Just A Reminder!

Just a reminder that this blog has moved on…

Beyond The Lone Islands 

from 3 January, 2011

See you there!

Taking The Plunge

Yes, I’ve been talking about it for a while… wrestling with my own doubts… To sum up the story, I’ll soon be running out of space in my first Picasa web album; and instead of paying to upgrade, I decided to continue my two main blogs in a new account. I started with the Picture Book three weeks ago and I think that has worked out quite well so far. About 50% of the previous followers have already found their way to the new blog.

I’m a little more nervous about moving on from this one. But hey, the old posts that are already here aren’t going anywhere; that’s part of the point. There will be links back from the new blog.

We have just passed New Year, and what better time to take the plunge into “new waters”!

So click on the duck, or on the link below, to follow me…

Beyond the Lone Islands

See you there!

Advice, Please!

From my living room window: A deep and dark November evening. Only a couple of weeks to go now until it’s time to put up the first Advent decorations…

Checking my Picasa Web Album, it says I’ve used up more than 75% of my storage space. I’m trying to think ahead a bit, not to be overcome by surprise the day it suddenly says it’s full…

Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

I don’t want to pay for more storage space.

I don’t want to erase my old posts. I want to be able to go back to them myself, and I also might want to be able to link back to some.

Moving one of the blogs to another account would mean messing up already existing links.

It also does not seem practical to have separate accounts for each blog since that would mean a lot of confusing logging in and out.

So I guess the best thing would be to leave the blogs as they are, and just continue with “part 2” on a new account. I guess that means losing a certain number of followers – but hopefully the ones who are really following will make note of the change and adjust to it. I know I have done so with other bloggers myself.

I have already started making preparations (setting up a new Blogger account). But I’d really appreciate advice and points of view from others, before I go ahead. Maybe there are aspects of it I have not thought about?

I suppose after New Year might be a good time to make a change. (It will then be two years since I started this blog.)

Unexpected Flashbacks

Yesterday, I had a surprise, since suddenly on my Blogger reading list, a very familiar-looking photo appeared. But I had not posted it! Not recently, anyway… However, I knew that I had posted another photo of the same building only the day before. For a second or two, I was very bewildered indeed!

Then my brain started working again. I realized what blog the picture was on: Write With Pictures. A blog to which I have given permission to use my pictures. I also realized that in my recent Picture Book post (Museum Church), I had linked back to an older post (17th century church) where this photo was included. So the whole thing was not at all as strange as it first seemed!

The Write With Pictures ‘Monday Meme’ means sharing “what memories that come to mind” when looking at the picture. Hm! Since it was my own photo, and I had revisited the place only two days ago, of course it brought back memories!

So I wrote down what went through my head. And after having done that, I decided to go back here and repeat some of it, and add a couple of more photos. And words.

♥-♥-♥

I think it was two years ago one year ago that I last went inside, one day when the door was open. Coming in from the bright light outside, it was so dark in there that I had very little idea what I was taking photos of. But I did take some flash photos. Not until I was back home, getting the photos up on the computer screen, could I see the details.

Now this reminds me of two things:

1. Some doors are not always open.
We have to find them at the right moment.

 
When I was there last, the door was closed.

  
When I took this picture, the door was open.

2. Sometimes we do not really see things clearly until in retrospect.

 
Collection of old keys inside the porch; and a box, in which visitors can leave a contribution to the maintenance of the church. I think it is probably supposed to be St Peter on the pillar. Or maybe that’s just how my mind wanders because of the keys in the background. It was to Peter that Jesus said: “on this rock I will build my church” and “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:18-19)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

“The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world would not recognize him.” (John 1:9-10)

Licensed to Blog?

Yesterday, it seems I managed to use a blog title from a meme I did not know existed. Had I been in a different mood when I was made aware, perhaps I would have joined in. But I’m not, so I won’t - not this weekend, anyway. Maybe some other time…

Today, in my morning paper, there was an ad for the college in the town where I live, with a list of courses they have to offer. What a lot of things you can study these days. How about, for example, a course called “The Theory and Practice of Blogging”…? (No, I’m not joking. There is one.)

