CEZANNE’S CARROT IS PUBLISHING AGAIN! My co editor Barbara Jacksha and I just published new short stories at Cezanne’s Carrot literary journal online, with a redesigned format, changed publishing schedule, and more finely tuned focus on the types of visionary, metaphysical, magical-realism fiction and nonfiction we publish.  Check out the details of the changes.  Read the incredible stories by writers R.Virgil Ellis and Geri Lipschultz that mark our “grand re-opening.”

This blog has kept me extremely busy the past few months.

“What?” you say, “then where are you hiding all the posts I don’t see??”

Well, not just this blog, but several other blogs, as well as all the other riches I’ve discovered in Second Life.

I can hear you now:  “Has this woman gone completely nuts??”

Not yet. But OK, that’s enough dissembling for the moment.

This blog, and all things related to Second Life, have, in fact, indirectly caused my days to be filled to the brim with all the tasks related to the novel I’m currently working on.  Which is why I haven’t taken the time to write many blog posts or do much exploring in virtual worlds.

Oxymoronic, I know.  But let me explain.

I’ve been a writer for almost as long as I’ve known how to scribble a word onto a piece of paper.  My greatest passion has always been to write fiction—short stories, novels, a little poetry.  As of February 2008, I’d written a number of stories and poems, even had some luck with publishing a few.  I was struggling through the umpteenth draft (actually, only the fifth) of what I’ve come to call my apprentice novel.  It wasn’t my first, but it was the first I’d completed and revised enough times to say I’d “crafted” a novel.

In the years before that, when work and life “permitted,” I’d go for stretches where I’d write every day; then I’d stumble through just as many periods, and perhaps longer ones, where I would only think about writing every day. Two and a half years ago, I was at one of my peaks of procrastination, and just about anything could distract me—including my work as a corporate training consultant.

It was under that guise that I decided to explore Second Life.  I’d heard this virtual world was being used as a new medium for training by corporations, and I thought I should find out how I could add it to my training toolkit.

But I’ve come to learn I generally never know what anything is really about.  And SL was definitely not about expanding my training consulting practice, I quickly discovered.

It was about expanding my creative writing.

So thanks to the people I’ve met in SL—good friends, fellow writers, distinguished authors—and to all of the incredible ways Second Life supports writing and the other arts, this virtual world has sparked an acceleration in my writing career unlike anything since I learned how to make stories out of words.

One of Second Life's pleasures--hanging out with a group of writers every Monday

Previous posts on this blog are full of the details of how that happened, and there’s no need to repeat them.  It’s the summary that I’m looking at today, the big picture of how my writing life has blossomed in the wake of discovering the SL writing community.

• I’ve vicariously lived through the roller-coaster experience of having a novel published, thanks to my best friend in SL and writing partner in first life, Cynthia Hand, whose debut novel Unearthly has just gone into production at HarperCollins and will be released next winter.  That experience has given me an incredible education in the publishing business.
• On average, I’ve written at least 5 days out of every week for most of the past two years, even if it was for just a few minutes.
• In addition to the education I’ve received from observing Cynthia’s experience, I’ve learned more about the craft and business of writing from writers in SL in the past two years than in the previous ten, I’d wager.
• I’m about two days away from finishing the third draft of my second novel, the one I hope will be published as my debut novel.

How does that explain my claim this blog has kept me very busy lately?

1. Second Life inspired this blog.
2. This blog inspired me to explore in even more ways how a virtual world like SL could spur my writing.
3. SL’s writing community and the writing friendships there inspired me to write, write, write!
4. Thus this blog has indirectly kept me too busy writing my novel to write blog posts lately.

Is that a convolutedly-good enough excuse for you?  LOL (one of my favorite SL expressions – laughing out loud).

The one thing writers can be almost as creative about as their writing, is their rational-sounding excuses for not writing. It’s ingrained, it’s a habit; I needed one of those excuses to justify working on my novel instead of this blog!  And I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will all be worth it. (I’ll report back on the outcome!)

But I’ll bet you can come up with far more imaginative reasons than that for excusing why you haven’t done something or other.  I’d love to hear them, so please add yours in the comments section and we can LOL together!

Another first for a writer in Second Life: Her original play is being produced in Second Life and, at the same time, staged via streaming media into the real-world theatre she manages.

