How often do you check your stats in WordPress?

Blogging is a whole thing. There are many good reasons why we blog. I tried one day to list them: Why do you blog?

When you blog, you have something in your brain that clicks when you read or hear things. Like an Instagrammer has an eye for it, your mind picks up ideas everywhere it can. So maybe it’s a way to be more… present, an acuteness.

There’s another thing: you publish, so you have to present it, to shape it, to frame it, whatever. It’ll be read (a little, I hope!), so you have to iron your shirt. And if you don’t, it’s also a style, right?

Then you have to find the balance between staying yourself in what you say and to please your audience. This balances a good structure to watch.

Bloggers/Writers : Let it rest!

Bloggers/Writers : Let it rest!

I read an interview of Arcadi Volodos, a pianist.

He says that when he works on a record, he makes it during the night. When it’s done, the tapes are abandoned for a few weeks.

Then he listens to them, weeks later, with a new ear. Sound montage, then? The less possible.

When you write on something, it must flow. The beginning is sometimes hard, but then, here you go! When it flows, it’s so good, right?

Si vous pataugez dans la semoule (if you “wade in semolina”), you get nowhere (fast or slow). Let it rest, then. Forget it. Write some else. Go for a walk (these times : around your room).

Drafts are gold. Forget about all of them. Let them rest. For weeks.

One day you open something, you…

1. wade in more
2. have a spark

 

I don’t know how it works. Maybe you have a new eye and you wonder how you could be stuck like that. Maybe it’s magic. Maybe your brain works alone when you sleep, haha. The reason why it works sometimes is a mystery, there you and me don’t care about it. So there.

 

Have fun!

https://afrenchtoolbox.wordpress.com/tag/writing/

QEHT : https://qeht.photo.blog/

Hello everyone!

I’m happy to present you my new blog, all about photography :

https://qeht.photo.blog/

It’s about “variations in photography”, the way I search for… the perfect way to show a place, something.

I invite you for a little visit. Have fun!

I’ll go on writing in this Frenchtoolbox blog, of course.

Writing forestalls us

I just found this concept in a book written by a singer, Dominique A. He writes his songs, and he knows what every writer knows : L’écriture nous devance…

Writing forestalls us

What you write becomes a text. This text knows things you don’t know. It’s ahead.

How does it work? Do you have an idea?

(Because it’s true, right?)

Prescience? Does the fact of writing activate something? Does the writing process use some parts of our brain who… know things?

Did it happen to you?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

Orson Welles knows how to blog :

from Instagram: https://ift.tt/2CWzH9M

Breton Quote : “Rebellion is the spark in the wind, seeking…

There’s this old wisdom coming from the past : no one can change the world, but I can change myself – or at least my way to see reality.

What does the blogger want? To share? To be loved? To change the world? To find out… why she blogs?

 

1. Why do you blog? The mess of motivation theories
2. Are Bloggers Proustians?

 

Some people probably blog to rebel. Not me obviously but I caught this idea because I found this little quote from Breton this morning :

“Rebellion is the spark in the wind, the spark who seeks the powder keg”.

“La rébellion est l’étincelle dans le vent, mais l’étincelle qui cherche la poudrière”.

 

Isn’t it a pretty metaphor? I’m personally not here to “rebel”, but (I just found this idiom) I probably wish that one day one of my articles finds the gunpowder keg.

But which one? What for ? To trigger something? To make someone change his mind? To get more followers?

 

Some bloggers are self-called influencers, and if they are massively followed, it’s because they fill a demand, right? Therefore they ARE influencers – as a bookseller, I see this phenomenon many times per month : a blogger (or YouTuber) writes a book, tells it, and immediatly you see hordes of obeying humans washing over…

 

A smol spark in the wind – la petite étincelle dans le vent?

What for?

To surf on waves and make big money?

To please the system?/To find the gunpowder?

To find the only one reader who will be changed?

Loop is looped – la boucle est bouclée : not to add mainstream ideas, but to offer little seeds, here, there, voilà.

 

Thansk for reading!

Art by Alister Lockhar

Blogging as Sowscattering Disorders

Well, it’s NOT about adding untidiness to the world – which is enough a mess.

But I ask myself about how to infiltrate a knowledge field, intellects and minds, to sow something, maybe to add seeds to this ground, to see what could blossom, what straight paths you could bend & twist… and then walk onto.

Thus it’s not about milestones, importance and revolutions.

Is it possible to think about this with the idea of blogging?