Maybe I was too lighthearted and amateurish in my Tuesday post this week… Maybe in the future we’ll need a license to be allowed to even get started. No more playing around just to see what happens.. We’ll need to know all the Blog Traffic Signs first, and pass a Blogging  Test to prove that we master the arts of Linking and Commenting and giving proper Credit, and whatever…

Success or Exhaustion

 

Now and then I find myself landing on some blog post or other which tries to define How To Be A Successful Blogger. Tips usually include things like: post regularly, keep to a theme, get out there and visit lots of other blogs, link, comment, interact… Just recently I came across one such post that a bit unexpectedly ended with the conclusion (rephrased by me):  “sorry, readers, I did all this, and was successful - but I can’t keep it up”.

It made me ponder about how we define success. Not just in blogging! - but let’s stick to that for now, to simplify things.

Really: How many followers should a blogger have to be counted as successful? How many page views? How many comments on average per post? How many… Oh, never mind…

Every now and then I find that I’m letting myself get stressed by goals set up by someone else – and not set up for me, but for them. How stupid is that?

Every time I do that, I have to go back to my own beginning, and ask myself: What goals did I set for myself?

If we stick to blogging… In my very first blog post ever (January 2009), I wrote: “I really have no clear idea yet what hidden things I want this blog to make visible. But maybe if I start writing, I will find out...”

I had hardly even read other blogs until I started my own. I had never heard the word “meme”. I knew one (1) person in the blogosphere. It seemed unbelievable that anyone else would ever just randomly find what I wrote. (That took two weeks, I think.) But I was curious to explore a bit more. I wanted to keep up writing, and the English language. And if I made some friends along the way, that would be great. That was about it…

Considering those goals (which did not include numbers of any kind), I’ve been “successful”. I’ve done a lot of exploring. I’ve kept writing. I’m communicating with other people in English. Some people across the earth whom I’ve never met have come to feel like close friends. On top of that I’ve expanded my photo interest – a lot. And after nearly two years I’m still here, enjoying it, feeling inspired by it…

… except when occasionally for obscure reasons I start to compare myself to goals set by other people who are not me. 

Why does one do that?!

Letting oneself get inspired by others is one thing.
Letting oneself get exhausted is another.  

“The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads swiftly via the Internet. --- In simple terms, an Internet meme is an inside joke, that a large number of Internet users are in on.”
Wikipedia

 
The pictures in this post are all from today (5 October 2010)

360 + 540 = 900

One year ago today, 12 September 2009, I started my photo blog DawnTreader’s Picture Book. Today’s post in that blog is the 360th. Here at The Island of the Voices, the post I’m just writing happens to be the 540th. Together, that makes 900…

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me with comments, and inspired me with your own blog posts!

♥  ♥  ♥ 

Thank You, Blogger

Blogger made me very happy yesterday, by introducing the new automatic spam detection! I’ve been thinking for weeks, not to say months: Surely there must be some better way to deal with this problem than leaving it up to each and every blogger to keep chasing and deleting them one by one?!?? Thank you, Blogger, for the new Comments Tab and the Spam Inbox.
For you who have so far been lucky enough not to be troubled by spam, I can report that the new filter seems to work as intended. At least with the sort of spam that I have been subjected to for a while.

Food For Thought

Even when not sitting at the computer, I often find myself thinking of my friends in the Blog World.

Today around noon I went for a walk into town, and “for once” (it does not happen very often) I decided to just buy a hamburger and fries for lunch and eat them on a park bench.

While drinking the diet coke, I found myself inevitably thinking of Rae in Texas.

Then I decided to get some ice cream on top of that. After all, who knows how many sunny summer days we have left? This led my thoughts to Jeannette in California. (The flavours in that cone, Jeannette, are chocolate and vanilla/kiwi!)

Later in the afternoon, at home, I ate a yellow kiwifruit. (I know it looks green in the picture but it is supposed to be yellow!) It made me think of GB, who has been having a rather rainy Hebridean summer, but will get another chance of a sunny one later in New Zealand…

Time For A Change

Maybe it was all the talk of resurrection and renewal lately that made me finally take the leap and explore the new Blogger templates. 

