Bending Point

Here I am.

Following my last post, gosh! Changes in my life have been smooth but sharp, light but weighty. I am now a full-time editor (of BOOKS, my friend, yes! I am an honest and professional editor of BOOKS), which is an interesting new lifestyle to adjust to. My time is different: no more of the student life for me. Strange and not strange.

So. I've been thinking about this blog. I think it's time to make a change here, too. My personal time is more limited than it used to be, and my non-blog creative commitments (scripting & noveling) have been backburnering for too long. So I think it's time to refocus myself on those other things, and to put these Mistakes Being Made on a more permanent sort of hiatus. Possibly actually permanent, I mean. As in: no more this blog.

This has always been a very casual, experimental & ad hoc little blog – something for my own fun, rather than any serious attempt to build an audience or anything – but I've got to the point where, like I said, things need to change. Focus or no focus, do or do not. Etc.

When I come back to blogging – whether here, or somewhere new – it'll be with a much clearer sense of purpose and focus, I hope. If I decide I want to focus on music, then I'll do a Rage Roundup every week and I'll be an active presence on other music sites to try to actually build an audience, and so on. Or if I decide to do a blog that focuses on some other thing, then I'll focus on that some other thing instead. And if I decide to do another random meandery half-hearted self-indulgent blog like this one, then I guess I'll do it like this again; but at least I'll try to do it in a much more focused and wholehearted way, I think. If you're going to do something, better to do it right; better to try to do it best, don't you think?

(Or, better to do something that will actually get more readers to comment more often, at the very least...)

So, anyhow. That's what I've been thinking. And that's what I'm going to do, I think.

In the meantime: I may be about to give up long-form textual blogging for a while, but I'll be continuing to post beautiful (mostly) wordless content over at my other miniblog, the wonderful looktime.tumblr.com, which is freaking awesome and you should totally be following. (Seriously, go there, it's great. It's mostly not my stuff, it's just stuff that I like. You'll like it too, I bet.)

Thanks for everything.

More later.

:)

Positive Randomivity for the Week

I don't who made this, but I'm very glad they did.

Xmas Xmas Woo Xmas

I hope you're having a fine & pleasant day.

Here's to World Peace!
Nah, I'm kidding. All I really want is turkey.

Merry X &c. !

—the Festive Thoapsl

THE XMAS IS COMING

No more than a fortnight to go, at the most. The Santa clearly has the upper hand.

I'm quite looking forward to the Xmas, this year. I'm not religious* (you could probably tell from the awesome Todd Schorr image I've posted above), but I much appreciate the nostalgia of midsummer turkey & family & feasting & gift-giving. And the X-holiday relaxation, especially: it's several days during which I don't have to do anything that isn't X-related. Freedom to loll (& lol) on a couch almost all day, freedom to feast, freedom to ignore work. Fantastic.

Even better – the gifts I've bought are already wrapped, a funky little stack in the corner of my room. How the hecks did I get my presents all sorted out so early, this year? I have no idea. It's very unlike me. I like it.

So! Two weeks until Xmas. Three weeks until 2010. More on events as they develop.

Good luck.

*So I figure the 'X' in my personal 'X-mas' simply stands for something other than 'Xrist'? (Or technically that would be 'XPIΣTΌΣ', for all you scholars of Ancient Greek and/or Theology in the audience . . . I know you're out there . . .)

(Not) The Last Post

My favourite quote (out of everything I've read on the web today):

Comma. You never want one of these anywhere near you [. . .] Every time you add a comma to the description of what you do, you suck a little bit more [. . .] Commas are for unfocused hacks.

The quote isn't quite so awesome in context – it's from an article about marketing, *ho-hum* – but what a line, huh? I dare you all to yell, "Commas are for unfocused hacks!" at a professional writer or editor, as soon as possible. Preferably during a job interview.

I've been trying to think about what I should write about that would be fitting, now that my uni course (the one that's been about blogging) is almost over . . .

First, some trivia:

The most expensive word on Google is mesothelioma. If you want to buy a Google Ad that appears on searches for "mesothelioma", it'll cost you US$99.44 per click.

Secondly, Twitter:

It's a good and useful thing. Probably. I blogged about Twitter a while ago, but just yesterday I came across a really neat article about some ways that it might be worth your while. If you're curious about Twitter but still unsure (or if you're on Twitter already, but you have no idea what to do with it), try reading this.

Thirdly . . .

I like words. I like people. Blogging seems like a good compromise.

People often talk about the "dehumanising" effects of technology, but I don't really buy into that. I think the whole memesphere of the web is powered by people communicating with other people: it all feeds off the kick we get from exercising our empathy, from recognising differences and commonalities between ourselves and others. Jokes, stories, ideas. It's all good. (Mostly.)

Anyhow, I think it's something that we should feel good about. Sometimes people are awesome, and sometimes it's too easy to forget that.

(I think I read somewhere that happiness is "seven successful human interactions per day." I like that; it sounds achievable . . .)

Blogging is fun and satisfying in a very unique way, I think. If you keep writing, I'll keep reading, I promise.

:)

–Tim

Self-Indulgence

This isn't a post about "Anonymous", the 4chan meme (although that is a fascinating story, so maybe I'll have to do that some other time)*. I want to write something now about being anonymous. I've been thinking about blog anonymity a lot lately, but I'm still really uncertain about it. Maybe writing will help me make up my mind. Maybe you can help me out in the comments.

First: I started a blog a while ago. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it, but I thought it would be good opportunity (and excuse) to force myself to practise different ways of writing. Which is what it's actually been, more or less, I think. I posted as "Thoapsl" because in my mind, that stood for "think of a pseudonym later". (Yeah, I know, I know...)

BUT. As of Wednesday, I'm no longer anonymous: my blog now carries my actual name. So? Even before, it was possible for people to figure out my identity if they tried hard enough. But I'd always had a vague paranoia that without anonymity, I was more vulnerable; that I couldn't post anything without fear of it haunting me irl. Anonymity meant the freedom to relax.

That's what I thought my motivation was. But in fact I've always cared about what I post, anyway, whether anonymous or not. Thoapsl's reputation isn't my reputation, but it's a reputation that I care about. I've even gone out of my way not to swear online, mostly, despite the fact that my natural inclination is to swear like a m*therf*ck**g c**tf*xed tro**er.

So if it's not really about freedom, what's my real paranoia? Am I maybe worried about potential employers not hiring me, because of something on my blog that they don't like?

I know I'm definitely conflicted about angling for employment via my blog. I want my personal blogging to be for fun and random – I don't want to feel constrained by purpose. I definitely don't want to seem mercenary. But if someone actually emailed me tomorrow and said "Hey Tim, I read your blog and I would like to give you money for something" – that would be great, wouldn't it? And if there's nothing on my blog that would actually lose me a job – at least, any job worth having – then what's the worst that could happen?

Maybe I've talked myself into it. Maybe I'm still unsure. Either way I probably need to work on my blogger profile some more. (Maybe I'm just embarrassed that I don't have a real "occupation" to fill in on my profile, yet.)

Is anonymity worth it? Do you care about it, yourself? Would you (or do you?) blog anonymously, or under your real name? Best answer wins a prize.

*Hey, wait a minute! I just noticed, I am totally jumping on the mentioning-4chan-but-then-not-actually-talking-about-it-although-still-leaving-open-the-possibility-of-talking-about-it-later bandwagon. What a weird coincidence. Hat-tip to Carla!