DragonBlog

Two Years of Blogging...

We're coming up on the two-year mark. On December 2nd, 2003, I began blogging. Quick Shtick Writing began a couple months later, on February 11, 2004. Both have been posted to on a pretty regular basis for the time they've endured so far. I've also dabbled in some other blogs although not nearly as religiously. To Our Children's Children made a fair run of it, but has been temporarily set aside, mostly due to time constraints. I expect I'll pick it up again sometime after the next child is born. I do still want to finish my half of it. Brian stopped doing it well before I did. Mostly there's enough other stuff that needs doing in the morning and TOCC can take up a goodly amount of time on some of the more complex questions.

Last year, I think I forgot to post anything on the actual anniversary of my blog starting until after the date had passed, so I figured I'd get this mention of it in early instead of having something else come up.

The pros and cons of blogging so far have been generally in favor of doing it, although the spam issue persists. The version of MT I use seemed to have some issues when I attempted to install the blacklist at one point, so I was unable to make use of that tool. I have learned, however, how to mass delete the spam from the database directly, and I take a few measures that help reduce the sheer amount of it altogether at least. Recently, someone has been harassing Quick Shtick with about 10 - 15 spam comments per day, which basically causes me to have to rebuild the site each of the 3-5 times I check it during the day. It helps that the blog e-mails me when a comment or trackback shows up, and I check my e-mail pretty regularly when I'm at home. It's annoying enough, however, that I've been considering disabling comments for a while, just to give myself a break. Most of the time, the spam shows up in big blocks, generated by an automated program that utilizes a file on my site. I regularly change that file to prevent as much as possible, but knowing how to manipulate the database (thanks Brian! He's the database guru around here) has helped TONS in mass deleting the damned things. It was very painful before, when I had to delete each comment one at a time.

The gallery has been a nice improvement this past year, I think, allowing me to peruse through the pictures I have posted on the blog thus far, as well as include extra pictures of events now and again - usually from group stuff so that the other parents I was with can see the pictures I got of their kids too. I'd love to do more stuff with it, like set up a section for just "artistic" pictures I've taken, but again - time is the issue. If I had the time to do everything I wanted to each day, then there would be at least 48 hours in the day, probably more. I am constantly thinking up cool projects I'd love to do, but am swamped enough to begin with.

PaganParents.com has been one of those projects, sadly. While I still have plans to finish it, and a redesign in progress to make it look far more snazzy than the basic site I threw up to have something there, the project itself has continued to take a back burner to motherhood, school, housework, remodelling, de-cluttering, and a slew of other things that hold far more priority right now. I fear that it might not get finished until sometime maybe next summer. When class ends and winter break begins I will need to focus on getting the room for the baby ready. When spring break comes it will be right around the same time that I give birth. And while class is going, it takes priority over any non-professional (professional being "paying" or "bartered") web design I do. I haven't even updated my "professional" site to show that I've been doing more web design recently than the other stuff I have up there either. In fact, it's in sad shape, all things considered.

I like to think my writing has gotten a bit better over the course of the time I've been blogging. While I still tend to ramble off my ass a bit here, I have learned to make some of what I have to say come out in a slightly more concise manner. Maybe not as much as I ought, but part of what I do here is meant to be more like an open diary. I write like I talk. In some cases, I write like I wish I would talk, as I so often keep my mouth shut when I really should say what's on my mind. This is my little venting space, and I use it thus. That's pissed a couple people off in the course of it, but then I can't always expect people to interpret what I write the same way it came out in my head before my fingers hit the keys. Especially if they aren't in the same headspace as I am when I'm composing it. *shrug* I can't please all the people all the time, and I decided during that first year of blogging that I didn't want to blog for other people. I blog what *I* want to blog. If others find enjoyment reading it - that's all the more gratifying. Not only that, but I want to take down the memories of my children in the process. For them, just as much as for myself.

If nothing else, they'll have something easy to print out and hand to their therapists one day.

I could go on. Ramble on about blogging a bit more. But really, I just want to say that I'm excited I've kept going this long. I look forward to seeing if I make it yet another year here in the blogsphere.

G'night!

Current Mood: nostalgic

The Dusty Blog Bones In Our Closets...

