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Posts Tagged ‘stories’

It Takes a Village…

Monday, September 7th, 2009

There’s an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. In a lot of ways, this is true of writers as well. More on that in a moment.

It’s that time of year again…colleges and schools everywhere are starting back up. It’s time to get back to studying, or getting your kids ready for school, or simply enjoying the fact that you are no longer bound to being in classes anymore. The village–the folks here at WritAnon, the parents, the bus drivers, the teachers, the coaches, and, of course, the other students–is ready to help students (and writers!) grow through another school year.

After a summer of rest (or working jobs, depending on your stage of life), hundreds of thousands of students are back at class. While some may see this as a time of dread, this is really an opportunity for a new beginning. You can build your own community to help improve your writing…and you can also join ours if you’re not already a member.

Back To School by busymommy

Back To School by busymommy

College campuses and high schools are full of people who enjoy writing, so if you are in either of these places, please feel free to pass along a link to WritAnon to people you think might be interested. If your school has bulletin boards up to spread information among students (most colleges do), please consider posting up a flyer.

Back to the title of this blog entry, why do I say that it takes a village to raise a writer? Most feel that writing is a solitary endeavor…and in many ways, it is. However, many writers will find value in having several trusted people to:

  • help critique a work
  • point out what is done well
  • notice when a writer’s style has improved
  • give suggestions for improvement when opportunities arise.

This is exactly the type of community that we have built here at WritAnon.

All of us here at WritAnon share at least one goal–to continuously become better writers. This isn’t a single destination point, but is instead a journey. As many writers will agree, the destination isn’t what’s important…it’s the journey on how to get there.

This time of year brings plenty of opportunities for observant writers to advance their skill–going back to school is the perfect time to share some of your favorite stories with friends, and to write down some of the humorous things that happened to you or your friends.

Writers may also find this a good time to write about the feelings experienced during a life change (and going to school counts, especially if you’ve been out of the school environment for a while).  Some of these emotions may be:  stress, nervousness, excitement, and joy (to see old friends again).

Writing opportunities:

All of these emotions are ripe opportunities for exploring through your writing.  Take a few moments to try to capture some of the emotions you feel about going back to school. Are you returning after living in the “real world” for a long while? Are you looking forward to seeing friends that you haven’t seen all summer? What excites you about returning to school?

Not going back to school?  That’s fine, we have some activities for you too.  What’s your favorite story about going back to school?  Do you have kids?  What about the emotions you go through as a parent?

Feel free to write up a response and post it in the forums. You may be surprised at what feedback you get!

An Interface Should Make You Happy

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

An interface should make you happy.  This actually generalizes to any tool: a tool should not just do the job it is meant to do–a tool should also be a joy to use.

For those who are not computer-savvy, an interface is a fancy way of describing your interaction with a computer.  In the case of WritAnon, the interface between you and the computers that WritAnon is hosted on is the WritAnon website.  In other words, you can think of WritAnon’s website as an interface.

When I hold a hammer in my hand, I sometimes marvel at its simplicity–the best hammers have a comfortable grip, one end for driving nails into wood, and another end for removing them.  I can pick up any hammer, and use it to accomplish the task at hand (assuming, of course, that the task at hand requires a hammer).  The simplicity of a hammer makes me happy.

A book, similarly, is another well designed tool.  I can pick up any book, and, assuming I know the language, sit down and start reading.  The cover helps protect the contents of the book from the elements, and every book in the same language works the same way.  An aside:  This is in reference to books written in languages that read from right to left, such as Arabic, instead of English, which is read from left to right. The simplicity of a book makes me happy.

In order to improve a website (or story or other tool that needs to improve), you need to take some time and identify:

  • what you’re unhappy with, and
  • why it makes you unhappy

Often, you will find that you’re unhappy with the simplicity of your solution–you just feel like it shouldn’t be that hard.

When I first released WritAnon on the world, I felt there was something just a little off about the interface.  For those who are new, or may not quite remember the original interface, the site layout looked something like this:

Original WritAnon Layout

As a craftsman, I’m particular about the way that my creations look. The colors were fine, but the layout felt old and overly intrusive.  The purple sidebar took up too much space, leaving less room for what you want to read…the blog posts.  Frankly, the original layout was also difficult to maintain, using tables and lots of other website hacks that I’m not quite so proud of.

When I first learned HTML, the sidebar on the left was the method of choice for most sites–you always knew where to look.  There are still thousands (millions?) of sites continuing to use this layout, and there’s no real reason for them not to–it’s an accepted convention, and it works.

However, I’ve always felt that the sidebar navigation is a waste of space…when you get down below the main menus, the space seems to serve no purpose, and could be much better used with additional content.

Every time I used the site, something about the layout nagged at me.  I finally decided on Thursday morning that the WritAnon layout needed to change.  I was tired of being bothered by the interface–I wasn’t sure exactly what about it made me unhappy, but it had been bothering me for weeks.

At some point, you have to understand the tradeoff between the time it will take to improve an aspect of a website, and balance that against the amount of bother you will have if you don’t fix it.  When it comes to building something, whether it’s a website, a cabinet, or a bookshelf, you’re likely to be with the item for a long period of time (at least, someone is).   When this is true, even a small amount of bother can build up over time–because of this, redesigning the WritAnon site layout made a lot of sense.

So, when I redesigned the layout of the site, I had two primary goals:

  1. Eliminate the sidebar.
  2. Maintain a simple, easy to use interface that keeps focus on the content.

The main challenge I had was the use of the sub-menus for each option.  In the sidebar, this is intuitive–you simply tab over your submenu option, and you’ve now visually grouped your menus and submenus.

I decided to solve this problem by including the submenus underneath the main options.  This seemed reasonably intuitive, and, from the discussions I’ve had with others so far, it sounds like it is.

After a few hours of work, I was finally satisfied with the layout.  Now, instead of the nagging feeling each time I used the interface, I feel happy. With luck, you also feel a little happier each time you click on something here at WritAnon.  The simplicity of the new WritAnon layout makes me happy.

When editing your work, look for things that nag at you…something that feels a little off.  If you leave these details, no matter how small, you will always be bothered by the fact you didn’t take the time to fix it–even if you weren’t sure exactly what the problem was.  Like a well designed tool, whenever you look at something you’ve worked on, it should always make you happy.

A quick musical interlude before the site updates:


Bobby McFerrin – Don’t Worry Be Happy
Uploaded by jpdc11. – Watch more music videos, in HD!

Always strive to be pleased with your own work. Don’t be afraid to be too critical of any aspect–by being critical, you can focus on what needs to be improved, and, with any luck, result in a better, stronger story or article.

Site updates this week:

  • The site layout has been revamped (in case that wasn’t clear in the blog entry above)
  • New featured inspirational story by William Marmont:  Writer’s Block and Ways Around It
  • New Stories section, featuring some stories written by the WritAnon team.  New stories will be added soon, so check back for more!
  • Changed Twitter and Reddit links in the blog, inspirational, and story areas to use icons from those sites.
  • Facebook comments are now an option for all inspirational stories and for all stories in the new section.
  • Additional featured items are now available in the WritAnon Store!

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