#writechat, How do I love thee?

If you're familiar with Twitter, you recognize the # symbol at the beginning of the title of this piece as the start of a "hashtag". If you're not, don't worry, this isn't a love letter to Twitter, and you don't have to be a part of Twitter to appreciate what that "#writechat" has come to mean to me. What you do have to understand is how important group interactions can be to someone who practices a craft as solitary as writing.

First, what is #writechat? It's a very open group discussion every Sunday, 2-5pm CDT, on Twitter. Twitter, with the limiting aspect of 140 words (130 for this discussion, because each post must include the phrase #writechat if you want others taking part to see it) doesn't encourage lengthy discourses. With its free for all membership, a lot of people can take part very quickly, and it's very hard to keep up any discussion going more than a few sentences. Then there's the technology of Twitter, which may slow down, or even prohibit, a participant's responses, effectively taking them out of the chat. So how could something so disorganized, so superficial, so inclusive be of any benefit to an aspiring writer? Wouldn't those three hours be better spent actually writing? No, they wouldn't, at least not for me.

#writechat is the discussion group equivalent of speed dating. Like speed dating, you don't go in with too high of expectations, but an open mind to the possibility of something clicking. In speed dating, you might not meet the person of your dreams, but you could learn a bit about yourself through the quickfire conversations. You definitely discover a lot more of the things you aren't looking for in a mate. In #writechat, while looking for the secret that removes every obstacle to a successful writing career you'll find kernels of advice that chip away at those obstacles. You'll also have a few of those private superiority moments, when you realize you have progressed as a writer. And finally, like speed dating, you might "meet" someone who you engages you in a way that you want to carry the conversation further. Twitter's follow feature is only one click away.

What did I gain from this past Sunday's #writechat? The two questions that started the whole thing roiling (and nearly stayed on point the whole three hours!) were posed by this week's guest moderator, @markdavidgerson, "How do you define success as a writer?" and "Are you okay calling yourself a writer if you're not published?". I've always been pretty clear on my answer to the first, but the second question, which so many other writers had no problem answering in the affirmative, has always been one of my inner demons. I know that if I don't call myself a writer, if I have some sort of inner shame or inferiority about my work, it will never be as good as it can be. If I don't respect my work, who will? #writechat, with all its crazy side conversations, occasionally spamming, and pure off topic discourse, taught me one thing yesterday. I AM A WRITER.  Thank you to all who participate in #writechat, and especially to WritingSpirit ,the founder of #writechat.

There's no half glass full - fewer people are reading fiction.

I've seen a quote attributed to Steven Jobs several times over the last week, concerning how few Americans read books. I traced it back to an interview with the NY Times in January of this year. Yes, he did say that “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.". As an aspiring writer, I find that depressing as all hell. Please, let him have his facts wrong. Searching further, I can't find what his source for that number was, but I did find a study published in 2004 with data from 2002 by the National Endowments for the Arts. Maybe Mr. Jobs has slightly more recent numbers, because it turns out that 56% had read a book, but that's only if you include non-fiction. If you're only looking at novels, short stories, plays, or poetry, just 46& had read a book. And that's not a steady figure. It's almost 10% than ten years earlier. The closest thing to any good news for a fiction writer in the NEA study is that the actual number of readers has stayed approximately the same because of population growth.

Oh, and if the hard facts that there are fewer people reading literature isn't a dark enough cloud, there's this little tidbit from the study - more people are writing. Goody. More competition.

It's PRETEND TO BE A TIME TRAVELER DAY!!

Sure, it's as silly as any of the other artificial holidays, but it's my kind of silly! I love learning about the everyday life of days long ago, I love the "fish out of water" concept of someone doing their best to survive in a foreign time period, and when you open your mind to perspectives of thought not of this time period, you learn a lot about yourself. TV shows like Highlander and Doctor Who can hold my attention no matter how bad the writing or character development. The film Somewhere In Time is as sappy as a maple tree in March, but I can watch it over and over and over (and tear up at the end every time). I will read the world's worst writing if the research on the time period is decent and the protagonist is gaining something from their experience.

I don't know who started Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day, but I plan to celebrate in my own small way. When I'm out and about this afternoon, I'll be doing my best to phrase my speech in the patterns of a late 19th century Londoner, and I'll be wearing a scarf in honor of that very great time traveler, The Doctor.

And now for something wrong, oh so wrong!

(Purely personal p.o.v. rant follows. Click only if you're curious about something annoying and offensive to me.)

Fox TV out does itself in the "think like fourteen year old boy who's afraid of real females" department with its graphic art for the new Terminator spinoff, The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

My favorite Thanksgiving book

It may be the subversive in me, but the one book that I recommend for Thanksgiving reading is Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. It's not only about Thanksgiving, but that one chapter is guaranteed to get you thinking. There's plenty of food for thought throughout this book, and on a day that's become more about gluttony than thankfulness, more fodder for the brain works to everyone's benefit.

