Micro Cultures

The Day Job – A Writer's Malady

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I step outside and drag a blade of cold air into my lungs.   5:35 AM.   In two hours, I’ll sit at my desk, wait for my laptop to boot up and stare at the pictures, the papers, the brown ring left behind from last week’s coffee. In two hours, I’ll return to the place where, if I choose, I’ll remain until social security forces me to keep working. And I’ll come back again. Dead man working, empty coffin waiting.

Minutes ago, I feigned sound sleep. Couldn’t get comfortable all night long and, through the black, the clock’s bloody numbers seeped past my peripheral, pooled into my direct line of sight, and the time shimmered with chuckles. The morning guffawed at my restlessness and squealed at the stroke of 5:30 AM. Our dog waited in his crate, ready to get going. My body rose, a long sigh lifted my weight from the bed and, between encrusted blinks, we began the ritual.

The wind pumps life into my nerves, previously dulled by insomnia, shocked and frayed now, electrocuted by this damn cold. Mid-September in south New Jersey. Summer refuses to linger; when it goes, its out and you hope for its return. That and the dark reminds me of Bill Withers as the dog tugs, circles, stops and surveys the scenery, then crouches to urinate.

A field, for any other name eludes me, separates two parking lots. Wind sweeps through the low-cut lawn, mowed seventeen hours earlier. Twenty minutes. I unlock the retractable leash and let him run, sniff grass, eat it and putter around the light pole. I try to remain vigilant, on the lookout for rabbits and squirrels and other woodland creatures that’ll stir his ire.

Before long, I look upward and note the transformative fade from black to purple. I should write about it, I think to myself. And I think about the time. The year. The past. Writers before me. And question if I have anything worthwhile to add to the ubiquitous subject of sunrises. In other words, I wonder if I have something new to say. More to the point, I conspire with self-doubt to sabotage my thought process. Long story short, I psyche myself out and begin the traverse to a new topic.

He sits on command and I stroke his black fur, repeat affirmations in his ear, a good dog indeed. The heaviness settles in for the day. In ninety minutes, I’ll sit at my desk, fumble with my Blackberry to check spam mail and overnight messages one hundred-forty characters deep. I’ll sink into a slipstream and drown in jade-colored timelines where fellow followers bemoan anxiety over dreams turned reality. I’ll remember the walk, the field, the purple smeared parallel to the horizon and vaguely recall the conspiracy, as if it occurred years, not hours, ago.

The usual preparations: food in his bowl, coffee maker percolates, my love’s taillights turn the corner toward Philadelphia, I wash, dress, brush, straighten out, brace. One hour. I open the other laptop and shut off the wireless connection. No browsing. No refreshed reports from the blogosphere. We’re talking words and phrases, serious business, and I have sixty minutes to salvage the rest of my day.

Without a character, a theme or voice, I begin to type. Each meaning behind every word meanders without forethought; my sentences stretch beyond the outskirts of brevity, terseness, get-to-the-fucking-pointedness. Little action, less backstory. The narrative swells, its belly pregnant with equal parts density and emptiness and I, voyeur, keep my eyes on its navel.

Two cigarettes down, ten minutes to go. He sleeps by my feet and whimpers to himself amid the unknowable: a canine’s nightmare. The morning’s silence, less still now that the sun is here, rings in my ears like a far-away chime, a singular note hummed as though a television were left on mute. Sound within no-sound. The unbearable tumidity of sonic vacancy leaves my stream of consciousness in shambles. I mutter an expletive. Fuck. I have an 8 AM meeting with my staff and I cannot arrive late. And if I could, no good would arise from it. And even though I should, since I dare call myself “writer,” I am, at least, on the path to said profession and therefore beholden to a day-job.

Third cigarette lit and I start my car. And sit. A free minute before I have to hit the road. I bring up Bill Withers on the iPod and play “Ain’t No Sunshine.” I switch to “Use Me” because its funkier, it knocks from my speakers and, as I shift into Drive, it seems more fitting.

Touch Down In London-Town*: A Honeymoon In Three Parts

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london-central

*Title borrowed from Estelle featuring Kanye West “American Boy”

I.

While I continue work on the best writer apps for the iPhone review (dammit, I said it’s coming), I figured it’ll be a good time to start a micro-series. If social media experts and blogging aficionados are to be believed, readers love a good micro-series (“micro” sounds better than “mini,” FYI). Besides, it’ll give me a little something to write about as the days tick down.

That is to say, I’m getting married in four weeks. The apartment is abound with excitement and stress as we wrap up last minute things: marriage license, music for the reception and the ever-changing guest list. We originally planned a large affair with all the frills and lace of a Spring 2011 wedding. Eventually, we found ourselves less enthralled with a big wedding; our focus shifted to wanting to get married and having a nice honeymoon in the process. We settled on an intimate gathering in a chic Philadelphia locale and, soon after, we’re flying out to London for a week. Our first excursion out of the country, the first of many (we hope) international trips, and we’re doing it together: we can’t think of a better way to celebrate our new life as a married couple.

So what we have here is the allure, the romance, of a week in London: doing the whole sightseeing thing, bopping up and down SoHo and Covent Garden, checking out a play at the National Theatre (Fela!) and conducting ourselves in the most respectful, least American manner. And yet (yes, there’s a yet), the writer in me is equally excited for the new smells, the sounds, the sights of buildings older than the US itself. I want to do a travelogue, a blog updated daily on our exploits (rated PG, of course). I want to visit old bookstores and hold first editions in my hand. I want to hear the accents and inject them into future dialogue.

