Quote of the 'Week'

"Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all."
Voltaire
Discovering that someone has commented on one of my blogs is such a joyous feeling. Hint, bloody hint!

Sunday 28 February 2010

Sunday 21 February 2010

A Message about Blogs

I feel quite alone in the Blogiverse.
                                    ...wait, 'Blogiverse' is crap. How about...
         The Blogger System? No.
         The Land of the Bloggers? Maybe.
         The Land of Blogs? No.
         The Isle of Blogs? Good Lord, no!
                 I'll go with the Land of the Bloggers.

Right. Take two.

I feel quite alone in the Land of the Bloggers. I go onto Blogger, and it feels like a bit of a desolate wasteland. This is a shame, because I think it's a darned good website, and I think more people should blog. It really exercises your writing ability - I can honestly say that Blogger has made me a better writer. It develops your mindset, sets mental templates that help with other written pieces (that is, written pieces that actually have some sort of purpose), and lets you get your opinions out there, on the Internet.
True, there are about four hundred and fifty trillion people who do blogs, and it's very unlikely that the average person will stumble upon my blog (if my completely made up statistic from earlier is anything to go by, they have a four hundred and fifty trillion to one chance of finding it), but I like the notion that they could find it. There's a slim chance.

'But Will!' I hear you scream at your computer screen, 'If so many people have blogs, how come you find the Land of the Bloggers an oh so desolate place, as you mentioned earlier in your frankly marvellous blog?'
 Well, I'm glad you asked, because the answer will pad this blog post out even more. Thanks, hypothetical screen-screaming blog-goggler!
I find it a wasteland because of the four hundred and fifty trillion people that have blogs (that joke statistic's getting a bit old now), there are only a handful of people I actually know who have them. I don't like to follow celebrities, because their blogs are all about promoting their new tour, or advertising their new book, or something equally as mundane and soul-destroying. Call me a 'something-a-bit-more-personal-reader' is you wish, but I like to read something a bit more personal that adverts. An anecdote. A confession. Anything that has been written by the person in question, (and I use the following cliché cautiously) 'straight from the heart'. None of this copy-and-paste business from their promotional website or anything. And certainly none of those blogs that are added to by the celeb's 'personal blog updater' or whatever dumb-ass job title they have. None of that. Just the odd story. Or a nice rant. As demonstrated here. [PAUSE FOR BREATH]

But I digressed slightly there. Of all the bloggers in the world, only about four of them are people I know personally. And though that would surely be enough to render this world, this Land of the Bloggers, a more engaging and interesting place, those four people seem to have stopped blogging.

Look at these.
Ross Milnes last posted something in January.
Now, that's not too bad, admittedly, but the blog is relatively new, and I'd hate for the novelty of having a blog to be lost on him already. Persevere, Mister Milnes! Your blog posts are wonderfully scathing and frank!

Miss Hayley Pardoe hasn't posted anything up in 2010 at all, her last post added at the start of December.
Hayley, your passion for music is infectious, and it's a pleasure to read your blog. Don't neglect your duties as a blogger too much - you're very good at it. Even I can't be arsed to sign out my blog posts with an official little sign - the fact that you go to the effort of putting 'Hayley xx' at the end of your posts is really rather nice. It shows you've put a bit of effort in there.

Next on this slightly cruel list (in retrospect, what on earth am I doing?) is the charmingly eloquent Emma Bowles.
It's been a while since Emma posted anything, and I miss those wonderfully structured and pitch-perfect blog posts she does. The last post was late in coming, and I'd hate for the whole blogging malarkey to cease. Come back, Emma! It's not worth... wait, it is worth it!

And last, by no means least, but definitely not the most, is Mister Josh Shaw.
July? Really, Josh, have you petered out already? There was a whole new fledgling authorial side to you that was demonstrated in this blog! I was so looking forward to reading your blog - don't stop adding to it.

After a while, these blogs become massive and intricate. You will refer back to old blog posts frequently; it's like a backup drive for all those ideas, theories and opinions that you come up with in life that would otherwise be lost.

Here are a couple of tips:
Don't feel pressured into adding to your blog.
I realise that I sound like a bit of a hypocrite after making that list, but hear me out. Don't get into the habit of writing for the sake of it, of typing bland rubbish, just so that you can say you've added to your blog. That's not the point of a blog. Try to get into the much more constructive habit of blogging whenever something worth recording pops into your mind, or into your line of sight. These things happen more often than most of us take credit for - a funny road sign, an invention idea, even a moment of anger or despair. These things are valuable sources of material - it's getting into the habit of remembering to record them that's the trick. It took me many months to develop the 'blogger's knack' - a slightly rude-sounding term that I've just made up and will probably never use again. Oh, who am I kidding. Of course I will.

