10 Commandments of blogging

This is not an original piece, but unfortunately I forget where I found it!  This was buried in an old file inside of another file inside of My Documents--you know how it goes.

I appreciate these rules--they speak volumes.

I hope you enjoy them.

1. Thou shalt offer fresh and personal content and perspective with thy blog that you and only you can produce.

2. Thou shalt carve with lexis that common folk can twig (translation: You will write using words that real people can understand).

3. Thou shalt not tear someone else down with thy blog. If you have an issue with that person, go to them to work it out.

4. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor with thy blog.

5. Thou shalt not pluck quotes from thy neighbor's blog without giving him credit.

6. Thou shalt not steal content from thy neighbor's blog and portray it as thine own.

7. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's blog, but will be happy with thine own.

8. Thou shalt not spend more time blogging, reading blogs and/or commenting on blogs (let alone with any other type of social media) than with thy wife, kids and pet.

9. Thou shalt take time for rest and relaxation from blogging at consistent intervals. Go outside and smell the roses.

10. Thou shalt not make an idol out of blogging. Thy life consists of much more than that.

Andrew Stanton, the writer/director of Finding Nemo (my favorite Pixar movie) did a seminar which (for a portion) talked about pitching your story.  It's available on Youtube if you want to watch the entire thing, but the gist of it is listed below, summarized by a Youtube patron named boxiness (thanks for the summary).  I've included the summary here, in case you don't have time to watch the video.

Also, feel free to look up Emma Coates (Pixar) formula for story formats Pixar style.

- A story should start off with a well-told "promise", like a hook or sales pitch

- A story should give the audience the "2+2", not the "4"

- Characters should have "spines" & itches they're always trying to scratch

- Change is fundamental; life is never static

- "Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty"

- Know your rules and know when to break them

- Strong unifying theme

 

            -  Sense of wonder

Prospertown: then and now

                Chances are you’ve passed this particular forgotten town as it sits in the shadows of

Kingda-Ka as you head out to spend the day at Great Adventure.  This town’s proximity to one of the

 largest theme parks in North America might be enough to make the name Prospertown seem familiar

 to you.  In the first Forgotten Towns book Beck visits Prospertown in a three city set along with

 Archer’s Corner and Collier’s Mill, two other small towns in Southern Jersey.  Looking at

Prospertown through Beck’s eyes there is a vision of a town who’s legacy is long since passed; a

town that houses only a single hotel, a small cluster of homes, and a gristmill.  The homes were only

 painted on one side (the front I assume), and to Beck Prospertown was a place of: “neglect,

loneliness, and desolation”.

Surrender?  We don’t know the meaning of the word!

                One of the lines Beck writes in reference to Prospertown is that it was (at the time he wrote it) “pursuing their memories of prosperous times”.  Considering during his visit that the town was in a tailspin toward nonexistence it seems that it is still in hot pursuit of those prosperous times.  For starters the Six Flags franchise has expanded from their park’s location in Jackson into Prospertown housing their employment center and administration building there.  The residents of Prospertown, through the decades since Beck’s book, have not given up on their prosperous pursuits, at the very least keeping their town alive.

Quaint, if you can find it

                Prospertown’s life in Kingda-Ka’s shadow is a double-edge sword in the sense that (1) it may draw more attention because of its’ proximity to Six Flags, but (2) might also dip more into obscurity because “Six Flags” is all most people think about being in this corner of Ocean County.  Truthfully most of the people who frequent small Prospertown are a select group of anglers, and you know how secretive that lot is about their fishing spots!