READ THE FINE PRINT

This is probably the only time that I will blog J.K. Rowling. It seems that the author who is usually unnamed on TWH is upset that her novels are appearing on Scribd, a document social networking site. Shrug. While it is reprehensible that her content is bootlegged, there has to be the acknowledgment that there are so many peer to peer sites that Scribd is small taters compared to those that exist all over the Internet.

Furthermore, most of the content on Scribd is Gutenberg.org or other free out of copyright documents. There is also a lot of user generated content. I'm a homeschooling mum and I go to Scribd to find content that is created by my fellow homeschoolers or to find content similar to Gutenberg and Planet PDF, books that are all out of copyright. I also use Scribd to find information about open source technologies such as the cloud computing document that I am currently reading or the Linux/Ubuntu tutorials I need to sys admin my laptop. Several publishing houses, such as MIT Press, and political campaigns like Obama '08 have supported Scribd. The Partners link is always useful to check before casting stones at a technology.

I think that the to be unnamed author needs to research the particulars of social document sharing before disparaging sites like Scribd.

Technorati Tags: jk rowling, scribd

SEATTLE PI R.I.P.

Today the Seattle Post Intelligencer published its last print newspaper. The journal will continue its presence online with a smaller staff. I feel sad at the demise of print media. I once worked at a college newspaper cutting and pasting with wax to layout stories for printing. Look how far I've come from worrying that I had the type pasted in a correct manner to typing pixels, and then sending them off to the world with one click of a mouse!

This ease of communication is amazing but also tragic as children in the future will not know what it is like to feel the natural texture of paper in their hands while they read or will be more isolated from their immediate environment in a web community. This was brought home to me when my daughter's acquaintance talked about her social network being in several different countries. The danger of having an Internet based news source is that many news companies feed off the same information pipes. There is no need to be original or local. Furthermore, there is the problem of those who do not have access to a computer. How will they get indigenous news?

I knew, as a blogger, that the end of printed media was inevitable. The new medium of the Internet has superseded an old form. However, this replacement may not be a salve for information acquisition and knowledge. There is more data but users tend to enclave in their own specialties and networks. A printed newspaper offers with, at least, its headlines the potential to put forth ideas for a common intellectual language. In the end of print, there is no shared lexicon and, as citizens, we have less to speak of with one another.

Technorati Tags: seattle pi

POEM OF THE MONTH

CAN IT BE?

Can it be, can it be

That beasts are of various bravery,
Some brave by nature, some not at all,

Some trying to be against a fall?

I saw a cat. Beside a lily tank,
Paved level with the grass, she stood, this cat,
Considering her leap.
Three times she backed for jumping, gathered tight
(So tight thought landed her already over)
And did not jump. And then,
After a pause, as scolding humanly
"Not nervy eh? We'll see."
She jumped and what a jump that was!

Quite twice as along
And high
As it need be,
Now why
Did this cat jump at all, so force herself?
There was a path around the tank,
She could have walked.

Can it be, can it be
That beasts are of various bravery,
Some simply brave, some not, some taking thought
(Most curiously) to cast themselves aloft.

Stevie Smith

Technorati Tags: stevie smith

DURING THE WAIT

The wait to hear from potential employers or publishers, who are experiencing economic Ragnarök, can be tedious and depressing. However, there are steps that one can coach out of oneself that will contribute, hopefully, to future contacts and employment. I am using this down time to learn technologies new to me and to sharpen my job skills.

Currently, I am enrolled in a Linux administration class at the HP business online courses. I also have set up a blog for my resume and have worked at tinkering with the site's design by getting into the HTML template code. The site is called The Writers' Home Portfolio. I am pleased with the results which involved going through lines of HTML code until I found the specifications to change the design. I used GIMP to manipulate the designs, specifically the header divider. I attached a Google Gadget, a clock, and changed some of the code to be similar to my colour scheme. I am am also playing with cloud computing.

Being unemployed does not mean being idle. I plan to use both blogs, this and the portfolio, to showcase my newly found knowledge.

Technorati Tags: writing advice

NO HONEY FOR THE BEAR

One of the most anticipated events in publishing, if you are not already depressed as an out-of-work writer , is that the great new hope is a revival of the Winnie The Pooh brand. Publisher Dutton Books and author David Benedictus hope to have great sales with a retread of Christopher Robin and friends.

