Tag: posting

Coping With The Situation

On By Mick CanningIn blogging, comment27 Comments

Now so many of us are confined to our homes for most of the day, there is apparently an increase in social media engagement. This probably should not be surprising.

But curiously, while many people seem to be engaging more with social media, I’m finding it harder to do so. I also find I’m losing patience with the few combative posts I see – the few, because I try not to follow anyone who puts up those kinds of posts. Of course, anyone might choose to do so now and again when irritated or infuriated by something, but I do try to stick with those that don’t. And I’ve unfollowed a few who do.

So because of this, I shall put up the last two posts in the series I’m doing at the moment, then withdraw gracefully (sort of) for a while. I shall continue to reply to any comments that might be posted, of course, because I make a point of doing that. It does mean I won’t be reading other posts for a while, though, unless the urge takes me occasionally.

So take care, stay safe, and I hope you’ll understand.

Oi, That’s My Content!

On By Mick CanningIn blogging, copyright infringement, creative, intellectual property, legal issues, photographs, theft28 Comments

Again, a disclaimer. I am not a legal expert, and you may feel it necessary to use authoritative sources to check the information I am presenting here.

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In my last post I talked about the potential issues around using someone else’s art on the cover of your book.

Equally, you can fall foul of copyright law very easily when blogging. Or Twittering or Instagramming or anything else like that. I am truly astonished by the number of bloggers who appear to be unaware that copying a photograph off the internet and putting it on their blog leaves them open to legal action. And putting a note under the photograph reading ‘copied from x or y’ merely makes it easier for people to notice. There are many sites where you can download free images to use this way, but taking them from others is asking for trouble.

If it comes to the attention of the copyright owner, the least of your problems could be a ‘Cease and desist’ email from a lawyer, warning you to remove the image immediately. It is also possible that a fine is demanded, with the threat of legal action. Don’t ignore this or treat it lightly. It means Trouble.

This is one reason I don’t re-blog posts as often as I might. If I re-blog one with a dodgy image, I am also leaving myself open to legal action.

But what if it comes to your attention that your work has been taken this way? Let’s say someone steals your pictures and content, and puts them up on their site without permission or accreditation. I don’t mean a re-blog, which is a different thing altogether (as long as you follow the rules!) but Intellectual Property Theft, which is what I’ve been talking about all along.

What can you do about this?

Firstly, you might prefer just to grin and bear it, annoying though it is. After all, it’s just a blog post and is it worth the fuss? Although if it was a site making money from your work, that might be another thing altogether.

Obviously, you might want to take legal action, in which case you will check carefully what it might cost you and the chances of success. There are many reasons it could be a costly and difficult process.

(Of course, this is no reason to think you can break the law with impunity. You may well come up against a determined copyright owner)

Personally, I’m inclined to send a message to the infringer along the lines of: ‘I’ll put up a link to your blog from mine. The bad news is it will include key words such as ‘property theft’ and ‘(the infringer’s name)’ which will be found by search engines for as long as the page exists’ which might well deter them. After all, it is common knowledge that potential employers, for example, tend to have a good look on the internet for information on potential employees.

It might work, I suppose. Has anyone had this problem and had to deal with it?

Back Again

On By Mick CanningIn A Good Place, Author, blogging, books, break, poetry, short stories, Work in progress, writing48 Comments

Well, I am back.

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I never seriously contemplated abandoning my blog, although I admit there were times I felt tempted. And although I regularly visited my Facebook account, I didn’t post anything to my author page and only really visited to stay in contact with some people.

My sharp-eyed viewer will notice a couple of new pages on this blog. There is now a page with links to all the short stories I have published, to make it easier to locate them should you wish to read or re-read them.

There is also a page of links to all the poems published on here – I had no idea there were so many!

You’re welcome.

There was a lot going on in my life and I needed a lot of space to just try and sort some of it out. Some of it is still on-going, but I think I’m in a position to come back and give a reasonable amount of time to blogging.

But, as well as doing life, I have been busy writing. Probably the main thing I have managed to do is take my stop-start novel set in a fictitious hill station in Northern India from around 35,000 words up to the point where it is an almost completed first draft of just over 70,000 words. And I have a working title for it: A Good Place.

I’ve half-written a few blog posts, although I had intended to prepare lots more. Oh well. For the moment I will go back to posting roughly twice a week and see how that goes.

And I’ve faffed around a bit with a short story. All in all, other than the novel, not a lot. But I am pleased with the novel so far. I sorted out the sub-plots and brought in a number of new characters. And it is finally at the point where I can allow myself to think ‘Yes, almost there!’

And I don’t think until now I’d really understood how absolutely driven it was possible to be when writing; how the Work In Progress can come to utterly dominate your waking life – incessantly thinking about it and tweaking and refining the plots and characters, almost to the exclusion of all else.

Clearly, I need to get it finished.

Oh heavens, why on earth did I follow that blog?

On By Mick CanningIn blogging, discussions, opinion162 Comments

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Every now and again I get unfollowed. And every now and again I unfollow a blog. Is it a big deal? Should it be a big deal?

At first, it can seem hurtful to find that someone has unfollowed you on any sort of social media, but really it shouldn’t be. Somehow, I find that I now follow a huge number of blogs, most of which I love, and I do wish I had more time available to read them more fully and comment on them, but I don’t. This means that every now and again I sacrifice one for the common good.

But, never without good reason.

First up, one thing that does irritate me, is when I visit and read a blog, leave a response – sometimes a quite lengthy one – and never receive any sort of reply. One blog that I initially followed was like this, and when I had left several comments that were never even acknowledged, I went through their comments strings and found that they could not be bothered to reply to anyone.

Instant unfollow. I dislike rudeness.

What other reasons?

Okay, so maybe I was attracted to your blog initially by the posts about cuddly kittens and home baking, but now the focus of your posts has shifted to motor vehicle maintenance and origami, and I feel my interest is waning. It’s time to move on. Don’t take it badly – what we had was good, but we all grow and develop and change over the years, and what was once right for both of us now leaves at least one of us empty. I wish you well, but I’m leaving you for another.

A little like the above, perhaps I found your blog through a particular post that interested me, but since then it seems that every post is on subjects that don’t. I’m sorry, I gave it a few months, I gave it a good try, but it’s just not doing it for me. Bye bye.

I unfollowed one blog because every post was a long moan about other people. Sorry, there was no pleasure to be had in reading that one.

Perhaps I notice that where your blog was originally full of carefully argued points and good language, it has become home now to foul-mouthed polemics and crude language in general. Hmm, perhaps you should take this one personally. I won’t be the only one to leave.

So, every now and again I see that my own number of followers has fallen, and that I’ve been unfollowed. My reaction? I do wonder whether I have written something boring or offensive, and occasionally re-read a few of my posts in that light. That’s okay, it’s constructive and encourages me to think about what I’m doing.

Perhaps we should all hope to get unfollowed every now and again, just to make us focus constructively on our posts.