Anonymous Lawyer is BACK!

Anonymous Lawyer has always been somewhat of a light poster. Usually averaging only one a month; however, without explanation there hadn't been a post there for more than 2 months. I was getting ready to move it to "inactive", but today it sprung to life with an in-story explanation of his absence. Kudos to the author for that.

And yes, Anonymous Lawyer is important enough that this deserves it's own post!!!

SuperHero Blogs

Here is an awesome find for blog fiction readers. I found 5 fiction blogs written by "Super Heroes". They are written by original characters who have superpowers. It follows their struggle to get by in life.

The characters all exist in the same "world". Each of the blogs references the other 4. Sometimes the characters will even comment on each other's blog. All of the 5 characters have their own Blogger account. So I don't know if it's 5 people on each blog or if it's 1 person writing all of it on 5 accounts. I will say this, if it is just one person writing all 5 of the blogs that person is one busy person! The blogs all started a couple months ago and have a lot of posts already.

I'll be reading these. I'll be interested how entangled the lives of the characters get with each other. There's a lot of backlog for me to catch up on. Their lives may already be entangled and I just don't know it yet. Here's the links to each of the blogs:

Leroy J. Power
Terra Stone aka Elemental
Ean Iago
The Enigma Known As Brice
Mr. E. aka weird Wellington "Edwin" Mallard

One more thing. Just to give credit to originality, It looks like Up and Away served as the inspiration for these 5 blogs. Up and Away was the blog fiction that I found yesterday.

2 More Fictional Blogs

*[wipes forhead] Whew...
Trying to keep my list of known fictional blogs up-to-date is a tough job. I found 2 more today and posted them. Unfortunately, neither of them are active anymore. They've both been abandoned. For the next few days, I'm going to be concentrating on finding new fictional blogs. As I find them I'll post in the Grand List. If I find anything of note during my search, I'll be sure to let everyone here know.

I'd also like to take this moment again to ask you guys to help me out. If you run a blog fiction, or know of one that I haven't listed yet, please let me know. Either post it in the forum yourself, or put it in my comments and I'll get the info needed.

Google really REALLY favors blogger posts

A couple weeks ago I speculated on how much the google search engine tends to favor BlogSpot blogs and posts. Today I bring some more evidence. Last night I wrote a post that had "Odin Soli" in the title. Well a few minutes after publishing that very short article I took this snapshot.

(Click image for larger view)

As you can see, in under 5 minutes, my post was already on page 2 when someone did a search on Odin Soli. That is insanely fast.

Now, as if that wasn't enough. My rank has actually gone up since then! I'm now on page 1 . Do the search yourself. It's not like there's a shortage of articles on the guy. He's been publishing to the web since the 90s after all.

So, the lesson here is always use blogger for better search engine traffic. I'm sure all the spammers and internet leeches already know this.

My Apology Letter to Odin Soli

I wrote a post a while ago about Blog Fiction that never had a chance. One of the blogs I made fun of was the Mexican Year. Here's what I wrote:

I learned on thing from the fictional blog, Mexican Year. Apparently, a mexican year only lasts 3 days. Because that's how long this hard working writer kept at it. This was an especially painful find for me because the author is a really good writer.

Well, it appears that the author, Odin Soli, has since picked up the blog again. Apparently this is his third try trying to write Mexican Year. When I originally found the site, I must have caught him in between tries. Since then the Author has written over a hundred thousand words on it in the last 4 months. I'll be adding the site to the list and his feed to the left side.

Final Farewell to "The New Years Resolution"

I was doing some "housecleaning" of the Grand List of Blog Fiction Sites. While doing so I noticed that the blog "The New Years Resolution" has gone 404. The blog fiction was supposed to go for a year, but stopped after 5 or 6 months. Now, it appears that the entire blog has been deleted. It's shame. I would've rather have the author pick it back up or redo it for the new year. Not eliminate it completely.

Fleet Commander is Back!

Doing some research for a future post I was flipping through some of the blog fiction I've found so far. I clicked on over to Fleet Commander and was about to flip through some of the older posts when something caught my eye:

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I did a double take. Last I checked the blog had been abandoned last January. Not only was there a new chapter, but there was a note from the author. He had started his blog as an experiment, but time got tight for him. I can certainly relate. However, as he puts it:

Then something strange happened...

People started reading Scifi Blog: Fleet Commander. People are actually reading my stuff!

He ended with:

I hope people continue to read, leave comments, and email me. A little encouragement goes a long way.

I couldn't have said it better myself. So, let this be a lesson for all of us. If you find a blog fiction that you like and it stops, with a little encouragement the author might pick it up again.

I couldn't be happier about this. This was the first blog fiction that I ever found and enjoyed waiting for the next installment. I've also added the Fleet Commander feed to the list and will be eagerly awaiting the next installment again.

Pros and Cons of different hosting options

I just finished debugging a technical problem with my website. Once I figured out what the problem was, I couldn't help but think that anyone who isn't a programmer couldn't possibly have figured out, let alone solve the problem. That made me think about the benefits of completely managed blog hosting.

If you want to start your own blog, fictional or otherwise, all of your options fall into 1 of 3 categories.

In the first category is a completely managed host. That is, you don't install any software and do all of your configuring and personalizing your blog through a pre-defined interface. Examples of this category is blogger, wordpress, and typepad. The pros is a something that is very easy to use, you never have to worry about technical problems, and configuring is usually extremely easy.

The second category is that I use for Terran Resistance. You buy space on a webserver and a domain. With this option I have to install all of my own software. The pros is that I get a lot more options and flexibility. I can install other software like forums or wikis to supplement my blog. The problem is that you need a little technical know how to install and manage. A major con, as I discovered, is that if something goes wrong you're on your own.

The third category, which makes sense for almost no one, is to get a virtual or dedicated webserver. The pro here is that you have your own webserver. I wouldn't suggest this option for anyone unless you have thousands of visitors an hour and you(or someone you know) has a lot of technical know how.

Until tonight, I would almost always would suggest the second category. Installing this software is really easy and it's always nice to have your own domain name. The problem, I've come across, is when something goes wrong. Unless you are a programmer, stuff can happen that would be near impossible to fix by yourself. That's why my suggestion now is to almost always go with a service unless you are really confident of your technical ability.