Although I have a computer-full of material that I could post one place or another, I've pretty much ignored it because for the last how-ever-long, the only new things I've really been writing have been yet more "things" about how I'm re-organizing and cleaning up my giant mess of writing.
My real aim right now is trim everything down to one or two blogs of my own and then one account (eventually) on HubPages (for anything I think would do well on there). I have reasons for not wanting to delete some of the "giant mess of miscellany", but I've been gradually burying it, "layer by layer". Some of it I may unbury if I develop it to the point where it deserves to be unburied. Some I've duplicated the heck out of for my own reasons (mainly a matter of "it you can't beat 'em join 'em" (as far as stuff on the Internet goes). Some stuff I.do plan to move. Some I'll eventually delete. I don't plan to look for other content sites at this point. I'm tempted to put everything on "private" settings for awhile, but it's not time to do that yet.
Although some of my online writing continues to be a source of income for me, so much of it has also been "writing for me" (without regard for whether it might earn). As a result,, and because I've done so much writing as my "form of entertainment instead of, say, doing crossword puzzles or watching television); I'm kind of think that maybe there's something to be said for watching television more than I tend to do. When it comes down to it, all this writing about organizing and cleaning up is pretty much a matter of venting (or at least trying to explain whatever mess someone might discover if anyone runs into some of the stuff I still have buried yet.
I have other projects and other things that need attention, but I kind of envy people who only started writing online in the last few years (because they probably don't have the mess I do online). The thing is, however, that I'm a heavy-duty neatnik to the core. So, having so much online stuff looking to me like a big, disorganzied, mess of crud (and often redundant crud) mixed in with some stuff that I do care about) has been getting to me enough that I can't even be bothered thinking about writing .
This has been, I'm sujre, another non-worth-reading post of redeeming value only to me, in my attempt to organize, label, explain, and generally clean-up There's actually something kind of good about not bothering to try to think up a good name for something like a blog, not trying to think up what kind of "redeeming value" stuff can be added to to it, and imagining aiming for the day when I have one site/blog that's nothing but a white background (like paper, or even like Kindle) and words in black and white (and set whatever this words-only thing is on "private").
The moral to all of this is: If you're a heavy duty neatnik don't allow a big pile of "written stuff" to build up over a period of years, to the point where you're looking a layers and layers, and years and years, of writing of all kinds; and to the point where you start writing just as a way of trying to put some order to it all. The irony to it all is, however, that for the person who heavy-duty "inclined to write" the way to organize and sort is often to write yet more. The other irony is that the person who writes (for lack of a more grown-up choice of words) a real lot can one the one hand, become burned out (at least temporarily) after enough time and writing pass; and yet the way to get out of that kind of burn-out is (at least for someone like me) to write yet more.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Not That Anyone Is Likely To Be Interested, But Why I Like The New Way Author's Names Are Showing On HubPages Profiles
Someone in the HubPages forums called attention to some changes that have been in the way author's names appear on their HP profiles. I'm pleased with this latest change on HP, but I replied in that forum under my original ("main") account/user name (which is "Lisa HW"). I know if anyone looked beyond this one post he'd figure that out, but I added it under the assumption that one isn't bothering to read beyond this post/page (if anyone bothers to read anything on this blog at all. :/ )
In any case, I wrote the following post because I thought, if anyone else wasn't happy with this particular development, maybe seeing some of the potential benefits of it might make them feel a little better. I suppose I thought that since my own user-name situation may be a little more unique than some people's (for reasons I won't go into here), maybe I could see potential benefits that someone with a more "straightforward" (or narrower) approach to their user name may not immediately see.
So, from HP's forum (my "user content only" (or else, maybe, "Lisa's" user content, being used with permission by "WordCravter09" - or else just "mine" as "I'm one person/author who owns everything I write unless/until some other TOS say otherwise". (Note: See? This is one reason why there's something to be said for writing under one's own\, real, name. :/ ).........
"....I just noticed that yesterday, so I went checking some other people's profiles and saw some (not all) had the same thing. My situation is kind of strange because I selected my own subdomain "name" when subdomains were new - so I have two versions of a pen/user name - and then my real name. Anyway, I just figured it was part of the thing that we've been told about how HP will be making author's names more prominent than they had been. (Then I thought it might be a glitch of some kind too). Of the sampling of people's profiles that I checked, I can't see any particular thing they seem to have in common (old Hubbers, maybe less active Hubbers, type of Hubs, etc.
