An Accidental Career in Web Design... Gary Carruthers of Underwaterpistol shares his story...

How I got started

I had never planned a career in design or technology, but I’m grateful for the happy accident that led me down that path.

In a previous life, I was a struggling musician performing at poorly attended gigs, recording substandard demos and trying to land a record deal by passing my tapes (for our younger readers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette) to anyone who claimed to be “in the music industry”.

In 1999, my friend and fellow band member, Alan, suggested that we should build a website for the band, remarking that the World Wide Web had levelled the playing field and would allow us to do it all ourselves, just like Punk Rock in 1976! Armed with a borrowed computer, some rudimentary HTML and a small selection of animated GIFs, we set about taking on EMI, Sony et al.

After the initial excitement and enthusiasm, the results were disappointing... We ended up with a bizarre, ugly and unusable website which would never see the light of day. More positively, I had discovered something that had really fired my imagination and creativity, just like music had always done—something I had never imagined possible. I was hooked!

Learning the ropes

On deciding that I wanted to pursue web design as a possible career, I threw myself into learning HTML and the applications typically used at the time. The learning curve was steep but it was great to feel like I was getting my brain working hard again after years of going through the motions in unchallenging jobs which I’d needed to finance my music.

Like so many freelancers, I began setting about building my portfolio by offering to do work for friends and friends of friends. My partner, soon to become my wife, worked in photographic representation, so I quickly tapped into a large source of work doing portfolio websites for photographers and their agents.

I quickly settled on a simple, unfussy style, due to my clients’ requirement that the photography must be the focus of what the user was looking at, not the design. I’ve tried to apply this principle to everything we now do as an agency.

Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen neatly sums it up:

“People are on the Web not to enjoy your Web design, but to get something done.”

Making the transition from freelancer to agency

Once I’d been up and running for a while, my wife began getting involved in the business, helping me source new clients, set up meetings, do the bookkeeping and strategising (oh my, we’ve done a lot of that—also known as ‘talking incessantly about work’).

To help cope with our increased workload, I engaged several freelancers, all of them excellent. That’s when things really started gaining a bit of momentum. It also was when the pressure increased and my role started to develop into something I had to feel my way into. Adjusting to those changes have been challenging but ultimately rewarding.

Moving from home office to premises and making a few personnel changes took things forward again and now Underwaterpistol is a small but thriving digital agency. We enjoy our work, have good clients and are forging close relationships with other agencies and professionals in our field.

Tips for others starting a career in digital design

Those wanting to pursue a career in web design have so many great resources available to them in the form of blogs, books, podcasts, online tutorials. Here are some of my top tips:

1. Don’t be a Jack of all trades: try to find out where your strengths lie then focus on honing your skills, which leads onto my next point...
2. Partner up with other talented people who will compliment your skill set: a great designer and a great developer makes a great team, an average designer-developer will produce average work.
3. You can’t polish a turd*: if your client’s content is poor, you are on a hiding to nothing. The end result will be a website that doesn’t fulfill their business aims and you will be unlikely to want to use it in your portfolio. It’s your job to help the client raise the quality with a delicate combination of tough love, editing and engaging a good copywriter.
   *People will sometimes say you can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter - don’t listen to them. Glitter soon rubs off.
4. Be resilient: you will get plenty of knocks along the way but you can’t take it personally. Just keep your head down, be professional, learn your craft and trust your judgement.
5. Talk to those already doing it: I love talking to designers, developers, anyone involved in the same industry. I learn so much from finding out how different people approach similar challenges as me. Sharing information with like-minded people will help you avoid certain pitfalls.

Gary Carruthers

gary@underwaterpistol.com

https://twitter.com/#!/uwaterpistol/

www.underwaterpistol.com

The Jouney of a Thousand Miles Starts With A Single Tweet... Uber Blogger Charlotte Brown on her First Forays Into Twitter...

