Stephanie Booth's online ramblings
She grabs her gun, hops on her horse, and makes for the village where her lover is living. She charges into the house, killing everybody in the way. Reaches the room where he is sleeping, picks up the cat curled up on the bed, and blows his brains out.
Love.
She pulled the curtains and slipped between the sheets. The neighbours’ bed upstairs was creaking rhythmically.
“Not again!” she thought.
Sally remembered that time in the restaurant with Harry. She still had it in her.
Tomorrow morning, they would be the ones looking at her enviously in the entrance hallway.
The little old lady had spent her evening looking through faded photographs. Her children, their children — and theirs.
She remembered one photograph that appeared to be missing.
She made for the loft and reached for the big staggering box of her husband’s memorabilia.
It knocked her down dead.
[fr] Instructions pour faire en sorte que les photos de la boîte multimédia du thème WordPress Thesis renvoient vers leur page Flickr.
I haven’t had Thesis on my blog for 24 hours that I’m already messing with it. Oh well. So, one thing I’ve done and will explain in some detail is added tons of photos from my Flickr account to the Thesis multimedia box up right, with links to the original Flickr pages.
rotator folder, all I have to do is grab the URL of the middle-sized photograph I want (All sizes > Medium) and wget it. For example: wget http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3252/2725414522_4a9b2887df.jpg2725414522_4a9b2887df.jpg => http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/2725414522/.multimedia_box_functions.php file so that the images would actually link to their Flickr page.Voilà!
[fr] Je viens d'installer (après avoir acheté la version "Dévelopeur") le thème Thesis, et j'en suis très contente. J'aime les réglages que permet facilement ce thème (nombre de colonnes et largeur, sans avoir à toucher le CSS) ainsi que la "boîte multimédia" en haut à droite, qui permet de montrer des photos aléatoires (et même, si on veut, de spécifier une photo en particulier pour une page en particulier).
A few weeks ago Suw mentioned that she was looking at the Thesis theme for her sites. I went to have a look, and it looked nice and clean. Only problem: it wasn’t free.
However, the theme author, Chris Pearson (not to be confused with Cris Pearson), was offering a lifetime subscription to the theme and support, as well as use on unlimited sites for the developer version ($164), which I bought.
The result is what you see now on the site. I haven’t modified it much yet. Here are a few things I liked.
First, you can control the top navigation menu bar completely (look at how much stuff I put in it — maybe a bit too much). It wraps nicely when you put more items than fit in one line. You can add links to pages in your site, or to outside pages. This also allows me to link to the page named About Me and This Site with the simple word “About”. Basically, this achieves the same thing as the “redirect to” page template that I’m using on the Going Solo site, for example.
Second, you can tweak the width of your columns. The default width for the main content column in Thesis is 480px. Given I insert many medium-sized Flickr photos (500px wide), I widened it. No need to fool with the CSS, Thesis does it all in the background.
Third, the image rotator. Up right, you can see one of my photographs, and when you click on it, it will take you to the Flickr page it lives on. I’ll explain how I did this in a separate post.
At one point, I added a header image, which I now removed because I think it doesn’t go well with the images in the multimedia box up right. Here is the code I used (in the custom.css stylesheet), if ever it comes in handy to anybody.
.custom #header {
background: url("/wp/wp-content/themes/thesis/images/ouchy-header.jpg")
repeat-x top left;height: 160px; }
.custom #header #tagline {color: black;}
.custom #header {paddint-top: 1.5em;}
Like the others, I was greedily eying the last chocolate in the silver tray. We tried to keep the conversation going and our saliva under control.
Susie opened her mouth.
John’s hand moved.
Awkward silence.
Rex jumped up and whisked away the chocolate with an expert flick of the tongue.
[fr] Depuis toujours, j'ai envie d'écrire des romans, mais je me sens fondamentalement incapable d'inventer des histoires. Je sais raconter une histoire (enfin, de façon relativement compétente, je pense), mais si mon cerveau fonctionne en surchauffe pour produire des idées d'article ou des pensées à développer dans mon blog, il reste désespérément muet pour ce qui est de la construction de scénario.
Après quelques conversations avec Suw et son ami Vince, qui en est à son cinquième roman, j'ai décidé qu'il était temps de prendre sérieusement cette envie qui me hante (oooh... ohhh...) depuis belle lurette. L'imagination et la créativité, ça s'exerce. Je vais exercer mon cerveau à inventer des histoires.
