First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
But, I should say that, while the majority of what I wrote the last five or six days would be hacked down in a final draft to perhaps a fifth of what's there, I'm glad to know these things happened to my characters. Some really important things can come out of stuff that seems inconsequential at the time.
In the story since my last update:
I
ended up giving my MC a friend who wants to crush on the new boy
since my MC doesn't like/trust him (and as this is a prequel it is no
mystery that this boy will be my MC's future husband) and her mother has begun to act strange. Then I
finally got to make my Lewis Carroll reference in a reveal about one of
my characters, as I'm borrowing a term of his as a concept in my story. And today saw out of control horses and a rockslide which was unwittingly diverted by my MC, who has just had to explain herself because that boy saw her do it (yes, with magic). And there may be a character casualty I hadn't planned on - but she could still pull through... perhaps...
Forgot to update yesterday. But I guess now that I'm caught up, the drama of the daily struggle has lessened and the only jucy thing remaining is what story elements I will choose to divulge. (Am I sounding like a writer yet? ^__^) Also, being caught up makes it a cinch to hit my NaNo quota. After breaking myself in at 3,000+ words a day, the regular 1670 goes by quick. My current word count is 17,138 (and it's the end of chapter 4) - I'm actually above quota!
I
absolutely hated everything I wrote yesterday, so the hard part was to NOT
go back and redo it all - because that would kill my word count. I was on the verge of needing to type with my monitor off. Yesterday saw some boring real world type stuff - parts of town,
introducing the classroom setting. Bleh. (probably why I hated it - I'm bad at that stuff. Hence the fantasy writing.)
Better stuff today: some foreshadowing (some of it for the story
this is prequel to, though it may come out at the very end of this book as part of a subplot) including a crazy mysterious man shouting "RUE" amidst his mumbling;
Two houses, two conservatories, and secret stuff going on in both. My
Main Character is quite perplexed.
Whew!
I caught up (13,407 words)! [hoorah! hoorah! - the crowd of one in my apartment goes wild!] And I just barely made it. Okay, I sort of cheated, but not
really. I'd written a couple hundred words in Michigan on the first day, but decided
I didn't like it as the beginning of my story. I put it aside, and started again when I got home and could concentrate better. Today I got to exactly the spot where that bit could go in,
so TaDa! So, "cheating" in that I copied and pasted, and only made a few quick changes to make it fit (now that there were more people in the scene than the way I'd first written it). But definitely NOT cheating because I did write it for this story and in the month of NaNo. I just did it so quick it felt like cheating (it was about 7 minutes to midnight when I realised I was precisely AT the setup for the scene), but I'd always intended to see if the snippet could go back in. I mean, if anything, I've actually been shortchanging myself on my word count all this time, 'cause no one ever said you had to write the thing in order.
In the story today: My MC caught the local shop owner gossiping about her and decided to listen in. And she also heard there's a new boy in town who apparently thinks my MC is pretty. Then he walked in and caught her eavesdropping!
I am 1/5th the way through! More than 20%! I passed today's NaNo catch-up goal (10,000 words) with over an hour to spare, and surpassed it (10,578) with half an hour to spare. I'll catch up tomorrow for sure! I'm only stopping now because my MC is going to bed, too, so it seemed like a good spot.
In the story today: Apparently my MC has a revered ancestor named Quinlin Hart and her mother was having a bit of a salamander problem - the magic kind that are made of fire. It lost its tail, but it'll grow back....
...Don't know when my main plot will kick in. Not that I know what that is yet. Maybe tomorrow it will reveal itself. She's gonna catch some unsettling gossip about herself. And there's someone new in town. Now if only I knew what that gossip was...
Didn't
quite hit my double quota before midnight like I needed to catch up for
nanowrimo, but I should get there before I go to bed tonight. Currently at 6,120. Need to get to 6,668 before I go to sleep. (Though I really should be at 10,002 if I were caught up.)
In the story today: a gnome named Hollaby, a gnomide (that's a female gnome), an injured rabbit who got some healing and is now being chased by a kunal trow flying about on a bulrush. But the rabbit's in good hands in my main character's saddlebag....
I wrote
over 3300 words for NaNo today, but I'm still 5,000 behind due to my
late start! But if I can write double the daily quota for the next
three days I should catch up.
In the story so far: a shapeshifting woman, a very dark cavern, and a garden built by gnomes out of rock, moss, and non-native plants....
making pathetic progress so far on my word count. But I'm gonna stay up all night to catch up a bit. ...If I can keep myself from taking too many breaks.... Which doesn't seem likely.
Word count is at 1586.
p.s. Feel free to hound me when I'm behind. I'm not sure I can rely on those 'invisible guilt monkeys' to keep me on task. They're titchy little buggers.
I spent the first few days of November at my mom's in Michigan, where there was only dial up internet, no cell phone signal, and adorable nephews to distract me. So I'm getting a late start on my writing. The daily quota (if you write every day) is 1,667 words. I'm about 7,000 behind.
Here I go!
