Posted: Wed 21 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related, Writing |
Funnily enough, for someone who generally likes writing stuff, (regardless of whether it’s webpage, letter, PHP functions, fiction, blog posts, etc.) I hate doing documentation for things I’ve already created. Going back over these things is (in my opinion) usually a pain in the bum, and it’s all- well- old. Been there, done that.
I know, I shouldn’t feel like that, but I do. I admit it. And of course this week I’ve been writing loads of bits of documentation for all the stuff I’ve been doing over the last year or so. In some ways it’s actually been quite useful because it’s reminded me of some of the groovier functions that I’ve created for the site, and some of the bits of arcane esoteric hackery without which the site wouldn’t even function. This is also useful for when I rewrite the client page on the business site, and also the “what I’ve been doing” bit on my CV.
But it’s still so dull. I can’t even really think of any way to brighten it up or lighten the work a little – it’s just dull. No two ways about it. Useful to people in the future, of course, and it’s all written in a way that should make sense to even the most numpty of newbies (I get to test that on some of my colleagues. Heh.) but still, dull.
Of course, on this occasion I’ve actually also been looking at older stuff and also suddenly clicked with a way to rewrite it that makes life lots easier all round, and removes the elusive point-of-failure that was lurking in there for the unwary. So in that case writing documentation had an added bonus which I wasn’t expecting.
It’s still piggin’ dull though. *sigh*
Posted: Mon 19 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Thoughts, Writing |
Recently, having been thinking about getting back into it for *cough* years, I’ve been thinking that it really is about time I start off on getting some of my writing ideas down on paper (OK, on hard drive), rather than letting them float round in my head, at constant risk of being lost/forgotten/amended. There are two main reasons for this – namely 1) It’s about fucking time and 2) I’ve got something in there at the moment that is radical and could be seriously fun to write – along with some added impetus from seeing how Tom is doing, and doing a bit of proof-reading and cliché-avoidance on his work.
The main stumbling block for me is the classic “Where the hell do I start?” (and any answers of “at the beginning” will be soundly ignored) And, in my case, additionally “What format am I going to do – book, screenplay, both?”. Hell, I’m even somewhat tempted by the idea of writing a radio play. Go figure.
Among other things, I’ve been thinking about using Final Draft as a writing aid/tool, but coming up against another minor stumbling block, this time of “Do I really want to spend £130 or so, and then not actually use the thing?”.
But last week I came across a different tool, CeltX which may actually be quite handy – it certainly gets me past the “spending out” block – and provides some interesting tools along the way. I’m going to give it a go anyway, and just see where it takes me.
This is a subject that may get a lot more stuff written about it over 2008, be warned…
Posted: Fri 16 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related, Writing |
Lack of posting today, due to being snowed with fun in a website that I’m working on.
It’s making good progress, but still leaves me with a tabula rasa for D4D™. Hey, it happens on occasion – live with it.
In other news, I’ve also made some progress already with some of those plans I was wittering about back on November 5th, as well as generating a bit more business just when I wasn’t expecting it.
So a good day, and one I’ll probably write more about later, while sat on the train home. Or something. Which reminds me, I need to find my headphones, and/or some new ones. Go figure.
Posted: Wed 7 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing |
With the redesign and redevelopment of the business site, I’m debating adding a blog to the site. But the main debate around it is whether I want to be doing writing for three sites – what with D4D™ and the one on the photography portfolio, do I really need anything else?
The point is even more relevant when I look at the “writing” section of the plans for the next 12 months, where I also want to be doing some more ‘proper’ writing and well, I start to wonder what I can add to the business site with a blog anyway.
I can see the use of the blog on the photography site, after all – although I need to get down to adding in some more posts, and generally get to using it more (as well as sorting out the template so that it fits in with the rest of the site) but for the business site? I don’t know – can’t see it right now. It’s something to think about for the future, but at the moment well, not sure I can be chuffed with adding to the blog-writing workload after all.
