Tuesday, November 6, 2012

An Argument for Emoticons

Make Any Conversation Creepier!
Image found via Google :) 
I use a lot of smileys. All the time. Sure, I hold back when I'm writing to someone I don't know and want to make it sound official, but most of the time, it's emoticon central. And I think that it should be okay.
Around 90% of communication (ish) is nonverbal. We've created these tools to help compensate for the loss of facial expressions over text communication such as instant messaging, texts, and emails. Consider the difference when you read...

Yeah :)
Yeah ;)
Yeah :(
Yeah -_-

I don't know about you, but I read those all differently -- something is lost without emoticons.
It's also a matter of efficiency. Why should I have to say, "This looks like a fun project and I'll get started right away," when I could say, "I'll start on this right away :)". Same point, more efficient. And business (and Generation X in general) is all about efficiency.
As a writer, I'm not saying you should depend on emoticons. If you have the time to effectively and efficiently convey your emotions and your tone through words, you should. However, I know that I hate receiving novel-length emails, and I especially dislike overly lengthy texts when a point could have been made in a few sentences.
I think we all know enough to avoid these shenanigans: "send pix of ur car!! :) :)" My mom texts like that sometimes, no joke. So aim for the happy medium -- emoticons can add meaning to conversations just like smiling while you're talking can.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Posting Regularly

So, one of the biggest tips for bloggers is to post regularly (or not, depending on who you ask).

Posting regularly here is a bit harder than I thought it would be (although I'm not sure I really gave it a whole lot of thought), so I'm going to do a bit of an experiment to try and find the best way to get me to post once a week. I have 3 weeks of school left, so this part will have to be short term to account for variability in my busyness. I can repeat it after finals/Thanksgiving week with the attempt to make it more long term and a little more accurate.

Strategy #1: Have a set time to post
Monday and Wednesday nights after school/cheer practice, so around 5 and 8 respectively.

Strategy #2: Post whenever I feel like I have time/when inspiration hits.
(Or in between episodes of Torchwood, more likely).

Strategy #3: ...Yeah, I can't think of a 3rd strategy. I'll update when I think of one (or on Monday or Wednesday, depending).

In the mean time, here are some articles I found on the subject!

How to Post Regularly on your Blog…
How Often Should You Update Your Blog?
Why Should You Blog Regularly?

Strangely enough, so far Strategy #2 seems to work better for me, mainly because the week I tried #1, I seemed to be doing stuff during the scheduled time and then felt like I missed my opportunity to post... That being said, it was an inordinately busy week (week 10 at DU, the week before finals, the week everything is due, week of death, etc, etc). More than that though, I don't think I like having a scheduled time. Most of my day is very scheduled, so it's nice to have something that's not, and I think adhering to a strict schedule stifles my creativity (or maybe I'm just not all that inspired most of the time, so the chances of inspiration hitting at any given moment are kind of slim).