NeoBluePanther

Who knew?

NeoBluePanther — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:18:49 +0000

The last month was supposed to be a month of hectic blog advertising, campaigning and contests. As planned, the month started on the right note with a 6000 Entrecard credits contest and an advertising space contest. But from then on, it didn’t go as planned, to say the least.

I could give many reasons as to why I could not proceed as per my original intentions. But then I am reminded of this line :

“One who wants to do something will find a way, one who doesn’t will find an excuse.”

Since, I don’t want to be the one to find excuses, I will move on…

Though the last month didn’t go as planned, a contest was still held. If the contest was held, a winner must necessarily be chosen. So, using the site random.org, a winner for the 6000 EC credits has been picked.

And the winner is Justin from Finish Writing.

Congratulations to you!

ShareThis

Win 6000 EC, or 125 X 125 Ad Space

NeoBluePanther — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:24:33 +0000

UPDATE1: I just found out that there is a problem with my comments table and I am not getting your comments. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to anyone who has commented in the past couple of days. I am trying to rectify the problem, but the contest is still on. You will however have to use the contact me form (on the navigation bar) instead of the comment form till the time the comments start to work again.

UPDATE2: The problem is resolved, but I have unfortunately managed to lose the comments that have been posted over the past couple of days. So, if you have posted a comment during that time and it has not shown up, you now know why. I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to you and I hope that you will take the time to post your comment again. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for bearing with me.

After the success of the last contest, it is contest time on the blog once again!

This time the prize is more than the last time, and there is a prize even for those who don’t use Entrecard. You can either enter the contest to win 6000 Entrecard credits or, if you don’t use Entrecard, you could enter the contest to win an 125 X 125 ad space on this blog for three months. Even if you use Entrecard but would rather win the ad space, you can do that. The 125 X 125 ad will be placed where the money magnet is placed at present.

The Rules :

You have to subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog via email.
Then, you have to leave a comment on this post stating whether you are entering the contest for the 6,000 EC or the ad space. You can enter only for one of the two.
Those who are already subscribed to the RSS feed are not eligible for the contest. Sorry, you guys!
The contest closes midnight (Indian Standard Time) 31st July, 2008.
The winners will be announced on 1st August, 2008.
The winner will have to provide his own 125 X 125 ad, which would be subject to approval before it is put up on the site.

That is all.

You don’t have to write a post about this contest, but I would really appreciate it if you did. It would be good to see this contest get as much publicity as possible. Best of luck to all those who decide to participate.

P.S. - This contest will have at least two winners. But, if any of you would like to sponsor any prizes for the contest, we could end up having more winners!

ShareThis

Blogging Idol is Live!

NeoBluePanther — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:05:38 +0000

Daniel Scocco, the blogger behind Daily Blog Tips, has come up with the idea of holding a “Blogging Idol” contest.

Participating in contests is always fun, and this one seemed too good to resist. So, naturally, I signed up for it.

Now, I need your help to win it.

How does the contest work, you ask? You could either go to the contest page and read all about the contest, or I could tell you.

Out of the 80 something blogs that are in the fray, the one that gets the most RSS subscribers during the month of July, 2008 will become the Blogging Idol.

So, you can help me win by subscribing to the feed of this blog using the feedburner widget on the top of the right side bar.

Also, if you have any ideas about what I could do to get more people to subscribe to the blog, I will be more than glad to hear from you. You can either leave a comment, or use the Contact Me page to contact me.

Let the subscribing begin!

ShareThis

How do you keep track?

NeoBluePanther — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:00:03 +0000

There are millions of blogs in the blogosphere. It is impossible to manually keep a track of all of them, not that there is any reason for you to keep a track of all of them…unless, of course, you are Technorati.

Yet, in your travels across the blogosphere, I am sure, you must have come across blogs that you liked. You feel that you would like to come back to the blog another time and read the latest that the blogger has to offer. What do you do?

Subscribe to the RSS feed : One of the easiest way to keep track of a blog is to subscribe to it’s RSS feed. These days almost every blog has one. If a blog does not have one, more likely than not, it will not be a blog that you would want to keep track of.

The problem here lies in choosing a suitable feed reader. I have not yet been able to decide on the best tool to be used to aggregate feeds from various blogs.
Which one do you use, and what do you like, or not like about it?