Had some interesting conversation these last two days here in Leeds with Suw and Vince about writing fiction. Vince actually writes fiction, Suw has quite a bit at some point, and I’ve always wanted to.
I write loads and always have (mainly on and around this blog during the last years), but it’s mainly essay-ish or fact, like the many pages of my journal of the year I lived in India. What little fiction I have written, mainly in my school years (some of which you can find in the writing section) is mainly scenes, atmospheres, small episodes. No stories, really.
I’ve always wanted to write stories, but always felt myself fundamentally incapable of doing so. I remember two attempts to write meaningful fiction in my early years. First, I must have been nine or ten, and I had received a nice thick notebook. I decided I was going to write a story in it, but it fell flat after one line. Second, I was a teenager, and I spent a good part of some winter holidays diving into the creation of a science fiction novel. I think the impulse came after reading a C. J. Cherryh book. I had a main character, a bit of a world, but no story. I just started writing, and about 12 pages later it was going nowhere and my interest fizzled out. I still have what I wrote in a folder — it was called “Aurora”.
My head is always bubbling with ideas of things to blog. Stuff to comment upon, ideas about the world, life, or tools that I want to talk about. But my head is completely void of stories. It’s as if the storytelling part of my imagination was broken, or so still it couldn’t move. Well, I can tell a story if I know what the story I have to tell is (so, based on fact) but I can’t come up with one. At least, I don’t come up with stories naturally.
What the conversation with Suw and Vince made me understand was that I could excercise that skill. I can train my mind to think up stories. I just need to do it explicitly at first. I need to try to think of stories.
Vince told me to think up an ending before getting started, and I think that’s a good point. A good novel can be killed by a lousy ending, and a medium story can be redeemed by a good ending. And I remember, in school, when we started creative writing, our teacher mentioned that it was often really hard for us to come up with good endings, and that she recommended we do not try and write stories with ends, and stick to vignettes or scenes. I think it was good advice at the time, but now I’m not 12 anymore. I’ve grown up and am probably capable of thinking up endings to stories 🙂
So, yesterday, as we were driving Steph and Virginie to the airport, I found myself daydreaming and trying to come up with stories. Interestingly, what I came up with was mainly “world ideas”. Minor changes one could make to our world and which would create an interesting setting for a story.
But no stories yet. I’m going to keep working on it.
[en] It's been a while now: Suw Charman-Anderson, Nicole Simon and I have been plotting lately to design "Blogging Web 2.0 Expo Europe", a blogger outreach programme for the famous O'Reilly/TechWeb conference Web 2.0 Expo Europe taking place in Berlin on October 21-23.
Suw has written a great post about the programme we designed:
The way the blogging programme will work is that we’ll ask participants to do these few things between now and 6th October:
- publish at least 4 Web 2.0 Expo-related blog posts, podcast episodes or videocasts, e.g. announcement of the event, speaker information, speaker interviews, or any other event-related stuff
- encourage readers, friends, and/or community to register for the event
- display the Web 2.0 Expo logo on their blog, with a link to the registration page, until the day of the conference
We think that’s pretty easy, but to help you along, we’ll provide participating bloggers with:
- event badges
- a 35% discount code to share with readers, colleagues and friends
- access to information about the event suitable for re-blogging, such as announcements and speaker information/interviews (when possible)
In return, bloggers will get a full conference pass that to either use themselves or give away to readers.
But that’s not all…
Head right over to Strange Attractor to read more about what's going on.
Any European blogger can ask to join the programme. So if you have a tech/business audience (it doesn't have to be huge), get in touch as soon as you can -- particularly if you have a local audience or blog in another language than English!
Cela fait un moment que je complote avec Suw Charman-Anderson et Nicole Simon pour mettre sur pied “Blogging Web 2.0 Expo Europe”. Quelques explications, car même si le nom est merveilleusement bien choisi et très explicite, il y a quand même quelques détails qu’il ne faut pas passer sous silence.
L’idée est de rassembler une communauté de blogueurs européens enthousiastes qui parleront de la conférence et motiveront leurs amis/lecteurs/collègues à s’y inscrire. En échange, ils reçoivent un accès gratuit à la conférence (qui, entre nous soit dit, vaut quelques jolis sous!)
