need a content idea or think of a use for that reference note.)

Those social media phrases you’re finding from our first prompt? Copying them into a blank book would be a great way to kick off a new journal.

A final word on keeping a journal: We might need a word for the folks who keep them, but that word is not journalist. I know I am old-fashioned, but I’m clinging to that one for my friends and colleagues who went to journalism school, have put their time in for lousy pay under intense deadlines, and who have the job of defending democracy from charlatans and lunatics.

From CopyBlogger.

What is the Typosphere?

A term for bloggers who collect, use, and otherwise obsess over typewriters and other “obsolete” technologies, including, but not limited to, handwriting, pens and ink, paper mail and mail art, knitting and fibre arts, film photography, chip-less combustion engines, and related ephemera. Though typically reclusive, members of the typosphere can sometimes be found lurking around the fringes of rummage sales, swap meets, flea markets, and church fundraisers, hoping to find the one make, model, or color typewriter that will finally complete their collection and bring them true happiness and satisfaction. None have managed this feat yet.

From – Welcome to the Typosphere

I’m not collecting typewriters, mostly due to a lack of creative space and an overabundance of projects to work on. But, I like the idea of collecting (and using) the old typewriters.

I did almost buy a few years ago. It was a vintage typewriter, Eaton’s brand. Very Canadian. But, it was over priced, for something obsolete and sold at a thrift store. So, I left it there. I regret the choice a little. But, my practical side knows it was the right decision at the right time.