September 2007 Archives

You know you've hit the Big Time on the Internet when people start clinging to you by writing about you on their blogs, sending you email and talking about you on other people's websites without your direct intervention or knowledge.

Sometimes your fans are kind.

Oftentimes your former sycophants are cruel.

You then take the good with the bad -- the admiring with the obsessed -- and find pleasure and peace in knowing they are all propagating the brand, creating a buzz and keeping your name and your presence out there in the world for everyone else to read and then discover the truth of you on their own; thus creating a whole new gang of friends and foes who will willingly and unwittingly perpetuate your growing circle of fame and power.

Love the lovers; love the haters -- and take no reality from either.

Evil propagates the world over via the misled good intentions of honorable people.

I recently stayed at a Courtyard by Marriott hotel -- the Spa King rooms are wonderful -- and each room is provided with free, wired, Internet access.

I was astounded at the slow speed of my Internet connection when I first started using the Marriott provided backbone -- but I washed off the slow by not expecting much for free.

Bertolt Brecht was a SuperGenius author, writer and director.

As a radical man of the German theater in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's his influence and style provide us great vision today.

When a published book goes "Out of Print" many authors panic -- they feel their book is dead in the water and stillborn on the shelf.

If you have a contract that clearly states the book returns to you in all rights and circumstances when it goes Out of Print -- you have a great opportunity to take the book back and re-birth it yourself with the life it deserves either online or with another publisher.

Do you agree with Isiah Thomas that Black Men can call Black Women "bitches" while White Men cannot?

If not, where -- in the cultural meme that grew and molded Isiah Thomas -- did he learn to believe that it was appropriate and expected to call Black Women "bitches?"

Are all Black Women "bitches" by default in Isiah's mind -- or does he use that derogatory term on only those women he believes are below him in status and competence?  Is his mother a bitch?  His wife?  His daughters?

The chilling lesson of Isiah Thomas' Black Bitches is that he sets an example for bad behavior modeling in young people who look up to him to catch ideas and inspiration from a man -- A Proud Black Man -- many of us used to admire and emulate.

How does one create a context for understanding in translation when words can have a multiplicity of meanings in one language and a single meaning in another language?

Ideas require the specificity of definition with words in order to be fully comprehended in all spheres of sensation, but what happens when there is no specificity to be had in the translation of a word into an idea?

What is immediately lost?  Subtlety?  Humor?  Context?  Frames of innate understanding?

As the world crumbles in space and time how it is possible for nations -- let alone people of the world -- to agree on anything important that involves words and meanings and definitions that pull us beyond the universal human myth of shared beauty and aesthetic?

Double murderer O.J. Simpson is back in the news making an unwelcome return to using his parsing of words to point the blame, not at himself, but rather at others he feels unduly influence him.

It is fascinating to watch Simpson skate and dance and prevaricate his way out of a mess while he celebrates his return to the public eye.

I fear we will never be without O.J.'s influence because he knows how to take advantage of shared semiotics and the duality of semantic communication to better only his selfish ends in life and, I believe, his self-enrichment will continue to strangle us beyond his death and into our graves.

O.J. Simpson has marked us all in the eye and ear for all of eternity and we are all the worse for his wearing.

If genius is born in collective ciphers then we need to be wary of those who proclaim their solitary and self-important Genius.

The Self-Indulgent Genius is a warning sign that kowtowing and deference are expected in any exchange of memes or communicative dyads -- and to not show deference is to be scorned and mocked and wanted smaller.

When Genius is dealt to you -- respect it and honor it and keep it quiet unless and until it is discovered by others -- and always run from those who foretell their own place in history by trumpeting a quiet gift.

Janna is fond of replying to the question -- "Do you want the bad news first or the good news first?" -- by saying "There is no bad or good, you have to deal with it all."

That's an incredibly mature way of dealing with life.

I am not quite so mature. 

I always prefer the Bad News first because that is obviously the most conditional and powerful cudgel the teller of the news hopes use to influence your behavior:  Get the chit out of the way so you can enjoy the cream.

Is a writer an author or just a fixer?

Is it possible words can go wrong?

Or is only the one who fixes words against each other to blame if context and meaning are skewed in understanding?

