Feedly as a Reader replacement

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Last week I blogged about the move by Google to ditch Google Reader. I explained how I was looking for an alternative, and I was trialling Feedly, both on a desktop computer and on my Android phone. One of the reasons I chose Feedly was because it works as an extension through Chrome, whereas some of the other readers I looked at either charged a fee for a certain number of subscriptions, or others required you to download software and run the feeder through your machine. I access RSS readers on various machines, as well as my phone, so I needed something that worked across several platforms. In addition, Feedly allows you to log in to your Google Reader account so all of your subscriptions are already there, waiting for you to browse. I subscribe to over 200 blogs so any service which doesn't allow me to import those (Skimr had real problems with that) is already onto a losing wicket.

At first, I hated it. Feedly seems to prefer to display content by the date posted, assuming that you come back and read all of your outstanding posts on a daily basis. I prefer Google Reader's layout, letting you scroll by title and then browsing the titles of unread posts within each blog. I don't always get the chance to read every day, so a time-orientated layout is never going to suit me.

However, I decided to persevere, and I spent a little time during the week tinkering with my settings through the desktop version (these changes sync with the app version so whatever I do on my computer is reflected on my phone). I've set up categories, and dragged each blog I subscribe to into one of them, meaning I can quickly browse just those blogs related to writing, or history, or design etc., depending on what I want to read at the time. Even better, I could never read those blogs I subscribe to through Blogger in the Reader on my phone, but Feedly makes it easier to add them to my existing categories, meaning I can now read them on my phone too. Just this one little change has really affected how much I use Feedly.

I now find myself checking Feedly more often, and reading more posts that I did. Its inclusion of thumbnails with each post title makes it far more visually appealing than Google Reader ever was, and while nothing can top Google Reader for raw efficiency, Feedly is certainly impressing me enough that I have no real need to try any of the other readers.

Has anyone else given Feedly a go?

Goodbye Google Reader

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I was more than a little surprised when I logged into Google Reader on Thursday to be confronted with a message that the service would be closing in July, apparently due to a "lack of use". I haven't been keeping up with things so hadn't heard rumblings of this, but apparently it's been slated for a while.

It's been a pain trying to find a viable alternative - I'm currently testing out Feedly because it lets you keep ALL of your Google subscriptions (something Skimr had problems with) but I don't like its layout compared to Google Reader. I subscribe to over 200 blogs and it can be a nightmare trying to keep up with everything when posts are listed by the day they were posted, not by blog title (unless there's a way to change the setting that I haven't found yet).

But I never really considered it as being any more of a problem than that until I read a Problogger post on the subject. As they point out, many people visit blogs by using readers, so will a lack of a viable reader cause a downturn in blog traffic?

I never really look at my analytics, but I checked for March so far, and it turns out that none of the referring sources for my blog visits came from Google Reader. It was mostly tweeted links, Facebook posts via networkedblogs or Google+. A couple of visits came via Google searches but while the analytics tell me that I have subscribers, they don't visit the blog - perhaps they just read the posts in the Reader. So how will those readers access my content after Reader closes?

I like Google, I do, and while I don't miss Google Wave or Feedburner, I will miss Google Reader because of its efficiency and ability to get the job done. Will Feedly be able to take its place? Only time will tell!

What readers, if any, do you use?

Help Needed: Blogging

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I don't often talk about my day job on here, and to be honest, I'm not about to start now. However, I've been tasked with delivering a masterclass session about blogging for those foundation degree students who need to set up and produce a blog throughout their time here. I'm doing it because, being a writer with an active social media presence, I'm deemed to know what I'm talking about. OK, so a lot of my experience has come within blogging as a writer, not a designer, but the skills are transferable.

BUT. It's difficult to remember what it was like when I set up my first Blogger blog back in 2009 (first ever post is here), and a lot of what I know has been steadily accrued over that time. I've covered the likes of use of images (and copyright) and how to find blogs to follow, as well as drive traffic to your blog, but what I want to know is...

• Have you got any specific questions about blogging that you want addressed?
• What do you wish you'd known when you first got started?
• What do you worry you're doing wrong?
• What advice would you give to a new blogger?