Artists of all stripes—including writers—are constantly expanding the envelope of what’s possible with their innovations in Second Life.  Now SL resident Lailu Loon, who is Z. Sharon Glantz in “real life,” a Seattle, WA-based playwright and managing director of Seattle’s Open Circle Theater, will use her upcoming production of Oxymoronic Fusion opening April 3 (check out the play’s trailer) to bridge the virtual and real-world stages.

Stage productions have become a staple in Second Life, and the number of original plays premiering in this virtual world is growing.  But as far as I know, this is the first original play to premiere in both worlds at the same time.

The Greek Theater where Oxymoronic Fusion will be performed in Second Life, April 3-11, 2010

“We’re on the ground floor of a new art form that’s still evolving, which will involve both live theater and virtual worlds,” says Lailu Loon, both author and director of Oxymoronic Fusion.  “Eventually it will be mixed, so it’ll be in both worlds.”

Lailu/Sharon has produced previous plays in Second Life, including one that was also performed at the physical world Second Life Community Convention and streamed into SL.  This is her first to go the other way.

Talking to playwright/theater director Lailu Loon (at right) on the set of Oxymoronic Fusion

Lailu/Sharon didn’t write this play for Second Life. In fact, she wrote it years ago—before the virtual world was born.  I suspect the play was waiting for the right time and venue, because even though it is about the physical world, not SL, “it’s focus is on … how belief systems shape reality,” Lailu said—something SL’ers understand quite well!  Even the title is prophetic: “an oxymoronic fusion” is a great description of what virtual world residents do every day!

Lailu calls Oxymoronic Fusion a metaphysical farce, and from what I’ve seen of the script and scene, it’ll be full of good laughs.

It’ll also be full of great examples of how playwrights, as well as cast and crew, do some things quite different in the virtual, versus the physical, world.

For example, the set is much more complex and “magical” than it could be on an “earth stage.”  It’s a cinch to have a crystal ball manifest all kinds of things and images in SL that just couldn’t happen on the physical stage.  And pets that shape-shift? Simple as pie!

But other things that are no-brainers on the physical stage require some high-level technical skills for a virtual one. Consider the simple act of sitting on, say, a couch on the set. In a physical theater, the actor would give barely a thought to that stage direction.  In the virtual theater, this involves writing or finding just the right animation script and having the actor initiating his/her avatar’s sitting animation at just the right time and place.  Using facial expressions on the virtual stage is still near-impossible, but on the other hand, real-world actors can’t instantly pop on and off a physical stage like they can a virtual one!

Ada Radium (over egg) and Lailu Loon (on banana) demonstrate some of the unique features of staging a play in Second Life

SL resident Ada Radius, the primary set designer and cast member, says producing a Second Life play is much more of a team effort for the entire cast and crew.  (Ada has been involved with theater in Second Life for several years.  To read more about her and other members of the case, see the Oxymoronic Fusion blog.)

Working with both the limitations and the opportunities of the virtual stage has been exciting, Lailu says.  She points to a redwood door on one of the sets and says, “We couldn’t possibly afford to buy redwood doors” for a physical stage set.

Another huge benefit is the ability to recruit a cast and crew of professionals and experienced amateurs from around the world.  And for actors with disabilities, a virtual world production is a great outlet.

Playwriting in the Brave New Virtual World

What really intrigues me, though, is how virtual theater affects the entire playwriting process—and will cause major shifts in that process if Lailu’s predictions about the future of virtual theater are correct (and I believe they are).

Lailu tells of how she had to a lot of “on my feet” rewriting to adapt the play to the challenges and opportunities of a virtual stage.  Like delete the scenes involving eating (avatars just can’t eat), pull the focus away from facial expressions and subtle body language, and add cool special effects.

“For writers, even those writing for a different form, the collaborative process that Second Life demands will really help them look at a different way of writing, an interactive way,” she says.  “It forces people to let go of their own preconceived notions … push their limits … find a different way of showing and telling.”

On top of that, for Oxymoronic Fusion, she has to accommodate the needs of both the virtual and physical stages so the play will be meaningful to audiences.

Still, all that is nothing compared to what Lailu sees is the new theatrical art form evolving as a result of virtual worlds.

