Posts from — September 2008

Welcome back!

Well, BlogOrlando 3 came and passed but it was a great show.  I had a lot of fun and it was a new experience for me being a session leader in the Writing Social Fiction panel.

I’ve never had the opportunity before to speak in front of a large group of people at a conference so it was like I mentioned in my last entry, both exciting and nerve-wracking.  Exciting in I could talk about what I’ve done with Calling Home and nerve-wracking in preparing myself to speak in front of what could be a large group of people.

After getting some advice from family, friends, and other bloggers (especially a friend who came from out of town to see me speak, hi BrilliantJeni! ), I came to the conference armed with my whopping two slides and a sheaf of paper with my listed topics.  The presentation room was a classroom at Rollins College and it could fit about thirty or forty people.  For most of the day I sat in the room and listened to some other great presentations and watched as people who knew what they were doing a lot more than I lead their sessions.  I got some great pointers on how to run a session ala unconference style.

What’s an unconference style session you ask?  Put simply, it’s a session where you, as the session leader, are merely there as a facilitator in a discussion.  You’re to actively involve the session participants in this discussion.  As you can guess this is a very different form of presentation, but one I ultimately enjoyed more.

When my session started, there were about 20 people left.  I was happy to see that many had stayed to listen to me since I honestly expected about five to ten people.  I was furthermore surprised when I asked how many had written creatively to raise their hand about fifteen of them did so.  Definitely the audience I was looking for.

The discussion went well, with questions being asked and answers given.  All in all, the forty minutes I had went by quickly and then it was time for the final keynote of the day.

I had a great time at BlogOrlando and encourage any to come on by and hear some great people speak when it comes around in September of next year.

I guess this will be the first of many public presentations I’ll be doing in my career as a writer. I just hadn’t thought it would be before the publication of my first novel.

I’ ve been asked to present at Blog Orlando 2008. I’ll be speaking about my social media novel, Calling Home, and will also be leading a discussion about Writing Social Fiction. I’m looking forward to it next Saturday and if any of you are in Orlando on Saturday September 26th, then please come on by and stop in on my presentation.

I’ll spend some of the time telling people about Calling Home and ideas behind it but then going into how to apply some of those techniques into writing your own social novel.

It’s gonna be a blast and I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

When is free coffee not free?

I love getting free things.  Free samples, free software, and most of all free beverages and food.  One of the best places to get free beverages and food is at a conference.

The opening reception at IZEAFest was a prime example of a great spread.  Hors D’oeuvres, various finger foods and an open bar were the order of the day and they were exquisite.  I know it must have been expensive, but the impression it gave was one of great class.  Other conferences should aspire to the yumalicious food and copious drink which were there.

So this morning I came in and found a nice arrangement of coffee, sodas and tea available.  I had thought “Neat, now I can have another cup of coffee this morning.”  After pouring the coffee and putting in whatever accouterments into the cup, I then tasted it.

Ugh.

Why is it every time there’s “free” coffee I end up paying for it when I drink it?  It’s as if the hotel had intentionally filtered said coffee through a jock strap while making this vile stuff.  They even laughably served it in Starbucks cups.

Before you get on my case and say I’m raggin’ on IZEAFest, let me tell you that there are very few conferences I’ve been to where free coffee ever tasted good.  The ones which have good coffee usually have some sort of single serve coffee system like a Keurig, or Flavia.  So with that in mind I want to know why does free coffee have to taste so bad?  Wouldn’t you as a conference organizer want to give your attendees the best impression you can?

I think sometimes it’s just a matter of what’s only available from the conference center or hotel.  But maybe, just maybe I’d like to see a conference take the initiative and organize something really special for free coffee.  How about a Java bar or a couple of single serve coffee machines?

Com’on people. Let’s make free coffee something people want to drink instead of just tolerate.

I’m right now at IZEAFest 2008, which is a conference that’s actually local to me.  Since I don’t have to many of those, I jump at the chance to network when I can.

IZEAFest is a blogging, social and new media conference.  Now I bet you’re wondering what in the world would a conference like this be for a traditional media genre science-fiction and fantasy writer like me?

Well, there is a lot a traditional writer can learn from new media.  At first I dabbled by blogging a little, maybe posting a message on Twitter.  Very little involvement to be honest.  That all changed a couple of months ago.

I decided to dive in head first into new media by publishing a novel using social networks Plurk and Twitter.  Doing this opened my eyes to the possibilities of living in a world where a writer can have multiple paths to releasing their work to the world.  It helped me to realize I’m not limited in how I want to reach my readers.

Once I had the “new media epiphany” I then realized I needed to get out and meet more people involved in new media: bloggers, content creators, and social marketers.  I’ve learned quite a bit from these people and I believe all traditional media writers can learn quite a bit from new/social media.

To traditional media writers I would say find a blogging conference and go to it.  Don’t know too much about blogging?  Buy yourself Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner to learn about it and then go to a conference.  The operative thing is to get out there and meet other bloggers and learn.

Doing some of the things above will put you on to a great start to putting a new spin on your traditional media.

When you go to sleep, do you dream in Tweets or Plurks? Do you find yourself talking in sentences that would easily fit within a 140 character limitation?  Does your manuscript have a fine layer of newly accumulated dust?  If you said yes to any of these and you participate in social media, then you’re already addicted.

The good news is you don’t have to quit.  But you do need to curb your micro-blogging appetite.  Here are a some things you can do to hold back the monster:

• Use social media to keep track of your output: There is no better way to keep you from spending all your time on social networking sites than to sending out status messages indicating what little writing you’ve done.  Guilt can be an excellent tool if used correctly.
• Reward yourself with social breaks: If you work at home, the temptation to spend your entire day on social networking sites is incredible.  To mitigate this, give yourself 15 minute social breaks to go online and gab with your friends.  Keep an egg timer or watch with a chronograph handy to track your break time between pages.
• Set a writing schedule: 15 minutes not enough?  Then set a schedule that you will do nothing but write during.  Once you’re finished, you’re free to do what you want.
• Set a daily writing goal: Worried if you set a scheduled writing time you’ll end up doing nothing anyhow just so you can get back to social networking?  Set yourself a daily goal, whether it is words, pages or chapters.  If you don’t meet your goal, you don’t get to play.

The above tricks and tips will help you keep on target, but sometimes the best thing you can do is have an interesting project to write so you have a stronger desire to write it rather than whittle your life away 140 characters at a time.