i heart media

"I bought apples" and other crazy-but-true tales

2010-09-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

I’m still buzzing about interviewing Marshall McLuhan scholar, singer/songwriter and award-winning sci-fi writer Paul Levinson for Read Write Web. Did you read it? Here’s the link: Twitterdipity and Paul Levinson: Social Media's Ecology

In it I talk about how Twitter’s very unique ecosystem creates “twitterdipity” which led me to connect with this media ecology hero of mine. At the end of the post Paul answers five questions about things like Wieden + Kennedy's Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign, the role of community managers, and the “empowerment of everyone” in the Digital Age. (By the way...choosing just five questions to ask? An agonizing process that took me days. Days. Of. Agony.)

Luckily, the agony was not in vain. Judging by the increasing traffic to my web sites, the number of custom links clicked, the number of re-tweets, and my many new Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections, I’d say that my Twitterdipity post was well received. I’m just happy that, in the end, I done sound smart-like. It’s important to me that my work with interactive storytelling, entrepreneurial authorship and alternative content publishing be shared with as many media-lovin’ experimenters as possible. And it’s happening! My career has become worthy of academic consideration!

Last week I found out that the Writing Arts department at Rowan University has an Internet and writing studies class called Composing Spaces. In the course description for this class I'm linked to as an author "choosing to circumvent traditional publishing processes and institutions" along with NIN and the author of The Sandman, Ray Connolly. (Click on the word "burgeoning” cause that’s me, yo.)

And, remember my gushing about skyping into Lance Strate's Intro to Communications and Media class at Fordham University last month? It just keeps getting better! That appearance went so well that I’ve been asked to participate in a symposium sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics (fancy!) and the Media Ecology Association (hurray!). The theme is New Languages, New Relations, New Realities and is next month, in New York, a place I’ve never been before. I’m looking forward to meeting some of the names on the books I study and the MEA posts I read. I’ll reveal more about my role at the symposium as the time for departure draws nearer...but rest assured, it’s SO GONNA ROCK!

And before I jet-set to NYC (to no doubt find myself in heated discussions about the future of storytelling) I’ll be leading a session at WordCamp Portland, which runs Sept 18-19. My session is on Sunday afternoon and is called Using the Apture Plugin to Tell Interactive Stories. I’ll be discussing how to configure multi-panel hyperactive links and media embeds with Apture, like the one you see in The Miracle in July, in WordPress. I’ll also cover best practices, hyperlink aesthetics, and the effective use of media as storytelling device.

Now, there is one thing that I have been working on for months, and at an agonizingly slow pace: the Epilogue. This is that last piece of MIJ I’ve yet to published, that final curtain on the first draft of my storytelling experiment. Everyday I work on it, shaping the narrative and killing my darlings, and everyday I’m closer to being able to let it go. But after a period of trying to rush this final and very important segment through, I’ve realized that it is best for my creative peace of mind to let the work sort itself over time. Until it feels complete the Epilogue will go unpublished. But trust me...it’ll be sooooo worth the wait.

In the meantime, in case you missed it, I made apple pie last weekend. I announced I’d be baking this pie in a status update to Twitter and Facebook:

This statement attracted Facebook comments that inspired me to write a flash documentary of the pie-making as a social status story -- a collection of short statements, in this case, six status updates. But, you know me. I need a challenge. So, my story plays on the seduction of the smell, taste and sight of making and baking a pie. Yes, I wrote food p0rn: You can see the text (and a photo of the resulting pie) via the link below:

"I bought apples. You know what that means..."

Yes, it’s a gift. You’re welcome :D

An Anthology of Almost-Posts: What the hell I've been up to lately

2010-08-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

This post is a collection of almost-posts. I’ve gathered together my post-its scrawled with headlines, I’ve tagged my notebooks for post ideas, and have perused my Google docs to assemble a hodgepodge of totally awesome experiences that I’ve neglected to document here, on I Heart Media. You know, my personal blog. The one I haven’t updated since March. FIVE MONTHS AGO.

Ahem.

So, without further ado (and in chronological order) here are some of totally awesome things that I’ve been meaning to write about on I Heart Media:

In a post I wanted to call I abused my Platinum Badge at SXSW (and I’m SO not sorry), I planned to describe how I networked my ass off in Austin, TX and all the people I met and stuff I learned. (I cover how I got a RACC grant to attend SXSW in the post Back in the Saddle at South by Southwest.) So, to recap my 13 days in Austin: this amazing conference was freakin’ magic. For realz. I wrote a few words about what went down at SXSW on the Webtrends corporate blog (complete with blatant name droppin’) but it doesn’t even BEGIN to uncover the juicy bits. Guess y’all will have to wait for the book chronicling my adventures at SXSW 2010. The working title currently is My First Time: A Girl’s Guide to Getting the Most from the SXSW Experience. It’s very “mediaChick” don’t you think?

One thing that happened at SXSW that leads into my next almost-post is that I finally got to meet Anthony, from Hype Machine. Anthony introduced me to Fred, from Kickstarter. OK...I had heard of Kickstarter before SXSW, and had briefly considered using it to help fund MIJ in some way, but the “all-or-nothing” aspect of it made me very nervous.

Fred changed my mind, though, when he explained that the thing that made me most wary was exactly the thing that worked most in the campaign’s favor because it solicits the urgency necessary to make a Kickstarter campaign a success. Word of mouth and viral marketing, both critical mediums in promoting any message, are only viable when people care enough to pass along that message. Backers need to care in order to invest, and they want to protect that investment by contributing to its success.

So, inspired by my trip to SXSW I came home to launch a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter. As part of that campaign, I planned to announce the launch of Destination Denmark (the name of my campaign) with a post titled Crowdsourcing: How to do Epic Shit in $10 Increments or maybe Why Giving Me Money Totally Gets You Into Heaven.

