Yesterday I was profiled at a website called Tweeple Blog – a blog which runs profiles of Twitter users. From my time working as a journalist, I am more than familiar with writing profiles, much more so than being the one on the other end. Being profiled was certainly a first for me. The profile also came as a shock. Why? There wasn’t an interview.
For most journalists, the idea of writing a profile sans interview means wading through piles of marketing copy hand chosen by the subject or the subject’s handlers . And every scrap of that copy is going to be carefully screened to be on message.
The point of the interview is to get beyond that message, and to the meat of the subject. The interview isn’t a means of trapping a person. There’s no “gotcha” involved. Rather, an interview is a process of distilling empathy into understanding. The profile then conveys that understanding.
It’s a game that’s played. Journalists presented with PR, and asked to find the person.
That being said, Tweeple Blog is pulling from a less-than-traditional PR source – Twitter. Much has been said about the marketing ability of Twitter, and for a large part, it’s a good method to promote a message. However, the speed and ease of Twitter derails all but the most predetermined PR messages as easily as the chaos and unpredictability of the battlefield destroys all plans. On Twitter the message gives way to many messages; at its core, Twitter is a cacophony of conversations.
David, the force behind Tweeple Blog simply takes the message – bio, website, location – and pairs that with the various strands of conversations that the subject is having. If an interview looks towards the trees to find the forest, a Tweeple Blog looks at the forest first.
Whether this works for you, as a journalist or someone who is simply studying others, is left to be said. It is perhaps something that we all do on Twitter, or in any other social medium. The question that is left to be said, is are you on message, or are you on Twitter? Is there a golden ratio?
Also, props to Andrew who nailed the spoiler for the episode last night on Twitter. If you’d like to join the Lost pregame Twitter Shootout, feel free to follow me @knownhuman
When I first decided to make a second valiant attempt at writing long form fiction, I was hesitant to address the topic of my brewing works with strangers. All of the half-hearted, and drunken attempts that I’d mustered since the war, the ones that now lay strewn about my office collecting dust in black binders or cardboard bomber bindings, all fit nicely under the broad modern literature umbrella.
The upcoming works, the collection of stories bubbling just below the surface of my fingertips, feel outside that genre, you know, the one we’re supposed to aspire to write to.
I broached the idea, in a casual, sideways manner, to good friend and respected writing cohort, Vito Grippi.
“What are your opinions on genre literature?” I asked, erstwhile, in an instant message.
Perhaps he knew where I was coming from and was simply being socially polite. Perhaps he was being truthful. Either way, his answer provided enough energy to my fledgling and fragile decision in such a way that a large bit of either blame or praise rests on his shoulders.
People think this everyday.
Vito’s stated opinion, that if the work is written well enough, and if the content is smart enough, that the genre means little, mirrored my own. To put it another way, damn the torpedoes and write the fucking book.
Yes, it was Vito’s sentiment, echoing a decision I had likely already made, that pushed me towards writing fantasy literature.
The decision to write a genre book, or in my case – genre books, wasn’t an easy one. I had bought firmly into the pomp and circumstance of modern literature. The desire to write the next Great American Novel was one that ate at me. To sum it all up, everything that is the America of today, the strife, the promise, the technological-fueled desires – they are all still leaping up, waiting for that perfect story to sum them all up. To explain them. To wrap up the meaning of everything so that future generations understand the duende that we now face, these are the questions that a writer today must address, and in turn, must answer. Common knowledge says they must be answered in a modern lit form, a genre that encapsulates the world in which the questions were asked from.
But I was purposefully choosing a different path. And it’s not an easy path to walk. Modern lit is almost defined as doing more with less, a cutthroat use of words so apropos that none other can be used in any given moment. Genre literature, on the other hand, is often ridiculed as doing less with more. It’s contrived. It’s cliché. It’s nerdy and fringe. It’s a sliver of reality at best, and a host of easy outs at worst.
Genre is, of course, none of these.
When we choose to look at the total body of any particular genre, modern literature included, the worth of the body is reduced to the median quality. When genres are considered, that median quality is easily reduced to the clichés – be it dragons and swords for fantasy, buxom women and buffed men for romance, hard boiled and scheming folks for mysteries, lasers and cybernetics for science fiction, or drug addicts and divorced children of modern lit.
The reality, when we choose to flee from such childish clichés, is that genre literature is at the very least, equally enabled when it comes to telling the situations of our modern dramas than modern literature. Genre fiction just chooses to do so in a metaphorical language. Genre fiction takes the obtuse tails of our modern world, and strips away the details which can easily trip a reader up, and supplants those stories into a details setting that is substantially less familiar.
To put it another way, genre fiction takes the core arguments of our existence, and couches those stories in another setting. The tripping points, the niggling details which can easily send a carefully crafted statement into the obscurity of entropy are avoided, in favor of an older form of story telling – that of the parable.
