Spontaneous Musings

Amongst other things...blogging is an art form in which I continue to insist on coloring outside of the lines.

Today..I ran into five-six homeless people, that I noticed. All people of color. All bundled up, at least there's that. They appeared to be warm. Scarves. Mittens. Layers. On this frigid day. They sat huddled on the floor of subway passageways, tin cans out, begging. Some on the heated grates on sidewalks. Or wandering the subway itself, hat in hand. Explaining that they were homeless due to a lost job, or various other reasons. Normally, I ignore...but today, I just couldn't. Not when I passed the man with the bandaged eye for the second time this week, half blind, huddled against the wall, with the small scratched out sign that he'd been beaten up while sleeping on the subway. I promised myself that if I saw him again, I would stop and hand him a dime. I gave him three dollars, a pittance. At least, others had as well. Further down, a man was railing at all who would listen. Screaming and ranting at the top of his lungs. His voice competed with the Scottish Bag Pipes lonely wail of Sweet By and By. And in between, a blind man sat on a mat, hands crossed on his lap, meditating.

New York City is not a safe comfortable place to live. It screams and shouts at you, to be noticed. With raw wounds scraped along its pretty glistening sides.

Been pondering the past lately...past transgressions, people who have drifted off and some who have drifted back again into my life, seemingly out of nowhere. My friend Maribeth Martell, aka embers_log, continues to haunt the social media pages...on Facebook her birthday was announced as if she was still amongst us, she'd have been 64, and on Good Reads, I see which books she liked and didn't...that I'm reading. She didn't live long enough to read mine, although she'd seen some introductory chapters. And whenever I post a picture to my livejournal, for some reason or other her name appears in the album posting box. She died two years ago of colitis - an infection that got worse and worse. Even though we'd begun to drift apart before she died, I miss her. An old acquaintance from my college days just contacted me out of nowhere. Hadn't heard from her since 1987 - when we traveled around Britain together. She was much older than I was at the time, thinking 30s or 40s. Found me on LinkedIn. And a few people have popped up again on livejournal, who I thought were basically gone. Then there's the little boy who told my best bud to punch me in the stomach when I was 6 years of age. Or maybe 5. I still vividly remember it. We were friends. We did get over that...kids do. But they moved soon after, both of them did. He was blond, white blond hair, and blue eyes. Name of Derek. I see him vividly sitting on a tree in my mind's eye. He moved out of the house that my best friend moved into, right next door to us. He could climb poles. He taught me to climb poles. I don't remember his last name. I don't know what happened to him.

The past never quite goes away does it? Just sort of floats in the ether of one's brain...around and around. My Granny at the end of her life remembered her childhood better than she did what happened a minute ago.

So...I revisited this old Buffy essay I wrote, about Willow, the other day - which I'd forgotten. And it said something that well made me sit up and take notice:
( Read more... )

Anyhow, a while back, I wrote this book and self-published it. Called Doing Time on Planet Earth (see icon), it's a play on words. The phrase means mundane. Or drudgery. Feeling drug into the abyss. It features three people, all of which feel lost, all of whom have broken spirits...due to past transgressions, whether they be familial in nature or peer related, or even work related. One of the three has reacted with rage, she's sort of the Willow of the story. People who read it at work wanted to know which character was me, reader's always ask this question. People used to ask Joss Whedon which character represented him in Buffy, he flippantly would say Xander. Then later, Buffy, and at another point Willow. Although, I think they all probably did, and didn't at the same time. Same with me -- all the characters in Doing Time are part of me, and at the same time they aren't -- they exist outside of me, like children that I'd given birth to would. With their own views and ideals. Representative of me and not at the same time.

In my book, I reference fandom a lot, the fan boards...where two of the protagonists meet and become close friends. They know each other, and they really don't at the same time. One of them, Hope Wexler, who is an embezzler and identity thief - collects Loony Tunes action figures. It should be noted that even though she is a thief, she has a moral code -- she only steals from corporations that are laying off employees and only the identities of dead people. The characters she identifies with are Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. And it's through the Looney Tunes characters that she connects with Kenny, a blind accountant that she is currently working with. He can't see her, but then she's in disguise. But he does see her, better than anyone, just as he sees and appreciates the Loony Tunes in greater depth than she does.

Below is a snippet from this novel that...is one of the reasons I decided to self-publish.
Because every publishing contact I sent it to - wanted me to remove it. They were blind to the fact that it was central to the themes of my book, it was vital to understanding the relationship between various characters and how they viewed the world. But not everyone will see it - because not everyone thinks the same way. If you don't think metaphorically, some of this will most likely jump over your head. You might think it boring or silly or why did she include this. I don't know. I found some of the reactions.. very frustrating. I remember begging my contact to see it...to give it a chance, but she cut me off without a response. None at all. It wasn't a quick read, a page turner, a thriller. It fell outside the box, outside the lines.

