Media Evolved and Why Your Blog No Longer Matters

I started my first LiveJournal back in February 2003. Later than some, earlier than many, well before Blogger appeared. Then I had a writing-focused LiveJournal. Then I finally made the switch over here. And I like my journals, whether it's been in LJ form or Blogger form. I don't "blog" as the term means. I don't post frequently enough or in a topical enough fashion to warrant calling it a blog. I journal, which I prefer because it's lower stress, lower demand, and I get to talk about whatever I'm in the mood to talk about.

In the future I hope to be able to post things like "I just signed with X agent" and "X agent just sold my novel to X publisher!" and "Check out a preview of my cover, I just made a mess in my pants!" These are all things that I want to post. Years from now I can look back at those posts and remember fondly the excitement I felt with I signed with X agent and the excitement-turned-fear of selling my novel to a publisher (a three-book deal? But what if I choke?!?!). That's why I keep going with this thing. It's a post-modern scrapbook.

Here's the thing, the people that say you need a blog to establish your platform? Yeah...not so much. Not any more. Blogs peaked and are now on the strong decline. The titans of writing bloggers have gone away or strongly decreased their output. They're exploring video, trying more convenient avenues like Facebook fan pages, or just not wanting to make the effort because Twitter is so much easier.

A blog is no longer necessary to establish your platform. You want to interact with like-minded people or people who are fans of your work? Get on Twitter. You'll speak with agents, you'll speak with peers, you'll speak with fans. You'll communicate in near-real time because we're all hooked up and jacked in. It won't let you look back years from now and remember fondly that time you tweeted a yfrog pic of your cover. But it will get you the largest and fastest distribution to people interested in what you do, with the most dynamic audience you could hope for. It will change, like the internet always does, but for now, Twitter is king (or queen if you prefer; I consider Twitter gender neutral).

You want proof? Twitter has been down most of the day. People are on Facebook freaking out that Twitter is down. If Blogger was down, would the same thing happen? No. The former as an immediate bridge to your audience. The latter is a library for your audience to come read at their convenience.

So let's add this to the list of how to spot a phony claiming to be a social media expert:

1. If a person tells you to be on Facebook and then starts talking about "Friends," they don't know what they're talking about. If you're on Facebook, you create a fan page. It does not require you to approve anyone wanting to follow you (as some of these people will be complete strangers you don't want to share your life and information with) and there are no limits on how many people can be a fan (whereas there are limits to how many friends you can have).

2. If a person tells you to get a blog to establish your platform, tell them they're in the wrong decade. You need Twitter. You need a blog to catalog your work, but if you have no work to catalog, your blog will net you similar returns only after a lot more work.

The Right Ingredients

Have you watched the 10th Anniversary Firefly Panel from ComicCon yet? If not, we'll wait for you.



That hour was well spent, yes? I watched it again while you were watching it. It was time well spent, I think. (Granted, I'm a hardcore Firefly fan.) There's one scene in particular that struck me as amazing, and I wanted to talk about it here.

In established media like film and television, it's hard to know how much we as fans learn about the show, the cast, etc is real and how much of it is spin. You can take it on face value. You might see them in person and think, yeah that seems real. Or you might wonder if the actors are still acting. They can do that, you know. Act. It's what they do for a living.

I bring this up because the family-like nature of the cast of Firefly is well documented and the pessimist inside me has always wondered just how true that was. You see it in special features, but that's just a glimpse and a glimpse can be misleading. The moderator of the panel actually mentioned that, and that's how we got to the coolest story about the "business" side of this that I think I've heard. (Business being the craft of making a television show and not the story they're telling.)

