Seasonal Plume

My blogging here is rather sporadic, something which I’m quite sad about. One reason for that is probably that I’ve grown disenchanted (again) with my layout, for all that I loved it when it was new. I’m still trying to come up with a new layout, but it isn’t easy.

I’m trying to get more into blogging, though, and I’m sure as soon as I actually decide on a new, better, more readable layout for Seasonal Plume I’ll be back in the game. (I’m actually thinking of going so far as just downloading a theme and using it… I’m trying to resist, though.) However, I do have two new “blog projects”.

The first is Frontend Friday, over at my tech blog, where I talk about various things related to frontend stuff: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other frontend issues. I’m still trying to feel around as to what topics are interesting, so feel free to suggest.

The second is I’ve just accepted an invite from Tech Blog Philippines to be a contributor, and in time you should see a couple of posts from me on there, probably revolving mostly on things I find interesting but wouldn’t exactly fall in the realm of what’s “bloggable” in Indiscripts–I’m sure there will be some overlap, but not by much.

As for creative writing…I’ve fallen into a funk again. Sigh.

I found this article by Lorelle VanFossen on Digg a while ago, about blogging being about writing. I couldn’t agree more, although blogging and creative writing have different goals and different means of getting to those goals. As I read through her 30-item list, a good number of them called out to me, having been victim/champion of those items previously.

So now I give you my top three blogging and writing similarities, as well as my top three blogging and writing differences, given her list.

Top Three Blogging and Creative Writing Similarities

1. Don’t Just Show, Show and Tell. This is also item #1 on Lorelle’s article, taking its cue from the ever-popular saying “Show, don’t tell.” I’ve always been touting along that same phase for a good while, but sometimes you just have to know when to quit showing and start telling. A nice long dialogue where you show subtle nuances in your characters’ personalities just don’t cut it when your story almost reads like a script. Nor is action upon action upon action very interesting unless your story should move that fast. A good balance between showing and telling is important, using criteria such as importance of the scene as well as time and pacing of the story.
2. Make Your Point in the First 200 Words. (Item #4 on the list.) This is one important feature of news writing, which I did for a short time when I was younger; news writing requires you to put all important information in your lead paragraph. For creative writing, you had better grab your readers within the first few paragraphs, if not by the first sentence. Introduce your conflict, start foreshadowing, whatever rocks your boat. But make your point, and make it memorable.
3. Write With Conviction and Passion. (It’s placed last, at #30.) This isn’t a tip or anything of the sort; conviction, passion, and love for the story shines through from the words you weave. Your passion makes your story different and original; any seemingly formulaic plot is given life and originality by the passion the author has in the story. Write about what you believe in. Write about what you love talking about. Write about what you want to shout out to the world.

Top Three Blogging and Creative Writing Differences

1. Don’t overuse your words because they’re not like blog keywords (see item #2). More often than not while writing we gravitate towards certain words and use them time and again. Shake out of that literary bog and try challenging yourself to use words that would better fit your scene; reading your story out loud will help you pinpoint which words are overused and which should be replaced to better fit the nuances of your scenes.
2. Write about what strikes your heart and not what you know. Unlike blogs which share information (see item #12), creative writing should call to your readers’ emotions. We’ve all been angry, sad, happy—it’s the creative writer’s task to evoke strong memories and impressions of those emotions in order to affect the readers. If we’re looking for the latest in genetics engineering, we’ll look it up; don’t get bogged down by explaining every fact if it’s not essential to your story.
3. Don’t write like the way you talk, (against item #23) unless you’re writing in the first person point of view and your character should sound like you. But don’t write like a textbook — find the style that suits you as well as your story. Dry, or flowery? Lyrical or hard action-oriented paragraphs? Your characters may have accents which make their speech unintelligible, but make your point and then let your readers understand them without having to resort to explaining every other phrase!

And oh, for the love of all that is good, if you’re a blogger who’s also into creative writing, please don’t blog the way you write your stories. We don’t want to hear about the scent of the roses as you step gingerly into the wide arch of the heavy door, breathing in to control your wildly thudding heart, anticipating the scene that would greet you when you lift your eyes to the…

You get the point.

Phew, seasonalplume.net (the domain) is finally back! It propagated sometime last night while I was sleeping, but I’d been too swamped in the office to comment about it. You can still see this website via the indisguise.org address, but now my real domain is back in action. I’m happy. Those two days were absolutely nerve-wracking.

But naturally those two days isn’t a complete waste: it spurred me on to re-evaluate Seasonal Plume, specifically its contents and architecture, the way it’s served (and designed). Of my three blogs, I suppose Seasonal Plume is the most “hazy” — even with tacking on the “writing and literary blog” handle to it, one might say I’ve always been trying to feel the waters and find the best Seasonal Plume reincarnation. Let’s face it: friends will read my haphazard rambling at my journal, and users of my scripts will always take a peek now and then at my scripts archive; but writing? And someone who doesn’t have 39857394562 bestsellers already published?

Those two things have been in my mind a lot more frequently over the last two months. One might say that I just need to read the 872398435 articles on “how to blog effectively” and “5872985679 tips on blogging” or whatever else the Internet spews out of its (significant) mouth; and I actually have. But I guess, coming from a time when the blogging phenomenon was juuuuust starting, I’m a little old-fashioned in the sense that I need more than just a blog in my website. A blog is a blog is a blog, but what about the content? (*hides from other bloggers*)

That’s why I kept fluctuating between a “regular-style” blog (like the Blue Semi-colons theme and the Wet Sponge theme), and a “blog-style” blog (like this one right now). That’s why I never seem to know exactly what to write here (it’s already complicated by having two other blogs after all).

The forced downtime of my domain somehow triggered a few decisions within me, and now I have an actual direction. It will take a bit of time before these soopersekrit plans actually take place, as I’m still laying everything out (plus I don’t think I should change my blog’s design just yet). I’m rather content about the decisions/plans I’ve come up with, though, so yay for that.