Normal posts about general creativity and exploring the revisions and re-writes I'm currently doing to Concrete Operational should resume here shortly, in the mean time here's some things that I have collected using my Google reader over the last seven days. It's like my board for digital clippings, it's what I will often refer to for inspiration.

Dates: 25/06/09 - 02/07/09

• Thom Puckey

• Supreme MX Sunglasses

• Buried machines, ice tunnels, stratigraphic euphoria

• A Writer Asks

• Build an Insanely Great Web Service

• Horizon

• Blast #3

• Shine Flashlight

• Balcon II

• The greatest propaganda journal of the USSR

• Photo

• Jaws 1

• The purpose of a book cover

All is safe for work.

Okay, a few things. This blog isn’t dead, I’ve just been very busy both with the day job and the project. I’ve been writing and making a lot of revisions to the novel with one hand, taking care of admin and packaging solutions and graphics design ideas and all sorts of stuff with the other. This has left me little time to blog in my evenings, and as a consequence I’ve let myself drop off.

Now, I didn’t want this blog to become a set of links, but in the mean time, before I start video blogging regularly about the project, I will be doing just that, and hopefully some other stuff in between. Basically, I’m going to be doing these 'Starred Inspiration,’ posts whenever I get the chance and in which, I will post a selection of links to things I like and have made me think during the previous week or two weeks or few days or whatever. As the theme of this blog is now the very board, 'Creativity' hopefully some of what I'll be spurging here will be of some use to the readers I get and anyone else who comes along.

Fortunately I have a most excellent job that allows me to be online all day, during the course of which I peek at my RSS feed and ‘star’ certain items in my Google reader to look over whenever I need inspiration. These are some of the things that inspire me and make me think and may give you ideas an inspiration as well.

Week 11/06/09 - 18/06/09

• HW Gould, ‘Wanduta (Red Arrow), a Dakota (Sioux)

• Just Another Day Here In The Future

• Soviet Punks

• The New Yorker’s Strange Take on Creative Writing Programs

• Dhear One Illustrations

• Whoever Rules the Sewers Rules the City

• This just kicked the ass of my eyeballs.

• 2009 Media Kit in Progress: Why Make One?

• Major Publisher Simon & Schuster Succumbs to Siren Song of eBooks

• Japan Completes Life-Sized Gundam Statue

• Rosson Crow oil paintings

• Paul Strand, ‘Wall Street’ 1915

• Wieslaw Walkuski, Danton movie poster, 1993

• Idea: The Outlet Wall

• Dushi

• Another Cosmonaut Painting

So, as is vitally important with these services, it's ease of use. Now on this front, CreateSpace has both good and bad points. Firstly, you do the entire design by yourself, to specific measurements that, in some instances, they can provide you as a template PDF for import into Photoshop or Indesign. I say some instances, because it's not all. I for instance, chose the difficult route, as always, and opted for a 'Special print size' which meant they could not provide a pre-built template for me. But no problem, after I'd worked out the spine thickness with the information they provide on paper and ink thickness, I was ready to rock.

Basically, if you like design, this one is perfect, because, unlike Lulu, and Blurb, you can fully render your idea in your piece of design software, export as PDF, and you get exaclty what you design. Literally, exactly what you give them. This is because they provide you with very clear bleed and cut space parameters. So, whatever you design, you get, and the print quality is great. As you can see in the image below, I've got big solid red and yellow sections, and the ink distribution and quality is far superior to that of Lulu.

Now, the inside. This is the same, they require a PDF with embedded fonts, and you get exactly what you give them, which is great. This time around I didn't spend ages on the design and typography of the inside, but for the final product you can guaruntee I'm going to go to town on in and I'll get exactly what I give them.

Couple of other things, the front cover is still laminate which means it's a bit of a finger print magnet, but seems at the moment better quality than both Lulu and Blurb. I've been carrying it in my side satchel for a week or so now as I do to test out duribility and it's standing up to a good beating. The page paper quality is also better than Lulu, although about on par with that of Blurb.

Finally, I think the best thing about Createspace, and the reason why I'm going to be using it, is the quality of service you're getting alround. For starters, you get listed on Amazon instantly and receive all the benefits that that brings. Secondly, you get a barcode and ISBN number without paying any extra costs. Thirdly, the prices for customers are the most competitive out of the three I've tried. Fourth, you get optional 'premium' services to bring down the cost dramatically for bulk orders. Fifth, you get an option for your own E-Store, and the option to have the novel downloadable for the Kindle. So it's all there really. Oh and finally, I had a few questions when it came to bulk ordering and postal costs etc, I sent questions and got answers, like they guaruntee, within 24 hours and they were great. I even emailed to say how impressed I was with the responses and got another email back saying 'Anytime!' which was nice.