They’re two different tactics, two different roads if one is to borrow from Frost, but the end result is the same. That which we write is ultimately a reflection on the world which we live in. While the current set of stories might be birthed in a fantasy world, the concepts being tackled are no less modern.
I’m using my book, and the stories which are sure to come afterwards, to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned. The times I spent in Iraq, the ideas I have on being a citizen of a nation and a world, the understanding I have gathered from bars – these are all the fodder which will be handled. While these are normally the topics of modern literature, I’m eschewing that instead for fantasy. The problem, the argument, for me is too big to allow for details and their detraction. My use of genre is a means and a method.
I’m sure that I do have that modern lit novel in me somewhere. That story of life and love and trains and God, but right now, I’m not at a point where I can deal with that. Right now, I’m looking not to write the book, but to foster a career. Right now I’m taking the nerdier road, but I am okay with that.
For those of you wishing that I produce that book, I can only say hold on. For the rest, who are open to a story that is truly overflowing with truth, and who are willing to suspend the concept of reality for the betterment of understanding, then I’m working on book for you.
After all, my current work, Project Kingdom, answers more questions than it asks. It deals with being a soldier on the front lines of an empire. It deals with reality versus religion. It asks questions that I would have a hard time framing in a backdrop of reality. And it draws from a history of nerdy concepts.
Sometimes a problem or project just seems too large to delve into. Concepts are too obtuse. Situations simply too large. Gravity, or the need for gravity, keeps some ideas flat on the ground while the others hover ahead, just out of reach. No matter how wide your arms are, there’s no getting them around the situation.
This was certainly a problem I found myself in when I returned from the war. It was a situation so large, so otherworldly that I could not find a place to sink my fingers in, to start to rip the skin off in order to get to the meat. That I had spent the majority of my time over there writing emails, short stories, and a modern lit novel was cause for great dismay with my literature professor from the Academy. I told him the war was too big for me.
The same problem was plaguing me when I recently sat down to start working on a novel. I had issues that I wanted to deal with, and characters that I wanted to have show them, and a desire for complexity both in the portrayal of society but also in the plot structure. The entire situation screamed out that it was big. Real big. As in “damn, where do I start?” big.
In the years since the war, I’ve grown to love the outline. I’ve learned to love multiple drafts. I’ve learned to love the phrase, “I’ll fix it in post.” I have acclimatized to a non-linear work process.
And I’ve got a ton of index cards.
Not my actual bulletin board
The start of my story was that first index card. I forced that finger hold by writing down the very first thing I knew about my story. I then wrote one or two clarifying notes about that first though. I grabbed another index card, and repeated. Before I knew it, I was tacking up a rather detailed organizational structure onto my bulletin board.
After a single night, a significant amount of whiskey, and dozens of index cards, I suddenly had the playground on which on my novels would unfold.
The lesson?Sometimes, you just need to find “a” starting point rather than “the” starting point. After all, you can always fix it in post.
Last night Ron Moore and company laid out the road to the end on Battlestar, and that end is bumpy. Contained below are my thoughts on not only last night’s episode, but also the rest of the series.
The show is pushing into it’s fifth (of six) season. If we are applying traditional story structure, we are in the “falling period” and working into the resolution period. If we’re looking at the original Star Wars trilogy this is the first half of Jedi.
There will be spoilers. There will be theories. There will be analysis. Why? Because I love that stuff.
I’m planning on using the comments to criticize and comment on episodes. You are more than welcome to join me.
A CNet article started making the rounds on Thursday, and it ties together some of the facets of my last two featured articles – profanity and eBooks. As many iPhone owners are perhaps aware, there are a handful of eBook readers available for the device, most of which are available through the App store.
David Conroy, a journalist for CNet and novelist, recently submitted his book “Knife Music” to the App Store only to have the application rejected based on “objectionable content”. In his case, that content was the age-old “F” bomb. This would appear to be a case of “censorship that was”. For Conroy, the decision was simple, he simply altered the profanity.
This would seem to set a dangerous precedent for the iPhone as an eBook device. Apple, after all, is perfectly fine with selling uncensored music and movies. The move to censor books, or those that are created as their own standalone application (as Conroy’s was), shows that sense of control that Apple is so well known for. The danger is that the iPhone is such an ideal reader, that if this trend continues, it could stymie that potential.
This weekend also saw the a case of censorship that wasn’t. Jenny Rae Rappaport, the owner of the Rappaport Agency and blogger behind Lit Soup, recently put up a post criticizing an article at Book Central for being sexist. The article in question, dealt with the most “attractive” women on the covers of Science Fiction and Fantasy books. Of course, the case of censorship that wasn’t didn’t start until the article was actually pulled. At this time, Jenny was accused for censoring the post. One commenter on Jenny’s blog went as far as to claim that she “actively campaign[ed] for an article of relevance to be withdrawn” .
And then came the First Amendment Stands, which are wholly out as I’m sure you know.
