. Spinning .

Got my panties in a twist this morning but spent a good part of half of my mind thinking about the implications of social networking and the creative writer. It started when I posted on twitter and Facebook that I had a story published and just out with an e-zine, and provided the link to the piece. I received one comment and one “Like” on FB. Now more than half of my “Friends” on FB are writers, many of them more local and in-person friends as well as FB friends. It made me feel bad.

I know, I know: not everyone has the time to read never mind comment on all that’s posted daily on these social networking sites, and no one has the same habits or routines. I tend to read at Fictionaut and comment there, especially to new writers who are talented and may need the kind words. And it’s not set in stone, but in my experience it seems that the writers who excel at their craft, who put their heart into the words whether poem or story, are the ones who most likely need the reassurance that they are indeed writing something that others enjoy reading. There are those who don’t, who have the self-confidence or don’t require any validation but that’s often because they’ve already been convinced by others and have come to accept their work as good or they aren’t really that good but merely believe themselves to be and don’t care what others think. But in the deep dark place where our heart and soul and mind have meetings, we usually still find the input of others to be essential to our belief in ourselves.

Then we get into social networking. And, reciprocity. And, not hurting somebody’s feelings for overlooking them.

Once the network spreads too wide, this is bound to happen. We all make up our own rules I suppose, just to keep sane. I personally try to make sure that I post a comment on the artist/writer’s initial posting, or at the very least, the first notice I get of a showing, a publishing, or whatever. A simple “Like” will do, though a “Congrats!” takes only a second longer. I always go and read the story and uh-oh, there’s a place to leave a comment there too sometimes. I try to do so. Then you might get a half-dozen more FB notices from friends on this same item. Are you supposed to comment on all of them? I don’t. As long as the writer/artist knows that I’ve viewed his work, I think that’s sufficient.

Now there’s a lot of benefit to social networking besides the pat on the head; there’s the hitching of one’s wagon to a star, and that’s what I avoid doing. There’s a lot of folks wanting to be noticed–I’m one of ‘em–but I just can’t find it in myself to schmooze in hopes of catching the eye of an editor or publisher, or work the web just to benefit my own status. There are folks out there that need  and there are folks who are just plain needy. It’s hard, but it’s best for me to learn about people and see what they’re asking for before I give what I can.

Facebook, MySpace, et al, have created some monsters and have resulted in some terribly unfortunate suicides because of fragile egos. Why do we let folks we really don’t know very well get to us so deeply?  Because, we’re human. Because we leave ourselves wide open to a select group. The internet expands that select group to hundreds of people if we choose. That’s a helluvalotta people to allow to influence us.

It’s hard to sell yourself; the soul of a poet is often at odds with that of a marketing expert, though the two combined make the best whole. After I whined, friends came to the rescue through the medium and emails and it made me feel rather foolish and yet, in the back of my head there’s still that feeling that I shouldn’t have needed a double-call to acknowledge. Or develop a thicker skin but then, thick skin would prevent one from feeling what we want to put into words that will move others as well.

In (of all places) PC World, a suggestion to bring libraries some income instead of relying on pubic funding alone and the subsequent pain of budget cuts:

“Library staff would be hired based on their creative talents as well as their other competences. So a job offer for a library job might sound like this: “Mr. McCartney, I understand you like composing songs. We’re thrilled to have you join our library staff. Ms. Dickinson, your poetry is truly distinctive, welcome to our library staff. Mr. da Vinci, your drawing talent will be a big asset to our library community. Mr. Wright, we’re so happy to have someone interested in building flying machines join our staff.”

This morning I received an e-mail from Amazon.com where I frequently purchase books.

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated books by Roland Barthes, you might like to know that Health Insurance And Health Savings Account Made Easy is now available. You can order yours for just $9.95 by following the link below.

I’m still trying to figure out the connection between Barthes and Health Insurance and even with the longest stretch, I cannot see one. So? Obviously a sales gimmick to push a current hot topic on some configuration of their customers.

This is what bothers me about social networking and internet identifiers. Bad enough that folks don’t seem to “get” us in real life, but on the net where we’ve so carefully (and carelessly) let ourselves be judged by what we write, link to, photo-share, and buy? The old Animals’ tune is running around in my mind: “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good/Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” It’s one of our  fears, for many of us, one of our biggest.

So is an internet identity as cool as we think? Is what we put out there–real or wishful fantasy–something we want hanging in cyberspace well beyond our own physical presence has mouldered (or been crispy-fried) away? Interesting, this new technology, eh?