So, all in all, I'm going to go with CreateSpace over Lulu, although the reduced rates on bulk orders for Lulu are attractive, all the other services, the paper quality and sizes as well as stability and professionalism that Amazon brings tip the scales for me. Also, after paying $40, for the premium service, you get greatly reduced costs which are highly competative with any other service out there anyway.

I'm going to do a comparison post of all three services with a bit of a table and stuff as well, just for easy reference by people in the future. Hope this was helpful.

In regards to the blog as well, I'm going to get back into the habit of one post per week now. Loads to update on regarding the self publishing project as a whole, and I want to get back involved with the online writing community at large.

Now on to Lulu, the big one. Really,  at the moment Lulu is the middle ground market leader when it comes to P.O.D. They're getting most of the hype, and a lot of customers. Personally, I think their distribution networks are set, they've got reasonable prices and so I just needed to see their product. I have to say for blogger disclosure that Lulu have principally Lulu have agreed to give me reduced rates on Operation Concrete, however, for this test product, I did pay full price as anyone would normally.

Okay, so their range of books is pretty comprehensive, but for my liking too big. Blurb have a really good 4.75" by 7.75" size, which I thought was a great size for paperback novel. Now, Lulu on the other hand, has a great range, but the smallest, biggest one they've got is actually too big for my liking. So I went with their smallest, 'Pocket size' which is  4.25" x 7" so not a massive drop really.

Their software, this was a better experience for the text side of things by far. All your editing is done in whatever your wordprocessing programme is, converted to PDF and uploaded. This proved all round to be a much more pleasent way of doing things. Their cover design process however was a pain. Maybe it was just me, but I couldn't find the specifications for their bleed measurements. They had resolution of image, but bleed was none existant, which meant you'd have to create an image, upload it, see if it fit in the bleed margins, if it didnt, edit it with guess work and re-upload. This was a pain in the arse truth be told, but I got around it eventually.

So here's the novel.

Operation Concrete - From lulu.com

It looks pretty good actually. The paper quality is slightly less than that of Blurb, but the pricing is also cheaper. Overall I'm pretty happy with the product and I'm almost 100% sure I'm going to go with these guys to do the project with. However, the cover is laminated, which makes it prone to finger prints and gives it a slightly cheap look.

The final P.O.D service that needs trying is Create Space by Amazon. Those guys seem like the most pro-service you can use, but we'll see how easy they are and how good the product is soon hopefully.

In other exciting news, I did a reading as part of Oxford Fringe festival's 'new voices' talk, and I pulled a bigger crowd than Jeffery Archer, how awesome is that?

This isn’t as easy as it sounds though, because when you start thinking about building a website for something that you’re ultimately marketing to sell, a collaborative media project like Operation Concrete and all that is contained within, you have to start thinking about a brand. You’ve got a product, you need a brand for people to make clear associations with what you're doing in their heads.

Now, years ago, you needed tonnes of money, lots of man hours and serious knowledge and expertise to build a brand. Today, like most things, the cost of implementing a brand has dropped considerably due to a number of factors. Key one’s are the incredibly low cost of publishing content online, and the facility to market yourself with other consumers easily and quickly with little cost, again, online.

But it’s not all that easy. I essentially had to brainstorm the brand for Operation Concrete, which has been an interesting undertaking. Years ago I put together a small music magazine in my home county of Cheshire in the Northwest of England, so I’ve had a dabble at this before, but this time I wanted something more than just a text based font logo. So, I went to the drawing board, I scoured dozens of art and typography base blogs and started making clippings. I decided on a few basic elements fairly quickly;

• The colours involved had to be bold and impactful and kept to a minimum
• The design, whilst looking good should essentially be kept as simple as possible
• I’m currently mad about Helvetica and want to use that font

So, I dusted off my old copy of InDesign from my magazine days, and got to work. I love this stuff, the design side of thing is really interesting and I evolved a concept of lines, you can see below in the images, or go to the full size image Flickr gallery.

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10.