Any answers will be helpful, just to make sure I give the students everything they need to start blogging and, more importantly, enjoy it!

Why I just had to delete a post on my blog

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Earlier today I posted a blog post about an io9 piece about Stephen King. After having a little rant about it, I had it pointed out to me that the piece had been cribbed from another interview, and basically made Stephen King look like he was making up rules for time travel. It turns out the rules are simply for his new book, 11/22/63, and that the rules are valid within the context of said book.

I felt a bit silly for having a rant about something that turned out to not be valid, so I did actually rewrite my post to reflect this new change, by referring to io9's words and not Stephen King's. Unfortunately, I did it on my phone and for some reason the new post screwed up my blog layout. I had to delete the old post to get my sidebar back. (Don't you love Internet coding?) However, I didn't want anyone to think I'd taken it down for any other reason, hence this post.

So I fully apologise to Stephen King, though I doubt he'd have read my random little rant and I DID actually agree with one of his points, but unfortunately I can't edit blog posts from my phone without things going wrong. And I WILL be reading 11/22/63 because despite my misgivings, it does sound quite good.

Blog Awards

Tweet The very super Gracie Motley has been kind enough to give me these two awards, and it's now my duty to follow the rules and pass them on to others! Unfortunately I can't give them back to her, which is a shame as she's lovely, but I shall endeavour to do my best.

The Versatile Blogger Award rules:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Pass the award to fifteen bloggers you think deserve it.
4. Contact each of the bloggers you chose.





Seven Things About Icy
1. Other girls like fairies or unicorns, but I have wanted a pet griffin since I was little.
2. One of the first things I remember writing was a mock newspaper article about the great flood that swept away the original Tyne Bridge. This is notable because I typed it up on a BBC computer, using the font 'Jupiter' for the headline.
3. I studied art when I was in my late teens, and one of my final projects was a giant 8ft painting of Homer posing as Michelangelo's David, albeit holding a 'Censored' sign over his family jewels.
4. I have a penchant for steel-boned corsets, and feel nostalgic for the days when people still considered good posture to be important.
5. Starting my web serial was a complete accident, kickstarted by my posting a flash fiction that prompted people to ask what happened next. Up until nineteen episodes in, I still had no idea how it would end.
6. When I get stressed or angry, I calm myself down by doing mental arithmetic. Something about numbers is very soothing to me.
7. I assign moods and colours to strange things - to me, Tuesday afternoon is an autumnal orangey-brown and feels very melancholy.

Now for the One Lovely Blog Award rules:

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.




There are a lot of bloggers I'd like to give them to but it seems Gracie beat me to it... So if your name isn't here but you've recently received an award from someone else, that's why I haven't named you - you don't want the same award twice, surely? To avoid claims of favouritism, they're also listed in alphabetical order.

1. Adam Byatt of A Fullness in Brevity
2. Benjamin Solah, Marxist Horror Writer
3. Brian at The New Author
4. Carrie Clevenger of Mindspeak
5. Cathy Olliffe
6. Chloe Kovac at Randomitronica
7. Eisley Jacobs
8. Emma Newman
9. Jo Finlay of Zombie Cupcake
10. Jodi Cleghorn
11. Leslie R. Lee
12. Pamila Payne at The Bella Vista Motel
13. Sam Adamson of Future; Nostalgic
14. Sophie Bowley-Aicken
15. Writer's Block NZ

First Guest Post!

Tweet I'm rather chuffed today...my first guest blog post has been published!! You can find my post, on using five photographic techniques to improve your writing, over at Write Anything (which is a blog you should be reading anyway - while you're at it, you can follow @wawriters on Twitter).

I've been doing a lot of work in planning things for my blog and my website (I launched the re-design of the site at the weekend) and I'm going to try and post more focussed entries. So I'll continue to write about writing, and I'll certainly be posting more fiction, but I want to still write my posts about art or film. After the positive reception to my entry about Bunhill Fields, I also want to do more historical posts.

If there's anything you'd like me to cover, or even anything you'd like to contribute yourself, feel free to drop me a comment, or send me an email by clicking the 'Contact' button in the navigation bar.

