I know it is a bit late, but since this is my first post of 2009, I would like to wish all readers of NeoBluePanther.com a very happy and prosperous new year 2009.

Every new year brings with it lots of hopes, and it is because of these hopes that we make resolutions, and decide that we are going to change a few things about us and our lives in the years to come.

I am sure most of you have made many new year resolutions. In fact, I am sure some of them have already being broken. I know I have broken a couple.

But, I have a pretty long list of resolutions, and the loss of a couple resolutions does not matter much. However, my most important resolution is about writing more.  And if I am able to do that the results will show on this blog.

Hope, all of you are able to achieve what you set out to achieve this year!

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There is no right or wrong way, it is simply the way you do it.

This is true about most things, and blogging is no exception. Most of the times, as bloggers, we are looking for the right way to blog. What is the right frequency of blogging? What is the best platform to blog? What is the best commenting policy? and the list goes on.

One question that often comes up is whether a blogger should blog anonymously, or should a blogger reveal all the details about oneself, or should some middle path be followed. Different bloggers offer different solutions to the problem.

But, I feel, that there is no solution to the problem that can be generalized. Only you can decide what is best for you, depending upon what is the reason behind your blog. For example, if you are blogging to become a problogger (if that is a word), then there is no reason you should blog behind a screen name; but if you are blogging to vent out some steam, and do not harbour any ambitions about becoming the most famous blogger out there, then blogging anonymously makes a lot of sense.

But the problem of anonymity vs openness has taken a completely new direction with the emergence of the social networking sites. The same problem exists there too. Should you use your real name, or should you use a handle? Should you use your real picture, or one of those attractive 125 X 125 buttons?

Once again there is no right answer to the question. You have to decide for yourself, depending upon what your purpose is behind using these sites.

For this post, I asked a few users of twitter ( What did you say? You don’t know what twitter is? What blogging rock are you living under?) if they were using their real pictures on the site, and here is what they had to say:

“I don’t use my pic as an avatar.. i am writing for the sake of anonymity, can’t do that to well with my face all over,” says Rayleigh_Thorne.

“I prefer real pictures as it makes scanning the time line much easier,” feels sean808080 .

Nipplelicious uses her actual picture, and she says, “actual picture…and I felt it simply made me more real for some …if that makes any sense to you.”

“I use an avatar because its the one I use for my blog so now I use it for all my social networking for recognition,” feels jenwag57.

So, as I said before, it is evident that there is no one right way. It is simply what you want, and how you want to do it.

My advice, however, is that one should try to be as open as possible, especially if one is planning to use the Internet, and these sites, quite frequently. Because, like it or not, there is very little that is anonymous on the Internet and even if you are using a cover, someone who is really bent upon finding things about you will be able to do so.The best thing, therefore, is to use your real name and real identity, and expose only that much of yourself on the Internet that you are comfortable with. Under the guise of anonymity, one tends to get carried away and flirt with that boundary of comfort, and, then, one might have cause to repent later.

What do you feel about this issue?

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I had two major things planned for the month of November. One was doing the Blogging Idol - II, and the other, as I had said in my last post, was winning the NaNoWriMo.

Unfortunately, I could not devote time to either of the two, which is a little sad.

But, as they say, the important thing is not how many times you fall, but how many times you get up after falling. So, instead of crying out about how things went bad, and how much I regret not being able to do what I should have, I am going to learn my lesson from my failures, and hope that I don’t repeat them again.

Actually, if I think about it, I can find many reasons for my failing to achieve what I had set out to do. But, most of the reasons would be mere symptoms. Digging a little deeper, it can be safely said that the one reason for  my failure was -  lack of planning and organising.

In fact, when people fail in any endeavour, 9 times out of 10, it can be safely assumed that it was lack of proper planning and organising that led to the failure.

It would be an understatement to say that planning is very critical for success. For a writer, it will be best if he has a plan about what he is going to write before he actually starts writing. This is true for writing a blog post, a short story, or even a novel. Sometimes, one can feel that writing is a creative process, and by having a plan for it, one might ruin the whole process. But, planning does not mean reining in your creative self; it just means that you take the time out beforehand to identify things like, what do you write best about, the time of the day that you write best, the time available to you for writing, the place where you are hoping to get your writing published etc.

Organising is no less important for success. Once you have begin writing - even with a good plan -  things may  still go wrong. Even the best laid plans have a tendency go awry, but if you are organised there is a good chance that you can still go on even after the original plan has failed.

Organising oneself can be done in many different ways. In fact, I feel, that each one of us has to identify for himself, or herself, the areas where one lacks, and then work on that area, till the weakness becomes our strength. Perhaps, in the posts to come, I will share with you my weaknesses, and my struggles to overcome these weaknesses.