As you can see, there’s a definite evolution, these are the main 11 designs out of dozens and dozens, I’ve also missed out all the really bad ones that came right at the start, they were atrocious. I love the process of taking some key elements though and just playing around with them until you finally land on something you’re happy with. I just jumped on MSN, showed the ideas to a few people, got some ‘that’s cool,’ ‘that stands out,’ ‘I don’t like that idea,’ type comments and landed on the concept below.

Now, I’ve seen the lines thing done before, but it’s not ‘owned’ by anyone. This means there’s not a specific brand associated with it, so I won’t be infringing on anyone, and I won’t be mixed up with anyone. Also, with the Operation Concrete moniker, I had to avoid looking like the OC television show, so I decided on three colours, super ridged and very bright. Total opposite of the OC, and conveys the general idea behind what I want to achieve. If you’re bold and stand out, you can achieve what you want.

I’d say, if you’re looking at designing your own brand around your novel and or project for launch just follow a few basic steps:

• Bullet point your key elements of what you want to achieve in with key words,
• Understand the colours you enjoy, and the ones that you want associated with you
• Learn a little bit about typography and design by reading some tutorials
• Horde as many design and typography clippings as you can to get ideas
• Splash out for some decent software like Illustrator or inDesign

The website is officially live now I’ve finally settled on how I want everything to look. Operation Concrete is there, the first video blog post is also online, albeit not as good a quality as I was hoping, but I’m waiting to hear back about sponsorship from Canon before I spend my own money on equipment. So, I’ll be video blogging a lot more from here on in, interviewing those involved, showing how the whole process is evolving and hopefully creating a resource for people to get some cool information from about self publishing and print on demand services.

It’s relatively understandable though, I can see how they only want the best of the best to get the money, so it takes time, effort and patients, as anything good in life does. Without naming names I recently talked with an Arts Council rep at a friends exhibition launch and she actually admitted there are problems and concerns with and over the application process and the difficulty that it contains.

Anyway, one of the points they make in the how to apply form that’s available relates to sponsorship and other sources of income. They "expect" an applicant to raise at least 10% of the final budget from other sources, and say that during 2006/2007 successful applicants raised on average 65% of their final budget from these other sources.

Now, 65% of £5000 is £3250, and at the start of a project that sort of figure can be a little daunting to say the least. I can easily see a lot of people dropping the thought of applying on that basis alone.

Anyway, must remain positive. Personally, things have been going pretty well on this front, so I'll share some tips. My skills as a marketer / PR type person mean I can effectively plan out what I need, how much it’s going to cost, who I need to talk to to get it, how much I need it to cost, and finally, how can what I’m doing benefit them, how can I sell this into them.

At the moment I’m currently talking to a number of brands to get reduced rates on all aspects of the project;

1. Lulu are open to producing the novel and picture book at a reduced rate,
2. The oxford editors are willing to help me with the proof reading, which costs inordinate amounts.
3. The vibe bar, where the launch and exhibition are going to be held, are giving me a reduced rates
4. Area 18 studios at which the music will be produced, are doing the same
5. The very awesome Mikey has built the website and helped me out with development for a pittance
6. I’m waiting to hear from Canon to see if they’re interesting in lending me some high quality recording equipment for the video blog and possible book trailer

So, it’s going pretty well at the moment, I think the biggest piece of advice I can give in this regard is simple; if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Thick skin in this sort of environment is essential but my general ethos when it comes to anything from getting interviews when I was my uni magazine’s music section editor, to getting advertisers when I was running my own mag, is carpet bomb the fuck out of it. Just talk to as many people as possible all the time and don’t count on one single thing or person. I can be a bit bad at this sometimes as I tend to get too excited about things and forget to keep talking to people, but I soon remember when someone drops out, why I shouldn’t have relied on that single contact.

When I mentioned before about selling the idea into a potential sponsor, it sounds basic, but that’s just what you have to do. As in life, you have to convince people that what you can offer them is a good thing and will be beneficial to their cause, on the phone, via email, in person, you have to believe in what you’re doing. It’s basic marketing 101, but it’s apparently a crucial part of applying for an arts council grant, In fact, it’s expected of you.

Below I’ve put down an excerpt of how I’m trying to make potential sponsors realise the benefits of getting involved, hopefully, if you’re using this as a resource, it’ll give you some ideas.

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What you’re doing – Start by opening with the detail of what you’re putting together

Operation Concrete is a collaborative media project that I’m putting together. It’s to launch my first novel, Concrete Operational, and it’s going to involve a whole lot of awesomeness. I’ve put everything into quick bullet points below to explain just what it is.

