It's a war of the worlds. The online worlds. And I am going to cover it. Here are the stats of the opposing parties.
A) Facebook: Facebook is a blend of reality and a fantasy life. Your friends and relatives are connected to you, you can share pictures with each other, you remain connected, and you have the control to share whatever you want (unless some jerk keeps tagging you in photos). Your relationships with people are probably as strong as your real life relationships with those people. You might have 800 friends, but you probably only comment on, like, or look at 50 of those people's posts.
Because of this, you might have coworkers and acquaintances and close friends and relatives, all in the same clump. You may write personal things intended for close friends that your acquaintaces shouldn't be seeing, or you may write something intended for your classmates that your relatives will end up seeing that might not jive with the personality that you've been presenting all along.
Facebook allows you to choose groups for certain posts so only certain people can see them, but if you're not saavy in anyway technologically you might screw that up. Instantly your douchebaggery is broadcasted to your entire little inner world. And, just like a real little inner world, it's difficult to not feel guilty when blocking people out of your life. However, because there's no threat of immediate emotional response, it's much easier on Facebook and brings out your inner sociopath slowly.
Facebook has a lot of "keeping up with the Joneses'" going on, which, if you're smart or a total dumbass, can work majorly to your advantage or disadvantage.
Advantage: Any photos, status update posts or friends that you make are instantly marketing YOUR LIFE, and Facebook works just like any other cliquey place in life. For example: wall posts about your excitement, followed by photos = instant jealousy by your followers. Posts like "Mexico today!" on the coldest day of the year, "Bought a house today" and "My boyfriend just bought me THIS" followed by picture of Tiffany's necklace = instant jealousy and suck up comments that make your followers feel like a loser or like they must bow to you. You haven't done anything to justify anyone deleting you and you haven't done anything to really brag, yet you have just marketed yourself as the one who has the life and all the goodness that comes from people who have lives.
Facebook posts work much like hypnosis - 3-5 words is the ideal. The more casual you make your comments, the more it looks like this is just the way you live your life. Don't be negative and switch it up. "Going snowboaring today," "great workout this morning," "Beach Time!" "Great time with the girls," etc etc. That stuff radiates. Photographic evidence = more radiation. Interactive posts = great. Open questions, wishes, bucket lists get the comments.
Don't post too much, though! If you post too much it becomes obvious that you don't actually have a life.
Disadvantage: What if you don't have a life? But everyone has a life? Not true. Don't use Facebook to whine. Talking about the fantasy life you want and presenting a misaligned one to your FBFs will backfire. Writing big long essays = instant loser/annoying. Never EVER use Facebook as a firezone; ie. don't use it to bully people. People can see you're a jackass.
Whining, frequent intoxication, general sadness = bad. Half the people on Facebook don't know your drama and don't care. Pick up the phone and talk to someone who won't use your information against you. Toxic friends = toxic Facebook Wall. Deleted!!
Getting attention with constant sad posts = shady. Unless it's rare and legitimate, don't make sad posts. "Wall F*cking" on Facebook = gross. Sometimes texting is better.
Selling stuff: Sell your blog, sell your perspective: everything you do on Facebook is selling your perspective on life, instantly. But, like I said above, it works in the same way as your Facebook posts, photos, etc. Make sure your perspective aligns with the person you're presenting yourself as.
In summary: Facebook works like real life. It's cliquey and it's a tough world to break into. Don't try to be something you're not and don't be offended by people with fantasy lives because it's easy to market yourself in the same way. I don't do it because I don't care, but that's how I perceive it to work. DON'T SHARE THINGS ON FACEBOOK THAT YOU WOULDN'T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW IN REAL LIFE. Don't add people just to have a higher friend count because that's just stupid, and make sure that you figure out who's more important: your family or your friends. Work accordingly.
Twitter
I love Twitter and I like it more than Facebook. If people have something to say they only have 140 characters to say it with. You get it out there without revealing too much (unless you say something STUPID, then everything can go wrong very fast. Message absorption is more likely with Twitter than Facebook). There is a lot more room for wit. Pictures are instant and relevant with Plixi. If I'm interested, I will click the link. If not, no.
Twitter is fast, fast, fast, and I don't have to read through 85 "I'm so sad," or "Post this if you believe in love" essays to find information. Unfollowing someone is much less personal than deleting someone on Facebook. I don't notice if someone suddenly disappears and I don't particularly care (unless it was my best friend or something).
Twitter is a total news hurricane. I am so much more current with Twitter than I ever was with Facebook. Facebook offers me nothing relevant unless it's keeping up with relatives that live far away or with friends or friends with babies who live far away. Joining groups is becoming the way to go. Other than that, Twitter trumps Facebook for me. I'm not learning anything by creeping people I don't even know! Facebook is a snake pit. Who cares if I read far into a picture about someone and then relay gossip? Not me. At least I can relay other gossip that's not as personal.
