Spam: The Temptress

I'm a bit allergic to certain kinds of promotion. It just seems like advertising has become the ugly wallpaper of our whole world, and I tend to fight that trend in small, essentially harmless ways such as cutting off/covering the logos on my clothing.

Right now, however, I'm feeling a bit guilty because I just did something similar to my blog, but this time, it affects another person.

I deleted a handful of comments. They were all from the same person, and relevant to the posts they were on, but they were also one-sentence affairs that ended with a link advertising the commenter's product.

On one leg o' the chicken, that was not particularly obtrusive, and at least the resourceful advertiser was taking the time to read my post and personally comment. I do appreciate that it wasn't a robot blindly spamming me.

On the other dirt-scratcher du poulet, my comment trail is for discussion. It's not anyone's billboard.

A lot of the people who visit this blog are writers, and a good part of why they're on Blogger is to network and--yes--to self-promote, but I really do buy into the idea that content is king. Promoting a weak product only makes it fail faster, so as far as I'm concerned, if you want people to check out your online presence, you accomplish that by commenting on their blog/website/forum and consistently saying intelligent or interesting things. Eventually, people will remember your name and get curious to see what else you have to say. At that point, they'll click your link.

Just putting the link in front of people's eyeballs doesn't garner much interest, because these days, we're all cynical about advertising. We don't click unless we have a reason to. Content trumps both temerity and ubiquitousness.

However! Having just made my own website, (whoops! Flagrant self-promotion; what a hypocrite) and having also learned most of what I know from The Site Wizard, I realize now there's another reason to put those adverts on the bottom of every post.

It ups your Google ranking.

Holy macaroni, that creeps me out. It had never occurred to me before that there might be another reason to advertise than--y'know--because you wanted to advertise.

Oh, self-promotion, you wily and disreputable temptress! Now that I actually understand why people slap a superfluous link at the bottom of their blog comments, I'm kinda considering doing it even though I still think this sort of thing is crass and transparent.

So please, lovely readers, tell me if this would be revolting:



That's a link to my website. No text, no self-promotion; just a splash of pretty. Would this be offensive to you if you saw it on someone's blog? If you clicked it, only to find it led to a self-promoting website, would that seem skeevy? (Assume the oh-so-hypothetical blog commenter actually said something of interest and wasn't just spamming.)

Also, does that little blip look like anything embarrassing? Go on, you can tell me.

It just has big bones.

There's a song that I don't even think I've heard all of, which has the lyrics:

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire...

I'm currently hearing that in my head as:

My book, my book, my book is too big...

I'm getting to the mid-way point, story-wise. But I'm also at 78,000 words. Oops.

Time to prune, because even if this novel winds up being two books instead of one, I still need to make certain there's no extra fat in it.

What, that twit again?

A few years back, SNL used to have these "Deep Thoughts" skits that featured a man saying something really odd in a very calm and meditative voice.

For some reason, many Twitter comments give me the same sense of disconnect. Can't you imagine the following read in that murmuring, reassuring Deep Thoughts voice?

"A wasp just committed suicide in my scrambled eggs."

Better yet, however, is to imagine everyone's tweets read by William Shatner as free verse beat poetry:

File Under: Small Victories

I cracked up Janet Reid! Yay!

Of course, I'm just paying back the favour. Her blog regularly does likewise to me. Here's my "semi-finalist" haiku:

~~~~~~~
My client is fab
Look, Godiva chocolates!
Keep your damn' fangs off
~~~~~~~

*crawls out of the coal mine*

I had a project this weekend; an epic project.

You can view the results of that epicaliciousness here.

Tell me if anything looks weird on your browser, 'kay? (And just for kicks, click your mouse on those blue thingies at the top.)

Thank you!

*crawls off to bed*

Yay for New Toys!

Hi!

I try to make this blog about writing, but darn it: I haven't had much to say about writing lately. Submissions of my previous novel continue, and my current novel trundles along happily.

Wait--upon closer inspection, that latter thing is worth further comment.

Claws are your friends. Especially Koala claws.

Back when McKoala proposed her Public Humilation Challenge, my second novel was going miserably. But the thought--oh, the unbearable thought--of someone looking over my shoulder and frowning in disapproval if I didn't squirt off 100 words a day got my fingers a-bobbling in terror-stricken self-defence.