Here’s a tip if you haven’t already thought of it: I have a hidden, secret “testblog” that no one can see but me. Its only purpose is for me to be able to play about with layout without any risk of messing the real blog up until I feel that I have at least an inkling of what I’m doing.

In spite of that, I haven’t really been playing much with layout. Since I started this blog 1½ years ago, I have only made one change of basic template, and the other big change was when I figured out how to add my own header picture. And I have been rather happy with that.

However. The world around us keeps changing, and sometimes we get hit by a need to make a bit of an effort to keep on top of things…

Because of the blog name, I wanted to keep to the sea and island kind of colour scheme. I also prefer to keep backgrounds simple, not taking too much attention from the actual content of the blog. But I found this wooden background picture that I really like... I find it restful to the eye, and I hope that my readers will like it too.

If any of you have trouble loading the blog or anything like that after the changes, please let me know.

---

The wooden clock-sculpture with the cat on top is of course another masterpiece by Uno Axelsson. (For more of of his animal sculptures, look in my Blog Archive for July.) There was a sign on the wall telling exactly how old that tree trunk was (I think it was oak?) and where it had grown, before it came into Uno’s hands. I have forgotten the details now.

That cat on the top might have something to do with a Swedish saying that I’m afraid probably makes even less sense in English than in Swedish. Even the origin of the Swedish word is unknown: klockarkatt, which would mean “cat belonging to a bell-ringer”. (We use one and the same word in Swedish for bell, clock and watch.) The saying goes “to be in love like a bell-ringer’s cat”, and refers to being a bit crazy and obsessed with the object of your affection. It seems there is also a German word Klosterkatze (“abbey cat”) which might possibly be connected to the Swedish one. If anyone knows more about it, please share.

Anyway… It seems to me that the cat on the top of that clock is keeping close watch on something…

BTT: To Share and Discuss (Books)

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/discussion/

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

(Deb's comment: "Personally, I almost can’t remember the last time I was able to really TALK about a book I’d read with someone else who’d read it, and haven’t really been able to since my best friend and I devoured the same books in high school. Thank God for the internet.")

My answer: Some books, sometimes! My brother like me likes to listen to audio books in English and when he finds something he thinks I might like, he lends it on to me (or makes copies). We don't always share exactly the same favourites but we do both have a certain preference for fantasy, British humour and classical mysteries.

In the past, I sometimes talked about books with my mother, but during the last few years of her life she did not read much. She preferred realistic novels. She and her sister used to talk about books too; now my aunt and I occasionally share some reading tips.

I also have a couple of old friends that I sometimes talk to about books. Or write to, with one of them.

Between the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books, I took part in discussions in a Harry Potter internet forum - The Leaky Lounge - and especially the subforum Academic Analysis: Obscurous Books - which was a new experience to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. The discussions often went way beyond HP and it revived my interest in book discussions generally, and inspired me to read classics I'd never got round to before, and to reread some that I hadn't read since my college days. It made me aware how much I had missed that kind of discussions.

Six months or so after the last HP book... I began to feel that perhaps it was time to move on (not to get stuck in the wizarding world forever)... That's when I entered the blog world. In the beginning I probably focused more on books and book reviews in my blogging - not really knowing what else to write about... (I also started a special HP blog Through My Spectrespecs to collect some of my thoughts from those discussions; I haven't been updating it very frequently though.) Then photography took over, and some other more personal stuff. But I have also found some blogging friends along the way that I enjoy sharing occasional book reviews and opinions with. Like Rae @ Us In Tejas (hi). And a few months back I found these Booking Through Thursday questions, which I have since enjoyed participating in.

Does it matter to me? Yes, it does! Discussions with old and new friends challenge and inspire me to find out more about all kinds of things I might otherwise not have bothered to give a second thought. This goes for both books and all kinds of random blogging topics.

Blog Comment Spam

In spite of using word verification, I’ve noticed an increasing amount of blog comment spam on both my blogs lately, which is beginning to seriously annoy me. An extra problem is that my email account sometimes does sort these as spam, which means they might slip me by.

Is that just me this is happening to or is it the same for everyone?

I’m considering switching to comment moderation for a while to try out how that works for me (and my readers).

