Chances Are, You Suck

Do you know that feeling? The one when you’re showing images to someone (perhaps an editor that you were hoping to work with) and you get to that picture, the one that looked perfectly acceptable moments before, but as soon as you show it, you’re filled with regret.

Yeah, I hate that feeling.

If I am posting something that late, it is doubtful that the piece has gone through enough of a proofreading process to be worthy of posting. Most likely, I am just trying to pad my post count because I have been far too quiet as of late and that is never a good reason. I would rather post nothing than a half-edited piece of sub-par work.

Last night, I broke my rule. I posted some flash fiction that I had been playing with throughout the day and went to bed. I am regretting that decision this morning. It wasn’t because the piece is especially atrocious (although the more I read it, the more atrocious it becomes). It just feels disjointed and incomplete. I even pulled it for a little bit but put it back as reminder to myself of what not to do.

At first, I was worried that my reaction was driven by a fear of sharing my work, but I don’t think that that is the case anymore. After the workshops I did last year, that fear is largely gone. In fact, of all the things I miss, I find that I miss those workshop critiques the most. Sure, it wasn’t always easy to watch something I had spent a lot of time and energy on get picked apart. There were even times when I felt the critiques missed the mark. It didn’t really matter, though. I was getting honest insight into my work by critical and competent readers. Those critiques are fundamental for anyone who wants to become a better writer and I feel lucky to have gotten them.

I know there are a few sites that offer forms of critique, but I haven’t been really impressed with much of what I have seen.

So I’ll put this out there:

• If you happen to have an online workshop that is looking for people or are interested in being part of one, drop me a note or leave a comment below. If there is enough interest. I will set one up. In fact, I may already have a place in mind if the site owner is okay with it.
• If you live in the Twin Cities and know of or are interested in a live workshop, I am definitely up for that as well. I am still finding all the parts of the community here and would love a chance to get involved in one way or another.

I am not sure who much of response I am going get here, but at least this is a start. I promise it will be better than my last post!

I wake up and go to work
just like I did yesterday,
just like I will tomorrow.

It’s another in a long line of learned behaviors, programmed rotes, and religious rites designed for my edification, demanding obedience.

And do I obey.

After all, what am I? Another automaton: low on power and slowing as the lights dim.

I sold out. I traded up. I got ground down. And I caved in.

I broke.

So I spend another 12 hour day staring into a screen, talking into microphone, and pressing the same buttons over and over again.

I think, “Holy shit, I’m George Jetson. So where’s my jet car briefcase? “

And I’m not a cog. Cogs are losers.

I’m a sprocket, bought and paid for.

And while I bitch and press my buttons, somewhere across the pond a six year-old plugs poisoned plastiforms into metal and prays it’s only his baby teeth that keep falling out.

In the Jetsons, everyone was the same color and spoke the same language. No one was poor. No one was sick. No one was suffering.

It’s hard to see people suffer and crawl when you’re flying so high.

If only I had my briefcase.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Microsoft has changed a lot. I am no longer embarrassed to dual boot and I do find MS Office 2010 to be a fantastic suite of applications. In a lot of ways, Microsoft has done a lot to repair an image that needed it. That impetus for change didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen without an economic incentive. The same is true of Apple. If you want to help stop the proliferation of dumb licenses, help make the competition better. I am not asking you to code. I am not asking you to become a software designer. I am not even asking you to switch operating systems. I am just suggesting you look at the tools available and decide what works the best not just in the short term, but for the long haul. Use the open tools that are available or push your vendors to create standards-compliant products that can compete.

