In consequence we read about all sorts of ways to make what you're doing more visible: links, and social networking, and using advertising, and you name it. Every expert and his brother is telling us how to let the world know that we have a place on the Net.

And I've tried many of these techniques, with more or less success.

Then it occurred to me that there's one way I haven't explored before: telling people about what I write by writing about it - on this site. Seems too simple an idea, but it worth a try!

Blowing the Trumpet

Okay, I'm not one of those people who enjoys blowing their own trumpet, but the problem with being an artist or a writer or any kind of creative person is that it's hard to get the world to pay attention to you, and self-promotion sometimes has to be the prime approach to changing that.

So, what do I write?

My oldest site is called Mike Crowl s Scribble Pad. It's a bit of a grab-bag of items, and is the place where I first made attempts to give my writing greater exposure. On it you can find a few of the 260 or so columns I wrote for a local paper. These were on every topic under the sun - literally. There are book and film reviews, but they're getting a little dated, so I wouldn't bother too much with them.

There's some of my poetry (and a few poems from other people too), a few short stories and an essay which won a prize many years ago. There's even the first blog I wrote. In those days you had to write it on Blogger, if I remember rightly, and then transfer it over to your own site. A complex proceeding.

My Main Blog

My main blog was also called Mike Crowl's Scribble Pad at first, but in due course it became Mike Crowl s Random Notes. It's been running since 2005. Initially I used it to post the quotations I'd collected over a long period of time, but after a short time I began writing about things related to the Arts: movies, music, painting, writing and so on. The focus was increasingly on New Zealand artists for a time but recently it's changed again, and now (wait for it!) is a blog where I focus more on what I'm doing as an artist: what I'm writing, what I'm composing and so on. It must be the year for blowing my own trumpet.

While I was out of work in late 2006 early 2007 I began two more blogs, on a site called Orble.com. The first of these is now called WorkReport, though that isn't what it started out life as. Initially it looked at the trials and woes of trying to find a job (I'd resigned from a longstanding managerial role in August 2006), but now the blog's leaning towards things green. (I now have a different job, so that issue isn't so important to me.)

The other blog on Orble is called Webitz. Webitz has managed to stick with its original focus - for the most part. This was to give an amateur's point of view of things on the Web. It varies enormously in topic, because the Web (as I said at the beginning) is hugely varied. There have been some interesting posts on widely-ranging subjects.

Is that enough for you?

Just recently I revived a blog I'd begun more than a year ago. This is called Mike of All Trades, and relates to the bookselling I do online. I'd started this up when I was out of work, and have continued doing it ever since. The sales aren't big time, by any means, but the books do keep selling.

Apart from all these, I kept a travel diary blog while I was overseas with my wife last year. We went to visit her family, and friends, in the UK and on the Continent for nearly six months. Our ups and downs are still online, and I go back and read about what we did every so often. It's amazing what you forget.

So there we go. I'm not going to worry you with the other blogs I work on: a family one, and one that relates to my work. I think I've given you enough to choose from already.

Happy reading - and hope you find me!

Funny sentences I have seen other people make:

• A rich wicked beaver can touch about pretty tough.
• I angrily raged at the cat.
• Revolution can touch beneath a pretty woman's grave
• No music whispers to every crazy artist.
• We begged ourselves for this.
• These artist can't hate.
• Gentler quicker faster crueller better.
• Amazingly beautiful & really raged queen safely danced on hot sun singing until having a wicked evil dream about bottling smoking water & relaxing.
• Pretty monkey pirate.
• I was wondering how to look high but be fully psychedelic any day now.
• First bitter lake.
• Newly naked tree.
• Raving drunk sky.
• Quiet ninja mountain.
• I say what good's revolution.