Brian finally owned up to his anonymous blog, KillingTime. I've been waiting for quite some time for him to decide what he was going to do with that. Mostly because I had an anonymous blog too, made purely as a result of his. It took a while, and many heated and interesting discussions around this house, before I finally created an anonymous identity with which I could leave comments on his anonymous blog. Because, honestly, I couldn't stand the idea that NO ONE had commented about the morality of the character he was portraying there. I felt that there ought to be someone calling on him to explain himself, to account for his "actions" whether fictional or not. I think the tricky part was separating myself (as in the part of me that knew it was a experiment in characterization and fiction) and my views of the character. Creating another identity helped me to do that. Because, in all fairness, I would NEVER put my real name out there on a blog that I wasn't sure about. I'm anything BUT anonymous here on this blog. It probably wouldn't be hard to track me down if someone really wanted to (although why they would want to is beyond me!). So putting my real name down, commenting on a self-proclaimed hit man's blog? Nuh-uh! Especially not when he supposedly lives in "Chicago" and I'm living in just a couple hours of driving distance from there. No fucking way!

So I created WriterGirlBlue to be my voice. I didn't change my personality, nor my standings and morals while posting under that name. Merely my identity. Mostly to help keep the suspension of disbelieve for him (linking back to me could also have allowed his readers an easier chance of figuring him out), and also to play along in-character with the idea that I didn't know it was really fiction. I also wanted to see someone challenge him - make him work to make sure the character was believeable. After all, if he was going to pick such a "morally flexible" persona to portray, he ought to have to put some effort into it. I was afraid his other readers were going too easy on him. There were more conversations about his "cat Walther" and his "mom" than the fact that he killed people for money for a living. That just didn't sit well with me.

I used the blog itself as more of a "rant board" than anything else. This blog tends to be more of a personal journal than a political soapbox, partly as I tend to try and see both sides of an argument and frequently have a hard time taking a stand either way. That made it difficult to post with any regularity on WriterGirlBlue, as I don't have a lot of issues where I can stand up and say "that's right, this is wrong, and I can't see any other way around it." Too many of life's troubles have enough gray area for me to insist that mine is the only opinion that ought to be heard. I ended up having a difficult time adequately explaining that when it came to the Pro Life / Pro Choice issue. While I would never abort or give up a child if I were to become pregnant unwillingly (my current pregnancy was, as most know, happily anticipated), I can understand that there are some reasons where a woman might choose not to go through with a pregnancy. I've known people who've been in such circumstances, and I don't begrudge them their right to make that choice. I could give examples, but that's not what this blog post is about. Maybe I'll delve further into it at another time.

Another topic I broached on WriterGirlBlue was about the murder of children. I just have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept (or maybe I just don't want to be able to understand) of how a person could willfully murder their own child. Yeah, I'll get frustrated and irritated at my kid from time to time, but I would NEVER allow myself to get that angry at him! Some of the news stories I read left me so emotionally distraught I wanted to throw up!

I am careful about reading the news. I rarely watch it. Usually I hear about something going on through someone else first (often Brian) and I look it up on CNN.com or some other news webpage to get some solid information. But, you see, once I start - I can't stop. I keep digging, until I find pictures or read something worse. I remember 9-11 - Brian called to tell me to turn on the TV and I sat on the couch in front of it for the remainder of the day, my mouth half open in shock and horror as I watched the towers fall. I find I become far too empathic when I read or see such events. I can't drive by an accident on the roadside where an ambulance has arrived without a chill running down my spine and my eyes trying to tear up. That's just how I am. So I try to limit how much I expose myself or I'd be a blubbering wreck all the time and no good to anyone. In the end, this also limited how much I posted on WriterGirlBlue. I tried scoping out the news for tidbits to rant about. I just can't do it with any regularity. I'd far rather comment on the things in life that effect me as I go through my daily routines than search out stuff to be upset about. It's just not worth the emotional drain.

Anyway, there's my own admission of anonymous bloggage. While originally a tool to help me comment on KillingTime, (a KT "fan site", he tried to call it! LOL!) I did find out some more about myself along the way. I think it made the posts I do here feel more rewarding and more "me" just from the act of being anonymous and trying something different there. So I guess it, too, was an experiment in a way. Just not one of fiction.

Of course, what I really ought to do is a sex blog. But there's just so many out there that it's almost cliché! And THAT'S not something I could later print out and show to my kids...