My writing is in a sad, stagnant state these days. Very low output, PANK notwithstanding, and a general malaise toward all of my prose, whether it be fiction or otherwise: I could use a pick-me-up of any kind, from any individual, in any country. Secretly, I place a great burden onto our honeymoon, granting it the responsibility to rekindle something lost over the years. Over this past summer, I’ve paired down my techno collection, now a Spartan toolbox of necessities sans bloatware, in the hopes of finding the right mix to help me write during days where hours escape like steam through fingers. A change of scenery, a change in cell phones: both are synonymous with a deeper search.

I’ve never been a religious man, in spite of my mother’s efforts. I squirmed in pews, hemmed and hawed at testimonials and sermons, quietly promising that I’d avoid all forms of ties and dress pants when I grow up. Whenever the preacher sauntered down the aisles, looking for a suspect to save from damnation, I lowered my eyes, flipped through a bible, read with intensity the back of a handheld fan, as though the advertisement for the local funeral home contained more truth and mysticism than the story of Jesus. I’ve had enough faith to remain sane, but not enough to fret over the looming threat of losing it, of waking up and no longer believing in the wisdom of God, in the goodness of man.

Apparently, people go on spiritual journeys to reclaim that oneness with God, with faith in general. A weekend retreat, maybe, or a year-long excursion through Africa or Asia. I don’t know anything about looking for God in a log cabin lodged betwixt the cleavage of some far-off mountain range, or in the eyes of an hooded Indian girl, as if her starving gaze was placed there for me as a conduit to Heaven. But I do feel bankrupt, straight up robbed of my creativity. Creativity. Creativity. Not the act of writing, or the act of connecting unlike objects to weave a muddled, prosaic tapestry. Creativity is fed, yes. Switching out cell phones and laptops and iGadgets have failed, unsurprisingly, to light my fire.

In the back of my mind, I’m asking London to breath its fog over suffocated embers, to bring back their orange, radiating bloom, pulsing with an energy I’ll undoubtedly fail to capture in my writing, but will appreciate and value nonetheless. I’m afraid of asking London for too much, to expect it to do more than act as a wondrous backdrop to the spark my fiancee and I discovered almost four years ago. I know the burden is great as I wonder with a future-projection, “What if London does nothing for me”? Will I come home, jet-lagged and further entrenched in my malady? I want to leave the writer at home. This is the time for my wife and I; there’s little room for third parties. Yet, I consider what writing utensils I’ll bring with me; whether or not I can leave the journal at home and use my iPhone in its place.

To be continued…

@thomasdemary. @altruistic bullsh*t.

Electric Parade: Note From The Author

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We Need More Peace in Author Photos...

We Need More Peace in Author Photos...

Sunday morning and it’s a kinda-gray day. The wife to be is working overtime, Rover’s asleep in the bed and the incense smoke wafts from the bookcase. From the iMac, Kayne’s Devil In A New Dress thumps and sets the tone with its haunting soul sample. I’m feeling reflective; a muted re-run of Six Feet Under switches frames behind me; I’m in that “let’s look back” attitude as I mush the deadline’s gun away from my temple.

Four months since I sat in the dentist’s office, frazzled by the shock of yet another bad tooth, and the tweet flashed past my screen. Like that, I got the go-ahead to join the PANK contributor camp with thoughts of grafting microchips to prosaic flesh—Electric Parade ain’t quite the android I imagined when I pitched the column. The hype and pleasantry of writing: you never know where the groove takes you.

Electric Parade—the idea of it—started a year ago when I opened a blog called Electric Sanctuary; I remember thinking that painters and photographers, for example, have so many new-age media techniques to capture the new era. I wondered if the same existed for writers. We need help. We’re visual artists utilizing a one-dimensional medium; our typeset requires readers to bring up the rear.

With Electric Sanctuary,   I wanted to bring writers into the 21st Century with articles on programs such as my favorite Mac writing program, or how to use Google to generate ideas for our personal opuses. The blog dovetailed into other arenas, the altruistic nature of its intent made a left turn and spiraled to the earth with solipsistic rants. The price of freedom, I guess. I don”â„¢t have that luxury with PANK. With Electric Parade, I stayed close to the theme, hugged the road as it twisted, turned, threatened to overturn my articles.

I wanted to quit PANK a few months ago. I thought I was a failure. The space between the column in my head and the actual pieces I wrote widened with each week floating by. I intended to write how-to guides and reviews on programs and tools to aid the writer in navigating the smartphone/tablet/personal computer maelstrom.

Instead, my columns were essays—personal narratives—and I waited for Dr. Gay (congrats) to give me the boot. “No memoir, black man,” is what I expected to find in my inbox every week. No doubt, I’ve written about technology in impersonal terms: best apps for Android or the iPad (the iPhone write-up is coming, I promise). But I couldn’t help it. I sat in front of my monitor, fingers hovered over keys, and I ended up delving into my past, my family, my self.

Essays on my cousin’s iPhone on Christmas Eve, the first time I wrote a story on my father’s word processor, battling my writing space to attain the right flow, increasing or scaling down the gadgets in my life: what the hell does this have to do with tech and creative writing? What’s the basis? No one cares. I mean, I’m supposed to do tech reviews and write-ups.

