Category Archives: community

community, reading

Wired’s One Book, One Twitter

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Did you miss that Wired magazine is doing a big read this summer?  They are organizing it around Twitter, trying to get everyone to read the same book this summer. There’s not a lot of commitment, just read the book when everyone else is.

Which book? Well they’re having everyone vote on it now. There’s 10 to on the list, and they come from a variety of different genres (with a healthy dose of science fiction/not easily categorizable). If you want to help pick the book, head here.  It has all the details and fills you in.

I know I’m joining in on this insanity. I missed the first announcement in the noise, but I won’t anymore because I started following the organizer, Jeff Howe. I hope to see your #1b1t tweets too! Nothing like the internet to bring us together from around the world.

image from Wired’s original post.

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community, made of win

My Day with the Mariachis

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Last week my job asked if I would be a chaperon for a community service event. The students were supposed to come to pass out flowers to couples walking through Downtown Santa Ana, Ca (where the new job is located).

I agreed to wander around because I knew it would be a good time to get to know some of the students and become more familiar with a town I barely know. And it helped that it meant another day’s pay.

Have you ever agreed to something and realized later where the commitment will place you?

Me too. It happens most frequently when I’m trying to be helpful.

The afternoon started with me and another tutor waiting around 45 min. for any of the students to show. One of the girls did finally show around the same time our supervisor made it (but at least he’d told both of us he’d be there late). So the 4 of us joined the Mariachis late and began handing out roses for Valentine’s Day.

About 2 hours after we started walking through downtown, with me attempting to speak Spanish even 1/10 as well as everyone else in the group (who were all fluent), I looked around and couldn’t help but laugh. The last time I stood out so much in a crowd, I was in a tiny town 2 hours from Nairobi, Kenya.

I loved every meandering moment, understanding around 60% of what the other people in the group were talking about. I can’t tell you what songs the Mariachis played, but I can tell you they were very good musicians. I also learned a way to say “Happy Valentine’s Day” in Spanish and that my accent is as bad as I remembered.

If you don’t often get to take the opportunity to intentionally be the person who doesn’t belong, I recommend jumping at the risk. The fleeting discomfort of the intentional outsider moments is a fantastic way to strengthen your self-confidence. When you can’t completely understand what is happening around you, you become what you can rely on.

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community, writing

653, or NaNoWriMo Day 1

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It’s a sad word count to start, but that’s the number of words for my first day of my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

There are numerous excuses for why my word count is pathetic, but excuses are for suckers.

What I’m loving about this project, besides the forced deadline (which I will put off like all other deadlines :)), is what I’m discovering about how I write non-school work. I know my process for short stories – write whatever comes into my head until something else attracts my attention and then come back to the story long enough to smooth the end into something I can live with.

The novel so far is running the same way. Since there is less to distract me currently, I am writing longer stories. But I have yet to hit my general word count for other stories, so I’ll see what happens when I work more tomorrow.

I know there are many other writers who are part of NaNoWriMo who have plans. I follow authors who actually have people buy their books in stores and they use this time to write first drafts of novels they will sell.

I am not in this category. Right now my story is dialogue. I’ve never written this way before. I have no idea who my narrator is. I don’t even know if this novel will be 1st person or one of the 3rds. 2nd doesn’t seem to fit. I don’t even know where the story is going.

It’s all rather fun.

I’m enjoying the discovery part. I have no pressure for this novel to work. I expect it to completely suck. So my plan is to enjoy this time and learn more about how I write and see if I can cobble together enough to refine it into a decent story. Oh, and listen to all those albums I’ve been hearing about recently and pick some up. Listened to The Dresden Dolls “A is for Accident” tonight; solid beat with words that only occasionally stood out. Music I’d like to learn the lyrics to sometime but too difficult to sing without more effort. Perfect writing music.

So here’s the beginning of my novel writing month. Because everyone should have that novel they wrote that one time in a drawer somewhere.

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community, writing

NaNoWriMo

No, it’s not a Simpsons reference. Its the National Novel Writing Month. It’s a support community for writing a complete (50,000 words) novel in the month of November.

I signed up because I think giving this a go will be entertaining and a good challenge now that the MA is done. I’m sharing because I’m sure that I have at least one friend who needs a push to just sit down and write. This is fast drafting at it’s best.