• As mentioned the project is to self publish and launching my first novel, 'Concrete Operational' utilizing the social media, via a collaborative media project

• I aim to show that self publishing via print on demand services is not only completely legitimate, but is not a second class version of publishing that many think it to be

• I aim to have five bands and five artists creating content around themes explored in the novel; jealousy, fate, madness, celebrity, etc

• There will be a launch night at Vibe Bar in Shoreditch, London, just off Bricklane (http://www.vibe-bar.co.uk/). It’s got a 250 capacity that I aim to fill with everyone from the public to publicists, artists, musicians, A&R, industry types, creative’s and so on

• After the launch there will be a seven day exhibition where the art creations will be held, and the music of the project will be played and available for people to listen to alongside excerpts from the novel

• The launch will ultimately be launching the packages for sale around the project, this is done on a tiered basis, and includes, an initial run of about 800-1000 .

Tier 1 – ‘Full package‘ – Novel, audio CD, art picture book, DVD 'making of' and possible ‘book trailer’, and USB stick with all digital media

Tier 2 - All parts of package available for separate, individual purchase via POD services

Tier 3 - All media available online for free to download with donation option
What the benefit to you is – now how all this can benefit the potential sponsor

Promotion and advertising are the two key benefits to you helping out with the project through sponsorship. Essentially there are multiple fields through which your brand will be associated with a highly professional, individual and creative project that is exploring a new face of book publishing

• Above the line – traditional means of promotion will be utilised as you would expect with a book release. Packages will be sent to all of the usual and unusual outlets to gain column inches
  • In this regard, your name will be in a number of highly visible areas and in multiple press releases, for instance, in the novel, in the picture book, in the inlay of the CD, on the website, on posters, banners and flyers that will be promoting the launch and exhibition and at the exhibition itself

• Below the line – Social media and digital outlets will be utilised to the highest degree with blogger outreach, competitions, forum interaction, to create conversation and buzz throughout the space
  • In this regard, your name will still be in all the same places as mentioned, but promoted in a digital format, with the digital press release highlighting your sponsorship

So hopefully, you can see, from a small amount of outlay, your involvement will push your brand in online and offline portals, with an association with the project.

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This is very basic, if you want to get really technical you want to start involving some serious numbers, the sort of thing that’s typically called ‘equivalent media value’, which is what someone would have spent if they’d just bought advertising. Like I said though, it's a few tips to help if you've never had any experience in this field before. As an artist you can sell yourself, but selling a project is sometimes a bit different.

This isn’t a message or speech you have with a potential sponsor on the first round of communications either, make sure they even do project sponsorship in the first place, and introduce yourself first of all.

That’s my take anyway and it’s been working fairly well so far. People will tell you different probably, I’ve got no formal education in marketing, but the basics are easy to pick up, just lay out an argument for how awesome you and your project are and don’t leave any holes, know how to argue your point and don’t give in, be your own Gordon Gekko.

This is the first of many posts, my initial thoughts on the whole process really. Hopefully video blogs – depending on sponsorship which I’ll talk about in my next post – on the subject will be coming as well, including, how I’m going about applying, what resources are available and just how difficult it is, etc.

I’d like this blog to become a bit of a resource for future applicants. As helpful as the ‘how to apply document is,’ you can tell it’s been written by committee and passed on to a copywriter. Not necessarily by someone who has gone through the process, whilst they are actually going through it.

So far it’s been daunting, as the saying goes, ‘the hardest thing is getting started’ and that’s no lie. There’s three basic elements:

1. The application form comes in at 41 pages and as you’d expect, needs some serious detail including all budgetary requirements, down to the last penny.
2. On the side of that you need a minimum of 2000 word proposal document, which details everything you’re doing and want to achieve, with who and why.
3. Then there’s personal CV and a few other little things like that.

So there’s no time for messing about. Once you’ve got it handed in it’s six weeks before you get a reply and the chances of you being successful are 50/50, although, personally I like those odds.

Starting at the beginning, there’s a bit of a flow chart at the bottom of the post, that I’ve put together off the back of the amount of time and work I’ve put into it so far – i.e. not much. You can get a bigger version by clicking on the image.

So, as you can see, there’s a few basic elements you have to be thinking about from the start. Then every one of these things potentially has an impact on the other thing, they’re all interlinked around a tight budget, people and yourself that you’re trying to pull together. It’s tough.