Electric Parade is something else and it’s all my fault. If you’re a writer, you know how futile it is to wrestle the crest of narrative. Either it drags you along or you ride it slow, one-handed, like a villain cowboy strolling into town. And look, let’s engage in a bit of real talk for a second: this is the blog of a literary magazine (a fine one, too) and I’m a kinda-sorta-so-so lit writer with a penchant for em dashes and rap lingo. If you wanted to read tech reviews, you’d go to the Boy Genius or Engadget.

What can I say? I’m not a journalist in the traditional sense, I’m too flighty to give you review after review every week. As an essayist, I need room to saunter through the subject matter, to be subjective and, even with the clearest prose, to come off a bit muddled. Besides, this is the Internet; there’s no shortage of commenters available to boo me off the stage. People are reading (I think) and, even if they don’t comment, they aren’t running me out of town via pitch forks and torches. My sole goal is to find a connection between writing and technology. Where it takes me—and you—is all part of the joy of writing and reading.

That said, consider this a word of thanks to PANK, to Dr. Gay, to Kirsty Logan (first book review is coming soon), for affording me the opportunity to share my words here and, equally important, for not pulling the plug on Electric Parade. It took almost five months for me to settle in, to answer the question, “What’s it all about?”

It’s about being a creative human under constant assault by social networks, new smartphones turned obsolete in thirty days or less, and reams upon reams of digitized information. It’s trying to listen to the voice in my head while a chorus of ghosts bellows from the ether. As I’ve said, it’s the new era, a time in which quietude is antiquated. Hell, I got Tweetdeck running while I’m writing this; all hail the electric parade that threatens to sweep writers away from much-needed silence. I’m more documentarian than beat reporter. My bad–

@thomasdemary. @altruistic bullsh*t.

Parable of the iPhone

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I had enough...

What can I say? I had enough...

I’m crouched over a blue plastic bin of spare parts: PVC elbows, steel nuts and bolts, and a large green and white pump made in Japan, meant for usage on a project about ten years ago. I’m doing my part at the day job, sifting through old material on the last day of the week-long annual physical inventory. It’s gray outside and I wrote an acceptable amount of prose earlier in the morning; I’m feeling at ease, as if it’s an hour away from quitting time on Friday. I sit up from my stool and turn down the volume on my iPod Touch; Kanye West makes my ears ring. I lean over and pull out my Motorola Droid to check the weather, Twitter and my email. And there I am, once again, holding a device in each hand amid the age of multipurpose gadgets. I say to myself with a whisper, as if I’m ready to release a secret into the world, “I want an iPhone.”

The next day, my fiancee and I browse the local mall, picking up various items for our honeymoon at the end of October. Whenever Verizon Wireless releases a new phone, I find myself at the kiosk in the mall, tinkering with the new gadget to see if, maybe, it’ll fit my needs. This trip is different. Carrying newly purchased luggage, I see the kiosk and the crowd meandering around it. I’m on a mission to understand my hesitancy over the years. I’m watching the Verizon employees, wearing, for some reason, matching lavender polo shirts, and the archetypical iPhone owner, the one that existed in my head for so long, begins to fade. We all know them: skinny-jean hipsters and hooded teenagers, little women with Ugg boots and pixie hair cuts, wannabe rappers with bent baseball caps and gaudy diamond earrings. My judgements of them, born out of something trite like a cell phone, is nothing more than a judgement of myself, as if the Android phone in my pocket makes me better, smarter or less susceptible to marketing trickery.

A few months ago, I rooted my Droid and felt superior to some unknown, nameless, nonexistent audience; my phone was mine, absent Draconian controls by a Cupertino-based overlord. Rooting my phone afforded me wifi-tethering, custom ROM swapping and processor overclocking: things that added a bit more depth to my gadget experience. And yet, some time later, after I spent two late-night hours at the computer, phone in hand, switching ROMs and reinstalling apps on three separate occasions, I had a revelation of sorts. I should’ve been writing, but I was here at my desk, trying to make my phone better. “This used to be fun,” I said to myself. “This used to be simple.”

Simplicity—in terms of writing, it means get to the point, to tell it straight and to be clear. So here I am, holding the new Samsung Fascinate in my hand. Its cartoony, iOS-like interface bothers me; the shape of the phone, similar to the iPhone 3GS in my opinion, appeals to me, its plastic build notwithstanding. But to get rid of the UI skin, I’d have to root the phone and slap a new launcher on top of it. I’d have to hack away to dispose of the default Microsoft Bing seach functionality—Microsoft’s search engine on a Google-powered phone. I look over to the gargantuanDroid X, ruined by Motorola’s own UI skin and its lockdown of the phone’s bootloader, rendering it near impossible to install a new ROM.

I don’t have time for this shit.

But the Fascinate comes with a Buy One, Get Any Phone Free deal—it’s been a personal mission of mine to get my fiancee away from Blackberry. So I ask an employee about the deal, thinking I’d stomach the Fascinate while my fiancee takes on the Droid X. As the middle-aged white woman, with wrinkly neck and fresh-pressed white shirt, click-clacks on the keyboard, I think to myself, “Here we go again.” From the corner of my eye, I see the AT&T store. Yet, I wait for the employee to finish; she looks up and says, “Your New Every Two upgrade is available in two weeks. You can’t use it now; you’d have to buy the phones at full price. And we would charge an additional $20.”

I can feel the sweat bubbling from my forehead. “Twenty bucks? For what? And why can’t I upgrade at the discounted price, at least?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“If I go online, I won’t get charged twenty bucks AND I can get the phones discounted.”

“That’s not correct, sir.”