Sentences I have made myself (often with other peoples input):

I feel so crazy I can touch a beavers dream.
The evil monkey danced to silly singing ninja.
I spun people by letting fish drive my best motorcycle naked & smoking grass.
I taste so beautiful.
The rich never welcome amazingly wicked cloud glitter.
Crazy sky artist.
We must howl loud because tree is always losing peace.
She laid army wounds.
I can move bad oceans.
Who would do me or jump that icicle.
Hero lying angry after each use.
A very tough dawn went before your other smelly dog.
You walked off fearing old sheep except car is from cat.
The time's so empty.
A woman begged our llama for this.
Crazy llama war.

So, I set out to do some research and come up with a simple guide to making the Digg social networking site work for you. The whole object of the exercise is to get your favourite stories, articles, photos and videos noticed and viewed.

First set up your account and remember to use a name that is easily remembered and a logo that stands out. If you don't want to use your picture, choose something bright and as unique as possible without being too fussy. This is the first thing that attracts readers to your account and your list of stories. It's a bit like window shopping, you look around and something catches your eye. Think carefully about a logo before you decide which to use.

Before you start adding your own stories go to the "upcoming section" (click the tab on the home page.) Read the stories that catch your eye and leave a comment. Add lots of friends and give them the thumbs up. Just one caution here, Digg restricts the speed at which you can add friends and if you add too many (five seems to be the limit) in quick succession you may find that the system doesn't accept any more. Wait 10 minutes if this happens and start again.

Digg new stories added by your friends on a regular basis and most of them will return the favour.

Keep an eye on the 'see who befriended you' section and "friend" them back. This builds your list of friends and as you Digg their stories and articles, they will do the same for you. If someone Diggs an article of yours, return the favour to keep them coming back.

Then add a couple of articles of your own just to see how many Diggs you get. If you get less than ten you need to keep building your list of friends from the "up and coming" section as described above. Take care not to add too many of your own articles or you may get accused of spamming and find yourself banned from the site.

Getting well established Digg members with more clout to befriend you and Digg your stuff is very helpful because one Digg from them might be worth ten or more of anyone else's. Members who Digg successful stories have more influence. There is a hierarchy here and established members have more say. A couple of these could make all the difference between having just a couple of Diggs and reaching the front page where you have the potential of hundreds of thousands of readers. (My Coke and Aspirin Articles both hit Digg's front page and did exceptionally well. It was worth all the effort to get them there. So I know it can be done.)

As you look around on Digg try to comment on stories that you think will hit the front page as this gets your name right out there and increases the chance of getting new friends with clout (as explained earlier.)

It isn't rocket science, although some would have us believe that there is some kind of special knowledge needed to do well here. You just need time and patience. Do a bit of building at a time and you will succeed.

No doubt there are various tricks and tips that will help improve the popularity of your articles on Digg. If you know any of these please share them with the rest of us in the comments box below.

I pondered on this passage for a while the other day and I suddenly realized that I been caught in a trap! But a beautiful trap!

I truly believe that I'm in love with the idea of being captured in this snare, a spellbinding web in which it sustains me…with wondrous Dreams, Music, Art, Words, and Happy Thoughts ….. All Passions of My Heart!

On any given day I may take a solitary walk down a winding way lost in the countryside of Tuscany. Once there I am enamored by the lovely beauty of a warm golden field of sunflowers dancing in the breeze to Luciano's Nessun Dorma! I may even get inspired to write an Italian poem from the arresting experience.

Girasoli, Fiori Blu

Nessun dorma, senza tu..

Or may be wandering along the beautiful and enthralling pastoral valley of Wiltshire and be arrested in the beauty of Stourheads enchanted eighteenth century garden with its secret grotto lined in flint and volcanic Italian rock sheltering the statue of the sleeping nymph while water cascades over her mossy slumber bed.

And then the next night I may just slip back in time and become drunk of cuoreblu listening to Ashrams intoxicating violins playing a haunting melody of ancient echoes and somehow mysteriously without intention find myself in old Victorian England in the haunting mansion of “The Innocents”. The one and only best film adaptation of the novel by Henry James ~ “The Turn of the Screw”. It has to be the one movie I had seen as a child that I never really ever gotten out of my mind and has in reality haunted me to this day for there is always that imminent thought: “someone could be watching me through the window” an habitual reaction to drawing in the curtains when night falls. Definitely it is without a doubt, the scariest psychological ghost story I have ever come to meet.