Even without the posts, and thanks to lots of help from tons of people (and mentions in the Oregonian, and on Silicon Florist and KGW Live @ 7 on the Square), I totally pwnd that all-or-nothing fear and raised more than $5,000 in 45 days to take a research/media-gathering trip to Denmark. That was no mean feat, my friends. That there is what you call a community success made possible by the social web. Powerful stuff, that social media. (Here’s my Kickstarter page for your viewing pleasure.)

My post-funding glow was set to be expressed in a post I planned to call Was it good for you? How to create a Miracle in “This Economy”. Not very SEO-friendly, I know, but it IS catchy, yes? I did manage to publish several posts on the Destination Denmark blog during the campaign, if you’re so inclined to delve into the world of fundraising for travel.

Next, to the sound of a deafening anti-climatic roar...I finished writing The Miracle in July. Actually, I still have the Epilogue to publish (more on that later) but with almost 100,000 words in three Acts I think it’s safe to say I’ve got plenty of 1st draft content to keep my readers busy for a while. The last chapter of the last act came and went without fanfare, or the creation of the post I had wanted to write. I was going to call it I Wrote 100,000 Words and All I Got Was 100,000 Words and Writer’s Hump. Not my favorite, but the subject matter is fairly clear, I’d say.

Then I went to Denmark. It was AHHH-MAZING!

Imagine, if you will, going on an International research adventure. You’re there with the blessings and cash of more than 100 people who believe in you and your project, and this realization makes every day a pleasure, a gift. No plans go derailed. No case of hiccups disturb the work or the focus. It felt like a dream, and when I came home I fully intended to write about the experience in a post called Dreaming Big, Living Large: Today is the first day of the rest of my life. (That one makes me giggle!)

Full of gleeful fantasies of gutting the 1st draft of MIJ and taking the scraps to fashion the TIGHTEST, MOST VISCERAL AND MESMERIZING STORY KNOWN TO MANKIND, I returned home and slept for a week. Then I published the 2nd draft of the Prologue. (No, not the Epilogue. Patience! I’ll explain about that later.) Both versions of the Prologue are available and when I released that link I wanted to write a post called The Evolution of a Story: The MIJ Prologue, Revisited or perhaps, simply, Double Your Pleasure for the Price of FREE!

Most recently, something totallyamazingomgIcan’tbelievemylife happened that deserves a mention. Actually, in retrospect, after the banner year I’ve had since embarking on this crazy-ambitious journey of a publishing experiment, it makes total sense...but when it happened...I actually...kinda...choked up. With happiness. And pride. And validation, excitement, possibilities, hope, and (I’m not ashamed to admit to it) a swelling ego.

In a post that I could have called Where did I put my tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, anyway? or maybe Guess who’s coming to Communication and Media 101? I planned to squee! and hurray! my way through the story of how I found myself on a big screen in a Mass Communications class at Fordham University in NY to answer questions about transmedia, next-generation publishing, and following your bliss. Yes! Me!

In short: It was awesome. The students loved me. I loved them. They asked great questions, and of course I encouraged anyone who wanted to try something like MIJ to go for it. “Dream big!” I said. “Aim high! Failing sucks, but not as much as endlessly wondering what if?” I confess, it was so moving that if I’d been in the room physically we’d have ended the class with clasped hands, singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, or The Impossible Dream. Or perhaps Baby I’m a Star.

So that’s the extent of the totally awesome things that have happened lately that I’ve neglected to write about on I Heart Media. If you add this post of many almost-posts to the posts that were actually published in the last year, you’ll see I’ve kept my eye on my lofty goal of trailblazing the road to alternative publishing. And I’ve got more opportunities to do more blazin’ in the near future. The next three months are smothered in awesomesauce:

I’ll be revealing the MIJ Epilogue at my first-ever MIJ reading on August 18th at NedSpace. This is a Kickstarter backers-only part-tay, so if you invested in Destination Denmark and you live in the Portland-Metro area, I’ll be emailing you an invite soon. Watch for it, yo.
The following month, in September, I’ll be extolling the virtues of something as-yet-undecided-but-MIJ-related at WordCamp Portland.
Then, the month after that, in October, I’ll be in NYC participating in the Media Ecology Association's Symposium exploring the topic New Languages, New Relations, New Realities. What does this mean exactly, “participate”? Well, that’s a post title I haven’t thought of yet...and let’s hope I publish something well before another five months have passed.

So, there you are. My collection of almost-posts, an assemblage of totally awesome experiences that I’ve neglected to document here, on I Heart Media. I hope my adventures inspire you to follow your dreams, like I am.

:)

i heart media

"I bought apples" and other crazy-but-true tales

An Anthology of Almost-Posts: What the hell I've been up to lately

Back in the Saddle at South by Southwest

Warning: Bliss-following is contagious!

My story so far: first musings in following my bliss

The Miracle in July: I'm just getting started

Happy birthday to me (and my type-ity type type) on #july6

A Musical Ode to the Social Web

How to get rid of boys FAST!

Social media learning: for business AND pleasure

Perception is personal (and consequently, not negotiable)

How to write better and faster (and why the library makes me sexy)

Not scared? Then you're doing it wrong

A Vibrator Story (like A Christmas Story, only completely different)

Prelude to a vibrator story (a shiny Twitter distraction)

Miss Me? Monday 3/30/09

Nothing says "I care" like taking off your clothes

Clearly I need to work on the mediaChick brand (or do I?)

The 5 Most Awesomest Firefox Add-ons

Miss Me? Monday 3/2/09

Proof! Denmark is Unholy and Sex-Obsessed

I'm complicated (that's why I blog)

How to make #mmmpie and influence people

Brilliance makes me sleepy

What else is there?