burdock, ocean & sky colour palette // seagull & crow // favourite old poplar // Black Street // harbour and strait // a snowy Dee // ice, snow & rock colour palette // a big fat fleecy mitten // 29 Black Street // burdock-thistle
1,960 posts divided by 30 days = 65.3 posts a day
or
1,960 posts divided by 60 days = 32.6 posts a day
or
maybe ... somewhere in between ? sigh
Something that has been bothering me for ages about this blog is the lack of labels, chapters and/or categories. I used to have a cloud formation down the sidebar with way too many (156 to be exact) confusing & often duplicate-ish categories listed. It's still there, hidden ... waiting for me to edit & organize and I want to. I keep telling myself, since about August of last year, just try to tackle 30 posts a day - every day, don't miss a day and before you know it you'll have a list of labeled categories.
You, me, anyone should be able to come to this blog and browse by subject, label, or category. It's on my list of big Daunting tasks. The task itself of going back through 1,960 posts 5.5 years worth is daunting enough on it's own but Daunting A. deciding what those spare (30 max) new edited labels should be ? For example I just can't have a label cats (Oliver would not stand for it, or could I have a just a category dogs (goodness, sweet Winnie Dixon could have her own blog). Blogger doesn't let you have subcategories or at least I don't think so. And then there's Daunting B. most often what I write about has nothing to do with the images that I'm posting. Do my label describe the text or do I label for the photos/images and if I'm labelling images how do I handle a post like today ? or a post like this one where the images are kinda all over the place. I've created a category called still life which I hope will be the label for all these photo essays that don't necessarily follow a theme, it's a theme so subtle no one but me really knows what the theme is.
It's important to me, after 1,960 posts that I keep some sort of track here about what I've posted. Things that have inspired me, struggles, growth spurts, angsty times, quotations (and there's loads of them here ...somewhere), music, cooking, Oliver, Winnie, Sam, Jake, recipes, my work ... & I am going to figure this darn daunting task out & soon. So if anyone out there has been frustrated by the lack of labels on this blog. Hang tight I'm on it ;-)
I'm currently working on three new collage/illustration & typographic holiday cards (for next year) for fav new licensing customer Madison Park Greetings. Stay tuned, very soon, for the Spring 2013 release of 10 of my designs (mostly botanical collages) available as greeting cards - hooray Madison Park & me. Yesterday I did the most difficult of the three card designs - the hold my breath & turn blue one, the took all day & night one, the eat that frog first one ... listening to my itunes collection helped a lot to keep me relaxed and breathing - some music to collage to. I actually left my chair to dance to this one. Hark, I think I hear CabbageTown a callin'
I can just hear that crow's thoughts: "Yeah, and you just keep on flying past, Mister. Get your own roof!"
ReplyDeleteGood luck with sorting out the backlog. Not like you don't already have enough to do, Supergirl!
xo n
I have the hardest time with labels! I'm fairly organized but always wondering should I have more or different ones? Are they clear enough? etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteNever thought about labels Susan. I add labels to each of my posts as that is a fairly easy option on Blogger. But I never pay attention to whether others do the same thing ...
ReplyDeleteHey n. I owe you an email, thanks for the music link (& that's exactly what that crow was saying)
ReplyDeleteHi Sybil & Amanda. I've been thinking about this post all day long & this desire of mine to keep track, even if it's in the most basic way and I think I've decided that it is mostly for me. I want to be able to find things again if want to - it's like trying to find that favourite sweater in an attic filled with 1900+ sealed up cardboard boxes with no labels. It's my history & it's been the most important 5.5 years of my life - hands down.
1,960 pages is an incredible number and difficult for even me to imagine.
That is a cold set of photos. Your mittens look very warm.
ReplyDeletelove, love the crow/seagull photo!!
ReplyDeleteYour labels don't matter to me...I'll still be here every day :)
some excellent tips & ideas came through via email last night from
ReplyDeleteKitty - http://75catstreet.blogspot.ca/
May I suggest - Pick say 10 or 12 general categories. Start with your new posts immediately at least getting them into the general categories. Then start in 2012 going backwards or start with 1/1/12 and work forward to 12/31/12. I recommend you do not start from the beginning of your blog, you will get mired in nostalgic reading and lose steam. As you are starting to categorize 2012, your possibly remaining 18 categories will start showing themselves. The categories you ultimately pick should possibly be ones that have your future in mind versus picking them based on the past (say back in 2006), that way you have a forward looking purpose. Add new categories after you see a trend that you think will be a permanent category.
After you have completed 2012, you might have 12 to 15 permanent categories but perhaps you want to drill down further. You can either continue into 2011 if you wish or get 2012 further categorized. This way you will have accomplished some filing but not remain paralyzed because of trying to pick the right label for 30 categories from the start.
You may get to the very beginning of your blog with say 20 categories but then you can sort those categories easily and rename them to a further created category that is more meaningful.
So general category first, then drill down second. If you don't ever get to the drill down, you have at least done some general filing that may be somewhat helpful to you. I know organizational experts state to break down larger tasks into smaller ones so that a sense of accomplishment will occur and that will spur one on to tackle the next segment.
& Janice - http://papiervalise.typepad.com/
I reduced my categories last year too. It took awhile. Having search capabilities on the blog also helped as I always put tags (but often would forget to put the categories) when I was preparing a post. I put it there for readers to use but quite often I use it myself.
So, while I may choose a category that a few things can fit in, I can elaborate on the description when I add the tags and make it easier to search. Say your category could be “les gang”, but your tags might be for one post Missy D, morning walk, snowfall or another post might be cats in sun, Oliver, Virgil, Gus…etc. I find this helps me a lot as I tend to over categorize. I cut down on the categories as I did not like the way it looked on my side bar (!) but I still need to reduce the amount that I have. I do add A LOT of tags to each post. I figure this helps with the search engine as well as if someone is looking for something randomly on the internet. Your post today could have the following tags-Bronski Beat, Missy D, Cabbage Town, Madison Park Greetings---and all of the descriptors under the last photo.
I know I'm not alone in struggling with this "how to" best label/categorize blog posts. Some excellent tips here (ps. my first google search suggests that Blogger does not have tags) - but some of you maybe on Wordpress or TypePad
Thanks Kitty & Janice