I know I’m right. I’m a gadget freak; I know the ins and outs of my cell phone contract, I know the loopholes and I know what I can and can’t do. My fiancee grabs my arm as I turn away from the employee, then begin to turn back to curse her out. My fiancee knows me, knows my ins and outs, and knows when its time to pull me away. As we walk away, I drag my luggage and say to my fiancee, “I’m done.”

I’m done pretending to not want something. I’ve wanted the iPhone since it was released and, given I couldn’t afford one, I drummed up reasons for hating it. Indeed, it is not perfect, but I had enough of making a Blackberry or Android into an iPhone. Later that night, I work out the details with my fiancee—she can have the Verizon account to maintain her number, as well as her sister’s on our family plan, and it’ll be under my name to use my day-job discount. With a call to Verizon, an $80 early termination fee and a trip to the AT&T store, things are simpler now. Just get to the point, do what you want and live with the results.

The Death of Publishing Part M: This Time, It's Electric!

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godfather-sonny

Caption: They shot Publishing on the Causeway

The publishing industry is dying—so I’ve heard. The new era is here—I think. E-books, E-readers and E-distribution: it all spells “freedom” for the writer or, perhaps, the unlocking of those pesky gates separating the beautiful ones (aka published) from the ugly bastards (aka everyone else). The writer and the reader: chuck the middleman’s carcass to the side and let the literary symbiosis prosper. It’s all very utopian, quite idyllic with its blue sky, resplendent sun and bountiful royalties, to say nothing of artistic growth. The rallying cry—death to traditional pub!—is a popular stance to take, positioning oneself with the angels as that devilish Goliath falls to its knees. Are we there yet? Have we arrived?

Artistic failure begets a bitterness potent enough to ruin lives. It’s why rejection hurts: with each form letter, each “pass” from publishers, as years appear in the rear-view mirror like a mountain of trash, it’s difficult to remain strong and optimistic. Rejection is torture: everyone has a limit before he breaks, lets it all spill from his eyes, and says, “No mas. No mas.” Writers want to be read; the thought of being life-long diarists angers some of them beyond explanation. Self-publishing, if nothing else, is the last bastion of expression, of mass communication, for the rejected, the failures.

Failure, of course, is a matter of perspective, making rejection worse. It’s not just that you failed to publish; you failed to have a shot with readers, a chance to be lauded, panned or altogether ignored by the reading populace. And though I know there are unreadable, unpublished books in the world, I can see the ugly bastards’ point: get out of the way, publisher, and let readers decide for themselves.

A democratic philosophy, no doubt, that could make good books that much harder to find. But would it be any worse than the music industry? Right now, thousands of bands and performers offer their songs on iTunes and many of them will see few, if any, sales. That they decide to take a shot, to reach out to potential listeners, independent of the music’s quality or accessibility, and in lieu of a label’s seal of approval, gives rise to a small hope to writers, an optimism that helps to generate the current “down with traditional publishing” fervor.

This would be a good time to posit the following: even amid unfettered publishing, failures and inequities will remain. I’m no fool. While a writer will be free to disseminate his “Lord of The Rings-meets-Soul Plane” e-novel, there’s no guarantee that people buy it, read it or even know its title. Literary works of wonder, exquisite prose detailing the inner-sanctum of our hearts, will flounder; what some may call “mass market drivel” will dominate sales and readership.

Or vice versa. How the hell would I know? Point is, writing for publication is nothing more than a crap-shoot, an opportunity for readers to buy into your work or say “pass” as they continue their Amazon search. Going to a traditional publisher, whether you value its services or not, is asking for the chance to fail. Asking for a chance. That writers are beginning to say, “I’m not asking for a damn thing” should surprise no one. It should be encouraged.

It’s too soon to say that the publishing industry is dead, dying or ripe for assassination. It is in flux; this is one of those “tipping point” moments that’ll shape the industry—or send it careening off a cliff. If the latter occurs, it’ll be mostly self-induced; writers opting to self-publish never threatened traditional publishers before and they won’t now or in the near future. Publishers will have to adapt—if the agendas for various conferences and lit festivals are any indication, they know this.

And even with iTunes and such, musicians continue to shop demos to record labels; both industries, however, are aware of the incongruence between the times and their current, yet decreasing value to artists. Meanwhile, writers will continue to find agents; agents will find publishers; publishers will determine the book’s return on investment; readers will still enjoy books, paper or electronic; unpublished writers will seethe and sprint to Lulu. Or quit the race altogether.

As for me–

I think of my own literary dreams, those that keep me up at night these days. My utter lack of confidence in my work is, to say the least, a personal problem. “Rejection is torture”: for me, these words extend beyond publication; it encroaches upon self-deprecation and creative suicide. I try to write prose that matters to me, that might matter to you—that might give me permission to say, as a writer, “I matter.” And to do all this work, to overcome fears and depression (clinical) and craft something that somewhat resembles the nonsense in my brain—to grind, in short—just for a publisher to tell me no? That was in style decades ago, but it’s the new era—unsettled and gaseous as it is—and I’m not sure if I need a publisher. That is, of course, unless a publisher says yes–

The Death of Publishing Part M: This Time, It’s Electric!