Back in 2006 one busy Monday, an Australian friend, JoJo, rang and down the phone exclaimed “I now have 5 people following me going into McDonalds, it’s kind of weird”. I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or underwhelmed. This new media savvy girl has a history of cross dressing, an obsession with Taxidermy and a sexuality that could rival Tiger Woods, so I am over being shocked. She soon explained that she was on Twitter, a microblog on which you create a profile, post stuff and people follow you cyberly. I rather arrogantly thought this sounded ludicrous and was destined for the world wide web trash heap along with other social networks bebo and Hi5. 

How wrong could I have been? Just short of 6 years later, twitter has just over 140 million active users, generates over 340 million tweets daily, and is still growing. Frightening. It now has its on dictionary helping the novice with an entirely new vocabulary of abbreviations and slang known as “Twerminology”. What started as internal service for an online search destination website (whatever that is) is now one of the top ten most visited sites on the internet. My friend JoJo is one of many friends, foes and famous faces who have taken to the broadband waves, to “tweet” about anything that takes their fancy.

I have had a rather tardy response to the fast developing world of social media. I incredulously joined Twitter only recently, not knowing what to expect or how to “do” it, but I wanted a piece of this pie. Before long I am talking in 140 character sentences and getting overly enthusiastic with the hashtag (#). It has quickly become evident that Twitter is transforming the way we communicate. It’s a whole new world and as a Neweeter (new tweeter) one I know very little about. But I am learning, fast. I now have access to a plethora of riveting information; I can see what Stephen Fry is having for lunch, that Katy Perry REALLY loves her sister, Jennifer Saunders feels election programmes are akin to a dry heave and I can comment on such things if I so desire. Twitter feels like a legitimate form of stalking, and is worryingly addictive.

I am still at the beginning of my Twitter journey but I have already discovered its esteeming benefits. My heart skips a beat on discovering someone new has followed me. As the follower numbers begin to rise I start to feel like my status as a human being is on the up. I start to dream big, thinking that maybe, just maybe I might one day reach the dizzy Nicki Minaj heights of (let me just check quickly) 11,191,447 followers. If I'm worth following I'm cool right? This morning, I am bordering on deranged with excitement about checking who my 20th fan is. It turns out to be sex worker looking to pull in clients from her seriously below par sex work website. Sad times.

With this I learn a cruel lesson. These tweeters are fickle rascals who, if you don’t follow them back, keep them entertained or prove useful for their careers...they un-follow you! Now, I’m sure Justin Bieber doesn’t go and cry in the loo when Birdie-Lou from deepest darkest Texas decides she is bored of his cutsie one liners and shameless self promotion. In fact, I don’t think he would even notice losing a follower. But when one only has 20 one is painfully aware when another withdraws their support. Today I lost 2. Where did I go wrong? I can be different! I can change!

Now, the blue tick. @Tylerjames777 (singer/songwriter and artist with #teamwill on BBC1’s The Voice) tweeted elatedly about being given one of these coveted blue ticks. On further inspection, I realise all the popular kids in the playground have one. I want one. How do I get one? I consult the Twitter Help Centre which kindly informs me that when you receive a blue tick you have been “verified”.

Verification is currently used to establish authenticity of identities on Twitter. The verified badge helps users discover high-quality sources of information and trust that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s Tweets.

What are you saying? I am not a high quality source of information? Because I only have 20 followers? Brutal. In short, to be verified you need to be someone of note. Apparently I am not at “high risk” of being impersonated so, no tick for me. 

I am late to the party and experiencing a baptism of fire, but I have arrived and plan on catching up. I am on the road to twitter domination one hashtag and witty quip at a time. Hold me back people. Hold me back.

JoJo and I are no longer close but thanks to Twitter, I can still see what queer leisure pursuit she is now engaging in. 

Oh, and Nicki Minaj now has 11,442,557 followers. 

Signing off for the day.

Charlotte Brown

@cbrowndays (#shamelessselfpromotion)

Drew Benvie, social media expert and UK group managing director of Hotwire, Skywrite and 33 Digital, blogs about digital trends in 2012

DIGITAL TRENDS 2012

Between drawing some things, checking in for my discount and skimming through a stream of tweets to get the day’s news, I try my best to step away from the fire hose every now and then and reflect on the broader trends in social media for marketing and communications and think about what’s coming up for the year ahead.

