Just for your future reference, Tash, it is not a good idea to decide to upgrade your Wordpress installation at 10 o’clock at night.  At that stage of the evening, you’re already tired and you can too easily get distracted by catch-up episodes of The Sarah Jane Chronicles, starring David Tennant.  And if you’re tired – even if you’ve done the same Wordpress upgrade before – you can easily stuff things up.

You might overwrite key files, for example, and then when you go to your admin screen to log on, you might get a blank white page – and when you go to your homepage, the same thing.  Trying to stay calm, you might then try to do a fresh install, knowing that you’ve exported all your blog entries to an .xml file earlier in the evening, only to find that the .xml file only contains the first and most recent entry.

By this time it’d be after midnight and you’d be coming to the realisation that you’d deleted your entire blog.  And while it didn’t contain the best literature ever, it did have a couple of entries on the excitement of first-time publication, which you would’ve preferred not to lose.  So you’ll find yourself searching the Way Back Machine for an archived copy of your entries which you can then bring into your ‘new’ blog.  And you’ll keep bringing in entries, one at a time, till about 1.30am, and then you’ll get up at 6.00am to finish the job (finish republishing those blog entries at least, though you’ll still need to deal with the sidebar, theme, plugins and comments).

Which means  by 11.30pm the next day, having just returned from Boffoonery, a comedy benefit for Bletchley Park aimed at the kind of people who work all day with computers and then enjoy going out in the evenings to hear jokes about code (so like you and your husband and your friends), you’ll be totally exhausted and reduced to amusing yourself by writing notes in the second person.

Social media and new technology are changing the way we recruit and manage volunteers. They’re also changing how we define the concept of volunteering. New forms of participation such as micro-volunteering, and web-generated events such as Twestival, are changing the way people are coming together to raise funds, donate their time and make a difference in their local and global community.

Our next #4change chat, on Thursday 12 November, will look at how the volunteering landscape is changing. Join us for a global conversation, sharing ideas, best practice, links and resources.

How to join the chat

1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a Twitter account (it’s free).
2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com/ or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message
4. Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.

Rules for #4Change chat

1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tashjudd or post them below to have them considered.
2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
3. Stay on topic!
4. Be cool.

A few links

How social media’s changing volunteering

Blog: Brave New World for Volunteering
Blog: Sacrifice, optional and about other people (defining volunteering)
Blog: The Extraordinaries: Will micro-volunteering work?
Article: NetSquared and the new wave of online volunteering

Recruiting volunteers online

Volunteer Match
Do-it
All for Good

A few interesting volunteering and participation initiatives

The Extraordinaries
Virtual volunteering
Junction49
Urbantastic
Twestival

Please comment on the original #4change blog post with other interesting links, case studies and questions you’d like to see raised during the chat. Looking forward to seeing you all online on the 12th.

I’ve never really thought writing was much about environment. While I wouldn’t say no to a writer’s garret in a castle or a villa in the South of France, I always maintained that all I really need to get my writing done is a laptop and a deadline.

This was all well and good when I had a deadline: when I had a manuscript to finish before the end of my MA, when I had edits to finish before moving overseas. But, in the three years since I moved to London, I haven’t had that sense of urgency. And as such, novel number two remained largely untouched, month after month, six months after six months, a year then another.

My friend Caitlin had been to an Arvon Foundation course in the past and recommended it. She’d even been inspired to set up a writing group with other course participants on her return, and invited me to join in.

So, this year, as a birthday present to myself, I booked onto a course entitled ‘Work in Progress’. It was going to be held at Totleigh Barton in Devon from October 26 – 31. This was at the end of January. By the 25th of October I’d written perhaps another chapter or two, but the word count remained at around 25,000 and I didn’t know how the novel was going to end.

One week later, I’ve survived train cancellations, giant cows, two nausea-inducing taxi rides and the trauma of reading unfinished work in public. I’ve learned to poach salmon, I’ve got my hiking boots dirty, found the small village Sheepwash. And most importantly, I’ve finished the first draft of my novel.

And some of that has to be down to the environment you find at Totleigh Barton – a pre-Domesday manor house, at the end of a long driveway and miles from anywhere.