Anyhow, below is the scene, which is about how we will often use fictional characters to express how we feel about ourselves or who we are. Whether it be Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, or Willow Rosenberg. In the scene, Kenny identifies with Wile E and Daffy, while Hope in direct contrast is identifying with the much cooler Bugs Bunny and Road Runner.

The conversation is between Hope and Kenny. It is their first date. Takes place in a coffee shop in Coliseum Books in 2004, across from Bryant Park in the fall. Kenny is blind. Hope is using an alias, and working for the same company that he is as a contract administrator. She plans on embezzling from the company at some point. While they are talking, a woman that she'd met at a fandom concert, whose car she borrowed without permission, appears to recognize her. Hope during the conversation is trying to explain herself to Kenny by using a Looney Tune character that she identifies with...but she's not sure she is connecting with him, even though she desperately wants to. At the same time, she knows she has to stay hidden from him, she can't risk revealing who she is...and is on the verge of fleeing his company.
( From Doing Time on Planet Earth )
The above excerpt depicts how people use characters to explain themselves to each other in a safe way. A healing way. Taking on various archtepyes.

Art, I think, is how we relate to the world when its too painful to do so directly.
A way to express what's inside..without exposing oneself.

I think though often...people don't see it. Too quickly read or skimmed over. We forget to read what isn't written or what the writer hasn't said, but only implied. And so much gets lost in translation, and well...in misinterpretation.

I tried sharing this last night, but panicked and took it down. Afraid it would be misunderstood, leaving me..vulnerable to attack. The internet is scary. LJ less so. Most of the scary folks have fled to the next trendy spot. But..it is still scary to try to connect to others. There's always that chance they will bite you.

A post on my flist today, reminded me of a discussion I had with a friend a while back regarding the WGA strike and well the internet.

Friend: Why don't people just write stories for the internet or do shows on the net? That's what they should do.
Me (trying not to burst out laughing): Where have you been? They already are. Been doing it for more than five years now. They just can't figure out how to make lots of money off of it.

We know how to tell stories on the internet. We know how to share them. What we have not quite figured out yet is how we can get paid for doing it and how much. That, dear reader, is what the WGA Strike is all about. (Well mostly about, there are other issues, but that is the main sticking point).

This is not a simple issue. Oh no. Nor is it a new one. They've been fighting over this issue since the 1990s. Not necessarily publicly. I know, I had to deal with it back then. Trust me, am very happy not to be dealing or worrying about it now. Much rather worry about getting people to properly remove chemicals from soil so the water doesn't end up getting more mercury in it. Seems more constructive somehow and a lot less headache inducing. The entertainment/media/internet/publishing business, god love it, gives me a moral headache. Very happy to be out of it - at least from a business perspective.

Anyhow - this fight is not just about money. It's about access, yours and mine and everyone in the world who can get on the internet, free and otherwise. And to what extent we should have it for free. Should everyone? Should any one person or group of persons control what is distributed over the internet? Should people get paid for what is distributed on the net? Should we have to pay more than we already do to access content on the internet? Should some types of content be forbidden? The internet is right now the wild wild west. We are at the start of the information revolution. And like the industrial revolution and the real wild west - some of us are eager to explore and play with this new frontier while others, want to control, manipulate, sabotauge, stop, destroy, and/or harnass this new plaything. We know how to tell stories on it, we know how to use it, what we don't know how to do is to control it or to the degree that we should - we haven't tamed it yet. Although some are getting pretty darn close to figuring out how - China and India have allegedly found ways to block certain sites from their native users.

Some people are content to just play, to share, to create on the net - others want more, they want to make money off of it, harnass it, control it, maybe even be the boss of it. My question to everyone reading this - is should we let them? Is ensuring some writer or artist gets paid worth it? How much are we willing to give up? Because that's the problem with life -there's always a trade-off. We start letting people put major controls on the internet, we could lose the ability to post fanfic, icons, scan in articles or worse post political essays or opinions. The best thing about the net - is that it allows unfettered free speech. It is the one place that is not controlled by advertisers, big corporations, or money. It's still the little guy's soap box. You can be poor and post on the internet, all you need is someone somewhere to provide access. Heck - homeless people can post from libraries.

It's not like we haven't already been making money off of it or using it in this fashion. And it's not like people haven't already put controls in place or tried to. As I stated above, India and China have figured out how to block certain bits of content. Companies can block certain sites. The US government can track who visits what site at what time. Live journal, blogger, and other journal sites including MySpace have found ways to censor content or remove unwanted content. Not only that - they've found ways to put in parental controls, to prohibit access, and to prohibit people from using their sites. So these things are possible, they are being done already. The net is less free, less unfettered than it was a year ago. We no longer have the ability to do whatever we want, say whatever we want or go whereever we want that we did just three or four years back - that's how fast this is happening.

