She's still there

I'm having a lazy week, hence the myriad of blog posts. And it's hot. This makes it hard for me to move around much, or think much or do much either, apart from sit in front of the computer much in the same way as a potato would sit on a couch, if only potatoes had legs for sitting with.

But anyway. She asked people not to, well no, that's not quite true, but she did say she wasn't asking people to, but still I am going to, let you know that Anna of the boat of the little-reddedness is still blogging and never stopped, it's just that her rss feed thingy is broken. So, you know. Go and do the manual typing-url-into-browser thing and catch up. Or follow this link.

That is all.


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Longevity

Blimey, that questionnaire made me realise, I seem to have been blogging for four years now.

How odd.

First post ever (scroll down to the bottom).

Hmmm, and now I've got all sidetracked reading ancient blog posts. I particularly like this wig idea (from here):

"Anyway. Hair. It's a pain. It's a pain because it keeps changing. It's not a skill you can learn, cos just when you find a way of doing it that make you look slightly human it goes and grows again, or the wind changes, or your period starts. And whenever you have it cut, it looks terrible, until about six weeks after the haircut, at which point it looks fantastic. For about a week. But then you can't go back to the hairdresser and say, "You know that cut you did for me last time? Well it was crap. But it was great six weeks later. So that's what I want. The crap cut, but with an extra six weeks added on."

What we need is to be able to freeze good styles and keep them somehow. What a great idea! We could be onto something here. Our fortunes are made. We'll remember this day in years to come as the day we had The Idea. Oh, hang on though, it's already been done. It's called a wig. Uh-uh, hold your horses, OK, so yes, there is such a thing as a wig. But nobody has really exploited the potential for using a wig as a way of recording a good haircut. What's needed is a hair emergency service. At the precise point at which your hair looks good, you need to be able to call the wig-makers, and they need to come round immediately. It would be no use waiting until morning, because it would have gone. They'd have to come round in an emergency wig vehicle, lights flashing, sirens blaring. The neighbours would peep out the curtains and say to each other, "Aw, bless, they've just found a new haircut at number seven. Do you remember when our bob was born?"

In fact, this is such a good idea, it could really take off. People would shave their heads as a matter of course. Everybody would wear wigs. Children would all have shaved heads, until they reached puberty, at which point they'd start to grow... and cut... and grow... everybody waiting with baited breaths to see what kind of style their hair grew into... and then at the crucial moment, flashing lights, sirens, twitching curtains... aww, a new haircut is born.

But the really brave would be those that tried again. People would start to notice that their wig wasn't fitting properly. "Are you trying for another...?" And then would come the day that the wig is removed, and the emerging haircut is brought out into the open. People would applaud you. They would stand up to make sure you had a seat on the bus.

But some people would rebel. There'd be an underground movement of anti-wiggers. Terrible people who - shock horror - don't shave their heads! Never have wigs! A whole movement of people with permanent bad hair days! But then of course, it would get more and more popular. Then it would get co-opted into popular culture. Everybody would be at it. Wigs would fall out of favour. Until an underground wig-wearing movement was started..."


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Blogging Questionnaire

I just discovered a new blog: Bete de Jour.

I discovered it cos I got an email inviting me to complete his blogging questionnaire, which I did, and enjoyed the experience immensely.

I recommend, on all fronts.


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Comment is Late

Hello!

I have been replying to all your comments. Some of them really old.

I know, I'm rubbish at replying to comments. I don't mean to be rude and ignorant, I always intend to pop in and say hello, but I'm always in such a rush, and the more there are of them the bigger a job it seems... which also applies to emails, and To Do lists in general...

But anyway, the sun is shining and I am having a Catching Up With Stuff Like That day. So there.

Update: For some reason I chose to write this post whilst still in the middle of answering comments, insted of waiting til the job was finished. So don't be too disappointed if I haven't answered yours yet. Or do. I may just be being incompetent. Tis a distinct possibility.


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Blogging and Copyright

Just so's you know, if a newspaper or other publishing outlet takes content from your blog and prints it elsewhere (which is apparently happening surprisingly often), then not only should they let you know what they are up to, they should pay you for it!

