Friday, March 9, 2012

Social network and novel work updates

Social Network Update
I’ve now joined BranchOut and Pinterest – as if I needed more social network connections than I already have, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads. I really don’t know what BranchOut is all about and Pinterest is even more of a riddle.

A recent pin on my Pinterest 
for the home board

According to their websites:
BranchOut makes it easy to search for jobs and see inside connections in your network. Our quick tour will help you discover BranchOut's powerful features.
Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I haven’t really worked with BranchOut yet because I haven’t been actively looking for a job – but of course one never knows.

And, I’ve seen some interesting and beautiful pin boards on Pinterest. I’ve even joined in with the rest in pinning and repinning and liking existing pins, but I don’t get the point yet. I signed up to take a free 45 minute Webinar about it next week, so maybe I’ll come out with a whole new outlook then. Since my main goal for all of these sites is to get the word out about my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, I can’t tell how BranchOut and Pinterest will help me do that.

Novel Update
And, I’m going to take a break from my novel today. I passed the 70,000 word mark yesterday, I’ve begun to create chapters, and next week I’ll probably start pinning the book up on storyboards (not to be confused with Pinterest). That way I’ll be able to see the holes in my content more clearly. Up until now I’ve been scrolling through a big document, and scrolling back and forth through 170 plus pages is not the way to go. I’ve also dropped my stuff into Dropbox just in case I want to work on it when I’m not at my home computer.

Needless to say, my online and writing life keeps getting more and more involved and complicated. Maybe I need to go around for a while, paper notebook in hand, and write some poems – like the good old days.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes. Writing poems like the good old days. You probably then, like I did, wrote poems with the good old-fashioned pencil and paper. Sounds great to me!

I am certainly NOT looking for anymore social connections. At my age I'm beginning to slow down just a bit, and my disabled daughter I've been caring for these 25 years is not getting any easier to care for. Menopause with brain injury is a deadly combination. Sometimes I'm NOT very patient!

I just printed out the sample chapters of your memoir that you and Lucky Press provided. Thank you for this gift. I've glanced through it, and have stopped at several of the poems. They're excellent! They add so much to the prose sections. They are VERY good. And your prose flows.

I just saw your comment on my blog where you say that you'd be glad to host me on yours. I'd like this very much. And I will write a post that will also highlight Leaving the Hall Light On. This is a book that needs to be read by those who can appreciate the beauty of the writing as well as your strength and courage throughout your ordeal. A difficult read - but then, LIFE is difficult. Like many other readers, I'm inspired by such stories as yours.

I need to read more of it.... But meanwhile, let me know your posting schedule, and how you'd like to approach it. Do you want to ask me questions, or should I just write up my own piece?
email me at annbest37 at yahoo dot com
Ann Best, Memoir Author of In the Mirror and Imprisoned

Anonymous said...

FYI, and I hope you won't be offended . . . I kept trying and TRYING to get past the double captchas that are deadly for some of us. I've "heard" a lot of bloggers "say" they won't bother to comment unless they really really really want to get past these. I hope you don't mind my saying this. Blogger really does filter out spam, and if an offensive post does get through, we can always delete it!

madeline40 said...

Thanks Ann for coming by and for reading the samples of my book -- and for your kind comments about my writing. I look forward to your guest post here.
I'm pretty open as to schedule. I blog couple of days, so as soon as you have something I'll be glad to post along with any photos, a bio, and synopsis you want to provide.
And I very much appreciate your writing something about my book.

Also, thanks for making me aware of the word identification problem. I didn't even know I had that here. I hopefully have taken care of the problem and turned that "feature" off. I agree it is a problem when posting comments.

I'm so sorry for all the time you have to spend in caring for your daughter. I don't blame you for your impatience. But as you say, life is difficult. It seems the older we get, the more we become aware of that.
Doreen Cox wrote an insightful book about caring for her mother: Adventures in Mother Sitting. It may be helpful to you. I found it to be a brilliant love story.

Thanks again, all best, Madeline

Jacqueline Howett said...

Hi Madeline,

Yeah, I'm not taking on any more social networks.

Other realities take the front seat sometimes. And maybe its a good thing for a needed balance.

I don't spend as much time as I once did online. I don't think it makes much difference, as long as we show up once in a while, like now. (This is my moment of free time and enjoyment, without pressure).



I also think its good to reshuffle the deck every now and then.

Congrats on your novel structure. Good for you!

Good Luck with your book!

Writing poems like the good old days sounds like a plan.

Hope to read some of your works soon.

Have a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Madeline, for this great reply. I did tweet your book yesterday, BTW.

I'll put something together for a post and get back to you - soon. I'm trying to do some catch up today. I printed out what you wrote here so I won't forget what I'm doing!!

Have a good weekend.
Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror & Other Memoirs

madeline40 said...

Sorry, Ann. My last comment wasn't too clear. I post every other day, so I can fit you in anytime.
I just purchased the Kindle version of In the Mirror, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets, so hopefully, I'll have some comments of my own along with your post.
Thanks for the Tweet - I didn't see it, but plan to look for it now.
All best for a good weekend.

madeline40 said...

Thank you, Jacqueline Howett, for coming by here too.

I'm going to keep reminding myself to carry that notebook with me and using it to write more poems.

And, I'm going to take a lesson from you and stay away from the networks a little more.

Hope you had a great weekend. All best,
M.

LindyLouMac said...

I have enough trouble keeping up with social media and blogging, so I am continuing to steer well clear of Pinterest!

madeline40 said...

I certainly can relate, Lindy Lou. However, Pinterest has some amazing and beautiful posts. It's a nice diversion.
Thanks for coming by. All best. M.

Barb said...

You are more tech savvy than I am - or care to be! I'm on Facebook but rarely post. I'm glad the new novel is gaining weight and flourishing. Enjoy your beautiful spring for me. We had snow showers today in Breckenridge.

madeline40 said...

Barb, I was lucky to have a job (retired in April 2010) where I had to be very computer savvy, so using the social networks just came naturally. But it is a lot of work keeping up. There's always something new coming out. I'm sure one of these days I'll give up - but right now it helps with my book marketing.
Thanks for your comment. Happy spring to you too.
https://madeline40.blogspot.com/2012/03/social-network-and-novel-work-updates.html
madeline40.blogspot.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-21
125663
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:6MYUMGCQHWU22VIMLDQFPGIWM7R436PS
<urn:uuid:606b7f1d-c0e3-48fc-bb34-e51289f30ec8>
2021-05-10T07:48:25Z
172.217.13.65
text/html
sha1:33QIG6K4HKPKKYPK6DEZUGAZPM7YBIJD
<urn:uuid:732e6442-742b-4049-a73b-179352b3a3ba>
https://madeline40.blogspot.com/2012/03/social-network-and-novel-work-updates.html
response
<urn:uuid:cf31ce71-b171-4439-ac09-038f7b271cec>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-21
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for May 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-234.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/