Imagine you want to blog about food, about fashion. You’d better be good at it, because there are always dozens of thousands of blogs about these. You could also, yes, infiltrate another domain… but with YOUR talents.You’re a food lover? Blog about programming (with your language).

Let’s pull strings :

1. Maybe you need to be original. Study a mega-niche, or a rare combination : “crossing Norway with my two cats to try restaurants”, or “purple winter dresses in South Dakota”.
2. Maybe you can arrange some concepts, put them together to create sparks, or to show an unexpected light… or to create monsters.
3. Invent a new machine from disparate tools and pieces.
4. Displace things and ideas, make them move, bend them.
5. Use an unappropriate discipline to study another. Study what’s in your plate as a colorist. Or bags trends with… what?
6. Focus on who are “positive nuisances”.
7. Find your own ideas studying something the wrong way.
8. Find empty boxes, find shortages, find imperfections. Then action.
9. Play. Look for processes. Twist them.
10. Take ideas, make’m jump on your own sieve.
11. Watch words. Jargon. Demolish. Or add squibs in it. Your squibs.
12. Accept drifts. Watch around.
13. Invent indeterminations. Use them randomly, unpredictably.
14. Make things proliferate. Explore. Play.
15. Make your readers wonder. Make your readers smile. Make your readers wanting to know more. Make your readers more curious.
16. Breathe. Watch appearances, meetings, plugs and unfoldings.

The point is multiple and unstable. Get your own ideas. Distribute seeds for who is able to see. Open new roads, and why not, get new followers!

Most advanced, yes acceptable.

Thanks for reading!

Finder Keeper Sharer, “What is my blog about?”

Unexpected Connections & Sparks Exchanges

ONE

Yesterday I thanked a retired man I always have good conversations with. Always curious and funny, we often have our ten minutes of jubilations, before quitting each other with a smile (and a few sparks around our heads).

You know, he replied, what we do is “Le commerce des idées” (ideas exchange) : I give you seeds and you give me seeds too.

It’s not only about sharing little ideas, but also ideas of books, movies, patterns, links (links and connections are great!). Some spirits like “the idea of getting ideas”. Exchange.

You are one of them, right?

In France we have this word, “commerce”, which means “business”, of course, and “trade”, and also “store”, but also, in a little old-fashioned way

“Madame de Sévigné conducted a vast exchange of letter” :
“Madame de Sévigné avait un grand commerce épitolaire”

TWO

While coffeing in my bed this morning I found this quote from a great French drama actor, Michel Bouquet :

“The public doesn’t come to watch you play, it comes to play with you”.

THREE – Mutually Beneficial

I hope/dream this blog acts this way for you my fellow readers!

Not only as a toolbox, a basket of gathered ideas and patterns, but also I wish it :

1. Gives you the desire to comment, interact, begin a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas.
2. Gives your brain a slight movement, a desire to know more, which could lead you to exploration. A map, an index, a little machine…

Thanks for reading!

Photo : Carl Mydans

Writing in another language – a repost

https://wp.me/p6yTGH-30u

A possible Machine-Manifesto for afrenchtoolbox

This is how I write :

https://wp.me/p6yTGH-75e

82 Propositions of Jodorowsky

 

You’ll find some… sounding like the traditional inspirational quotes. But some of them will disturb you, make you laugh, or find you in total disagreement. Why?

Each one could begin an article, right?

Obtain things in order to share them.

I like this one!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

• Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring, and doing.
• Always finish what you have begun.
• Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible.
• Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time.
• Develop your generosity ‒ but secretly.
• Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative.
• Organize what you have disorganized.
• Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift.
• Stop defining yourself.
• Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself.
• Help your neighbor, but do not make him dependent.
• Do not encourage others to imitate you.
• Make work plans and accomplish them.
• Do not take up too much space.
• Make no useless movements or sounds.
• If you lack faith, pretend to have it.
• Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities.
• Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession.
• Share fairly.
• Do not seduce.
• Sleep and eat only as much as necessary.
• Do not speak of your personal problems.
• Do not express judgment or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved.
• Do not establish useless friendships.
• Do not follow fashions.
• Do not sell yourself.
• Respect contracts you have signed.
• Be on time.
• Never envy the luck or success of anyone.
• Say no more than necessary.
• Do not think of the profits your work will engender.
• Never threaten anyone.
• Keep your promises.
• In any discussion, put yourself in the other person’s place.
• Admit that someone else may be superior to you.
• Do not eliminate, but transmute.
• Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire.
• Help others to help themselves.
• Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you.
• Do not react to what others say about you, whether praise or blame.
• Transform your pride into dignity.
• Transform your anger into creativity.
• Transform your greed into respect for beauty.
• Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other.
• Transform your hate into charity.
• Neither praise nor insult yourself.
• Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you.
• Do not complain.
• Develop your imagination.
• Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed.
• Pay for services performed for you.
• Do not proselytize your work or ideas.
• Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity.
• Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance.
• Never contradict; instead, be silent.
• Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately.
• If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly.
• When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it.
• Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them.
• Do not keep useless objects.
• Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas.
• Do not have your photograph taken with famous people.
• Justify yourself to no one, and keep your own counsel.
• Never define yourself by what you possess.
• Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change.
• Accept that nothing belongs to you.
• When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities.
• When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated.
• Look directly, and do not hide yourself.
• Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life.
• Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred.
• When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous.
• If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure.
• If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing.
• Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can.
• When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience.
• Live on money you have earned.
• Never brag about amorous adventures.
• Never glorify your weaknesses.
• Never visit someone only to pass the time.
• Obtain things in order to share them.
• If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too.

