Hiddennode

Okay, I knew I wasn’t the only writer in the area, but it is finally nice to actually sit down with a few of them. Last Saturday, the 2^nd of May, I had the pleasure of attending Wesley Chapel’s 2^nd Florida Writers Association meeting. They meet monthly on the first Saturday of the month and have various speakers come to guide and instruct the writers that show up.

Oh and the writer’s that showed up!

None of us wrote quite the same thing. Some wrote fiction, some erotica, some about collecting hat boxes. One woman was there to find a way to publish her late son’s books. Another in her 80’s had just celebrated the publication of her first novel. It was amazing the variety of people that had arrived. The speaker was pretty good too. Julie Ann Howel,  publisher for a self-publication company, Peppertree Press. She had some great insight and offered a valuable service to many of the people there. It’s not the route I want to take for my publication, but hey, each of us has our own path to forge and her company offers a very good path to those who would need it. For all that she said, it sounds like if you want someone who is a very reliable and talented guide for self-publication, Peppertree can handle it for you. Don’t worry if you’re not in Florida, they have customers from across the world.

The best part, however, was the luncheon afterwards. It was only 5 of us from the meeting (including the guest speaker), and one guest spouse, and the conversation we had over lunch was just great. We talked about new media, authors, writing styles, novel specifics and sizes. I kept talking about the greatness of JC Hutchins (and I’ve recommended that we should attempt to bring him in as a speaker. So JC, if some folks in Tampa ask you to come speak, that’s cause of me) when speaking of pimping out your novel and really taking it far with advertising in new and old media.

I’m so looking forward to next month’s meeting.

Now excuse me while I hop over to the Florida Writer’s Association website and pay a year’s dues to become a full fledged member.

jdiehl

After a long delay, I’ve finally taken the time to install Google Analytics. Brief overview: GA basically allows folks to get really good reporting on their website. I’ve had it up a few days and I’m already seeing results. Why do I have it installed? Well, a few reasons. Firstly, I can better understand why and how people are coming to my site. I can also see where they go from my site (if they take links to leave the site). It helps with the ad thing and the building up thing.

Hey this site is for my writing business after all and as such I do have to take the time to make it efficient for me.

That said, something else is coming soon as well. I’ve signed up for Amazon and Google Ads. As the theme I make use of is right widget bar only, that’s where things are going to show up. Not sure what Google will show but Amazon will show links to things I talk about in the blog. Yes, that means once I talk about something, it’ll be easier for you to buy it. Makes sense right? A little “pimpage” when talking about something and getting a kickback if you readers buy it. And no, this blog isn’t going to become a big product review site. I’m going to talk about what I use, not what others want me to use. Expect mostly book links and other similar items. There will be no pressure to buy or click links. For one, that’s shady. For two, it’s against the Terms of Service I signed up for with Amazon and Google.

And personally, I don’t want Amazon and Google not liking me.

Jdiehl

As I posted yesterday, I’m going to start posting about my interests. To kick things off, I’m going to redux the first time I posted about last time… sort of.

My first review article on the old version of the blog was about a show called 12v Theater by Jack Jaffee. I had originally planned on trying to get with Jack, do an interview thing with him, and post it. Didn’t happen. Not Jack’s fault. The man was quick to reply and very open to a meeting. I’m the guy who dropped the ball. Sorry about that one Jack. Still kind of feeling like a douche for it.

So to make up for it, my first topic is going to be able Jack’s new show: Media Frenzy (formerly the Jack and Theresa Show). Basic overview is your hosts, Jack and his wife Theresa, talk about various shows on air today. The genres vary and they go back and forth between Network and Cable shows. If it’s something on these days on a popular network, odds are they will talk about it, if just a little bit if they don’t care for it, or put an entire show out about a single series (I’m looking at episode 12 starring Dubshack as an example). Now I’ll be the first to admit it, I really don’t watch most of what they talk about. A few things, but not all of them. I pretty much listen because the hosts are cool and entertaining. They understand they have an adult audience listening to them and treat their show as such. So far, there are about a dozen shows as of April 24^th and it looks like they are going to keep going.  I do recommend listening to Media Frenzy if you want the perspective of folks like you and I reviewing the shows they like. You’re not going to hear buzz words or fawning over a show for no reason and the criticism they give isn’t hollow.

