Table of Contents (Click on the scissors to cut to new content)
[BLOG] Learning Good from Bad (SPOILERS!) — Discussing how to learn better storytelling from exploring bad writing. [BLOG] Food in Fiction — Pondering the use of food included in fiction. [BLOG] The Benefits of Journaling — The different types of journals I keep and their benefits. [BLOG] Membership has its Privleges — Details of using subscriptions to access locked content. [BLOG] Wonka - Review and Predictions (SPOILERS!) — I discuss my favorite adaptation of Wonka and make predictions for a Wonka movie franchise. [BLOG] Eating My Own Doug Food — Being more mindful of the tools I have created to better support myself and other indie authors. [BLOG] Dougie vs. Social Media — What I dislike about social media and ways I suggest of improving it. [BLOG] The Q-ness of Humor — Humor has a codependency on other genres. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - The End? — We completed the long, three-month learning experience, but is this really the end of this educational journey? [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Final Exam — Dougie conquers the beast of all exams. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Weeks Eleven and Twelve — Covering SQL, testing, debugging, and a mock interview. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Ten — Learning databases. Learning remotely. Learning with a purpose. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Nine — Next level Git and coding with EJS, plus kicking off the projects. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Eight — Connecting the front and back ends, capstone project pitches, and a four or more hour test. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Seven — Learning more React concepts and revisiting old projects. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Six — Nearly halfway there and learning ReactJS, advanced JavaScript, and this. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Five — Learning APIs, Express, and EJS. Plus, navigating bootcamp across a family vacation. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Four — Continuing education with the ACC developer bootcamp. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Three — Javascript, JQuery, DOM, and a lot of practice. [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week Two — The 2nd week of bootcamp involving Bootstrap and Javascript [BLOG] Developer Bootcamp - Week One — First impression after a first week of a 14-week coding bootcamp. [BLOG] Yertle - A Book and Breakfast Blog — Recap of the Yertle Book and Breakfast Party event. [BLOG] Thank You Schwartz Family! — Recapping a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with my family. [BLOG] Big, Blue Changes — A brief overview of the major changes to the Checkered Scissors website. [BLOG] Is the Big 50 Challenge Over, Yet? — A recap of the Big 50 Challenge. [BLOG] The Selfish Comedian — A blog of taking ownership of a stupid comment and lessons learned from this experience. [BLOG] Planning the Big Five Oh — Thoughts on how to celebrate my 50th birthday. [BLOG] Under Lock and Key — Incorporating a user management system to my websites. [BLOG] A Session of Tutoring English — Sharing a customized tutoring session for a friend's son. [BLOG] A Christmas Treasure Hunt — Details of an Amazing Race-themed holiday treasure hunt. [BLOG] The Complexity of Teaching — My thoughts on the struggles of teaching from the perspective of a long-term substitute teacher. [BLOG] Humorous Branding — Rebranding myself as a humor author. [BLOG] Artificial Evolution — If humans impose an artificial layer over the world, how does this impact our evolution? [BLOG] Creative Mixed Media — Creative presentation of mixed media. [BLOG] Finding Theme — How to find the theme of a book. How writers approach theme when writing. [BLOG] Tools Other Than Checkered Scissors — What tools are available on the Checkered Scissors site? [BLOG] Reinventing a Story — The different ways authors have delivered the same story in a variety of formats. [BLOG] Motivation — Pondering How to motivate students to study and readers to read.. [BLOG] Warped History — How the whitewashing of history needs to be fixed, and how fiction can help people face those harsh truths. [BLOG] Over-Elaborate To Do List — More details about my ticketing system. [BLOG] Homemade Search Engine — Describing the working on the search engine I constructed to locate content on my author site. [BLOG] Experimental Fiction — Exploring some of my favorite modern forms of experimental storytelling. [BLOG] The Gray Area Between Hero and Villain — Talking about how characters become more interesting when they blur the lines between hero and villain. [BLOG] Social Marketing — My understanding (or lack there of) of social media and how best to use the platform for marketing. [BLOG] Alternate Realities — Creating the