Not really feeling the urge to post anything this week, so I decided to go ahead and take a tiny blogging break. I’ll be back on Sunday! See y’all then.
Btw, I’m reading The Time Machine right now and it’s making me WAY MORE INTERESTED in The Time Machine movie with Guy Pearce than I was before. Is that good or bad? 
I used to believe that comics could be a legitimate art form like any other medium. And sure, they can be. But now I think that the more they are perceived as art, the quicker they will die. There’s something about comics as a medium that makes it real good at being trash. The way that illustration can simplify and caricature. The way information is conveyed quickly and effectively so that even kids and people who can’t read can read comics. And the way it only takes a person with a pen to produce one, and only takes another person a single train ride to consume one.
Did you know that television is art, too? Technically. But you don’t see it that way. It’s just there, something taking up time and space in your life, in all of our lives. It’s trash, it’s the idiot box, it’s something you know isn’t good for you but you just can’t quit it. That’s the kind of bad habit that comics need to be, instead of the kind of bad habit that you need a job to support and you go online to find other people who are into it. No-one needs to say they’re into TV.
On Objectivity, Again @ things mean a lot
Innovations Continue for 3M Cloud Library @ Business Wire. A less annoying version of Overdrive? Yes, please! Continue reading »
Not this kind of "feed."
When I was a newbie blogger I subscribed to basically every other book blog I could find– mainly so I could see what other people were reading/blogging about, and so I could make friends (see Tip #2)! You can’t make friends if you don’t read other blogs, so having a feedreader and making good use of it is important. My feedreader quickly grew out of control; I think by the time I’d been blogging for one year I was subscribed to over 300 blogs. I wasn’t able to keep up with that many blogs every day, especially when most of them updated at least once a day, sometimes more. I started marking whole chunks of blogs as “read” without actually reading them, and even when I re-organized my subscriptions into something I thought was more manageable1 I still wasn’t reading very many posts. Continue reading »
Fastpass Changes Coming to Walt Disney World @ The Disney Blog
Geek Chic: Fashion Inspired by The Big Bang Theory @ College Fashion
YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
Plus: What happened to the author after writing the lettr!
No More E-Books Vs. Print Books Arguments, OK? @ NPR
Author Interview: Amanda Hocking:
4) What’s the hardest thing about your sudden fame?
It seems like it’s come so easy to me. And that can be very frustrating. It was a very arduous journey and then it happened very quickly. Everybody’s only seeing the very quick part. It was a perfect storm of things. I had written a bunch of books in a popular genre, had a number of books in my back list and when I decided to self-publish there weren’t many other authors doing it. Now the market’s much more saturated. I priced my book low when there weren’t many other self-published authors. I think people were more willing to give a chance on an unknown author [if they’re paying a low price] and that got people reading it, talking about it and got more people to buy it.
Previous tips:
Tip #1: Don’t try to do everything all at once.
Tip #2: Don’t be afraid to make friends.
Tip #3: Interact with other bloggers (outside of your blog).
Tip #4: Scheduling is your friend.
It's a giant lightbulb. Get it?
Just like there are times where you don’t want to blog, there’ll be times where you’ll want to blog a LOT. Take advantage of that! Write as many blog posts as you can (using tip #4!), start a new project, etc. Do keep in mind tip #1, though, while you’re doing all this. Creative, energetic periods are great when you’re in them, but once they’re gone you’ll probably regretting starting those fifty things all at once. It’s better to focus your energy on one or two really good things, things you can keep going even when you’re in a blogging slump, than giving up on ten or twenty things you don’t care about any longer.
I’ve noticed that I get a big energy boost whenever I meet up with other bloggers (tip #3), but after a week or so the energy is gone and I don’t feel like doing anything. If I can take advantage of that energy while I’ve got it, I can get a lot of stuff done in that short period of time before it goes away.
What gives you an energy boost? How do you take advantage of your creative periods?
Lessons I’ve Learned Starting a Micropress @ HTMLGIANT
Various posts about ALA and blogging and review copies and whatnot:
Bloomsbury has put a ton of its ebooks on sale over at Amazon, including some really interesting YA ones. Here’s a complete list of what’s on sale. I’d personally recommend buying the following, if you’re interested:
I’m thinking of buying a few books for myself, but I’m not sure which ones to get. Can anyone tell me if these’re books I might like? The books: Pirates!, Flawless (Cyrano de Bergerac retelling!), My Fair Godmother, In a Heartbeat, Coffeehouse Angel, Dirty Little Secrets, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Unfortunately I don’t have enough Amazon gift cards to buy all of them! So I need to pick, like, two. Sob.
January 2012 is probably going down in history as the weirdest and most uncomfortable January I’ve ever had. Blogging was pretty much the same as it ever was– it’s the stuff outside of blogging that was strange and a little bit yucky. And exciting, too, I suppose!
So what happened? I moved from New Mexico to California, for one. I’ve been living in hotels for the past month. I’ve had issues with things being sent back in the mail and not showing up and causing me heartbreak. I’ve broken out in hives from mysterious circumstances (stress? mosquito bites? something else?). I’ve ate enough continental breakfasts to make anyone sick and I’ve learned how to make tasty meals with only a microwave and a mini-fridge. Continue reading »
More about my rating guide, including the buy/borrow/bin rating system used Sept. 2010-May 2011.
An explanation of the various ads and affiliates whatevers can be found on this new page I just made.
Be sure also to check out my Disclosure Policy:
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