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All the stuff you missed out on

May 2005

Like writing a webpage. Lesson one, they all say it's easy; it's not. At least for me it's not, I'm just learning what goes where, and what doesn't go there, or here, or.... ARRGGH! How to get very confused in one easy lesson.

I've learnt about a thing called an A HREF and another thing called a TR and something called a DIV - with or without the / thingy. I've also learnt how to use FONT. I thought I knew what FONTS were until it told me that FONT is not used anymore in something or other and I should try style sheets.

Style Sheets??? What the bloody hell are style sheets? Oh ..those things... OK. Another night spent reading up and I might get it wrong. Yep, I said WRONG. I can just imagine. The thingy can not be used with the whats it, unless of course the other gadget over there is connected to the ........AAARRGH!

Forums - Writers forums that is. - Writers forums are such fun. With a few notable exceptions they seem to write about almost anything except writing. On one forum I followed a dialogue between three Ladies on roses. Yep, roses. Now thought I, perhaps they are writing a book on roses, or even a series of articles for a gardening magazine. Nope, sorry Mick. Wrong again.

They were exchanging recipes for some stuff to spray on to control aphids. Ok, thats fine. I'm sure we all need to know how to control aphids. Nope. Not that either. The exchange became semi private because they were also exchanging personal emails and then commenting on the forum about the content of those. Net result? No one else had a bloody clue what they were talking about.

Then we have the lovers! Yep - lovers. I'm fortunate enough to have a lovely Lady in my own life but I'm sure neither my Lady nor I want everyone to know how much we love each other, in minute detail, or the details of what a bastard our ex partner/lover/ pet dog happened to be. Perhaps they were practicing to be romance writers - Who knows.

Critiques - Or why I think your writing stinks and you cant write worth a damn. - Most Writers forums have a thing called critiques in which every other writer can tear your work, your self respect, and your self confidence to shreads. Critiques, or "Crits" do have a useful function, in fact several. They allow dreadful writers to be torn to shreads by pompous, self appointed "experts" who exercise their god given right to tell every one else they can't write worth a damn. The fact that a lot of these so called "experts" have never had a word published in anger seems to escape almost every one - including the "experts" themselves.

Of course there are the occassional professionals who can actually comment constructively on a piece of writing and their comments can provide a valuable guideline for budding writers. However examination of these critique sections will often reveal a half dozen or so names that regularly offer their "skills." For my part I fail to understand how they get any writing done themselves if they spend all their time annihilating other writers work. Dare I suggest that they haven't ever strung more than two words together unless its learnedly and ernestly telling some poor soul their writing stinks?

Promotion & Advertising - Flag waving, tub thumping and other pursuits - We all need to promote our work, and as things get more desperate, and the publishers offer less and less support, (in fact the general trend is to promote yourself or you will disappear off the book shelfs without trace; and very quickly) we all look around for ways to wave our personal flags. Read me or I'll starve to death - and bugger the publisher.

There is a trend to alternative methods of both promotion and publishing. E.G. e-books, self publishing and self promotion. But please don't drown my inbox with your direct market, eye balls on stalks trash. I'm an author, I want to sell my books, not buy yours, and I don't feel obliged to spend my last dollar to buy other poor struggling author's mediocre trash. I don't assault you with hard sell, "A free gold mine with every book" offers. SPAM is bloody spam and will be treated the same as all those other pieces of rubbish - straight to the junk mail bin.

Blogs - Bodice rippers and other forms of literary suicide - I don't know why this particular bit of throat baring has become so bloody popular. I really don't give a shit what you had for breakfast, or how your ankle biter is doing at school, or why your therapist thinks you might really be the third reincarnation of god knows who.

If you really want to write the god awful story of your miserable life do so, but why clog up good band width with your useless chatter. There's enough crap on the internet without you adding to it. To my mind you either have an ego the size of Texas, or you're so bloody silly you really think anyone cares, or both. Get a life, get laid or go home. Just don't bother trying to tell the whole bloody world on the internet.

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