Monologue to dialogue: Web 2.0 for Writers

I wrote this piece for the Victorian Writer magazine last year as an introduction to web 2.0 for creative writers. Some of it has dated (to update it yourself: swap all Facebook references for Twitter, ignore all MySpace and yawn loudly at mentions of UGC, plus John Birmingham's new book has inspired a slew of new fanfic) but a student asked where they could find it so I thought it deserved a second life (whatever happened to Second Life?). NB. There'd be a few more additions to the top 5 (whittled down to top 4 with the disappearance of Sarsparilla) now - you'd be mad not to include Literary Minded or Max Barry's Machine Man plus a million others - but this was way back in the ancient history of last year...

Around the turn of the millennium the web looked in trouble. The information superhighway of the 1990s seemed to have led nowhere and content was largely re-hashed from print media and ‘brochureware’ and advertising cluttered the web.

Into this great web depression came the O’Reilly Group (famous for their Information Architecture for the World Wide Web better known as ‘the polar bear book’ for the bear padding across the front cover). In 2005 they began to talk about web 2.0, a rethink of how the web gets its content and how it can work. The key to this new thinking was user participation. Users didn’t just want to read the news, they also wanted to reply, parody, classify and make their own news. And now every web whiz kid and digital shaman is toting the idea of web 2.0.

Web 2.0 writers
For writers, web 2.0 promises to break them out of the safety of the lonely garret. Several writers are taking the plunge of posting their work online then getting feedback almost immediately. Wikipedia sniffs at fiction blogging calling it “small-scale fringe activity in the world of blogging”, but Australian authors like John Birmingham are big fans. As well as his personal blog he also gives fans of his work a run. The Mini-Burger publishes fan fiction based on Birmingham’s thrillers. This fan fiction throws in plot twists from Agent 86 to zombies and so far there’s more than a hundred pieces of fiction. And the author? He’s relishing his Mini-Burger and has organised two online festivals of fanfic.

It’s a challenge for writers to think of themselves not just as the creators of text, but the organisers of user generated content (UGC). With every reader able to comment and correct, some journalists are threatened, but it really means adapting to new skills. Are comments at the end of a news article really any different from letters to the editor? The major difference is the speed of responses and ease with which people can respond. If you make a mistake on the web, an amateur expert can call you on it almost immediately.

Blogs created citizen journalist, individuals who could report their stories using simple web publishing tools. One of the earliest was Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger who reported from his home in Iraq about the occupation around him. He was so successful that his blog was made into a book and he received journalism assignments in the US and UK.

Tooling up for 2.0
It’s not just blogs. YouTube means anyone can upload a roughcut of their movie onto the web and MySpace creates a stage for bands and songwriters to showcase themselves to record companies (Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen both built fans online). Writers can use these same tools, looking at creating their own low-budget film or putting fiction on a MySpace page.

In the US, sci-fi author Scott Sigler has taken his fiction to a new audience by creating a podcast of his novel: recording short episodes then uploading it to iTunes. His audience of more than 100,000 subscribers want their content on-demand so they can listen on a MP3 player anywhere. They then come back and make comments in the iTunes store, write blogs about what they enjoyed or create Facebook groups like ‘I am a Scott Sigler junky’.

Tools aren’t just about self-promotion. The physical workshop has moved online too. Some require sign-up fees or an overpriced tutorial, but there are also free creative communities. One of the more popular workshops Zoetrope was founded by US film director Francis Ford Coppola, so writers can post short stories, poems and screenplays for review by fellow members. The catch is that you have to contribute more than your fiction to be a part of this community. Before you can post your own story for feedback, you need to have written five reviews of other people’s work - a handy check for the ‘It’s all about me!’ writers.

But you don’t need Coppola’s sign-off to start an online workshop. New creative writing groups appear on social networking sites like Facebook everyday and it’s easy to start a sub-branch of a chatroom. It’s this ease of creating web content that has made web 2.0 so easy for writers.

