November is one week away, and that means NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo are, too!

If you’ve been thinking about reinvigorating your blogging or are finally ready to stop procrastinating on that book you’ve always wanted to write, these two great events (and communities) can give you the jolt of motivation you need.

NaMo what now?

NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo are short for “National Novel Writing Month” and “National Blog Posting Month,” respectively. In the first, writers commit to writing a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and November 30; in the second, to posting every single day in November.

310,095 participants started the month of November as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

- NaNoWriMo 2013 at a Glance

Although the two events are separate, they share a history: NaBloPoMo started in response to NaNoWriMo, when a group of bloggers who lacked the time or inclination to write a book, but loved the idea of a communal blogging challenge, coalesced. Both challenges now have their own vibrant communities of writers and bloggers who inspire and support one another.

If you wait until the Muse shows up and inspires you to write, you may end up writing nothing at all. Whereas if you’re sitting there every day in November churning out your thoughts and photos and shaping them all into something readable, if even 33% of what you’ve posted veers toward greatness, that’s 10 great posts you came up with that you might not have otherwise.

- NaBloPoMo founder Eden Kennedy

Hundreds of thousands of writers and bloggers participate each year, making new friends and writing things they never thought they would.

How do I get involved?

Easy! Just decide to do it. All you need is an idea, some commitment, and a place to write.

Take the NaNoWriMo challenge, and proudly display the Viking crest!

Getting involved with the larger communities is almost as easy:

• To be listed on the official blogroll of NaBloPoMo participants, head to BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo headquarters at the beginning of November — there’ll be a sign-up post where you can add your blog, along with a list of suggested blogging prompts for the month. You can also grab the official badge for your blog.
• For NaNoWriMo, mosey over to the project’s official website to sign up and access features like word count tools and forums where you can connect with other budding novelists.

On WordPress.com, you can also tag your posts with “NaNoWriMo” or “NaBloPoMo” to help other participants find you.

I’m not sure I can blog every day for a month, help!

Sure you can, and we can help. Along with the prompts NaBloPoMo provides, we’ve got our own daily prompts and weekly writing and photo challenges to get the creative juices flowing. For those of you who prefer to blog with images, we’re also kicking off a new Blogging U. challenge in November, Photography 101, to help you snap and post every day.

If prompts aren’t for you, try creating your own manageable posting strategy for the month. Posting every day doesn’t have to mean writing 1,000 words a day — it can be as simple as:

• A photo a day
• A list a day
• A sketch a day
• A haiku a day
• An observation a day
• A thank you a day

For more help making it through, check out our blog event survival guide or our roundtable with seasoned NaNoWriMo authors. And there’s no better motivation than encouragement and engagement, so visit one another’s blogs and leave a comment when you do.

You’ve got a week to prepare. Get ready to get writing!

My Sites just got a new look, but more importantly, it got a technical overhaul, making the page dramatically faster and more powerful.

From one central location, scan and select any of your WordPress sites or create new ones with the support of a more visual interface. Head directly to the posts or pages of a particular WordPress or launch stats to glimpse trends and get inspiration for blog or website content.  Access themes, user settings, and sharing options with a click to make WordPress your own.

The new My Sites page is a small piece of a larger effort to make WordPress.com faster, easier to use from any device, and overall more wonderful. My Sites will be a hub for an increasingly seamless experience, so stay tuned for more updates, and please pardon the dust as we make a few changes!

My Sites: Before & After

My Sites: Before

My Sites: After

You’ve just started your shiny new blog and you’d like some help as you get up to speed on WordPress.com. Or, maybe you’d like some inspiration to write every day. On September 15th, we kick off two free Blogging U. courses: Blogging 101 and Writing 101. They might be just what you need to whip your blog into shape and/or establish your writing habit.

Blogging 101

Each day for 30 days, Blogging 101 offers a bite-sized blogging “assignment*,” geared to helping you customize the look of your blog, start a blogging habit, and find some new blogging friends. Here’s how it works:

• Assignments fall into three broad categories — publishing posts, customizing your blog, and engaging with the community. Assignments are designed to build on one another.
• We’ll post a new assignment at The Daily Post each weekday at 12AM GMT (8PM EDT). (Time zone math: 12AM GMT, Monday September 15th = 8PM EDT, Sunday, September 14th.) Each assignment contains all the inspiration and instructions you need to complete it. Weekends are free time you can use to catch up on assignments, if you like.
• Participants get access to a private community site, the Commons, where they can chat, connect, and seek feedback and support. Daily Post staff and Happiness Engineers will be on hand to answer your questions and offer guidance and resources.
• Cost? Free!

Writing 101

Each day for 30 days, we’ll post an “assignment*” geared to helping you create a writing habit, inspire you to try new forms, get some feedback from fellow participants, and make some writing friends online.