Twitter: Not so great for keeping in contact with people you care about, but way better for getting information that's relevant to your life. More impersonal, but if something goes wrong can become very personal, fast.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Publishing vs. Writing
I did talk about this in my last blog post but I don't think I wrote about it very clearly.
I feel like the relationship between the writer and their published work is one of either complete blood shed or distance. You have to stand behind your work and work hard at getting the message out, however you can (like how Julie Wilson plans to use social media to promote her new manuscript to publishers), or you rely on a formula that works for the publisher and you don't follow it, get rejected and go back to the drawing board until you tell them they're holding up 5 fingers when they're holding up 3. In this process you lose pieces of your creativity until it dies. Sometimes you can trip over the formula and fall into it because either a) it is a top top notch piece of work or b) you've accidentally stumbled into a hot market without even realizing it. This might be 10 years after you even write the thing and have sent it to every publisher in the world. They might tell you that market exists, you write it, and then the market dies. Then what happens? Nothing! So you have to be rocket fast or a psychic sometimes as well.
A) I think the first thing with writing and publishing is that the relationship between you (the writer) and the writing you made has to die a bit. It has to become a living breathing thing on its own, separate from yourself. If it can't do this, it's a book of diary entries and no one is interested unless you've been institutionalized, a celebrity, abused, an addict, or related to someone with a better story than most. Get yourself out of the story and get yourself out of there fast, unless you're one of those things I listed that are exceptions. You can feel connected to it, but you have to cut the umbilical cord.
B) Self-publishing is still rebellious and it will always be rebellious (unless, and this won't happen, small small publishing houses all over start pumping out more salesworthy content than the massive publishing houses). There's something kind of romantic about self-publishing because it proves how strongly you feel about your idea. The creative process is still lost in the editing process (but gained through the fact that more people who aren't you will finally understand what you're trying to say), but it's a bit more preserved in that it has seen the light more than if your manuscript has been rejected by every publisher.
C) Writing is like every other creative thing in this world, you have to fight for it to get out there. Why do you think writers have agents? Every creative person who has any intention of sharing their work with the world has an agent. Why? Because the creative world is way too hard to navigate on your own. They're the Sherpas of the creative world. So I think self-publishing is rebellious for that reason as well -- that you're alone and by-passing what is "logical."
D) Everyone thinks that what they have to say is worth publishing. Gen X and Gen Y grew up thinking that they're misunderstood, so this automatically associates itself to art. I was thinking of publishing a book with nothing in it but 2 pages of punctutation marks and sending it to publishers. I could promote it as my philosophical frustration with the art world. I can even copywrite it because that combination of punctuation marks has probably never been seen. Is it a good idea? NO! Of course not. It would be rejected in about 30 seconds and some small group of liberated people 85 years later may pick up a copy and talk bullshit about it, but that's about it. Just because someone thinks that they're creative doesn't mean they should be allowed to slap their name on something that a massive company also has to put their name on. Sorry. It takes years of work and fighting currents and bringing something to life in order to be taken into consideration, and then it has to have a market. And the market is getting smaller because no one reads books anymore except for children, small groups of adults, and the elderly.
An integral part of the creative process is inspiration. If you have a great piece of work, go for it, send it to publishers. I think it's a great idea. If you want to market your IPP, self-publish and get your manuscript out to publishers everywhere. It's a great opportunity! I'm not saying CreComm's suck, because we already have been through every elimination process known to us, anyway. It's just hard to be creative without inspiration, and it's hard to be inspired without creativity, that's all. School running adjacent to the IPP may threaten to kill one or the other.
I feel like the relationship between the writer and their published work is one of either complete blood shed or distance. You have to stand behind your work and work hard at getting the message out, however you can (like how Julie Wilson plans to use social media to promote her new manuscript to publishers), or you rely on a formula that works for the publisher and you don't follow it, get rejected and go back to the drawing board until you tell them they're holding up 5 fingers when they're holding up 3. In this process you lose pieces of your creativity until it dies. Sometimes you can trip over the formula and fall into it because either a) it is a top top notch piece of work or b) you've accidentally stumbled into a hot market without even realizing it. This might be 10 years after you even write the thing and have sent it to every publisher in the world. They might tell you that market exists, you write it, and then the market dies. Then what happens? Nothing! So you have to be rocket fast or a psychic sometimes as well.
A) I think the first thing with writing and publishing is that the relationship between you (the writer) and the writing you made has to die a bit. It has to become a living breathing thing on its own, separate from yourself. If it can't do this, it's a book of diary entries and no one is interested unless you've been institutionalized, a celebrity, abused, an addict, or related to someone with a better story than most. Get yourself out of the story and get yourself out of there fast, unless you're one of those things I listed that are exceptions. You can feel connected to it, but you have to cut the umbilical cord.