worlds in which we envision living. [BLOG] Glazomaniac — About my obsession with list making. [BLOG] E Pluribus Unum — My thoughts on what it might take to unite our country. [BLOG] Does the Character Know or Not? — Writing about what characters do and do not know. [BLOG] How Fan Fiction Benefits Writers — The benefits of writing fan-fiction. [BLOG] Good News Jar — The list of good news pulled from the Good News Jar for 2020. [BLOG] Making the Necessary Edits — The concept of corporate layoffs and how it relates to writing. [BLOG] Considering Kwanzaa — What I have learned about Kwanzaa and why I would love to celebrate it properly. [BLOG] Creative Solutionist — Striving to find creative solutions for difficult problems. [BLOG] Where Editing Goes Wrong — Discussing editing for correctness versus editing for content when it comes to an already released work. [BLOG] My Vision of the World — How a German cross-dresser encapsulates my vision of the world. [BLOG] The Appeal of Twin Peaks — Detailing my daughter's experience with Twin Peaks and what I appreciate about this unique series. [BLOG] Evolving Traditions — My thoughts on traditions and why I am okay with changing traditions. [BLOG] Crossing the Troll Bridge — A character study in three scenarios in which I try to understand the inner workings of internet troll behavior. [BLOG] Wabi-Sabi Writing — The appreciation and embracing of imperfections. [BLOG] Teaching Fiction to Animals — How one might approach teaching a creature who has little to no understanding of language how to appreciate fiction. [BLOG] Self Review of Checkered Scissors — Giving my own book a critical look and writing my own review. [BLOG] Websurfing the Witching Hour — Pointing out strange anomalous behavior on the website. [BLOG] The Art of Propaganda — How to recognize propaganda by looking more closely to how it is written. [BLOG] Warning Signs — Pondering why people choose to look the other way when presented with blunt warning signs meant to protect them. [BLOG] True to Self, or True to Form? — Is it better to tailor a story to better fit a genre? Or, stay true to yourself and your style of writing, despite genre boundaries and guidelines? [BLOG] My Fascination with Alice in Wonderland — How my writing is inspired by the elements of Alice in Wonderland. [BLOG] My Fascination with Time Travel — How my writing is inspired by my deep fascination with time travel theories. [BLOG] Do These Genres Make My Story Look Fat? — Matching a story to a genre. [BLOG] A Positive Bake — Building upon what you know. [BLOG] Harry Potter - A Writer's Perspective — Observations of the Harry Potter series. [BLOG] 45 is Guano Crazy — Why 45 should NOT be prez. [BLOG] Dirk vs. Dirk — How people process the same source differently. [BLOG] Togetherness — The power of workings together. [BLOG] Reality Fiction—Backstage—Recruitment Tour — How the first season's candidates of Rality Fiction could have been recruited. [BLOG] Embracing the Weirdness — How to connect with the unusual. [BLOG] Superpowers — If you had super powers, how would you use them? [BLOG] Why Are You Doubting Yourself? — What sets off self doubt and how do you combat it? [BLOG] Juneteenth — Thoughts about racism and Juneteenth. [BLOG] Choices — Making a choice and dealing with the consequences. [BLOG] What Was the Question? — The Big Question in stories. [BLOG] Discomfort Zone — Turning outrage into change. [BLOG] Writing Road Signs — Feedback from my editor. [BLOG] Next Evolution of Storytelling — Different storytelling delivery methods. [BLOG] Pandemic Lessons Learned — What I hope the world learns from this pandemic. [BLOG] Honesty in Writing — On the subject of death. The saddest moments of my life. [BLOG] Pigeonholed Author — Assumptions and typecasting. [BLOG] A Very Boring Blog — How to cope with boredom. [BLOG] Ticket Tracker - Exposed — Sharing the ticket tracking system with the public. [BLOG] Church of Checkered Scissors — Starting a church based on my book. [BLOG] How to be Creative — How to exercise your creativity. [BLOG] How to Write Stories — How to go from not having an idea to creating stories to bring ideas to life. [BLOG] Go Around, Again! — Celebrating another birthday by being comfortable with my life. [BLOG] Ticket Tracker — An overview of the ticket tracking system designed for the UberPlan. [BLOG] It's All Connected — A description for a master project encompassing all five ideal jobs. [BLOG] 2020 Vision — Goals and resolutions for 2020. [BLOG] Christmas Letter to You — Many Christmas traditions. [BLOG] One Banana is Worth a Million Books — The craziness (and creativeness) of marketing. [BLOG] Color Bursts — How artists and authors can feed people's thoughts. [BLOG] Thankful — Happy Thanksgiving 2019! [BLOG] Wholesomeness vs. Offensiveness — The world has lost much of its wholesomeness and has become a more offensive place, causing people to become more defensive. [BLOG] How