Here’s how it works:

• Each assignment has two parts: a prompt and a twist. Prompts are the topic for the day; twists are exercises that stretch your writing chops. Use them however you’d like: respond to the prompt, and ignore the twist. Try the twist, but write on your own topic. Use both.
• We’ll post a new writing assignment at the The Daily Post each weekday at 12AM GMT (8PM EDT). (Time zone math: 12AM GMT, Monday September 15th = 8PM EDT, Sunday, September 14th.). There are no weekend assignments — you’re free to expand on a weekday post, write something unrelated, or (gasp!) spend some time away from your blog.
• Participants get access to a private community site, the Commons, where they can chat, connect, and seek feedback and support. Daily Post staff and Happiness Engineers will be on hand in the comments to answer questions and offer guidance and resources.
• Cost? Zilch, zero, nada.

*All assignments are optional. Blogging 101 and Writing 101 are designed to inspire and educate you to start and maintain a blogging habit. While we encourage you to be active in the Commons and participate in discussions with fellow participants, you never have to show your work if you’d prefer not to.

Intrigued? Register for Blogging 101, Writing 101 or both by filling out this form:

Many of the themes in our Theme Showcase are great for writing and reading longer articles and stories, from our classic default themes — including Twenty Fourteen and Twenty Twelve — to popular personal blogging themes like Ryu and Manifest. 

Last week, we shared ten of our favorite longreads across WordPress, and we hope you’ve taken some time to sit back and savor these longer pieces. Below, we’ve gathered some themes that work well with longform writing and offer a clean, enjoyable experience for your readers.

Syntax

On Otium, Yale PhD student Sarah Constantin writes about mathematics, cognitive science, philosophy, and more. Aside from a colorful graphic header image, Sarah keeps her blog simple. You can click on the button on the left to open the menu and access her About page, but the site is minimal, which keeps the focus on her prose.

On Syntax, you’ll find large, easy-to-read typography, and some nice touches for writers, like elegant displays of pullquotes:

As you can see on Sarah’s site, Syntax puts your writing in the spotlight.

Book Lite

Daniel Kay Hertz, a Chicago-based writer, discusses public policy and urban studies at City Notes. His site features a wide header image, fonts that are easy on the eyes, and a clutter-free, single-column look. He balances his text with visuals, and creates a pleasing reading experience.

Inspired by old-fashioned typography, Book Lite is clean and sophisticated, no matter how you customize it. Your widgets appear in your footer, keeping all of your extras in one place and allowing your writing to take center stage.

Duet

A notable feature of Duet, a premium theme, is its two-column layout, inspired by traditional print magazines. The design transforms your longer posts into professional pieces, which you can sample on The Squeaky Robot. Here, the Hanoi-based writer and traveler mixes images and text beautifully, seen on posts like “The Great Divide” as well as “A Single Story of Soviet Russia,” an archived favorite.

Another plus about Duet? It’s a solid theme for longform writers who produce as many photographs as they do words — you can set image and gallery post formats as well, which feature photographs proudly, as seen in these festival snapshots in Ba Vì National Park.

Other themes to consider:

• With Manifest, you’ve got a number of post formats to display different types of content, from status to gallery formats. But its standard post format is as clean as can be — perfect to tell your stories and publish commentaries, with no distractions. See it on blogs like Voiced Over and Idiot Joy Showland.
• Hemingway Rewritten, launched earlier this year, has quickly become a favorite among WordPress.com bloggers, with its parallax-scrolling header and bold yet sophisticated font choices. See it in action on Blog of the Courtier. The theme’s full-width page template offers even more real estate, in case you’d like to feature your best writing on static pages.
• A very stylized theme, Esquire might not be appropriate for everyone, but for those who do activate it, it’s often a perfect fit. Esquire‘s out-of-the-box accents — from the red drop cap to the yellow menu box on the left — look great on Jessica Lee’s blog, Road Essays, where she publishes travel nonfiction narrative.

We're excited to unveil our new events calendar, letting users around the world find new ways to connect with the WordPress community.

In case you missed it, a quick recap of the past week on WordPress.com.

At WordPress.com, we’ve launched a collection of improvements to smooth your editorial workflow, and save you time writing posts and organizing your content. Here’s what’s new:

• Improved Menus let you organize content more easily.
• Post Locking prevents accidental changes in a multi-author environment.
• Revision tracking lets you see who changed what, and revert as necessary.
• Improved Autosave protects the content you’ve worked so hard to create.

Manage Menus and Menu Locations with ease

Always wanted to have a menu in say, your site’s footer, in addition to your header? Now you can. Currently 15 WordPress.com themes support multiple custom menus including Comet, Nuntius, Academica, Imbalance2, Blaskan, Yoko, Oxygen, Able, Vostok, Mixfolio, Beach, Enterprise, Shaan, Sight, and Simpla.

To get started, go to Appearance >> Menus in your dashboard. There, select from among pages, links, and categories to create your new custom menu. In this example, we’re adding new primary navigation to our header and a new tertiary menu to our footer. Our new footer menu will include a link to our Twitter profile, our WordPress.com photoblog, and our Facebook page.

