Watermark: Spring Blogging

Clicking takes you to the Flickr photo page

I've been having fun with my camera lately, and getting more skilled with it, I think. Spring is a great time to be learning -- so much to look at!

Though I haven't been writing much, I have been thinking about Watermark, and about blogging -- partly due to the recent complaint about loading time, and partly in response to Chandrasutra's questions. This morning, I received an encouraging message:

Congratulations! Watermark has been nominated as a Blogs By Women Favorite Arts & Entertainment Blog!

Voting lasts for one week; you can vote for Watermark here -- or, of course, for one of the other nominees:

Carrot Rope
A Commonplace Book
Orangepulp
MadKane

This was a reminder for me to add Blogs By Women to my sidebar, an intention that got lost somewhere, sometime, somehow . . . which brings me back to the load-time issue. I have had some thoughtful and helpful feedback on this. In response, I have cut the number of posts that show on the front page, so it will load even more quickly; and have cut a bit and reorganized the sidebar.

A Watermark reader who uses a newsreader asked if folks are really using and valuing the collection of links in Favorites, Rings, Milieux, Random, plus the Blog Directory banners and so on. That very day I got emails from two directories telling me I had new referrals -- but was that a fluke? And, in truth, I use the Favorites, Rings, Milieux, and Random links myself, so am reluctant to remove them.

I'm leaning toward the opinion that Watermark is, by design, a visual experience -- and so is inevitably graphics- heavy, slow- to- load (except it isn't really all that slow.) So I ask myself, for whom do I blog? And I ask you, to the extent that I blog for you, what would you like to see go? What must stay?

Oh, and -- I've added audio to the most recent snapshot poem. I don't know why I keep forgetting to do this. Audioblog now includes MP3 files along with the audio stream, so even those of you who don't use flash can listen. And my poems are short enough that this really should not slow loading. I don't think it will, anyway.

Wishing you a sweet spring Sunday, those of you up north -- or a fine fall Sunday, those of you down south.