How do these two cases differ? And is either of them actually wrong? Why don’t you tell me.
Virginia, like much of the country, was recently hit with a cold spike that had many cigarettes dying half smoked on the front porch and whiskey serving as a cheaper alternative to high heating bills. However, as the weather reported the nightly lows dipping into the single digits, adding another blank to the bed seemed like a wise alternative to the previous nights inexplicable and cruel blanket theft.
Comfort Only a Soldier Could Love
Though I came to this decision earlier in the day, it was both dark and late by the time I pushed open the closet door and fished around the floor for the familiar feeling of wool. Like so many others in my generation, I have an extensive collection of military-issued materials littering my apartment, despite having received my honorable discharge over four years prior. There is a certain sense of practicality that is imbued through service, especially service during wartime. Call it a sense of spend-thrift, call it being a packrat, but a perfectly good blanket or duffle has a use, even if at the time it’s not obvious.
In the late hour I stripped back the comforter and heavy over-blanket from the bed, exposing the mess of thinly striped sheets below. With a practiced flip of my arms, an expanse of green wool shot out to cover those sheets. I paused. It didn’t matter that the dark olive drab would clash terribly with the pale beige or yellow of the sheets. It didn’t matter that Army-issue blankets are renowned for their scratchy demeanor. No, what gave me reason to pause was the hollow, black, san-serif US which was staring up at me.
In the very first day of basic training, you’re told to make your bed. Failure is expected, as you have yet to be taught how to do so. Later that day your bunks are all tossed, blankets and unfitted sheets, pillows which are purposefully uncomfortable, end up in chaotic rough messes. All the effort spent in a vain attempt to prove that you could make a bed is suddenly undone.
But, it’s to prove a point. Later that day you’re instructed on how Uncle Sam makes a bed. How to properly craft a hospital corner. How to situate a pillow. How to fashion a pillow cover out of a blanket. And what seemed to stick with everyone, why the US-side of the blanket always go down. Every drill Sergeant seems to tell the story differently, but the lesson is always the same. It’s US side down when the bed’s occupant is alive.
At the time, the stories of Vietnam still circulated readily amongst the Army. The image of showing up at a unit and replacing a fallen soldier, of having to turn over that blanket and hide the US side of the blanket, it struck a sense of mortality in the new privates there in the first day of Basic Training.
Apparently it struck a nerve in me too. I knew the blanket wouldn’t be seen. I knew that no one was going to assume that I’d fallen. But, without hesitation, I flipped the blanket over. I guess, with some things, you never do stop being a soldier.
Two days ago, the world suffered the loss of enigmatic and reserved Irish-American actor Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan is best known for playing the lead in the cult-classic counterculture television series The Prisoner.
Be Seeing You
Of course, if one were to be remembered by just one television show, the Prisoner is perhaps as best a choice as any. Ostensibly about a spy who resigned, the Prisoner is a show rife with deeper societal questions – about identity, motivation, individuality, and privacy – not to mention a wealth of symbolism which requires that scenes be studied for analysis.
I would go on, but I have only seen the first episode. I’ve read a great deal about the Prisoner, due in no small part to the debate which surrounds the show 40 years after its completion. Luckily for me, and the internet in general, AMC is rectifying that problem and is currently offering up all 17 episodes of the series online for free.
Of course, the reason AMC is now showing the original series on the internet is because they’re “reimagining” the original Prisoner, dragging it out of the Cold War and into the modern era. Ordinarily, I would balk at something like this, but after Battlestar Galactica, I no longer thing this an impossible task. Just one that’s very difficult to do.
God, I hope they don’t screw this up. Anyhow, here’s Episode 1 of the Prisoner.
And a bit on story – the reason the original series only ran for 17 episodes was because that’s how long the story needed to be. It wasn’t cancelled because of ratings, and perhaps could have been extended. But, the show runners wanted to tell a specific story and knew that a story has a certain length it needs to be. It’s a damn good mentality to have, and one that I wish modern networks would adopt when developing television properties today.
There are probably as many ways to be a jerk in social media as there are in meatspace, however I’ve noticed a recent trend that can only be replicated online.
Here's Your Twitter Icon
The tactic is simple – follow someone. Wait for them to follow you back. Immediately unfollow them.
The result? You are at best a douche, and at worst a stealth-spammer.
There are plenty of reasons to unfollow someone – you don’t like their content, they haven’t updated in ages, they are actually a spammer. Hell, even unfollowing someone because they didn’t follow you back is understandable – Twitter is a communications medium after all, and works best when communication goes both ways.
But, unfollowing someone simply to amass a significant number of followers speaks volumes about a fragile ego which needs a high follower to friend ratio to somehow feel validated.
Bradley Robb likes TV and books, and has an intense dislike for cinnamon. Once, Bradley stopped a Soviet T-60 with his middle finger. Bradley writes speculative fiction and edits Fiction Matters, and never really got the hang of talking about himself in the third person.