Posted on by

godfather-sonny

Caption: They shot Publishing on the Causeway

The publishing industry is dying—so I’ve heard. The new era is here—I think. E-books, E-readers and E-distribution: it all spells “freedom” for the writer or, perhaps, the unlocking of those pesky gates separating the beautiful ones (aka published) from the ugly bastards (aka everyone else). The writer and the reader: chuck the middleman’s carcass to the side and let the literary symbiosis prosper. It’s all very utopian, quite idyllic with its blue sky, resplendent sun and bountiful royalties, to say nothing of artistic growth. The rallying cry—death to traditional pub!—is a popular stance to take, positioning oneself with the angels as that devilish Goliath falls to its knees. Are we there yet? Have we arrived?

Artistic failure begets a bitterness potent enough to ruin lives. It’s why rejection hurts: with each form letter, each “pass” from publishers, as years appear in the rear-view mirror like a mountain of trash, it’s difficult to remain strong and optimistic. Rejection is torture: everyone has a limit before he breaks, lets it all spill from his eyes, and says, “No mas. No mas.” Writers want to be read; the thought of being life-long diarists angers some of them beyond explanation. Self-publishing, if nothing else, is the last bastion of expression, of mass communication, for the rejected, the failures.

Failure, of course, is a matter of perspective, making rejection worse. It’s not just that you failed to publish; you failed to have a shot with readers, a chance to be lauded, panned or altogether ignored by the reading populace. And though I know there are unreadable, unpublished books in the world, I can see the ugly bastards’ point: get out of the way, publisher, and let readers decide for themselves.

A democratic philosophy, no doubt, that could make good books that much harder to find. But would it be any worse than the music industry? Right now, thousands of bands and performers offer their songs on iTunes and many of them will see few, if any, sales. That they decide to take a shot, to reach out to potential listeners, independent of the music’s quality or accessibility, and in lieu of a label’s seal of approval, gives rise to a small hope to writers, an optimism that helps to generate the current “down with traditional publishing” fervor.

This would be a good time to posit the following: even amid unfettered publishing, failures and inequities will remain. I’m no fool. While a writer will be free to disseminate his “Lord of The Rings-meets-Soul Plane” e-novel, there’s no guarantee that people buy it, read it or even know its title. Literary works of wonder, exquisite prose detailing the inner-sanctum of our hearts, will flounder; what some may call “mass market drivel” will dominate sales and readership.

Or vice versa. How the hell would I know? Point is, writing for publication is nothing more than a crap-shoot, an opportunity for readers to buy into your work or say “pass” as they continue their Amazon search. Going to a traditional publisher, whether you value its services or not, is asking for the chance to fail. Asking for a chance. That writers are beginning to say, “I’m not asking for a damn thing” should surprise no one. It should be encouraged.

It’s too soon to say that the publishing industry is dead, dying or ripe for assassination. It is in flux; this is one of those “tipping point” moments that’ll shape the industry—or send it careening off a cliff. If the latter occurs, it’ll be mostly self-induced; writers opting to self-publish never threatened traditional publishers before and they won’t now or in the near future. Publishers will have to adapt—if the agendas for various conferences and lit festivals are any indication, they know this.

And even with iTunes and such, musicians continue to shop demos to record labels; both industries, however, are aware of the incongruence between the times and their current, yet decreasing value to artists. Meanwhile, writers will continue to find agents; agents will find publishers; publishers will determine the book’s return on investment; readers will still enjoy books, paper or electronic; unpublished writers will seethe and sprint to Lulu. Or quit the race altogether.

As for me–

I think of my own literary dreams, those that keep me up at night these days. My utter lack of confidence in my work is, to say the least, a personal problem. “Rejection is torture”: for me, these words extend beyond publication; it encroaches upon self-deprecation and creative suicide. I try to write prose that matters to me, that might matter to you—that might give me permission to say, as a writer, “I matter.” And to do all this work, to overcome fears and depression (clinical) and craft something that somewhat resembles the nonsense in my brain—to grind, in short—just for a publisher to tell me no? That was in style decades ago, but it’s the new era—unsettled and gaseous as it is—and I’m not sure if I need a publisher. That is, of course, unless a publisher says yes–

Elegy For Google Wave

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When I started Electric Parade, one of my first installments was on Google Wave, the now defunct social collaborative tool. Like Wave, my installment floundered, never quite took the shape I envisioned; eventually, I killed it off in favor of iPads and such. But the technology Google offered generated as much intrigue as it did confusion. Google should take some of the blame for the latter; it expected the masses to beg for invites to a tool no one knew how—or why—to use. But I’m not the masses, so I acquired my invite via a bit of beggary and, once I logged in, I didn’t know where to start. I thought about sending a Wave to the friend who blessed me with the invite—but I figured I might as well use Google Talk or the telephone to reach out.

Why I wanted to write about Wave in the first place? Well, upon viewing Google’s demo on Youtube, its potential application for writers became apparent. A wave, to me, was the spawn of an instant messenger and email—then it took steroids upon birth. Messaging was in real time, in the presence of those who participated in the wave—they could see you type the beginnings of a snarky remark and yes, they could see you delete it quickly. Other users could alter your text, in real time, as well. Wave had far more going on than that, but the example above is the essence of its social collaboration.

My fiancee was a member of a writing workshop, cobbled together for and by her fellow grad school alums. They used a customary tool to do this: email. Back and forth, Word documents zoomed through the ether, waiting for the recipient to butcher the poem with markups and footnotes. As an observer, email made sense to me; email provides people a moment of pause or, rather, an opportunity to get to the message when time allotted. While Google may have underestimated people’s desire to take a little time and consider both the messages and their responses to it, a “think before you send” sensibility, Wave was still attractive to me, as though it was designed specifically for the workshop model.