We’ve set up a custom menu that uses our About and My Travels pages in our primary navigation:

To create our new tertiary menu in the footer, we’ve added links to our Twitter profile, our WordPress.com photoblog, and our Facebook page:

Under Manage Locations, we’ve selected locations for each menu. Our primary navigation will display at the top of the site, and our footer menu of custom links will be set to Tertiary, and will appear in the footer:

Here’s our new primary nav as it appears on our site with the Oxygen Theme, and a bit o’ blogroll, to boot:

Here’s the nifty new tertiary menu in the footer of the site:

Post Locking protects your content

Working in a multi-author environment? Post Locking lets you see at a glance who’s editing a post. You can choose to preview the post, return to the dashboard, or take over the post to edit it.

Let’s look at how Post Locking works. If I go to All Posts in my dashboard — I see that Cheri Lucas is editing my post:

Now, when I hover over the post title and click on Edit, I have three options to choose from: Go back, Preview, and Take over. In this case, I’m on deadline and I need to edit my post. I click on the blue Take over button:

Here’s what Cheri sees on when I click the blue Take over button:

Post Locking offers crystal clear editing status on a post — streamlining and smoothing editorial workflow and helping make it easier for your team to publish new content.

Revision Tracking: see changes easily, revert with one click

With the enhanced Revision Tracking feature, you can see at a glance who has previously edited or contributed to a post:

Clicking on the link next to any avatar shows the changes that person made to the post:

To revert to any given version of a post, select the revision you’d like to keep and then click on the blue, Restore This Revision button.

Autosave: protecting your darlings

Consider this: you’ve been working on that 1000-word post recounting that trip of a lifetime to Spain. You’re headlong into writing. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, your internet’s gone down and all your work — all that lovingly recounted detail on The Alhambra’s stunning grounds and architecture — is gone. Newly revamped Autosave takes advantage of your web browser’s storage to ensure that you never lose your work again, despite a wonky internet connection.

Every few weeks, we’re sitting down with an Automattician to help you get to know the people who work behind the scenes to build new features, keep Automattic running, and make WordPress.com the best it can be. This week, we’re very pleased to introduce you to Ms. Sara Rosso, the ultimate WordPress fan, and World Nutella Day instigator extraordinaire.

What kinds of awesome things do you do at Automattic?

Sara Rosso

As VIP Global Services Manager, I work with the WordPress.com VIP team to make the WordPress.com VIP platform as awesome as it can be for VIP clients and their users. A lot of the features and improvements we make also get rolled out to the rest of WordPress.com, so we’re working for every WordPress.com user, too! The VIP team spends a lot of time behind the scenes and are happy to let WordPress.com VIP clients like CNN, TIME.com, NFL, NBC, BBC, and more, take the spotlight with their WordPress.com VIP sites instead.

Describe a recent project for us:

I spend a lot of time on our product communication and resources, user and developer training, and discovering and sharing how large and interesting organizations are using WordPress throughout the world. We recently published case studies with NASA, the Wall Street Journal, and TIME.com for their Person of the Year site, all using WordPress! I think it’s great how WordPress allows so many organizations to get a website up quick and easily, and there are some really beautiful and innovative WordPress sites I enjoy discovering, too. I’m also spending more time on designing and developing training programs which is great because I like helping people understand and master WordPress, and it’s something I’ve done on my own for friends and family since I started using the software in 2006.

Give us a bit of your expert advice — what tip can you provide the WordPress.com community?

There are so many features built into WordPress.com, it’s like you’ve got hundreds of plugins at your fingertips. Snoop around on your Dashboard to discover them!

I think besides writing, the most important thing you can do is to make sure you’re sharing your content so people can discover, read, react to, and share it themselves. WordPress.com plays really nice with social media and I love the Settings > Sharing page on your blog’s Dashboard. Turn on Sharing Buttons under every post for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more with one click, and have your WordPress.com posts automatically push to Twitter and Facebook by turning on Publicize also on this settings page.

What do you most enjoy about your job?

I love the freedom this job has given me to construct my day, day by day. It allows me to decide when I’ll be most productive and organize other important things around my work as well. Since I don’t have to be in an office, I can get productive anywhere, which means I can decide between working from my couch or my desk, to working in San Francisco or London! Living abroad for the past 10 years means that I’m actually able to see friends and family more often than I ever have; all I need is an internet connection and my computer to work.

I have pretty awesome colleagues, too. I talked a lot about Automattic in this article, but I wanted to share this with you about why it’s great to work in a distributed company with interesting and challenging colleagues:

It’s hard to choose just one day as my favorite day working for Automattic, but I would say most of the best days I have had at Automattic have been during our in-person company meet-ups. You might think that this means we should work together more often, but on the contrary I think because we’re a distributed company we enjoy our time together in-person that much more. We spend every waking hour together (some days are quite long due to excitement and catching up) and a lot of it being excited to talk shop, too. The best part is working on a week-long project with people who are not your normal team members and presenting your project at the end of the week to the entire company (for example, my team’s project was the restaurants vertical, which recently launched on WordPress.com).