Anyway, in my case (with the pen name, which is this one) it's fine. There was the pen name and then the pen-name as my once "real") name (for the purposes of online writing at the time), and then there's the pen-name-derived user name; so nothing looks weird. I have an account (not much in it) that's a user name that doesn't sound like anyone's "real" name (like the pen name does). That one has the the change too, and that essentially makes the user name fade into the background and makes the almost empty profile be under my real real name.
Anyway, I like the change (if it's an intended change rather than a temporary glitch). I know people operate differently on here for their own reasons; but I think (again, if it's an intended change) having the non-person-sounding user name (for lack of a better way to describe it) de-emphasized on HP profiles allows people to associate their non-HP user/screen names on other sites with their HP profiles; while giving HP a more professional look.
Neither of my accounts on here is very active these days (for my own reasons), but my pen-name account (this one) still works well with any left-over stuff I have out there online; and my previously no-person's-name account (now real-name account) is under my real name (which I couldn't do before because we weren't able to change HP user names, my other account is five years old; and at that time, I selected a user name that I thought was related to writing (and you can imagine how many "available" writing-related names there were at the time
).
Anyway (and for good or bad), I've got any names I've ever used lumped together in my Google profile (which, for anyone who doesn't already know this) can be set on "private" if someone prefers that. So, the "legitimate" person who has legitimate reasons for wanting more than one HP account doesn't have to make a big, public, deal out of his "fifty zillion" different-niche, HP, user names. Also, though, the person with a "weird" user name on here can still encourage/send traffic from other sites where he uses that name (and still have it show up on here to "confirm" that it's actually them).
In any case, (and for my own, selfish, reasons but also because I think if a site wants to be seen as "reasonably legitimate", for lack of a more appropriate choice of words), I'm pleased to have that non-person user name on my other account de-emphasized. For now, I've got both accounts pretty much emptied out (or as emptied out as "certain ones" can be, given their history and the thing about not wanting to delete some things for some reasons), at least until I clean them up before doing much of anything else with either of them."
In any case, I wrote the following post because I thought, if anyone else wasn't happy with this particular development, maybe seeing some of the potential benefits of it might make them feel a little better. I suppose I thought that since my own user-name situation may be a little more unique than some people's (for reasons I won't go into here), maybe I could see potential benefits that someone with a more "straightforward" (or narrower) approach to their user name may not immediately see.
So, from HP's forum (my "user content only" (or else, maybe, "Lisa's" user content, being used with permission by "WordCravter09" - or else just "mine" as "I'm one person/author who owns everything I write unless/until some other TOS say otherwise". (Note: See? This is one reason why there's something to be said for writing under one's own\, real, name. :/ ).........
"....I just noticed that yesterday, so I went checking some other people's profiles and saw some (not all) had the same thing. My situation is kind of strange because I selected my own subdomain "name" when subdomains were new - so I have two versions of a pen/user name - and then my real name. Anyway, I just figured it was part of the thing that we've been told about how HP will be making author's names more prominent than they had been. (Then I thought it might be a glitch of some kind too). Of the sampling of people's profiles that I checked, I can't see any particular thing they seem to have in common (old Hubbers, maybe less active Hubbers, type of Hubs, etc.
Anyway, in my case (with the pen name, which is this one) it's fine. There was the pen name and then the pen-name as my once "real") name (for the purposes of online writing at the time), and then there's the pen-name-derived user name; so nothing looks weird. I have an account (not much in it) that's a user name that doesn't sound like anyone's "real" name (like the pen name does). That one has the the change too, and that essentially makes the user name fade into the background and makes the almost empty profile be under my real real name.
Anyway, I like the change (if it's an intended change rather than a temporary glitch). I know people operate differently on here for their own reasons; but I think (again, if it's an intended change) having the non-person-sounding user name (for lack of a better way to describe it) de-emphasized on HP profiles allows people to associate their non-HP user/screen names on other sites with their HP profiles; while giving HP a more professional look.
Neither of my accounts on here is very active these days (for my own reasons), but my pen-name account (this one) still works well with any left-over stuff I have out there online; and my previously no-person's-name account (now real-name account) is under my real name (which I couldn't do before because we weren't able to change HP user names, my other account is five years old; and at that time, I selected a user name that I thought was related to writing (and you can imagine how many "available" writing-related names there were at the time
).Anyway (and for good or bad), I've got any names I've ever used lumped together in my Google profile (which, for anyone who doesn't already know this) can be set on "private" if someone prefers that. So, the "legitimate" person who has legitimate reasons for wanting more than one HP account doesn't have to make a big, public, deal out of his "fifty zillion" different-niche, HP, user names. Also, though, the person with a "weird" user name on here can still encourage/send traffic from other sites where he uses that name (and still have it show up on here to "confirm" that it's actually them).