Leave a comment to let me know if you decide to join in the insanity.

blogs, community

Creating the system

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I’ve been spending time thoroughly enjoying following the links from people I follow on Twitter on my laptop instead of the tiny screen of my Blackberry. Today I followed the link Neil Gaiman posted on his feed to his blog post. In it he talks about how all of us online are learning how to interact in this community we’re creating as we go along.

Then I read Amanda Palmer’s (a very creative singer and performer) post about why she’s ok with taking fans’ money. In it she lays out this explanation:

artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art.

artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye.

artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.

unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve surely noticed that artists ALL over the place are reaching out directly to their fans for money.
how you do it is a different matter.
maybe i should be more tasteful.
maybe i should not stop my concerts and auction off art.
i do not claim to have figured out the perfect system, not by a long shot.

BUT … i’d rather get the system right gradually and learn from the mistakes and break new ground (with the help of an incredibly responsive and positive fanbase) for other artists who i assume are going to cautiously follow in our footsteps. we are creating the protocol, people, right here and now.

What stood out to me, besides her very logical explanation, is her comment about being part of the group adding to the foundation of the system we will leave behind too. So I started thinking about being a part of this creative team, and how I’ve always been fascinated by the lives and stories of those who have created the art from times before. Like the Modernists (note the T.S.Eliot quote in the header of this blog & the Marianne Moore chapter in my thesis). I’ve always wanted to be a part of the group that people point to when they talk about the founders of something. I realize that this is rather narcissistic, but I think most dreams are.

But what I realized is that I am a part of this community shaping the rules. I’m on Twitter, here, I read other blogs, I am connected in lots of ways to the community, which means that in some small way I am amongst the founders. And though  will likely remain among the many nameless in this group, it’s fun to watch and comment on.

authors, community

Little, Brown Podcast Novel

I couldn’t sleep this morning. It may have been the fire alarm that lacked a fire that went off at my friend’s place at 5:45am. I guess beggars can’t be choosers when they’re in hitchhikking mode…

While I was trying to go back to sleep, Scott Sigler tweeted that Little, Brown had invented podcast novels on 23 July 2009. From the article:

“Sarah Shrubb, editorial director of Hachette Digital, said: ‘This is the first time an audio has been serialised in this way, and we’re very excited to be doing something so groundbreaking.'”

What makes this statement really impressive is the fact that Sigler and many others (Mur Lafferty, J.C. Hutchins, James Melzer, Mark Jeffrey to name a very few) have been making at least a part (and for several it’s a large part) of their living off their podcast novels for years now…

And they have very devoted fans who almost instanteously came down hard on the comments for the article decrying the lies put forth.

To be completely fair, the article was not on the publisher’s website, and the quote came from the editor and not the author. And I guess it might be a first for Little, Brown (though I haven’t done any research on that, and I’m not very familar with their publications), which is something that should be celebrated. Readers familar with the new territory techonology has opened should encourage traditional publishers taking steps into this unfamilar territory because they are making some effort to adjust to the new ways they could be engaging readers and publishing books.

And with any first steps, there are bound to be some falls. This first step, because of the quote that accompanies it, seems like this might be one of Little, Brown’s falls. Which is a little sad, since the community they are attemtping to enter is rather brutal and unforgiving of mistakes easily avoided by a simple Google search.

I hope Little, Brown’s stumble and the reader reaction doesn’t prevent them, or other publishers, from attempting this kind of new step again.

authors, blogs, community

Amazing Writing

I have several friends who are much better and more consistent at blogging than I am. I love reading what they write because they are insightful, articulate, entertaining, informative and passionate pieces.

I hope they don’t mind that I’m bragging about them…

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading their work, take a minute and check out these blogs:

Then We Came to the Blog

Laowai Chinese

Crews Family

community, travel

A Broken Ring

So my time in Australia is ending very soon. And I’m very sad. I’ve met so many great friends and reconnected with some that are like family and enjoyed this time tremendously.

And this time around I’ve had one of the best farewells of my life.

I’ve been spending a lot of time this trip with the people at a small church in the heart of the city called Ann St. Church of Christ. It’s a great little church because the best people are there. The heart of the church is with several families who all support the church in their own way. One of the larger families come from one of the Eastern Torres Strait Islands, and on Sunday they bid all of us (because there was a large group from the church I go to at home) by dancing for us. And not like dancing you’d see in a club if you went to one. Like dancing that their family has done for generations.

family dancing

This time of year is when the people and this family do a lot of dancing to celebrate when the first missionaries came to their island and brought the message that God loves people enough to set aside divinity and take on humanity, die, and come back to life to fix the relationship that we broke.

