There are things that I love about Blogger.
Mostly that it’s free. :)
And now I’ve invested too much time into this blog to change over to anything else. So Blogger and I are stuck with each other.
It does like to crash. And I have a feeling I’m pushing it to its limits.
Clarissa Draper and others suggested that it would be good to have a separate page on the blog to serve as a compilation of writing links. Because Blogger can be a pain to search (sometimes you can only search so far back into the archives), I thought it was a great idea.
This way, you can pull up a page with all the writing links in one place and do a control F to search the topic you’re interested in.
Since I knew there were a lot of links, I first saved them to a Word file in case Blogger went down.
The Word file had 269 pages of links on it.
Sure enough, Blogger crashed. :)
So I’ve divided the links onto two separate pages—Twitterific Archives #1 and Twitterific Archives #2. There are clickable tabs for them under the blog heading. I’m planning to add to the archives each week, after posting Twitterific. Obviously, this will take more pages, eventually. :)
The reason I’m doing this? It’s because I’ve noticed that whenever I try to pull up writing article resources, it’s a real hit or miss process.
Trying to find an article on POV, internal conflict, scene structure, dialogue? The highest ranking posts in Google for any given writing search is frequently an assignment that a college professor has posted (an assignment on the topic, not a resource), or a vague article by a content mill site that doesn’t address the topic in any kind of depth. It’s just not what writers are looking for.
Trying to find industry-related information in a searchable database? Unless you go to individual agent or editor blogs and search on each of their sites, you’re going to get very spotty results on a Google search. Some of the biggest results from the search will probably be self-publishers.
There’s got to be a better way of doing this, but I can’t think of it right now. So the temporary home for the archives will be here on the blog.
If I had the time, I’d love to catalog this information by topic, etc—but I don’t think that’s going to happen in the foreseeable future. :) At least, though, I’m hoping this compilation will give a starting point for research for writers on writing and industry-related topics…and direct them to posts that have actually been written by writers, agents, and editors.
Because the experts on writing are writers—who are in the trenches, writing.
If y’all could let me know if there are any problems opening the pages, searching the content…or loading my blog? If there is, then I’m going to set up a separate blog for the writing links and just put up links to it that way. I definitely don’t want to make the blog crash or make it hard to load for folks who have a slower connection.
Thanks, y’all!
I think that is a great idea, a page dedicated to links. This should make it easier for searching.
I’ve not had any problems with your blog.
T
Elizabeth – Thanks for all of the effort you’ve gone to to make those links accessible. You really are a treasure trove of valuable resources.
Smart to save files. All files. All the time. Most of my blog posts start out as Word docs; I rarely compose anything using the spot where it’s supposed to end up. Sorting is good. Hubster recently said, “I’ve created a shared file for all my pictures” (Guess he got tired of me asking for them for my Friday posts). But they’re simply files by date. How do I know what he was shooting on May 27th?
Good luck!
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
My blogger crashes from time to time. And I thought it was my internet connection. I found no problem opening your pages. But searching, hmm, not sure. Need to test to say.
Fire and Cross
Thanks so much for doing this, Elizabeth; and I feel the same way about Blogger. Sure, there are problems, but free is a really good price!
No problems here. I think separate pages with the links is a great idea.
What a terrific idea. I clicked on both pages and had no problems.
That’s a great idea, and should be very useful – many thanks!
269 pages? Holy COW! Having these accessible though, is SO NICE–totally with you, there! So thank you for this huge undertaking! I keep intending to get my website going, so I can remove all but BLOGGING from the blog… because you’re right… Blogger isn’t terribly searchable… but free is such a good price…
Unfortunately that’s the price you pay for free software. It’s not always robust and crashes from time to time. The same happens with Word and other MS software though. I know I guy who tried to write his PhD thesis in Word. It was OK for the first 50 pages, and then became a nightmare. The problem is mixing large amounts of text and many figures.
I think Blogger works OK, at least for my simple use, writing blog posts and nothing else. For advanced writing I use LaTeX >:)
Cold As Heaven
Enid–No, it’s probably Blogger. :) I hear from people pretty frequently that even have a hard time commenting on my blog because Blogger is misbehaving.
Teresa–Oh good. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
Alex–Thanks!
Margot–Well, really, I think the post authors are supplying the treasure trove…and I’m trying to build the library!
Jane–Thanks!
Terry–I have the same problem with my photo files! There’s got to be a better way. Oh….you know, I think if we tag them, then that’s the best way. Except I never seem to tag mine.
Juliette–You’re welcome! :)
Hart–It’s funny, because it ACTS like it’s searchable. But you can usually just get 2 pages worth of post results and nothing else. Bleh. Oh well, this hopefully is a way around it.
Elspeth–You really just can’t beat free. :) And they’re getting a LITTLE snazzier…not in WordPress’s league, but better than they used to be.
Cold As Heaven–Latex?! Are you puttin’ me on? :) Okay, I’ll have to check that out.
It’s a bummer, isn’t it? And I’ve had problems with Word, too…which means I back up to my server a LOT! If I had a PhD thesis in Word I think I’d be backing up a lot, too! Good thing he was aware of the problem and didn’t lose data (at least…I hope he didn’t.)
I know. I both love and hate Blogger, Mr. Crashy Crasherson. I’ll go test out the links. If I come across a problem, I’ll let you know. But it seems like a great idea!
The links work just fine! Great idea!
I’ve never had Blogger crash on me–just a few times has the Dashboard turned up with links in all the wrong places. I don’t have any trouble loading your blog, either. :)
I love the new pages!
Wow, when did I say that? But, it does sound like something I would like. I do find it frustrating to search blogs. The links do take a lot to load but it didn’t crash my computer. And with only two links, it’s easy to do a search.
CD
It is really great that you are putting the links up. I know I rarely click on the links when you post them, but often enough, I have gone back to a post of yours to look for the twitter links. This would definitely make it so much easier for people like me.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING THIS FOR US, ELIZABETH. YOU ARE THE BEST!