Thought I already had posted on this exciting event but realized I’d only tweeted and Facebooked it:

(Click on the image for more information)

It’s going to be an informal, pajama-party-friendly gathering of great minds and minds that do great things with hypertextual software and concepts, as Mark says, “a weekend-long writers colony for electronic literature.” It sounds like it’s going to be exciting, informational, and fun!

In this case, methods of working up funding for a project that someone may feel passionate about but can’t get others interested in backing.

Led by the notorious Anne (who has more skills at tunneling through the web than a mole underground) to Kickstarter, which seems to be a place to lay out your idea and hope for some promises of dollars to help you get started. This one, for example, caught my eye because it’s so close to what I took part in with the 100 Days Project: 50 Characters in 50 Weeks, spiels the maker, is,

“…an exploration of humanity. It’s an exploration of acting and storytelling, but also of what it is to be human. There are lots of laughs, there are some tears. There are nice people and mean ones, but none of them are two-dimensional. Each film is designed to transport you, to make you laugh, think, and feel, if only for a few minutes… and I’m trying to create fifty of them in a year.”

Hi, my name is Brent Rose. I’m an actor, writer, and film-maker, and I’m working on the toughest project of my life. I am trying to create fifty short films in under a year. The project is called 50 Characters in 50 Weeks (or “50in50″).

An ambitious endeavor, and as of this moment, he’s got $1748 collected with 44 backers and 26 days to go.

What then, can I promise in return for some cash to fund CD’s and a website on hypertext stories? This is a possibility to get this project off the ground, not just for the money–which would take it above the personally-funded hokey stage to a more professional level–but for the chance to generate interest in the hypertext medium.

Ach, more thinking to do.

I have left the beginner for the end, being hypertextually inclined to screw with linearity that way.

Steve Ersinghaus is the starting point for the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project, a reversal of his role with Carianne Mack in last year’s 100 Paintings and Poems. It is easy to see why we have so many visual artists in the group; Steve not only is near unmatchable in story or poetry in his vivid imagery and narrative style, but he paints pictures with words that create inspiration to interpret graphically.

There is motion more than action, characters laid open to explore. For example, read this from #13 The Flight:

You see your wife disappear around the house but her name is lost to the width of your tongue. You find the image of the children in their white shorts and clean shoes in the grass and the dog watching them lovely and strange. They are sounds to listen for, colors to draw, mysteries to penetrate eventually, maybe on landing, and you wish you could remember her name. You wish you could touch her, the way you always did, which you, of course, can remember.

The wind is warm on your face, and you tell the world beneath you, which has the color of stone and glass, that you could always try harder. You could always try harder to remember but its impossible.

Yes, he’s an English Professor, but more, he’s an artist, a writer, a poet, and open to all manner of expressing the forms. More from Steve at his regular website here.

David Pender likely will find his place in the world within the graphic arts community. He has been adding his character sketches to the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project in the vein of realism to capture the story within a single moment of that character’s life.

This piece was in response to Steve’s 6th story, White Dwarf. This is my favorite of David’s pieces for I see not only the unrest evident in the character’s position of recline, his arms up and covering his face, but also in the number and hardness of the lines that surround him, pressing down in on him from all directions.

Nice stuff; check out these and more at his site.

It must be the poet in Susan Ersinghaus that has her finding the beauty and story in the everyday world.

Her photographic contributions to the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project have been spot on with Steve Ersinghaus’ story (yes, that’s her mate). She has read his daily narrative, picked up a camera and found in her own environment the very essence of theme, nailing it perfectly to a phrase that has caught her attention.

The image here is from a phrase, “It’s all about connecting the dots” and the obvious image of the mug offers the setting for story. But it’s the hand holding the cigarette that is telling of character, mood, tone– foreshadowing of conflict possibly? The palm up position is a gesture I construe as a question.

Beautiful work–and some fun stuff as well.

Mary Ellen Molski joined the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project a few days behind but her character studies are a lesson in drawing a face and stapling a life to a fictional character. Read this, #6 Rose, which I’ve posted here in its entirety:

Rose seeks comfort but can find none.  Her skin feels itchy, hot and prickly, like she has a rash she can’t treat.  She needs a friend.  She needs a lover.  She searches in book shops, at beaches, on trains.  There is no one who suits her tastes.

