Yesterday, while driving home from a grocery shopping extravaganza I pulled up behind a black BMW. Posted on this lovely car’s rear bumper was a black bumper sticker with plain white Arial font asking me “What would Jesus do?”
I don’t know what he would do, but he wouldn’t put a shitty bumper sticker on a BMW.
<Initiate Rant Sequence> 3…2…1…
When does content become yours?
If I write words, they are mine. If I draw a picture, it is mine. Arguably, if I photograph something, that creative act and resultant image is mine. Does scanning something make it yours? At the most basic level scanning and photographing are the same idea – recreating visual information through a physical interface. Of course if I scan a comic book and post it to the internet, claiming it to be mine, this is fraud and piracy. If I were to scan work in the public domain, or some one else’s work that was never copyrighted, or even simply reproduce something that was copyrighted, I would have no ethical claim to any of the content (there may be a legal claim to it, but that’s not really what I’m concerned with here). And yet everyday I read bloggers complaining that xyz other blogger has stolen their scans or gifs. These are all images that they had no hand in the actual creation of, merely the digital reproduction and distribution. Works that they most likely had no permission or right to re-create in the first place; however the time spent stealing an artists real work justifies their claim to ownership (in their eyes).
Now I am all for common courtesy. If I enjoy a piece of content enough that I am inclined to share it, I will typically put forth some effort in order to credit whomever helped make it possible for me to see it. Courtesy is an awesome concept and if more people embraced it the world would be an awesome place. That said, I’d now like to address all the bloggers that lay claim to the creative process of others:
Get off your high horse, you lazy bastards, and go make your own damn content.
<End Rant Sub-Routine>
Here go read this. No really, it’s ok, I’ll be here when you get back.
“Oh what a lovely bunch of coconuts…a lovely bunch of coconuts…”
Oh, ahem, I see you’re back. You’re a faster reader than me. Well, what did you think? I know, I know, this is supposed to be a writing blog and that article appeared to have been about the tech industry, but in reality I think it’s much more about the content world in general. Looking past the particular scandals of any one given software company, and at the bigger picture of the page view beast.
I’ll be honest, I obsess over those nasty little things too. I gave up my webcomic recently and in no small part because I was frustrated and saddened at the fact that our most popular strip ever (by a factor of 10x) was a one off strip that didn’t even feature our main characters. For anyone wanting to make a name or money off of the internet there is a very real pressure to generate page views. Sadly it seems to be the general rule that you generate more page views not with quality content, but just an abundance of it.
When I was in high school I did a great many extra curicular activities, including competitive debate, persuasive speaking, and potry recital. One of my teachers had an analogy he liked to quote before an event, “When speaking, consider each word a dart. Aim each dart and throw it carefully so it hits the mark rather than throwing a fistful of darts all at once.” He had to quote this every time in part because I had a tendency to speak to quickly, but eventually the quote and the idea stuck. You don’t need a hundred darts if you throw the first one right.
I guess my question is: Is there a place in the future of internet media for people who throw one dart at a time?
Haven’t had too much to say in the past couple weeks, or more accurately haven’t made the time to sit down and put any words down. I’ve been struggling to get anything down, much less fill a blog with thoughts on writing. I’m always a bit exhausted after NaNoWriMo, but this is a longer slump than I’m used to.
I’ll let you in on a little secret…I’m pretty sure its that fancy 42 inch LED TV sitting across the room from me now that is to blame. I finished watching all of the Sons of Anarchy and I didn’t even think it was terribly good. It’s most likely time to start enforcing some writing rules again – no TV, surfing, or iPad games until I get a word count in each day. Who else is going to write these sixgun and sorcery epics?
Pushing out my second self-published short story today, though it is in the Amazon review process, so not sure when it will go live (estimated 12 hours!). I decided to go ahead and put this latest story out there as we head into the month of February, since this tale is perhaps the closest to a Romance story I will ever get.
The story revolves around Koonin, a small time mage, and his troubled marriage. Spurred by a dying romance Koonin takes up a second life that he must keep hidden from his wife. It’s a short story, ~2,600 words (13-14 minutes of entertainment).
An update will be posted when the story goes live on Amazon!
This morning’s announcement from Apple has me pretty excited at the prospects of self-publishing once again. Ironically, I had been working over the last couple days to prepare new short stories for release on the Kindle through the Kindle Digital Publishing program (KDP).
Having downloaded the new iBooks Authoring tool, I really wish that Amazon would offer something of comparable quality. Obviously e-ink Kindles would be unable to take advantage of all the rich media functionality, but even just the easy way you can set page breaks, titles and formatting would be a relief. As it stands KDP primarily offers a script file that does conversion of a book or story you compiled elsewhere. While this ties into Scrivener, my primary writing software, it still requires lots of trial and error before I can achieve the look I want. In contrast, within minutes of downloading the iBooks Author I had put together a very aesthetically pleasing ebook (or iBook rather).
Tools like this really might encourage me to switch and start using iBooks as my self-publishing go to spot rather than Amazon.
My first self-published short story is now live on Amazon’s marketplace! It’s a quick (and hopefully funny) read. Totally worth the $.99 asking price. Go forth and purchase and tell all your friends, family, and literate pets.
Part of the biggest things I need to address as a writer is doing the hard work of writing multiple drafts. In the past I’ve easily been able to crank out words, but always on something new – doing the easy and exciting part of getting a new project off the ground. This month though is all about drafts. I’m only working on projects that have been written before. Approaching with a new eye, the eye of the editor – not the creator. I don’t really expect it to be as much fun, but hopefully the end result will be even more rewarding.
In somewhat related news, here is the cover I’ve put together for the little Christmas short story I’m hoping to self-publish in the next couple days.
Right around midnight I crossed the finish line of 50,000 words for the third November in a row. I actually finished before midnight, but then it literally took me many minutes to find the verification tool that would allow me to take credit for winning in the eyes of NaNoWriMo. Either I was just too tired to find it quickly, or the site redesign still needs some tweaking over there. I’ll blame the site for now. 
I’m excited, pleased, and invigorated to have done this three years in a row and my current hope is to keep the momentum going for the time being. My lovely wife has taken up a part-time evening job, so at least for the foreseeable future, it is possible that I might keep writing and get this years novel into something more like a finished product.
I also have two other big projects I’m working on. One, Vlad the Vegan Vampire has gone on hiatus for the first time in three years. This is, in a way, sad but also exciting. We are reworking some ideas from a gag strip earlier this year and will be coming back with a long form graphic novel (published digitally) in the New Year. Two, I am working on a tongue-in-cheek take on the story of the Little Drummer Boy, which I hope to self publish within the next week or so via the Kindle publishing service. It’s a short story I wrote a few months back as a reaction to my toddler’s full year of addiction to the Christmas carol of the same name. Obviously any news related to self-publishing will be posted up here as it comes.
As an artist, I tend to be a visual person, so much so that I have a tendency to take notes in doodle or sketch format. Sometimes though, this just veers off into plain old vanilla procrastination, end result? Croissant craving whales.