An online repository of all things useful and useless

Do you know that stage in life, where you’re neither here nor there, and nothing is set in stone? I’m right there now, and when life is unpredictable putty jigsaw in your hands, it’s probably wiser to not talk it about it too much, as it might affect how the pieces fall.

That’s why I’ve been pretty absent here.

But I will start blogging again soon. I’ve not been writing for oh so very long, but after literarily spewing privately, I’ve suddenly found the dams broken.

Isn’t it funny how after a dry and barren spell of wordlessness, after the first words are cast, a deluge starts flowing?

Words and sentences swim around in my head, reminding me that I am by trade a wordsmith. Haunting me. Tormenting me. Depriving me of sleep.

I love how words play on each other and sentences form, making meaning out of nothing. The English language is much unlike the Chinese one, so unsuccinct and unable to stand alone. But if put together the right way, is pure poetry and music to the ear.

I was told before, in my creative writing class, that I was a poet, not a storyteller. I think that was the death of my fiction writing. I’ve tried to write again over the years, but nothing comes out. Till today, I abhor the need to grade one’s art. Journalistic writing, writing as a craft, is one thing. But writing as an art is another.

But maybe, because I am a poet that no longer rhymes, I might still be able to pull sentences out of my arse that might move the everyday man.

This I hope.

Screw creative writing classes.

Writing has always been self-indulgent. I should probably learn to indulge myself once in a while, instead of being ever so cautious.

However, I started this blog with an aim to NOT be self indulgent in my writing. That is still best left for private journalling. But, this blog is my anvil, and life is my hammer. And only by using it can I hone my pen (or keyboard) into a worthy blade.

Apologies for my absence from this blog. I have been swamped with work, as usual. And on top of that, I’ve been sick since the entire weekend. I think I overheated. My nose spent a great deal of time leaking blood last night. =P

I know that work seems to be impeding my blogging, but I’m stubbornly making it a point to blog because I work as a social media consultant, and therefore must participate and experiment on my own as well, and not talk out of my ass when advising clients.

I’ve also learnt a couple of things about my own social media participation lately as well. At first, I was all for social media integration, but lately I’ve been wondering whether it’s wiser to separate your social and work accounts. But that, my dear readers, is for another post.

And I’ve been wondering whether I should open up more on this blog as well. Longtime readers will probably notice that the passion and fire and brimstone is acutely missing here, just because I’m quite wary that this is the blog that I’m marketing “me” on. But I don’t think this blog is worth it’s name without it’s original soul, is it? So that’s something else to try in this experiment.

Anyway, I’ve had a couple of topics lined up lately. I’ve also been brainstorming for content for the company to package, because I feel that I’ve a lot to share and teach. And even if I don’t get it (I hope I do!), putting my ideas down in writing has given me even more content for this blog.

Now the question is when am I going to write them?

Here are some tentative topics:

1. More Abbreviations 101
2. Should you separate your social media accounts for work and play?
3. What browser would suit you?
4. Review of the Seashell Asus Eee PC (I just bought one! Yay to finally be able to do work over a cup of coffee in a nice Cafe!)
5. And much much much much more on social media and business, depending on how things pan out for work, and the content that I’ll develop or will have to keep company property.
6. And much more from myexperiences working as a waitress and in the newsagency job in Freo. I love Freo; there’s just so many little things about the city.
7. And, possibly reworked posts from my older blogs, especially if they’re relevant.

And I WILL aim to write at least one post a week. Hold me to it.

Hi everyone,

If the blog looks weird, that’s because I did a complete wipe and reinstall. I spotted popups when I hovered over my pingback links yesterday, and got worried that the blog might have been compromised, and decided to do a fresh reinstall.

Most of the blog content is back up and running anyway, except for the pictures. But everything is back up and good to go.

I’ve got to send Leia to the vet now, so I’ll sort it out over the weekend. She’s got malocculsion (misaligned teeth), so we’re gonna go get that sorted out before it gets worse. Please keep her in your thoughts.

I haven’t updated here for awhile. Been hit by a cold early this week, and then work happened, like it always happens. That’s not good, especially since I set a target to update at least once a week.

Therefore, I’ve started collecting ideas for posts, and putting down drafts, so that I don’t run out of ideas and topics.

I’ve also canvassed some friends regarding this blog, and the feedback I got was to keep posting the “how-to” posts, because they’re useful. And useful information is always good.

Also, I need to start writing for the web. Meaning I have to start thinking about shortening my posts to short sweet snippets if it suits the topic. I keep telling clients to keep things short and sweet, but sometimes, when it comes to blogging, I’m so used to reading text heavy posts from some of the blogs I follow that I tend to forget that people DO glaze over large chunks of text online.

Better practice what you preach, Char!

Also, I’ve started shortening down my categories, and have started using tags more. Basically, “categories” on blogs are usually used to class your content, while “tags” are the keywords that identify your post. Right now, I’m still tweaking my “categories” and “tags” list so that it suits the content a lot more.

And as for the previous post, some of you might have noticed that the post title has changed about three to four times. At first, I titled it “Host a website and save the world!” because I thought it had a nice ring to it, and would grab some attention.

Then a friend pointed out that carbon neutral just meant that you would not add to climate change, instead of actively saving the world. So I changed it to “Host a website and NOT destroy the world.”

And then Jon went o_0, so I changed it to the most standard, safest thing evar. Yes, I need to improve on my headline/title writing skills, very much. One day I will be able to churn out something witty and to-the-point like the really good headline writers out there. Until then, I guess practice makes perfect!