This year I worked with our UK team in 33 Digital to author our third annual trends report looking at what we think will be the big plays for the year ahead, based on our experiences at the coalface. From almost mainstream to bleeding edge, here is our top 10:

1. The Interest Graph: Think Pinterest and think the Like button becoming the ‘Read’, ‘Bought’ or ‘Listened’ button. This is what all the information that advertisers, brands and marketers want from you. Yet, unlike before when this required customer research and questionnaires, now it gathers information about what you buy when you shop online, what you search for, who retweetsyou, who you share or interact with on social networks, the types of content you enjoy reading and much more.

2. Putting businesses on the map: Location-based services have been expanding a lot over the past few years. Foursquare has emerged as a clear leader, doubling in size in the last six months, and Facebook check-ins from your mobile will want to say where you are too. The integration of location-based services and business will expand in 2012: this means anything from free gifts and discounts to other location-based offers and services.

3. Tablets are changing communications: It started with the iPad but now the tablet revolution is not only changing how we surf, it’s affecting how we share, shop and consume media too. People have been putting aside their netbooks and newspapers as tablets allow brands and companies to publish and market information in completely different ways. Think beyond the app to how your brand can be more relevant in the tablet economy.

4. Social media celebrities: These are people that are experts in their own field, influencers, communicators, and people who provide feedback to marketers about whatever it is they are into. Your CEO or brand ambassador is your potential loose cannon but also your secret weapon.

5. The socialising of TV and music: 70 percent of trending topics on Twitter in the UK are about what’s on TV. Chelsea beating Barcelona in April has become the most Tweeted event in history. Hashtags appear at the top of TV shows all the time now to help engage the traditional users, but we will start to see next generation TVs that feature social channels as an engraved and inbuilt part of modern television.

6. Social media & internal comms: We are beginning to see the third type of media. There is earned and there is paid-for. Now there is employed. Find out how to mobilise your workforce to maximize every opportunity whether that is to spread the word on a new initiative or product, or to hire the best talent. A social platform such as Yammer, Ning or Posterous give brands the ability to engage with their most powerful audience: their staff.

7. Cashless payments could unlock a wave of innovation: This is the ability to pay for things without the need to hand over cash or pay online in the traditional way. The recent announcement of Barclays’ PayTag technology, which allows you to pay for items using a sticker than can be connected to anything, is a great example of this.

8. Gamification: Game dynamics offer a low-cost way to enhance some of even the most basic products. Everyone needs to unwind and this is a great chance for brands, companies, developers or publishers to be innovative in the way they deliver information and let us play at the same time.

9. Forums: Forums have existed almost since the advent of the Internet and in 2012, we will continue to see the natural evolution of forums – whether that means a topic discussion on a website, or a Facebook community page debate. New platforms such as Quora are joined by an ever strengthening presence of traditional such as Money Saving Expert, Mumsnet, Pistonheads and so on.

10. Automotive app stores: The next wave of innovation in social media is on perhaps the most underutilised portable computer – the car dashboard. Auto brands are bringing out their own app stores, social networks and location-based services. Watch out for innovation and opportunities in this space.

It really is an exciting time in social media, where the only thing holding brands back is their imagination.


Drew Benvie is UK group managing director of Hotwire, Skywrite and 33 Digital. Drew is a seasoned agency MD and digital and social media PR specialist. Drew was named #1 most respected individual in New Media Age's 2011 Reputation Online survey, one of PR Week magazine's 29 under 29 (a long time ago now), named in the PR Power Book, and has picked up awards for his campaigns including PR Week, The Holmes Report and Reputation Online. Drew also first wrote the Wikipedia page on social media. Drew's background is in corporate, digital, technology and social media PR, having worked agency and client side for over 12 years. As one of the earliest UK PR and marketing practitioners to foster social media and use it in mainstream campaigns, Drew has represented brands and organisations across all sectors throughout his career.