In any case, (and for my own, selfish, reasons but also because I think if a site wants to be seen as "reasonably legitimate", for lack of a more appropriate choice of words), I'm pleased to have that non-person user name on my other account de-emphasized. For now, I've got both accounts pretty much emptied out (or as emptied out as "certain ones" can be, given their history and the thing about not wanting to delete some things for some reasons), at least until I clean them up before doing much of anything else with either of them."
Online Writing - Adjusting To An Ever-Changing Landscape
People who write online often write for a number of different reasons, or with a number of different aims/purposes in mind. When I first signed up with HubPages I chose a user name that is a derivative of the well established pen name, under which I'd been doing writing that fell under the category of "spare-time writing". By the time I found HubPages I'd already been earning from some writing (of one type or another) under that pen name. There were a lot of questionable looking "writing sites", some of which had some pretty "nasty looking" material; and it turned out that a few of those folded soon after I signed up with them (only to realize that I was too uncomfortable with the "level" of some of the stuff to want to invest too much time on them). When I say "level" I'm not talking about level of writing quality. I'm referring more to level of crudeness and "anything-goes-ness".
HubPages was quite the mix of writing (and "not exactly writing"), but it wasn't like some of those "anything-truly-goes" sites. This was a little over seven years ago, and members were essentially told to write what they wanted (within some limits), and if it was useful I might make some money. It was simple (kind of still is, even with all the changes that have taken place over the years). But, I still wasn't really sure what to write, and the whole "atmosphere" of the site didn't lead me to think there'd be much earning potential beyond the same few-dollars-a-month level I was reaching on any number of other, similar, sites. So, not takng the site very seriously and also wanting to write some things that by that time were no longer "invited" on some of the other sites; I wanted to separate my pen-name writing fom my HP writing (sort of); and, at the time of sign up, I quickly whipped up the derivative of the pen name.
As it was, I hated the pen name and had "whipped up" that in a hurry, but it had become a "dba type of thing" by then. So, from the time I signed up with HP I've hated the user name that I selected in such a hurry (and one cannot change a user name on there). At first it didn't matter, but as I started to earn money on HP there was the whole thing about having a "history" (etc.) with that account (which meant it wasn't to my benefit to delete it).
Around five years ago I decided to, once and for all, gradually shift from the user name that I hated to a user name that I didn't hate quite so much. Even then, though, I didn't really have plans to write under my real name (at least not on HP). That's when I started the "WordCrafter09" account. It's also when some stuff went on in my personal life (a very distracting leg injury, to name one thing) that made me kind of put on hold any plans for the second account.
Somewhere in the mix over the last four/five years, Panda shook the world of online writing/content-producing, and Panda's, Penguines, and whoever/whatever else have continued being "rolled out". Since then, and mainly because I haven't really known what I'd be doing with any of HP stuff under the "main" (original) user name.
Then, more time passed and during that t me I'd begun doing more writing in my real name (not on HubPages). Basically, there's been some version of upheaval pretty much everywhere that has anything to do with what I write, where I write, and the circumstances under which I write. I don't want a "zillion" HP accounts, so I'd kind of resigned myself to accepting the reasonably acceptable (to me) "WordCrafter09" name. Still, me being me (which means being irked when things don't seem "just right"), I was always kind of ignoring the back-of-the-mind dilemma of whether should just start a new HP account under my real name, delete the WordCrafter09 account, and leave the old "Lisa" account until whatever chips fall or changes are made that would make it clear what i should do with that account.
I'm not someone who cares about things like scores or accolades on HP, but I'll admit to kind of liking the fact that my account is now seven years old on there. I don't know... There's something about even "tentative longevity" or "precarious longevity" that suggests at least a hint of stability in the largely unstable, and ever-changing, world of the Internet.
Now HP has made some changes with how user names are being shown on profiles, and it has worked out pretty well for me with my five-year-old WC account (not as "tentatively stable" as a seven-year-old account, but more stable than a newer one.
In any case, with two accounts remaining in general upheaval of one kind of another, at least my own aims and the aims (at least for now) of HP seem to generally match (at least in this one way).