Wave allowed a user to send a message to another person, just like an email. But if they were both signed on, or six other people were invited to the fun, the message becomes a type of chat room—or instant messenger—I don’t know. Anyway, imagine being the lucky individual who submits his poem for critique. You send it in a wave. Five of your compatriots log in and decide that now would be a good time to do the workshop, to get it out of the way before Mad Men or Monday Night Football starts. You sit there, watching your carefully crafted poem get hacked to pieces in real time; watching someone break into your car—with your girlfriend smiling in the passenger seat—would be less stressful (maybe).

Silliness aside, this is why I didn’t write about Wave. I don’t think people are intentionally cruel—but I do think that, in lieu of thick skins, writers sometimes opt to develop sword-sharp tongues. Granted, workshops are supposed to foster a warm, inviting environment. But you know as well as I do that things get out of hand—quickly—on the Internet. People become brazen behind the buffers of modems, monitors and usernames. Combine this reality with real-time “critiques” of a creative work, especially amongst a breed of competitive people—artists—who aren’t lauded for well-rounded social skills, and I imagine the warm workshop becoming a cage match for snark-ass wordsmiths playing an unhealthy game of oneupmanship.

Call it hyperbole, if you like. But the Internet does inherently encourage verbal exchanges that would rarely occur in a face-to-face conversation, in part because, in person, you’re able to gauge the other person. No emoticons, just simple fist-clenching, teeth-grinding anger; no one really wants to get punched in the face, particularly over a poem. So sure, we writers might consider ourselves a civilized bunch, adept at recombining nouns, verbs and adjectives into something powerful, emotional, provocative. But we’re also competitive; we’re human. A workshop conducted with email seems prudent because, if you’re smart, or not a troublemaker, you’ll wipe out the sarcasm before sending back the critique.

In its announcement to end the Wave project, Google noted that the program’s source code is open for use. Developers will raid the code and, perhaps, build on what Google started, so I fully expect to see a Wave-like platform, with improvements and adjustments, in the future. I still hope that the technology will find its way into the hearts and minds of writers who might find email too limited. Yes, snarkiness is abound in online communication, but the ability to work on a piece of text, in real time, with multiple people, seems, to me, too good to ignore. That’s why I did decide to finally write about Wave. To at least start the conversation.

Vignette on Frazen, Lit Fiction & The Twitterverse

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The literary hype machine descends upon the masses. Its message””Frazen is here! Rejoice, you troglodytes!””is splayed across the web like a flickering neon sign. I didn”â„¢t know Jonathan Frazen was upon us once again. I haven”â„¢t even read The Corrections yet””one of those “I know it exists and I”â„¢m inclined to read it but I have a 200 book backlog to work down” oversights.
The Huffington Post recently trumpeted the arrival of Frazenstein”â„¢s monster, Freedom, released today. We, as writers, should be proud that such fanfare surrounds an author, so the Huff goes, and the hype serves as a repudiation to the notion that literature or, specifically, novels are no longer valued. I can dig it. That is, of course, if I believe the hype is generated by the masses, as though they””we””clamor for, of all things, a literary novel, one written by an author who, according to those same masses, brushed off The Oprah.
Look, my issue isn”â„¢t with Frazen””far be it for me to hate on him without reading any of his work. I am, however, weary of the hype itself, a cacophony of sycophantic praise which, for now, renders my slice of the Internet near intolerable. It”â„¢s the flaw of interconnectivity””one of the flaws, anyway””that now allows backlash to supersede the event itself; we”â„¢re so far ahead with our social networks, we love or pan the product before its release.
Indeed, never judge a book by its cover; judge it by the pre-release reviews from members of the intelligentsia, the literati, happy to discuss anything unrelated to the Millennium Trilogy. Let it be, a part of me says; it”â„¢s not often literary fiction gets this much shine, no matter how self-perpetuated, and self-contained, it appears to be.
My Twitter account is beset by fucking #frazenfrenzy.
I know about Freedom because I”â„¢m plugged in; I follow the New Yorker, the New York Times, as well as writers of varying stature and skill. In this meager meta-world of subtle plots, tight prose and fascination with Midwestern lore, lit fiction aficionados play hype-men for their great American novelist though they know few people will read the book. And I anticipate backlash toward the backlash. Debates on the death of literary fiction, its value, and its place among American readers; debates as mutually satisfying as a circle jerk.
This is a part of my growing disdain with literary fiction, not as a genre, but as a lens used to view the reading public, in whole, as ignorant barbarians lusting for more memoirs. It”â„¢s a played out cycle, an anachronistic foray into the reader”â„¢s mind with conclusions both antagonistic and incorrect. But that”â„¢s an argument for another day. For now, I”â„¢m thinking I need to unplug, not from the books themselves, but the weblogged dialogue destined to be espoused after the publication of Freedom. I”â„¢m set to un-follow a few tweeters before the death knell of literature””fiction, in particular””is rung, yet again.

Jonathan-Franzen-The-Corr-006

The literary hype machine descends upon the masses. Its message—Frazen is here! Rejoice, you troglodytes!—is splayed across the web like a flickering neon sign. I didn’t know Jonathan Frazen was upon us once again. I haven’t even read The Corrections yet—one of those “I know it exists and I’m inclined to read it but I have a 200 book backlog to work down” oversights.