There's some general pointers as well, which, with my project, I immediately tick off. I’ve heard about these from a few sources that have either worked with, or won Arts Council money previously, so consider these at the same time;

• Collaborative project –How many different art forms does your project bring together? Mine is art, music and the written word. More mediums = more people interested and 'benefitting' from your project.

• Sponsorship – How much money can you raise on your own two feet. This will need to be about 50% of your overall budget from what I've experienced so far.

• Environmental –The Arts Coucil are big on it being as environmentally sound as possible, so do your best to consider that at all corners.

• Benefital to the public – This is the main point really, who will benefit from your project, they ask for exact numbers in the application form, so consider this all the time.

I’m at the start of the real hard work now, I seem to have been saying ‘I’m at the start’ over and over again, and I keep achieving things and it still remains the start, but that’s the way it is. It’s one big hill that until you’re on top of, you still have to climb, there won’t be any intermittent part from what I can tell.

But I've actually got the ball rolling now, the hardest part is figuring out, ‘where to start’ I literally had no idea. I needed a venue to host the launch night and exhibition, but you can't get that without the bands, and vice versa. You can't get the money without the whole thing basically being in place, but I can’t get things in place and booked without the money. It's difficult, but I'll be addressing every point as I go along.

There’ll be loads more posts on the application process from here on in, and the project as a hole. Next steps include building a brand around my product, which will be interesting. Oh, and the whole, getting bands, artists involved, nailing sponsorship, budgeting everything and revising / proofing the novel itself.

But we're moving, and it feels awesome.

One of the things I need to happen as I go ahead with this, is obviously the product of the novel. The first ‘Tier 1’ package will obviously contain a hardcopy version of the novel, and the ‘Tier 2’ individually purchasable stuff will need it as well, so I thought I’d try out Blurb, and give the service a review.

Two major points will basically sum up the process and service;

1. The software you use to convert your book into a pre-formatted piece for them to print is absolutely terrible.
2. The end product, after spending some time with their terrible software, is totally awesome.

I’ve added a set of images to my Flickr account, and there’s a couple below here.

If you’ve not heard of Blurb before, it’s a service that allows you to transport your novel idea, photo book, flick book, comic book, whatever you’ve got, from a text file on your computer, to a professionally printed actual product. There are also some small promotional tools available through the site, which means people can order the book as and when they like, on a ‘print-per-order’ basis, and you can even make some money out of it.

The site works well, it’s easy to navigate, log in etc. The software called ‘Booksmart’ that you HAVE to use to covert your text file into a pubishable book however, is awful. It’s simply not made for novels or anything of any particular length. It’s buggy as hell and crashes constantly.

I downloaded the software and ‘imported’ my 75k text file into it, the formatting was hammered all over the place and the programme stopped working all together after about 30 seconds. In the end I had to paste each chapter into a notepad doc, remove and then add the correct formatting, then paste it into the software. It took about 5 hours to do the whole novel, a bit of a waste of time, but like I said, the end product is actually awesome. You'll notice if you look at the other photos in my Flickr stream, that the back page 'blurb' is messed up and cut off. That's my fault partly, because I decided to use an image on the back page, so it would be the same fonts, colours etc, and it's partly to do with the rubbish software, that does not show the bleed lines correctly.

As you can see from the pictures, the novel looks totally professional, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and an off-the-shelf published novel. This is totally great, I love it, and the extra services offered by the site, like being able to mark up the price to earn money, are great as well.

Pricing wise, it’s totally fare, for one, standard size, perfect bind, black and white, 75k word, 200 page novel, it cost £8, and you get economies of scale depending on how many hundreds you want printed. Now, £8 is the regular price of most novels, so it’s not as cheap as getting a producer to mass produce, but for me, it’s a totally reasonable price.

I think the service is pretty cool, they just need to get their software sorted out, updated and running well, once they’ve done that, it'll be awesome.

Any other services like this? Lulu is one, I’ve not tried it out yet as it seems much more of a professional outfit. You upload your files and they seem to format it, and you get an ISBN number and digital distribution and your own personal store. I’ll give it a go soon I think.

For this posts ‘Cementum Collective’ I’d like to introduce you to Olly Moss. If you’ve been on the internet, and I’m assuming you have, you may well have seen some of his designs, drawings, sketches. Seriously, they’re amazing. His portfolio website rocks, his flickr account recently breached 1million views, and his ‘Games as books’ collection of late gave me a massive smile. Check his stuff out, and even buy his t-shirts at threadless and follow him @ollymoss.