I read once that a home was a mirror of the family's happiness and virtue; a place to which one could escape the harsh, demanding and perilous world outside. And so I, along with many others have now found shelter and security in our blissful home. In a way our Dear Victoria has captured are fancy all over again; the Bliss of Home!

I have always longed for the old limestone home filled to the brim with antiquities, not necessarily costly but old and worn by others, my connectors to the past. To have a room with a view of infinite wildflower fields joined by the sea and pass the mornings and nights and all the in-betweens.

But my dreams of the old home in far off seclusion overlooking the sea never did materialize, although most importantly I was blessed with a lovely family and home. My home, my castle in all its imperfections… it is my safe haven. The place from where I view the world.

My journey embarks from the private room of my studio! A place to me far removed from the outside world and yet at a touch of a key I am somewhere distant from the physical place which I call home. In the comfort of my chair I see the world in virtual reality; and meet friends from places I dreamed I would visit someday.

Obviously there are dreadful sites out there but you have the choice. Most times I come away with an exhilarating feeling of fulfillment and contentment. It is really in all essence the poor man's way of living life extravagantly without the means!

Like anything that is pleasurable can become addictive. There has to be a happy medium to everything one does or else it can take hold and suck the life right out of you! Gaming, dating, music, food, art, nature, literature, travel are all but a few of people's addictions or are they?

In retrospect we have always loved many of these things; its part of life and the web is an extension of our environment. It makes it easier and more accessible to information and communication than ever before. In seconds we have what we were probably looking for some time if not for years before the internet evolution. Many have found their ancestors and their secrets for better or for worse…ha! I found out recently that I have a younger American brother….So I guess I have connections in the States as well as Italy and Argentina and Australia and Germany to name a few of my gypsy family roots!!!

The information that is available to us is beyond ones understanding of the scale it extends; its infinitive!

Upon reflection, when I surf, I actually enter into another world; a world of dream and inspiration, of beauty and of loss. At times I find I get completely compelled, lost and mesmerized with a site and If my husband or kids call out to me I may be inclined to have not heard them consciously, thinking that it must be someone calling their kid outside until enough times the blaring of my name will sound out and I'll snap out of it and come back to ground zero…ha-ha….still a child at heart! But I know my limit and when the laundry piles up or dishes and the beds aren't made or that I want everything in the world; that in its self is an obvious indicator that I'm spending way too much time on the keyboard and looking glass.

As a child born under the cosmic sign of Pisces I have always been prone to being a bit of a Romantic, actually rather an extreme incurable one to be more precise in describing my nature. I can't stop favoring so many of the Flickr pictures that I come across but that is due to my leaning to art,mosaic,creations of sorts! Regrettably, I'm a terrible photographer and subject and ultimately haven't learned the art form. So I reside on others art and take in their beauty to create a magic tapestry, a crazy quilt, a memory collage or simply just a Flickr mosaic of life!

Back some 45 years ago you would have found me in a vast white field of daisies over looking the sea; busily lost picking all that I could see, not knowing when to end my gatherings while my mother was calling out to me to come, if that would ever happened! I always was one to be captivated by the beauty of nature and the work of man. Such things I came to learn weren't worth importance to my evolution of successful maturity although now I can afford the luxury of such retreats. But I must say these so called unimportant values in a sense make the fabric of a person and who they become.

And so when you see a sunset that takes your breath away or a moment in time you have never felt before, take heed and observe in the silence the beauty that surrounds you. Pull out that camera you just bought and make the memories that sweet dreams are made of and upload them to any of the numeral sites that are available to you to use for free like ; Flickr, Webshots, Picasa just to name a few. And if your hearts desire is to view old film stars and songs of the past check out Muirmaiden on Youtube.

