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Blog Makeover!

Oh yes, The Wolfe’s (Writing) Den is getting a major revamp! After two and a half years of blogging, I decided it was high time for a makeover. If you’re one of my regular readers, you may have noticed some changes to my site this weekend. In case you’re wondering what this update is all about, here’s a quick rundown of what’s new.

New theme!

The biggest change to my blog is the addition of a new theme: Divi by Elegant Themes! While I was happy with my previous theme – the Scribble child theme for the Genesis Framework by StudioPress – it did have one fundamental flaw: it was not mobile-responsive. With at least half your potential audience wielding smartphones, accessibility through mobile devices is extremely important for blogs these days, so I felt the need to upgrade to a highly customizable and responsive new theme for a more professional look. Hopefully now my blog will be much more aesthetically appealing to you mobile readers out there!

New logo and banner

JCW-Round-Logo-02With a fresh theme comes a fresh image! Every serious website needs its own unique image, so I had a talented young artist I know design a logo and banner with a couple of new characters for my blog. Introducing Jay and Wolfe, my new “blog mascots”! You’ll see them on my homepage and in the headers of my social media profiles. I think they add a little more charm to my blog, don’t you?

(Coming soon!) Guest posts and Indie Writer Spotlight interviews

Since I started blogging, I’ve been terribly possessive of my content. Every single one of the 400+ posts that have been published here was written by me, and the closest I’ve ever come to letting another author create content for my site is sharing infographics and accepting submissions for “What If?” Writing Prompts.

Now that I’m ready to start taking blogging a little more seriously, I’m considering opening up submissions for guest posts in the near future. I’d also like to continue my Indie Writer Spotlight segment soon by interviewing more indie authors about their books. So if you’re a blogger looking to expand your network and/or an indie author hoping to gain more exposure for your book, be sure to keep an eye out for updates about guest post exchanges and author interview requests! Information will be available on my Contact page, so feel free to send me a message!

That’s it for this news update! Minor features will continue to roll out as I find my way around this new theme, so expect to see some changes around the site over at least the next few weeks. I hope you’ll enjoy this major update of my blog! Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

News – August 19, 2013

Time for another news update! Here are a few things to look out for on my blog in the upcoming weeks.

New Blogging Awards

Some of you may have noticed a fancy new slideshow in my sidebar. Well, since my nomination for the Sunshine Blogger Award by Jennifer M Zeiger, I’ve received two more awards for my blog! One is the Liebster Award, for which I was nominated by Emily Morgan of Emily Morgan Writes and Mama Going Solo. The other is the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award, given to me by Lily of Lilica’s Place. Thank you so much, ladies! I’m truly honored!

Liebster Award Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

I’m still working on my post for the Liebster Award, which might take at least a couple of weeks to be published. Since the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award has simpler rules to it (just passing the award on to other female bloggers you like, no questions to answer or anything), I may end up sharing that one first. It shouldn’t be too hard for me to find enough nominees for this one, as most of the blogs I’m currently following are written by women. This one is going out to the awesome ladies I’ve been meeting in the blogosphere! Thanks for all your inspiration, and be sure to look for a nomination soon!

Also, with three blogging award nominations and a writing contest win so far, I’m putting together an Awards page for my blog. So exciting to know I’m inspiring my readers! Thank you!

Word of the Week Index

With almost 20 words featured in my Word of the Week segment so far, I think it’s about time for me to add a vocabulary index to my blog. If I can manage to complete it, it’ll be on a new page attached to the Word of the Week category link under Resources in the menu bar. I’ve already installed a table plugin on my site, for easy sorting of words alphabetically or by publish date. Hopefully I can find the time to set it up soon!

Sharing the Link Love

Since I started blogging actively, I’ve been meeting quite a few interesting people with equally interesting websites. After all the inspiration and encouragement I’ve been getting from other writers, I think it’s only fair for me to give something back.

I’d love to share links to the great blogs I’ve been following, so I’m adding a new blogroll widget to my sidebar. Because I want to be fair to everyone featured among my picks, the links will always be randomized, like the quote rotator at the bottom of my site. The blogroll will display links in a different order every time the page is refreshed, so that everyone has an equal chance of being listed first (or at all, when I have more than ten links). I apologize in advance to anyone I may forget to add at first; I can be quite the scatterbrain!

This concludes another news update. Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

News – July 1, 2013

So this is my first news update since I started my blog, and what a way to start the segment! I’m getting productive with my writing, I have a front-row seat to witness South American history being made, and my blog was even nominated for an award after being only a few months old! How awesome is that?

In the interest of keeping things brief, here’s a quick review of what’s happening now.

Sunshine Blogger Award

Sunshine Blogger AwardTwo weeks ago, I was nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by Jennifer M Zeiger! It’s a tremendous honor, and I’m very grateful for the recognition, especially from such a talented writer/blogger! An official blog post for the award will be up soon, after I finish sorting through the other great blogs I’ve started following for ten nominees to receive the award as well. The list isn’t complete yet, but note that if you’ve been actively following my blog and participating in the discussion, you can probably expect a notice of a nomination very soon!

Works in Progress

This probably goes without saying, but my blog is not the only project on my plate at the moment. Outside of my little corner of the Internet, I’m currently writing my first novel. Since it’s still very early in the works, however, the only information I can share for now is that it’ll be in the science fantasy genre (i.e. a mixed genre containing elements of both science fiction and fantasy). Aside from that, I’m considering compiling some short stories for publication, most likely in a self-published collection through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, but nothing is set in stone yet. I’m also actively participating in writing contests held at Writer’s Carnival, a great community where writers can share their work and review that of others in a fun and active learning environment.

Oh, and if it counts for anything, I’m also co-writing a scientific paper in the field of Marine Biology.

The Day Brazil Stood Still

Flag of BrazilI know this doesn’t have anything to do with my writing (yet, at least), but I still think it’s worth mentioning. At the time of writing this post, my current home country of Brazil is undergoing a huge movement for change (if you want to understand why, I recommend starting by watching this video). Since the beginning of June, hundreds of thousands of people in over 100 Brazilian cities have taken to the streets in a series of protests and public demonstrations against the corrupt government (most of which have been pacifistic, though the media seems to prefer showcasing the relatively rare cases of vandalism and violence).

But according to news spreading across social media, the biggest event of the movement so far has been scheduled to happen on the first of July, when the entire population will unite in a nationwide strike. The main objective? To show our politicians that the true power of a country lies with its people, and we won’t back down until we see the positive changes we’ve been needing for too long.

So if you don’t see me around the blogosphere today, chances are I’ve taken to the street to join Brazil’s largest movement in just over 20 years. If you want to support our cause, feel free to share the latest news on Facebook and Twitter. Help us #ChangeBrazil!

This concludes my blog’s first news post. Unlike the other topics, it won’t be a regular segment, but whenever I have important updates to share, I’ll be sure to include them in my Monday broadcasts. Thanks for reading!

P.S. To those of you reading my blog through WordPress, I think I’ve finally managed to solve the problem of the Jetpack Like button not loading properly in my posts. So if you had wanted to Like something on my site but were unable to see the button before, please feel free to go back and try again. Note that I had to disable a certain Javascript function to fix the button, so please let me know if you see any new problems on my blog after this. Thank you!

About J.C. Wolfe

J.C. Wolfe is a fiction writer, biologist, and aspiring novelist of science fantasy and romance. A natural-born American and graduate in Marine Ecology from a university in Brazil, J.C. now writes for a living in California while spending free time blogging and penning stories and poetry.

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