"Write now is good."

The stories of 2008

 
Photo: happy new year 2008 #3 by mugley

While I've been offline for much of the holiday season, I have been writing and refilling my creative well. 2007 ends with some exciting new writing projects behind me. Within the week, I start additional wordy and creative ones; I am really looking forward to it!

Here's wishing all of you peace, health and happiness in 2008 and beyond.

Writers, may your words flow abundantly and authentically. May your muses be as direct as you need them to be. The stories of 2008 have not yet been written, but their seeds have already been planted. May you tell your story, and yours alone — that is what you are here to do, and no one can tell it but you.

Will the next U.S. president be a blogger?

Photo: Walter Cronkite on television during 1st presidential debate between Ford and Carter, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania /Public Domain. Credit: O'Halloran/Library of Congress [VIA PINGNEWS]

How will blogs, YouTube, Facebook, websites and other forms of new media affect the 2008 U.S. presidential elections? Read my first post on the Huffington Post's OffTheBus to find out:

Campaign '08 Online: The Not-So-New Media

I interviewed Matt Rosenberg, Group Director of Media and Entertainment at Organic, about this topic. He provided some very relevant insight into how these new forms of digital communication are both clouding and clarifying presidential candidates' messages.

Read all the illuminating details here.

Related post:

° It's time to get on "OffTheBus"

Storytelling technology, a post in 4 acts

Photo: [click here to imagine a story] by Monsieur J.

This past week, I've discovered some fascinating links and snippets of life along a common theme — storytelling technology. Fitting so well with my blog's theme, these bits are worth sharing here:

1. True stories are the most compelling to me. I became reacquainted with This American Life this past weekend. I set aside uninterrupted time to enjoy it because I can't pull myself away from an episode once I start listening. If you don't know TAL, treat yourself to their free podcast of fascinating, dignified, human tales.

2. What will Google's KNOL do to how people share and gather information online? KNOL, a new online encyclopedia, will focus primarily on identifiable authors as the knowledge sharer; the goal is to create a trusted source, in part because the author is known and is an expert in a field. This differs from Wikipedia, whose contributors are mostly anonymous. Read Google's post on their official blog titled "Encouraging people to contribute knowledge" to find out more.

Stay tuned: Any story will be perceived differently based on who is telling it.

3. Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities is now available for your viewing, reading and laughing pleasure. Publisher Harper Collins released this description of it:

Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

The authors worked on this for more than two decades? I would love to read about the process behind putting this book together.

4. Last week, I saw a license plate that read "WYSIWYG". A license plate, perhaps the most public label many of us regularly wear, can either be completely innocuous or oddly memorable. Some strive to be among the shortest public storytelling out there. Geek readers among us — what type of person do you think the driver is? What is the story here?

The napkin notebook (It's about time!)

As I surf teh Interwebs looking for holiday gifts, sifting through the vast amount of stuff out there makes everything blur. I keep looking and searching and then, finally, something stands out. Here's an idea whose time has come: the napkin notebook. My wordy family members and friends would get a kick out of this stocking stuffer.

Bonus gift links for writers/creatives: The visual feast that is NOTCOT is featuring a daily gift guide. If you're looking for original gadgets, toys and accessories, start here. Gift categories include For Creatives, Techsessories, Naturally, Child's Play and Mimobots (an amazing assortment of designer USB flash drives).

Notebook found at I Believe in Advertising

Punctuation for kids: "The Marks" revised

Frederic Terral of Right Brain Terrain, creator of the Alternative Motivation Posters, has revamped his punctuation story for children, "Meet the Marks". Check out the entire book, now available online.

I think there is definitely a market for this type of book—something simple and fun about basic punctuation, with captivating illustrations and interesting characters. When young children are read to and they begin to pick out letters they recognize in books, questions about what periods, and especially exclamation points, are quickly follow. Both kids and their parents would enjoy something to read aloud, perhaps even a board book depending on how long the book is and for what age group it is intended.

I wonder what Mr. Terral's intentions are for "Meet the Marks". I'd like to see where he goes with it.

Get involved with "Flight Paths"

Photo: Opposing flightpaths by Jerry Cooke

The Institute for the Future of the Book is partnering with a host of other literary innovators for a new project: Flight Paths, a networked novel.