Occasionally, all they bobbled was 103 rather lousy words squeezed off at 11:54PM. Other times, their bobble was only bupkiss, and The Koala nipped-and-gored me down a "badge".

Sweet Zachary Quinto, how I hated going down a badge. We're talking shake-your-fist-at-the-screen-argh-argh-NO kind of hate.

But, as the physics teacher in me would say, momentum is conserved. Once you've got some, it lasts--so long as you don't trip up. The argh-argh-NO served its purpose.

I kept slogging, and 100 words a day became several hundred. Then several hundred a day slid toward a thousand. This past month, I've been regularly getting over a thousand words a day, and today, I hit a personal best with over 2100 words. Woot!

Aaaaaand I'm superstitious I'm going to jinx the good progress just by mentioning it, but hey: I am brave. Or foolhardy. Anyhoot, I had to preen; somebody pat me on the head and whisper "good doggie", quick.

Besides the Koala claws (of which we speak only with abject reverence), three things have helped with my recent happy progress:

1) I kinda know where the story is going now. Heh. Funny how that helps.

2) I've finally lapsed into "first draft" mode, i.e. I'm just splattering it all on the page and not going back to re-read anything. It was tough to break out of "edit" mode, where I polished everything fully before moving on.

And 3), I got this:



Isn't she pretty? My little powerpuff here--while not negligible--is light enough and small enough she trots along with me daily. Now, when things get quiet in the lab, I have a third option alongside brain-melting boredom and furtively surfing the web. I can write! Hurray!

She's definitely a luxury, and I know I'm fortunate to be able to buy an extra computer just for the sake of convenience, especially in this economy. That said, if any of my writer buddies are considering getting one of these, I recommend you spend the extra $50 to get the HP Mini. As you can see, the keyboard goes right to the edges of the computer, which makes it 91% the size of a regular keyboard and very nice for typing. The other "netbook" computers I tried had very cramped keyboards; it felt like trying to type on a credit card. Also, please note that these computers don't come with a word processor; I had to install an older version of MS Office on mine.

Ahem. I R a Geek. But I really am feeling very sweet on my little baby computer. ♥

Anti-Plagiarism Day

Jane Smith on How Publishing Really Works has declared today Anti-Plagiarism Day!

Not only do I support this idea, I'm finding it a weird bit of synchronicity.

You see, last night, I stayed at work until 8 PM photocopying the evidence that showed one of my students had plagiarized from his peers. This was the second week in a row that student had been involved in plagiarism. Dude, why didn't the zero and the written warning I gave you last week scare you straight?

He was sneakier about it this time, but I R SMRT--and he may end up kicked out of university. Failing this week's assignment on his own merits would have been a far wiser choice than trying to pass based on someone else's.

Plagiarism is something I get pretty morally outraged over. I can empathize with the plagiarist in some cases, in that a student usually does it out of a sense of desperation. However, I won't let them off the hook for the theft. It's not a victimless crime; my students who had been plagiarized from last week were incensed to hear their work had been lifted word-for-word and equation-for-equation by someone they didn't even know.

When a published author plagiarizes another author, such as in the cases of the notorious Cassie Edwards or Janet Dailey, one of the things that annoys me most is some fans will not only defend the author, they'll blame the victim or the whistle-blower.

One common refrain that came from such fans when the (fabulous) Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website broke the Cassie Edward's story was that the SBs were being mean by slapping their evidence up on the internet--that such findings should be dealt with quietly, privately.

This attitude irks me, because the thefts weren't personal. The plagiarist wasn't stealing from the other person to hurt them; they simply saw something they wanted, then yoinked it. The crime wasn't personal, so why should the repercussions be?

If a complete stranger breaks into my house and steals my TV, and I later learn that person's name, should I go deal with them personally? Not only are things likely to get ugly if I do, how probable is it I'll get what I want from the confrontation? No. They broke the law; let the law deal with them. They didn't make it personal, so neither should I.

Another thing that irked me with Cassie Edward's defenders is they listed off Ms. Edward's merits and frailties as a person as a defence against her actions. You know what? It's irrelevant who she is; we're condemning what she did.

For the record, my plagiarizing student seems like a really nice guy. He's warm, friendly and gently-spoken, and he's doing meaningful things with his life in addition to being in school. But who he is doesn't change what he did, and that's the thing I'm kicking his ass for. Whether he's a nice guy, or terribly stressed-out, just isn't relevant.