Okay that’s it… wait there’s more? Oh hell, right, 12vtheater. Erm… well… let me see here.

Well, there’s a problem with me reviewing 12vtheater. See, after the whole losing the job thing last year, I hadn’t listened to many podcasts for awhile. While I’ve recently managed to get caught up with a lot of them, well fiction podcasts have taken a back seat to more current events podcasts. That said, I’m going to make a more concentrated effort to catch up on this shows and other fiction shows soon. So no, I’m not going to post a new 12v Theater “Down the Road” post at this time. The series deserves more respect than to be reviewed by someone who has only listened to half of it.

Okay, so there’s the first review. Let’s see if I can keep them coming.

jdiehl

PS Since I wrote this Sunday night, I have actually mainlined my way through Down the Road. Waiting on that final episode, but yeah, I’m ready to review later this week.

So a year or so ago, back when this blog originally saw the light of day, I had wanted to take the time to post about some things I enjoyed. I wanted to post about podcasts, software, games, books, everything I was enjoying I wanted to share. I did manage a few back then. Looking at the old locked up archive posts, I see I posted about just those things. Did a decent job of reviewing them (at least that’s what I’ll claim and you’ll never know without breaking into my admin panel). Quickly though, they subsided as I just got tired of posting daily too quickly. A while after that, I just gave up, slapped together a rather poorly generated podcasts page and dropped it at the top of the website and said screw it. Occasionally I dropped a game review every now and then, but mostly I just let it slide.

Well, it’s time to bring back that good old spirit of writing about the things I enjoy; Only this time, I’m not going to be so heavy handed in getting posts out daily. I’ll just create them as they come to me, and as they come to exist, I’ll also add them to the Interests Page at the top of this blog. Even better, I’ll have the interests page link the brief descriptions I post there back to the big descriptions that appear in the blog.

Good idea right?

Okay, I admit, it’ll take some extra work and that might put me off, but hear me out. I think it’ll actually work for keeping me doing that sharing the love thing for things I enjoy. Trust me. It’ll come to pass. You’ll see.

jdiehl

Once Again, I’m in a “edit the site” mood.

Changes made for now:

• Removed Podcasts Page
• Added Interests Page Placeholder
• Removed Content of About Page

Changes coming soon:

• New About Page Content – To reflect subject matter of the blog
• New Author Page – To reflect the old content of the about page, basically information about me
• New Interests Page Content – To reflect links and posts I make about things I enjoy

Detail about the changes:

The changes I’m making reflect a desire to give a more in depth look at who I am and what I do here for this blog. For one thing, the old podcasts page was very vanilla in how it approached my enjoyable of a podcast. I’m changing it now that whenever I post about a given podcast, I’ll add it to the interests section. This will also reflect other things I’ve been enjoying, such as apps on my iPod touch, books I’m reading, and games I’m playing. The last three will probably fluctuate a bit as I move through different books, games, and etc. Ideally, I’ll update this once a week with new content and removal of old content.

The about section will also get a revision shortly. It will contain a breif detail on the various things I post about here, as well as link to things I use on the blog (namely what plug-ins I have tied into wordpress, and where else you can get the blog feed).

The Author page will become a static bio page. I doubt I’ll change it much except when a project receives fruition. Eventually, this will contain a list of everything project I have out there that folks can get their hands on to see.

So that is what is coming. I’ll be doing most of the changes this evening. Maybe even might get a new theme and new plug-ins to make the site strong. Maybe even *gasp* sign up for google analytics that I’ve been asked to do a few times for Raven’s site. If I can get a handle on them here, might have an easier time working on them there.

Okay, enough babble for now,

jdiehl

Oh, PS, www.cylys.com is no longer part of the hiddennode.com network. Dakota finally got off his ass and got his webspace. Congrats man! Now I don’t have to fix your site anymore! (forks is gonna love that).