Text and Hubris

I had the opportunity to attend an informal discussion/presentation by Lance Mannion with occasional comments from Stephen Kuusisto titled Literary Writing in the Second Digital Age. In it they discussed whether blogs deserve their still often-maligned status as the creation of narcissists screaming into the echo chamber or whether they were something more? Mannion and Kuusisto argue that for many writers the blog has become the next evolution of the much vaunted author’s journal. As such, they contain snippets of ideas that can evolve and build into future poems and stories. They become a place for an author to share opinions, moments of reaction, and whatever else seems to fill their lives. The blog, then, for these authors becomes a medium for sharing and, almost more importantly, for storing and recalling important moments and thoughts. While it is not a replacement for other forms of writing, it is a valuable tool for the authors who are so inclined to use it.

Listening to Mannion talk, what quickly became apparent was that his blog primarily acts a way to stay connected with the world beyond his computer. According to him, the best part of running his blog comes when he is able to leave the screen behind and, instead, meet and talk with intelligent, powerful, and connected people the world over. The blog became a way to connect, share, and meet these people. It was, in a sense, his contribution to the commons and the discussions that were going on. I love this idea because, at least in my mind, this is the real reason the Internet should exist. It opens the doors of communication even wider. Even as I type this, my twitter client is streaming, collecting a #litchat discussion stream which I will read later and I have added both Mannion’s and Kuusisto’s blogs to my RSS feed. While we may not always like to admit it, writers like community. We want people to read us and, in turn, we want to read other people. That is almost a required function of the job.

While both Mannion and Kuusisto made clear that blogs were not a replacement for print publications, Kuusisto did note how publishing his work in a digital format made it more accessible and allowed for a much faster translation and dissemination of his works than did traditional print. This idea that there is a balance between print and digital publishing is one that I wish more people would take into account. Print isn’t going away, it will be a tragedy if it ever does. Instead, there is this great balance where digital access is opening new doors for distribution and even creating new ways of making print accessible. This is, in almost every way, a symbiotic relationship not a parasitic one.

Beyond that, what really caught my attention was a brief discussion on how literary fiction and poetry is, in some sense, a (and I am trying to remember the exact phrasing here) “socially informed and culturally aware form of vanity publishing.” Somewhere, I hear a clamor of authors gathering their pitchforks but I think there is some truth to that statement. There appears to be a false notion for many undergrads (and even some grad students) that there is money in writing. I’m not sure where that comes from as we have been told from day one that there is no money in writing but I am sure the first year out of college will disabuse them of such a notion. If we’re not doing this for money, then, if we write, we do so because we think we have something to say and that is, in a very real sense, vanity.

It’s why this blog is called Text and Hubris. But that is the point, after all. I want to share and I want to tell my stories. I hope that there are enough people who want to listen/read and in return I do my damnedest to be great listener/reader as well. It is the least I can do.

As I close, I will continue to complain about notification for these events. If I had known about it earlier, I would have have noted it here and in the CW4 forum as well. I am sure this would have been very valuable to the Intermedia and New Media students but it didn’t look like it made it to any of them. As with so many things, my only notification came from a hastily propped up sign on the door to EPB. Obviously, this was a talk that fell directly into my interest and study area, so I did cancel a meeting in order to sit in. I’m glad I did. I just wish more people had that opportunity.

Links
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Lance Mannion: Lance Mannion
Stephen Kuusisto: Planet of the Blind

Post-PC world? Really? Tell me, how many apps (Apple or Android) are developed without a PC? Post-PC simply means buying read-only devices. It means an acceptance of the projected norm and a surrender of creative control to those who still have… PC’s.
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The fastest way to stop writing is to begin to think of all of this as a brand.

I’m job hunting right now. I’ve applied for a fellowship but I’m not sure where I stand in the running. I think I would be a great fit but one never knows exactly what is being looked for. If I get the fellowship I will be in great shape because it runs for a full year and will easily set me for grad school in 2012 (assuming no sudden end-of-the-world scenario).