Touring the Writers’ Web
Cordite Australia’s best online poetry journal and with their COD (Cordite on Demand) program a foot in the print media
Jacket Australia’s first online magazine of poetry and prose
Matilda A newsy blog looking at Australian lit
Undercover Susan Wyndam’s regular blog for the Sydney Morning Herald

Melbourne International Film Festival hacked

Strange news today that the MIFF website has been hacked in response to their screening a film by Uighur film-maker, Rebiya Kadeer. It's made even stranger by recent Chinese government demands that the film be withdrawn from the program. The film is critical of the treatment of western China's Uighur people and has seen several Chinese filmmaker withdraw their films from MIFF, but MIFF says it will still screen the film on August 8th.

Parallel Importation of Books disappointment

This week Australian publishing was rocked by the recommendations of the Productivity Commission into Parallel Importation of books. The Australian said there'd be elegantly expressed outrage as authors and publishers as they talked about how importing books from overseas would seriously damage the local industry.

Several writers have spoken out about the report's findings including Sophie Cunningham, Shane Maloney and, previously, Tim Winton using his Miles Franklin acceptance speech to point out what this means even to mega-sucessful authors.

But what about eloquent voices for the Productivity Commission? In the interests of balance I've animated the report so you can hear the commission's own words (there will be no reading in the future obviously):

Want more of the commission's report? You can buy it in book form off the website for their $18 (possibly cheaper in Britain). It's good to see someone can still make money out of books.

Too dark travel?

I recently wrote a blog post about Dark Travel for News.com.au. which made me think about where I draw my own line on visiting death sites and places of tragedy. Frankly, I'm pretty damned squeamish.

Fortunately the piece was saved by some great comments from people much braver than me. There's a couple of people who recommend Dearly Departed tours for their detailed look into Hollywood's darker side. Apparently since the article was researched they now also offer a tour to MJ's death scene.

A friend forwarded me some Facebook comments he'd gotten from Kathy Charles, who has written a forthcoming novel about Hollywood Ending. It's not out until Septmeber 2009, but from a quick browse around the site Kathy has done her research including visiting sites, going on tours and buying the odd piece of merchandise from the LA County Coroner. The novel follows two teens who search out celebrity death sites. A younger generation of dark travellers if ever there was one.

Big Issue Fiction Ed hits the streets

The Big Issue Fiction edition hit the streets on Friday. Already I've gone out and bought a copy for me and my mum. It features a new work by Cate Kennedy that makes for a vivid blackly funny insight into a community centre that reminded me of a few jobs I've done. There's also YA author Penni Russon with her first major piece for adults that I'm keen to read. Plus Andy Griffiths and Terry denton with an illustrated peak at their follow-up to The Bad Book. Plus the talented Jo Bowers, Alice Pung and more. It's only about for a limited time, so track down a vendor this week or next.

Bookslut: A Q&A with Jessa Crispin

Way back in 2002 Jessa Crispin began Bookslut while living in Austin as a way of chatting with far-flung friends about books. She had more friends than she thought and now Bookslut is one of the most influential literary blogs. She's an upcoming guest at the Melbourne Writers' Festival so I wanted to know about her workshop and I ended up finding out that there is space for longer form content on the web, why it's better to graze the field than be a Trojan Horse and advice on how avoid stabbing your boss.

Hackpacker: Bookslut has been insanely successful scoring more than 1500 unique hits a day just six months after it started in 2002 (and even more today) plus it recently won a Weblog Award in 2008. What’s made it so successful?
Jessa Crispin: I really wish I knew how to answer this question, because I get it alot. I have no idea. We never did any marketing, and I never do anything that you're supposed to do to create a successful blog: I don't have comments open on the site, etc. I think a lot of the success we've had has to do with timing, actually. Pure luck. Bookslut was one of the very first literary websites. I think the only one worth mentioning was Mobylives.com, which is now Melville House Publishing. We got a lot of attention fast because there was nothing quite like us online. Now I can't even imagine how you would launch something like Bookslut and draw enough attention to yourself.

HP: It’s been said that getting traffic for a blog is like trying to get your message in a bottle found in a sea of bottles - how did you get your ‘bottle’ found?
JC: Again... I always just assume that if I'm interested in something, someone else will be, too. And that is my entire driving philosophy behind Bookslut.