The Huffington Post recently trumpeted the arrival of Frazenstein’s monster, Freedom, released today. We, as writers, should be proud that such fanfare surrounds an author, so the Huff goes, and the hype serves as a repudiation to the notion that literature or, specifically, novels are no longer valued. I can dig it. That is, of course, if I believe the hype is generated by the masses, as though they—we—clamor for, of all things, a literary novel, one written by an author who, according to those same masses, brushed off The Oprah.

Look, my issue isn’t with Frazen—far be it for me to hate on him without reading any of his work. I am, however, weary of the hype itself, a cacophony of sycophantic praise which, for now, renders my slice of the Internet near intolerable. It’s the flaw of interconnectivity—one of the flaws, anyway—that now allows backlash to supersede the event itself; we’re so far ahead with our social networks, we love or pan the product before its release.

Indeed, never judge a book by its cover; judge it by the pre-release reviews from members of the intelligentsia, the literati, happy to discuss anything unrelated to the Millennium Trilogy. Let it be, a part of me says; it’s not often literary fiction gets this much shine, no matter how self-perpetuated, and self-contained, it appears to be.

My Twitter account is beset by fucking #frazenfrenzy.

I know about Freedom because I’m plugged in; I follow the New Yorker, the New York Times, as well as writers of varying stature and skill. In this meager meta-world of subtle plots, tight prose and fascination with Midwestern lore, lit fiction aficionados play hype-men for their great American novelist though they know few people will read the book. And I anticipate backlash toward the backlash. Debates on the death of literary fiction, its value, and its place among American readers; debates as mutually satisfying as a circle jerk.

This is a part of my growing disdain with literary fiction, not as a genre, but as a lens used to view the reading public, in whole, as ignorant barbarians lusting for more memoirs. It’s a played out cycle, an anachronistic foray into the reader”â„¢s mind with conclusions both antagonistic and incorrect.

But that”â„¢s an argument for another day. For now, I’m thinking I need to unplug, not from the books themselves, but the weblogged dialogue destined to be espoused after the publication of Freedom. I’m set to un-follow a few tweeters before the death knell of literature””fiction, in particular—is rung, yet again.

**You can follow me on twitter @thomasdemary**

When Your Writing Space…Part II (aka Mac Love)

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-Photo by Peter Yang, taken for Rolling Stone Magazine

“Just when I thought I was out”¦they pull me back in.”*

“They,” in this case, refers to the objects that make up my writing space. If you’ll recall, I adjusted my desk”â„¢s layout and, after a couple of weeks, I made another change. A small one: my monitor and printer swapped places. As long as I’ve been in this apartment, and no matter where I’ve had my computer, I always maintained a viewing angle to the TV, even with mere peripheral vision. Three years later and I get the gist. In a one bedroom apartment, facing the wall to write creates a barrier between myself and the televised nonsense behind me. Long story short, I should’ve made this moved years ago.

Now, I’m preparing my space for one more upgrade—the final change, I hope. I’ve mentioned my adoration for the iPad and its ability to possibly, maybe, replace my Macbook. Two weeks ago, when I paired my Bluetooth keyboard to my iPad, overcoming the touchscreen keyboard’s weaknesses, I realized I was wrong. I said that the iPad could be an ideal laptop replacement, but not now, not in its current, first generation iteration. My bad. Upon further review, I think it’s ready now; it just needs some creative thinking on my part. And some purging. And to complete a year-long transition.

I bought my Macbook this time last year; I needed a laptop and the netbook I used began to irritate me with its small keyboard and weak-assed battery life. Apple’s Macintosh line intrigued me and, as a tech lover, I wanted to see if the arguments, if the Mac vs PC commercials, if the douche writers and students at Starbucks, were correct. I talked down a “Buy It Now” price on eBay and within days, I tinkered with a Mac for the first time in almost ten years.

Fast forward one year and now, I’m prepping my writing space and tools for an iMac. My fiancee congratulated me for not waking up and getting the computer before high noon—yeah, it’s that serious. Rather than racing to the store, foaming at the mouth, I spent the day mapping out the change, as well as checking my vitals for signs of mental illness. The iPad is at the epicenter of this change. If I go “all tablet,” then I don’t need my Macbook, which leaves a gaping hole at my desk, one big enough for a 27″ iMac.

No need to get into the Mac vs PC vitriol, no matter its high entertainment value. Fundamentally, a computer is a computer; shove a keyboard in front of a writer and he’ll do his thing—or spend a few hours online “researching” for his next project. But I can’t front: programs like Scrivener and Ecto make the science of writing a little easier to conduct. Enough to switch away from PCs and Windows? It comes down to personal preference. Me? Having used my Macbook to write, blog, edit photos and “research” online, I’m a convert. I”â„¢m blinded by aluminum—sue me.

I’m scaling down a lot of equipment. The Macbook, the Magic Mouse, an Apple wired keyboard, my 21″ LCD monitor and, for kicks, a snazzy laptop backpack I got from the Apple Store: consider all of it an eBay “back to school” special. Completing the transition also means addressing my PC tower; I want to keep it and yet, at the time of this writing, it’s stuck on the manufacturer’s splash screen, not even booting into Windows. I turned on the tower an hour ago. I’m all but done with PCs (certainly crappy ones).

I must admit. I’m a little nervous about this move. Using the iPad as a tertiary gadget for media and writing is cool. Moving it up to second string makes it my primary mobile device. And given that the iPad isn’t a stand-alone device, a system failure in my iMac will cause a tech apocalypse in my household, which is why I want to get this PC running correctly. But, to be honest, what I use to write is almost as important to me as the act itself. I’ve gotten up from my desk and started to write on the iPad—or vice versa. This schizophrenic switching has been a part of my writing process for years now. Besides, the iPad itself isn’t the source of my trepidation. It’s switching from laptop to tablet altogether. I think I’m ready. I’m ready, right?