First: mixed reality plays presented on both the physical and virtual stages at the same time, involving actors in both worlds.  Her next Second Life production will be exactly that, she says.

Further down the line:  interactive theater productions (think dinner theater mysteries combined with virtual games), an art form she believes will attract not just playwrights, but game designers.

The technology for interactive theater isn’t quite there yet, she notes, but it’s evolving. “It’s not playwriting, not screenwriting, not game development, but it involves all of that.”

That should be particularly interesting for playwrights who love to both write and explore/build/create in Second Life. And even for us non-playwright-writers who might have to give this new art form a whirl!

I’d be very interested to hear what you think—does interactive theater spark any ideas?  Are you already doing it?  Please let us know in the comments!

There I stood at the ancient birthplace of my modern life’s passion.  The desert sun seared the air around me, but I shivered with the thrill of standing before the earliest writing known on earth:  massive walls covered with the hieroglyphic alphabet of Ancient Egypt.

I put my hand as close to the wall as I could without touching the carved and painted figures.  A fraction of an inch of space was all that separated me from the work of my colleagues of 5,000 (give or take a few hundred) years ago.  And even though I did not actually touch the letters carved into that stone (to avoid causing more unnecessary wear and tear), I felt a connection to those writers and artists of eons past whom we are only beginning to discover and understand.

Then the questions began zooming through my mind:

• Who were these people who invented the first known system of writing?
• How did they come up with such a sophisticated system?
• And why did it seem to just suddenly appear 5,000-6,000 years ago, practically fully developed?

This past December, I spent three weeks in Egypt, touring a host of ancient ruins, and got not a single inkling of an answer to any of my questions.

What I did acquire was a tremendous sense of awe for these beautiful stories, told in the mystical language of ancient Egypt and engraved on walls and monuments that would keep the words alive for thousands of years – so that I, a modern scribe and story-writer, could catch a glimpse of myself as a teensy link in the immensely long chain of writers through history.

“Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy.”  
~  Marcus Aurelius

A dear friend, novelist Mary Gardner, wrote those words of Aurelius on her holiday cards this year.  When, a few days after I returned from Egypt, I opened Mary’s card and read the quote, I re-experienced the thrilling shivers I felt when I stared at the writings of ancient Egypt.  I realized that the chain of writers in which, for a moment, I saw myself as a link, doesn’t just go back and forth in time, but spreads out in all directions and all dimensions. And it is “whole-y,” which is the original meaning of the world holy.

I began to ponder this interwoven web and the amazing synchronicities and blessings that it generates in just one area of my life – writing.  I thought of the writers and writing teachers I’ve gotten to know over the years, the editors who have helped me and published my work, the connections I’ve made at writing conferences and through my own work as an editor.

As numerous and wonderful as all those connections are, however, my web expanded by leaps and bounds only after I added a link to a different sort of web – the digital Web or cyberspace – and especially, in the past several years, into the amazing web of computer hardware and software that comprise Second Life.

In the few short years of the World Wide Web’s existence, I’ve linked into a vast writing and publishing community previously inaccessible to me.  That community grew even larger when I discovered its niche in Second Life. As a result of SL, I’ve met authors I’ve admired for years and ones whose writing is a newly discovered pleasure.  I’ve become friends with fellow writers from around the world, and in the virtual world, we’ve shared and learned a great deal from each other about our writing in the physical world.

The strands of my writing web have connected me with a host of wonderful people – readers of my blogs, contacts on Twitter and other social media sites, and especially the friends I’ve made in Second Life – friendships that extend beyond the virtual into our physical lives.

But my most amazing realization is that those strands are made of the same raw material that weaves us together with people who lived thousands of years ago:  the written word.

Indeed, every thing and every life ever lived on this planet are interwoven in a vast, ancient, multi-dimensional web; one that exists because of some incredible life force we cannot see, but which is made known to us through the stories that writers have carved in stone, etched in clay, inked on parchment and papyrus and paper, and keyed into electromagnetic memory.

Today I give thanks for all the people I’ve met who’ve helped me become a better writer. But especially, I salute those ancient geniuses of Egypt whose invention of writing initiated the web of writers and words that give my life much of its purpose and joy. I think they would have enjoyed seeing how far their invention has traveled so far.

