What Happened to My Ads Part 2

Yesterday I asked what had happened to the adsense ads that I used to have on this page. Then I went and did some research. It seems, that unless I’m getting 10,000 views per month, I won’t be getting any ads. It also seems that I need to keep my posts longer than 500 words.

I don’t know about any of my readers, but I think that for the most part I’m going to have no problem meeting that word limit. Although to a poet like myself (at least I have pretensions of being a poet at times) that 500 words is a large amount of fluff to throw at the page without ever really saying anything.

On any subject that I’m familiar with I can actually get some good detail done with a piece of that size, and as anyone can see by this post, it isn’t really hard to stretch out what is written in a post that really isn’t very informative.

One other thing that I found is that it seems that it is a good idea to link your blog to your youtube channel. Now one thing I must admit is that I don’t really have a youtube channel, though I do comment on items on youtube.

But why don’t you have a youtube channel? Simple, because I have a face for radio, and a voice for silent movies! Or in other words I at least feel that I don't do well at speaking, and that my audience would be in danger of hurling if they saw my mug.

Of course I could just do audio with white boards or screen shots to back the audio… But like I said, at least in my opinion, I don’t have a very good voice.

Ah well, off to upwork www.upwork.com to see if I can’t find some sort of small gig to get my foot in the door as a proofreader… Though what I’ve seen there is very frustrating. It seems that everyone who wants someone to do that job is looking more for an ‘expert’ reader than a proofreader. After all you really don't even need a MFA to proofread effectively. At least for English you don't need such a credential. After all what you really need is to be familiar with written English and how it should be done. And that familiarity can come from a variety of sources. I like to say that my source for my knowledge of how the English language is written is from reading a large number of both fiction and non-fiction books, where I’ve had the displeasure of having spent my money on something to discover that there were spelling errors in it!

I do believe that I’m going to see if I can also convince another place to take me on as an ‘extern’ that is someone who learns while they work but from a remote location, rather than a central office. I’ll make an offer that ought to be hard for them to refuse, that is to work for a certain amount of money each week regardless of the work they shove in front of me. If past experience is any guide, I get through quite a pile of work anyway when it comes to proofreading. I guess I should go now.

Until my next post, read, rate, and follow my work please!

Try again!

It has been a long time since I made an entry here, which I admit is one of the problems I have with writing. And I might add most of my ideas to improve my life. That is that they are diffuse and intermittent, with great emphasis on being intermittent.

Therefore I have been thinking lately on how I can take my thinking which is diffuse (unorganized mostly but lacking concentration) and intermittent (obviously given the length of time since I’ve posted here that is given) and convert them to something that is both concentrated and consistent.

Obviously, given my lack of training in this area, most of my efforts have been at best ineffectual. That is what some of my earlier writing on issues such as outlining an organizational tools has dealt with. And to be honest I still lack even those basic tools. Which makes making the next step in the effort even more difficult for in many ways I am still in a playpen watching everyone around me run and have fun and not only do I have no way I can see to escape the playpen but there has been an active effort by some to make sure I don’t leave that playpen.

Some of my efforts here have been writing about that very issue, that is leaving the playpen, the safe space if you will. For if one were to redefine safe spaces as playpens where you never allowed yourself (for it is my experience that for all of the outside influences I fight the worst enemy I have in all of my effort is myself) to experience either victory or defeat in the hope of avoiding defeat. But I have found this: If your focus is on defeat, that is what you experience, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. So how do I who have all of my life focused on avoiding defeat change my focus to achieving victory. I mean that is terrifying! If I fail badly now while not even really crawling, what will my failures when running look and feel like.

Yet I do not any longer wish to be constrained to the prison I and others have kept me in for all of my life. Where do I go from here?

First I’m going to listen to this speach again. If you have come here from somewhere else and maybe this is the first time you’ve thought about what is in my blog, then I urge you to start arguing to 100 in your life rather than arguing to zero!

2012 Writing Challenge

Well for 2011 I missed my goal of posting at least one item per week here. Part of the reason for that is that for most of the year I was still posting at Author Nation with the hope that that site would help build this site as it was a social networking site as well as a writer’s forum of sorts.

I’m now fairly certain that Author Nation is defunct so that should provide me with a greater incentive to post here more frequently. There has been one other thing that has held me up as well. That is the fact that The Hard Knocks School of Life is proving harder to do than I thought it would be. Not to write the items, as I have some 600 of them, but rather to expand upon them. This is due to the fact that a great many of the pieces of The Hard Knocks School of life are only a few words long. And while I feel that a lot of them are perfectly fine at that length I’ve felt that posting a 5 or 10 word bit once a week was a bit on the weak side when it came to writing.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Addiction is Insanity

I’ve been looking at addiction from the inside for many years. And while it would be possible to make the excuse that my addiction is fairly harmless I would be less than truthful in saying that it has caused me no harm nor pain.
One of my addictions is playing solitaire on the computer. Another is reading anything and everything with a concentration on fiction. Both of these are activities that I will do even when I could be doing something else (like writing) that has the potential to increase my income. I will also do them rather than go out to meet people. Even though that too has the potential to increase my income or open opportunities for me to share my writing with an even larger audience.

Thus I can see that even the mildest of addictions has many negative impacts on my life, yet I will not stop doing the things that I’m addicted to! This is insanity.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Author Interview

Vic Jones, the author of The Wordwright’s blog at Author Nation http://www.authornation.com/Thewordwright/    and Aethernotes_polyblog was interviewed by Lorelei Bell for http://loreleismuse-lorelei.blogspot.com/ about his life as an author and his upcoming book Castlebound.

What is happening

I said some time ago that I would post my poetry here but I am finding that very difficult to do since some of it is formatted in ways that this particular site seems to not support.

However if one of you who reads this can give me some clues to what I've done wrong to cause this site to remove the formatting from items I paste to it I would be greatly obliged.
Vic
1-18-2011

Over committed

I'm doing my best to maintian two blogs and write three books. Well actually I have two underway now (not counting any stalled projects) and one in the first edit stage of the game.

So as I haven't been posting much here I imagine you all know which project is sucking hind teat the most.

With that said I do hope to be able to post at least once a week to this blog.

Vic

Writing: The Hook

While studying the craft of writing I’ve been trying to discern what constitutes a good hook. For those who are unfamiliar with the term this is the first paragraph or so of a fictional piece (or a news or history piece) that serves to grab the reader’s interest.

I have come to the conclusion that if I can encapsulate the why of the story properly then I will have a good hook. Why what will happen in the story is important to the protagonist. And make it emotionally gripping to the audience. Thus is the good hook.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Writing Poetry

Writing Poetry


Words grumble,

And rumble.

Some tumble,

About in my mind,

A confusing jumble,

Meaning communication,

Ideas,

Or just random noise,

Do I say something,

Or am I just mouthing nonsense,

I know what this is,

And say so now,

Nonsense!

Just words flung,

In random directions,

Prating itself as poetry.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Writer's Block

Writer’s Block


Words like mountains,

Obdurate—obstacles,

Refuse to flow,

Onto the page,

Or in my mind,

So I sit,

And think,

Wondering where yon muse has gone,

And hoping she will return soon!

© 2010 Vic Jones