I’m so frustrated! All morning I put off printing off my manuscript (the older one, not my new NaNoWriMo project) which is 503 pages long. I’ve been going through WordPress themes, delivering newspapers, eating… generally doing everything I could to procrastinate. Finally, I said, ‘That’s it! I’m going to do it!’ (Yes, I talk to myself when I’m alone.)
So I went into the room where the printer is, and got started. Two hundred and fifty pages and I ran out of ink in an almost brand new cartridge. 250 pages! This thing is going to cost me $70 to print… and that’s just a draft!!
Who knew writing could be so bloody expensive?
So, my novelist buddies out there in WordPress land, and anyone else who prints vast amounts of text for whatever reason, do you take care of your own printing needs on your home printer? Or do you take it to a professional?
And either way, how do you afford to write?
Ugh.
Blog post of December 3rd, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out! It’s not too late to join in!
In honour of my new friend, Dylan Dailey, I am going to attempt to write a blog post every day in December. It’s not going to be easy, what with Christmas coming and having the family to take care of, but what the heck. If I can make it through NaNoWriMo, why not EvDaDaDec?
I just typed three words into a new post. I saved it. It counted two words. This post counts twenty eight. There are actually twenty nine. Check it out.
It’s been a week since I posted Getting Views is Like Pulling Teeth in which I complained that since the reader went all to hell my view count has gone down, so I thought I’d post a follow-up on the conclusions I’ve come to.
As Chris McMullen (http://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/) pointed out, the new pop-up window in the reader does seem to provide us with what counts as a view. I know this because I’m now getting as many views as I am ‘likes.’ This is something they’ve fixed recently, obviously, because last week when I posted, I wasn’t. I’d be happy to know if anyone else is finding the same result.
But at the same time I’m finding my views per visitor as dropped substantially and I think this is really where the problem lies. While it’s great to have lots of views for the post we just published, the pop-up window still discourages people from visiting our sites, from following, and from seeing what else we have to offer. It’s especially damaging for those of us who are selling something on our websites, particularly if we’ve paid for the site in order to do just that.
They have already addressed the issue of my initial complaint, (not to me personally) which was to please put the word count back in the reader for each post. If you click on the word count, now that it’s back, you bypass the pop-up window and go straight to the original site. If you click on the title of the post, you get the pop-up window. However, if the post is short and doesn’t have any more words than fit in the reader preview, it’s obviously not an option – you just get the pop-up.
I did change my reader view to “Read full post…” and I believe that has helped my view count at least. You can do this by going here, and I quote: “In your dashboard go to Settings/Reading and then scroll down to “For each article in a feed, show”. Select either Full Text or Summary.” Thanks to mewhoami (http://mewhoami.wordpress.com/) for this tip.
Anyone who is still following this thread and is still interested in this topic, I’d love to know if you’ve made or seen any changes in the past week and have come to the same conclusions, or if you plan to write and mention your dissatisfaction with this awful ‘improvement’, in the forums. I think the more we talk about this issue with Word Press, the more we’re likely to have something done about it.
Thanks very much for being on board with me on this. 🙂
In all honesty, I have to say I don’t believe Candy Crush Saga is a procrastination tool. It’s a way for me to escape my story for a few minutes and do something mindless that allows my imagination to wander.
When I’m not hungry but I get up to get myself something to eat anyway, that’s procrastination. Candy Crush Saga keeps me in my chair.
When I check my WordPress stats or my email, that’s procrastination. Candy Crush Saga takes far less time than that, especially if I have comments on my blog.
When I post a new blog to ask other people what they do to procrastinate, that’s procrastination.
So, how do you procrastinate?
Oh look, I have a new life on Candy Crush Saga! Gotta go.
Has anyone else noticed that their view count has gone down? I’m blaming it on the new pop-up window in the reader that allows people to read a post without going to the site.
While this new feature is sometimes handy, it discourages other WordPress users from clicking on the actual post. When they don’t look at the post, they don’t see our site, and when they don’t go to our site, they don’t see what else is on our site.
Just think about it this way: One of the people you follow may have found the cure for the clap yesterday, but if you only read about how his or her cat looked cute rifling through the cantankerous neighbours trash bin today, you’ll never know! That’s valuable information there you’ve missed out on!
So tell me, is it just me? Or has your view count gone down too?
Bitcoins. Have you heard of them? I just did today, when I read yesterday’s newspaper.
According to the news, the first-ever-in-the-world Bitcoin ATM is opening today in Vancouver, British Columbia. The way it works is, you scan your palm on the machine (quite literally “wave” – see what I did there?) and you can then put as much as $3,000 into your Bitcoin account, or “wallet.”
Sounds easy enough, but then I wanted to know how one spends all this money. The answer: on the internet! Apparently, WordPress accepts Bitcoins. (I haven’t looked it up, I’m just going by what the news says.) But how does WordPress know that the Bitcoins I’m spending are actually my Bitcoins? After all, a palm scanner isn’t a regular household appliance….yet. So I decided to google “How does a Bitcoin work.” I got this: Bitcoin: How it works, which didn’t help me much at all. On first glance it looks a little bit like PayPal. I lost it at the map. Check it out for yourself.
If this system of Bitcoins doesn’t fall flat on a wave of confusion, it just might end up what separates the middle-aged from the youth of today. My mother can’t use a debit card – can’t understand the concept. Maybe this is where the youngest tip of the baby-boomers like me get to wave bye-bye to Generation X.
Every once in a while I feel the need to reach out to my fellow writers, and I consider it a gift to have, here at WordPress, so many friends who are sailing along with me in this boat. Up until I began my blog, writing was a solitary endeavour if ever there was one.
So, I’m here once again to see if anyone else out there shares my experience.
Inspiration comes to me from everywhere: from an unusual sight; from people I see when I’m out; from music, art… you name it. But only once in my life have I found someone who could inspire me to write an entire novel. His face, his movements, his physique, his voice – there is nothing about him which doesn’t inspire me. And without fail, every time I see him I am compelled to write the character I have found through him.
I can’t imagine I’m the only one who has felt this seemingly unlimited amount of inspiration from a single person or thing.
So tell me. What has been your boundless inspiration in the past? What, or who, is responsible for giving you the excitement necessary to write tirelessly, and on occasion, effortlessly?
lindaghill.com 