And I’m grateful for their work – despite the fact they still have given me not a whisper of an answer to any of my questions!

Second Life writers have been brewing up a storm of writing activities lately – both for publication and to support the writing process.

While I’ve been wandering about the ruins of Ancient Egypt the past month (subject of a coming post) and wading through the frenzy of holiday time back home in the U.S., my friends in Second Life have come up with these exciting new opportunities for writers:

“Land” Your Writing in a Beautiful New Literary Journal

The venerable “queen of poets” in Second Life, Persephone Phoenix, and her co-editors Shara Levenque and Huckleberry Hax have released the premiere issue of a new literary journal, Blue Angel Landing, which is available as a book in Second Life, on the Web at the Blue Angel Landing site, and as a printed book from the Lulu self-publishing site.

Premiere issue of Blue Angel Landing lies on the counter at the Blue Angel Poets' Dive.

The name of the publication comes from the Blue Angel Poets’ Dive, the first and longest-running literary bar in Second Life. As Persephone writes, “The virtual dive bar was inspired by venues for poetry open mics in New York City, predominantly Freddy’s Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn, 6th and Dean.  It is a place for poets to meet, read, commiserate, workshop and relax.  Poets at all levels of skill and experience are welcome here and will find a supportive community of writers who strive to improve, share, and encourage each other.”

The first issue of Blue Angel Landing contains poems by 29 Second Life residents who are writers, as well as three illustrations.  And now the second issue has been opened for submissions.  The second issue is open to flash fiction, as well as poetry and artwork.  Writers have until February 15 to make submissions of their “finest quality artwork, poetry and flash fiction for possible inclusion,” Persephone says.

Persephone Phoenix, who is a published poet in real life (though she doesn’t reveal her real name in SL) has been hosting a weekly poets’ open mic on Sundays at Blue Angel since August 2006. (Read more about her and others’ open mics in SL.)

Because Blue Angel Landing is designed to showcase the best work of authors in Second Life, you must submit your writing and artwork from within SL.  So if you’re interested in submitting, be sure to go into Second Life and join The Blue Angel VIP group (read this for more about SL groups).  You can get the specific guidelines from that group profile’s “Notices.”  You can also email Persephone (the “old-fashioned Internet” way!) at blueangelphoenix@gmail.com.

A Dash of Writing Can Lead to (a smidgeon of) Fame & Fortune

Meanwhile, Virtual Writers, Inc. founder Harriet Gaussman has extended until February 1 the deadline for submissions to Milk Wood’s First Annual Holiday Writers’ Dash contest.

The contest accepts prose, short story, flash fiction, or non-fiction of any genre that:

• Is between 100 and 2,000 words long, AND
• Includes all 15 words from a series of “Writers’ Dashes”* she’s organized in Second Life. 
  (The words are:  taxidermist, tendrils, eclectic, asylum, popsicle, smallpox, crimson, blizzard, conspiracy shrinking, violet, savoir-faire, periphrastic, epanorthosis, antiquated, and pestilence – which means the resulting entries should make for some fascinating reading!)

Harriet is offering cash prizes to the best three entries, and will also post them on the Virtual Writers’ World blog.  Writers can submit entries to her via email:  harriet.gausman@googlemail.com.

*The Writers’ Dash is a fun new writing challenge for writers in Second Life. It starts at 10 a.m. Second Life Time (Pacific time zone) every weekday when Harriet sends out the prompt word for the day.  Writers are given 15 minutes to write from that word – so of course, speed and lack of attention to spelling and grammar are of the essence!  They are encouraged to share these “dash” results with fellow “dashers,” many of whom have situated their avatars at the Stone Circle on Harriet’s lovely sim for writers called Milk Wood.

Harriet also runs a thrice-weekly Writers Meet at the Gypsy Camp on Milk Wood (shown in the above photo taken recently) where writers gather for an hour and, well, just write!  The synergy of being around other working writers and sharing the challenges and joys provides a major assist to many writers.  Several of my writer friends in SL won’t miss one of these meets if they can possibly help it!

These are just a couple of the new things coming out of the writing community in Second Life, which seems to grow more diverse and supportive every day in that virtual world.  More to come on that!