 

 

List of Sorts of Blog Articles

As I wrote some days ago a “too long, faltering, toomanyideas-ed article”, I trashed it, but found out that I could make a list. A list of “sorts of articles”.

I have to repeat this before : when you write daily, your brain is like “placing itself”, all alone, in another place. It can be a garden of your teenage years, a classroom, inside a car, on a beach, in a forest. Many people confirmed it to me. As for myself, I write all my articles from a porch in Santa Rosa. I see it, I feel it, I know the house next to it, I love the light, the wood, the grass, the flowers, the lamps, the mood, the sky. Everything I write in this blog were written from this place. I’ve never been there, though… It’s pure imagination.

 

What is your own list? Mine is :

• Quote
• Image(s)
• Report about something you saw (a concert, an event)
• Explanation of a concept you love (from years ago, or discovered in a book)
• How you’re fascinated by (another country, a music genre, etc)
• A memory
• Tips
• A rush of an intimate question
• Presenting & sharing something you know pretty well
• Exploring many ways to ask a question
• Presenting someone else’s work (a photographer, a poet)
• Complain
• A code
• Incitement
• A little of random things (chronicle)
• A little lecture
• Criticism
• A way to decorticate what happened to understand
• Presentation of an ideal
• Comparison
• Mapping a flaw
• Finding why
• Telling you found a good door
• Telling a struggle
• Trying to find out if it’s interesting for others
• A recipe

 

What would you have to map your blog? To divide in categories? To invent another blog? To focus on certain things? To cut others? To accept you’re constantly random? To accept your work has many facets?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

The 2 Products of a Blogger (and other artisans)

Hey, craftsperson! Hi!

You blog, right? (or you take pictures, you paint, you write poems, you invent things or concepts). Here’s a little patterntool from Paul Valéry for your pleasure :

1. Your article (and your past ones) can be considered as a state, a work which can be taken over, modified.
2. The product is your article, it stays, it’s independent : it makes sense for readers.
3. But the work of modeling, building and rebuilding has its own value.
4. The work you had to do reacted in you, changed you, and in a way invented another product, which is a more skillful and clever you.
5. You learn from what you write.
6. Feedback feeds the magician.
7. Your article is never really finished. You could make it better all the time, couldn’t you?
8. It could teach you something more, after all…
9. In a way, you learned so much working on it, that you could erase it completely and do it again. Better.
10. A craftsperson will be satisfied with his/her product when he/she learned enough from it.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

I’m much more interested in the work than in the product of the work

P. Valéry

 

 

 

#Blig #Blog #Blug : your doughy articles are maybe great, and vice versa

ONE

André Gide was in his seventies during the war; he explains in his diary that he was writing a weekly chronicle for a French newspaper, thus he HAD to write. As an experienced writer, he managed to do it, but he explains his surprise, because some articles were very slowly and painfully written, or some articles seemed absurd for him because terribly trivial & obvious. But he had to hand in his paper…

These two kinds, he says, were considered fabulous and the best of the best, etc, by the audience.

TWO

I read Bill Bruford‘s autobiography. He was the great drummer of Yes or King Crimson. He explains that some concerts were a mystery to him, because when the team on stage felt it was great and magic, it was obviously NOT the public’s opinion. And on the contrary, some lukewarm or boring performances triggered tears of joys and fantastic reviews in the newspaper the day tomorrow. So WTF…

THREE

You bloggers know this pattern by heart :

1. Some days you’re happy with an article, and you get just a couple of likes and no comments. Dang!
2. Some days, it’s very hard to finish, you’re slow, doughy and grey, and you get truckloads of emotion, congrats and joy and you feel like a hen who found panties.

