Twenty- five Seven

Personally speaking

Recent Posts

  • Designing your blog – The Menu

    Ok, I don’t claim to be an expert in designing a blog but as they say, you only learn through your mistakes. In my quest for making a new blog, I’ve discovered that first of all one should know the jargon or language. For instance the stuff that appears on the top of the blog which has your name etc is called a HEADER. Similarly, below the header you can organise your blog in different categories such as

    Personal – where you talk about your personal things etc

    Food – where you talk about your food experiences, recipes etc

    You get the drift don’t you? This is essential if you discuss different things in your blog – often unrelated. Even if you do have a specific blog like Parenting you still could classify your posts under various headings such as infancy, adolescence, etc.

    SO what is most important is the MENU.

    Now when you go to your dashboard you will find a paintbrush icon with Appearance written beside it. If you hover over this, you will find a drop down menu with the word MENU. Click on this and you will discover that you can make your own menu. In other words you can make the tabs you want.

    Most commonly the tab is HOME which is a custom link. This is essentially the page to which your blog will open and will be the latest blog post.

    Then you have pages which are static – in other words information that doesn’t change. Most commonly the pages that are stand alone are ABOUT and CONTACT where you give information about yourself, your blog and where you can be reached via email/phone etc.

    Then you have another tab which I was getting confused about which was the heading under which you store your blog posts. So you can have PHOTOS under which you can keep all your posts of photos, FOOD where you keep all your posts on food related blogs etc.

    Under the tabs you can have each blog post that is TAGGED.

    It is important that you do not get confused with all these names or you can have many menus and many tabs and essentially a big mess. 

    If you have a WordPress blog, use their help to get organised.

    Custom Menu is a great site to help you organise your menu.

    Visit their site to create multilevel menus

  • Catching Stardust #100WordsonSaturday

    One man’s meat is another man’s poison. We react to the same prompt rather differently. This is my reaction to this week’s #100 Words on Saturday  where you’ll find interesting responses to this picture prompt.

    In a dark and moonless sky when the stars shine bright as day,

    Or when they hide behind the clouds

    It’s time to catch the stardust and keep it safely  in a bottle.

    And watch it slowly glisten and glitter in the dark

    and drive away all thoughts of gloom that linger in your mind.

    A bottle of magic stardust that’s well within your reach

    To help you get ahead when you’re down

    Catch the stardust now and store it carefully

    Release it one by one when you reach the stars

    You want to reach

    Close to the shining sun.

     

  • Waving Goodbye

    I’m walking down the road but something is different. I feel as though a million eyes are following me. Well not exactly a million it definitely the people on the road – I can feel their piercing gaze like a pin prick on my hands, legs  and face. It is an uncomfortable feeling to be stared, something I’m unfamiliar with. What happened to the anonymity of yesterday when I didn’t merit a second glance? Suddenly it hit me – it was the publication of my book “Waving goodbye ”

    It’s not very often that an author’s first book is a best seller . In fact when I wrote the first word 10 years ago I was a writer, a spinner big yarns and a mere cog in the wheel of the huge conglomerate ATAMAC. Corporate jobs are boring but fill the stomach better than the words that danced in my head, trying desperately to break free. So I would write whenever I could snatch a few moments it busy day, preferring to scribble away rather than gossip with Sushila and The Gang about the Boss and his latest shenanigans. I did, however, talk to them while on the job, they were a great source of inspiration- especially when my brain used to freeze.

    English: Manuscript on vellum, written in sepi...
    English: Manuscript on vellum, written in sepia-coloured Hijazi script. An Early Qur’anic Manuscript (1st century Hegira). from the word tijarat in verse 282 to the words nasiynā aw in verse 286 of Sūrah al-Baqarah. Script: Hijazi. Location: The David Collection, Copenhagen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Finally after 10 years I had the manuscript ready for publication on my tablet, proofed ready and good to go. I sent it to the first publisher I could think of, more for a lark than with any great expectations. I was more flattered than shocked by the email in response to the manuscript  inviting me to meet with the junior editor the following week.

    I had nothing to lose but a day’s wage so I went more out of curiosity. But when I waited in the small reception room of Tamarind Publications I felt my heart leaping out of my chest. “Stop it” I told myself “it’s only a book , not the end of the world”.

    Before I could console myself with the hypothetical rejection of my book, the junior editor walked in. ” so you’re the mystery author who sent in the manuscript by email! I was intrigued by your style and impressed by your audacity.”

    I could feel my stomach sink to the floor as my heart beat even faster. I couldn’t believe I was hearing words like editor, agreement and royalty.

    Several months and visits later, the book was finally published. And it was not only published but it became a best seller. That’s when I realised that I had not written just words but words that changed the way people think, words that moved them, words that they hated, words that they loved. 

    I realised that my wildest dreams of becoming a successful author were realised. I was now on my way to super stardom, ready to join the ranks of the literati and be the darling of the glitterati – the one whose opinion mattered on everything from world peace to atomic energy, to the economic crisis to raising the perfect children .With just one book “Waving Goodbye”, I was truly waving goodbye to anonymity, mediocrity and a life of dull predictability.

    Aah! it was a writer’s wildest dream come true.………

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