Details here.


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Making and Shaking

I'm feeling very proud of myself, cos I just installed a new hard disk and completely reinstalled Windows on the spare PC we're letting Felix use. I once built a whole PC from scratch, but that was ages ago and I haven't done anything like that for a while. So. There you go. Clever me.

I had a very bloggable weekend... did some storytelling on Fri night, went to a Novel Racers blogmeet on Sat, then an Alabama 3 gig on Sat night... but this week is a bit manic so it might take me a few days before I get round to blogging it all. I know, you're so excited you might expire. Sorry about that.


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And she closed herself up, like a fan

I sometimes have periods when I don't feel like blogging.

It could be pregnancy, which always makes me insular, and I only want to curl up in my rabbit hole and ignore the outside world. Or maybe it's the lack of energy or motivation brought about by ten weeks of illness. I'm better than I was by the way, but still nauseous for several hours each day. Perhaps I just don't feel like blogging. I dunno. I may reappear at some point when I'm able to read again, and finish transcribing those 1985 diary entries. I don't like leaving things unfinished.

Apart from that, I have no idea when or whether I'll be back. So, um. See you around, I guess.

P.S. Ten points for anyone who can identify the song lyric. Without the aid of Google. Well, I suppose you're allowed to use Google if you know the song and can hear it in your head but can't remember what it's called or who it's by, as long as you go "Ah yes of course," when you finally find out, and not "Wtf? Never 'eard of it." So, got that? No Googling, unless this, and also that... no, I'm not repeating it all again.


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You're Not My Friend Any More

Right. So, this post here got me thinking about the whole people-being-nasty-to-each-other-on-the-internet thing.

The thing is, people say nasty stuff about each other all the time. It's not restricted to the internet. And yes, some examples are more extreme, so much so that police intervention is required, and I'm not talking about them.

It's hard, but if you're going to survive in the world of the public-access internet - which is a world where everything that anyone says (including you) gets broadcast indiscrimately to the whole fucking planet - it's vital you get perspective and a sense of humour, or you'll drive yourself mad.

Because the internet isn't that different from everyday life. People bitch and snark and complain about each other constantly at work, in their homes, down the pub, on the radio. And you know it happens, and unless you're super-insecure or paranoid you put it out of your mind and don't let it bother you. And that's easy enough, because normally it happens behind closed doors and you don't get to eavesdrop.

On the web you get to listen in on every single fucking conversation people ever have about you, and that's hard to deal with UNTIL you remind yourself that this is what we all do (and I don't believe there's a human being anywhere who doesn't occasionally bitch or whinge about their fellows, in a way that would be hurtful if the target were to overhear or be told of it). It's normal, and the best thing is to ignore it and move on.

Or laugh! Occasionally the snarkiness is funny and astutely observed, and being able to laugh at yourself is an enormously useful skill. Or laugh at the insulters, or at the whole bloomin' situation.

Sometimes a silent deletion of a comment is a judicious move, because it stops other people from wading in and the comments box turning into gang warfare. Sometimes there are extreme examples which require different handling. But try, try really hard, to step back and imagine whether anybody really means you harm, or whether they are being, well, just a bit stupid. And forgetting, like we all do, that the internet is not the same thing as the pub.


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That Is Not All

...except that's not all. While I'm here I may as well do a catch-up post.

I confess I'm having one of my what's the point? periods with respect to blogging, and I further confess it's been fuelled by my dramatic drop in visitor numbers. This blog was apparently more popular than it had ever been six months ago, with visitors coming out of its ears. I suspect that was down to a combination of factors - people linking to me and me having Something Dreadful Happen being the biggest. And then recently my blog fell off the face of the planet when Purpleocity got sick, and that lost me several readers, but it was already unpopular by then.

And all right then, I admit it. The quality's not been great here lately. I don't know why. It's partly about time - I keep having great ideas for blog posts but no time to write them, but... well, my life has been far busier than this in the past and I've still found time for good blogging. Maybe that's it. Now that I'm a full time writer I don't have that hunger to write in whatever small moment I can find. I'm sated.