FOUR : Why?

Obviously, because we don’t understand the effects what we do have on others – but I love to make it more Chinese :

Because we focus on “Why” and “How”. And we forget to imagine the “Where” and “When”. Mmhhh?

 

Conclusion : 

Write, write, and write. It’s an exercise, it’s good : maybe some people will hate it or like it, but who knows? Not you! If it triggers one idea in one head, it’s perfect. You’ll never know. Just work. Go on. You’re good!

 

Have a nice day!

 

Instagram : tissybrauen

Poiesis & Craftman’s Task : two seeds for bloggers (and others)

In philosophy, poiesis is :

“The activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before”.

So what?

In itself, nothing, but I sensed around it a possible source of tools.

Paul Valéry – a French poet – in 1937, used this word in a more precise way :

To study the conditions of the generation of a work of art.

Ain’t it interesting? There’s meta here, of course. And I love to blog about… how, when and why we blog.

 

On Wikipedia I found this intriguing thing :

Dreyfus and Dorrance Kelly urge each person to become a sort of “craftsman” whose responsibility it is to refine their faculty for poiesis in order to achieve existential meaning in their lives and to reconcile their bodies with whatever transcendence there is to be had in life itself:

“The task of the craftsman is not to generate the meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill for discerning the meanings that are already there.”

 

Ooohhh! Well, this could be one string of my harp, here, right? Seeking patterns and showing/sharing them is this.

 

Tools :

What do you think? Where is your “skill to discern meaning that are already there”? Do you use it? Why? What can it bring? Why is it interesting to study the way you work? Progress of course, but what else? Extension? Limitation? Effectiveness? Teaching it?

Thanks for reading!

 

Stand up Blogging : “What begins commands” & Lost Branches

There are many ways to blog. You can write a novel chapter by chapter, or you can “react” to news in the world, or comment fashion, or new trends in food. You’re good.

My article talks about bloggers who needs ideas and inspiration. This is what I try to do, and I like this way, because it puts your brain in alert. You glean…

Gleaning in loop : the “Gathering Seashells” Type

Finder Keeper Sharer, “What is my blog about?”

Blogger’s Words Horniness & consequences

You read a magazine, you talk with a friend, you got and email, you have a walk around the block, you bake, or you take a shower : Bim! (this is the sound of an idea coming to you).

Bim!

(The symbol is a bulb over your head, right?)

You hurry to sit in front of your computer. You click on “Write”, while your brain is already organizing things…

What begins commands. We all have our patterns, and when you start you more or less know where you’re going.

My tool here is :

Dial : Beware of “What begins commands”, because it’s too easy. You follow one path but :

1. you could lose branch points
2. you could ignore good bypasses
3. your steam can hide possibilities.

Lever : Stand up, for blog’s sake! Finish your article if you’re too excited, but at one point, don’t publish. Stand up. I mean for real! Stand up and go away. Open a window. Wash a cup and a fork. Pet a cat. Breathe.

 

 

Flaubert, the French author who wrote Madame Bovary, had “un gueuloir”, a “scream room”. He was walking and yelling his texts in this room. It’s crazy? Not that much. You’ll have to find your own way. Just do something else while you think about your article or your page. Maybe print it and take a pen. You’ll find ideas, “furthers”, new branches, words, style nuggets, inversions, interesting bypasses, etc.

OK, go back writing now, you fool 😅

Thanks for reading!

 

Essays & Acknowledgments (& Types)

I read much more essays than novels, therefore I read introductions, prefaces, and… acknowledgments. I read them, because the list – and the way the author presents the list – tells something.

There are Types :

1. The assistant (who helped to gather or organize informations)
2. The editor (who brought energy and I-believe-in-yous)
3. The colleague (who pointed out problems in the text or provided ideas for chapters)
4. The spouse (for his/her unfailing support)
5. The friend (who helped blossoming with his/her constant questions)
6. The friend (and his/her potential enthusiasm)
7. The influencer
8. The predecessor (“this essay takes over from…”)
9. The ignorant (towards whom (oh crap, is this even English?) the author had to explain, therefore helped to think “readers”)
10. The collaborator (who provided elements or parts of the essay)
11. The spellchecker (can be the friend or the spouse, ha)
12. The leader (who asked the author to write for a bigger project, for example)
13. The muse (just being him/her – radioactive influence)
14. The Obi Wan Kenobi figure (a master who can propel you with a single sentence)

 

Who else?