This work's creation will require the participation of writers and other creatives worldwide. If you're a regular of this blog, you may have read the Assignment Zero article I wrote which was featured on Wired.com, "Creative Crowdwriting: The Open Book", about crowdsourced books. If writing adventures like A Million Penguins and Gamer Theory sound like fun to you, here's your chance to get involved in a similar endeavor. An excerpt from the Flight Paths blog:

The initial goal of this project is to create a work of digital fiction, a ‘networked book’, created on and through the internet. The first stage of the project will include a web iteration with, at its heart, this blog, opening up the research process to the outside world, inviting discussion of the large array of issues the project touches on. As well as this, [co-authors] Chris Joseph and Kate Pullinger will create a series of multimedia elements that will illuminate various aspects of the story. This will allow us to invite and encourage user-generated content on this website and any associated sites; we would like to open the project up to allow other writers and artists to contribute texts - both multimedia and more traditional – as well as images, sounds, memories, ideas. At the same time, Kate Pullinger will be writing a print novel that will be a companion piece to the project overall.

Read more about how to participate.

I'm excited to see another crowdsourced novel starting. From the interviews and research that I did for the "creative crowdwriting" article, many participants in crowdsourced-writing projects had positive, one-of-a-kind creative experiences. They felt invigorated and intellectually challenged, and enjoyed being a part of an online community. Whether you're looking for a serious writing outlet or just want to "play" and contribute on any level, this kind of structure — enabled by Internet technology, blogs and wikis — is ripe for it.

If you decide to contribute to Flight Paths, drop a comment and let me know. I'll be following its progress and process with great interest.

A bookish library parking garage

Photo: Library Parking Garage by jonathan_moreau

A Missouri library has a most appropriate parking garage design; a huge wall of book spines enclose it. (See image above.) From the SEGD's Design Awards post about it:

These well-known books on the parking garage have become some of the most recognizable and widely discussed additions to Kansas City's redeveloping core. The people of Kansas City were asked to help pick the titles of the books in order to truly represent their city. When first asked to design this project, Dimensional Innovations was asked to create a small graphic panel on the center of the book spines. When the vision grew to giant books, the challenge was to reproduce the books in a realistic way and within a set budget.

When I saw this, my first question was, "How did they do this?" In summary:

Rare books were professionally photographed and software used to modify and place the desired titles. To allow light into the parking garage, an aluminum substructure includes clear Plexiglas windows through the center of the books. 3M Scotchprint with translucent printing was applied to the substructure to create the books. The postcards on the street are enlarged from original 1920s postcards of the street where the garage is now located. Aluminum in lieu of plastic was used when possible.

I love how the wit and humor in this design has turned the ordinary into something fun and inspiring. The books featured outside the library may be among some of the most-checked-out inside it.

Found at deputydog

"Blogs in Plain English" — thank you!

If you are a blogger, than you probably have had trouble explaining what a blog is, and why you blog, to those who don't.

I still fondly recall when I told a family member that I had a blog. She replied, "What? You got a dog?"

Then there was the time I told a close friend that I had a blog. She stared at me without saying a word. After a few moments passed, I explained, "It's OK. It's like a website." She replied, sighing with great relief as a huge smile came to her face, "Oh, that great!" She never did tell me what she originally thought a blog was, but judging from her initial response, it must have been horrible.

I never thought that the word "blog" would become the #1 conversation stopper in some circles in the 21st century, or that I'd be the one slamming on the brakes by simply sharing what I do. That's why I'm thanking The Common Craft Show for the following video: "Blogs in Plain English." For those not quite sure what a blog is, this short film explains it extremely well.

NOTE: The Common Craft Show has created a host of other videos, like ones about wikis, zombies and RSS, in their quest to make many aspects of modern web/tech life clear to everyone.

Watch out, wrinkles

Photo: winkle by Sidereal 

I'm starting a new blog feature called "worditis" (pronounced "wurd-ahy-tis"), defined as thus: thinking about the meanings of words and phrases too much, thus actually coming up with new, additional or extreme meanings.

Here's my first example:

While shopping the other day, I noticed that some men's pants were "anti-wrinkle". But those same men's pants used to be "wrinkle free" just a few month's ago.

Marketers often change wording on products to make them seem better than before, even though no change has been made to the product. This may be one of those times.

But here's my thinking: Not only have these pants been completely liberated from wrinkles (i.e., "wrinkle free"), they are now completely against wrinkles altogether (i.e., "anti-wrinkle). WORDITIS!

Wordy people out there — do you do this, too?

Writing music "wintry mix" is up

With my quarterly writing mixes (seen at right under the category cloud), I went from summer straight to winter—my fall has been busy beyond belief. That's a good thing!

I haven't featured a writing-mix music video in a long while, so this blog is due for one. The following is an excellent song, appropriate for any pre-writing dance sessions/rev up or for working on action scenes while writing. Plus, the video heavily features the band Bloc Party performing; I gravitate towards videos which actually feature the bands.

Enjoy.