I Would Save the World — Thoughts on a self-sustaining model. [BLOG] Hello, My Name is... — The glory of name tags. [BLOG] The Ghosts in My Life — Who ya gonna call? Ghostbloggers! [BLOG] To Build a Brand (Writing Style) — Figuring out how to best brand my fiction. [BLOG] Slippery Slope — Struggling with issues and gaining traction. [BLOG] Major Website Changes — Brief summary of the recent website changes. [BLOG] Time for a Career Change — Career change and writing job search. [BLOG] The Selfishness of Art — Is the act of creating art selfish? [BLOG] "Fan Fiction kills the original" — Does fan fiction harm the original work? [BLOG] This Author's Toolbox — The various tools this website has to offer. [BLOG] Return of the Black Sheep — Finding acceptance in being different. [BLOG] Star Wars - A Prediction — Prediction of Star Wars Episode Nine. [BLOG] What Teacher Appreciation Week means to me — Expressing my appreciation to all the teachers in my life. [BLOG] Interview with Katherine Luck — Interview about the How to Write Like blog. [BLOG] Time Traveler Logic Puzzle — Presenting an original logic puzzle touching on the theme of time travel fo the Time Travel Themed Birthday Weekend. [BLOG] Time Travel Birthday Weekend - Recap — Best birthday weekend ever! [BLOG] Sharing Ideas — Sharing ideas as creative prompts. [BLOG] Airing of Grievances — Around the time of Festivus is the Airing of Grievances. My list contains more constructive grievances. [BLOG] Do Over! — If you could change something to potentially make it better, would you? [BLOG] The Pledge — Thoughts on writing and reciting pledges. [BLOG] Where to Begin — How to start writing stories. [BLOG] Recipe for an Author Page — Suggestions for designing an author website. [BLOG] Go Around the Room — Talking about a pet peeve of mine going around the room saying a little something about ourselves. [BLOG] Speaking What is Written — How video editing is similar to writing. [BLOG] Juggling Act — Finding balance between projects and pastimes. [BLOG] Bullied or Ignored? — How promoting a book is like being the new kid in school. [BLOG] Are You Not Critical Enough? — Accepting a more critical approach to your writing in order to improve. [BLOG] Parody -- Flattering or Insulting? — The pros and cons of parody. [BLOG] To the Honk of My Own Trumpet — Staying true to oneself despite peer pressure to follow a more normal behavior. [BLOG] Organizing Thoughts — Thoughts on keeping my thoughts organized.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have made numerous changes to the Checkered Scissors website. This all started with my decision to establish freelancing services. Originally, I had a page with some links to sample documents in my freelance portfolio. It was not presented well. I migrated that information and organized it under a new "Freelance" portion of the website. That move opened a can of worms.
Earlier, I migrated my blog from Live Journal to the website. The blog was on a sub-page. It was alright where it was, but it never looked like it was part of the website. Might as well migrate the blog to the main site while I establish the Freelance portion, too.
With the blog finding a new home on the main page, I couldn't just orphan the Karma content, which was also disconnected from the main site. Sure, Karma, you can come along, too. Since I was moving all of the Karma content to the main site, I did leave behind the archived interviews. They are still available, but I left those behind to give a fresh start.
Whoa! This is a lot of content shuffling around! How do I accommodate so many changes to the main page? (Sigh) Okay...I guess I better overhaul the menu system to make things (somewhat) easier to maintain going forward. The new menu system allows much more freedom for manipulating the content in the three panes of the main page. Hurray for innovation!
With the new menu system, I took the opportunity to compartmentalize the Fiction section. Now, my written works are grouped by the type of content: novels, children's stories, Schwart' fiction, Fan Fiction and so on. I've even created other categories if I ever venture out into other types of fiction, like interactive fiction or experimental fiction. Keep an eye out for new categories of fiction. I'm still adding a backlog of older works to the site. So exciting!
Besides the additional content to Fiction, there are several other changes I will be working on. Most of the other changes are more behind the scenes stuff and the presentation of the site on mobile and tablet devices.
While I am making these changes, is there anything you would like to see? Is there anything I can add to furhter help you?
If you want to keep up with any other changes or additions, it is best to follow me on Facebook or Twitter. I will be highlighting the areas of additional content on social media. Stay tuned!
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