It's a natural segregation that actors spend their time with other actors and crew spend their time with other crew. They have the most in common. It's natural that they would divide themselves as such. But that can create a division that inhibits the overall goal of everyone to create the best possible product. So Nathan Fillion (who is always credited for fostering the family-like nature of the show) walks up to a group of other actors early on in filming. He says "This is a contest. The person who can name the most people's name is the winner. That's Brian, Tom, Tim, and Frank. I'm winning." And just like that, rather than people forming into small groups, everyone made the effort to know everyone else. Even if it began as a manufactured competition, it ended with a group of people that knew each other and made an amazing product.

Having experienced live performance first-hand, I cannot stress how large an impact the attitudes of everyone involved has on the final product. One bad seed can turn something magical into something miserable. And, as Nathan demonstrates, the opposite is true as well. More than ever I love the Firefly crew and cast. My respect for Nathan as a professional is through the roof. And as soon as all my books make me JK Rawling rich, I'll take steps to reward these people. They've earned it.

Until then, watch the video. Watch Firefly if you haven't done so in awhile. If you want an awesome lesson in writing craft, listen to the director's commentary for Out of Gas. Tim Minear did some amazing things with that story.


Completely unrelated to this, if you haven't watched Thomas Jane's fan-made short for The Punisher, check it out.

The Original Tubes

Sometimes it feels like I watch a lot of TV. I grew up watching a LOT of television. I was a living TV Guide. But I got tired of it and stopped watching for years. We don't have cable in my house. We stream what we want to watch. Castle, Legend of Korra, Psych, White Collar. Mostly I watch a lot of reruns of my favorite shows. Netflix doesn't have as many shows (that I like) that it did a couple years ago, but their "NEW EPISODES" tag is a huge help. I found out yesterday that there are new episodes of Flashpoint. So let me tell you about the new hotness and the old hotness that's going on right now on the boob toob (what came before the intertoobs).

Have you heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender? No, not the shitty live-action M. Night crapfest, but the animated show that it was based on. It was on Nickelodeon and is an amazing, AMAZING show. Especially season 2. It's all on Netflix, so you should watch it. If you're not blown away by "Stories of Bah Sing Sei" then you have no heart! Anyway, the sequel (next chapter?) to the show, The Legend of Korra is airing right now and Nickelodeon's website right now. It is AMAZING! It is just similar enough and just different enough to be the perfect next chapter. And it's got a style of animation that I really enjoy. (seen Triples of Belleville?) Oh and the music! The music is one of the best parts! If I wrote fanfiction, I would love to write in this world. The bending "magic" system is expertly crafted. This is a show great for adults and kids.

So that's the new hotness. The old hotness (not old and busted) is Flashpoint. Unlike the two above, it's okay if you haven't heard of this one. It was a summer debut on CBS that limped along for a few seasons. BUT it stars Keith Mars. Obviously the actor's name isn't Keith Mars, but if you watched the show Veronica Mars (which used to be on Netflix but is no longer), you know Enrico Colantoni played one of the most awesome dads ever (he was also the lead alien in GALAXY QUEST). This is his new show, a cop drama set in Canada where the SWAT team is trained in negotiation tactics so they don't just run around and kill people like how we do it in the states. It started weak, so I never gave it much of a chance. I was really ill and needed something to fill the time and gave this a second chance and about episode 7 of the first season, the writing finally finds its footing. The rest of season 1 and all of season 2 are amazing! You'll cry after every episode. EVERY EPISODE! Season 3 is kind of weak, but it's last half-season, season 4, found the magic again.

BUT WAIT! Netflix threw up a "new episodes" tag and sure enough, there's the rest of season 4! Turns out it was picked up by a cable network to finish season 4 and create a season 5. Woo hoo! Keith Mars to the rescue!

(You won't meat him until season 4, but Raf is my favorite character.)

What do you like to watch?

How Thick Is Your Skin?

So agent extrodinaire, Kristin Nelson, has a feature seminar she takes to conventions and the like. Participants bring their first two pages up to the mic and start reading. She tells them when, if they had submitted those pages to her, when she would stop reading and why. You might think, "How awesome! She's giving feedback!" but pause for a second and let it settle in. She tells you when she would stop reading. Not, she lets you finish and then tells you when she would stop reading.