 

Do you have any of these for your… blog? Would you need one? Why?

 

Have a nice day!

 

 

All your blog articles are translated

Building words
It’s a strong energy

 

When you write a blog article, you use a combination of processes, which are all similar to translation.

• You have a confused “big picture” idea you need to put into an article
• You have a necklace of confused ideas you need to put into sentences
• You have the words and they go fast, you don’t type fast enough
• You are, while typing, parasitized by the process of shaping it
• While you write and shape, the critic into you judges what’s written
• All these are disturbed and jostled by new spurting ideas pushing in the back
• You have to link your paragraphs
• You have to check your spelling
• You have to work through your reasoning, from beginning to end

 

All these (and I forgot probably a dozen more) are a like a translation between your boiling brain AND the words you see dancing on your screen.

 A big part of writing is choosing…

Therefore what?

I don’t know!

What do you think? Do we need to be aware of that? What levers are available? What can we change? What for?

 

Have a nice day!

Instagram : ninoleone60

A thinktool for bloggers : Intertextuality (“the meaning of a text does not reside in the text”)

In this article I chose the French way, Barthes’ interpretation :

“An intertextual view of literature, as shown by Roland Barthes, supports the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process” (Wikipedia)

Barthes always attacked the notions of “stable meaning and unquestionable truth” : any text offers a plurality of meanings and is also weaved out of numerous already existing texts – Barthes probably hated being told to sit still!

Thus there are two types of readers :

1. Consumers who read the work for stable meaning
2. Readers who are productive in their reading

 

Worse (or better, depends on you) :

“It is language which speaks, not the author; to write is… to reach the point where only language acts, “performs”, and not “me””

plus :

“The author has the role of a compiler, or arranger, of pre-existent possibilities within the language system”.

 

OK, that’s enough. Here we are with a pattern which can be examined and played by bloggers :

1. Do you write to say your say, do you aim stable meaning, or do you wish your readers to be the second kind, the “producers”, who will take your ideas/tools and use them THEIR way?
2. Of COURSE you stole all your articles from others : books, magazines, articles, conversations. What did you do with this material? You simplified? You combined? You linked? You melted? What are the engines you use in your writer’s brain?
3. “It is language which speaks, not the author”, what does that mean? How (and why) would you try to reach that curious and magic state? Where’s the balance between your logic and your flow?
4. Do you draw maps? What stays opened in your articles? Do you “close” all of them at the end? Do you offer fishes, or ways of fishing?

 

“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
― Anton Chekhov

 

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : wjtk_o

 

“Sparkles and Garlands” : Drafts advices for bloggers

The drafts section on WordPress is something I love. It’s like a pile of useful drawers! I open them from time to time – and randomly – to :

1. Check what it is about (written a long time ago : I forgot)
2. Read over
3. Throw a few new seeds into it
4. Spill one or two sentences at the beginning, in it, or at the end
5. Begin a new part/paragraph
6. Pick up an extension, a branch : another article, therefore another draft, haha

 

Sometimes I forgot so much what it was about that I “reckon without” (dang : how to use this “reckon” verb?), and I trash the draft. Because a draft can be a title only, right?

In all “Advices for bloggers”, there’s this : << Write, write, and write >>. My advice here is : Draft, draft and draft again. I have more than 150.

Never be afraid to stupid-draft. Seeds are good, even if they growbecome into quirkytrees…

 

I do think that those who write (a blog or a book) have to exercise daily. So this is what I do : my bed is surrounded with books and magazines (and papered letters, these days). Every morning, before, while and after I coffee, I grab anything (made of paper) around, I gather two or three seeds until I can’t wait to sit in front of my computer.

If there’s nothing found, grab else, or go outside to breathe some air. Maybe it’ll come (and you could see the moon or hear the bird).

 

Oftentimes (oohhh that’s a word?), I create two or three new drafts. A title is enough sometimes (today : “Golem”). I likely spill one or two phrases into them. Then I let the windows opened : they are like little flowerpots.

Later when I kitchen or bathroom, I get sparkles and garlands which complete my pots. It’s likely that they become a couple of published articles during the day. Swell!

 

OK, I don’t know how to use the words likely, and reckon (without sounding Texan). And I use to spill too much. Sorry.

 

You can also read :

The Art of “Pause with Seeds”

 

Thanks for reading! Write well!