And, as for the pages I put together for Brian's writing projects? Well, yeah, they took me longer than expected. Mostly because he went and put all the content in MS Word first and something always seems to go wonky when you try and just to a cut/paste from Word into web software. I'd remove something stupid, like a line-break in the code and it would change all manner of things it oughtn't have changed. I was baffled for about half of the time. Next time I'll make him give me printed copy and I'll just type it directly into the web page itself. It'd take less time!

Well, that's all for now. Gotta go drop a post in on WriterGirlBlue, linking back to here and then play some mindless computer game to wind down before bed. 'Cause my mind is whirling right now and I need to make it sleepy.

G'night!

Current Mood: contemplative

QSW and Working In The Garden...

We had a near-miss today on Quick Shtick Writing, when Brian accidentally managed to put today's post in where yesterday's post had been, thus unintentionally deleting yesterday's post! I adjusted the date so that today's post showed up in it's proper spot, but was unable to rescue yesterday's post myself. Fortunately, Brian remembered that Google caches stuff and offers you a link to it. It still showed the post from yesterday so he was able to steal the text back off of that and re-insert it into the proper place in the story. Which was good, or I was going to make him figure out how to write it all over again, since we can't just have a chunk of text missing in the first chapter of the story!

We also spent a chunk of time getting excited over what we want to do with this next story and have some stuff figured out about the other characters in it. For those readers who might be frail of heart - NO, Kayla is NOT DEAD! I did not kill her off today, merely ended the chapter by launching her poor, tired self into unconsciousness. We will see her again, but it is time to meet one of the next characters in the little ensemble cast we're concocting. This story is already starting to write itself, just from some of the first chapter.

I'm also finding it interesting that we've already seen signs of "religion" in this story, and will be seeing quite a bit more. In the past, I've tended to leave religion out of stories, not wanting to delve into that potentially dangerous terrain. In a fantasy setting, however, we can make up this shit as we go - god and goddesses can be as evil or good as we like, have whatever name we pluck out of the air, and be as "involved" with their worshippers as they choose to be. You think it's good to be the king? Bah! Try playing GOD sometime. Mwahahaha! I LOVE writing fiction...

In other news, I got to hang out with RainMoon and her daughter for a little while today. We've both been kinda busy so we haven't had as much time to chat, so it was great to just relax on the patio outside and catch up while the kids played. After she had to go, I got some weeds out of the back yard while Jareth kept playing until naptime. We were both so involved in what we were doing that neither Jareth, nor I remembered to have lunch! I don't feel too bad though, as I picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes while I was out there too, and he ate MOST of them after I'd rinsed them off. He LOVES my little tomato garden and gets downright unreasonable when there aren't tomatoes available to snack on! I guess next year I'll have to plant even more so we have extra yeild. That way *I* can have some every now and again too! Sheesh! Man, though - I totally would rather he want cherry tomatoes as a snack than crackers or something. Soooo much healthier for him. Yay!

But I got a small start on some yardwork finally. We'll start doing the bigger stuff on Sunday. My main thing to tackle on sunday will be the front and side beds, which are connected in an "L" shape with an evergreen tree in the corner. That tree has to go. I want to move the roses there, with some trellis stuff I've got that will hopefully not look too hokey until I find something better that isn't too expensive. The side bed will become more vegetable garden room, since we've been getting a kick out of having the fresh tomatoes, and the front bed will eventually be hosta and flowers once I get done with it. I'll do the planting in the spring. But, for now, I need to clean all the weeds and crap out of it and prep it. If we can get the corner stump out too, we'll move the roses now as well. We'll see. I just want them prickly suckers all in one spot already, instead of getting in the way of the rest of the garden. They're pretty though, so I don't want them gone altogether - just moved somewhere I can deal with them better.

Okay, that's enough rambling for tonight...

G'night!

Current Mood: contemplative

Another Upcoming Shtick...

I managed to get stuff transferred over today on Quick Shtick Writing so that the last story we wrote now has it's own section and the way has been cleared for the next one. Until a few hours ago we still had pretty much no clue what we'd be writing, and had already given ourselves the deadline to begin posting again on either Sunday or Monday. Brian has the first post this time (we take turns with each story) and I think we have a starting scenario in mind, a genre for the story to fit into, and some small measure of direction on where we'd like the story to end up. A very, very loose direction anyway. After all, it wouldn't be writing on the fly if we planned it all out in advance, would it?