Favorite, or bookmark it : Another way to keep track of a blog is to add it to your favorites or your bookmarks. But, I feel that this method becomes unwieldy as the number of blogs you have bookmarked increased. I don’t usually bookmark or favourite blogs, but I think this method also does not tell you when a blog has been updated.

Blogroll it : Another traditional method is to create a blogroll where you can add the blogs you like, and visit them at your leisure. If a blog stops updating, or starts posting about things that do not interest you, it can be taken off the blogroll and in it’s place you can add any other blog that you might have taken a fancy to.

Remember it : The last, and I am sure the least preferred, way is to simply remember a blog’s URL and visit it whenever you want. This is, of course, is not an easy way.

How do you keep track of your favorite blogs? Do you use one of the above methods? If yes, then which one do you prefer over others? If no, then what other method do you use?

ShareThis

Do You Use a Thesaurus?

NeoBluePanther — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:44:03 +0000

I have always believed that spontaneous writing is the best form of writing - what comes naturally, is what is right. I can hardly find it in me to revise what I have written unless a few days have passed since I have first written it.

So, not surprisingly, most of my blog posts are served hot from the oven. I have often observed - a few days later - that my post had a mistake, but by then it is too late.

Words are what make a piece of writing what it is. As a writer we have a repository of words, and using them we write whatever we may be writing – a blog post, a magazine article, a short story, or a novel.

But, what do you think is the best word to use?

The one that comes to you most naturally or, do you think that a Thesaurus is a writer’s best friend - one that a writer should consult as frequently as possible.

As I have said before, I believe in what is natural. So, I rarely use the thesaurus unless it is to look for those tip-of-the tongue words. One reason (and I might be wrong with this one) for not using the thesaurus is that when I want to put something on paper, I want to replicate the thought exactly as my mind has imagined it. Since, it is my thought, I feel, it is best expressed in my own words. In that respect, I think, it is rightly said that one’s thoughts are quite affected by one’s language.

Another major reason for not using the thesaurus is that it is easy to get carried away by fancy words, and one can use them just because they are fancy words. Using big words can impress a few people. But if the big words are not relevant, or not needed, then not only does the writer come across as superfluous, but also he alienates many readers.

So, I am a strong proponent of a writer using natural words. What about you?

(Disclaimer: I always recommend the use of a thesaurus, and a dictionary, for learning purposes. After all, one has to keep building on his/her repository of words, so that one is ready with the right word he/she needs it. I just don’t advocate the use of a thesaurus while you are doing the actual writing)

ShareThis

Three Reasons Why Blogging is Not Good for Your Writing

NeoBluePanther — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:45:25 +0000

Many of us discover blogging through our love for writing. We like to write, and we also like to hope that some one is going to read what we write. A blog provides us with an easy way to share our writing and ideas with others, and before we know it, we are addicted to blogging.

Like most things in life, blogging, too, has a negative side. A writer can fall into the blogging trap without having the least idea that such a thing exists, and by the time he realises he is in a trap he has wasted a considerable amount of time, and time once lost can never ever be got back. Here are a few things that one should be careful about when blogging:

The “Fast Food” Trap : Fast food can be tasty, and fast food can be easy to get, but too much of fast food is never good for your health.
Why is blogging like fast food though, you say? Simply because it does exactly the same thing that fast food does. It can give you an instant response. As soon as you have posted your post you can start tracking how many people have visited your blog, and comments can provide instant gratification too. But as soon as the hits and the comments dry up, you are left feeling as hungry as you were before you had posted. Soon, you start posting more and more, but the quality begins to deteriorate, and so does your blogging health.

The “Design” Trap : A good blog is as much about design as it is about writing. There are blogs with excellent design out there, and when we look at them the inadequacies of our own design become eyesores to us. So, we try to work on the design of our own blog. Instead of spending our time focusing on what the content of our blog should be, we are wasting time looking for ways and means to have a better layout for our blog. I am sure all of you who have tried it know that designing a blog is not an easy job, especially if you are not very good with your HTML and CSS stuff.

The solution to this problem lies in either getting someone else to do your layout for you, or be satisfied with a free template and, make up for that with your writing.

The “Social Networking” Trap : Many people say that social networking is the life and blood of a blog. I say that while social networking could be important for a blog’s popularity, it, more often than not, becomes a slow poison for a blog. As one becomes involved with more and more social networking sites (and their numbers are still growing, and with each being touted as the next best thing), one begins to spend less and less time on one’s own blog, which eventually negatively affects your blogging and writing health.