And then I wander around the blogosphere as I have been doing this morning, and, bloody hell, there are so many good writers out there. Why in hell am I attempting to compete, both as a blogger and a professional writer? Shouldn't I just bow out and leave the field to the really talented ones?

Well, anyway. I'm still here. Not sure why, but I am.

In other news my week in Andalucia seems to have dropped some big stones in my pond and left a few ripples, even though I'm struggling to define what or how or why. And in the meantime I'm supposed to be rewriting Act III of My New Book. Although it feels pretty much like an old book by now, seeing as I've been thinking about or writing it for three years, and... oh, all right then, that's partly it too. I promised my agent I'd have a Version Ready For Showing To Publishers by the end of the week, and I'm bricking it.

Or maybe not. Maybe not feeling scared so much as... bemused. Can this really be it? Am I finally at the point where my book will be shown to publishers? I've had so many false starts, it's hard to have any real faith. And then what? Will somebody buy it? Will they pay me enough money for me to start work on another straight away, rather than glance at my bank account, go "Oh, fuck!" and rush about trying to get people to pay me to write stuff, any stuff, just please-will-somebody-give-me-money?

And the worst of it is, it'll probably be weeks before I know the book's fate. Weeks of feeling rather vague and thinking I probably-ought-to-be seeking out income, but I also probably-ought-to-be editing and making this book The Best Book Ever.

I don't feel very dynamic, that's the thing. I feel like I'm lying in the dark, sweating and flapping a fan about feebly, waiting for someone to open the door and say, "Here you are! We've been looking for you! Come with us, we have a new life for you ready and waiting."

Hmmm. Who's going to open the door?


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People Who Don't Blog... But Should

I just discovered this blog, which I love.

That is all.


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Website Explanations

I thought I should attempt to explain what's going on with my blog and my website and all these urls, as it's all getting mighty confusing.

I used to keep all my web pages at claresudbery.purpleocity.net. But Purpleocity has mysteriously disappeared, so I've had to move everything elsewhere.

I did temporarily camp out at claresudbery.blogspot.com, but I've stopped doing that now.

It used to be that www.claresudbery.co.uk would always find me, no matter where my website was physically stored. This is still the case, but I'm now using www.claresudbery.co.uk as the home page for my writingy website. It links here, but it is no longer the home of my blog.

My blog, this blog, now has its own url, which is boobpencil.co.uk. I do not intend to change this. You should always be able to find me here, from now on. I have copied my backed-up files to this location, and here they will stay.

In the process of making all these changes, I temporarily used boobpencil.blogspot.com. Because of the way Blogger now works, I can't get rid of this. If you visit my Blogger profile, it will now claim the url is boobpencil.blogspot.com. This isn't really a problem, as it automatically redirects you to boobpencil.co.uk. It just means that if you use boobpencil.blogspot.com, and Blogger goes down for some reason, you won't be able to access Boob Pencil. But if you stick with boobpencil.co.uk, you'll be able to access the blog even if Blogger goes tits up.

I hope this makes some sort of sense!


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Changes

I've made a few changes around here so that I can move everything over from the old purpleocity url to the new boobpencil.co.uk one.

I may have broken things in the process, so if you find anything that doesn't seem right, please do let me know! Indeed, if you have a few spare moments you could even have a bit of a click around on all the links in the sidebars (on the left hand side) and see if you can see anything that looks amiss.

Oh, and NB: If you use Bloglines or any kind of RSS reader which notifies you whenever I post, you'll need to reset it, as my RSS feed now lives at www.boobpencil.co.uk/atom.xml.


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Ignore the rest

From here downwards, the post are going to look a little weird and pointless. Don't worry about it, just ignore them. It's all to do with various complicated jugglings I've done whilst removing my website from its old purpleocity location.

If you're looking for Boob Pencil posts prior to Sept '07, just click on the links in the sidebar to your left (you might have to scroll down a bit - they're in the "Archives" section).


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More "Blogging About Blogging" Stuff

There's more! The posts on this page aren't the only "Blogging About Blogging" posts.

For all posts labelled "Blogging About Blogging" and posted before September 2007, please go here.


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