Winning by cheating isn't winning, and if we want more merit in the world, then we have to both reward merit and keep dishonesty from accruing the same rewards as merit.

In other words: lift up the worthy, slap down the cheaters. It's a way to make human society better.

Ooh, Shiny!

You know, I actually do have a meatier blog post percolating in my brain, but for now, more pretty stuff!

Here's a dragon made of the pull-tabs off pop cans by an artist known (online, at least) as ~OniMushaKid.

(Click the picture to see the larger image posted in the artist's DeviantART gallery.)

Train vrs. Tornado

Train vrs. Tornado. Who will win?

Things get interesting at the one minute mark, if you want to skip ahead.

Ooh, Pretty!

For the first time ever, I am thoroughly impressed by someone's paper-craft project.



This pretty-princess fairy castle was made over the course of four years by Wataru Itou, a Tokyo art student, and it features a working train also made of paper. Click here for more photographs of Mr. Itou's spectacular "A Castle On the Ocean".

Um. Is it weird if I want to live there?

Congratulations, Stuart!

Congratulations to Stuart Neville, a.k.a. Conduit, on the release of his novel, The Twelve, in the UK!

I can't wait to get my hands on a copy when it's released as The Ghosts of Belfast on my side of the pond in October.

Stuart was once one of us many, many wannabe writers bounding around the internet trying to learn the Tao of publishing from the likes of Miss Snark and Evil Editor, so it's pretty thrilling to see him launching what looks to be a very successful career!

Every time I've read an excerpt of Stuart's writing, it has been pretty clear he has the talent to make it. And look! People like James Ellroy and John Connolly agree with me!

Congratulations, Stuart! I wish you the very best of luck and deserved success in your career.

*shakes pom-poms* You-can-do-eet, Con-du-eet!

Remembrance, Not Silence

Hydraulic-Piston Legs Are the New Black

Okay, fellows. You know how women have long been subjected to unrealistic expectations about their bodies? Well, it's payback time. From now on, you are all expected to aspire to this:



Especially the strip-tease-by-ninja-moves.


.

Linky-Love: Great Interviews

Some excellent author interviews are happening today; please check them out! Both of these are interactive in that you can expect the author to participate in the comment threads.

Merry Monteleone hosts an interview with Erica Kirov, author of Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass.

Aerin hosts an interview with Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve (UK)/The Ghosts of Belfast (N. America).

Controversy: Part 3

Cancelled due to me chickening out. :-)

The topic was:

Is It Unethical to Have Children?

Feel free to comment anyway, if you would like. As before, please be polite and respectful of everyone else.

Interlude from Controversy

Writtenwyrdd has a great post up for How to manage your credit rating, tips for handling junk mail & telemarketers, and do not call lists.

A lot of the information is most useful to Americans, but it's still handy to know what possibilities exist, because your country might have similar safe-guards.

And who doesn't love the idea of sending junk mail back to the sender via their own postage-paid envelopes? *maniacal laughter*

Controversy: Part 2

This is part two of a short series of posts where I'll voice an opinion that might be controversial and then step back and let others react to it.

Please feel free to discuss, argue, agree and disagree in the comments section. All I ask is that everyone to be polite and respectful to everyone else.

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Could a "Freeware" Model of Sales Work in Publishing?

This post was inspired by a comment made recently by Sarf, and I thank him for the input that led me to consider this question. Here's Sarf's original comment:

I have some questions for your readers.

First the set up:

A person pirates your book by downloading a copy from the web.

They love it. Are you as the author glad or sad?

Now said person writes you a check for the cover price of the book and mails it to you. Do you care if they pirated the book or not?

My (abridged) response to this was:

If I wanted to give it away for free, that's easy to arrange; by trying to get published, it's implied I don't want to give it away for free. I'm not [doing this for attention or praise, so book-love is not enough.]

[As to the question of being paid after the fact,] I want money for my work, but at the same time, I believe I should control whether or not my work is for sale in the first place [thus payment does not erase the ire I feel at having my work taken without my consent].

Sarf is a programmer, so I understand why he's curious about this question. The model he suggests is in keeping with the one "freeware" works under: a computer program is put onto the web for anyone to download, and the creator asks people who like the program to either pay hir† or buy a more powerful non-freeware version of the program.

