Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category
Attention Newbie On The ComicCon Floor
After spending the last few months chosen incubation, I am ready to venture a little further out from my usual circles (dancers and medical professionals, oh my!). On Thursday, I travel to sunny San Diego, CA to attend ComicCon. After looking at the four days of workshops, events, and exhibition floor descriptions on the website, I feel like I need to carry a personal amplifier or bullhorn while yelling, “Attention! Attention! Newbie on the ComicCon Floor!” However, even this newbie knows a thing or two about having fun at conventions, and bringing home a treasure or two to make the experience last for months to come.
Shoes And Toys
Don’t know what to bring? I found that crowd-sourcing this question on the hashtag ComicCon on Twitter can be very helpful. Also, if you take time to look through the workshops, you’ll notice a pattern of interests in everything from comfortable footwear to costuming and makeup tips. This is, alas, a photo-op for many people. You won’t last long if you’re dogs are barking. My trusty Dansko shoes are coming with me. So are the socks. Doesn’t matter if it’s 74 degrees and sunny outside. Wear them, or weep later.
I also love taking pictures and short films on my iPhone4. Steady photography and film is enhanced with an accessory called the Xshot modified by a small piece of plastic with standard tripod port called the Glif. This allows me to either film myself and get shots that I otherwise could not reach, especially since I’m a shorty. Large crowds are expected, and the ability to whip out my small set up gets me some shots that you’d be surprised were captured on a phone.
What About Costumes?
If you are a costume fiend, ComicCon welcomes you to wear it proudly. I learned that by attending the Emerald City Comic Con, which is by far a much smaller conference. Still, there were people lining up for entry on the first day, decked out in costumes based on their favorite sci-fi movies and shows. There were more than few Klingons, and even a Jessica Rabbit that made me laugh (remember: she’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way). I saw my first Chun Li as well.
If you’re not a costume fiend, ComicCon still welcomes you. There are plenty of people who don’t wear costumes to the convention. Actually, more people don’t wear costumes based on photos. The exception to that rule is Saturday evening’s scheduled Masquerade party, with a costume contest given to the most innovative costumer. No store-bought costumes are allowed. I have a little Pebbles/BamBam leopard print costume and long pony tail hair that is likely to show up at the ball. Now to find me a bone…
Making The Most Of It
I find that my most meaningful experiences are often the ones where I come with an open mind, yet I am aware of what I might like to see. Having a goal helps. While I do not know exactly what to expect, I have a question or two I’d like answered, such as, “How can my interest in entertainment and storytelling be enhanced by ComicCon?” “Is there anyone I’d enjoy meeting that shares my interests?” And finally, “What would completely blow my mind?”
When I am aware of what I am looking for, I feel like I am at least ten times more likely to find it (and know where NOT to find it). OK, that’s not exactly scientific; it’s a feeling. But I think you know what I mean. Whatever you think about, you begin to create. And what you create becomes alive, infusing other aspects of your artful business or living like yeast permeates dough.
If all else fails, I take notes. Many of you already know I’m a big fan of Evernote to record things I don’t want to forget. I take video and photo notes of things of interest, and I look for QR codes next to product I want to research. You don’t have to take everything in at once; you only need to organize your thoughts for when you’re ready to do something with your observations and ideas.
Got any suggestions for enjoying ComicCon and other large conventions? Please share, and come back and check on the blog to see more things about ComicCon when I return. Or follow me on Twitter for the occasional photo and comment.
Over and out until I’m in sunny California [Incidentally, I gave in and got another indoor tan today, since Seattle's frigid July was getting on my nerves].
Where To Share Your Shame In Seattle
After a particularly hard day at my day job (I’m a private practice therapist), I often looked forward to watching comedy at night. I’ve been to Theater Sports and a few comedy clubs in Seattle, but more often than not, I’d be up watching some late-night comedy. The ability to laugh at your life — or somebody else’s life, for that matter! — seems to always to the edge of seriousness off of the day. I feel no guilt for getting a good night’s sleep. Tonight, I am going to sleep well because I got my belly laughs at a comedy show in its sixth year: The Salon of Shame, located in the Theater Off Jackson in the International District. This is THE place to share your shame proudly and move forward a little lighter for it.
Could your own diary from days gone by contain artful ideas?
Dear Diary
Readers send in their request to share up to five minutes of material from their early childhood to college years. Subjects cover the range of music, unsent letters, dating and breakups, bad poetry, to obsessive details involving period slang and relational sadism. The curators of the show, aka the Ariels (two women both named Ariel but unrelated) and Ben (AV guy) select both new readers as well as past readers that may or may not have intersection with other readers. Participant readers receive free entry, a plus 1 pass, and oodles of “street cred” [I highly doubt that, but you'll have an appreciative audience]. The show runs approximately 90 minutes, with an intermission/pee break, and the entire show has several American Sign Language translators, who add an additional level of expression and comedy to the readings. The MC does a great job of keeping the flow going between readings and providing some laughter-enhancing comments about the previous reading.
Why On Earth Would You Want To Do This? (And FFS: Is It Art?)