Okay, I know I promised this blog would be about writers in the virtual sky of the Internet, but today I must post instead about writers in a different virtual sky – the one not in cyberspace, but “heavenspace,” or whatever you want to call that dimension beyond the physical.

I want to tell you about two writers who both happened to be my cousins, and who were both named Dian/e (a name derived from an ancient Indo-European word meaning “heavenly or divine”), and most important of all, who both gifted me with inspiration and support to be a writer myself.

They graced my life at different times.  Neither knew the other.  One died years ago; the other just a few weeks ago.  But they both lived lives of great courage and difficulty and both left me with a great legacy.

(Photo “Ladder to Heaven”
courtesy of Jolka Igolka

The First “Writer-Cousin Dian”

The first Dian entered my life as a baby when I was less than a year old. We played together as children, shared our teenage angst and fantasies with each other, and invented secret worlds of our own.  During the summer between fifth and sixth grades, Dian and I got to spend a whole week together at our grandparents’ place.

It was during that week and because of Dian that I wrote my first “novel,” fell in love with writing stories, and set my life’s goal to be a writer.

The full story of that week of writing with Dian is published on my Web site, and I encourage you to read it there. It also tells of her tragic death at age 40 after a horrible experience similar to the one portrayed in the book and movie Not Without My Daughter. I think if Dian had followed a different path in life, she would be one of today’s best-selling novelists. But she made another choice. She followed the love of a man rather than the love of writing, and ended up dying as a result.

There’s not a single time I sit down to write that I don’t think of Dian with tremendous gratitude for showing me the joy of writing fiction, and it’s partly because of her that I’ve held on to my life’s goal for all these years.

The Second “Writer-Cousin Diane”

The second Diane showed up (with the added “e”) much later, when I first met my new “cousins-in-law.” Of all these new cousins, Diane had the most time to spend getting to know me because she was confined to a wheelchair in her parents’ home. At the prime of her life, she’d been struck down by multiple sclerosis.

Diane had a brilliant, creative mind, but didn’t become a serious writer until MS stole her body’s mobility, requiring her to live more in her mind than ever before.  She started writing poetry, lots of poems, some of which were published.  Then she got an idea for a novel and focused on writing it.

Diane wrote part of the first draft of that novel using her own fingers to press the computer keys.  But then her disease destroyed the muscles in her hands.  She didn’t give up.  Instead, she found volunteers – aides, friends, high school students – who wrote down the story as she dictated it.  She finished the first draft this way.  Then began the revision process.  She would read the pages her helpers had printed off and talk them through the changes they should make to the manuscript.  She went through numerous revision cycles this way, until she decided she was done.

Then she did what most serious writers do: she sent her first novel out to agents and publishers and started on a second one.

Like most manuscripts, hers was rejected at first.  It didn’t matter; she knew the realities of the writing business and continued working on her second novel and resubmitting her first.

All the while, her body continued to betray her.  She developed cancer and had to take a break from writing while she underwent treatment.  She sent the cancer into remission, but the MS continued eating away at her neurological system.  She could no longer operate her mechanized wheelchair, much less hold the pages of her writing.  Still, she never stopped writing and submitting.

Early this fall, her MS had progressed so far that her movement was limited to mostly just a few muscles in her face.  She was put in hospice care.

The last time I saw her, she asked me, as she always did whenever we met, “How’s that novel coming, Joan?  You know, you’ve got to get it finished and sent out.”  She said we helped motivated each other to keep writing, but I suspect I got the better end of that deal.

Then one day we got the expected, yet dreaded, phone call.  Diane had died.  My sadness at her loss was bad enough, but it was worsened by the thought that she’d never see her novels published – if they ever were.

We traveled across the state to attend Diane’s funeral, and I carried with me this deep double-sadness.  It wasn’t until after the funeral, when I could talk with her two best friends and writing helpers that I found out what happened.  Diane died on a Sunday.  On each of the preceding two days, she’d received acceptance letters from publishers – both of whom wanted to publish her first novel. She died knowing that her words would, indeed, be shared with the world.  She died happily.

I don’t know which publisher her survivors will choose for her novel or when the book will be published, but someday you’ll see on the bookstands a novel by the author Diane Groth.  That’s her.

