Podcasts

Late to the party, I am only just getting into podcasts...

But now I'm hooked - NPR, BBC, CBC, and of course independant podcasters make up 90% of my media consumption now. My TV is becoming dusty and unused- the DVD and cd players cough up dustbunnies when opened, but the computer is happy- warm and humming away...

I like the idea that anyone can be a broadcaster from the comfort of their own living room. I especially like the fact the NPR broadcasts in Second Life - a stroke of brilliance that blurs the boundaries between virtual and "real life" experience. I wonder if this is beyond what early Internet theorists like Sherry Turkle dreamed: a public media broadcasting on and offline with listeners choosing their preferred way of engagement. Responding to a phone-in radio show can be made in one of three ways, the traditional phone, the ubiquitous email, or now, via the Second Life home of NPR - and while you're at it, pick up an NPR T-shirt for your avatar!

Land based radio may be on the outs, internet radio royalties are unfortunately sky high- a move that favors the large media conglomerates that own most of the land based stations, and a move that threatens public and democratic media. But I for one, hope that podcasts in "real life" and in platforms like Second life remain (and they can, with a little help from the creative commons). It is technologies like these that fuel the workings of the elusive global citizen, and will shift the balance of power in the culture industry.

Never Give Up

From http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/efficacynotgiveup.html:

After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that "when you're experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion." And here is the reward for perseverance: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

Some days it feels as though nothing is easy. It feels as though you have to fight with a million more talented, richer, more attractive, more graceful people for a little bit of recognition. Some days it feels like nothing matters. Even if you can eke out a little slice of the proverbial pie, it couldn't possible EVER be worth the amount of work you put into it. Nobody cares, nobody notices the work you do, so you might as well do the bare minimum, right?

I think some people actually live by that philosophy, but not the really memorable people. Great thinkers, great athletes, memorable performers, and other mentionables perhaps aren't really that different than 85-90% of the population except for in one thing. They never gave up, even when they were told repeatedly to.

Sometimes it takes a million tries to get something right. Sometimes you have to write a million posts before someone reads your blog.

I can't dance, and I'll probably never be Fred Astaire, but I can learn efficacy, and I can remind myself to keep going, even when my confidence is at its lowest. Because it's never worth doing only the bare minimum, even in a world where nobody else will notice the difference.

Who am I writing for?

Many new bloggers, graduate students, unpublished authors, and seasoned professional writers alike sometimes wonder "who am I writing for"? Myself, being in the first two categories, and formerly the third, often wonder who I am writing for with a sort of desperation. Nobody's is reading what I write, so my writing is a pointless act of self-delusion. Other times, even if there is a suspected audience, we think that if we can only figure out who that audience is and what they want, then we can write the perfect piece and finally be the accomplished writers we know we can be. One of my undergraduate writing professors always belabored the point "know your audience". She had the entire class convinced that knowing the audience was the secret to professional writing.

While my professor was not wrong in her advice, and while knowing your audience can be helpful especially in business writing, William Zinsser in his book On Writing Well suggests a different approach:

"You are writing for yourself. Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person. Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish, or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it" (p.25)

If you are writing for yourself, it's easy to know your audience. If you're writing for yourself, it's easier to stay motivated to practice your craft and write every day. Even if your feedburner says, as mine always does: 0 readers.

Without Google, I May Cease to Exist...

Google runs my life now... If I think about it, there are several very good reasons why without Google I would cease to exist. I will explain them here:

1) I Blog, therefore I am. Google owns Blogger. And since I write my thoughts here in order to achieve personal verification, and self actualization, without Blogger I may be swallowed by the whole of my own significance. I would certainly disappear from Netspace.

2)My Calendar is completely managed by Google Calendar. Again, without the reassurance of daily life events (work, leisure, personal development, etc) I cannot be sure that I would be doing anything at all. Google Calendar validates my existence by providing me with places I need to be, and in so doing reinforces the fact that I do, actually exist.

3)Google Desktop provides me with a link to the outside world. This proves to me that the world exists, and I by proxy, exist in it. With the drag of my mouse I find out what the weather is doing, what the headlines are, and whether my favorite blog has been updated. Since these feeds are always changing, I am fairly confident that the world and I still exist.

4)I am searchable. It's not easy, my blog is nowhere near the top of the ranks or anything, but technically, I am searchable. This beyond everything else proves I must exist, though without it I cannot be so sure of my own existence.

Think about it...Would you exist without Google? Myspace? Facebook? Without them, how do you know you're not just a figment of your own (or someone else's) imagination?

The Blank Page

Nothing is quite so intimidating as the blank page (or in this case, the blank screen).
As I stare at my blog, or my paper, willing the words to appear. I type one line, then erase it and start again. Type two lines, erase at least one. Any writer knows the pain of birthing a written work, like when it takes you three hours to write on paragraph that you later edit out because it didn't fit anyway.

But somehow, miraculously, I always end up with something as long as I keep on writing. It may not be the best most genius written work that I or the world has ever seen, but it's far better than the blank page.

And as long as I keep writing, I know that slowly I'm getting better at it. Perfection is the enemy of done. If I try to do everything (including writing) perfectly then I will be paralyzed into never doing anything. So just keep going, despite the awkward sentences, the dearth of ideas, or the three hour paragraph. And maybe by doing so I can finally make peace with the blank page and the promises it offers.