Follow Drew on Twitter: @drewb  

Model and filmmaker Victoria Keon-Cohen blogs about the genesis of her first film.... Eternal Return and its links to mental health charity Bipolar UK

Every time I talk about this film I go through a flow of emotions - excitement, exhaustion, embarrassment. When I listen to myself go on about scarecrows, curses and sacrifices, feelings of loss and ridiculousness arise. This is because there has been so much feeding into the development of this film from different angles. I strongly believe in it like I did when we decided to start a Models’ Union at the risk of our careers. Everyone told us we were mad. It seems that madness has now returned.

Eternal Return is a short medieval fantasy film. It’s ambitious just because of this genre but that’s not including falcons, prosthetics and burning a boat on a pond scene! It’s a story about sacrifice and how we evolve through relationships. I co-wrote it with my friend Agatha Lintott after being inspired by her grandparent’s farm in Somerset, England. Amongst it’s stunningly broken down wall garden and elegant oak tree resting since the beginning of time over the Lady of Shallot pond and the giant cornfields, we lost our imaginations. This beautiful setting combined with a difficult relationship I was going through at the time spawned this synopsis:

Isabelle, the daughter of the estate tries to escape her oppressive family to elope with Henry, the seamstress's son. However, she gets caught and killed. Upon finding her body Henry, out of despair, sews up all her wounds and hangs himself on a scarecrow pole erected over her gowned body. Upon this sacrifice a curse comes into play where Henry’s soul is embodied as a falcon, his human figure is suspended in the form of a scarecrow and Isabelle comes back to life.

The couple is given a second chance, their lives suspended between human and scarecrow form where the only way to transform is through sacrifice, one for the other. When their bodies revert back into their scarecrow figure they continue repairing each other with stitching, hessian and straw. Upon becoming human again the hessian, stitching and straw change to skin and scars.

They go through different stages of transformation until Isabelle poisons herself. “With no scars to repair this time, if this doesn’t work please go on without me” is the note she leaves her lover. Henry cuts open her scarecrow sternum, takes out the rotten straw and burns it in a fire. In this moment of defeat, however he realizes a way for Isabelle to complete the cycle for them both and thus find serenity together in a new form of life.

Their devotion to each other is unwavering. It supersedes all other values, fuelling their loyalty and emotions even at the cost of their own humanity. The two are never seen human in any scene together and with no responsive dialogue, alternative communication becomes a way of life to overcome the boundaries imposed on them. Their virtues and pitfalls are all part of the reality of commitment and sacrifice as they evolve together in a search for mutual serenity.

Since commencing this film, I’ve been asked about parallels with Buddhism, been told I must be the only model who has read Nietzshe (I haven’t but will now!). When I explain various conflicts with my ex, people obtain a further understanding about where the key elements of the story came from. I quite like these different perspectives as it's so interesting to hear about how they interpret the story's meanings. They seem to align different elements of it with their own experiences. As a filmmaker, it's quite rewarding to know it has this potential to reach the audience.

Last week an anonymous contributor offered to fund 20% of the budget in return for raising awareness of the charity “Bipolar UK”. The charity doesn’t advertise but puts its resources only into ensuring its services provide for the 65,000 individuals who sought its support in the last year. We are therefore thrilled that this film has the opportunity to help such a vital cause.

Bipolar – sometimes known as manic depressive disorder - is a severe mental health illness characterised by significant mood swings including manic highs and depressive lows. It is treated with psychiatric medication records the highest suicide rate of all mental illnesses. Compared to other health problems that have a similar or lower impact, treatment of bipolar is still hampered by misunderstanding and severe stigma. It takes an average of 10.5 years to receive a correct diagnosis for bipolar in the UK. Misdiagnosis occurs on average in 3.5 % of cases.