I ran this past my children who like many youngsters, including someone not now so spry as me, had the enchantment of A.A. Milne's characters to tint their childhoods. The immediate reaction was "What!!!" There was a general outrage of shock and horror with the notion of books that have created strong character identifications and mythology were being sold like cereal. The visceral yelps led to a long, about a half hour at the least, villification of publishers that try to cash in on their readers' fond memories for short-term profit. Books were and are the friends that comfort us when the world seems too big. Tampering with those emotions with a written mockup (mockery?) destroys the child's experience of the primary and original literature.

I am not sorry to comment that I am a literary traditionalist and I have given these values to my children. An individual's genius, their spirit, cannot be copied and packaged like any other product. The publishing companies are in trouble not because brands such as Winnie The Pooh are insufficient but because book marketers are not bold and will not chance on new writers to hook and engage future readers.


Technorati Tags:david benedictus, winnie the pooh,writing advice

POEM OF THE MONTH

WRITERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

This is certain to be the most clueless advertisement that I have ever read. I do not know who their marketing person is (or one hopes, for the sake of the publication, was...) but what ethereal planet are they are orbiting, or inhaling? Smells like something green and illegal from BC (No, I don't do spark or anything like that. My greatest vices are chocolate and white tea but not together). Here is the text in its entirety and my further comments afterwards.

"In today's strange social and economic times, it's essential that we take care of ourselves and each other - whether it be through our health regimes, our careers and finances, our relationships, or the wonderful food in our pantries. How do we create happiness from the inside out? Our website is dedicated to searching for those answers. We're a new yet rapidly growing blog/social networking website dedicated to bringing holistic health and wellness to people everywhere through insightful, funny, compassionate, and informative articles. If you're a college student, graduate student, stay-at-home mom seeking a little "me" activity, or anyone else looking for intern experience in new media, then we'd love to hear from you! We're seeking both Marketing and Editorial interns (or those who enjoy both), who can lend us a few hours a day, a few days a week. While there is no outright compensation, we make it a point to reward a job well done -- we've done the unpaid intern thing ourselves, so we know full well how to appreciate them! We'd love to hear from potential interns with social media experience. Ideally you have a strong profile and network on sites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Delicious, and be an avid consumer of and participant in the blogosphere...but you know what? Even if you don't have these things, we'll teach you! Don't worry about traditional cover letters...those are quite boring. Just tell us why you'd like to be a virtual intern, how many hours a week you could spare, and what interests you as a writer or reader! Thanks so much! Have a Peaceful Day."

I hope a hurricane wipes this company from the globe. Have a happy day! The false sense of camaraderie that the advertiser tries to build with the first lines about the rough times and how we must all stick together is nauseating. I prefer an advertiser who has specific business needs and states these goals in a matter-of-fact statement. Skip the cutesy stuff, just tell me what you need for writing services and how much money you offer. This false lifeboat of New Age marketing jargon is abusive towards people who are struggling to find work for their survival in a tough economy.

What irritates me most about this classified is that any self-respecting stay at home mum who was looking at adverts on the Web would be searching for a pay cheque attached to a job, not a "little me activity". The writers of this ad treat women if they are second class citizens who do not want to be employed or who are not, like single moms I know, breadwinners in their own right. I agree with Harlan Ellison's rant about those parasites who expect a writer to feel oh-so-grateful for a free interview or an unremunerated internship. He believes that writers should not give their content away for free or for the lowest pay and that those skinflints who desire unpaid internships or 400 words for 40 articles a day at $.01 a word should go take a long walk off a short pier over a piranha infested river.

I think, as writers, we are obligated to starve the penny-pinchers out of the publishing market. Refuse to take jobs that pay less than minimum wage. Let their businesses fail without our work. The companies do not have our talents and will go under without us. They will only have our competent labour if they reward us with decent wages. The other side of the coin is to do well for those companies who value their writers and pay decent wages and who, in other terms, act professional. Those flighty buggers who continue to live in this fantasy world where moms want a little me activity and not a paycheque will only get the worse of the lot, if that.

Technorati Tags:harlan ellison, writing advice