Online she shuffles her profiles, answers her messages, updates her stati.  The echoes of the husk of her life reverberate through the byte-measured universe.  She scratches her leg, taps her toe, moves the black Jack to lie atop the red Queen.  She would love a Jack, no matter what color.

Rose makes waffles and eats them alone.  On Saturday she walks to the post office and puts all the stamps upside down.  The secret message, her father said, was an upside down stamp means, “I love you”.  She thinks of the gas company’s mail room:  does Jack work there?

She walks to the market and looks through the racks, thumbing fuzz from the peaches, smelling bread, sifting nuts through her fingers.  She buys only sauce and cheese, then goes home to take a nap.  She checks her inbox for messages,  then starts to compose a note.  The cursor, a roseless stem, keeps time at the top of the page.  Rose decides there is no one she wants to speak with.

At all.

Mary Ellen’s the most grammatically correct person I know, and she’s grown into one of the most expressive with language and depth of character and narration that I’ve read in a long time. You see, hear, feel what her characters are about; understand and of course, that most necessary of literary elements, empathize.

I’m learning from ME, attempting a free piggyback ride on her learning experience.  More from Mary at her regular site here.

I was extremely curious as to what Jim Revillini would be presenting in the 100 Days: Summer 2009 series; his expertise is in coding and jQuery is well known, but story?

Yes. Jim takes something from Steve’s stories or as in this case, Carianne’s image painted from story to elaborate and present it in what is likely the newest new media form of any of us involved in this project. Here he has written out code to add a flyer to the image that slowly weaves its way across the screen, exactly mimicking the tone, mood, and theme of the original story. Magical.

I’m learning all the possibilities of what goes behind the imags, inside of the words, to produce story onto the web. Jim has offered some amazing, serious, and whimsical examples in his contributions.

Mindy Bray’s photographs for the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project prove her abilities to drill down into a story and pull out the meaning. Here she has taken the phrase, “repeat and vary” and found a perfect symbol in nature to carry out a message.

Mindy certainly recognizes the value of natural light in its role of visual art. In this image the sun hits at the lower left corner and the shadows start creeping into the story as it moves left and upward to settle in.

Do check out Mindy’s work at her website.

In what she terms “verbal visuals”–and what a lovely term for visual story–Denna Hintze-Yates adds a unique perspective to the 100 Days: Summer 2009 Group with images that have the ability to capture a story into a moment, a single image of great depth and meaning.

Here, a small boy wakes in the night to go to the bathroom. He stops by the window to look out at the night. We can immediately tell the danger the night poses to him, but the look of trust and hope on the boy’s face makes us wish we could reach and pull him back into the safety of his home.

Denna does some amazing things in her art, collages of focused story.

As a picture framer I’ve come across old tintypes but didn’t realize that photographers still use the process. Well, artists like Jessica Somers do, with some heartacheingly beautiful results.

Jessica is another part of the 100 Days: Summer 2009 team and has her work for the project set up here, as well as a separate website here.

I love her compositions that focus on detail that she has pulled from phrases and words to reconstruct the story into her very own interpretation. The tone quality, the all important play of light and shadow, the aged look that lends a sense of truth to the images make them exceptional. Go check it out.

Last year I posted here about the collaboration between Steve Ersinghaus and Carianne Mack (-Garside now, Congratulations!) that produced 100 poems and watercolors that has since been compiled in book form and were presented at a gallery showing.

Well these two have generously expanded upon the idea of using the academic summer vacation to include the work of other artists as well and this has come to be 100 Days: Summer 2009. But what I’m focusing on here is Carianne’s extraordinary work in interpreting Steve’s point of entry stories in a reversal of process.

Carianne’s work is often bold for watercolor, yet carries the softness of colors that contrarily intensifies the meaning of the story that’s being told. Check out her site to enjoy more of her work and to find out about gallery showings.

I really need to point to some of the incredible work being done on the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project and one of those whose work is outstanding in its simple elegance is the photography and sound clips being produced by John Timmons.

I’ve had John as an instructor for both art and new media and his easygoing nature hides a passion for meticulous detail. He finds color in angles. As anyone who’s painted a room with windows on various walls can attest, light changes color and two walls with the same paint will often show up as different as these images illustrate.  Light, for John, holds the brush; he finds the story that is painted into the composition.

You can view more of John’s contributions to this project at his website here, and I’d highly suggest you treat yourself to his sound clips that this artist/musician has offered as well here.