Webupon

It’s very easy to feel lost on the Internet. I can remember when we first discovered it, back in the early nineties. Even at that time it seemed vast, and its riches were already beyond counting. Now, it’s grown exponentially, and no one on earth would live long enough to come to the end of it.

In consequence we read about all sorts of ways to make what you’re doing more visible: links, and social networking, and using advertising, and you name it. Every expert and his brother is telling us how to let the world know that we have a place on the Net.

And I’ve tried many of these techniques, with more or less success.

Then it occurred to me that there’s one way I haven’t explored before: telling people about what I write by writing about it – on this site. Seems too simple an idea, but it worth a try!

Blowing the Trumpet

Okay, I’m not one of those people who enjoys blowing their own trumpet, but the problem with being an artist or a writer or any kind of creative person is that it’s hard to get the world to pay attention to you, and self-promotion sometimes has to be the prime approach to changing that.

So, what do I write?

My oldest site is called Mike Crowl s Scribble Pad. It’s a bit of a grab-bag of items, and is the place where I first made attempts to give my writing greater exposure. On it you can find a few of the 260 or so columns I wrote for a local paper. These were on every topic under the sun – literally. There are book and film reviews, but they’re getting a little dated, so I wouldn’t bother too much with them.

There’s some of my poetry (and a few poems from other people too), a few short stories and an essay which won a prize many years ago. There’s even the first blog I wrote. In those days you had to write it on Blogger, if I remember rightly, and then transfer it over to your own site. A complex proceeding.

My Main Blog

My main blog was also called Mike Crowl’s Scribble Pad at first, but in due course it became Mike Crowl s Random Notes. It’s been running since 2005. Initially I used it to post the quotations I’d collected over a long period of time, but after a short time I began writing about things related to the Arts: movies, music, painting, writing and so on. The focus was increasingly on New Zealand artists for a time but recently it’s changed again, and now (wait for it!) is a blog where I focus more on what I’m doing as an artist: what I’m writing, what I’m composing and so on. It must be the year for blowing my own trumpet.

While I was out of work in late 2006 early 2007 I began two more blogs, on a site called Orble.com. The first of these is now called WorkReport, though that isn’t what it started out life as. Initially it looked at the trials and woes of trying to find a job (I’d resigned from a longstanding managerial role in August 2006), but now the blog’s leaning towards things green. (I now have a different job, so that issue isn’t so important to me.)

The other blog on Orble is called Webitz. Webitz has managed to stick with its original focus – for the most part. This was to give an amateur’s point of view of things on the Web. It varies enormously in topic, because the Web (as I said at the beginning) is hugely varied. There have been some interesting posts on widely-ranging subjects.

Is that enough for you?

Just recently I revived a blog I’d begun more than a year ago. This is called Mike of All Trades, and relates to the bookselling I do online. I’d started this up when I was out of work, and have continued doing it ever since. The sales aren’t big time, by any means, but the books do keep selling.

Apart from all these, I kept a travel diary blog while I was overseas with my wife last year. We went to visit her family, and friends, in the UK and on the Continent for nearly six months. Our ups and downs are still online, and I go back and read about what we did every so often. It’s amazing what you forget.

So there we go. I’m not going to worry you with the other blogs I work on: a family one, and one that relates to my work. I think I’ve given you enough to choose from already.

Happy reading – and hope you find me!

An update a year later (March 2009)

It’s good to know that in the world of blogs things change.   I’m sure everyone finds reading the same kind of thing over and over on a blog gets a bit stale after a while.

My main blog is still Mike Crowl’s Random Notes but it’s no longer quite so focused on what I’m doing as a writer, composer, actor etc.   These things are still there, but I’m continuing to add in opinion and ideas and miscellaneous stuff.    Keeps me interested!

Mike of All Trades has died a bit of a death since I stopped selling books.  Just ran out of time to do this as well as everything else.    No doubt it’ll get revived when bookselling becomes part of my regular routine again. 

WorkReport went through a major upheaval these last few months because it became the main blog for writing about problems I had with my prostate.   A few people cared about what was happening with my prostate, so I kept up fair number of posts about it, from the time I had a biopsy, through the long eleven weeks when I was saddled with a catheter, to the operation and now the period of recovery.   I may put it together as an e-book in due course!

Webitz, while continuing to stick mostly to its original focus, has been the blog that’s suffered quite a bit.   Spasmodic would be the word here.   It still functions, but posts are few and far between.   Things may change, so watch this space!