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New Blogs

By The WebNo Comments

Observant readers will notice I have added some new blogs to my Blogs of Interest. Here are the new additions and why I’ve added them:

Amber Benson’s Offical Blog, Amber Benson is well known for her role as Tara in Buffy, but she’s also a talented writer and director. I love reading Amber’s view of the world it’s kind and honest.

Boing Boing, a random blog. Lots of pictures and videos, love the randomness.

Over Your Head is a blog from a gay guy in London. He blogs about anything he sees as relevant so it’s quite eclectic. A good read.

Stephen Fry’s blog, OK not a new read for me! I’ve been reading Stephen’s blog for a while. Like his critical eye on the world and his informed well-thought-out views.

So if I’m not updating enough to feed your blog fix, please visit one of the above blogs.

Write soon,

Antony

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Saturday 28 November 2009

Dear Me, A letter to my 16 year old self

By Books & Authors, Gay, History, Reviews, Thinking2 Comments

I recently finished reading Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self. Celebrities have written letters to their sixteen year old selfs in aid of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. For each book sold a minimum of £1 goes to the charity.

Contributors include: Will Young, Sir Elton John, Alan Carr, Jonathan Ross, Peter Kay, Jackie Collis, Annie Lennox, Stephen Fry, Liz Smith, Emma Thompson, John Barrowman, Paul O’Grady and many more.

The hard-back book with glossy pages contained hand written letters, typed letters and photos of some the contributors at the age of sixteen. Their messages to themselves included: words of warning, regrets, messages of hope, reassurance that things would be ok, a need to conquer their fears and worries. The book made me laugh, cry and think about myself as a sixteen year old.

Interestingly a friend who knew me at sixteen CS recently got back in touch via Facebook. We had a long phone conversation (over two and a half hours) and are planning to meet for a coffee.

After a lot of thought about myself at sixteen and after speaking to CS I decided to write my own letter to my sixteen year old self. I have wrote my own letter to myself at sixteen (there a a few missed words – must start checking all my writing and edit it properly), here it is:





I would highly recommend you buy Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self for yourself and possibly for a Christmas / Yule present for some of your family or friends. I promise you and them will love it.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 15 November 2009

Two Hundred

By Life, The Web8 Comments

Can you believe that this is my two hundredth blog post? In celebration here are some questions answered. Hopefully you’ll learn more about me and what makes me tick, expect references to some of the posts I’ve written:

1. Why do you blog?
Blogging for me fulfils my creative urges and is also theraputic. It allows self expression on how I view myself, the world around me and how I experience it. It is also a great way for family and friends to keep up to date with my antics.

2. When do you blog?
I usually blog during the weekday evenings. Occasionally I do have a full day blogging on a weekend. On a weekend day, I can bash out several blog posts and schedule them to publish at a date and time of my choosing in the future. So don’t assume that the date of publish is the time I’ve written them.

3. What do you blog about?
Anything and everything. My blog is abstract really. I tend to blog about my own life experiences, what’s going on in my life and other things that I’m passionate about. My main two passions I’ve noticed I blog about a lot are gay rights (including homophobia) and my religion, paganism.

4. Is there anything you don’t share on your blog?
Although I may appear open and that I share everything on my blog, I actually don’t. I only blog about things I would say to a member of the public (as anyone can access this blog on the World Wide Web). There are many things I consider to be private that I never blog.

5. Where do you live?
I’ve never revealed this on my blog and don’t intend too. I live in an apartment I’ve recently bought. You can see photos on my blog post The Move.

6. Whose important in your life?
My family and friends. You can read more on my blog post People that inspire me.

7. What have you achieved in your life?
A many number of things, like I’m sure you all have. I’ve bought an apartment, completed a HE Diploma in Children’s Nursing, learn’t to drive, a many number of spiritual achievements. I guess it depends what you call an achievement? And anyway, how is an achievement measured?

8. What would you like to achieve in the future?
Well I have a grand plan, you can read more on my blog post A Magickal Grand Plan. It includes things I wish to achieve in all areas of my life, health, family and friends, love, education, creativity, career, paganism and spirituality, experiences, home life, finances and travel.

9. Are you religious?
Yes, I’m a pagan. You can read more about what being a pagan means for me on my paganism page of my website.

10. What is your religion? What does it involve?
My religion is paganism. It involves following the cycle of the year, you can read more on my blog post entitled Pagan Festivals.

11. I’ve noticed your adventures page hasn’t been updated in a while. Do you ever plan on updating it?
Yes, I plan to do some more adventuring in the next year. I hope to travel a bit more next year. I had intended too this year but travel got delayed due to buying my apartment,

12. Are you on any of the popular social networking sites?
I’m on facebook, for friends only. I am also on twitter @antonysimpson. It mainly contains tweets from when I update this blog and replys to other people’s tweets.

13. What’s your websites design? And how did you come up with it?
The idea is that it’s a cork notice board with a piece of paper pinned to it. It was designed by my good friend Sye. I am especially proud and love the cartoon style naviagation icons that change on mouse over at the top of the site that Sye did the art work for.

14. What do you like to do for leisure?
Write blog posts, obiously. Surf the web, read, TV, socialising, meals out, see friends, cinemas and films, allsorts really.

