Future of Revision Notes

by Darcy Pattison

Future of Revision Notes

Since I posted about Backstory on last week, I’ve been thinking about the topic all weekend and will post more about it tomorrow. Look for it!

I am also planning to move my blog to my own domain and off LiveJournal. The change should happen about July 1, so watch for the announcement. I’ve decided to do this, so I can have more control of how I lay out things, what plugins I use on the blog, how I monitor traffic and lots of other issues.

The process of moving has been interesting. I’ve always used AOL for my webpage host and only used publically available software. Moving to my own domain, I’m finding that it’s a “buyer beware” world out there. Every time I try something new, there are bugs that have to be ironed out. I’m pretty good at doing this, but it’s been interesting to see how often this happens. Of course, part of that is I don’t always know what I’m doing! But part of it is just the nature of the web community.

For example, I’m switching to WordPress as my blogging platform (probably–still looking at b2evolution, but it has much less support in terms of plugins and other flexibility). I liked one theme/skin (the way the blog looks) and downloaded it and played with it for a while before I noticed that the code didn’t validate.

I was, well, shocked, that someone would release a less-than-perfect theme. Yes, I’m naive about the web! My experience has been with AOL, remember, which doesn’t release anything without making sure there are few problems (And yes, I?m sure there are some who would disagree with that, but it’s been my experience, anyway.)

This Buyer Beware mentality is different, but interesting. Anyway, I?m working through all the issues needed to switch over. I’ll post on both this journal and the other for a while to give you time to switch. But look for the change.

Interesting Links

Editor, Cheryl Klein has posted a speech she did on writing picturebooks.

Lots of changes in how the education community is using the internet to teach.

Art v. Design. The quotes here are fascinating, and relate to everything about good book design, or even to how blogs are designed, how stories are delivered online, and lots about our daily lives.

The sounds of language affect voice, yes? Here’s an article about Keats poetry and his use of vowels, interesting in the context of a voice discussion.

Fascinating discussion of the “class” differences of teens (and military personnel) who utilize Facebook v. My Space. I don’t know enough to have an opinion about it, but it?s something to watch. Particularly, as lots of writers use these social networks to publicize their new books.

Related posts:

1. Celebrate 400: Best of Revision Notes
2. Revision Priorities
3. Revision: Understanding critiques
4. Psychology of Revision: Fear and Humility, Part 2
5. revision difficulties

Revise with confidence.