What do you love to do in your spare time?

Blogging and writing in general! I have four sites of my own (all running on WordPress, naturally), where I share my experiences in travel, food, healthy living, technology/running a business, and my photoblog. I spend a lot of time sharing tips with friends and readers on how to run their businesses and websites online; thank goodness WordPress is the answer for a lot of them. I also have written two ebooks (on Italian coffee and Nutella) and I plan to do more.

If I’m not writing, I’m reading voraciously — books and blogs alike. I consume enormous amounts of content and I’m always looking for the next blog, site, or book which will educate, entertain, or inspire me (sometimes a combination of all three!) And I’m constantly snapping photos either with my DSLR (I sell some of my photos) or with my iPhone — you can follow on my WordPress.com mobile photoblog and join me with the Weekly Photo Challenge on The Daily Post!

When you start to work with us at Automattic, Sara will be among the first friendly folks you meet — she’ll be the one gently nudging you to post your introductory video, so that you can tell us a little about yourself. What are you waiting for? Check out all the opportunities currently open at Automattic and apply to work with us.

Sara would like to say a little hello to you via video — can’t see the video? Click through to see the post on the website.

Image lovers and creative bloggers unite! Two new themes have launched today that I think you all will absolutely go gaga over.

Full Frame, designed and developed by Graph Paper Press, is a single column, full-width theme for showcasing your beautiful images, galleries, and videos from edge to edge. It’s responsive and adapts to different screen sizes so that your website will work (and be optimized for) iPhones, iPads, Android and other mobile devices. Full Frame also removes unnecessary clutter and puts the spotlight on your content.

Full Frame: Home Page

The theme offers text options that give you maximum creative control over the presentation of your post titles, as well as support for six post formats. Each post format further alters the way the post is displayed so you can present images, galleries, videos, and quotes in powerful, unique ways.

Full Frame is a premium upgrade for your blog; read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

The next up is Ryu, a free theme designed by our very own Takashi Irie. It’s a simple, clutter-free theme for personal bloggers. Not only does this theme have great readability with a large font size, but it’s also excellent for showing off large, full-width featured images with (or without!) the image post format.

Ryu: Home Page Example

Ryu supports Standard, Image, Video, Quote, Aside, and Gallery post formats and the theme has a special treatment for the image post format. Background color for an image post will automatically match the uploaded image.

An example of an image post.

The theme has more cool features, so make sure read more about its features on the Theme Showcase page.

Howdy all! We have a bunch of awesome new themes for you today, so let’s dive right in.

First up is Little Story, a premium theme with design elements and inspiration from the talented Laura Amiss.

Little Story supports several post formats in different styles, large featured images on Sticky posts, a mobile-friendly layout (including a collapsible footer widget area), social network icons for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and an option to add author information after single posts. It’s the perfect choice for a design or craft blog, or for sharing your own stories and tales.

Read more about Little Story on the Theme Showcase, or preview it on your site under Appearance -> Themes!

Next up is a clean, professional blog theme from the fine folks at WooThemes called Scrollider Express. This theme comes loaded with features including post formats, responsive layout, and featured images. Added to this is a unique header image design that spans the full width of the homepage and presents a bit of a surprise as you scroll down the screen.

Read more about Scrollider Express on the Theme Showcase, or preview it on your site under Appearance → Themes.

Last but not least, we have Pachyderm, a free theme that supports all post formats, an optional widget area, and what theme wouldn’t be complete without a pink elephant? With its clean, playful design, it would be perfect for a baby or family blog, or for sharing your web finds on a tumblelog.

Read more about Pachyderm on the Theme Showcase, or activate it on your site by going to Appearance -> Themes.

The big news on the internet the last couple of days has been that seminal RSS reader Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1, 2013. Google Reader had lots of fans, including many of us here at Automattic, but it’s time to move on.

Speaking of moving on from Google Reader, did you know that you can import your subscriptions directly from Google Reader into the WordPress.com Reader? We launched the Reader about 18 months ago; it’s responsive to fit any size screen, you can like and reblog WordPress.com content without leaving the news stream, and if you run out of new posts to read, you can discover new content in the Recommended Blogs section.

To import your subscriptions, just visit the WordPress.com Reader import page; you’ll be reading your feeds in the WordPress.com Reader in three clicks or less, or your money back.

The Reader can also import and export OPML, so you can try it out no matter what feed reader you’re using today.

We’re bringing you some action-packed fun on this Threeme Day!

Photographer’s home page template

First up, we’re bringing you a gorgeous new premium theme from our friends at Organic Themes. Photographer features a beautifully minimal design with a focus on photography. It’s a professional portfolio and photo blogging solution for serious photographers and artists. The theme features the ability to create endless slideshows and portfolios, and is sure to satisfy the website needs of all shutterbugs.