How can we possibly begin to comprehend each other in the language of a common tongue if words can have different meanings based on position in a sentence and the character of the fixer?

Do words ever have a proper ending?  Or do they just eternally float in space waiting for new interpretations, inspirations and analysis by boring minds?

Today is the sixth anniversary of the crowning of the Ground Zero Death Pit where the World Trade Center used to stand.

I have written about that life-changing, world-modifying, event every year since the attack and I have come to gruesomely realize there are some dark pits that no words can ever begin to fill. 

Publishers and agents hate it when authors share the specifics of our contracts with each other and that is precisely why we can, and must, share all the details of our deals.

I like Deal Memos because they're just as binding as a real contract and they can save a lot of time and heartache.

If time is of the essence -- and the tar pit of approvals is bearing down on you and a project that needs to completed fast -- use a Deal Memo to trick out the most important details that both parties have agreed to, and you can make it binding via email and with replies of agreement.

Deal Memos can codify and express and protect both sides until a formal paper contract can be drawn -- and quartered! -- for official signatures and all the unnecessary and punishing boilerplate.

Turning down work can be a good thing if the price and terms aren't right.

You, as an author, must know your value in the marketplace even if those around you -- like agents and friends and publishers and managers -- do not.

If you get a dollar a word for writing an article, do not allow yourself to be lowballed at a dime a word.

You know your bottom line.  You know your ability.  Trust the faith in yourself.  Demand the wages and royalties and stipends you deserve. 

To back down from the needs of the self is to damage the needs and wants of others who hope to walk along down the path of success with you.

Saying "No" to a bad deal can mean a "Yes" to own well-being.

Authors should never write as "Work For Hire" because it demeans their aesthetic and demands they are nothing more than ordinary laborers with no investment in the future profitability of the project.

It is hard to persuade new writers away from the "Work For Hire" carrot because the initial, solitary, payment can be more immediately enticing than lower upfront money against a future royalty percentage.

If you get royalties you are in partnership with your publisher.  If you are "Work For Hire" you're used up when you're done writing.

Publishers live to exploit that hungry author desire for fast money now -- and in the process of the "Work For Hire" hiring -- the author not only loses a potential profit bonanza, but also sells out their self-respect, self-worth, and fellow authors.

It isn't enough to just have an idea because everyone has an idea every day.

Our challenge as authors and artists and poets and pedants is to form the idea and bend it into something new -- preferably with the force of reason and against the recognition of other ideas -- to make something holdable from the whole.

An idea that stretches is a thought that lives in multiple dimensions and when we brand that creative process into something others find appealing, we have reached the nadir of suffering and we are on our way to the pinnacles.

I am convinced all candidates for public office should be given a timed, public, writing test so we can witness in live time the real logic of their mental process and reasoning.

Do we appreciate their arguments and rationale?

A writing test confirms or disproves if the candidate is true, educated, and appropriately emotionally expressive.

A writing test gives us the best educated insight into the confirmed person beyond the fluff and the handlers and those who "shape the message."

You cannot hide from your words or the consequences of your thoughts.

We just finished writing the Google Apps Administrator Guide for Thomson Publishing and we are now Daring David Pogue.  We have composed the following missive to the master Mac author:

Do blogs create democracy and foment The Citizen Journalist?

Or are all bloggers just begging the wind?

Here are some sobering numbers reported on The McLaughlin Group over the weekend:

• 140,000 new blogs started each day
• One blog is created every second
• 14 million new blogs are started a year

Is there a point to blogging any longer or will the little people with the small -- but important -- voices be drowned out by the traditional Big Media sites who will suck all the bandwidth and chew up all the pertinent search returns?

Is the Golden Age of Blogging now dead?

Have you ever typed so much for so long in high heat that your hands started to swell?

My hands have been swollen for over 24 hours now and I can't figure out how to get the blood out of my fingertips.

I've tried icing, exercise, water pills and push-ups.

Nothing helps.  The hands remain swollen and the fingers are unbendable.

Still, we solider on, and continue -- as evidenced in this post.

Which comes first:  The Memory or the Meme or Me?

The meme -- the invisible sharing of knowledge -- comes before the memory.  The exchange of thoughts and ideas creates the expectation of moments and the living makes the shared memory.