If you have any opinions, please tell me.

Wait and See?

Contemplating the quotation in my previous post today... Do you ever wonder... Well, silly question, really - I guess all bloggers do, from time to time:  Shall I put this or that on the blog or not...?

This, I would normally wait with, until I knew a bit more. But since I might not feel up to blogging directly afterwards, there might be a point in telling you before. I've been having "a spot of" trouble with an eye for a couple of weeks, a sort of irritating shadow floating about... Thought it was just a temporary irritation, but it's not getting better (nor worse, really), so this morning I got on the phone to the eye clinic at the hospital. And they gave me an "emergency" appointment at 2 p.m. today. If nothing else they'll be giving me some eyedrops for the examination that will make my vision blurry for a while. They told me this to point out that I shouldn't drive. But I don't drive anyway, so I'll take the bus there and maybe a taxi back home afterwards. But perhaps I'd better stay off the computer tonight...

Tourist Advice

The other day, I got an email from someone I don't know; not even by blog. It did not seem to be spam, and it contained a polite enough request: The writer is planning to go to Sweden and wants some touristing tips. Now, I'm not a Tourist Office, and therefore feel a bit hesitant to reply personally to a request "out of the blue" like that. But I thought I might make a blog post out of it...

Besides wanting to "see the world", the email writer claims to be interested in biking, swimming and dancing. This in itself tells me that this person has not been doing very thorough research into my blogs before asking my advice!

Fact: I have not been on a bicycle in ten years. No, sorry - eight years. My last very brief attempt was on a holiday in 2002. Not successful from neck-pain aspect. The last (and only) time I went on a longer biking adventure was 34 years ago. And that was fun only because of the company!

Fact: I have not set foot in a lake or sea in ten years either. Well, possibly my feet - but definitely not my whole body. Having got used to gentle exercises in an indoor rehab pool heated to 33°C, everything else seems too cold now!

Fact: The last time I "went dancing" was... 38 years ago, at a disco in England! [laughing out loud here] I may also have walked around a Swedish midsummer pole a few times in my twenties, but that's it. Not my kind of entertainment.

So what advice could I give? Only of a very general kind:

First, if you're not into winter sports, go in the summer. Our main tourist season is between mid June to mid August. May or September can be fine too, and less crowded; but you might also find many typical tourist places closed.

If you want entertainment and city life, go to our capital, Stockholm, beautifully situated on the East coast; or our second biggest city, Göteborg (Gothenburg), beautifully situated on the West Coast. If you like sandy beaches, go to Skåne (South) or Halland (West coast south of Gothenburg). If you prefer rocky shores, try Bohuslän (West coast North of Gothenburg). For old stone age tombs and medeival abbey ruins and churches, go to Västergötland. (Västergötland and the Stockholm area compete about which best deserves to be called the true "cradle of Sweden".) If you want midnight sun and mountains, travel far up north to Lapland. If you want forests and lakes, but don't want to go too far north, I suggest Värmland, or Småland. (I'm naming provinces rather than towns.)

Here's a link to a Travel Guide web page I found.
Quite amusing to read about one's own country seen from a foreign tourist's point of view. This page I find pretty accurate though (and with some nice pictures), even if their selection of noteworthy things (like my own!) might be a bit random. Quote:

Downsides:
- It can get chilly, or wet, or both, even in mid-summer.
- Endless tree views can be sooo monotonous.
- Swedish cuisine is healthy and hearty but hardly entertaining.

They must have gone about by car a good deal, because further down the page they repeat:

Self-driving in Sweden is, frankly, often slow and dull [unless you have a passion for endless forest] while city parking is difficult.

"Endless tree views can be sooo monotonous"

(My own picture from February 2010)

In Memoriam - Dr John

Today the sad news reached me that a Blogger friend passed away a few days ago. Dr John Linna, Wisconsin USA, of the blog Dr John's Fortress died on Monday, 15 February. His funeral, as I understand it, is/was held today (Thursday). My sincere condolences go to his wife Betty.