HP: You went ‘professional’ with Bookslut in 2003 and made it your sole job – did people think you were insane? How did you explain this 'career move' to your mother?
JC: I didn't really tell anyone, I don't think. It was such an act of desperation. I was working for a magazine, and the editor-in-chief would ask the managing editor to fetch his coffee because, you know, she was a woman and so therefore that was part of her duties. We would butt heads, and eventually I found myself in the kitchenette, eyeing the knives, thinking I had to quit or I would end up stabbing this man. So I quit. I thought I would eventually run out of money and would have to find a new job, but luckily that never happened.

HP: At what point did you decide you needed to get other writers involved to help out with Bookslut? And how big does a blog have to be to sustain that?
JC: The magazine has always been a collaboration, and that part ofBookslut started about three months after the blog. As far as writers on the blog, I asked my friend Michael Schaub to co-blog with me for awhile, and we both liked it so much we kept him as a permanent fixture. He left for a while, so it was just me again, and I got lonely. So I asked people like Nina MacLaughlin, Margaret Howie, and Jason Jones to cover certain angles. Then there are the guest bloggers, Jen Howard and Michael, who fill in when, say, I move to another country.

HP: In the States there’s been a dramatic change for print reviewers and you’ve been described as ‘re-writing the rules’ for online writing. What change do you perceive has happened? And how much of that has been down to Bookslut?
JC: Bookslut is occasionally credited with things, and I always think it's nonsense. But then, when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to look outside and see, oh right, this is how things changed. For a while,the only writing about literature you could find online was short, highly opinionated blogs. I remember being told that people don't want to read things of length online, you can never publish quality original content online. I thought, bullshit. I went ahead with publishing 5,000 word interviews with authors, 15-minute videos, etc. I've been proven right, because more lengthy content gets posted online all the time: podcasts, videos, long form essays. Even from the same people who said no one would care.

HP: There has been talk of Bookslut becoming a print publication at various stages. What happened with that?
JC: I mean, I could see the writing on the wall: print is expensive, it's time consuming, it's a static thing. I've always funded Bookslut out of my own pocket, even during years when it made no money, so risking my own livelihood for a very risky print experiment seemed foolish at best. And then when you bring in a collaborator with money, they have ultimate control. I'm not great with compromise. So yeah, I'd flirt with someone with money, and then I would come to my senses. Not that it wouldn't be fun, either to be a print magazine or to go into publishing. But I like the fluidity of the online world, and I like how cheap it is, especially. (And not that I would never do it. It's just that circumstances have never been perfect.)

HP: You’re often described as a ‘publishing outsider’ because you’re not in New York and don’t work in the traditional industry. But now it’s like you’re the Trojan Horse inside the gates. How does that feel? What will you yell when you surprise the Trojans?
JC: I really enjoy being on the outside. You have a much better view from the outside. I think for a while I got out a rope ladder and thought I'd scale the walls and try to blend in, but it's so uncomfortable in New York publishing. Now I feel less like a Trojan Horse (because Ihave no desire to declare war. They're good where they are, and I'm good where I am. I like it out here. Better air quality, more room to stretch out. No laws to follow.) and more like I have a visitors' pass when I want it. Which is surprisingly not very often. I feel like my friends in independent publishing in New York are the Trojan Horses. I'm out in the fields, lying in the grass and talking to the cows.

HP: Email interviews suck don’t they? You lose a whole layer of non-verbal communication. How do you get around it?
JC: I never do e-mail interviews. I mean, conduct them. I answer many of them.

You’ve done a few video interviews recently – how tough was it to change to video?
Not at all. We had Brown Finch handle all the technical stuff, and I don't mind getting gussied up and making an ass of myself on camera. We were going to do more, but then I decided to move to Berlin. Who knows... maybe I'll find a new crew here and we can start it up again. But for now, that's on hold.

HP: I really liked Slut Lessons – your column about the quirkier aspects of reading culture like how to start your own slutty book group or how to get dates with your library. Whatever happened to that section? And what about Cookslut?
JC: I just got bored writing Slut Lessons, and that was aaages ago. I am so old. Columnists come and go. We'll have a new cookbook columnist soon, actually.