Vous avez certainement déjà entendu parler de la conférence Web 2.0 Expo Europe, co-produite par TechWeb et O’Reilly Media. Mais oui, vous savez! Le fameux “web2.0” qui sature nos ondes, à la base, c’est le nom d’une conférence. Elle est destinée aux web designers, développeurs, product managers, entrepreneurs, investisseurs, marketeurs, consultants et stratèges qui exploitent les opportunités offertes par les technologies du Web 2.0. La conférence aura lieu à Berlin, du 21 au 23 octobre prochain; John Lilly (Mozilla), Martin Varsavsky (FON), et Tariq Krim (NetVibes) font partie des orateurs principaux.
On demandera aux blogueurs prenant part au programme de:
Pas trop compliqué, non? On fournira aux blogueurs:
En échange de leur participation, les blogueurs recevront gracieusement un passe pour toute la conférence, qu’ils pourront utiliser eux-mêmes ou donner à quelqu’un.
Mais ce n’est pas tout… Les blogueurs qui auront assuré la meilleure promotion (tant en matière d’efforts que de résultats) verront leur passe transformé en “Premier Blogger Pass”, ce qui leur donnera un statut “presse” à la conférence, incluant entre autres accès à la salle de presse et la possibilité d’interviewer les conférenciers en direct. Nous annoncerons les gagnants de ces “Premier Blogger Pass” et confirmerons l’attribution des passes conférence le 7 octobre prochain.
Puisque les code de rabais (discount) sont uniques, nous pourrons savoir combien de personnes chaque blogueur aura référées. Nous venons d’avoir le feu vert pour offrir quelque chose de spécial (et d’excitant) au blogueur qui aura généré le plus d’inscriptions, jusqu’à la fermeture des inscriptions.
Quel genre de blogueurs recherchons-nous pour ce programme? On veut ratisser large, donc on cherche des blogs européens, publiés dans n’importe quelle langue (on veut de la variété, pas juste des blogueurs anglophones basés à Londres), touchant un public qui pourrait être intéressé par la conférence. Donc, que vous soyez un des blogueurs-star de votre niche ou un blog moins connu avec un public réduit mais enthousiaste et qui se jetterait sans autre forme de procès sur le rabais que vous leur offrirez… Prenez contact!
Ce que nous recherchons, c’est de l’enthousiasme, de la passion, et du pouvoir de persuasion. C’est votre capacité à persuader autrui de s’incrire à la conférence qui compte!
Le nombre de places dans le programme est limité, et nous comptons le lancer officiellement dès mardi 9 septembre prochain. Agissez donc vite si vous voulez une place, et on vous le confirmera dès que possible.
On prévoit déjà de vous annoncer quelques ajouts (positifs!) au programme en cours de route, et bien entendu, on est prêtes à prendre en compte votre feedback pour le faire évoluer de façon participative. N’hésitez donc pas.
Je résume:
[fr] Voilà, j'ai une newsletter. Je la rédigerai en anglais et en français, et y parlerai principalement de mes activités professionnelles. Je vais certainement radoter, il faut vous y attendre -- mais seulement une à deux fois par mois. Je parlerai aussi des choses que je n'aborde pas dans ce blog. Pourquoi une newsletter? J'y ai longuement réfléchi et écrirai sans doute bien plus à ce sujet dans les semaines à venir.
Je suis curieuse. Quelle est votre réaction? Est-ce que vous vous inscririez à une telle newsletter? Je me réjouis de voir ce que va donner cette expérience.
Taking example on my friend Martin, I decided it was time I had my own newsletter. There’s a lot of thinking behind it which I’ll share here at some point (when I’m less in a hurry).
To answer a few questions:
If you want to subscribe you can do so using the box below.
|
| Subscribe to Stephanie Booth's Newsletter |
| Visit this group |
What’s your reaction to this? Would you sign up for such a newsletter, or not — and why?
I’m looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes.
[fr] Bloggy Friday in Lausanne next Friday, September 5th. Sign up in the comments!
Un petit mot très rapide (car je suis très à la bourre) pour vous confirmer que le Bloggy Friday de septembre aura bien lieu à Lausanne, dès 20h quelque part au centre-ville chez Rony.
Inscrivez-vous dans les commentaires, créez un event Facebook si vous le voulez bien (je pars offline pour le week-end dans une heure, là), faites passer le mot, Tweetez, bref.
On se voit dans une semaine, je me réjouis!
Présents:
C’est sur Facebook, aussi — merci Raph!