As for the space itself, the iMac will reduce the clutter and the spiderweb of wires underneath my desk. I estimate a 50% reduction in wire lunacy, at least. Also, I plan to make better use of the desk itself; I’ve tried a number of configurations, but it’s still a mess. I blame the printer. No, I’m not getting rid of it; it’ll get shoved over to the center piece of my L-desk; the goal is to have one of my three tabletops completely empty for reading and handwriting. Having renewed our apartment lease for the final time, I’d like to get this whole writing space thing right and, more importantly, get out of my ongoing writing funk. Of course, all of this is a prelude to next summer, when I’ll have an entire room to convert into an office. I’m sure I’ll see a 85% drop in writing productivity when we move. Oh joy–

*Al Pacino, The Godfather Part III
**Note from the author: you probably didn’t notice, but i’m now posting under my real name. It’s a long story, but don’t be alarmed. And if you’re not alarmed…well…that’s good.

Top Writer Apps for The iPad

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I’ve covered my thoughts on the iPad, and its usefulness to writers, in previous installments. I won’t rehash old points, but only state that the iPad still has some gaps in its design, and rightfully so, given its a first-generation product; its asking price, however, make the gaps that much more visible and, perhaps, unforgivable. But it’s still damn good. Note-taker, eReader, journal, organizer, outliner, blogging tool, and word processor: the iPad can do just about anything a writer needs (so long as you have its USB cord and a full-sized computer at home—and maybe a Bluetooth keyboard).

I broke up my Android column into six specific categories. This time, I’ll just rattle off my favorite iOS writer apps. Some of these apps may have equivalents for the iPhone and iPod Touch, though others were designed specifically for the iPad. Regardless, I’m focusing on the tablet. Makes sense, since I don’t own an iPhone and my iPod Touch is underused as—shocker—an MP3 player.

Dictionary.com – I said it in my Android piece and I’ll say it again: there’s no excuse to not download Dictionary.com, which brings the site’s full dictionary and thesaurus to your fingertips. And it’s free. Free, I say!

Pages – Apple’s mobile word processing app, Pages offers a surprisingly good program for document creation. Adjusting margins, changing fonts, importing and/or exporting in Doc format and other features help give Pages the feel of a full-blown word processing program. Of course, it’s not—you’ll need iTunes to move files to and from the iPad (though you could always email them to yourself). Oh—and the app costs $9.99.

My Writing Nook – The word processor in this app isn’t as robust as Pages, but it keeps multiple documents in one place, along the left sidebar of the text box, allowing you one-touch switching between stories or poems. With a Google account, you can also sync the iPad app with My Writing Nook’s web-based version, sending copies of your files into the cloud for you to pull down at any time. Overall, it’s pretty good; for longer text, I prefer Pages, but My Writing Nook, at $4.99, is worth a spin.

Reeder – I’ve tried multiple RSS aggregators for the iPad; Reeder appears to be the best at this time. It syncs with Google Reader, offers in-app email and Twitter sharing capabilities, and its layout is huge, gorgeous and a joy to read. It’s one of my favorite apps on any platform. If you follow a lot of blogs and sites, it organizes them better than any other aggregator I’ve used; $4.99 is a fair price for what you get in return.

iTeleport – Let’s get this out of the way—the app costs $24.99. What does it do? Through VNC (virtual network computing), you can log in and control your desktop or laptop computer on the iPad. Got an internet connection? Launch iTeleport and the iPad mirrors your computer screen, allowing you to run programs, send emails, view and edit files, anywhere in the world (or on your couch). One caveat—your computer needs to be awake in order for iTeleport to work (and you’ll need to install the iTeleport program on the computer you wish to access).

Sundry Notes – Apple’s built-in Notes app is crap (iPhone users know what I mean); I won’t even waste part of my word count explaining why. After a lengthy search, I found Sundry Notes. You can create multiple notebooks (with multiple pages in each), sync notes to Evernote or Google Docs, export as a PDF or a zip file, create voice recordings, and/or doodle on the app’s whiteboard. Try the free version and, if you like, upgrade to Sundry Notes Pro for $4.99.

Kindle – I mentioned my appreciation for Amazon’s Kindle app in my Android review. Again, it offers a wider ebook selection than Apple’s iBooks, and Kindle’s WhisperSync makes the app useful across different platforms. Text resizing and lighting control gives you options to make the reading experience comfortable for the eyes. All for the low, low price of Free.

MaxJournal – I have about six or seven journals, from Moleskines to spiral notebooks. I try to journal a few times a week; it’s become an important routine in my writing life. MaxJournal makes me want to use the iPad as my journal of choice. Photo attachment, a search function (by text, keyword or tags), backup function via iTunes sync, export files (and images) as text, email or PDF, and password protection: if you love to journal, $2.99 makes MaxJournal a steal.

Backgrounder – Jailbreak your iPad. Download Backgrounder via the Cydia app store, and you can run all of the above programs in the background. Nothing like working in a word document, opening an ebook, checking your feeds, then go back to writing without having to close any of the apps.

Like before, these are a few of the apps I’ve used and with hundred of thousands of apps out there, there’s always something better. Feel free to comment on the apps above or share some good ones you’ve found on your own. Next time, we go into iOS’ big brother, Mac OSX (Leopard).