I know it is hard to compete with a free product. Then again, I don’t really think Apple’s iBook Author software is free. It is, potentially, the most expensive software available today. It pre-emptively takes full commercial control of any creative work designed in the software. I keep reading these arguments that try to liken it to a publisher buying a book and sharing the profits. Some point to Amazon’s publishing its restrictions that I would also strongly suggest everyone pay careful attention to. That said, as far as I am aware, Amazon isn’t dictating licensing based on a software package. I am able to create my work using whatever software I see fit. I can then shop my work to other publishers or sell my creation myself. Amazon only cares when they are the method by which I choose to sell, and that (like choosing Apple as a channel) is purely the author’s prerogative. More realistically, Apple’s stance would be like Microsoft demanding the right to sell and publish every commercial novel that was written with MS Word.

Hmmm….on second thought, let’s not give Microsoft any ideas. I am not so sure they have changed that much.

I know that Lanier has his axe to grind and that is all well and good. We all do. I even agree with most of what he has to say. It is dangerous to frame any discussion in regard to regulating the Internet purely in terms of black and white. This is especially true when we are talking about battles between corporate interests. Several of the companies that oppose SOPA have less than stellar track records when it comes to supporting an open Internet community. In their continued attempt to enact a form of modern day enclosure on the content their users create they often end up working against the very ideals that first allowed them to grow and prosper. He and I have no disagreement in this regard, whatsoever.

Since we agree that much of the opposition to SOPA comes from companies with specific economic goals, I have to admit I was surprised by the direction his piece took. Lanier’s assumption that the argument against SOPA is somehow about the maintenance or worship of “free” content is completely off the mark. In fact, I would say just the opposite. Opposition to SOPA is about making sure that content creators, of any size, can continue to reach users. For some, this is merely about switching corporate gatekeepers where “new media” behemoths take the place of “old media” behemoths. For others, it is about preserving a creator’s ability to openly share content free from any gatekeepers without the fear of costly lawsuits that would essentially eliminate any chance they would have to share their work.

Google and Facebook do not oppose SOPA because they are the “good guys.” They oppose SOPA because it’s costly. That’s it. They may blanket us in the pretty rhetoric of openness and freedom but, ultimately, they’re talking about the bottom line. In all honesty, they probably could survive a post-SOPA world albeit in much different capacity. They have the financial strength to create licensing agreements with the MPAA and RIAA. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.

The Internet is bigger than Google or Facebook. It is bigger than any single company and, personally, I hope it always remains that way. In this case, the profits of these powerful companies align with the best interests of the Internet community and that works in everyone’s favor. We already know that this won’t be the case forever, though. Indeed, that is why I am heartened by the very thing that seemed to scare Lanier: the backlash against companies that supported SOPA. I am ardent supporter of free speech, but free speech involves responsibility. I believe organizations and people have a right to choose where they spend their money. If a company supports practices that I disagree with, I have the right to not patronize that company. I also have the right to share that disagreement with others. Is this behavior the beginning form of some sort of orthodoxy? Perhaps, it is. Is it any different than refusing to sign up for a website because you disagree with it polices? Not so much.

Lanier is right in arguing that there needs to be an aggressive look at models of payment for content beyond advertising. Information isn’t free even for those sites that provide content without cost. That’s one of the reasons why Wikipedia spends so much time asking for donations. I agree that we do sometimes get caught up in the “everything must be free” mentality and that there is still a long way to go in providing solid solutions to content creators of all sizes. Blaming “free” content, however, does nothing but play into the hands of those who support measures like SOPA. This not about an Internet without rules where content is merely a pointless commodity to be traded on the nearest torrent site. This is about an Internet where practical and sane content protections do not displace or harm a growing, vibrant, and increasingly important creative community that continues to push our boundaries and the possibilities of what technology and art can do regardless of their size of their pocketbooks or their lobbying firms.

Go here [ https://blacklist.eff.org/ ] to take action!

What he determined was not terribly surprising. Schools with a higher socioeconomic demographics made better use of the wiki technology and more directly targeted that use to student achievement and development. Does this mean these free resources are a problem? Absolutely not, and Reich went on in-depth discussing how the data itself raises more questions than answers both in terms of data collection and analysis. One area of particular note was the need for intra-school research where technology use is evaluated in various economic strata within the same school.