Our incredible team has donated their time in-kind including Oscar short-listed cinematographer Vernon Layton and makeup artist of the year Lan Nguyen. We ask you to please contribute here to allow us the necessary resources to complete this film and reach out to further audiences raising awareness of this invaluable charity. Bipolar UK: www.bipolaruk.org.uk

Victoria Keon-Cohen works with NEXT management London and has modeled for clients such as Reply, Versace, Levis and Vogue. She approached Equity with Dunja Knezevic to start the first trade union for models in 2007 and stood as Founding Chair of the Equity Models' Committee from 2007 - 2012. Having studied Performance Design at Central Saint Martin's her first job in film was Costumer to Robert De Niro on Killer Elite (2011). She is currently still working with the Models' Committee and is also making films in both the fashion and film industries. Equity Models’ Committee: www.equity.org.uk/models

View the development trailer for Eternal Return here...

Hitting the road or rather, the highway... Acclaimed travel writer Rowen Bridler blogs on her journey through the good old US of A...

I'm sitting in a little motel room at a Travelodge in Kingman, Arizona just off the old Route 66, which is now a smaller road than the somewhat parallel Interstate 40, and the vibe here is 'Trucker-meets-old-hippie'.  We've been 'on the road' now for just over a week since leaving Illinois via the I-88 and onto the I-80 going west.   (For those who don't know, the "I" in "I-80" stands for interstate.)  We're headed for San Francisco but we're taking in lots of sights along the way.  

We got our car for the trip by searching on priceline.com, which seems to have had the best deals on car hire here as well as on hotels.  You'll know you're using the Priceline site when you've typed in all your details and it searches for your deal while a crazy-looking picture of William Shatner comes up (nice entertainment factor).

Personally,  I can't believe my luck at being able to go on this road trip.  This is not normally my life but I'm enjoying every unpredictable minute of it.  It was in August last year that I found a beautiful picture of the Golden Gate bridge in a magazine and put it on my wall.  I had been to Illinois and New York before, but I'd never been to the West Coast.  And it turns out, my boyfriend had a long-held desire to drive around the States, so that and the fact that my parents live in Illinois brought us to plot our escape and travel from East to West to see what we could see...

Ever since touching down at Chicago O'Hare I've been adjusting to the language differences here in the States compared to the UK.  The language use here is more direct, simpler but with a few specific terms you need to know that are not at all the same as British English.  Who was it who once said that the UK and the US are "two countries divided by a common language"?  Whoever it was, was spot-on.  

Top five American terms you need to know:

1) Car rental = Car hire.  Do not talk about 'hiring a car' because no-one will understand you!  You hire people, but rent things (cars, bikes etc.).

2) Cream for your coffee = milk for your coffee.  If you buy coffee and are asked, "Do you want cream with that?" say yes, even if you want skimmed milk.  Once you've said yes, then ask for the kind of milk you want.

3) "To pass" = "to overtake"  For example, signs on the highways read, "Keep right, except to pass".

4) Trunk = boot of the car.  This one's a useful one to know when asking a taxi driver to put something in the boot, otherwise you could find yourself getting the strangest look ever.

5) Gas = petrol.  Don't forget you are looking for a gas station, not a petrol station, when you're running low on fuel.

Other useful things to bear in mind here are firstly, the fact that credit cards, not debit cards, are used to pay for everything.  If you try to hire a car with a debit card, they'll want to do a credit check, which of course they can't do if you're not from the US.  So if you want to use a debit card instead, as long as it hasn't got the words 'debit card' on it, you should still be ok.  We got around this problem by simply not mentioning that it was a debit card visa we were using.  However, you might be better off making sure you get a credit card before you leave because it's easiest that way.

Also, the "Triple A" (AAA) is the AA or RAC equivalent here in the US.  It's a useful way to get discounts in motels, as they give a lower rate to AAA members, but some places (like the Travelodge in Kingman) will give you the rate anyway if you can say you know someone who is a member. (They didn't need to check the membership number here.)  And to give you a useful "head's up" [="just to let you know"] about the toilets, sorry, restrooms, here in the US, all the toilet cubicles in public places have a significant gap between the door and the wall of the cubicle, which is quite disconcerting to a Brit, so hang your coat over it if it bothers you.

On the whole, Americans are not as exposed to English accents as Brits are to American accents, so always go for clarity and taking longer over saying something, than brevity, or you'll only have to repeat yourself.  We've found it most helpful to indulge in a little cheerful repartee, such as joining in with the "hi, how are you today?" conversation by asking the same back, which most shops and hotels don't expect but find sort of quirky and friendly.  