Another electronic reader

Amazon debuted Kindle, their newest entry into the electronic book reader market on Monday, at that means the reviews of people who actually paid for the thing are starting to be posted. (There are lots of reviews on the device's page at Amazon, but the positives mostly come from hand picked testers and the negatives from people who don't have one. So, pretty much useless, in my opinion.)

One of the first real customer reviews to show up on a Google blog search came from XML Aficionado. I appreciate that that blogger isn't taking part in the Amazon kick-back program, that involved embedding an icon on your blog that if used to click through to the Kindle order page and a device is actually ordered, the source blog page gets a $40 Amazon credit. Just 10 clicks and your Kindle has paid for itself! SmugBlog also has a review, although that blogger admits to spending more time using it to look for books rather than reading one, which they finally get around to at the end of the day.

Another positive review from Robert Love, someone who didn't expect to like it as much as he did. He points out something I've been wondering about, though. If this is primarily a reading device, why is the keyboard so big? I get the need for an alpha interface, it is easier to search through what's on the device if you can type in a word rather than scroll everything. But I suspect that the real purpose of that keyboard is to encourage shopping, surfing, and whatever else Amazon will make money off of beyond the purchase of the books.

That brings us to price. Yep, $400 is expensive for almost anyone who isn't a gadget geek or someone who already favors digital readers. I don't think they'll convert many conventional readers at that price. The $9.99 per book price is great, if they have want you want. About 75% of the books I read I get for free (okay, I get them for paying property taxes) from the local library. And their collection goes light years beyond Amazons. I doubt that is going to change in my life time (despite Google's plan to put every written word online).

I'd say the Kindle (and that is a strange name - kindling, right?) is a step towards the day fewer books are printed because more are being bought digitally, but it's a small step. It's not going to change how most people read.

Not a lame "here's my cat" post.

Well, almost not that.
Since so much of my blog is dedicated to reading, I thought I'd post of photo of by reading buddy. So, yeah, this is a "here's my cat" post. My cat that insists on draping himself across my shoulder when ever I open a book. He can't read, so I don't have to worry about him becoming one of those LOL!cats.

The view from the penthouse

Not my penthouse, unfortunately. Looking out over Navy Pier in Chicago, this is the view from the condo that my main character finds almost impossible to walk away from. Not knowing the rest of his story, you can't hardly blame him, can you?

I'd like to buy a vowel, please

It took me ten days into NaBloPoMo before I drew a complete blank. Not too bad, I think. So, I've gone to the well of prompts from the Writing Prompts group, and found a Saturday one that won't tax my brain too much. (I did say I was drawing a blank, didn't I?)

From Patrick's Place, a Saturday Six.

1. What was the brand and model (if you remember) of the first computer you remember using? A Wang something or other. It was in the math lab at high school, it was huge, ugly, and intimidating as all hell. I never was able to get it to run the math packets we were supposed to use for "independent" learning.

2. What year do you remember using a home computer for the first time? 1990

3. Hype aside, which platform do you prefer: Mac or PC? Mac, baby! (oops! Was that hype?

4. Take the quiz: Are you a Mac or PC? Well, their reasoning is wrong, but the results are right.

You Are a Mac

You are creative, stylish, and super trendy. You demand the best - even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Are You a Mac or a PC?

5. How fair would you consider the quiz to be based on the responses? Not fair at all. (see above)

6. If money were no object, what brand of computer would you most likely purchase? Sticking with Mac, through and through. Even when my hard drive died and we had to scrimp on groceries for a couple months. Mac before meat, that's my motto!

My P.O.V., literally.

Today I start the rebranding of my blog. Considering its rather narrow and infrequent content before, it shouldn't take much to change things around.

I've been reading some discussions on other blogs about mission statements and statements of purpose, something I know that is a great way not only for others to see what you're aiming for, but more importantly, so you know what you're aiming for. A lot of writing coaches preach the gospel of not only putting your goals in writing, but clearly defining the benchmarks that determine if you're working towards those goals or not. In the coming weeks, I hope to do just that sort of thing - get those plans and "I'm going to do X,Y,and Z before the end of the year!" out of my head and into the virtual permanent record of the internet.

But first (ohhh, I am so good at those "but firsts!"), I thought I'd share what my actual point of view is - my view from my desk. This is where I do 100% of my creative writing, and about 90% of my blogging. And in doing this, I introduce the theme of my Sunday posts: My P.O.V. Sunday will be a photopost day of things I've seen that affect me personally. My lack of photography skills will be further proof that words really are the correct medium for art, but I'm going for expression and maybe explanation here. Mundanity will occur more frequently than exceptionality, but that's why it's my P.O.V.