15. I’ve noticed you write a lot about gay rights. Why’s this so important for you?
I think it’s important to me as I know friends who have experienced homophobia. People I love and care about being isolated and mistreated because of their sexuality. I have experienced homophobia, but not to this degree. I also have read up on my history and know what it used to be like for gay people. No role models in society (on the TV, media, etc.), no rights (no recognition of gay relationships by the mainstream hetrosexual world), being mistreated by institutions (police raiding gay pubs, courts prosecuting gay people, homosexuality being treated as a mental health condition, etc.) and I never, ever want it to go back to how it has historically been. Right I’ll get off my soap box.

16. What’s your faviourate film?
Any Disney film. I was brought up on Disney. Probably the reason I’m single though, as I often want the ideal and can’t settle for less. I love rom-coms. The typical love story were boy meets girl, falls in love with girl and ends up with her in the end.

17. What’s your faviourate artist or band?
I’m werid. I like a whole mix of different music from cheesy pop, soft rock, a bit of r n b, opera, indie, everything really. I tend to like songs rather than artists. If that makes sense?

18. What’s your faviourate colour?
Yellow. The colour of the sun (am sooo a sun worshiper!), colour of intelect and creativity.

19. Who are you idols? Who inspires you?
My family and friends inspire me, you can read more on my blog post People that inspire me. But if your talking in the famous world you can find out on my blog posts Inspirational Icons and Inspired by Stephen Fry.

20. Is it true you have diabetes?
Yes. Type 1. Insulin dependant.

21. What’s your diabetes diagnosis story?
That’s a blog post that’s already written. It’s scheduled to publish January 2010 which will mark 3 years since my diagnosis of diabetes.

22. How’s the elearning going? (see Back to University)
I’m ok on one of the modules and the other one I’m slightly behind. I intend to play catch up this weekend. I couldn’t find the resources I needed to do the work. I’m still new to this style of learning and it’s taking some getting use too. But I have bought some new uni books.

23. You seem to post a lot about comedy. Why is comedy so important to you?
I think as Dame Edna would say “we all need to laugh, especially in this world…more than ever”. Comedy enables you to see things from a different perspective and not take things too seriously. I think we need that with all the negativity we are peddled by the media.

24. You seem to love books, what are you currently reading?
Several university text books.
Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend by Jenny Colgan
Wannabe a Writer? by Jane Wenham-jones
How to Create a Magical Home by Marie Bruce
Book by Whoopi Goldberg
So yeah a quite diverse selection of literature.

25.What star sign are you?
I’m a taurus (a bull). You can read more on my blog post As a Taurus….

Take care,

Antony

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Sunday 25 October 2009

My Writing Process – for some of my better blog posts

By ThinkingNo Comments

Recently I read about Stephen Fry’s writing process (see Inspired by Stephen Fry) and it got my thinking about my own writing process. Some of my better blog posts such as What makes a relationship work, Maintaining Motivation and Relaxation I consider to be well written. So here’s a description of my writing process, I hope the budding writers find it useful.

I currently have loads scaps of paper around the apartment with random blog titles on and idea’s for future posts. My inspiration firstly comes from my own experiences. Other than that I get ideas from listening to other people’s experiences (or reading other’s experiences on blogs), reading the News and generally anything else I come across on the World Wide Web. Sometimes I even type random words in to Google and see what search results appear.

I start by mind mapping what I aspects of the chosen subject I want to write about like below:


(Although it’s usually on the scraps of paper, rather than in Microsoft Paint)

Usually the ideas are in no particular order and need some rejiging in order for it all to make sense. I number the ideas in the order I need to discuss them to make the post flow logically, ensuring I have a Begining, Middle and End.

A begining is important as it needs to introduce what you are going to write about as well as the why, who, how and when. The middle is the section were you expand on your introduction and explain your points in detail. The end brings the post to a conclusion, sometimes summerising your thoughts and or feelings about the topic you’ve discussed so readers leave knowing what the point of your post was.

In terms of the actual writing of my posts I sit in my living room mostly unless I’m feeling particularly inspired to go in the office/guest room with the desktop computer and antique style desk. I usually always have a brew, usually in a big cup (it’s thirsty work). I tend to write in the evenings, after tea and after I’ve chilled out from the stress of the day – unless I intend to blog about my source of the stress of course, in which case the emotions are better when they are fresh. Occasionally I’ll have the Saturday or Sunday (all day and all evening) at home a bash a number of blog posts out and set them to schedule during the week or weeks ahead.

I always try to keep in mind my readers, mostly friends, family and some randomers that have managed to accidently find my blog and keep revisiting (so they must like what they read presumerly). Once a blog post is complete, I preview it and check for any missed words, mispelt words, etc, before hitting the publish/shedule for later button. My editing isn’t the best though and I’m sure from time to time you’ve seen words mispelt, the occassional missing words or worse. Please don’t tell me if you do spot them, I’d rather not know. Ignorance is bliss.

Now, I am not saying that all my blog posts are written using this process. If they all were, I’m sure it would be a much better quality read. But I do try and do a few a month like this to keep my writing readable and enjoyable for my readers. It’s nice to please readers but mainly I write for me. It helps my creative juices flow and I find it for some reason very theraputic.

Hope this helps any budding writers and explains my writing process,

Antony



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Saturday 10 October 2009
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