Oh, how cool!! Right off the bat we'll get my less than original idea out of the way... Home Sweet Horsebox.

Since this is a unique activity - writing a journal with photos that is instantly self-published and viewable around the world, you should just accept that what you are doing is BLOGGING. Web-log-ging to be more precise. It is what it is. Did Alexander Graham Bell's new devotees quibble about the name telephone? Of course not.

The initial set-up is not difficult, but I found it aggravating to be so completely ignorant about it all. Boom! It's there. And you can work on set-up in draft form and make changes in draft form before you publish. If I can do it, anyone can do it. You want to personalize it and make it look like you with templates, background colors, fonts, font colors. They're all there for the choosing. Probably your son can get you oriented with what is where, and then it will be you tweaking it. Your title and subtitle will say it all concisely. To me your header photo is important. It's who you are, but it's never in stone. I found in Blogger that ... Oh, gee, I forget. I know I had difficulty placing my title so that the letters weren't lost in the photo, and I think Blogger wouldn't let you place it exactly where you wanted it. So I think I placed it myself on the photo before I uploaded it. That's the kind of nit-picky stuff you can get hung up on - or not. I tend to get hung up on it. But it can be done and then all remodeled down the road if you want to.

Do you have Windows 7 or 8 on your new computer? I have W7, and it has what it calls "Live" things - Live Mail, Live Media and Live Photo Gallery. LPG is where I edit photos, but even better you can select the photos you want for a post from there (control left click each one), go to Blog Post under the Create tab (you will then be in Live Writer) and you can do your post there rather than in Blogger which is an awful painful thing. You have to first do the initial set-up between Windows & Blogger by telling it to connect with your blog address and then it gets all the appropriate fonts and settings. I have found typing some things and adding photos easier from Live Writer. I upload, size (pixel width) and place (left, center, right) the photos and type the opening and closing paragraphs (oddly, once you're in Blogger you cannot add spaces or text after the last photo if it isn't already there in Live Writer - one of the live-and-learn frustrations), and then post to the blog, because spacing of photos and inserting lines of text between photos is easier in Live Writer. Once in Blogger in your browser I have found it easier to use the caption on each photo to write everything else (right click on the photo, add caption). I have found that my photos dictate the story, so whatever your camera captures today is what you talk about.

I haven't updated my blog's appearance in a very long time. I hope this spring I will have a super flush so I can update my header photo.

Feel free, my dear, to email me at length and we can work through your frustrations - and there will be many before it gets easy as pie. sroma at cox dot net.

Can't wait to see it and read it. It will be wonderful!!!!

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

blog = weB log. So blog is an okay word.

It's been helpful for me to record what's going on the in garden and then later look back on it. For example I notice decline in certain roses over the years (time to shovel?), or reliably superb performance in others (maybe I should plant more of those).

Or I forget the name of a plant, but not to worry, I know I've blogged about it and labeled it with the genus, so I can look it up. I can look up when I planted a certain tree, or when I did such-and-such project. So in that respect it has been extremely helpful.

Also fun getting comments from all over the world and finding new gardens that way to look at. Amazing to see plants start blooming in my own garden that have also just started in Maine, or Norway, or Japan.

Let it be your own thing and use it how you want to use it. Not everyone likes blogging but you might like it a lot. And if you don't like it you can delete the thing and not look back.

I think this is going to be brilliant - in the best sense of the word. I am too old for your adventure, but I do look forward to sharing it vicariously. It is the sort of thing that I would have loved to do once upon a time if I had just had a cooperative "prince".

And, no, I don't think I have terminal Cinderella complex although it was rampant in my generation - but it does help to have a partner in the sort of venture your are undertaking. I salute your courage - or foolhardiness - same thing actually - and will follow your adventures with great interest although I may not comment that often. I am a perpetual lurker and read everything with interest and appreciation - and also continue to learn a lot in the process.

Wishing you the very best of times..

You don't like the word "blog". That made me laugh. If you don't like the word blog, name it something else. It could catch on - especially with your interesting use of words.