I’m not counting on it, though. I’ve done my due diligence. I have my LinkedIn site set up- feel free to connect to me. I’ve done countless Google searches on myself and my data and everything comes up looking good. The Geoff brand is coming along. I am more a child of the digital age than even I suspected. I was really enjoying building this online identity until I realized it was invading every part of my psyche. In truth, it had already been there. It began when I started trying to decide if I was prose or poetry writer. That’s a stupid- stupid -thing to decide. I knew that. I knew that before I entered college. The point is always to write what connects, what’s real. Here I’ve been caught up trying to fit in. I want to be part of the cool kids, the literary maestros. Maybe it’s more important that I just be who I am and damn the rest.

I sat down in a class today and listened to people tell stories about their lives. I watched them perform themselves. For an hour and half, masks came down and we touched something real. If you have the opportunity to do that in any class, do it. This class is probably the second most important class I have taken in college because it reminded me why I do this. It reminded me why I came back to English, to the very words themselves. We are storytellers. Writers or not, actors or not, it does not matter. Every one of us has a story to tell and I want to hear those stories. I want to share those stories. I love workshop. I love it because we share stories. We share things that are important to us. Pieces, chapters of ourselves – or at least we should.

I stopped doing that. My prose and poetry has become staid and rule-centric. It’s boring and flat because I ripped the life out of it. I’d rather have a page of chaotic nonsense that touched the real than a gem of text constructed by the numbers. I love new media, but this is a trap that haunts us even more than the rest. Why? Because we have analytics. I know exactly how many readers hit this site (a small but growing number). I know how each post affects the hit count and how that integrates with twitter posts and the like. I monitor all of it. Numbers are everywhere and I can see a direct relation between what I write and the numbers. This gets addicting, I know. It’s like a video without an broad base of possibilities and it’s tempting to build for the numbers. That’s doesn’t work, though (if it did, this would be a porn site). It’s important to remember that the numbers are ex post-facto. The are not the goal, merely a detail of data tangentially related to the story at hand. That story is important. The numbers…well they just rise and fall.

If we can remember that. If I can remember that, then everything seems a bit more clear.

I haven’t talked about Apple for a while and, honestly, I am not going spend too much time on them now. It’s their platform and they can make up whatever rules they want for it. Frankly, it’s not the only game in town. My media purchasing is not limited at all by not having any Apple products or their iTunes software installed on any of my systems. I know they have a large share of the marketplace right now (The University has a huge Apple following), but I do love a world where those things still can and do change. Apple is not the end-all-be-all; it is merely another company trying to lock-in as much money as it can before the cards start to tumble.

I believe in content. I don’t believe in platforms. Apple can do what it wants. Some content creators will cave and pay their 30%; the rest won’t. In either case, content continues and what Apple has proven is that their iPad or iPhone – or any of their hardware, for that matter – has a very limited value. It’s the all about the apps. It’s the content that really matters. The iPad user doesn’t care about the iPad, they care about what cool things they can get for their iPad. That is what Apple is trying to control because that is where the money is. Console developers knew this a long time ago. They could sell a console for a low profit and then feed off the game licensing. This is all that Apple is trying to do. The difference between Apple and console developers is that games used to be sold through retail stores. Apple wants complete control of that as well. Then again, look at Sony, Microsoft, even Google. They all want to do that, to some extent.

As creators, we need to ask ourselves where our content is best placed. Since I am still a small – well non-existent at this point – content creator, Apple’s 30% cut is too high for me. Of course, this ignores all of Apple’s other onerous policies regarding content (which makes me wonder – will Apple also seek to control the type of content that is sold?). Even if I ignore all of those issues – which I wouldn’t -  I don’t want to pass a 30% charge to people interested in buying my work. Of course, I also like to eat. Apple has taken a very adversarial role with content creators and I don’t think that is a positive for anyone. Obviously, Apple doesn’t want my content and luckily I have a whole wide online space in which to sell without Apple. Yeah, it can be rougher out here. Apple’s carefully tended garden, with its manicured lawns, has its benefits. Those benefits just don’t outweigh the costs of lock-in. I have, yet, to see any valid reason that does.