Empty Page

Image via Wikipedia (if I were a woman I might look kind of like this)         As I open up this empty page, I do so without any real idea of what to write about.  Then as I ponder the possibilities I start to wonder--what do the people who happen upon my blog want to find?  I consider what I look for when I'm surfing through the blogosphere.  There are a heck of a lot of blogs and a ton of different topics.  What am I looking for in blogs?

         Information:  I like to find interesting facts.  Facts about places, people, and things.  Ephemera.  Hard truth.  Behind the scenes stories.  If it looks like I might learn something, I might hang around a blog for a while.

          Style:  Simplicity, that can be convoluted and deep in thinking, but presented for a dummy like me.  Expanding my vocabulary is fine, but if I have to stumble over too many words the reading might get tedious for me.  Likewise, if it sounds like a blogger is writing like a professor writes for academia, then it might become too much for me, especially if it's a long piece.  If it has footnotes I'm fairly sure that I'm in the wrong place.

         Quirkiness;  There are some blogs that are really weird in content, but it's an intelligent weirdness.  Other blogs shine in the delivery of humor, visual art, or entertaining literary devices.  Keep it short though.  In  blogging--especially the type of rapid social blogging as occurs in a blogging event like the A to Z Challenge--we'll read your book at another time.   Right now, don't bother me--I'm blogging.

          Friendliness:  Some blogs are so inviting.   It's easy to get to know the blogger and ties are established. Those are the blogs I visit repeatedly.  I may not visit every day or even every week, but I know who you are and you'll see me on occasion and I'll see you.  The community of bloggers is so cool.

          So I filled the page with my wondering about what the best thing to fill blog pages with is.  What do you look for in blogs?   Which one of these or other categories does your blog most fit into?  How would you describe Tossing It Out (that's the blog you're reading now in case you weren't looking)?   What would you like to see more of on this blog?  What things on this blog have you liked the least (be honest!)?

Related articles

• Empty Pages And Full Minds (nfaa.wordpress.com)
• Which blog for me? (xemion.com)
• A blogger blogs . . . about blogging (mycookinglife.com)
• To B(log) or not to B(log), that is the Question (randalldickerson.wordpress.com)
• Why I Blog (thornblanket.wordpress.com)
• The BEST Blog Ever.....Oh, wait, that was someone elses (ridiculousauthor.wordpress.com)

One Comment and Some Other Comments

       Today I'm going to continue with my quest started a couple weeks ago to examine the comments left on my post Where Am I Now Anyway?.   My previous posts about the comment analysis can be found here and here.

       But first I have a few bits of A to Z business before I talk about the comment topic.

       Kathleen from Living 2012 submitted a video to the A to Z Video contest.   If you haven't seen this yet then you should check it out:



         Pretty cool video, eh?  We're taking video submissions until March 11th so you've got time, but we're also impatient and want to see more now.  Send us some videos!  Rules for the Video contest can be found on the A to Z Blog.

         Did you see the great write-up by Alana at Writercize?   You can read it here.

         Saturday and Sunday on the A to Z Blog there will be some more helpful information and news about the Challenge happenings.  In fact, there is something to see there every day.   Please continue to check with that site and if you haven't already, please like us on Facebook and become a follower of the blog.

         Have you seen the A to Z Twitter newspaper managed by A to Z Team member Damyanti Biswas?  You can find it at  The #atozchallenge Daily.  It's filled with more interesting news--an ideal introduction to the Challenge so email the link to your friends and post it on your site.   In other words, keep spreading the A to Z Challenge news.    If you're on Twitter there is an A to Z account: @AprilA2Z  and there's the hashtag #atozchallenge.  Tweet it everywhere if you would.


        And that's about all I can think of for now.  Since I had so much A to Z news, let me close out with just one comment with my comment about that comment:

         mybabyjohn/Delores said...

Your past is now present in my presence and I will ruminate on your rumblings in my immediate future .. so .. your past will influence my future. If you are still present in the universe, thank you. By the time you read this I will already be IN my future and your present words from the past will be in MY past. My head hurts. Is there a reset button?

