I might as well admit that I’m no IT geek, and that if you asked me to start doing things with computer code I’d go and hide in a corner somewhere.  If you need that kind of magical mystery tour my suggestion would be for you to visit the library or amazon and buy or borrow a ‘dummies guide’ for programming in C++, html etc.  When it comes to having something resembling a tech brain, I was completely left out of any consideration.

Such shortcomings in the brain, amongst a few others, is advantageous in that I’ve never got hung up about my lack of techniness.  Sometimes its far better to have a level of ignorance about certain things, that way you don’t waste a lot of time concentrating on stuff you’ll never understand anyway.

My guess is that there are many who want to set up some kind of blog, but are ‘scared’ in the sense that it all seems very much beyond their technical capabilities.  To this I would say ‘complete hogwash!’, setting up a blog has never been easier.  Here my recommendation is to use a very simple blogging site, I began with http://www.blogger.com where the amount of help is great and it will guide you through each stage, you can watch a youtube video here where everything is explained in detail.

In time you’ll end with a blog that fits in with who you are.  It’s also a great place to practice your developing IT skills, generally messing about, but most of all having fun.  So go and begin, take your time, and if you make a mistake learn from it and move on to the next thing.

Have fun!

The good news is that my novel ‘Nick &  Jenny’ has now been published by Smashwords and although I’d like to spend even more time coming up with different ways for driving sales of my very first novel, nevertheless I’m pleased that it’s finally out there and people are beginning to notice it.  My belief in it as a novel has been rewarded with some delightful remarks from a lady in Canada, which is fairly weird in that I wrote the bulk of it in Greece, completed it in Germany and is now being read in Canada; I just love the Internet and the e-Book format!

However, being no natural born salesman with the killer touch when it comes to selling, I often sit there thinking that the world of sales is beyond me, and the bigger world of marketing is another planet out there in the solar system.  But I’m surprising myself just how much can be accomplished by a little reading, an overwhelming sense of pure ignorance, a complete sense of inane curiosity, a very thick skin, facebook and twitter!

I have to admit that my creative mind is one that wanders off into weird and wonderful places, easily distracted, and refuses to behave itself.  This would drive the more methodical individual into various fits of intemperate rage, slamming doors and feet and other forms of passionate protest.  As a consequence, my mind is constantly trying to solve one quandary after another, which is, I admit, rather annoying at times.  Yet it’s led me along many varied paths and kept me going in the direction I want to go, although meandering in this way it often takes me way out of the way to where I should be.

I know that this sounds very disorganised, but for me it’s a wonderful exploration of the unknown.  One of the joys of the unknown is that opening Pandora’s box of Internet surprises, you eventually find any number of things that either fit perfectly or as near as damn it.  Now most of the creative world, unknown and slaving away at making the world a better place, using the arts to question the world around them, or just having a wonderful time messing about, is too intensely involved in the project of the moment and no doubt suffering from the occasional bout of frustration at not being able to do something because of a lack of access to various sites out there in cyberspace.

As I’m on a very tight budget, aren’t most writers, painters and film makers?, my need for the right thing at the right price is an absolute must, and that anything I do use in my creative pursuits must satisfy my lack of technological savvy.  One of the things I’ve learnt is that most of the programs we’re asked to pay a lot of money for is going to be wasted, (1) because it’s full of things totally useless to what we’re trying to achieve as an end result, (2) makes the learning curve something of a frustrating process and takes far too long to accomplish, if we ever do, (3) most of the commercial software programmes are built by very technologically savvy people, which is a great source of immense annoyance to someone like me because I haven’t a clue what C++, CSS, HMTL code is, and (4) whatever I do use I want it to be very user friendly; in other words idiot proof!

Over the next few blogs I want to delve into the world of software program FREEBIES!  I’ll let you know what I use in the work I do.  Nothing I mention is an endorsement for a particular company, rather it’ll be an endorsement for the product I use.  As I’ve said above I’m not technologically minded, although I’m slowly getting better but it’s a very very slow process, and about as exciting as watching the washing machine do the smalls.

As a taster of things to do to get things organised, head over to my other blog here and you can find that I’ve accomplished a lot of things without any technological knowledge as such.  If you can use a mouse, left & right click, drag and drop, follow simple instructions and organise, you’ve more or less got the ability to do all kinds of weird and wonderful things.  This was my first and main blog, and from it I’ve now progressed onto wordpress, which is where you are right now.

Why I’ve got two blogs running is a good question, and my answer would be is that the ‘Toni’s amble thru’ life’ is me being me and not taking things too seriously, it’s also a gallery where I can show what’s possible, as a finished product, without spending any, or much, money.  The site is also now being developed in a way to bring in a little revenue to help with expenses and act as a feed to other sites I’ve found particularly useful.  This blog isn’t there to make any money, it’s about sharing ideas, giving out information, walking through stages of progress in the things I do.  Hopefully, it’ll inform and point people to sites that they may never have heard of.  I accept that there may be some overlap between the two sites, but I’ll try to avoid too much overlap and repetition.  Eventually, this site will be the main focus for things I do creatively.

There I’ll end it and say thanks for reading!

I won’t make any great literary claims about it, that’s up to others and I’ve no doubts that it will either be liked and enjoyed, disliked or people won’t care less about it.  All I will say is that I’ve written a novel that I would want to read, thoroughly enjoyed the creative process and in many ways I’ve done everything I set out to do, which is an incredibly good feeling.  However, the submission process was highly stressful and extremely tiring having stayed up all night seeing it through to the very end.

I shall no doubt, once I’ve got my wind back, sit back and enjoy my achievement, and perhaps that’s the way it should be, but I do know that waiting for me are two more unfinished novels, begging to be completed and final drafts written.  O well the life of a writer is never done!

For those interested you can download a sample copy of ‘Nick & Jenny’ by clicking the link on the right hand side ‘My published eBooks’, which will take you to the publishing site.  Or you can copy and paste the following  address into your search bar.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tonibryan

Many thanks!