I realize how lucky I am to have had these two muse-cousins in my life. I get goosebumps when I think about the fact they shared the same name; in fact, they’re the only cousins I have with that name.  But most of all, I’m filled with gratitude that these cousins each helped me develop the two most important qualities a writer needs:  the love of writing stories, and the persistence – against all odds – to keep writing each and every day.

My hope is that their stories will serve as a bit of inspiration for you, too.

MAJOR CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friend and writing partner in Second Life, Cynthia Hand Struloeff, whose first novel Unearthly was accepted for publication by Harper Collins! Writers and readers will enjoy Cindy’s engaging blog, Writing Angels, where she writes with great humor and insight about the process of submitting a manuscript and getting it published.   And having read the first draft, I can assure you it’ll be a fabulous read when it comes out next winter!

For nearly two years, I’ve been talking about all the great resources for writers in the virtual world of Second Life.  Here’s your chance to see for yourself – in one easy trip to the annual Autumn Writers Exposition.

For the third year in a row, the folks at the awesome Written Word organization in SL have invited writers and the groups and places that support them to exhibit at this month-long extravaganza that celebrates the writing community in SL.

Bird's eye view of part of AWE 2009

Nearly 100 exhibits at AWE 2009 will tell you about most of the great writing-related programs held throughout Second Life all year long, as well as many of the writers at work in-world.

I wrote a detailed post last year about the fun, networking, and “magic” available at AWE, and most of it applies to this year’s event as well – including the sky-scraping towers that offer a great overview of the scene and access to the magic carpet that takes you on a ride over the entire exposition.

Like last year, AWE is sponsoring writing contests with cash prizes for best poem/lyric and best short fiction/creative nonfiction. But new this year is the addition of a third competition – best review of a real-life live event – which is sponsored by the London School of Journalism (which maintains a campus in Second Life).  Each of these three writing contests will award L$5,000 (roughly US$15) to the first-place winners.  (Deadline for submissions to all three contests is Oct. 31.)

Also new this year is an exhibit for Story Mountain Center for Writers (the Second Life writers retreat co-founded by yours truly).  You can learn all about Story Mountain and get a free book of short prose and poetry at our booth.

Visiting the Story Mountain Center for Writers booth at the 2009 AWE in Second Life

To get to the amazing AWE 2009, after logging in to Second Life, use the SLURL for AWE to teleport to its landing point (click here for the SLURL).

Then stroll down the lanes through the exhibits, where you’ll find stories and poems you can get for free or a small price, as well as “freebie” like T-shirts and SL computers.  Discover the cafes that encourage writers to hang out there, learn about classes, programs and tools for writers, meet writers and publishers.

Not every writer, publisher, agent, or writing-related resource in Second Life is represented at AWE 2009, but the festival includes a great sampling that’ll give you a terrific overview of the writing community in SL.

If you can’t get to the exhibit itself, you can view its page of continuously updated photos on this Flickr site.

When you go to AWE, if you see something you want to make sure others know about, write about it in a comment to this post!

I get asked this question a lot:  Can a writer actually make any money in Second Life?

If I’m busy or have had a tough day, I may respond with another question:  “Can a writer make any money in any life?”

Cynicism toward the publishing industry aside, usually I answer, “Yes, of course they can,” and give some examples of how they do.

Literary fiction author Michelle Richmond made sales from an appearance in SL.

This is an important concern for professional writers – especially full-time writers.  For virtual worlds such as Second Life to become serious players in the writing and publishing industry, they have to be more than just a place to hang out.

Of course, as I’ve blogged about for nearly a year and a half, there are endless ways in which SL benefit writers — just skim through this blog’s archives to get a glimpse of the free opportunities, events, and places in SL where writers can learn and develop their skills and get to know other writers.  And of course, there are the many unique ways writers use virtual tools to support their writing.

But writers can also make money directly from their writing, and I’m not the only one saying that!  I was excited to see the topic included in the upcoming Digital Media Conference organized by the National Writers Union and Open Media Boston Oct. 16-17 in Boston.

The conference is titled, “Shall We Write for Free or Shall We Write for Pay? Writers Face the Digital Age,” and one of the sessions offered attendees is this one:

Introduction to Virtual Worlds: You’ve probably heard about virtual worlds like Second Life – online systems which allow millions of people to create online versions of themselves (called “avatars”) and pursue all kinds of creative and mundane activities in a completely human-created environment with global reach. But did you know that writers are making money in virtual worlds? This workshop will provide a general introduction to Second Life via live demonstration of the system – followed by an online presentation on writing in virtual worlds.

