Just A Note: September 9, 2013

Hello World!

Well…

That was quite an interesting beginning wasn’t it.  This week has been an emotion packed week.  Not all good emotions either, but looking from a philosophical point of view, one must ask what is good and what is bad.  I’m not one of those persons who believes pain will make you grow nor do I believe that just looking at the bright side of life you will make things positive come your way.  Though I’ve seen that if one wishes to be hosanna-ed one can write extensively on either subject and many will read them in droves.

Some unforeseen problems have been making life a bit rocky for me at the moment, and sometimes that means I look at the keyboard for assistance because nothing wants to be written or read.  Some of my fellow bloggers also have been having their health and family problems which have kept them away from blogging and the place has been a little emptier without them.  Of course, life is an ebb and flow and I know that it’s only a question of time, then the metaphorical sun will rise again, adjustments having been made.  This is the real miracle of life in my opinion.

Publishing

Barb Taub’s book “One Way Fare“ has been published and is for sale!  I’ve been watching over the months as Barb’s been progressing towards this happy day. I wish to offer my personal congratulations to Barb on this effort!  The link will take you to her announcement page, have a look!

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As for my personal publishing efforts…they’re efforts.  Actually, I’ve never gone to a publisher yet.  I have more or less finished a first short story that might be acceptable to a magazine now that I’ve finished all my refining, retuning, re-editing to get rid of all the grammar, typo, tense and punctuation errors.  I’ve now sent it to my sister, who’s given it to a mutual friend, for final editing.

What’s the problem?  I don’t like what the story has become.  Could be because having spent so much time on it, I’ve just become weary of it.  However, one of my readers said that it was a “traditional” good read.  At that point I shuddered and a lot of my enthusiasm went out of the project.  So, I’ll have to do some re-thinking here.

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I’m taking part in a daily Haiga challenge this month.  This is an interesting project too.  I’m using my photographs for the most part in this challenge, though I’ve continued to draw in my spare time, which isn’t much right now.

I’ve also become interested in Haibun, thanks to Ese’s Voice and the Ligo Haibun challenge.  I used the Haibun form also this week to write my Friday Fictioneers’ contribution.  It was interesting getting the story and the Haiku all in 100 words.

On the 13th Floor I’ve also published a Power Short prompt;  write a children’s story.  I discovered Power Shorts long before I came across Friday Fictioneers and though they are basically the same thing, my prompt furnishes a requested genre as well as a prompt.

Spam

Alas, oh sigh, I’m plagued with spam.  Each day I have to go to my comment page and weed the stuff out.  I could just do an empty spam, but unfortunately, sometimes not all the spam is spam.

This is a problem that is plaguing everyone as seen through Papizilla’s post on his new blog “The Literary Syndicate“…17 bits of spam on a blog just that had just opened!  By the way, besides this post on spam, Papi’s doing a good job on getting the word out about indie publishers in a big way, have a look.

However, there have been some spammers who’ve been able to infiltrate  the barriers of Askimet.  Two such spammers that came my way this week were via Tumblr and another site.  They made comments on an older post of mine which seemed kind of strange.  I looked them over and voilà, they were two lovely ladies (sic) who run an on-line sex site.  Of course I spammed them out of existence.

Yesterday though in answer to my post, “Thoughts: Women and Writing” I received this long comment which I’m copying and pasting:

“malikoma Sep 8, 9:41 pm

Let’s start with breaking the ‘binary-gender roles’…when we no longer associate genitalia, with one’s capabilities, or entitlements…only then might we know the equalization of the human…

I believe that you’ll have to break the cultural typecasts to advance yourself…. and consider too, any mammalian instinctive behaviors…isn’t that why the human is presumably given the conscious mind…would it be to continue answering to the animal within?

Do you first wish to inspect my genitalia, or will my conscious-mind suffice?
Thank you…
-The ‘artist’ known as Malikoma
p.s. No butt-sniffing please!”

For this lovely answer a Gravitar was created ad hoc.  I haven’t approved the comment on my post, not because of its content, but because the Gravitar was created ad hoc.

Of course this person, whom I suspect to be a shy male 😉 (but one never knows) may be legitimate.  However, once I approve this, and unless I want to moderate each and every comment, this person can comment without approval on any post without moderation and I might be forced in future to take down the comment.  So I posted the comment here.  What do you think about these extemporaneous commenters?  Would you consider this a sort of censorship on my part?  Of course if you wish to reply, have the courage to do so openly instead of hiding behind a ad hoc Gravitar.

Yesterday on “Lucy’s Football” there was an interesting article about Spam and our “followers” many of whom are following just to spam.  The most disheartening thing about “followers” is that you can’t have them unfollow you.  Well, actually, I think you can spam them and they can’t comment on your posts anymore. Have a look at the post and tell me what you think, if you’ve got the time.

In Conclusion: