Watermark

bloggity bloggity blog blog blog

I.

Suzanne Stefanac, author of dispatches from blogistan; a travel guide for the modern blogger is this month's guest at The Well's InkWell.vue. Non-members are welcome: Join us, or email questions and conversational contributions to the Inkwell.vue hosts. If, after hanging out there a bit, you would like to explore The Well  further, drop me a note.

Filled with practical, easy-to-implement advice for making blogging more enjoyable, useful, and profitable, this book covers everything from blogging and how it fits into the history of journalism to practical tips for planning and managing a blog, attracting and retaining an active readership, and even generating revenue. Written by noted technology journalist and interactive media veteran Suzanne Stefanac, the book's fresh and succinct design; quotes and commentary from noted and celebrity bloggers (authors Bruce Sterling, Steven Johnson and Cory Doctorow, Craig Newmark of craigslist.org, NPR news commentator Farai Chideya, blog pioneer Justin Hall among others), accompanying blog site; and more, make this a blog book like no other!

Suzanne also contributes now and then to Blogging Blog, and has her own site at dispatches from blogistan. I got this book a bit over a month ago, sat down and read it cover to cover. Now I look forward to reading it again, more slowly, and this great opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics -- blogging blogging blogging! -- with a true expert. This is a very cool book!

II.

Well, I've finished this -- a post per day, all of November. And now it's time for:

III.

Holidailies is a free community writing project. All Holidailies 2006 participants promise to update their personal web sites every day from December 1 to January 1. Portal participants post summaries of their entries, which are aggregated on the front page of Holidailies 2006...

I did this a couple of years ago, then forgot and was too late to register last year. Since I seem to be on a roll, here, I thought I'd see if I can keep going.

And then we have:

IV.

The 2006 Montana Weblog Awards at A Chicken Is Not Pillage. Wulfgar! is soliciting nominations in many categories, including (hint hint):

Creativity

Most creative Montana blog.
Best photographic Montana blog.
Best written Montana blog.
Most humorous Montana blog.

Special

Best post. (include a link, please.)
Best series of posts relating to given topic.

There are also categories for Political and Culture blogging. Voting has not yet begun; this (until next Tuesday, December 5th) is the nomination period. You needn't be a Montana blogger to nominate someone, or to vote, but the nominees must be Montana blogs.

Watermark won last year for Best Culture Website. I don't think Blogging Blog or Abide has ever been nominated -- and I'm not sure they would fit any of the categories anyway. And gosh, there are a lot of us. The competition will be as tough as Montanans.

I will be mentioning when voting opens.

Poetry Thursday

  This week's prompt was If these walls could talk:

   

   

This house speaks.
Floorboards groan,
walls crack like
lightening bolts.

Windows insist
Wash me! Snow-
melt drips, drips,
from the eves.

Paintings proclaim
blue, green, gold;
they announce
Alaska, New Mexico,

Pennsylvania. Listen,
you can hear wings:
parakeets, iron angels,
carved wood goddesses

from Thailand and Bali.
Icarus. New Guineau.
This glass whispers
Czechoslovakia.

A flowered bowl blooms
China. Beads cry Africa!
That sheepskin says: home,
here, mountain, Montana.

 

Snapshot Poem 29 November 02006

    

The Muse
     4:00 a.m.

choose -- green
lime or shamrock?

                paper money
                in a shoebox

yellow -- quick!

                sunlight on
                polished oak

                    daffodils

trite trite trite

yellow --

                that dead fox stole
                on the woman's shoulders
                in the Topper movie

                wait

                wasn't that in black&white?

yellow --

                the fox stole the egg
                with its yellow yolk

the muse works in mysterious ways

brrrinnng brrrinng brrrinnng     click
SPEAK!        !beep!        _____________
_______________________.     click

red --

                the naked
                human heart

Migraine Storybook Dream

Yes, I do realize that posting dreams is against all reasonable rules, but I just can't resist this one. I had a migraine, or a fever, and went to bed early in the evening. Then I fell into a storybook. Into Wonderland.

I'll put most of it under the cut. Ready? OK, now sit back and relax, here we go:

A girl/young woman lives alone in a hut by the sea. She doesn't know why she's there, but she doesn't think much about that. She spends her time exploring, watching the animals and birds and the sea. No matter where she falls asleep -- on the seashore, in the forest, even high in a tree (more about that later) she wakes up the next morning on her cot, with fresh milk, bread, and gruel at the door of her hut.

DICK CHENEY IS WATCHING YOU

Made with fd's flickr toys.

He's become an archetype, hasn't he? Or inhabited one.

I found the original on the sidewalk in downtown Missoula. It made me shudder, and laugh, at once.

I'm taking the day off . . .

. . . but here's a squirrel for you:

Winner!

Well, I did it. I'm not sure what I did, exactly; and I'm not sure why -- but I did it.

Poetry Thursday

  This week's prompt was to attend a reading, which I planned to do (of sorts) but the car wouldn't start. Water in the gas line.

So instead, let's deconstruct yesterday's Snapshot Poem, shall we?

It seemed fine when I first posted it, but then ... a little help from PoetryEtc and others, and a reconsideration. Here's the text:

i wish i could hold
your heart in my hands

open it
like a chrysanthemum

Hmmm.

• the speaker wishes to be a heart surgeon?
• the person the speaker is addressing has a heart that appears to be sharp & spiky, but is actually made of soft flower petals?
• the poet meant to say:

i wish i could hold
your heart in my hands

open it
as a chrysanthemum opens

?

• the speaker is confused
• the poet is confused

Just a reminder to myself: the poem must have some internal, and even real-world, logic to it. Metaphor is fine, but it needs to make sense.

Snapshot Poem 22 November 02006

Tummy Tuesday

[Today: 1471 words. So far: 46,556 words.]