There are a lot of places to write at Totleigh Barton: long wooden tables, window seats, libraries and lounges, a shed in the garden, a barn with its own bats, the desk in my room. Despite the fact that my work-in-progress is set in the city and online, being in the country without an internet connection provided the hours and quiet to get the words flowing.

There was also such a productive atmosphere at Totleigh: from the workshops in the morning with Paul Magrs and Stella Duffy which made me re-examine my characters and the choices I make when writing, to the long afternoons when I’d find a spot to write and know that all around the house, the other course participants were writing or cooking or attending individual tutorials as well. When you’re struggling to finish a difficult scene, there’s something immensely comforting – and also motivating – in hearing someone else typing away at the other side of the lounge, working on their own literary endeavours.

There’s also something comforting about a well-stocked kitchen, endless cups of tea and wine in the evenings, the opportunities to talk about writing as if it wasn’t a strange thing to do – but something that is part of a life, something which could even be enjoyed.

Tonight I’m back in London. There’s football on the radio and cars on the street outside. I’m putting words in a box which will become a blog entry. I still love the web, but I’m going to miss Totleigh Barton.

I’m going to have to create a writing environment here.

So, YouthNet’s launched a new report today: a study by Professor Michael Hulme into how young people communicate, interact and seek information online.  It’s a really interesting read, encompassing the results of quantitative online research undertaken with 994 young people by The Futures Company, quotes from young people, and comments on the implications for website design and development.  It’s also too much to cover in one blog entry.  So I can only encourage you to go and read it yourself, blog about yourself, discuss the findings and debate the conclusions.

75% of the young people surveyed said that ‘they couldn’t live without the internet’.  That’s probabaly an exaggeration, but I don’t find it surprising.  I’d say the same thing.  Then again, I spend at least eight hours a week-day in front of a computer, I studied multimedia, and I work for an online charity.  I’m going away for a week in the country at the end of the month, and the fact that I’ve been told that there’s no internet or mobile access is already weighing heavily on my mind.  Being such an online advocate, I’m often asked ‘what’s wrong with face-to-face?’

After all, the very nature of online communication is that it’s mediated by a machine such as a computer or hand-held device.  With the lack of body-language and eye contact, and the possibilities for deception, it’s possible to see the internet as cold, impersonal and isolating.  However, what that assumption ignores is the way young people live what Professor Hulme calls ‘hybrid lives’ – their onlines and their offlines are blurred.  Their friends on Facebook may or may not be friends from school or work; status updates on Twitter may become conversation starters in the classroom.  80% of young people surveyed said they use social networking sites to talk to friends or family they see a lot; 22% said that they use them to communicate with someone they don’t know.

So, while it’s impossible to generalise the experience of every young person, it seems that for many these online tools aren’t replacing face-to-face communication methods – they’re complimenting them.  As Professor Hulme says, “The more we can communicate, the more we will, and do, communicate.”  What’s changing is the amount of communication tools available, and people’s ability to choose a communication tool which is appropriate for a particular situation: broadcasting their thoughts in blogs or vlogs, updating a selected group of friends on Facebook, texting or calling an individual, or having a face-to-face conversation.

I don’t have a problem with face-to-face conversation.  In fact, it’s often quite useful.  I do have more of a problem with the assumption that it’s absolutely-always-without-a-doubt the best form of communication.  The internet can be a great way to make first contact with communities of interest, for example.   After all, it’s easy to search online for groups of fellow social media geeks – in my case – than try and spot them during my morning commute.  Once contact is made, a mix of face-to-face and online interactions often result.  The internet also allows us to reach out beyond the restrictions of geographic proximity.  And, as the report goes on to say, the internet can also be a great way to source information about issues young people may feel less comfortable talking about face-to-face, with websites like TheSite.org allowing young people to access trustworthy advice on a range of topics.

While it’s important to realise that there are issues or dangers around communicating on the internet – the possibilities of online bullying, the possibilities of abuse and so on – it’s also important to realise that, in many cases, these are either reflected or replaced by alternative issues or dangers when communication occurs offline.  Moreover, just as I was taught not to give out my name on the phone by my cautious parents, today young people have learned similar lessons about the internet.  77% of the young people surveyed agreed that: ‘On the internet you can never know if someone is who they say they are.’