It's a model worth thinking about, because pirating is something we'll never stamp out, and there's a lot of wisdom to trying to find a system where pirating simply isn't considered a problem. The freeware model views "pirating" to be a way to win customers.

The author Cory Doctorow is buying into this idea. He has said that obscurity is the thing that threatens his livelihood, not piracy, and so he offers some of his books online, for free, and asks people to pay him if they decide they like what they see. To him, he's getting his work read by new people and hopefully winning loyal customers.

I will note that there's not much empirical evidence to suggest this is working, although there's also not much evidence that it's doing Mr. Doctorow any harm. The jury's out.

The last thing I'll note is how music piracy gave way to iTunes. Some people will always steal, but most of us are uncomfortable with that. When the music industry started offering their customers what the customers wanted (the ability to browse for music, the ability to download, the ability to buy one song instead of an entire album) rather than what the industry wanted them to want (the status quo), the public bought into that in a big way. Most of the people downloading music now are paying for it. A few years ago, that wasn't the case.

As eBooks become more popular, the publishing industry should be thinking carefully about what they want the future to hold. Enforcing the status quo could backfire, so thinking flexibly about how books are sold is a worthwhile endeavour.

† "hir" is a gender non-specific way of writing him/her. I like it; I'm usin' it.

~~~~~~~

What do you think? Is piracy theft, and therefore always wrong? Can piracy be harnessed as way to generate sales? Can the freeware model work for publishing? Is there another model that you think would work better? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Controversy: Part 1

I'd like to start some discussions, if I can, and I think the best way to start a discussion is to voice an opinion that might be controversial and then step back and let others react to it.

To that end, this is the first of a short series of posts where I'll do exactly that. I intend to release the posts daily, and I think I'm only going to do three or four for now.

Please feel free to discuss, argue, agree and disagree in the comments section. All I ask is that everyone to be polite and respectful to everyone else.

~~~~~~~

Should Freedom of Speech Have Limits?

As a tween-ager, I decided you should read/listen to everyone's point of view, then make up your own mind. Censorship, i.e. obliterating the words of dissenters, struck me as a bully's tactic, even at that age, although I probably couldn't have put that concept into very eloquent words then.

But here's the ugliest wart on the backside of freedom of speech. Hate-speech.

Hate-speech is at the heart of a contradiction that has always unsettled me. On one hand, I do believe in legally limiting people's ability to disseminate hate-speech. On the other, isn't it hypocritical for me to promote freedom of speech, then turn around and say, "but only up to this point"?

It's something I've long been uncomfortable with, and I only recently sorted out a rationalization that satisfies me. It runs something like this:

Freedom of speech exists to champion and glorify communication. Throughout history, humans have dealt with their differences in many brutal ways, but in our best moments, we deal with them by talking it out. When we speak to one another, we gain understanding, we gain knowledge, we gain tolerance, and sometimes, we even fix our problems. In short, when humans beings talk to one another, we become a society instead of a war-zone. I think that's worth glorifying.

Hate-speech, on the other hand, encourages people to stop talking and start hitting. It seeks to halt communication and prevent understanding. It undermines that which freedom of speech exists in order to promote. Thus, I don't believe hate-speech deserves to be protected under freedom of speech; City Hall should not issue digging permits to people who intend to remove the foundations of the city.

I'll defend someone's right to speak about even abhorrent beliefs, so long as they don't advocate silencing anyone else, including those who disagree with them.

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What do you think? What limits should freedom of speech have, if any? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yay! Books!

Yesterday, I bought a book. It wasn't the book I had been considering buying; it was an impulse.

Today, I went to buy the book I originally wanted. Eight other books came home with it.

Y'think I might be set for summer reading material? I may have gone a wee bit overboard, there.

For the record, my new paperback babies are:

- Summer Knight, Death Masks, Blood Rites, Small Favors and Turn Coat, all by Jim Butcher
Yeah, I'm on a binge.

- Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
This was the impulse buy.

- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Because I'm the last person on earth to have not read it, and the peer pressure is just killing me.

- Acacia by David Anthony Durham - Aerin has dibs (see below)
On the strength of the Dynastic Queen's glowing recommendation.

- The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers - Merry has dibs (see below)
Because the only thing scarier than electric monks is Avery Cates.