As for money? My father has been selling books that he's written on the internet for the last ten years. CreateSpace is telling me that they'll do the first proof of my novel for free and for a fee they'll have someone edit it, create a cover for it, and advise me on a marketing plan. iTunes charges folks to download Torchwood. Hula also charges to download films and tv shows. Bit Torrent - I think you pay a fee for.

As for telling stories? Vids have existed since 2001, possibly earlier. People editing footage from various tv shows and films to tell their own story, with a song attached - I call them personal music videos. You can see them now for free on youtube. You used to have to risk polluting your computer with spyware and viruses to download them. One person on my flist wrote and posted an original novel on her lj complete with beautful illustrations in full color. After she was done, she put it together and posted it to a site and even had a version self-published off line, I believe. I've seen people create interactive stories. Some have created RPG stories - where they each grab a character and tell a tale through letters to one another. Then there are websodes - five to ten minute clips. The producers of thirtysomething and My So Called Life, created their own internet web series - 13 episodes, each twenty minutes in length. It was so well received that Fox or the CW grabbed it and turned it into a tv series. It's called Quarterlife, I think. The WGA has been using the net to tell the tale of the WGA and explain the strike and let off steam. Joss Whedon created a comic strip on the internet called SugarShock.

Back in the late 90's, the writers of Blair Witch Project - used the internet to promote their film - they created a site that told the urban legend of the Blair Witch, a legend they sort of made up, and it provided links to real legends that the story was based on. After that, marketing people embraced the net to promote films. Lost has a site that includes backstories on characters. So does BattleStar Galatica - in fact BSg even had websodes broadcast on their site, as did Lost.

In 2001, I started reading fanfic on the internet, some of it with graphics. Now people imbed vids in their fanfic. The internet has made it possible for everyone to share their stories, not just the ones who get paid for it. I've posted two fanfics on my lj. As well as a chapter of my novel. On my website, I posted 40 essays, or the equivalent of a 400 page book of essays. I also posted chapters from another novel I'd written. In 2002, I co-wrote a fanfic by email with five or six other writers then had it posted to a fan website.

Because of the internet, if you just happen to love to tell or read stories - you can find a way of exchanging them with an unlimited number of people for free, without the middle man, without it having to be a saleable commodity, without worrying too much about who owns the rights to it, and without it costing you more than an internet connection. I can share my entire book with 100's of people without getting paid and without having to pay for it. That must scare the shit out of people who make money out of this and do worry about copyright - where art is how they pay the rent and buy groceries. I know it does, because of how several of them have reacted to the net over the years. Professional book and movie critics really hate it. Many denounce it. They denounce fanfic. They shouldn't be scared though - people will still buy books and still pay to see movies. All the internet is - is another medium, another source of information. It is not a replacement. It's just new. And different.

What we are grappling with right now is how do you sell stories and art on the internet? How do you get people to pay to read something online? How can you make a living of it? Possibly even get rich? Not just order a book or an object from Amazon. But pay money to read a journal entry, an article, or watch a video? And more to the point, do we want to do that? We already are to some extent - itunes charges 99 cents to a dollar to download videos and many sites have ads - that pay for the site. This journal has ads. And other's journals are paid accounts - they pay to post photos and icons. And people do pay to download tv shows to their computers - they've been doing that since 2002 via bit torrent. Some don't pay. And I know there are people who have posted novels online that you have to pay to access - Stephen King tried it in 99, I believe. Stopped when he discovered readers were either hacking into the site or taking the stories and distributing them online to friends, each pitching in part of the cost. In short, he wasn't making any money. Other's have done it more successfully - Amber Benson and Christopher Golden did it with Ghosts in Albion in 2003 - a sort of online animated series that you had to pay to access. Then there's the Buffy audio project - where people are doing an online version of a radio play. Most recently? The Anynomous Meme - a guerilla project that is condemning Scientology. It's amusing to me, because it is using the same sci-fi wording that Scientology is based on. Scientology is a religion based on a bunch of satirical novels by a science fiction author name L.Ron Hubbard. I'm still unclear on whether Hubbard intended for anyone to take Dianetics seriously. A friend of mine told me that from her reading of it - she figured he was making fun of self-help books. I know enough about Scientology to find it frightening and steer clear of it. I researched it in high school, ran into versions of it in college, and my brother had to deal with the Scientologists going after his wife's cousin while they were working on the film Love Crimes. Before that - we had WGA's speechless meme. Now that nearly everyone has a videocamera either in their camera, on their computer, or on the cell phone - making personal films is easy.


But none of these people have made much money off of distributing what they've done. At least not yet. They know the potential - what with the new iphone, wireless, mobile, and tivo providing new and better ways to download content. Plus the new Kindle via Amazon. But they aren't quite sure how to split the revenues. Or for that matter what to charge. Or even how to collect it. Collecting from internet companies such as Verizon or Sprint, often involves a fee. Paypal - same deal. And ads, not always lucrative. They have not figured out the business model yet. When they do, watch out. What you've been getting for free, will start to have a price tag. And the net may no longer be the place we've all come to know and love.