Wow, this year is just zipping buy, I cannot believe it's November already...and part of that is because the weather in Calgary this Fall has been gorgeous (Thanks El Nino). I mean no snow yet, we must still be in August! (that's a reference to when this happened last September)
But there it is, November. So bring on all the #NaNoWriMo #NaNovFiWriMo #NaBloPoMo #NaPlWriMo #NaNoDrawMo hashtags.
Confused yet? Yeah me too sometimes. But basically, November is the month for writing/creating more. (started with National Novel Writing Month and grew from there) And since my novel needs to be my thesis and some papers right now, I'm going to give Blogging every day a shot.
Did you guys have a great halloween? What did you all dress up as? Did you get lot's of trick-or-treaters? Let me know in the comments below! And Happy November Ya'll!
Just thought I'd take a minute to share something I found on the old interwebs recently.
Ever find yourself writing a blog post, but don't have the right graphic for it?
Now you could just go with an all text post, but blog posts with pictures get 78% more views, according to a statistic I just made up.
You could also go with the norm, do a quick google search and then find whatever picture you like, maybe link back to the original website (maybe not). (and let's be honest, we're all guilty of this copyright infringing method at least some of the time)
Or you could go with stock photography.
Stock photography, however, is not cheap!
Shutter stock images start at $29 for 2 images.
iStock (by getty images) runs at 3 for $36.
And Adobe's new Stock photos are $9.99 a pop.
Of course all of these services and more offer discounts the more images you buy, or monthly and annual pricing plans. But for the hobby blogger, well these just aren't reasonable are they.
And yeah, you can take your own pictures, and usually I do. But sometimes you just want a great image that captures the feel of your post. And you don't want to have to pay anyone for it.
So I stumbled across Pexels from either a blog post about it, or twitter, a few weeks back, and thought, neat. What they are is a one stop shop for high quality stock photography. They have over 3800 photos, and about 70 get added monthly, so probably enough to handle your regular blogging needs.
And best of all, it's all free!!!
And not just a little bit free either, all of the photos are licensed under what is called the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. Which means they are completely free, even for commercial use. And you don't have to include any attribution, or link back.
Plus you're free to edit and change the pictures however you want.
Like putting this valley village in a whole new setting.
Or moving my brother and I from the mountains to Egypt! (traditional cheesy photoshop for the win).
Alright, clearly I've got too much time one my hands (or am just procrastinating hard on paper writing tonight), but seriously check Pexels out. They didn't pay me to tell you that, but I wish they had. Oh well, I'll settle for some awesome stock photos.
PS... I'm thinking Mark and I are a little over dressed for Egypt... guess I've still got a lot to learn about photoshop! lols
I want to say y'all there because I'm reading Jenny Lawson's new book, 'Furiously Happy', and as she's from West Texas, I, as a Canadian, naturally imagine that 'Y'all' would be a thing she would say. Despite copious evidence from her books and blogs to indicate otherwise.
Wait... I googled it.... she totally says 'y'all'...y'all. (I couldn't help myself, apparently when I'm sleep deprived I think I'm funny.)
Anyways, I wrote about her when I read her first book (the first time) and how it left me feeling inspired to write more, and write my own one day. (post here). And again I am certainly overwhelmed with that feeling, but not yet.
Although I really do have an idea that's been percolating for about a year in my brain.
Ironic word choice since I don't drink coffee.
Even more irony then that I am awake at now 2:00 am.
24 hours Y'all!
So let's bring this round circle. Right now I've got the Bloggess on my mind not only because I'm reading her new book, but because in said book she talks about struggles with insomnia. And hello, 24 hours awake (which I know doesn't even remotely compare, but I'm feeling a little kindred right now).
Also she talks about a trip she took to Japan. And I literally was just there! I mean I got back yesterday... wait technically it's Thursday now... I got back on Tuesday.
Also she talks about the seriously strange things going on with the toilets in Japan... and that my friends is a post for tomorrow.....or maybe I really just mean later today?
Anyways. The point I'm trying to get to, (you see my thought process above has all been very clear and linear to this point) is that I'm going to write more.
So thanks for the motivation Jenny. Now I'm off to tweet this post at you, so I can imagine we are internet friends or something.
Really I need to go to sleep.
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Related side note.