Do you think you are an organised individual?

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We are halfway through November, which means we are halfway through NaNoWriMo. I hope most of you who are doing NaNoWriMo are going along really well, and come out as the winner at the end of the month.

At my end, things are not going along too well. The little graph below says it all :

I guess it is still not an impossible thing to do, but it definitely is going to be very tough to finish this from here on; Especially because, there are a few other things that absolutely need to be done in the next few days.

But, as they say, hope, one must…and that is what I am going to do for the next few days. Along with writing, of course.

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Recently, I read somewhere,”If you can do a million things, you can do one million and one.” After reading that one line, I was inspired to take on quite a few jobs on my hands for the month of November. Though, I didn’t plan too much, I was pretty sure that I will be able to manage all that I have taken on.

But, now, to my dismay, I seem to be on the path to discover that I am not one of those lucky ones who can do a million and one things.

When I heard that Blogging Idol - 2 was going on, I was quick to jump in to the fray, but it is only now (almost 13 days after the competition had begun) that I have been able to post about the challenge. I hope this turns out to be a case of late being better than never.

If you want to help me win the Blogging Idol -2, all you have to do is subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog using the buttons on the top of the right side bar, or you could subscribe to the blog by clicking here.

Looking forward to have you as a subscriber to the blog!

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So, the announcement has finally come: BlogRush is shutting down. But, I am sure, BlogRush was already dead for most people. I, for one, have not logged into my BlogRush account for ages. In fact, I had all but forgotten about BlogRush when I got the e-mail from the BlogRush system.

I had earlier written a post about “Why BlogRush failed and Entrecard Succeeded ?” and I still stand by most of what I had said in that post.

Initially, when BlogRush was launched, it did spread like wild fire, but I think that had more to do with the fact that John knew most of the probloggers and they helped him spread the word about BlogRush. I had read about BlogRush on Darren’s blog, and I checked the site out. At that time, I felt that the idea was good and had potential. So, I was quick to install the widget and I even wrote a post about this new service.

But, with time, it became evident that BlogRush was not going to be the next big thing, even though they launched the traffic jam site to complement BlogRush. In spite of the failure, I must say the BlogRush was a great idea and my best wishes are with the BlogRush team for their next project.

What are your thoughts about BlogRush shutting down?

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Diwali, or the festival of lights, is celebrated all across India with great fervour and enthusiasm. India is a country with great diversity. There are many religions, many cultures, many languages and many regions. Yet, there is a unifying thread that runs across the nation and binds it together.

Festivals like Diwali add strength to this thread. It is one of the very few festivals that is celebrated all over the country regardless of caste, culture, creed or religion. Sweets are exchanged among people and lamps are lit up to chase the darkness away, and spread light.

To complete the festivities, firecrackers are burst late into the night. For children, firecrackers are the most important part of Diwali, with the sweets coming in a close second.

This year Diwali falls on Tuesday, October 28 (the day of writing this post).

I wish everyone a very happy and a safe Diwali.

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It doesn’t seem like an year has passed, but it has. And to remind of that NaNoWriMo 2008 is here. I have been participating in the NaNoWriMo for the last two years. I was able to complete the 50,000 words limit in 2006, but in 2007 I failed to achieve that mile stone.

This year I am going to participate again.

I am not very sure if I am going to win or not, but I want to participate. The reason is that participating in NaNo helps me organise my thoughts into a coherent whole. As some of you might know, I am writing on a couple of blogs and an e-magazine. Writing blog posts and feature articles is good, but there is something about the idea of writing a complete novel that is very fascinating, and that attracts me to NaNo every year.

Till now, I have no clear idea about what I am going to write. But there are a few days for NaNo to begin, and I hope by that time I have come up with something concrete.

Are you doing NaNo this year?

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I am sure by now most bloggers are not only aware of what Twitter is, but are also using it to the utmost. I have been a member of twitter for quite some time now, but for some reason I had been very sceptic about the site; to some extent, I still am.

I have no doubt that sites like twitter are very good for social networking and for staying in touch with friends. But, at the same time, one must be careful when one uses these sites. The main thing to remember is that these are a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.

As a blogger, one can often fall in the trap of believing that if one is a successful social networker, one will automatically become a successful blogger. In this belief, the blogger will spend more time and effort in social networking and less time on actually blogging.  And when he doesn’t get the desired result, he is disappointed.

This is one of the reasons I have been staying away from social networking sites for the past some time. But, recently I decided to check out Twitter once again, and I  liked it because it is a no frill site, and hence it does not take up a lot of time.  So, I decided to try and use Twitter for a few days, and see how it goes.

If you want, you can follow me on Twitter! (I have also added the “What are you doing” widget to the sidebar)

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