Photographer is a premium upgrade for your blog; read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Superhero with Featured Content slider

Our next theme today is Superhero, designed by yours truly. Superhero is a clean and minimal blog theme with bright pops of color and some great hidden power. If you take off its glasses, Superhero can wow your users with a truly heroic full-screen featured content area. Mix in some subtle CSS3 transitions, a fixed header, and full-bleed post featured images, and you’ll have yourself an epic blog in no time.

Read more about Superhero on the Theme Showcase or start using it on your own blog in Appearance → Themes. If you love the look of Superhero, but have a self-hosted WordPress blog, have no fear, Superhero is… already available for download! Check it out in the WordPress.org theme directory.

Sidekick with panoramic featured images

Every Superhero needs a Sidekick. Our next theme, Sidekick, is essentially Superhero without the utility belt. Stripping out the sidebar widget area, featured content slider, and fixed header gives Sidekick a spartan appearance, but like all great sidekicks, this theme brings something special to the team. Sidekick uniquely displays panoramic featured post images in a responsive, full-bleed manner.

Read more about Sidekick on the Theme Showcase or start using it on your own blog in Appearance → Themes.

When you become a part of WordPress.com, you’re actually getting two awesome services for the price of none: your blog plus your Reader, which brings every WordPress.com blog together in one easy-to-search place. Your blog is where your ideas come to life, and your Reader is where you connect with other WordPressers, our community hub. It’s the place to find bloggers who inspire you, teach you, tug your heartstrings, and make you laugh — and who just may be your next biggest fans.

When you log in to WordPress.com and go to the actual http://wordpress.com — as opposed to going directly to your blog — you’ll land in your Reader. It looks a little something like this — familiar?

With several ways to discover content that speaks to you, it’s a powerful tool not only for finding great reads, but for making connections. We call it “your” Reader on purpose. It’s not just a place to find what we think is worth finding; it’s a place you make your own and tailor around things you love, so every time you log in you find something you can’t wait to read.

Not sure how to use the Reader to navigate the wide world of WordPress.com?  Here are a few to-dos for the next time you log in:

Find your friends

If you’re new to WordPress, dip your toes into the water by finding and following friends who are already here. (You’ll plunge in all the way soon enough!)

Our Friend Finder will scour Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail and let you know who’s already talking about you writing on WordPress.com. Start following their sites and your Reader will be bursting with fresh content in no time. Click “Connect,” give WordPress.com permission to access your contacts, and watch the posts roll in.

(None of your friends here yet? Maybe it’s time to give ‘em a nudge.)

Check out Recommended Blogs

Along with daily Freshly Pressed picks, we hand-pick blogs that consistently publish great content for inclusion on our Recommended Blogs lists. Whether you want to read about sports, parenting, crafting, or cars, we’ve got fantastic bloggers with vibrant communities lined up for you. Explore one topic or ten — we’re sure you’ll find yourself caught up in conversation before you know it.

Pick the topics you’re interested in, then scroll down and click “Show Me the Blogs!” Just make sure you have a few hours of free time on your hands.

Browse the topics

The topic listings let you sort all the posts published on WordPress.com according to their tags, so you can hone in on what most interests you. We’ve pre-populated it with some of the more popular topics along with things we think you’ll like, but you can add and delete topics at will to create custom filters for yourself. Click the “X” to the right of any topic to nix it, or scroll to the bottom of the list and add your own.

Get creative with your topic searches — we’ve found great science blogs searching for “Schrödinger’s Cat” and hilarious personal stories under more amorphous topics liks “Frustration.” You control the topics you see, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

This is a snippet of what my Reader looks like. Well, for today, anyway. It changes constantly as I use it to stay on top of trends, news, and new interests.

Follow your favorites

When you find a site that’s up your alley, follow it by clicking “Follow” in the toolbar running across the top of your screen:

You can also follow blogs from within the Reader itself; each post excerpt has a “Follow” link under it. Heck, you can even follow non-WordPress.com blogs, just to make it easier to do all your reading in one place: head to the “Blogs I Follow” tab in the Reader and click the “edit” button to add your favorite self-hosted WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, or whatever-service-that’s-not-WordPress.com blog.

When you do, new posts from that blogger will show up under the “Blogs I Follow” tab in your Reader; you can then click through to the blog, or reblog or Like the post from within the Reader itself. We encourage you to visit the blog and comment, though — everyone loves feedback, and Likes alone do not a community make!

There’s no limit to the number of blogs you can add, and using the Reader to follow your favorite bloggers lets you avoid inbox overload and browse on your own time. (If you’re already suffering from inbox overload, mosey over to your settings page to adjust or reduce the number of blog notifications you get via email.)

If you usually go straight to your blog’s dashboard to publish, take a minute the next time you log on to visit the Reader — just visit WordPress.com when logged in.