And when your waitress at the fantastic breakfast diner, iHop says, "Hi, my name's Asia and I'm going to be serving you today.  Can I get you started with some drinks?" just try not to laugh.  She doesn't have the same in-built sense of ridiculousness that we Brits have been brought up with and thinks this is all totally normal.  Seriously, I kid you not.  That was her name.

Rowen Bridler is a writer, singer-songwriter, and actress currently based in Prague, Czech Republic.  Having lived over ten years in London, she fled the UK for a taste of a new life and a new language.   Inspired by the writing style of Adam Gopnik, and Elizabeth Bard (minus the recipes) Rowen is writing a travel memoir of her experiences in the architecturally mesmerising city of Prague.  She is also currently writing a daily blog about her road trip from Chicago to San Francisco.

From Blogger to Published Author: It Really Can Happen... Lucy Robinson, Marie Claire blogger talks about the publication of her first novel

On Thursday last week something ridiculous happened. Actually, no, ridiculous doesn’t cover it. It was preposterous! The thing being this: my first novel was published. My first novel was published! Did you hear me?

Ah, sorry. I get a bit carried away when I think about it. It just feels so improbable: I, Lucy Robinson, a mere bumpkin of West Country origin, am the author of a novel which has a Penguin logo on the front of it. It’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.

And yet I often feel sheepish about how it all happened. I feel like I should invent some dark story about how I threw years of my life into writing an epic novel about a fisherman from a small village near Calcutta . . . and then hawked myself with a dignified desperation around the cruel publishing houses of London (possibly limping.) And then, perhaps, I died of malnutrition and my broken hearted lover resigned from his job, took my dog-eared manuscript to his breast and campaigned for years until he achieved a posthumous publication of fifty copies.

It feels like a bit of a let-down when I tell the real tale, which goes roughly like this:

Started blog – was discovered – got book deal.

It’s not an urban myth. It happened to me.

In 2009 I was stuck in a – shall we say - challenging job which involved a lot of pain and no discernible gain. In a futile attempt to bring comfort to my miserable existence I took to eating thousands of Jaffa Cakes and going on dates with men I’d met on mysinglefriend.com. The dates, from the word go, were comedy gold and I knew it would be criminal to waste such brilliant material. So I began a blog for Marie Claire in which I documented my rather unpromising search for love.

The blog struck a chord with many and I was contacted by a publisher within six weeks of starting it. I met with her (rather inexplicably, I might add) in a deserted gay bar in Soho on a Monday evening and she told me she thought I should attempt a novel. I nodded dumbly and scampered off hoping she wouldn’t contact me again. I was quite sure that I did not have a novel in me.

But it turns out that I did.

I wrote it over the course of a year. The first half was written in bed, normally between the hours of midnight and 3am: the only free time I had. I wrote the second half in Argentina where I’d taken myself off to learn Spanish, attempt Tango and eat outstanding steak.

One afternoon I finished the final chapter. I sat alone in my apartment in Buenos Aires and punched the air. It was a boiling hot December day and the air conditioning was on full-blast. I went out to my balcony, muttered to myself about this all being completely mad and then went to bed and slept for three days.

And now, more than a year later, it’s in the shops. I have no idea what’ll happen next, but what I have realised is that I probably need to stop feeling embarrassed about having been 'discovered' because of my blog.

Because the thing is, the blog-to-book-deal thing does happen and furthermore it should happen. Editors routinely scour the blogosphere precisely because there is so much brilliant content out there. Hundreds – probably thousands - of talented writers who deserve a deal. Writers who are demonstrating with admirable tenacity their ability to keep on inventing, challenging and growing.

I imagine that for an editor the blogosphere must be like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Granted, there are several rancid offerings that should never have left the kitchen but for every twenty vats of congealed lasagne there’s bound to be one beautiful plate of fresh shrimp curry with fragrant coriander and perfectly fluffed rice. And the good news is that this curry already comes with a loyal fanbase. What’s not to love?