Posted: Mon 5 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Work, Own Business, Resolutions, Work-related, Writing |
So, as listed yesterday, the first year of that five year plan is completed. There’s still some work to be done on finishing off the foundations of it all, but everything is so far pretty much on track, which is a fairly impressive achievement in itself. (well, for me, anyway)
The problem with the next year of the plan (such as it is) is that a lot of it is either
- Hard to explain
- Related to business plans, which I (for obvious reasons) don’t want to bang on about here before I’ve got them started
- Dependent upon other occurrences, or on (to some degree) a bit of luck/chance
- All of the above
This means that the list is almost certainly going to be rather less exhaustive than last year’s one- and God knows, that one was no masterpiece of detail. So this is more an ‘overview’ than a list, and to some degree I also find that rather harder to keep track of and fulfil, due to the nature of the beast. I’ve got more detailed lists of plans and ideas carried around in an ‘off-line’ format- OK, OK, it’s all in my Filofax, which should probably be renamed “my Book of Lists and Notes”. (MBOLAN, or ‘T-rex’ for short))
So anyway, the basic ‘shell’ list is going to be something like this:
- Photography
- Take more photos
- Put the good ones in the portfolio site
- Work on a couple of projects/themes
- Possibly do a redesign of the portfolio site to fit in more with ‘brand ‘image’
- Submit portfolio site and photos to various interested parties
- Possibly make more use of Flickr, although that one’s a bit of a “don’t know”
- Pull more attention to the portfolio site
- Business
Redesign/redevelop business website with a CMS etc.- Look at sorting out a proper business bank account
- Keep generating new work
- Continue with current work and clients
- Get new contract – the one with the current place will definitely expire in ’08, due to tax/IR35 reasons
- Work on developing new sites and business ideas
- Minimise outgoings, increase incoming money
- Writing
- Realistically? Get one solid idea written and done, if only for the head-space
- Optimistically? Get two solid ideas written and done.
- House stuff
- House alterations
- Bathroom
- Kitchen extension/upgrade
- Garden alterations/work
- Veg patch
- Front garden/driveway
- Main lawn etc.
- Borders, beds, blah blah
And that’ll do for now. Like I said, it’s fairly “open”, but that’s still a fair old list from the look of it. I’m going to be a busy boy…
Posted: Tue 23 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Own Business, Work-related, Writing |
With the redesigned business site, one of the things I seriously need to update is the entire “About Me/About The Business” page. It’s never been great, but now needs to contain a lot more information than previously.
The thing is, believe it or not, I’m utterly crap at writing that kind of thing. I don’t like writing self-promoting and self-publicising stuff, although I know it’s a necessary evil in the context of having a business. Freelance Switch had a piece about this kind of problem with a couple of ideas I might try out as well.
Then again, maybe I should just write it as though it were a blog post, and that might come up with something workable.
Posted: Thu 4 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Writing |
One of my favourite programmes at the moment is “Not Going Out”, on BBC1. It’s a very silly sitcom, but well-written, and with a far higher selection of jokes than most of the other comedies on TV. Mainly because at least half the script seems to consist of one-liners, but what the hell, it makes me laugh more than just about anything else on TV.
It’s in its second series now, which is just as good as the first all ways but one, and it’s that one piece that annoys me.
In the first season, a woman appeared as a masseur in one episode. That’s fine. But now, in the second season, the same actress is now playing a cleaner. Same character, different job. And what annoys me is that this change of job has never been mentioned, much less explained. It wouldn’t take much, just a simple nod to having been a masseur, but wanting to do a cleaner job, or somesuch. That’s all it would have taken, but its not been done.
In short, it’s just lazy script-writing. It wouldn’t have taken any real effort to either write a bit more script, or even just to cast a different actress, but no they couldn’t be bothered. And that annoys me. It won’t stop me from liking the programme, but it does annoy me when I watch it.