If you’re already a Reader regular, we’d love to hear how you use it? What are your tips and tricks for finding the hidden gems?

The Reader will continue to evolve to make it even easier for you to find, manage, and connect with blogs you love — and we’ll make sure you can take full advantage of the updates. Stay tuned for more changes!

Every couple weeks, we’re sitting down with an Automattician to help you get to know the people who work behind the scenes to build new features, keep Automattic running, and make WordPress.com the best it can be. This week, we’re very pleased to introduce you to Ms. Kathryn Presner. Everybody, say hey to Kathryn!

What’s your role at Automattic?

Ms. Kathryn Presner

As a Happiness Engineer, I help WordPress.com users solve every kind of issue imaginable: from setting up custom menus to custom DNS records.

I love troubleshooting users’ problems and finding solutions — it’s incredibly satisfying seeing someone go from frustrated and confused to delighted and enlightened. I especially enjoy “seeing the lightbulb go off” when explaining WordPress basics to beginners.

The best part of my day is when a user tells me I’ve totally lived up to my Happiness Engineer designation, which — let’s be honest — has to be one of the best titles in the world!

Tell us about a project you’ve worked on recently.

To introduce myself to my Automattic colleagues from around the world at our company meetup last fall, I prepared a presentation called Foods From Québec You May or May Not Have Heard Of… and why you need to try them at least once. It explored everything from tire sur la neige — hot maple syrup taffy poured over snow and twirled around popsicle sticks — to our most well-known export, poutine: a heart-stopping combination of fries, gravy, and cheese curds. I even brought a giant batch of homemade sucre à la crème* (decadent brown sugar fudge) to give people a real taste of Québec.

What have you learned that you can share with WordPress.com users?

Did you know that many cities around the world hold regular get-togethers where you can meet other WordPress enthusiasts in person? I’ve met some of my closest friends and collaborators that way. Try an online search for your-city-or-town WordPress meetup and see what comes up! Some of these groups also run annual events called WordCamps, where you can spend a jam-packed day or two soaking up WordPress goodness and blogging inspiration among folks who love WordPress as much as you do!

What do you love most about working at Automattic?

Every day I feel utterly lucky to be surrounded — virtually — by the most awesome colleagues in the world: funny, kind, smart, and as passionate as I am about helping people with WordPress.

What do you love to do in your spare time?

Top ten things I’m likely to be doing when I’m not on my computer:

1. Cooking or baking delicious food from around the world, from
   Moroccan bread to Ethiopian chicken.
2. Cavorting with my three crazy cats.
3. Trying not to buy more vintage Pyrex mixing bowls at flea markets
   and church bazaars (and, who are we kidding, probably failing).
4. Exploring obscure mom-and-pop restaurants of every stripe.
5. Playing badminton or doing pilates.
6. In summer, thinking up new ideas to foil the vegetable-loving
   squirrels in my backyard garden.
7. In winter, wondering who ever thought colonizing in a city covered in snow five months of the year was a good idea.
8. Attending a weekly movie night with friends — we’ve reached #440.
9. Watching a play or show put on by Montréal’s small English-language theatre community.
10. Traveling to interesting places both close to home and across the world.

*Sucre à la crème is now known around Automattic as the French fudge of the gods. Kathryn is a confectioner par excellence.

Did you know that Automattic is hiring? We want people who are willing to work hard, share their ideas, learn from their colleagues, take initiative to get things done without being told, and those who aren’t afraid to ask questions. Think you fit the bill? Work with us.

We’ve launched themes especially for people planning and documenting their weddings, like the elegant themes Forever and Ever After, and the charming, playful Lovebirds and Blissful Blog themes.

Here, we’ll take a quick look at how brides-to-be gather inspiration, how couples can share event details with their guests, and how folks in the industry — like wedding planners and photographers — showcase their work and exchange ideas within the community.

Snapshots & My Thoughts

Snapshots & My Thoughts

At Snapshots & My Thoughts, Ailee explores a number of interests — decor, travel, photography, and lifestyle — but also dedicates a section to planning her wedding. Browse the wedding category to read about her big day, from her wine country venue in Northern California to details that have inspired her along the way, from crafty invitations and maps to floral and cake ideas. The subtle, elegant, and feminine look of her blog complements the overall aesthetic of her special day.

A WordPress.com site can offer a sneak peek into the ceremony and reception you’re planning in a fun, engaging way. You can see the Ever After theme in action on another blog of wedding inspiration, The Undomestic Bride. The blogger compiles design and style ideas and words of wisdom, mixed with her own musings on planning and the event itself.

Cody + Kelly

Cody + Kelly

Cody and Kelly, who are getting married in August, have set up a site where their guests can read about their story and the proposal (click on the “I Said Yes” link under “Cody + Kelly” in the menu) and other details, from the event to the wedding party. We dig the cute, clever use of the Twitter widget in the footer area — “His” and “Her” Twitter feeds.