B) Self-publishing is still rebellious and it will always be rebellious (unless, and this won't happen, small small publishing houses all over start pumping out more salesworthy content than the massive publishing houses). There's something kind of romantic about self-publishing because it proves how strongly you feel about your idea. The creative process is still lost in the editing process (but gained through the fact that more people who aren't you will finally understand what you're trying to say), but it's a bit more preserved in that it has seen the light more than if your manuscript has been rejected by every publisher.
C) Writing is like every other creative thing in this world, you have to fight for it to get out there. Why do you think writers have agents? Every creative person who has any intention of sharing their work with the world has an agent. Why? Because the creative world is way too hard to navigate on your own. They're the Sherpas of the creative world. So I think self-publishing is rebellious for that reason as well -- that you're alone and by-passing what is "logical."
D) Everyone thinks that what they have to say is worth publishing. Gen X and Gen Y grew up thinking that they're misunderstood, so this automatically associates itself to art. I was thinking of publishing a book with nothing in it but 2 pages of punctutation marks and sending it to publishers. I could promote it as my philosophical frustration with the art world. I can even copywrite it because that combination of punctuation marks has probably never been seen. Is it a good idea? NO! Of course not. It would be rejected in about 30 seconds and some small group of liberated people 85 years later may pick up a copy and talk bullshit about it, but that's about it. Just because someone thinks that they're creative doesn't mean they should be allowed to slap their name on something that a massive company also has to put their name on. Sorry. It takes years of work and fighting currents and bringing something to life in order to be taken into consideration, and then it has to have a market. And the market is getting smaller because no one reads books anymore except for children, small groups of adults, and the elderly.
An integral part of the creative process is inspiration. If you have a great piece of work, go for it, send it to publishers. I think it's a great idea. If you want to market your IPP, self-publish and get your manuscript out to publishers everywhere. It's a great opportunity! I'm not saying CreComm's suck, because we already have been through every elimination process known to us, anyway. It's just hard to be creative without inspiration, and it's hard to be inspired without creativity, that's all. School running adjacent to the IPP may threaten to kill one or the other.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
My Seen Reading
After seeing Julie Wilson today, who writes the blog "Seen Reading," I feel inspired to tell you my own favorite seen readings because this is something I have paid attention to for years taking the bus and being an English major and blah blah blah.
1) guy with one hand reading a self-help book on dealing with being an amputee. Honest to God.
2) pretentious asshole everyday for a week on the bus reading my favorite doorstop, War
and Peace. He must have learned to read in the Japanese style (right to left) because he started on page 600 and worked his way through to about page 20. Obviously not reading it.
3)girl reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Which was cute because I remember noticing that the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa goes to college and feels accepted because they were reading the book was on maybe 2 nights before.
So now I will briefly talk about publishing. I have NO idea what to do. When ambitious I guarantee I will find a publisher, but you have to be able to write...if I don't get published I guess my writing is just diary entries. I always thought the idea of self publishing preserved the struggle of the artist and was a romantic idea. Most books that are successfully published have a formula, and a couple are so earth shattering they slip through the cracks. All this talk about publishing has made me feel lazy, and I'm not. I guess I'm not starving enough to get published? Or connected enough?
I'm broke, I have that working in my favor.
1) guy with one hand reading a self-help book on dealing with being an amputee. Honest to God.
2) pretentious asshole everyday for a week on the bus reading my favorite doorstop, War
and Peace. He must have learned to read in the Japanese style (right to left) because he started on page 600 and worked his way through to about page 20. Obviously not reading it.
3)girl reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Which was cute because I remember noticing that the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa goes to college and feels accepted because they were reading the book was on maybe 2 nights before.
So now I will briefly talk about publishing. I have NO idea what to do. When ambitious I guarantee I will find a publisher, but you have to be able to write...if I don't get published I guess my writing is just diary entries. I always thought the idea of self publishing preserved the struggle of the artist and was a romantic idea. Most books that are successfully published have a formula, and a couple are so earth shattering they slip through the cracks. All this talk about publishing has made me feel lazy, and I'm not. I guess I'm not starving enough to get published? Or connected enough?
I'm broke, I have that working in my favor.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Zoning Out
Lately I've been zoning out a lot. I'm in and then I'm out, and I'm out far. Is there any purpose to this? Am I doing something beneficial for my brain?
I noticed my creativity, productivity, intelligence and overall happiness are going up, which makes no sense whatsoever. I pay attention better to useful things because I'm not taking in the same amount of useless mental garbage.
I feel kind of bad, hopefully I don't ignore anyone by accident because I'm out, and hopefully I don't walk out into traffic. But it's really not that bad. I kind of encourage it, so long as you don't start autofailing at life.
I noticed my creativity, productivity, intelligence and overall happiness are going up, which makes no sense whatsoever. I pay attention better to useful things because I'm not taking in the same amount of useless mental garbage.
I feel kind of bad, hopefully I don't ignore anyone by accident because I'm out, and hopefully I don't walk out into traffic. But it's really not that bad. I kind of encourage it, so long as you don't start autofailing at life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)