. 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?

So glad I agreed to join the 100 Stories Project. Last summer, Steve Ersinghaus and Carianne Mack dedicated their summer break from their usual campus duties at Tunxis Community College to put together an awesome creative collaboration of paintings and poetry as a challenge of one work a day for 100 days. Steve and Carianne are once again planning a project, with stories and visuals, and with the addition of John Timmons on sound and Jim Revillini on drums–no not drums, but the same base, the beat that sets the whole thing to blend in digital presentation. I’ll be expanding on story by offering an interpretation in hypertext.

Steve has already thrown out a few stories in preparation and to get with the idea, I’ve been hypertexting them on a 100 Stories Project Page (Link to the right) over at Hypercompendia until we have a plan for centralization. Officially the project will begin on May 22nd and run through August. It should be a fun process of learning and exploring creative ideas and interpretations pooled together towards a goal.

No wonder not even friends will comment on my posted poetry; I’m just not with the program of contemporary tastes: Poem for Randy Prunty by James Saunders. The next one, Sports, Part I, by Ken Goldsmith started while I’m writing this post and I’ll withhold comment because what the hell do I know.

The idea of the site, textsound, is a wonderfully creative idea and I’m exploring some of the other poetry available here and maybe learn something.

Susan doesn’t do memes and lists and when tagged, refuses to be “it.”

She isn’t antisocial exactly, nor necessarily dull and vague as a banana. She’s had threescore and one year behind her so there’s some experience from which to draw, albeit some of which is both shamefully and delightfully too private for sharing with either friends or strangers. Unfortunately, those same years deprive her of full memory without the taint of her creative force seeping through the cubicles of her mind.

No, there is no movie or book or song that forever changed her life; made a blip perhaps that created a perspective that hadn’t been used before as a monocle on daily living, but no great change in and of itself.  Favorites, yes; she can do favorites, though the list is constantly changing and she’d ask to be limited to the top three, or five at most. Favorites are not favorites above a certain number I would think.

Which brings up another reason why these questionnaires are no longer being filled and forwarded; the people I would care about I already know about or will…by conversation.

While I’m settling into the WordPress format and repairing whatever mistakes I’ve made along the way, I’ve also made up a new home page for the Mac, one I’d set up a long time ago but never got into.

Netvibes was a good choice for a home page since it allows many widgets and plugins and stuff to fill the page easily with what I’m mainly interested in seeing first thing on the screen. One gets used to a certain arrangement of things–guess that’s why they call it “home.” But my Excite page that I’ve always used for years had stopped making the investment portfolio available and once upon a time that was vital info to me. I’ve since found a few different plugins that serve the purpose, but really, I don’t even want to watch my future crumble in today’s scenario. The only other thing I really liked at Excite was a local tv listings grid and while I can’t find something like that, I’ve been able to delete most of the other data off the site and just link to Excite for that purpose. A bit more trouble, but I’m adapting.

What I don’t have completely set up yet and have been working on is a Public Netvibes page–though even in its undeveloped form it’s had two requests for befriending; one of which was a request to help the user learn English whereby he’d teach me Turkish in return.

Which brings me to some of the other social networking systems I’ve joined, such as twitter and Facebook. I like twitter; it allows me to voice those little random thoughts or doings that run through the day. Since I’ve been asked not to twitter so often, I’ve learned to curb my urges to tweet on impulse, though I suppose any who don’t like what I do or say have full freedom to stop following me. I don’t follow a lot of those who follow me; maybe I’m just antisocial, but it doesn’t seem necessary to me to have hundreds of so-named ‘friends’ when I don’t have anything in common with them except for the service itself. Same with Facebook; I know lots of people on Facebook but I’ve only invited one person to follow me, though I’ve responded to all who have asked me the same.

What’s odd about Facebook, to me, is that in searching around, there are so many people I know but they are all from different parts and times of my life. It just would seem odd to merge family, co-workers, friends, etc. all together on one plane in time. This is something I need to investigate further.

The weblog is what I’m most comfortable with working in. Perhaps it’s just my stubborn streak in learning the new, or making changes, or adding to what is already a heavy writing schedule and scattered arena of the internet. This too is something I need to delve into further; to find a place or two that brings everything together in their own separate modules.

Spent a good part of today playing with the animation service over at xtranormal–free for now, but I’m sure these good folk will be charging soon. I’ve made three mini-movies so far, actually five but that’s just because you can’t really edit your work and we all know how many drafts I go through on my works.

Here’s my favorite (the rest can be seen at the site):

Space as character–this is an important statement by Charles Deemer in his Nuts & Bolts section of the hyperdram which tells us how the idea of hyperdrama came about and moving it from live performance stage to the film medium.

Live performance interestingly keeps audience and actors in the same real time whereas film must manipulate the set and actors.

Giving us the technical side of it, including the software involved, Charles makes a quite complex undertaking seem a lot easier than it is.

One week away from the Hypertext 2008 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA and I’m pretty much ready for that with a presentation for the workshop headed by Steve Ersinghaus where I’ll be showing the process of my work with Storyspace and Hypertextopia. I’ll be happy to finally meet Mark Bernstein, Juan Gutierrez, Mark Marino, Chris Crawford, Alan Bigelow, and so many of the other hypertext celebrities I’ve only known through their work and websites.

I’m also getting a lot of the picture framing done, cleaning the
house, and making sure my husband has enough ironed shirts and slacks
to last until he meets a new woman in case something happens to me.