Couples can also opt to keep their sites private and give access to invited guests only. To adjust a site’s privacy settings, go to Settings » Reading in the dashboard and select the option next to “I would like my site to be private, visible only to users I choose.” Then, you can invite people to view the site.

Shine Studios

Shine Studios

Lauretta and Blair, the award-winning wedding photographers behind Shine Studios, live on Waiheke Island, a gorgeous wedding destination on New Zealand. The featured post slider on their home page highlights notable content, from sneak peeks to shoots on the beach to wedding day images in picturesque places like Hawkes Bay.

Another photographer, Laura Fisher, takes advantage of the delicate yet polished design of the Ever After theme. Her photographs of a forest wedding in Hamilton, Ohio, and engagement shoot among fall leaves in Burnet Woods, Cincinnati, look stunning in Ever After’s wide one-column layout.

Jessie Thomson: Weddings and Events

Jessie Thomson

Brides-to-be and couples on WordPress.com? Check. Wedding photographers? Check. How about wedding planners? You bet.

A blog with an event planner’s point of view reveals a different, behind-the-scenes angle. Jessie Thomson, a wedding planner and stylist in the Cotswolds of England, blogs about regional industry news — think boutique openings and new vendors and artists — and shares DIY tutorials and write-ups on events she’s planned and styled. Her site illustrates how planners can share their style and portfolio with potential clients and colleagues, all in one place.

Wedding-specific features

In case you didn’t know, you can enable the milestone widget in our themes, which provides a simple way to create a countdown to a given date. Here’s how the widget appears in the Forever theme:

You can also create a contact form to gather RSVPs, and in some of our wedding themes — Ever After, Lovebirds, and Forever — you can use the Guestbook Page Template to create a guestbook page for visitors to leave notes and share stories and memories.

To do this, go to Pages » Add New in the dashboard and under “Page Attributes” on the right, set the “Template” to “Guestbook.”

A comment form at the bottom of the page allows guests to post new entries.

Happy planning!

Have you discovered a wedding site or blog on WordPress.com you’d like to share with the community? Let us know.

Billy Cart Derby Blog Tour

Fundraising tips for schools.

Donna M. Smith.

Thank you Angela for inviting me today.  Billy Cart Derby is based on an annual Billy Cart Race around Happy Valley Primary School to raise funds for the school.  In this story, the grade 2s want to beat the fundraising efforts of the grade 3 skateboard day fundraiser.  The book has a class discussion topics section which focuses on fundraising for schools.

Fundraising for your child’s school  is always a major contributor to their overall income regardless of whether the school is a public school or an independent school.   All schools benefit greatly from an enthusiastic parent driven fundraising team.  As the mother of three young children I have enjoyed being a part of playgroup fundraising teams, kinder fundraising teams, Girl Guides and Scouts and school fundraising teams and although the children vary in age the basic fundraising ideas still apply.

The basic idea is to raise as much funds as possible in a set period of time.  This usually depends on the type of fundraiser you run  and the promotion you push.  Usually a fundraiser is run with a specific goal in mind; for example- a water tank, junior school playground, new picnic tables, books and so forth.    With a specific goal in mind the fundraising team can then set about sourcing the goal item/s to determine the cost required to fulfil the goal.  Once the team obtains the information and costs, the team can them outline a specific fundraising plan to raise the funds needed to fulfil the goal. For example;

Construction of new middle school playground – cost $12,000.

Fundraising plan to raise majority of funds – School fair.

School fair ran on a Saturday in November and raised over  $100,000.

The middle school playground was built along with several new seating areas with the fund raised.

Fundraising chocolates are iconic and well known by families.  However school fundraising teams can be far more creative and adventurous with their ideas.   Kinders now enjoy aprons with the children’s hand print, clocks and art exhibition nights. Primary schools can enjoy so many varied fund raising days. Everything from  footy days, school discos, school fair, Easter raffle, hot cross bun drives but my favourite is my book fair.

My book fair ‘The Book Chest’ is a primary school book drive which I run that enables schools to purchase books at a discounted rate and then receive a HUGE cash payment.  Depending on the amount of sales received, the school receives a CASH payment which they can use to purchase anything from water tanks, ipads, books, sporting equipment and musical instruments.   I arrange the drive and organise all of the orders and then deliver all of the books to the schools and happily write their fundraising cheques!

School fundraising teams play an important role within the school community and every cent which is raised helps their school.

Thanks Angela, I have really enjoyed visiting Blue Dingo today.  You can read more about the ‘The Book Chest’ book drive on my site www.donnamsmithauthor.wordpress.com

Karen Tyrrell will be announcing the winners of the ME & HER – Memoir of Madness draw on her website at mid-day today EST (Australia). That is http://www.karentyrrell.com/ be there!