In the meantime, how about heading over to WebUrbanist to check out their article on the abandoned mental hospital at Hellingsley? It ties in nicely with my post about Shutter Island...

Cool Things To See And Do!

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Ever since I got into the blogging 'thing', I've found I really enjoy it. I enjoy writing my own posts, both here and for my fiction serial, Tales from Vertigo City, but I also really enjoy reading other blogs. My Google Reader is full of blogs, from those on writing and blogging, to graphic design, to photography, comics and knitting.

So, to make a change from my usual posts, here are nine of the best posts I've read today!

Blogging
The Massive List of Ideas for Blog Posts - Marelisa's Abundance Blog

How To Build Your Blog - Elana Johnson

5 Techniques And 10 Tools For Making Blogging Easier - Boagworld

Writing
The Secret Strength of Killer Queries: Specificity - Nathan Bransford

What is Structural Editing? - Jodi Cleghorn on Write Anything

What is your pen personality? - Fuel Your Writing

Cool Stuff
The Greatest Spiral Staircase Ever - Craziest Gadgets

Steampunk tattoos - WebUrbanist

Zombie Samurai Transformer - Io9

I also urge you to go and visit the blogs of my fellow Below The Foldians - links to the right!!

Creativity game

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There seem to be posts on creativity all over the blogosphere at the moment, two of the best being Melissa Donovan's post over at Writing Forward and Mary Jaksch's post at Write to Done. I remember one person saying that you couldn't describe yourself as 'creative' unless you did anything deemed to be such, since creativity is an action. That being said, I decided I'd share a little game I devised the other day whilst sat on the tube to try and spark your creativity. It can be done on most forms of public transport, and trying to be furtive is good practice should you ever decide to become a spy.

If someone is reading the newspaper beside you, take a sneaky peek over their shoulder at the headlines. Quite a lot of people assume it's alright to read a broadsheet on a crowded train so this shouldn't be too difficult. Try combining two different headlines from the same page to come up with a plot line. Take a look at the person with the newspaper and try to work out just why a particular story might mean something to them. If the headline is about a security leak at government level, perhaps your newspaper neighbour is the staff member who left a laptop on the train? Or maybe they're the person who bought it for their own nefarious ends!

I love to read the newspapers to get ideas for plots! Truth is often stranger than fiction and one of my favourite things to do is to scan the 'for sale' ads, and then try to work out exactly why the owner wants to part with the item they're selling. Just today, I saw adverts offering a 'slightly used' wedding dress, an antique set of drawers, and a job lot of men's shoes. Why were they for sale? Even more importantly, what sort of person would buy them? Read a little further, and even the obituaries can give great story ideas, if you don't mind being a little morbid. If your newspaper has a science section, or a "strange but true" column, give that a read too. You never know what inspirational nuggets may lurk therein.

Further ways to use the news in your writing can be found at Melissa's post here. Recommended reading! Plus, if you're suffering from writer's block, then try Mark McGuinness' post at Lateral Action. They're currently running a series on removing creative blocks.

Now go forth and start scanning those newspapers! What weird and wonderful things can you find?

Go read, now!

Tweet I don't normally like to "big up" other things, unless I'm reviewing a book I've found particularly helpful, or a web magazine that I think others might like, but I did stumble across a new blog that I wanted to tell people about.

To start with, I subscribe to Chris Guillebeau's blog, which is essential reading for anyone who wants to make a living in a way that suits them (particularly artists). After all, it's the dream of most creative people to make a living doing what they enjoy, or what they're good at, and in an age where a lot of people seem to work in offices doing jobs that seem not to matter a great deal, it's a good way to approach things. Anyway, through Chris' blog, I came across Zoë Westhof's blog. I've been reading back through her old posts, and I'm particularly interested in planning my own "creative mini retreat", since one of the biggest bugbears when it comes to writing is fitting it in. If you're interested in writing yourself, take a look.

On a slightly sillier note, I've now added a Twitter feed to my website. You're so lucky, you get to read all the drivel I come out with during an average day...