Don't feel disheartened by the high quality of the blogs of other people.
Every blog was crap at one point. Well, every first blog was crap at one point. It takes time to polish a blog, to learn the tricks of the trade and to build up an impressive catalogue of entries. These things take time; don't feel rushed or intimidated by the superior blogs of people who have clearly been blogging for much longer than you. I still see blogs with all sorts of clever effects and gadgets that I've never seen before and haven't the foggiest how to recreate. They used to make me look at my blog, a 'paltry affair' by comparison, with its inanimate title and lack of visitors' book, and feel a bit stupid for even trying to compete. It's worth remembering, therefore, that your blog is an extension of your personality and your soul. Each blog is as individual as the author. I look at my blog now with a mild sense of paternal satisfaction; I cultivated it, and am proud of how it has grown and how it represents me. It doesn't need all the bells and whistles. It's unique, as are everyone else's.
Ross has decorated his blog with a few cartoons, and has a knack for using funny pictures to emphasise the points he brings up in his posts. Josh has opted for the black look, which adds character to his blog, and adorns his title with a photograph of himself, which is a nice personal touch. Hayley cuts to the chase, and relies, successfully, on her writing ability to make her blog appealing. Emma has the whole 'Bridget Jones' thing going on, with the introductory list of things like weight and the amount of tea she has drunk that day (or, as I like to call it, a 'Tea Total' - you can have that one, Emma, free of charge), which makes every post engaging and unique to those of other blogs.

Well, I have exhausted my brain for one night, brainpower that could have been spent doing some last-minute homework. But then I look at my homework. A couple of pieces of work that I have been forced to do (see first tip). I think about how how much I would value these documents in, say, forty years time. Not much at all, I'd wager. I then look at my blog, at all the posts I have made -  including this one - and think about how much 2050 Will would value those.

And I must say, the blog trumps the homework. Completely and deservedly.

Will xx

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Wednesday already.

I can't believe it's Wednesday already. Christ, this half-term break has flown by. And up to now, I have totally wasted it.
But at the same time, I can't find the motivation to do anything, nor can I see myself getting up off my arse to do anything for the remainder of the holiday. And that realisation knocks the wind out of a person. I can see myself wasting the rest of the holiday. I can clearly picture myself doing all my homework at the very last minute and getting incredibly stressed out in the process. I've still got loads of time to get everything done, but I know I won't do it. It's like being able to see a train wreck before it happens, but not being able to do anything.
And surely that is maddening.
I bet someone claimed to predict the Belgium train collision. There are always a handful of crackpots who claim to be able to see the future. They never do anything about it, though, do they? They seem to sit back, full of knowledge, and when a train crashes, or a plane slams into a building, they just say 'I knew that was going to happen.'
Call me cynical, but I just don't believe all that psychic nonsense. And that's coming from someone whose mother claimed to have psychic powers at one point.
By 'at one point', I mean 'she had powers at one point', and not 'she claimed this at one point'. She still tells me of how she knew about the Lockerbie bombing before it happened. Well, she remembers watching it on the news, and thinking 'I've seen this before...' and getting frightened by the whole thing.
Personally, I don't think she predicted anything. Before witnessing the news report, I don't think she would have been able to predict anything. Just because she felt like she knew it all along doesn't mean that she did. The brain can make you think anything - it seems reasonable that it can make you 'remember the past' when the memories have just been made up. I have often woken up from a dream to believe what I've dreamt, simply because I have past memories of the same thing which intertwine with my history in real life. The brain can mess with you in ways you cannot imagine. Because imagination is all part of the brain, as well. Your brain has complete power over your thoughts, and can become your worst enemy if you don't treat it right.
So don't do drugs.

How the f**k did I get onto that topic?

Anyway. I'm done. Goodbye.

Saturday 6 February 2010

Thursday 4 February 2010

What scandalous jests we fellows play

I was being rather childish and writing on the school bus window today. There is a chap on the bus (who I will call Franklin for anonymity) with whom I often have good-natured but intense ridiculing sessions.
Today, I wrote on the window:
YES!
Franklin is
a fool!
I put the 'YES!' in just to make my window insult extra noticeable. There were explosion lines coming off the 'YES!' and everything.
From where he was sitting, Franklin could only reach the word 'fool' and so rubbed it out. I then added this:
YES!
Franklin is 
                             a   PRODUCTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY
It all turned into 'find the fault with the back-handed compliment'. Franklin noted that it looked as though I was replying to someone, as if they had said that he wasn't a productive member of society. So I rubbed of the 'YES!'

The best thing was the fact that he was still paranoid. The window now read
Franklin is 
                             a   PRODUCTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY
but he wanted me to rub it out more than before I edited it for him.

Oh, how wide and interesting this psychological battlefield is.
I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!