Aussie Bloggers

Just recently my wife and I went to Nimbin in NSW for a weekend. Nimbin is about 2 hours 45 minutes drive from Brisbane, inland from Byron Bay.We stayed in the YHA Youth Hostel which we find no quite to our taste. Really there is nothing wrong with the youth hostel in Nimbin but I think that my wife and I are just a little past finding a youth hostel comfortable.The view from the youth hostel was quite spectacular though.The main drag of Nimbin is abut 500 m long with brightly painted buildings.Following are some other visual impressions I capture on my mobile phone camera while walking through Nimbin. All in all I got the impression that Nimbin was the weed capital of Australia and was quite happy to be seen as such. During our walk through the main drag of Nimbin around lunch time I was asked 5 times if I wanted to buy some cannabis, which I found a bit disturbing.I have been to Amsterdam, by many considered the weed capital of Europe, and wasn’t approached as often than I have in Nimbin.Nimbin itself is located in a beautiful valley surrounded by high mountains which makes for spectacular views, the shop fronts are very colourful and seem very inviting. It is a pity that a large part of the messages and products on sale are dedicated to marihuana and their attempt to legalise it.

I’ve written before about the blog-niche of blog fiction, and the specific troubles and travails it can involve.

(For the purposes of clarification – by blog fiction, I mean something in blog format, and containing mostly fiction. There are a lot of different definitions floating around there – mine is very
general)

Recently, I read a post by a fellow fiction writer. He was asking – why have a personal blog, as well as write fiction? While composing a long and rather windy reply, I happened upon an interesting insight.

I originally started my personal blog with the intention that it would be an adjunct to my fiction blog, read by friends, some fans of my fiction blog, and few others. Months later, the fiction blog still gets the lion’s share of my time and focus.

Guess which one’s in the Top 100 Australian Women’s Blogs list?

Yup. The sideline personal blog. Weird, huh? Not really, come to think of it. See, looking back, I think that I made a crucial but not fatal error in my logic process. I thought like a vaguely successful writer with a fan base. I’m not a vaguely successful writer. I didn’t have a fan base. And the important thing to know about fiction blogs is this - <b>most first-time visitors won’t come back</b>. The story they read – or skim – won’t be captivating enough, or it will be the wrong genre, or there’ll be a personality mismatch. On the other hand, people visit my personal blog because it’s, umm, personal, and often amusing, and then sometimes they get hooked on my fiction because it’s got the same sort of amusement factor as my personal blog. There are, no doubt, personality mismatches – but people find my personal blog
via links, or comments I’ve left, on blogs belonging to people I get along well with. Which means far fewer personality mismatches.

From this accidental experience, I’ve come up with a new theory of fan-base-creation.

The internet can be used to find people of like mind, and it’s people of like mind who are most likely to read and enjoy a person’s fiction.

There. Bleeding obvious, wasn’t it?

One warning, though. If you’re considering starting a personal blog merely to attract people to your fiction blog – think hard. It requires a genuine effort at sharing yourself – a fake exterior or a simple intellectual discussion is unlikely to help. A personal blog must be exactly that – personal – or it will hinder you more than it helps.

I’m still fairly young at 25-years-old and I only owned about one or two mobile phones before predictive text became ubiquitous in mobile devices so I didn’t really get into the whole SMS language thing with messages like “c u soon” and “wat time u ova” where saving individual letters meant shaving half the time off writing a text message. I admit I’m no master of the English language but I like to spell my words properly and completely with capital letters where appropriate and punctuation - so it’s good to see that SMS culture slowly died off with the introduction of predictive text, mobile devices with full QWERTY keyboards such as Blackberries, web-enabled devices, the availability of email on mobile devices and uptake of short message micro-blogging services such as Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk.

Why the ACT Government has only in the last year or so decided it was cute to try and use SMS language on anti-DWT (Driving While Texting) awareness signs like the “DRIVE N TXT U B NEXT” is beyond me … they missed the boat by about 10 years and is embarrassing.

I wonder how many people still use SMS language and shortcuts given that technology nowadays means its no longer necessary. From what I’ve observed people in general want their messages to be well-formed, correctly spelt and appropriately punctuated and formatted - and that applies to phone SMSs and other short messages such as those posted on Twitter.

What are your thoughts on SMS language? Is it dead? Is it cute? Does it have its place still? Was it a temporary travesty of the English language?

On behalf of the admin and mods of the Aussie bloggers, please allow me to wish everyone our very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
We wish nothing but good things for you all.
As we spend Christmas Day with our family and friends, please spare a thought for those away from loved ones, particularly the members of our armed forces who willingly put themselves in harms way for the benefit of others, and those sick and/or in hospital.
We all take much for granted I think, and for myself, I can say that comes home to me every Christmas.
Our thanks to all who have contributed to the blog in any way, be it posts or comments. We appreciate the help we get to keep this place going and of course without readers there is little point.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Name: Tamsyn

Blog: My (not so) Perfect Life

If you could have anything your heart desired, what would you ask for for Christmas? Twin baby girls

And on a more serious note (and so that you can refer your partner back here if need be ), what would you really like for Christmas? Wii Fit, a sewing machine and lots of champagne

What are you doing for Christmas this year? This is the first ever Christmas that my husband and I have hosted and it will be in our first ever home! I am so excited that, I started counting down the days about 3 months ago.

What is your favourite Christmas Tradition? It sounds silly, but it is the present opening. I love having all of the family sitting around on the couch and I love seeing how much thought and care goes into choosing the perfect gift for each person. My second favourite tradition is playing Christmas Carols and singing and dancing to them whilst we decorate the tree and house.

What is your favourite Christmas food? (feel free to share a recipe if you have one) My favourite Christmas food is warm Christmas puddings with brandy custard. Yum, yum, yum. As for the recipe…… I’ll have to check with my mum and get back to you on that one

Name: Ching Ya

Blog: It’s My Life ~ It’s Now Or Never

If you could have anything your heart desired, what would you ask for for Christmas?
A Hug from Jesus? Ok, that’ll be a little too much to ask… How about Pay Leave for 5 years, then I’ll fire my boss.

And on a more serious note (and so that you can refer your partner back here if need be ), what would you really like for Christmas?
I want a romantic get-away YEARLY OR a puppy! I really, really, really love the husky I saw at the pet shop the other day.

What are you doing for Christmas this year?
Hmm.. Travelling, but not sure where to.

What is your favourite Christmas Tradition?
Christmas Tree & Songs (both contemporary & classics) !

What is your favourite Christmas food? (feel free to share a recipe if you have one)
Pastries. Anything that contains cheese/chocolates would be a plus.

Name: Planning Queen

Blog: Planning With Kids

If you could have anything your heart desired, what would you ask for for Christmas?
Fully environmentally sustainable house.

And on a more serious note (and so that you can refer your partner back here if need be ), what would you really like for Christmas?
iPhone (geeky I know) and as I have bought my own Christmas present for my husband to give to me, I also know that I am not getting it!

What are you doing for Christmas this year?
Traveling from Melbourne to Mildura to spend with all my family. It will be the first time in many years that myself and three sisters will all be in the same place for Christmas. I am very excited about this, even if it does mean traveling for over 6 hours in a car whilst being very pregnant!

What is your favourite Christmas Tradition?
Leaving out food and drink for Santa and seeing the excitement on the kids faces when they realise that Santa and the reindeers have eaten and drunk the lot.

What is your favourite Christmas food? (feel free to share a recipe if you have one)
I am not big on the traditional Christmas foods like turkey and pudding etc. I do make these completely delicious chicken sandwiches which I love and we have for starters on Christmas Day.