What it does indicate is that we can’t simply expect free resources to suddenly be the panacea to a much deeper problem. It also indicates the need, as Reich mentioned, for targeted and developed educational strategies as opposed to a “dump and hope” method. Without a structure to encourage and develop the skills to utilize material presented, those who might benefit the most will simply continue to be left behind.

Child of the ‘net as I am, I was hoping his presentation would already be available from the Berkman Center. Unfortunately, physics and the duties of interns don’t follow the same schedule. That said, there are several incredible talks already available from their archive [ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive ]. I strongly suggest watching Justin’s talk when it becomes available.

Justin’s blog can be found here: [ http://edtechresearcher.org/ ]. It includes his Wiki Quality Instrument tools used for evaluating educational wikis.

I wrote the first part of that story in a yellow notebook my mother bought me. I wrote in the first person and I was proud because I had just learned what first person meant. It was my fantasy journal, a mixture of pretend and creation that suited me so well at the time.

That summer of that year I went to scouting camp and I brought my notebook with me. I was promised some quiet time and I thought that I might have the chance to write. I was dreaming about being an author, someday, and I imagined that this was how they started. I was young, still thinking about options and possibilities. I forgot about the accommodations: small tents and cots with nosy tent-mates.

There was an argument between myself and another boy from my tent. I can’t tell you what we argued over. The topic is lost to me, dead. I forgot it the instant he sneered and mentioned something I had written in my little yellow notebook. It undid me in a way I never expected. They had taken my story. They trashed something that I had built and loved, and I had no clue what to say or do.

I swore at him. I never swore. I grew up in a household where swearing was unimaginable and I swore. I was so angry there were in tears my eyes and I kept swearing. My tent-mates only found this amusing but it was the most damning act I could think of at the time. I stormed off and from that point forward all I wanted to do was go home.

When I got home, I sealed that little notebook away and I never showed it to anyone. It is lost now. A victim of a childhood spent moving. I quit Scouts. I still wrote but in quiet places where my notebooks were safe.

I still fight with that angry little boy, today. He is my biggest critic. His fear and anger sits in my chest. It is an anchor. It is the reason I still do what I do instead of doing what I love. Every day, I get up and I tell the boy that we have to keep going and we do. He rails and screams and swears and the going is slow and agonizing but we keep going. He lists the failures, the falls, and all the mistakes. He mentions that camp and the sneers and I tell him I am so sorry that happened, but I can’t stay there anymore. So I wake up tomorrow and I try again. I am not sure where this ends up, but I still struggle and that must mean something.

At least, I hope that it does.

I was spoiled in Iowa City. Prairie Lights and the Writers’ Workshop made finding the literary community in that city a breeze and the fact that I was immersed in it for much of my time at college only made it even easier. One of the major lessons I learned in my time there was that great writers come from great communities. We spend our lives learning from one another. Everything that I write is filtered through the lessons and techniques that I learned not only from incredible teachers but from fellow students as well. Without them, my time would have been sorely wasted. In a sense, I believe this is true of all art. It thrives in communities of people. It grows and evolves through rigorous discussion and critique. In Iowa City, I had that and more.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay there, forever. Now, that I am moved and settled in, I start again. I must find that community. My original plan had been to find it at the University of Minnesota’s creative writing program but with the move and the new job and all the chaos of the last year, that deadline slipped away. I may try next year, but I certainly don’t plan to stay idle that entire time. If I do get the opportunity to attend, I would certainly like to have a community of writers and thinkers already there to help me prepare.

Luckily, stores like Micawber’s give me an excellent place to start. Well, that and a wonderful collection of poems by James Wright and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Let’s just say that the visit was more than worthwhile.

If you do know of any local literary hot-spots in the Twin Cities, please feel free to let me know. I am looking forward to forging new connections and building community up here. It is always a challenge getting started, though.