I'm already looking forward to the next story, which is a good sign. I was occasionally dreading writing some of the posts in the last. If we want to keep practicing as writers this really is a good exercise in discipline, as we commit ourselves to posting each day barring small interruptions from the occasional server issue or someone having to be out of town. We each kind of see ourselves still writing in the future, even as a hobby around other ventures, and I generally find it an overall enjoyable pursuit, even when sometimes the story feels flat and I have trouble even coming up with a couple of paragraphs to throw out there. There were a few of those moments in the last story. We're going to have a few perspectives in this next one - if nothing else, we can use them to spice things up at pretty much any given point without having to specifically put a character to sleep or knock him/her unconscious just to move on. This is good. The protagonist in the last story suffered far more physical injury than I think we'd planned for him, but sometimes we just needed to knock the poor bastard out for a while or the plotline would never have moved on already.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go to Heritage Fest since it's in the township I live in. I didn't make it last year, so I'm hoping to make up for lost time. I've been living here three years now and still don't know the shops in the local downtown areas, so this might give me a chance to check some of them out too. My mother-in-law is going to join me tomorrow, seeing the sights while my father-in-law will be part of the Civil War encampment they have as part of the festival. RainMoon will also be manning a booth with a group she's part of too, although I'm not sure I'll get to see her as she's only going to be at the booth until noon and I'm not planning to be arriving until sometime after that. This thing goes on all weekend, and I'll be seeing more of it on Sunday with Brian too. It actually started tonight and there were supposedly going to be fireworks but we're still recovering from the Sandwich Fair last weekend so we can only handle so much. Especially since we're also hoping to start doing some of our yardwork on Sunday too - the beginnings of our Fall Equinox observances.

The actual Equinox itself is on the 22nd, and we haven't decided if we're doing anything special on that day yet. It won't help with me having class that night and Jareth having his gymnastics class - we'll all probably be too busy to do much more than eat and run. We'll probably observe it more properly the following Sunday when we finish up the yardwork (hopefully) and follow it up with a nice meal of some sorts. I'm not much for rituals or anything planned out that feels "put on", so we'll just sort of wing it. It's a moment marking the passage of time and seasons for me, so spending time nurturing the outdoors in some manner seems like the best plan - hence the yardwork. My yard could really use some "mothering" anyway.

That's all for now. G'night!

Current Mood: contemplative

Changing tracks with my train of thought...

I've just added a new category, finally, to throw this post into. I should probably go back and put a few of my older posts into this category, but... nah. I have far, far too much to do these days to worry myself with such little, trivial details.

We went to a writing group meetup today. For me, anyway, I see it as a kick-start reminder to myself that I ought to be writing more on my own - apart from what Brian and I do over at Quick Shtick Writing everyday. I may have the discipline of writing daily down, but I'm not writing anything solely my own currently. I keep starting projects and then setting them aside. I have to find a way to set aside an hour or two each day, for starters, to write - no matter what my plans might be. The trouble is finding that time. Especially now that I've gone and joined all these "mommy meetups" to give Jareth some social experiences (and myself as well).

It was refreshing just to meet with other people who are writing. I get the impression I was meeting with others who write because they love to write, more than because they want to make big bucks with it. It's important to enjoy it first and hope for it to end up being something you can one day make a living entirely with. I'd love for it to be that way for Brian and I, anyway. For us to be able to move out into the country somewhere and stay at home writing all day as we take turns home-schooling our son and any other children we might have. I think that's the dream we hold dear right now. One we can pretty much agree on.

But how many people actually get to make their entire living with just writing fiction? Despite the number of books on sale at any given time by writers who still remain amongst the living, I doubt there are very many who are living entirely on the proceeds from their work.

Don't quit your day job...

*sigh*

Too bad my day job doesn't pay in actual money. Speaking of which, we tucked the little guy into bed midway through my writing this post so I guess I'm off work for the day. Time to kick back and relax for a bit. Maybe tomorrow we'll be able to get up early enough to go to the open gym thing that Jareth enjoys so much. Then maybe I'll find some time later in the day to get in some writing around the other things on my list. Like groceries.

I think I may need extra caffeine tomorrow.

G'night!