What would it be like, to be up there in front of all those people and have an agent tell you stop after your first sentence? Not so exciting now, eh?

Oh, it is? Yeah, to me too. And how cool is it that she's offering that seminar directly through her new programs? Now you can knuckle down and muscle up even if you're not at a con. Payment is by paypal, so if you're set up to withdraw from your bank account, you won't have your payment processed in time. If you're linked to a credit card, you still could. It's this coming Wednesday at 8pm Eastern (6pm Mountain--I hope people realize the time is listed as Mountain). Submit two pages and see how you do!

I paused in my current wip and returned to PRINCE OF CATS. It's the only finished draft I have right now that I haven't previously queried. I have beta reader feedback, but I've been having difficulty figuring out how to incorporate it. Until Tuesday, which makes this seminar ideally timed. I've started revising the draft for querying AND for this seminar. I am both thrilled at the chance of getting great feedback (and maybe having all two pages read?!) while at the same time terrified at hearing stop after the first sentence. It's like bungee jumping, it's both terrifying and exhilarating.

So if you're interested, you should join in. Kristin rocks the house.

Damn You Robbie Coltrane!

Aside from the theme song, I don't think there's a line I identify more with the Harry Potter franchise than Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid saying "You're a wizard, Harry!" It was used in so much promotional content. I heard it over and over again. And it's a great line. I tells a new audience to a new franchise what the story is about. This kid over here? He's a wizard and he didn't know it. Let's go have some hijinx!

Perfect. So what's the problem? Well, the kid who doesn't think he's special discovers he's extra special! is a pretty established trope in children's fiction. Hell, it's pretty frequent in adult fantasy/sci fi as well. Big things in little packages and all that. Oh no, I'm crippled! or No one likes me! or whatever and then bam, I have magic powers that more than compensates for any shortcoming I previously had (often erasing that shortcoming in the same stroke).

As with all my other writing, I am

tired

of these kinds of things. They're not bad, not necessarily. They can still be awesome if the writing is awesome, but we've seen it SO many times. You're a wizard, Harry!

So here I am writing my first middle grade fantasy, and I make sure I have a completely mundane main character. His name is Mirza. He works in the stables as a groom. You know what? I'll go one better. He's a runt. He's small for his size, has trouble handling the horses, and the other grooms don't like him. (This should have been my first warning because now I've given him a deficiency to overcome.)

This was the character that was going to save the shahzadi. He did not have magical powers or any kind of special skills. He wasn't a thief. He wasn't a fighter. He knew how to raise cats to be good mousers and he got beat on by his father and the other grooms, so he was tough but psychologically scarred. And that little guy was going to have to do great things!

...but as I started writing, a whole sub-plot with Mirza's mother surfaced that I had not even thought of. My original plan was Introduction > Inciting Incident > Action > Resolution > The End. Somehow > Character Development snuck in there and all these things happen that I had never planned to have happen and a character says, "You're a wizard."

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That's the sound of a 20-car pile-up on the highway after someone dropped Robbie Coltrane right in the middle of traffic. Mirza can't be a wizard! Everyone's expecting him to be a wizard! Just knowing it's a middle grade fantasy, there's a high probability that the kind is going to end up having some kind of magical powers. He's supposed to be different. He's mundane. He's the everyboy character! If every boy was short and beaten by his dad.

The problem? The story's better for it. The sub-plot is an awesome one and has directly affected the climax. He's a better character and I'm trying my damndest not to fall into that bottomless pit of cliche. I will have either walked the tightrope or just don't realize I'm already falling.

So here's my question to you. Is it possible in a MG/YA novel to have your character be a wizard and to actually call him a wizard? Or has Harry Potter ruined that for the next decade? Do I need to call him something else? Sorcerer, magician, magus, djinn, or what not?