I think I first made blog aquaintance with Dr John about a year ago through the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge hosted by Raven of Views from Raven's Nest. Possibly, it might have been the other way round. Anyway, Dr John was an inspiring and imaginative partaker in the weekly Wordzzles. As I came to understand after a while, he was also hiding behind another signature: Fandango of the blog Dragon's Lair.

Dr John had a very special gift for mixing "crazy" fantasy fiction with profound Christian theology. At his Fortress, each Sunday, he preached a double sermon: One as himself, and one through the fictional pastor Joan of the village Pigeon Falls, where the most incredible events often took place. Like the whole village disappearing and going back in time a century or so... Somehow, Dr John still always managed each week to fit a "real" sermon into the situation, following the Common Lectionary used by the Liturgial churches.

The last sermon(s) published on the blog is from 1½ weeks ago, 5th Sunday after Epiphany. The Bible context is from Luke 5, when Jesus first meets the fisherman Simon, later to become Peter, leader of the twelve Apostles and founder of the Church. Here is a quote from the sermon that Dr John chose to put in the mouth of fictional pastor Joan of Pigeon Falls:

He does not notice the fish. He does not smell the fish.
He sees only Jesus.
In a moment everything has changed.
Coming back to shore he leaves his boat and catch behind and follow Jesus.

"In a moment everything has changed."
Dr John - You are ashore now, having left your boat and catch behind.
You will be missed by all your followers.
But we know where you went and whom you followed!

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,


3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.


4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.


5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.


6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

(Alluding to the book title Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce...)

In gloomy moments this week I've been feeling I've run into a major writer's block. Checking myself, though, I realize that two or three days without blogposting probably cannot be counted as a more than a very tiny block. Not really worthy of the dramatic complaint I had in mind!

However I do feel a bit like that snow(wo)man. (Surely it's a woman, don't you agree?) Been holding up for a while, but a bit tired now, and feeling as colourless as the surrounding winter world... (Now I'm exaggerating again. When I go out, I usually wear a cheerfully red coat!)

I was playing around a bit with this photo the other day, just to experiment how much (or how little) fun you can have with an all white photo. Not a whole lot. When I had done what I could, I still felt it at least needed a frame, and I couldn't find any of those in the editing software. And of course couldn't think of anything to write either (since I was suffering from writer's block, remember?).

Then I found this Online Image Editor which offers frames (among other things). So I tried that out, and voilà! I had a framed picture. But I still couldn't think of a title.

Today when looking at the picture again, the distorted title of James Joyce's semi-autobiography came to mind. I have to confess I don't remember anything about that book except the title. I have it in my bookcase, but it's been over 30 years since I read it. Well, that in turn does make me feel old...

Circle closed. Now I'm going to publish this before that Block hits me in the head again.

Onwards and Forwards

Snowman giving directions: That way, please!

Looking back at what I wrote yesterday about foresight, I have my doubts whether some things in that post will make much sense to anyone but myself, but never mind. Onwards and forwards...

Whether we choose to set long term goals or not, the New Year does have a tendency to make us recapitulate, and consider starting afresh with some things. If you do want to make a change of some kind, the New Year often seems like a good time to start. New calendar, with blank pages waiting to be filled in... (One of the things I haven't got round to yet! And as I write that, it also hits me that I have forgotten send a couple of birthday cards...)

For my blogs, I have no major changes in mind at the moment; but I did joggle some items about in the sidebar of this one yesterday. In some ways, the sidebar is like a flowerbed - you plant things in it, then leave it to take care of ifself for a while; and then one day you look at it and say "oops" - however it happened, it suddenly seems to be in need of some weeding...

The most obvious change is that I moved Quotation of the Day up to the top of the sidebar. (I had it before, but further down.) This is one of those automatic gadgets, so what appears there is not my own choice. However, after a year of Quotation of the Week posts, I find I've used up most of the English quotes in my old notebooks. So it's time to gather some new ones! There are of course plenty of quotation pages to be found on the internet; but there is a certain difference between searching one's own memory and notebooks for quotes, and trying to find appropriate ones from unknown contexts... I will however try to keep up the Quotation of the Week too, in one way or another. If nothing else, it might take myself to interesting new places (and books) worth exploring!