I am sure there are many other ways in which blogging negatively affects our writing. Can you think of any?

ShareThis

Writing as a System - An Old Post Revisited

NeoBluePanther — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:26:13 +0000

The post that follows was written by me a few months back. While I sat down to write a new post today, I relaised that I had already written something like that a few months back. So, instead of writing the same thing, albeit in different words, I decided to simply repost the old post. I hope you like it.

Often, we, bloggers, and writers, complain about writer’s block. I don’t know about others but I have often complained about it in the past, and even written posts about it. That was until I realized that there was no point complaining about it. One either has to overcome it or, allow oneself to be beaten by it.

While I was thinking about it, I thought of another thing. The whole process of writing can be be seen as a system.

Taking this approach, it is easy to see that whatever we write is basically based on three inputs. The first is our LIFE. Over a period of time we go through many experiences and these not only affect the way we think, but also, the way we write and the things we write about. Therefore, living a full life and going through many experiences in life can enhance one’s writing as one will have a first-hand knowledge of the things he or she is writing about.

But, it is also true that no man can go through every kind of experience in one life. And if one writes only about things he has seen and experienced, his or her writing will have a very limited appeal. Here the second input into the system comes into the picture - IMAGINATION. Use your imagination to write about things, things that you wished existed, things that you wish you had seen, anything at all. Imagination should have no limits, and neither should your writing.

Another thing that you can use to enhance both your life and imagination is READING. Reading is not only a good pastime, but it can help you, as a writer, by introducing you to other people’s experiences and things they have imagined. It can broaden your horizons, by adding to them the horizons of other people.

These three are essentially the basic inputs that, if taken care of, can help you produce quality output i.e. quality writing, be it on a blog or a book. And you might never have to worry about writer’s block either.

ShareThis

Talent, Hard Work and Jeffrey Archer…

NeoBluePanther — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:35:12 +0000

Good Writing, unlike many other things, never goes out of fashion - neither do good writers. Jeffrey Archer, or Lord Jeffrey Archer, as he is now known, is on a visit to India - his first official one. He had never toured India before because, as he said, he had never received an invitation to do so before. I am glad he did now.

Living in a small town has many upsides, and anything that has an upside is sure to have a downside. The downside of living in a small town is that small towns usually do not form a part of any celebrity tours. It’s no different this time, and Jeffrey Archer will not be coming to my town.

So, the only thing I can do is watch him on TV, and I did that yesterday. From the advice he gave to the young writers in the crowd, he seemed like a very practical man. But, I did not agree with everything he said on the show.

Jeffrey Archer said that success is a mix of energy and talent. He further added that a guy with energy and no talent could still be a prince, but a guy with talent, but no energy would be a pauper.

I especially disagree with that last sentence. Firstly, I don’t think any generalizations of this sort can be made. What succeeds and what doesn’t can only be known when a thing has either succeeded or failed. Since hindsight is perfect, it is easy to single out one reason for a person’s success or failure, even though there might have been a large number of factors that conspired to bring about the said success, or failure.

But, if a generalization has to be made, I would say that a fairly good amount of talent along with a little amount of hard work can go a longer distance than a lot of hard work with very little talent. I am not trying to undermine the value of hard work here, but I am trying to give talent it’s due.

What do you think is more important: hard work or talent, especially for a writer?

ShareThis

And the Winner is…

NeoBluePanther — Sat, 17 May 2008 05:50:29 +0000

At the outset, I would like to apologise to all concerned for the delay in announcing the result for the 4,000 Etrecard credits giveaway contest. I was having a difficult time trying to decide a way to choose the winner.

Eventually, I decided to take the traditional route, and printed the name of all the entries on pieces of paper and the result looked something like this :

Then, I got one of my friends to pick one of the slips, and we had our winner.

Congratulations Brenda! Your 4,000 Entrecard credits will be in your account soon.

It was fun having a contest on the Blog, and, I think, I am going to be holding some more contests in the future. I would like to thank everyone for participating this time and I hope that the future contests are as successful as this one was.

ShareThis

4,000 Entrecard Credits Giveaway Contest - An Update!

NeoBluePanther — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:25:45 +0000

This is a quick post to let you know that the entries to the contest are now closed. The winner will be announced a little later in the day. If you have entered the contest, do check back to see if you won!

ShareThis