HP: You’re about to move Berlin (or possibly just have) – what will this mean for Bookslut? And more importantly for you?
JC: Who the fuck knows. For Bookslut, it means me backing off a bit. Caroline Eick takes over the day to day stuff, the review books and soon. Right now we have guest bloggers so that I can settle in a bit. I just got here a week ago, so it's hard to say how things are going toend up. As for me personally... I always keep my personal life very quiet. I'm not the type of person to post their pap smear results online. I like my privacy, but sometimes this results in people making stuff up about you. There were rumors swirling around Chicago about why I was moving (marriage, pregnancy, the usual), which I found absurd. But I guess you either have to allow for that or be prepared to issue a statement about your motivations. I moved here for specific reasons, but they're my own reasons. People can believe what they want to believe.

HP: You’re coming to Melbourne soon for the Melbourne Writer’s Festival –what can we expect from your workshop? Do you do ‘trust games’ or will there be cake?
JC: I have been studying the Stanford prisoners experiment as a guideline for my workshop. If I haven't broken everyone psychologically by the end of the day, I will have failed.

HP: Finally what advice do you have for new bloggers?
JC: I hate giving advice, because I generally feel like most of my life has been ruled by chance and luck. The most helpful thing I can think to say is don't worry about looking like an idiot. You're going to say the wrong thing, be thought badly of, trash talked, whatever. But you learn as you go. As long as you're willing to try, and educate yourself, and stay open, you'll be fine.

Is Bendigo in China?

Last weekend I hopped the train to Bendigo, a regional Victorian town best known for its 19th century goldrush that drew prospectors from all over the world. A large group of diggers came from Guandong in China’s south. They packed their culture with them which is so well preserved that it had me wondering if a ticket to China was worth it.

In the 1800s Bridge St looked very different. It was legal to import opium until 1900 and the street boasted no less than three opium dens. Today it’s home to the Golden Dragon Museum, named for characters like Sun Loong (New Dragon) the world’s longest dragon who romps the streets every year at the Easter festival. It’s studded with 90,000 tiny mirrors to repel evil spirits. Wandering the museum’s creepily lifelike wax figures you’ll see Buddhist and Confucian relics because these Chinese immigrants got out before the Culture Revolution crushed their beliefs in China. Further out of town there’s also the Joss House, a tiny temple to Guan-Di, a god of many portfolios including war, literature and, in his spare time, patron of bean curd sellers.

Outside the garden is a modeled on Beijing’s Imperial Garden with a few more nods to Buddha. There’s a large dragon screen much like the one we saw recently in Datong, that repels even more of those pesky evil spirits. As I looked at the two dragons squabbling for a pearl, I was struck by how this ‘immigrant culture’ had outlasted what remained at home. Okay so you'd have to wait 700 years for it to be as historic as the original, but this Chinese Australian construction is unique in its own way.

Forthcoming fiction

The weird thing about writing for print as well as the web is the lag time. With the web you hit 'Publish Post' and it's out in the world. With print it disappears into a big machine and becomes a publication that's almost unrecognisable. In a good way.

I've got a short story coming out in the Big Issue fiction edition. An editor told me they were looking at how to illustrate the piece which stretched my brain in the visual direction. The trigger for the story was seeing a Vietnamese kid doing his homework in the window of his parent's cafe. It was one of those "What's his life like?" moments that takes you off on a fictional tangent. It was a fairly mundane mental snapshot but that was where my brain went. But as an illustration it really wouldn't stand up.

As a reader it can be tough to see your favourite book adapted into a film and seeing how a director has represented a key scene or miscast your favourite character. It's best to just go with it and see the film as something different, another interpretation. So I'm thinking the same will happen with this piece. I wrote an article a while back about ethical footwear (image not re-produced here - but I'm pretty sure it was by Michael Weldon) for the Big Issue and it was published with this fantastic image of two guys with sneakers for heads just chatting. Best of all, it gave the piece a hipness and humour that my writing didn't have.

Either way, the whole visual representation wil be solved when the Fiction edition hits the streets on 14th of July. Also this week I answered a question for the Herald Sun's Travel section about how to get to Australia without taking a plane. I've got no idea what it will look like so I'll be standing outside the newsagency waiting for a glance at it. Maybe illustrations are one of those things that 'need to be read with newsprint on your hands'.