I have also updated my links list - Other Places To Visit - with a few new additions.Of those I would like to draw your attention to one photo blog especially: Ulrika K. I came across her page recently when browsing some Skywatch Friday participants. Ulrika lives in Lapland in the very North of Sweden and she has some really amazing pictures. The snow and cold I have been complaining about down here lately is "nothing" compared to what they're used to up there.

PS/ Still feeling "undecided" about some things, I've removed a paragraph in this post. There will probably be links somewhere in the sidebar to a series of autobiographical posts that I began during 2009, and hope to continue in 2010... I thought of adding them to the "About Me" box, but then I decided (I think) to put them in a separate place instead - probably under the Blog Archive.

BLOGGOVERSARY

THE ISLAND OF THE VOICES

BLOGGOVERSARY

One year ago today, 5 January 2009, I wrote:

.~. .~. .~.

After some trial and error, it seems I have created a blog!

In choosing the title, I had in mind the Island of the Voices in C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Lucy enters a Magician's House to find the Magician's Book, and within that book A Spell to make hidden things visible.

She read it through to make sure of all the hard words and then said it out loud. And she knew at once that it was working because as she spoke the colours came into the capital letters at the top of the page and the pictures began appearing in the margins. It was like when you hold to the fire something written in Invisible Ink and the writing gradually shows up...

I really have no clear idea yet what hidden things I want this blog to make visible. But maybe if I start writing, I will find out...

.~. .~. .~.

I have told the story before: At first, I really only created my Blogger account to be able to comment on my friend Rose-Anne's blog, a penfriend of mine in Australia since before the days of the internet. Once I had set up the account, I thought: Well, since I'm here, why not check out how it works...?

The amazing thing, to myself, is that I'm still here, a whole year further down the road!

I don't know how many times - usually at New Year - I started a diary, and kept entering daily notes for two or three months, and then it just sort of faded out... Looking back in old pocket calendars I've kept, it's the same: It looks in almost every one of them as if my social life is concentrated to the first three months of the year, and then I do nothing until the next New Year. That, however, would be an incorrect conclusion. The notes really only tell you that the first months of the year is usually the time when I'm most keen on making notes! I suppose it has something to do with new year - new calendar - new resolutions...

What makes a difference here in the Blogworld, is the response. When you get the first proof that what you're writing is not just disappearing out into empty space, that's a real kick to keep going...!

I soon realized, though, that it probably wasn't quite enough to just keep writing and hope to be found randomly by whoever - even if that actually did happen a couple of times. But where does one start, to get in touch with other bloggers? I really had no idea!

I tried the Next blog button a few times, but that usually just took me to some blog in a foreign language or some topic I was not the least interested in. (I think some improvements have been made over the last year though, to make the use of that button less random.)

Then I found my way to Blogs of Note which was a definite improvement. When I found something there which I liked, I also went on to visit others who were in turn following that blog - and the world began to grow...!

To celebrate my bloggoversary today, I would like to give credit to four places that served as important "milestones" or "crossroads" for me on my journey through the Blogworld, putting me in touch with other fellow bloglings who in turn became inspirators, followers and friends.

Blogs of Note
Noteworthy blogs chosen by the Blogger Team.

The One Minute Writer (C. Beth)
A blog providing daily writing prompts. I have not continued to visit daily, but it is a great place to meet other people who like to write, and to find inspiration if you feel your mind going blank... If I'm not mistaken, this was where I first got in touch with some of the fellow bloglings who have been on my official Follower's list the longest and are still "around".

Views from Raven's Nest
Raven hosts the Raven's Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. This put me in touch with other creative writers who like to play around with fiction, based on a set of  "impossible" words and phrases provided weekly. It also got me entangled in an ongoing story of my own, which has since been moved from here to separate blog - Wordly Efforts. (If you go to that blog, you will find links in the sidebar there to some of the other regular participants in the Wordzzle Challenges.)

Soaring Through the World in Pictures
A shared photo blog which I came across in July when it was quite new, and joined as number 7, already aquainted with two or three of the other members. I consider myself very lucky in doing so; because 1/ it has been another great place to make friends (last time I checked, we are now 18 members and 79 followers) and 2/ it was a real boost for my interest in photography; which in turn led on to starting a photo blog of my own in September: DawnTreader's Picture Book; which in turn caught the attention of some bloggers previously unknown to me; and so the world continued to grow. (By the way - in the Picture Book, I have started 2010 off by showing twelve photos from last year that I chose for a wall calendar I ordered as Christmas gift for myself and a few friends.)