January 4, 2012 9:20 AM

        Delores is a writer who appears to be in my stylistic camp of literary composition.    Look at the alliteration and the poetic use of words such as "ruminate on your rumblings".   This is the kind of writing that I often lean toward and Delores has mastered it in this short passage.  She has delightfully mingled the wordplay of the multiple nuances of the words "present"   and "future".  I felt the time shift in the reading of her words.  But Delores is right about the discombobulating effect, especially if you read the passage like a tongue twister.


       What the heck am I talking about anyway!  Good job, Delores.

Related articles

• A to Z The Writercize Way: Helpful Tips from Alana Garrigues (a-to-zchallenge.com)
• More Comments About Comments (A Continuation of a Post About a Post) (tossingitout.blogspot.com)
• The Challenge Pays Off: Damyanti Biswas Got a Book Out of It (a-to-zchallenge.com)

Type Is Not My Type : #IWSG

Image via Wikipedia

       Our A to Z co-host Damyanti Biswas who has the blog Daily (w)rite was recently talking about Word programs as opposed to typewriters.  This got me to thinking about my own experiences.  I disliked typewriters immensely when I had to deal with them.   Being able to use Word programs was like a dream come true.

        Technology is exciting, but it also scares me.  Electric typewriters were better than the manuals, but still it was a hassle when you made a mistake.  Correction ribbons and white-out kind of helped but I would still end up with a messy looking manuscript.   I wrote a lot by long hand in my notebook with my Bic pen and I liked that just fine.  But nevertheless I was deterred from being a professional writer and just doodled for myself and anyone who cared to take a peek.

        I once bought a Sears Type-O-Graph.  This was in the late 1980s.  This novel little machine was like a typewriter that instead of making impressions with type heads it had little pen tips that wrote whatever it was that you were keyboarding.   It also made really cool graphs and did a few other tricks.

       The store demonstration sold me on the Type-O-Graph, but after I started using it I realized that it was too complex for me to want to learn about.  Besides that, the little pen tips ran out of ink pretty quickly if you used them a lot and those things were expensive.  The machine was not very effective and not economically practical.  Besides, even though the graphs and diagrams that the machine could create were kind of cool, when would I need to use this?   My whole point in getting the Type-O-Graph was to make writing easier and truth be told it did not do that.

        When I finally started using computers I discovered true facility in writing.  No more erasures and an easy view of what was going to be put on paper before it was printed.   I could easily edit.  My fingers were able to fly faster across the keyboard.  And I could look at the internet when I wasn't keyboarding.

         However, I was also now head to head with advanced technology.  There is so much that I don't get about computers.  There is too much to learn and new things keep coming.  Just when I think I've got something down they change it.  New versions of Word, new operating systems, new software, new hardware.   When does it all end!!!   I can't keep up.
       

          I'm kind of concerned how things keep changing.  Google, Blogger, Facebook--I get used to something and they make it different.  Sure it's supposed to be improvements that they're making, but I liked the old ways.   I can't keep up Twitter, video on YouTube, or all of the other things that are so abundant that I can't even name them all.

          Someday I just know a computer virus is going to eat everything I've ever created, steal all that I have including my identity, and then infect me and my wife with some brain eating disease that will turn us into zombies. Then some stupid zombie author will turn me into a damn story about zombies and instead of writing a book, I'll be a book. 

           Of course, I suppose there's an upside to that.  I like to see the up side to things, but I'm not thinking of it right at this moment.

           Let's leave it at this:  I'm kind of happy with the way things are right now and I don't want things to keep changing so fast.  I'm glad we don't have typewriters anymore and I like computers.  Leave my Windows and Word the way it is now because I'm used to it.  Stop messing with Blogger, Google, and Facebook.  All this change makes me feel so insecure.

            To hear from other insecure writers go here.

           

Related articles

• The Insecure Writer's Support Group (alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com)
• Writers, Has Microsoft Word Changed Your Writing? (damyantiwrites.wordpress.com)
• Typewriter art (stoneletters.wordpress.com)
• Typewriters (childhoodall.blogspot.com)