- The God of Clocks by Alan Campbell - Josh gets dibs, and Sarf gets a copy of Scar Night 'cause he's family! (see below)
This is the writer's third book; his first two were rather jaw-droppingly amazing. This guy arrived on my author-to-watch-for list quite abruptly.

El Husbando chuckled at me when I came in today oohing and ahhing and chortling in anticipation over my latest acquisitions. Laugh now, buddy! You're going to be fighting Jim Butcher for my attention for at least the next month.

~~~~~~~

:-D
So. Anyone else got a book they're particularly excited to be sinking their teeth into?

~~~~~~~

Edit (Free Stuff): Ooh! Aerin gives me a great idea. Since I live in a eensy-weensy apartment and thus donate most of my books to charity once I'm done reading them, would anyone like to volunteer to be the charity this time?

I.e. in the comment section, put dibs on one (1) of the books mentioned above, and once I'm finished reading it, I'll mail it to you, anywhere in the world! Aerin gets first dibs on Acacia, however.

If you get picked to receive a book, I will need you to email your snail mail address to me, but we'll work out the details in the comments section.

Nekkid Wimmen

I'll get to the nekkid wimmen in a moment. But first, my equivalent of Twittering:

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Dad-blamed, gosh-durned spammers. Grumblegrumble. Hopefully they're gone now, but if not, I may have to change the commenting rules on my blog. Grumblegrump.

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So... It's been a while, hey? Yeah; I'm a bad blogger.

Truth is, I've been a bit of a naughty writer lately, and I think the dearth of blogging was due to my guilt. I finished a chapter on my WIP, wasn't totally happy with it, decided to take a break while I outlined the next chapter, and WHOOPS. That 'break' expanded into nearly a month of sloth and minimal writing.

Clearly, The Koala needs to blink her red eyes clear, lick the cotton candy off her claws, and do some Goblin-eviscerating.

Um. But I am back in the groove now, so flesh wounds only, please? Whimper.

~~~~~~~

As Sarf noted, spring can make you itchy to do something new (like going to VENICE, omgsojealous...) It has certainly taken me that way. I'm signed up to try yoga, and, two weeks ago, I started going to life drawing sessions again.

For anyone who doesn't know what "life drawing" is, that's a euphemism for drawing nekkid people. Yes, nudey wimmen. Nudey men. Hur, hur.

Except there's not much "hur, hur" about it. The models generally conform to Laman's Law of Public Nudity, which states: "Anytime you see a stranger naked, it is always someone you wish you hadn't seen naked."

The models might be grey-haired grannies, bald forty-year-old men, very overweight women, or creepy young guys with tattoos and pierced...bits.

However, that lack-of-teh-hawt is actually one of the coolest things about life drawing. Once you start sketching, you begin seeing the beauty in people you wouldn't look twice at. You notice the wonderful eyebrows and nose on the bald guy, the lovely flowing lines that define the plump woman's shape. You see the beautiful bone structure on the granny and realize she was gorgeous when she was young, and you spot the elegant musculature on the sketchy, skinny guy with the piercings.

It feels like a gift, every time. The world presents you with a very ordinary person, and you get to see them as a thing of beauty.

It's also weird, of course. I'm still not used to sitting with a bunch of strangers, waiting for a sixty-five-year-old man to whip off his sarong and sling his scrotum over a barstool. All the other artists act so cool. I do too, I guess, so I wonder if I'm the only one in the room who still gets that, "Eek, a penis," reaction.

The "eek" reaction goes away as soon as you start sketching, of course. You're concentrating too hard on what you're doing to feel odd about it. It reminds me of how I used to not be bothered by heights while I was rock climbing. If you're concentrating on your hand and toe placements, and the granite in front of your nose, then the expanse of empty air gaping under your feet doesn't bother you.

And it's kind of the opposite to how I feel about writing a first draft (at least these days.)

While I'm writing it, the story seems like complete drek. I'm pushing onward just to have something on the page, and hissing my mantra, "It's only a first draft," through gritted teeth. Only when I lean back and read it over do I think, "Hey, that's maybe kinda good..."

Is it weird to like editing your work more than actually writing it? You get to enjoy the good bits when you're editing; when you're writing, it seems like you're too busy to notice.

Does anyone else find this to be the case? I'd love to hear what you think.