.~. .~. .~.

Looking back now at my first blogpost here at The Island of the Voices one year ago, I feel almost like reading prophecy or blessing come true. Blogging has brought "colour" into my life, during a year which I fear might otherwise have shown mostly blank pages when I tried to look back.

 ♥ THANK YOU ♥

to all who have kept encouraging me

Monica, a.k.a. DawnTreader

Wordzzle and other Challenges of the Week

Just in case someone by old habit should happen to come here today to look for my usual contribution to Raven's Saturday Wordzzle Challenge, I'm repeating the fact that last weekend I moved my attempts at fiction to a new blog of mine, Wordly Efforts. Including all previous episodes + new summary of my ongoing Wordzzle-based story The Slumber Party Mystery.

After finishing that job, my desktop computer died, which still remains a mystery unsolved.

Thanks to also having a laptop computer though, I have managed to keep blogging, so scroll down or have a look in the blog archive to see what else has happened this week. Now if you excuse me, I think I will have to answer to the laptop's request to be allowed to do a complete back up...

The Blog Library Keeps Growing

For some time now I've had the feeling that it might be a good idea to put my attempts at fiction (i.e. so far mainly my contributions to Raven's weekly Saturday Wordzzle Challenges) into a separate blog, and let this one be about life and dreams and book reviews and whatever else.

My experience from taking part in the Wordzzles over the last 7½ months has been that it is basically two different sets of people who comment on things I write. One set of people (most of whom are not in the Followers list) nearly always comment on the Wordzzles, but rarely on anything else. Another set of people (most of whom are in the Followers list) comment on other things, but very rarely on the Wordzzles.

From this I draw the conclusion that it seems unlikely that I would lose readers by moving the fiction; it might even have the opposite effect in the long run, by making the purpose of each blog clearer.

Thought, said and done: One more blog has this weekend seen the light of day: Wordly Efforts. (No, it's not a spelling mistake. It's supposed to be witty.)

And for those who are still interested in "the other aspects of me", there are links! :)

My total number of followers on any blog is still not overwhelming, in spite of all the awards (total of three) that were bestowed upon me during the last few weeks. This is not to be taken as a complaint, mind you! I am overwhelmed enough with other things as it is. The most positively overwhelming thing still being that people who do follow my writings are becoming real friends instead of just making up a number!

I remarked to one blogging friend yesterday, that instead of increasing my number of followers, I seem to be generating more blogs instead. Maybe I'm heading into a split personality disorder?? But no... It probably all just stems from my deeply rooted fascination with libraries. Everything in its place!!! (I'm hoping for support from at least Scriptor Senex about that view of things.)

Anyway. For anyone who might be feeling they're losing track, here is a library index of my current blogs:

The Island of the Voices (where you are now):
About Life, Dreams and Everything

Through My Spectrespecs
Anything Harry Potter-related  (and you might be surprised how many things to me are Harry Potter-related!)

DawnTreader's Picture Book
Big size photos and pictures; almost daily, but usually without much comment. This is also where I take part in photo challenges if I feel that I have the time and am in the mood for it. Like Mosaic Monday, or Wordless Wednesday.

NEW: Wordly Efforts
"where I wrestle with my own attempts at fiction"
(For example my ongoing story The Slumber Party Mystery, based on the Wordzzles. Actually, at the moment that is the only example; but who knows about the future! By the way - there is now also a Summary of the plot - if so it can be called - of The Slumber Party Mystery; for anyone who feels they lost track, or anyone who never even dared the attempt to jump into it before. All the previous chapters have also been imported into the new blog; and from next week on, Wordly Efforts is the place where the story is going to continue.)

And then there is of course also
Soaring Through the World in Pictures
which is not my own blog, but a place where I'm happy to share pictures regularly together with other people with photo interest from all over the world, on weekly themes. This week, the theme happens to be Simplicity. Hmm...