Cath

I think your dislike of blog is misplaced @camps. It's not really made up, just a shortening of web log. You could always be a traditionalist and call it a weblog. OTOH u cud make it in2 a wiki ;-)

I run a blog for my trips to India--killing many birds with one stone as it is much more efficient than letters/emails. I use tumblr.com. As Sherry says, you choose the format, but it can always be altered. I put in a couple of photos and a few paragraphs of text almost every day. The frequency is because I'm on the move and the trips last for only a month. I'm not asking for long-term dedication.

As in any kind of writing, you have to decide who your audience will be and how often they will want to read your posts. If it's mostly for yourself, do whatever you want. But if you are writing for others, keep in mind that most people have trouble reading a book a month for a book club. Rule of thumb is what can be read over a cup of tea.

I second what Catsrose wrote: the younger generation has even shorter attention-span. I once got paid $300 for a short joke which I submitted to Reader's Digest when I was 18 years old. Reader's Digest declared bankruptcy this year.

Now my husband reads books on-line, rather than from the library. Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul pays $200 for 1,200 word-article, but stiff competition for a recent book: 15,000 entries ... only 101 accepted.

Time has changed. My 10-year old spends more time with the Internet than with books, although she's the best reader. There's still demand for the exceptionally funny and witty contribution. My kid was watching a YouTube with 17 million hits .... called "Food Battle 2011" with 2 teenagers fighting with a red pepper versus a donut. It's retarded but funny.

The best way to gain an audience is to give what the reader wants: James Patterson gives short chapters, fast sentences, and fulfill people's inner psyche. Suzanne Collins give kids excitement & glad-to-be-alive in "The Hunger Games".

What do people need? A free psychologist who listen to their problems, and offer wise perspective. I wish there is such site and emotional uplift for whoever is down while surfing. Camp, with your wit, wisdom, and humor, you are the best for such task. Once you get enough visitors to your site, then advertisers will pay.

There's still demand for good writers, but it's more on-line. We still need a fresh and unique voice like yours, Camp. The problem with modern-writing is that everyone writes like James Patterson, or machine-gun writing. We need more grace than McDonald's meal, and McDonald writing.

Below is a link on how writers can make small, but quick money on-line:

Here is a link that might be useful: Earn money writing on-line

This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Apr 5, 13 at 12:40

I remember RabbitRabbit who contributed a well-written recipe of Kosher-chicken to my thread "Any slow-cooking recipe while toiling in the garden". I'm glad he made money from his novel:

•Posted by RabbitRabbit 9 (My Page) on
Sat, Jul 7, 12 at 0:22

Oh wow! Thanks so much everyone for the wonderful (and speedy!) responses ...On a side note, I recently sold my novel to a publisher and the first thing I spent my book advance was on...roses! Hence all the new plants this year. My son asked me why I didn't buy a motorcycle instead ;)

*** From Strawberryhill to Camp: Amazon.com has a yearly novel competition. Deadline is beginning of Jan 2014. Grand prize winner is a publishing contract with advance of $50,000.... plus four finalists with advance of $15,000 and a publishing contract.

Camp, I hope you'll win the above prize ... I honestly think you write better than the author of Harry Potter. See the link below for Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Competition.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amazon. com Novel competition

This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Apr 5, 13 at 14:07

well what kind of advice did you want?

you don't have to call it a blog, btw. It's just a website really. A website that you're journaling on. So you can call it your website or your journal or whatever. No big deal.

I've had a website probably since the 1990's or something, haha... It's definitely evolved over time! I'm reasonably happy with using a customized version of wordpress, but there are many other options.

A few bits of advice which you may or may not already know...
-- Don't put stuff on the internet that you don't want everyone to know. Some people get a little too personal on their public blogs and that can end up being embarrassing or even dangerous later.

-- make sure your images are properly sized for a website. Personally, I would suggest approximately 600 pixel width max on landscape images. no matter what 72 dpi max, that's the most the screen can see.

-- if you care about people using your images without your permission, make sure you watermark your images. This can be as small as your URL relatively small, but legible on the image at some point. You can even set up a macro in your image editing program to batch process your images. There's also a wordpress plugin that does it for you :)

-- be careful with how many images you put on your page and where. People in webdesign typically encourage your 'content' to start before the scroll cut off of the screen. Ie, you shouldn't really have to scroll your computer to start seeing the meat of your page. So don't make your top title splash image so large that it takes up too much space. Make sure you optimize your images when you save them so they are the smallest amount of kilobytes possible while still looking nice. IN particular, the images that are part of your webdesign and are loaded over and over.