• 5 UK bands – emerging, but appreciated and followed acts
• 5 UK Artists – emerging, but appreciated and followed practitioners
• 1 UK novelist – me

WHEN

• September 2009 – exact date to be settled on

WHERE

• London – exact location to be settled on

WHAT:

• 1 UK mini-festival – to feature all the bands and art, Operation : Concrete
• 1 UK exhibition – 5 to 10 days to exhibit visual and sonic art forms
• 1 Book trailer – to promote
• 1 top entry level product package – Boxed, including; novel, audio CD, post card art, DVD trailer and making of including interviews etc, USB stick containing all content, x500 initial run
• 1 middle entry level product package – Novel and USB stick containing all content, x500 initial run
• 1 bottom entry level product package – Free digital versions of everything

HOW:

• Me – promotions & funding
• Sponsors – products & services
• Arts council grant – specialist advice & funding

IN BETWEEN

• Awesome girlfriend – be as awesome to her as possible
• Awesome friends – be as awesome to them as possible
• Awesome job – work as hard at as possible
• Blog – document all, continue with poetry and photography

ORDER:

1. Find bands
2. Find artists
3. Find venues
4. Find suppliers
5. Find sponsors
6. Determine costs
7. Pitch to arts council
8. Begin to create
9. Pull content together
10. Launch

∞ Be ace to everyone That’s it in a nutshell, I have to start somewhere, it may as well be with this list. I like lists; they prove to help stir great ambition and drive. The prospect is daunting, but I’m full of vitriol and spirit.

Getting started is always the hardest part. Once I’m in there, once I’ve got going, the snowball effect takes over and everything gains momentum, but starting that roll, there-in lies the key, and the difficulty.

If you’re reading this and feel you could have something to contribute, please leave a comment or email me at ricgalbraith [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m going to need all the help I can get with this one, from all the very ace people that I’ve come to know over these years.

Ready?

With all the mainstream press Twitter has been getting lately and all the questions I’ve been asked as to why I use the service, I thought I’d do a quick post on it.

If you don’t know what twitter is, it’ll take you 2 seconds to figure it out by simply visiting the site, but in short, it’s a social media tool that lets you update, in 140 characters, what you are doing at any given moment. The people who follow you can then keep appraised of what you’re up to, all the time.

The thing is, it’s evolved into so much more than that, it’s original remit, or mandate, was to ask you, ‘what are you doing?’ and you to simply update what exactly that was. It’s gone far beyond that though, it’s a conversational tool, it’s access to the minds and thoughts and brain custard of hundreds of thousands of people.

One of the best descriptions of it I recently heard was, ‘it’s like being at a party and being able to speak to everyone at the same time’ which I think is awesome. It’s a connection to a live stream of life.

And that’s why I use it.

I don’t watch TV, I don’t even own a TV, I stream programmes occasionally, or download southpark, but that’s about it. When I tell this to people, they’re full of horror, how do I get by without TV? We’ll I’ve got something better, I’ve got my aeroplane, it’s Twitter, a 24/7 show of 300 people that I follow, it’s like the greatest soap opera that’s ever been created. It’s a direct tap into the lives, thoughts, worries, loves, perils, adventures, photos, songs, tastes, troubles and doings of people I actually care to think are interesting.

And it’s all real.

At least I think it is, I hope it is. The point I’m trying to get at? Well, Twitter is a great inspirational tool for a writer, it feeds you constantly with the thoughts of people all over the world. It’s literally brimming with content to be absorbed and digested and experimented with. To grab at, to kneed into a doughy ball, flatten out with some perfectly awesome insight of your own and mould back into prose.

It’s a direct tap into the heads of great people.

It’s the perfect medium to get recommendations, to ask questions of yourself and your work and bounce ideas around. The internet has always been great for this, I remember using ICQ 10 years ago to ask my high chool pals in the evenings what they thought of short stories I wrote. Now, with the likes of Twitter, you’re able to sit in a chatroom of thousands and ask, ‘what do you think of this?’ and with a bit of luck you’ll get a bit of feedback.

In short, for a writer like myself, Twitter is great, it’s my own personal, hand picked soap opera of the thinkers, creative’s, geeks and misfits that I follow. It’s a place to share ideas and share what you’re doing. It’s better than TV, because it’s a conversation, it’s two way, it’s what the social media is all about and it has introduced me to a plethora of awesome people.

Twitter is my aeroplane.