I bought one of those fancy wake up light alarm clocks today, and I am super excited to try it out. The idea is that it starts getting brighter a half hour before your alarm to mimic sunrise (important here in Calgary since we've entered the season of crappily short days) and then you wake up all magical and relaxed and refreshed.
And I'm assuming feeling like Cinderella when her bird and mice friends sign her awake.
Not sure how refreshed I'll be when it starts it's thing in 4 hours tho...so yeah, more feedback on this to follow.
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And before I forget, please go buy and read Jenny's books. They are wildly hilarious, incredibly honest, and whether or not you've ever struggled with depression, anxiety, mental health etc., I promise you will find something in her to relate to.
Also, holy crap! It's October already. Frig this year is flying by!
Yeah, I know..... I haven't been posting lately. And I guess I have a couple of reasons for that.
1) Writer's block... too many ideas, never enough time.
This is a type of writer's block that I seem to get. And I'm not sure I realized it until I saw a vlog in which another blogger talked about it.
This is when you have a great idea for a specific blog post or project, one that will require some time and effort. And you end up so focused on that idea, that you just can't seem to write anything else until you deal with it.
Unfortunately sometime's those ideas don't pan out, or sometimes the full weekend day required to devote to the project just doesn't seem to come around. I mean let's admit it, life is super busy.
So I've been a bit idea blocked. I've got things in the works, and for a while, I've been so hung up on the need to execute them, that I've neglected to write the simple, easy posts.
2) The Tour De France.
Ok, so let's be honest, the this is all I've watched/seen/cared about the Tour.... this year or any year. Those crazy switchbacks are the final climb, and considering how hard of a time I have riding my bike up the hill to Foothills Hospital on my way into work in the morning. When I saw this picture on facebook the other day my jaw dropped.
So, if I care so little about the Tour de France, why has it been getting in the way of me writing a blog post? Well there's this little thing in the fibre community called the Tour De Fleece. The idea here is to get out your spindles and spinning wheels and spin every day that the tour rides. And so I've been putting all of my extra time in the evenings into spinning more than usual. So I haven't been reading blogs. And reading blogs is one of the things that puts the most fire under my ass to make me write in my blog.
3. YouTube.
And not just watching it!
That's right people, I took the plunge and started posting videos to YouTube with a vengeance.
So I have been a major fan of YouTube for the last year, driven in part by the fact that I gave up cable TV about a year ago, and instead invested in an HDMI cable to connect my laptop to my TV. But also by the quality and quantity of content available, all for free. I mean 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. It's just pure probability that some of it has to be great to watch. But the creators behind some of YouTube's greatest channels (I mean , the Holy Trinity of Grace, Mamrie and Hannah, along with a pair of Greens, you've got yourself a full house there alone).
In addition, a number of great bloggers have gone vlogger. And from my point of view, why not, bigger audiences (More than 1 billion people watch YouTube) and lets face it, people are lazy, why read when you can watch? (OK I still like reading, but I can't really knit while I read blogs...or not nearly as fast). So I have to admit, a few times in the past I've sat down and tried to film a vlog... only to delete it without showing it to anyone.
But then I discovered Knitting Podcasts, these fearless women (and some men too) were sitting down in front of their lap tops, all around the world and talking, unedited, into their cameras, sharing their knitting progress, and stories from their lives. And thousands of people were tuning in. Thousands!
So I thought to myself, well I have a moderately functional camera. I have a tripod. And I have access to student pricing on Adobe Creative Cloud (which incidentally I do in fact use for editing figures for work) and so I have all the power of Premier Pro at my disposal, and the will to use it. In addition, I've watched enough youtube to have ideas about how I would want to edit and create videos. Finally, here in the world of yarn, is something I am comfortable enough to talk into the camera about.
So I've been filming a spinning vlog each day of the Tour De Fleece, and am now in the process of editing and uploading everything. So if you have any interest in taking a gander, you can watch the video above.
Which brings me back around to.....
4. Writer's block.... for video creation.
Because holy crap YouTube is addictive, you get the ball rolling. You post a couple videos, people start watching them. You get some likes, you watch you subscribers start to go up, and you just see the potential for more. You begin to carry around a notebook for all of the many ideas for videos you could make. And suddenly you run the risk of being so full of ideas that you actually fail to create them.
But so far I've still been filming, and some of what I've filmed so far is intending for right here on this blog! So get ready to see some great content here in the very near future.