The dancing was beautiful, and what made the dancing even more amazing was the fact that the dancers are all people who are now family. And when I thought that I couldn’t appreciate their generosity and love any more, they taught us all several dances where the dancers have to sit.

So we all (probably around 50 or so people) sat on the floor of the hall in a giant circle. And then the beat started and we all started slapping our thighs and then we started slapping the ground in front of us and the dance just continued from there. And we all laughed and tried our best and had a great time as a family.

And in the midst of this great time, my Australian Iron Ore ring that I’ve had for 4 years broke into several pieces and fell on the ground.

If it had happened anywhere else or at any other time, I would have been incredibly sad because I have connected numerous memories to that ring. But I think because I was surrounded by family having such a great time learning a new dance, the saddness was brief.

Because even though I cannoth possibly ever wear the ring again as intended, I will never forget that I was dancing with family when it shattered. And I will still have the memories because how could I ever forget dancing with family?

a broken ring

community, travel

Alice in Wonderland Moment

I'm around 5'7", the little house I'm in was only a few inches taller, and I had to take the broom off the handle to use it effectively.

This is me working in Eidsvold. It’s the name of the town where this playhouse is located, not the name of the house. The house is probably just under 6 feet if you’re measuring to the very top from the outside. I am around 5’7″. The broom I was using, on it’s handle was probably on the far side of 6 feet.

And I had to use that broom to sweep the cobwebs and spiders out of this play house at the Eidsvold Christian Centre so that the neighbourhood (do we spell this word with a “u”? I guess all this time where people spell the British way has completely confused me…) kids can play here.

Sidenote: I hate spiders. Not to the point of being incapacitated with fear, but still that instant moment of panic when they appear, especially if they end up on me.

I had been working on a different project, and when I went to the man with the plan he gave me this job. And, swallowing my fear and hesitation, I started in on sweeping.

And where I was sure I would be freaking out, I had peace. And when I thought I would die because my back was incredibly sore from bending over to sweep the house out, one of my favorite 3 year-olds came over and started playing in the house just after my friend took this picture. And while I was feeling like something out of Wonderland because I was using a broom too big for me to clean out a house smaller than me, I saw the importance of doing something so simple as sweeping because that ridiculous moment for me provided the local small children a clean place to come and create their own Wonderland moments.

community, travel

Australian Sport

I counted up the time I’ve spent in Australia over the last few years and it comes to roughly 4 1/2 months. Which makes me someone who is very familiar with, but no where near an expert on, Australian culture. But I wouldn’t have to be an expert to get that Australians love sports.

In the four trips that I have made here I have been to 2 Australian Rules Football games (GO LIONS!) and 1 Rugby game. I’ve seen several State of Origin games on TV here (GO MAROONS!) and watched part of a cricket match, part of a soccer game, and a tiny bit of Wimbledon this year. Rugby is generally on TVs here if the interaction is informal, and if it isn’t Rugby it’s some other sport. Most every kid plays on some organized sports team, and everyone knows how to play some sort of football (Rugby or Aussie Rules) and that’s the pick-up game that happens in nearly any venue.

This might be why there are parks on nearly every corner.

I knew before this trip here that a part of Australian identity is found in their sports. What I learned this trip is a little of the history of the sporting venues around Brisbane.

I was told by one of the guys here, whose family comes from the islands of the coast to the north called the Torres Strait Islands, that most of the sports venues were gathering places from before the time the British moved to the land. These were places of great importance for various reasons, either because the location had abundant water or because it held spiritual meaning or it provided the right type of meeting area. One of the locations has gained importance because it marks the site of one of the slaughters of the indigenous people in the area. He explained what each location had meant and what sport is played on the land now.

And along with the sadness I feel with any story of one culture attempting to erase another and write over what was perceived as wrong or bad, I saw that the locations were still set aside as gathering places. The palimpsest in these areas is easier to see through because the purpose remains despite the tragedy and sorrow that has occurred – these are places that bring people together. Because little else in Australian culture brings people together like their sports – even people who go for opposing sides come together in generally friendly rivalry (though occasionally more serious) for the love of the game.

Getting to really understand some of the sports here has been one of my favorite aspects of the trip this time around. And I think that it has been one of the best ways that I’ve been able to get to know people and connect with them, because Australian sports is where we come together.

Rugby Try