HubPages was quite the mix of writing (and "not exactly writing"), but it wasn't like some of those "anything-truly-goes" sites. This was a little over seven years ago, and members were essentially told to write what they wanted (within some limits), and if it was useful I might make some money. It was simple (kind of still is, even with all the changes that have taken place over the years). But, I still wasn't really sure what to write, and the whole "atmosphere" of the site didn't lead me to think there'd be much earning potential beyond the same few-dollars-a-month level I was reaching on any number of other, similar, sites. So, not takng the site very seriously and also wanting to write some things that by that time were no longer "invited" on some of the other sites; I wanted to separate my pen-name writing fom my HP writing (sort of); and, at the time of sign up, I quickly whipped up the derivative of the pen name.
As it was, I hated the pen name and had "whipped up" that in a hurry, but it had become a "dba type of thing" by then. So, from the time I signed up with HP I've hated the user name that I selected in such a hurry (and one cannot change a user name on there). At first it didn't matter, but as I started to earn money on HP there was the whole thing about having a "history" (etc.) with that account (which meant it wasn't to my benefit to delete it).
Around five years ago I decided to, once and for all, gradually shift from the user name that I hated to a user name that I didn't hate quite so much. Even then, though, I didn't really have plans to write under my real name (at least not on HP). That's when I started the "WordCrafter09" account. It's also when some stuff went on in my personal life (a very distracting leg injury, to name one thing) that made me kind of put on hold any plans for the second account.
Somewhere in the mix over the last four/five years, Panda shook the world of online writing/content-producing, and Panda's, Penguines, and whoever/whatever else have continued being "rolled out". Since then, and mainly because I haven't really known what I'd be doing with any of HP stuff under the "main" (original) user name.
Then, more time passed and during that t me I'd begun doing more writing in my real name (not on HubPages). Basically, there's been some version of upheaval pretty much everywhere that has anything to do with what I write, where I write, and the circumstances under which I write. I don't want a "zillion" HP accounts, so I'd kind of resigned myself to accepting the reasonably acceptable (to me) "WordCrafter09" name. Still, me being me (which means being irked when things don't seem "just right"), I was always kind of ignoring the back-of-the-mind dilemma of whether should just start a new HP account under my real name, delete the WordCrafter09 account, and leave the old "Lisa" account until whatever chips fall or changes are made that would make it clear what i should do with that account.
I'm not someone who cares about things like scores or accolades on HP, but I'll admit to kind of liking the fact that my account is now seven years old on there. I don't know... There's something about even "tentative longevity" or "precarious longevity" that suggests at least a hint of stability in the largely unstable, and ever-changing, world of the Internet.
Now HP has made some changes with how user names are being shown on profiles, and it has worked out pretty well for me with my five-year-old WC account (not as "tentatively stable" as a seven-year-old account, but more stable than a newer one.
In any case, with two accounts remaining in general upheaval of one kind of another, at least my own aims and the aims (at least for now) of HP seem to generally match (at least in this one way).
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
That Thing I Need To Write
So many words I've written
behind an altered name.
So many lines and lyrics.
So much has been a game.
Too many paragraphs and words.
I've never really said
the things I really need to say
from both my heart and head.
Oh, they're all true - those words of mine.
I'm not the sort to utter lines
that I don't mean or take to heart, but
words from around the edges
aren't truth or tale or art.
And off, around those edges
Calling, screaming, haunting
are words I've been ignoring
because not doing so is daunting.
Besides, you know, it's easier
to write the safer things.
And never have to worry of
the consequence it brings.
There is a price for honesty.
I'm not sure that I can pay it.
There's something that I need to write
and say, but I can't say it.
So many things I've written,
almost finished, but not quite.
So many words, and finished work
that's never felt quite right.
.
Words swirling quite within my grasp -
if only I could win the fight
to reign them in and find the strength
to write that thing I need to write.
.
Not Great Reading (To Say The Least) - Yet Kind Of Funny (To Me) Anyway
It's now February 26, 2015; and I've been spending the last couple of days going through years' worth of writing I've done online and trying to sort out, reorganize, and clean-up a lot of stuff (particularly the most neglected stuff). It's after midnight, so I don't know how much more I'll write tonight. I did, though, think this particular blog is kind of funny when i returned to see the dates of the posts here.
"WordCrafter09" was a user/screen name that I started using when I was trying to phase away from the pen name under which I'd done whatever online writing I've done on a casual/personal basis. If I recall correctly (and maybe I don't), I already had the name (that I'm not thrilled with but that was one of the only available ones I could come up with had some writing-/word-related meaning to it. (Actually, I think the "09" was from 2009.)