I wish I lived near Boston so I could attend the conference.  Or better yet, I wish the conference were also being held in Second Life, as is happening with greater frequency.  So I don’t know what the presenters — Persia Bravin, the avatar of a noted UK-based journalist for major media outlets and a key contributor to the Second Life Enquirer news organization, and Gary Zabel, UMass philosophy professor and SL innovator – will say.

Melissa Mayhue runs a literary salon in SL with links to online sellers of her own books, and also brings other published authors in for informal chats.

But if I could attend, I’d share the ways that I and many other writers have found to earn income in SL from our writing:

• Paid staff and freelance reporting for digital newspapers and magazines that cover Second Life
• Authors getting published in Second Life (self- or otherwise), where their books are also sold
• Winning one of the many writing competitions offered in SL (including this one, which has significantly increased the prize money since the date of this post)
• Adding Second Life to a book tour (if you’re a published writer), during which you can promote and sell books
• Writing freelance blog posts and articles about Second Life for other Web sites
• Setting up a permanent display for promoting and selling (via outside links) published works

FarPoint Media, owned by author Michael Stackpole, publishes books in-world

If you go to the Digital Media Conference in Boston, I’d love to hear about it afterward.  And if you know if additional ways writers are working for money in SL or other virtual worlds, please share them in a comment to this post!

One of my favorite activities each week in Second Life is the Monday “Writers Symposium” I host at Story Mountain Center for Writers.

The symposium is rather a fancy name for what we do, but it’s a convenient term for this weekly meeting where writers gather, read their work to the others attending, and then, if they wish, receive supportive, constructive feedback on the piece’s strengths and areas of improvement.

It’s sort of like an open mic, in that anyone who attends can get on the list to read their material that session.  It’s sort of like a writers’ peer group, where writers share their work and give feedback.  And it’s also a neat way to meet and get to know other writers in Second Life.  We’ve also been known to share industry news, discuss writing techniques, and play around with writing exercises.

A recent Writers Symposium meeting in Second Life

It’s always open to anyone who wishes to come – whether to read their work, or to just listen to others. Each week, new writers come to share; yet there’s also a core group of writers who’ve come regularly almost since the group started nearly a year ago at the TLE Educational Network in SL.  We have both published and emerging writers who participate, and they come from all around the globe.

Weekly Writers Symposium
Story Mountain Center in Second Life
5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Second Life time (Pacific time zone) every Monday
All writers are invited to participate!

Each week is different, depending on who comes and what’s read and discussed, but in general, the symposium goes like this:

• Writers gather around the fireplace on the main floor of the Story Mountain Lodge (here’s the SLURL: Writers Symposium at Story Mountain) and tell the facilitator (usually me) if they’ve brought some writing to share.  They can share any form of written creative expression — from novels, to short stories, to memoir or other creative nonfiction, to poetry and even song lyrics — as long as it’s their original work.
• One at a time, writers read their work aloud, using voice chat.  If a writer doesn’t have voice capabilities, someone else is always happy to read the piece for them.

Reading aloud is one of the essential ingredients of the symposium.  It’s a great way to practice reading to an audience before you begin your book tour (grins), plus you get a different perspective of your piece and often see new ways of improving it!

• Writers share the text version of their piece on a notecard that only those in attendance receive.
• After the reading, the writer can specify what feedback they’d like – general comments, or focused only on some specific aspect.  (We have firm guidelines that prohibit destructive feedback.)
• Usually we can make time for everyone who wishes to read, though sometimes we have to limit the time per person.
• If we have extra time after everyone’s read, we share and discuss writing tips, writing exercises, the creative process — anything that will help us master our craft.

There are no attendance requirements (which means the feedback may not be as in-depth, especially for a longer work, as you’d get in a closed writers’ critique group), nor does it cost anything.

The Second Life Writers Symposium at Story Mountain is a friendly, informal group, and if you’re a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry, come by some Monday, between 5 and 7 p.m. SLT, and see what we’re all about!