-- Make sure any text you use in your buttons or title images are easy to read. The font should be easy to read, and the color should be easy to read on whatever background it's on. If you have a flowery busy photo with your blog title text on top of it like 'Aimee's Garden' or something, make sure the text thickness is bold and the color contrasts with the background. If it still doesn't stand out enough try a drop shadow or drop glow of sorts.

-- tagging things effectively can be very useful for you and your readers and help people find your blog. I find it really useful to be able to look back at certain tags to find particular posts to help me evaluate my garden or send a friend to a particular post.

-- like others have said, if you're writing for yourself, do what you want (without sharing so much that you jeopardize your privacy...). But if you're writing for others, it's best to keep things relatively short. Use paragraphs. Use bullets when appropriate. Use highlighted larger bold text for separate subject titles. Break things up with images when appropriate. It helps keep people interested.

Here is a link that might be useful: Aimee's website

Also giggling at your description of your dislike of "blog" as a word, but I can't laugh too hard as I detest "text speak" (leans over to poke Caldon). Do *not* get me started on to/too/two, there/their/they're, its/it's or your/you're as it wouldn't be pretty. ;) *resists temptation to go off on "the language degenerating into the gibbering of baboons" rant and re-hides her sharpened blue pencil*

I'm not a blogger, but a reader of blogs and I would echo what others have said about personal info and such. I would also ask that, if you're able to, you archive the blog by month. There's nothing worse than the set-up where every last entry appears in a loooooong list and makes it impossible to find a particular entry. WordPress? Blogger? One of them has the blog appear as a continuous line and it drives me bats.

Good luck on your blog-to-be! Be sure to let us know where to find it.

Campanula,
I am also one that hopes that you will tell us about your life and garden and show us pictures of what you see and learn through images of words and photography. You have a gift for it.

The only thing I can add is that when you start this new word adventure, it would be very helpful to me if you would have some way for me to get new chapters sent to me by email. I'm able to do this with Hoovb and Professor Roush's journals and am a regular reader because of it. If I have to remember to go and find you to see if you've written something new, I will be an erratic reader as I won't routinely remember to go and look. It's just me and won't be because I am not interested in what you write.

Gean

So, WordPress it is (son-in-law, Steph suggested it) - eldest is coming to tea in the week (which gives me a few days to try and think of a name. Definitely not pretentious - 'Hortus procrastinatus'. Not cute -'Skylarks and Willowherb. Not sarcastic -'Clueless Townies run amok in the poplars', Not whimsical 'Peeing in the nettles'.....all absolute rubbish - blocked already.
This may take some time.
Or thought

Aimee, Cats, Hoovb and Sherry - this practical advice is EXACTLY the sort of useful, helpful stuff I need - I am very witless about computer stuff - even just reading the words 'pixel, 'macro' and 'dpi' makes me hyperventilate. Thank you for the gentle encouragement. Strawb - although I am happy to ramble on here (like a conversation), the last 'writing' I did was some awful drivel about Ranters in the English Civil War (history dissertation back in the 90s) Works of imagination have generally been the 'throwing a sickie' variety to get a day off work..........a novel takes discipline...and consistency - beyond my capability for sure.
Praties - true - we are on the slippery slope back to grunting and pointing with sticks - apostrophe failure is just the start!

I might have to practice a bit before 'going public'.

don't worry about macros, then. :)

You should learn about pixels and dpi though. It'll just take you a moment. Whatever image program you are using, go into "Image size" you'll see inches or pixels listed and dpi.

DPI = dots per inch. You want it set at 72. :)

and then just make sure the image itself is not too large in inches or pixels. 600 or maybe 800 max pixel width is good.

This just makes sure that the image is not too big for the screen or doesn't take too long to load. :) You can google a lot of this to learn more too if you want, or ask here.

and practicing first before making the blog public is a good idea. then you can play around with it, test things and make sure it's how you want. :)