The past century has seen huge developments in the way we communicate: from telephone calls, through radio and television broadcasts, to the development of mobile phones, faxes and the internet.  While it’s not my place to predict what will come next, it seems obvious that there’s a lot more communication to do, and for each new generation, there’ll be more and more new communication tools as the years progress.

Today, 86% of the young people surveyed loved how new technology helps them communicate with people. Let’s keep creating technology, creating websites and online services, that will help us communicate with people.  Face-to-face, hands-to-keyboard, in the twittersphere and in the blog comments below, let’s ensure this conversation continues.

First published on the YouthNet blog

The 2008 BookCrossing Anniversary Convention started last night.  Or it did for me, at least.  Other BookCrossers have been travelling the country, travelling the world, attending pre-Convention meets and taking a trip on the London Eye yesterday afternoon.  But from 7.00pm, we all converged on Imperial College for an evening of ‘Canapes and Criminals’.

No luck with the raffles so far.  Our crime novel team didn’t manage to find all it’s characters and author first.  But it was great to catch up with some of the BookCrossers from the London meets, and meet some of the people who are participating in the Lessons to Learn bookring.  Futurecat was there too, as part of a contingent who are promoting the Convention in New Zealand next year – I wonder if I’ll be able to attend?

And there were books, books in goody bags, books as prizes, whole tables covered in books.  I’ve only picked up five so far, which is very restrained of me!  Still, there are two days of the Conference remaining…

Today there are author talks and bookswaps and a writing workshop.  The programme starts at Imperial College at 8.30 (very early for a Saturday morning!) so I better get going.

So suddenly December’s ending and Christmas is over and it’s the last day of 2007.  I would have liked to spend today writing, but unfortunately I’ve got work – which has been a bit of a theme of the last 12 months… and probably of the 12 to come.  But I’m beginning to believe that I’m always going to need to work while I write, and that the working can be inspiring too, in it’s own way.

In 2007, I didn’t finish NaNoWriMo.  I didn’t finish the first draft of my work in progress.  I didn’t send any poetry to magazines.  And, yet, it was an amazing year: one where I read on National Radio, and saw a novel with my name on the spine on the bookshelves of Unity bookshop.

It’s a year where I’ve blogged, and kept a paper journal, sent letters and written travel stories.  Where I’ve read book after book, and been introduced to the work of some inspiring young writers, such as Faye L. Booth and Lili Wilkinson.  Where I’ve gotten so excited about the success of my New Zealand classmates, and just begun to scratch the surface of what’s on offer in London.

Next year, I’d like to be more focused.  I say that every year.  But more than that, I want to write things that I’ve started through to their completion.  Then, I want to have the confidence write new things: new genres, forms I’ve forgotten, to write just because I like the sound of my voice on the screen.

I’d like to thank everyone for all their support this year, and wish you all the best in writing and life in 2008.

This week’s writing about writing post on webstuff4writers.com asks for book recommendations. The focus isn’t just on good writing however. It’s on good writing about writing. There are a lot of writing resource books out there: books about how to sell your poetry, how to be a freelance journalist, how to punctuate your sentences.

On visits to bookstores, I often skim the writing resources shelves but I haven’t actually sampled too many of those on offer. However, when I wrote the original question, there were three books I had in mind.

As a teenager, I loved John Marsden’s Everything I know about writing. John Marsden’s one of my favourite young adult authors, and this book gives insight into his writing process for some of his earlier novels, alongside prompts and exercises for your own writing projects.

Another book that’s particularly relevant at the moment is No Plot! No Problem, by Chris Baty. Chris is the founder of NaNoWriMo – the month long 50,000-word-novel writing extravaganza that starts tomorrow. However, his book has some useful tips about the human side of writing that apply no matter which month you write in. And his talk of rewards allowed me to justify the large quantities of M&Ms I consumed while writing Lessons to Learn.

Finally, I’d recommend Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write. There’s some great advice in there – from keeping morning pages (something I do every now and then when I find myself not writing regularly) to continuing to write while you’re waiting for a response to a submission. I’ve read this book so many times over the years, and yet, every time I finish it, I’m re-inspired to continue writing.

If there are any writing-related books you’d recommend, please leave a comment here, or on the entry at web stuff 4 writers.

