WYSIWYG

I spent far too much time last night exploring Blogs and Blogging further. In fact I didn't get to bed till 1 a.m. In part I was seduced by my I-Pod. I sat on the sofa looking back at material and sites I had already found while at the same time listening to all sorts of music. It would have been perfect if I had also had a bar of Green and Black's milk chocolate. Do you have that where you are? It is the best chocolate in the world. I decided when I became ill that I should give up biscuits and such like but Green and Black's chocolate is organic pure chocolate. It must be good for you! I put a piece in my mouth and let it slowly dissolve. Hummm. It might be better than sex.

Back to blogs. I'm trying to find out how to have a word in your document link to a web page. You know what I mean. A word in a sentence is highlighted and when you click on it, it takes you to another site. Anyone know how to do that? Leave me a comment if you do or email me. To this point I have just been putting the whole line in the body of my text.

So what is WYSIWYG? (pronounced wisiwig) It stands for 'what you see is what you get'. I didn't know that till just now. It is a computing term and refers to a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product. So, when you work in a word document you can see what the final printed version will look like. Use this word and your friends will be impressed (unless of course they know something about computers)! I think I may call my next cat Wysiwyg.

You probably didn't know I had a cat. He's not really mine. Naomi and James have been living in places where they couldn't have their cat so he has been living with us. We have a love hate relationship. The 'we' includes Cliff, Emma, my mum, the cat and me. He is very prickly and you never know whether you can stroke him without injury. We are all celebrating the fact that he will be going back to Wales over the Chirsmas holiday when Naomi and James get their own house.

I digress! Back to blogs! I'm really excited about the possibilities of blogs. They allow people to have a place on the internet where they can publish. Not everyone wants to publish but those who do, who want to have some sort of interaction with others about their ideas or about the writing itself now have somewhere to go. If you want to keep family and friends in touch with what you are doing, a blog is the perfect tool. Teachers can use it to give information to students and to have a dialogue with them outside of the classroom. I'm using it as a narrative format for my novel. At first I only let certain people read it. I was very nervous about the reaction of others. I've only ever shared my non-fiction writing before (material to do with education). However, I've found that I'm less uptight about my fiction writing in this format. So, if you are interested, let me know and I will send you the information about my 'other' blog.

On a final note, Eurostar has just started a blog for people who are going to Paris and would like to do as the locals do. It offers eight 'voices' - English speaking Parisians, who live and work in the city. They each write about their daily lives and recommend places for you to go. Interesting idea and another use for a blog.