Book Review – ME & HER: A Memoir of Madness

Please welcome Karen Tyrrell, Brisbane multi-genre writer, author of ME & HER: A Memoir of Madness.  This is her brave account of how a primary school teacher reached breaking point, after parents at her school repeatedly harassed her. ME & HER reveals Karen’s gradual decline and disintegration, how her illness manifested and how she recovered. Karen shares her strategies to recovery and wellness in her gutsy memoir.

Book Review:

Karen Tyrrell has shown an amazing strength through sharing her story about “the elephant of mental illness in the room”.  This book will break down barriers of understanding for those whose lives are affected by mental illness by either having the scary diagnosis or the friend or family member who has.

Karen’s story takes you back to the beginning when it all started to manifest. Her struggle to understand ‘Herself’ and deal with the issues presented to her. Mental illness is not something that affects one person and Karen has bravely included in her story how it has changed her relationships, her family and her work life.

Karen Tyrrell’s roller-coaster ride of hyper mania and the insanity of ‘Her’, followed by the climb back to ‘normality’ is a tale that must be read. The brutal honesty of Karen’s words are very touching, she has not sugar-coated anything.  You can really feel the crazy rush of feelings she had to contend with in this realistic look into the confusing world of Me & Her making this a disturbingly addictive read.

What a raw and touching  journey!

ANNOUNCING: ME & HER eBook

ME & HER: a Memoir of Madness launches this week on Amazon kindle as an eBook.  To find out more about Karen Tyrrell and where to purchase ME & HER, please check out her website.

Please go to http://www.karentyrrell.com and click on BUY BOOK to purchase an eBook!

WIN a FREE eBook!!

Please comment here, sharing why you want to be in the draw for a FREE eBook.

Two copies to be won!

11 Comments on Book Review – ME & HER: A Memoir of Madness, last added: 5/18/2012

In the words of a certain Biggest Loser Winner, ‘I did it. It took me forever, but I finally did it’.

Sums up nicely how I feel about winning my first official Full Publishing Contract for my children’s chapter book, “P.S. What About Christmas?”

Elaine Ousten and the good folk at Morris Publishing Australia have deemed the story credible enough to be shared with the world at large and I am thrilled to be able to make this happen with them.

Right, so what now? Signed contract is in the mail. Miss 6 proudly refers me to her friends as ‘the author’. Husband sits tensely through my bouts of what he has coined ‘rewrite stress’. And the chooks are getting less attention and more irregular feeds as I wade through the line edits.

Will it be worth it? You betcha! (the chooks are still undecided…)

We’re hoping for a pre Christmas release…stay posted. And never ever stopping believing…

In the words of a certain Biggest Loser Winner, ‘I did it. It took me forever, but I finally did it’.

Sums up nicely how I feel about winning my first official Full Publishing Contract for my children’s chapter book, “P.S. What About Christmas?”

Elaine Ousten and the good folk at Morris Publishing Australia have deemed the story credible enough to be shared with the world at large and I am thrilled to be able to make this happen with them.

Right, so what now? Signed contract is in the mail. Miss 6 proudly refers me to her friends as ‘the author’. Husband sits tensely through my bouts of what he has coined ‘rewrite stress’. And the chooks are getting less attention and more irregular feeds as I wade through the line edits.

Will it be worth it? You betcha! (the chooks are still undecided…)

We’re hoping for a pre Christmas release…stay posted. And never ever stopping believing…

DWARG IN THE SEVENTH DIMENSION; The Aggie Keller Experience

By Tony Lourensen

Buy Me: http://www.amazon.com/DWARG-THE-SEVENTH-DIMENSION-ebook/dp/B0060SBEYM

Dwarg is a Whisp. Whisp’s come from the aura of the earth. Humans are causing Chaos in the Whisp’s world. And Dwarg, unlike many of his kind, is curious. Dwarg hitches a ride into earth inside the body of an astronaut. He believes he is the first ever to make contact in this way. He lives in this mans body for ten years.

He leaves his first hosts body, and enters the hosts daughter, who is in a coma, and in a serious condition with leukemia. As her father dies, the ten-year old daughter, Aggie, awakes. Unlike her father did, she accepts and believes entirely in this being inside her. Not only did he save her, but with his help, she awakes from her coma to be an amazing bright, talented and mature child. She is gifted in many ways, excels in school, and makes a name for herself in the world of science at her still tender age. Dwarg convinces her and her aunt, to take them and himself on a journey to France, looking for DaVinci’s art, trying to find memories, because as impossible as it seems to Dwarg, DaVinci’s art tells the story of another Whisp coming into contact with one of our greatest artists of all time.

Will Dwarg gather the information he needs to help his kind, and can he do it without hurting or killing Aggie in the process?

The dialogue is often witty, and the storyline is very well thought out.

I did have trouble with the start of the story, finding the introduction to the Whisp’s, and then the introduction to the many different characters a little hard to digest, but it did all come together quite well, making for an unusual and very unique science fiction novel.

Reviewed by Kelly McDonald.