This week’s topic over at web stuff 4 writers asks about the longest piece you’ve written.  For me, the answer is easy.  At approximately 57,000 words, Lessons to Learn is by far the longest piece I’ve written.

Of course, 57,000 words isn’t very long for a novel.  It’s no Shantaram or Edward Rutherfurd epic.  But for me it’s impressive.  Until I finished that first draft of Lessons to Learn, I considered myself predominantly a short story writer and a some-of-the-time poet.  Before then, my longest works were my failed NaNoWriMo attempt in 2004 (approximately 17,000 words) and the 12,000 word essay I wrote in my Human Communication paper in the first year of university.  The required word count for the latter was only 1,000 words I think, and I was most disappointed when I only got a B+.

I’m about 25,000 words into a new project now.  Will it be longer than Lessons to Learn?  I’m not sure at this stage.  For now, I’m just going to keep writing till I feel the story’s told. There’ll be time for editing and adding and taking out words, paragraphs, pages and whole sections, once that first draft is done.

It’s October, and the sign-ups for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) have begun.  For those of you who haven’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo is a challenge that’s been running for a few years now, where participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.  That’s an average of 1,666 words a day!

I started NaNoWriMo in 2004.  Every night for a week and a half, I typed out thousands of waffling words of a novel about a girl who was travelling across Canada.  Every time I ran out of ideas, I had her move on to a new destination.  And by that stage, my hands ached so much that I was finding it difficult to get my work done for the 9-5 job.  So that was the end of my 2004 NaNoWriMo novel, and in truth, I haven’t looked at it since.  That said, I think it was useful to have that attempt at writing a novel.  In starting it, I began to learn the differences between writing a short story and a novel – differences that were going to be more and more significant over the next 12 months.

In November 2005, I had just finished writing the MA portfolio version of Lessons to Learn.  In November 2006, I was travelling around Europe.

This year, I’ve got a project that I’m already working on.  The rules of NaNoWriMo state that you need to start a new novel on the 1st of November, rather than work on an existing project.  So I won’t be an official participant, but I’m hoping that the knowledge that so many people, all around the world, are also writing, the conversations on the message boards and a large quantity of M&Ms will spur me on to complete the first draft.

If you’re also participating in NaNoWriMo this year, or working on another project to another deadline, let me know, and perhaps we can cheer each other on.

I’ve started a new blog.

It won’t take the place of this blog, though.

It’s about writing.  And the web.  It’s called webstuff4writers.com.

Inspired by ‘Booking Through Thursday’, I’m going to post weekly writing topics that can be used in blogs about writing (like this one).  These topics will usually be posted on a Sunday, unless there’s another day people prefer.

Anyway, here’s the first one, and my answer.

Writing about writing: Week one

Do you think keeping a journal or blog is a useful practice for writers?  Why or why not?

webstuff4writers.com is my new attempt to keep a regular journal.  I’m not good at keeping a regular journal.  This blog in itself is evidence of this.  There’s more evidence of it in a wardrobe of my parents’ place, where there’s a pile of notebooks, each about one quarter to a half full.  In both 2006 and 2007, my New Year’s resolution was to keep a journal every day.  This year, I made it to March.

That said, I do think that journaling is a useful practice for those who want to write.  A lot of my short stories have come from journal and blog entries – both from those entries where I’ve recorded something that’s happened to me, and those entries that I recorded something I’ve observed happening in the world at large.  Some of the scene-setting in Lessons to Learn was based on my travel journal from my time in Korea, and from the emails I sent home which became almost like a travel blog.

The other advantage that I’ve found is that keeping a journal is a good way to start writing each day, and that when I’ve written one piece – whether it’s non-fiction, stream-of-consciousness, or a poem –  it’s easier to write something else.  If I had all the time in the world for writing then, this process would be ideal.  However, most days there’s only half an hour before work, a couple of hours after it.  And then, if I spend too much time blogging or writing about my day, then no novel writing gets done at all.

Still, I’ll give webstuff4writers.com a go, and see how long it lasts.  Hopefully others will find it useful.  Hopefully I’ll managed to keep it out of that virtual wardrobe, where abandoned blogs go to die, for a couple of months at least.