Hi Mike

I like the layout and the work. Having spent years editing as a favour to friends (everything from Doctoral Thesis to a couple of published books – I even got my own chapter 🙂 ), I have a few tips.

1. Know your target audience and write to them. (Do not try to change your style to accommodate all tastes – it waters down your style).

2. Copyright. Care or don’t care? I would suggest at least creative commons licensing. This means people can use your work (for free) but have to acknowledge the author and their intellectual property.

3. Your work will be stolen. I had mine turning up as far away as Russia with the pics and articles not being acknowledged to those who owned them. Some cheeky bastards were trying to pass off artwork as their own – this was disrespectful to the artists who kindly agreed for me to showcase their work. The funny side was a teacher in USA (tattoo enthusiast) saw my blog and noted that 2 students for a project took the entire contents as their own work.

4. Net Nutters. The will accuse you of stealing their work/ideas/dreams/thoughts. In fact anything that they think they can get you to part with cash or your site. I had one on my case for a year claiming I took his work 6 months prior to posting on the blog and that my custom tattoo of my wife was his tattoo!

I ended up sending a cease and desist letter along with proofs the work was started 10 years ago as part of my basic research.

5. Opinion – if you feel some way about something state it is your opinion only and why you feel that way. Some peple get put off without the ‘why’.

6. Hate mail – I got plenty. From the whole spectrum of left to right, atheist to zealot. I got a personalised pamphlet telling me how i was gonna burn in hell for my blog.

If you can handle all this then blog on brother and look forward to seeing more posts.

Take care
Matthew

@Sam-I-Am 132686 wrote:

I got rid of my firearms after accidentally shooting (not seriously) my son.

That’s no good and here to think I just shot my first firearm over the weekend

Ah see, my fiance is an avid gun nut so as long as I’m with him I don’t think I’ll have any problem. Only shot 5 rounds out of a Glock 19 model .9mm but I’d like to get into it a little bit more

@buttwheat 132759 wrote:

Sam how did you shoot your son?

I had a rather high powered air rifle. 1000′ per second / Crossman / with the pointed pellets it would shoot through plywood. I was defending our crop of English walnuts that were being decimated by squirrels. I was double checking the safety when I pulled the trigger which was the same time my son walked out the back door. The pellet hit him in the side at an angle that did not go deep, but it went along for five inches. The pellet is still inside him.

Went to the emergency room, police were involved, a real fun evening.

Hey cool! I think the Glock 19 is one of the most versatile handguns ever made. Guns can be a lot of fun, just remember the two safety rules: keep your booger hook off the bang switch unless you want to shoot, and don’t do stupid shit with your muzzle. Technically there are more but they are pretty much extensions of those two.

Well and being raised by a dad who was and still is an avid hunter and has always had guns around I kind of know that. My fiance is big in making sure people keep their fingers off the trigger, he gets annoyed if he sees pictures of people with their fingers on the trigger so yea I know all of that. I’m not stupid like some people can be