In typical writerly style I’ve always considered myself to be more congealed lasagne than fresh curry. But, fortunately for me, Penguin thought otherwise. And so today I want to encourage would-be bloggers to seize the day and put something out there. It may seem hopeless, adding your voice to the millions already jostling for space, but really – what have you got to lose? Blog! Blog right now!

Lucy's first novel The Greatest Love Story of All Time is published by Penguin and is out now at all major retailers and on Amazon.

www.lucy-robinson.co.uk

Emily Jenkinson blogs on life as a newbie food blogger.

 Does the world need another food blogger? Probably not, but this February, after a least a year of dilly-dallying, I finally bit the bullet and launched The Lady Bites: Tales from the Table – an online journal, combining my own illustrations and ‘ditties’ with light-hearted reflections and observations on food.

As a foodie and a journalist, a food blog seemed to make sense offering a personalised, no-pressure outlet via which I could indulge two of my greatest loves, food and writing, while sharing an on-going tendency towards ‘doodles’ on a slightly more sophisticated platform than my desk diary.

After rejecting The Raw Prawn (already taken) and Tongue Sandwich (just no), I finally settled for The Lady Bites as a passable name for my new blog and set about (with the help of a techie friend) building the site. It would be a laugh, I thought, a good discipline (much like writing a diary) and something which I could look back on and enjoy (even if nobody else did) as the years ticked by. Who knows, I might even become a better cook.

Two months since my official launch and I am now a fully-fledged food blogger with, drum roll, 201 Twitter followers (yes, I now tweet), 388 unique visitors (thank you Google Analytics) and, er, 17 Facebook fans. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help getting excited when someone tweets @theladybites and I do feel a little surge of pride when I garner a new follower or fan. Meanwhile, I nearly faint with delight when someone feels inspired enough to comment on one of my posts (even if it is just my father-in-law in disguise).

A Day in the Life of a Food Blogger ©TheLadyBites

Of course, as one of my favourite food bloggers, David Lebovitz says, getting good traffic is “not something anyone should focus on, especially when starting out” and he’s absolutely right. The whole point of starting The Lady Bites was to do something which didn’t feel like work, was fun and relaxed and which didn’t involve (as the web copywriting work I do sometimes does) being a slave to SEO.

So far, it’s living up to and even exceeding expectations. Because it is my own – my little creative project produced entirely by me - it is more absorbing and rewarding than I ever expected it to be. Meanwhile, I have, according to my husband (aka The Heid) become a better and more adventurous cook in that where once I would have bought mayonnaise, now I attempt to make it (so far, so badly, but he’s not complaining - yet). At the same time, I feel lucky to have been employed as part time Food Editor at The Good Web Guide, where I have opportunity to interview other food bloggers and cooks, review cookery schools and books and become immersed more generally in the world of food and food writing.

The only thing I simply can’t get used to is taking photographs of my food before eating it. It seems like the ultimate cruelty for someone who loves their nosh, likes it served hot and isn’t much of a photographer and I can’t help feeling a little embarrassed doing it when out in public, especially when I overhear little children asking their mothers why “that lady” is taking photos of her food. "That’s a good question young whipper-snapper," I must learn to say with pride, "it’s because I’m a food blogger. Now pipe down and get back to your brownie before I steal it."

A Funny Breed

Food bloggers are a funny breed
Who’ve made an art form of their greed
By writing down for all to note
What they’ve stuffed down their hungry throats
And what they think they might eat next
The dinner out that left them vexed
And recipes that they’ve devised –
Or those of others they’ve revised -
If edible, it’s analysed.

You’ll spot them round about in town
They’re usually armed with camera/phone
Which they whip out triumphantly
To document their gluttony
Their breakfast, snacks and lunchtime, dinner
(They’d love to be a little slimmer)
But when there’s all this marvellous food -
Delicious things in multitude -
It’s not a goal that’s worth pursued….

Read more from The Lady Bites on www.theladybites.co.uk, follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/theladybites and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theladybites