Anyway, when I wanted to phase away from the well established pen name I'd been using, I already had a well established HubPages account. I figured I'd start a new HubPages account . I don't really recall why I didn't just use my real name. Maybe it was because most other people weren't using theirs either, or maybe it had something to do with not wanting, or being able to, use the same e.mail address with two different accounts.
In any case, I started the new account and wrote a few Hubs on it (deleting them after, for one reason or another). Somehow, though, I really couldn't get all into writing under WordCrafter09 because I'd been on HubPages long enough to kind of know some people. People didn't know (I don't think, anyway) that I was the same, old, Hubber under a different name; and some people were nife because they thought I was new (at least when I actually did anything under the new name). I know they had a bunch of people whose "job" it was to be nice to new people (and give them a few followers to start with), but I didn't feel right about it. I knew I could just tell people I ran into, but because I wasn't going to their forums under the "new" name, and because I had so few Hubs, there wasn't a lot of opportunity. Besides, once a few people had been nice and had seemed not to know I wasn't new, I felt like it would be awkward to say, "Oh, guess what. You know who I really am?" So, my heart was never really in that account. At one point in the last few years I deleted most of what was on there (for one reason or another) and just left one Hub with the plan to delete that one too once I started to really write under that account.
Well, changes have been made on HubPages. I won't go into that now because, as I said, it's late at night. What I found kine of funny when I cam to this blog, however, were the two posts (two years apart) about how there was something I needed to write and didn't know what it was (or couldn't write it for one reason or another, maybe).
As I said, it's now late February, 2015; and if you're wondering if I have now written that thing I feel like I need to write, the answer is that I haven't. It's still out there "in the air" somewhere. In some ways, I know what it is that makes what I want/need to write something that isn't going to happen (or maybe it will - I don't know).
In the meantime, I'm not sure how much time I'll spend doing anything (or doing nothing) on this blog, although there are a few posts that I might like to add. Separate from those, though, for now I think I'll post a verse I wrote years ago about that thing I need to write.
"WordCrafter09" was a user/screen name that I started using when I was trying to phase away from the pen name under which I'd done whatever online writing I've done on a casual/personal basis. If I recall correctly (and maybe I don't), I already had the name (that I'm not thrilled with but that was one of the only available ones I could come up with had some writing-/word-related meaning to it. (Actually, I think the "09" was from 2009.)
Anyway, when I wanted to phase away from the well established pen name I'd been using, I already had a well established HubPages account. I figured I'd start a new HubPages account . I don't really recall why I didn't just use my real name. Maybe it was because most other people weren't using theirs either, or maybe it had something to do with not wanting, or being able to, use the same e.mail address with two different accounts.
In any case, I started the new account and wrote a few Hubs on it (deleting them after, for one reason or another). Somehow, though, I really couldn't get all into writing under WordCrafter09 because I'd been on HubPages long enough to kind of know some people. People didn't know (I don't think, anyway) that I was the same, old, Hubber under a different name; and some people were nife because they thought I was new (at least when I actually did anything under the new name). I know they had a bunch of people whose "job" it was to be nice to new people (and give them a few followers to start with), but I didn't feel right about it. I knew I could just tell people I ran into, but because I wasn't going to their forums under the "new" name, and because I had so few Hubs, there wasn't a lot of opportunity. Besides, once a few people had been nice and had seemed not to know I wasn't new, I felt like it would be awkward to say, "Oh, guess what. You know who I really am?" So, my heart was never really in that account. At one point in the last few years I deleted most of what was on there (for one reason or another) and just left one Hub with the plan to delete that one too once I started to really write under that account.
Well, changes have been made on HubPages. I won't go into that now because, as I said, it's late at night. What I found kine of funny when I cam to this blog, however, were the two posts (two years apart) about how there was something I needed to write and didn't know what it was (or couldn't write it for one reason or another, maybe).
As I said, it's now late February, 2015; and if you're wondering if I have now written that thing I feel like I need to write, the answer is that I haven't. It's still out there "in the air" somewhere. In some ways, I know what it is that makes what I want/need to write something that isn't going to happen (or maybe it will - I don't know).
In the meantime, I'm not sure how much time I'll spend doing anything (or doing nothing) on this blog, although there are a few posts that I might like to add. Separate from those, though, for now I think I'll post a verse I wrote years ago about that thing I need to write.
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