Bear in mind life is yours for a very short time and one should live life to its fullest. I have taken that aphorism and am living by it.

For a moment I get to live in some else's red slippers and see what it would be like having and owning the things I dreamed of having but in the end my heart belongs within the visually imperfect home to the richest home one could ever dream of having. The family and their home is where the heart takes rest and views the web of the world. I may be caught in the web but for only short periods of time, for I know that it is another ones life out there I view and that mine rests here in the real passions of my heart!

Affairs of my heart... I've fallen under your magical spells
Pinned to my spirit with brooches of jewels and of shells
I love all that is and all that shall be
Imparted upon this restless, unreeling happiest heart that is me

Words floating on air, sparkling and luminous… as pretty as a golden -haired lass
Encrusted with the twinkle and glitter of mica, crystal and glass
Love, dreams…imagine and wish to Believe, maybe a little naïve… do I Dare?
Fairies and mermaids do really live here!
With flowers and lace entwined in their wavy long radiant hair!


Darkness descending within this old house; winter is here!
Spirits of the night come to me near
Come close; be still, while I in joyous pulse write… by the candle's vanishing light
As snowflakes outside softly drift down to the silence of the night


The hearth burns a jolly fiery glow and warmly gives call
Whilst twilight quietly fades into the rosewood hall
And the music takes note; embarks on its journey twisting and winding in graceful flow… in its gothic delicate dance ….

And then begins the faint echo of the weeping and strange violins.



Summer's wildflowers now have all gone with the wintry chill
But the tuberose, slender and tall keeps company with the curious cat precariously poised on the sill
Intoxicating in its sweet-smelling and heady perfume
I'm lulled into a false state of sleep under the broom

The owl patiently sits on the wood of the very old oak that resides in the little country courtyard
Above hangs a plump milky white moon in a sea of twinkling stars that keep him on much heedful guard
Books… threadbare and olden; keepers of lyrical words;
Senses wild with delicious enchantment I'm blissfully bestowed!
And the night of the winter lays quietly still under a white shimmering blanket of sugary snow

Some of my Obsessions and Passions of my Heart

I have listed here for your pleasure:

Or if you are in the mood for a good deep sleep visit you tube

Gentle ghost classics

Or just reminiscing on the Vintage Blonde Bombshells of Hollywood or other movie screen stars Muirmaiden you tube has a beautiful collection

A beautiful and haunting Italian band who has completely entranced me from the time I discovered them through Ashramusic

And then of course here is an itsy bitsy list of the many, many blogs I obsess about and the stuff that dreams are made of... The Bliss of Home:

Victoria mag has come back!

For lovely authentic Italian cuisine by a Swedish chef and photograher look up Lucullian.

And this is only a minuscule part of my beautiful relationship with the fascinating and intoxicating web!

Creating your own Niche

Being with Triond from the start allowed me the opportunity to write whatever I wanted about anything I wanted. I think all the writers embraced this opportunity and used it as the chance of a lifetime, a chance to try their hand at their craft in a professional space. I love poetry and prose and it is one of my personal favourite niches, Authspot. I have contributed regularly to this section and managed to get my own group of people who look forward to seeing what I have written and I read several other writers contributions and I look forward to their new writings, too. I like doing research for my articles, especially the environment ones. The science nature articles are fun to research and can have a real impact on the world we are living in. Being an avid reader of the news articles, I come across much that is interesting and unlikely to make front pages of any publication. I often find myself drowning in information that really overwhelms me and I end up doing no writing at all. Another opportunity lost. Another passion of mine is the "family" and this is another area of expertise that I feel I excel in and I love to share my opinions and views with anyone who will listen. Children are our future and we need to encourage them to fulfill their potential.

Ease of Reading

When writing it is very important to write in a consistent style, this makes the reader finish the item and understand what the article about. Breaking articles down into readable paragraphs and using bullets, points and pictures are all tools that can make the article more attractive and the length has to be taken into consideration also. I bet that makes you wish you had paid more attention in that English or computer class!