Everyone remembers the first time they performed anything publicly, read a poem aloud, gave a speech, or danced a jig. Part of performance as a young person involves the attention to detail s/he gave the subject matter, as if it were life and death and everything and the Universe [a.k.a 42]. By reading something you once thought was so “aweseome” many years ago, you begin to see how serious and ridiculous you were. Remember that first kiss you gave? Did you write down how many minutes it lasted? Did you notice what song was playing on the radio? Did you write bad poetry about the guy you found so hot? What zingers did you say about the guy who decided to go steady with your best friend instead of you?
The things you wrote about as a child or young adult are the same things we care about today, only perhaps on a more generalized scale. We still care about music, kissing, relationships, stupid things people say and do, what people think of us, and what we think of people. Your old diary may hold some fun material you’ve always wanted to blog about, create art, or sing about — only, I highly recommend you change any names of identifiable people in your public work, and think about editing that part about the curvature of your penis [unless you could somehow get people to think that wasn't YOUR penis. Hmmm.]
Delivery is everything, and readers can select excerpts directly from their past writings, or they can transfer their work to a tablet or print out for easier reading. I particularly enjoyed the readings where the writer presents his or her work in her former voice, such as herself when she was 13. Readings become mini theatrical presentations, and everyone in the audience is invited to snicker, chortle, and snort at the sarcasm and self-centered views of teenagers in the throes of unrequited love.
Yes, even bad poetry is art. It’s just “bad” art, and bad art has a certain comedy to it that I think you will not only enjoy, but you might find strangely cathartic. The next Salon of Shame is September 13, 2011; SOS runs every two months on the second Tuesday of the month, and tickets often sell out in five minutes [but they told us to tell you that there is a wait list available the day of the show, so if you don’t get ticket right away, you can see if there are seats remaining). If you’re in Seattle, attend a show, and then ask yourself what excerpts from your diary would you feel embarrassed to share in public. My guess is that you’ll find that material the fodder of some great art!
Editor’s Note: I might not have heard about the Salon of Shame for some time if it hadn’t been for the Furrball in my life. For various reasons, I’m keeping his name muted for now, but here’s my thanks for the tip, ticket, and accompaniment, as well as all that thigh slapping and foot stomping that let me know you loved it too.
Why Share Original Content When You Can Steal It
Based on what I saw on the Internet yesterday, I thought to myself, “Why share original content when you can steal it?” Obviously, I’m not a thief. I try to generate original content, or if I’m commenting on content that is not my own, it’s usually for the purpose of adding my own spin to the topic. To not do so is to simply create more noise. While researching stories about the Skype/ Silver Lake breaking story about the vested stock options of fired Skype executives, I noticed that two popular blogs, Wired and TechCrunch, had articles that were lifted word for word and placed into other blogs that had nothing but lifted content. If you are new to blogs, printing excerpts with attributions and links, doing reviews of other blog content and product with editorials, and citing the author and location of the original blog post are kosher activities. Lifting the entire content of a blog and placing it on another blog with advertisement (with the hopes of getting hits and revenue) is not. If you are a new blogger, here’s some reasons why you should create and share original content, even if you can steal it.
Share Original Content If You Don’t Want To Be a Thief
Whether done with the use of bots and a special program to search the web, scraping content is a form of plagiarism called content scraping. A fine discussion in the comment stream is happening one of the best blogs on the topic, For Bloggers By Bloggers. But what it comes down to is this: if you take content from someone else’s site without attribution, you are a thief. From an excerpt from the comment stream of the blogpost “Good Thief Bad Thief”, blogger Judy Dunn shares this about her experience with her blog, CatsEyeWriter:
But, don’t know if [commenter] knew that, according to intellectual property attorneys, as soon as you write something including a blog post, it’s copyrighted, whether you register it or not. I have a copyright symbol on my blog, but it’s probably not necessary (except that it might deter some people when they see it).
[By the way, the For Blogger By Bloggers site is cooler than cool, and I've been reading it with regularity for about four months now. Judy Dunn clarified that the content scraping was done on her blog, CatsEyeWriter, but as suspected, she was targeted for scraping because of the high number of unique hits she was receiving.]
Did you know your original content is copyrighted? It’s yours. For artists of all kinds, there are few actions that have that sweet sense of deep satisfaction than seeing your work in print. Sharing it should mean that it met some level of your approval, and that you would stand by your work if anyone came to question it. Stealing it (content scraping or grabbing excerpts without attribution) doesn’t quite give you that satisfaction. Not only is it something you can’t brag about, it is something you have to hide.
Original Content Helps You Rank High
I keep saying to people, “I’m the somebody of the nobodys.” Honestly, I’m not trying to disparage myself when I repeat this story to people. I don’t have a huge number of subscribers, but I do notice when my analytics jump because I wrote something interesting. And while I’m not sitting around raking in the dough off of advertisement [I place the site's ads on one page, so if you want to shop, it's because you choose to], I know how this works: more traffic and higher page ranking on Google means more potential for business and brand recognition. Popular bloggers are those who create original content and write it in such a way that search engines can categorize that information for accurate consumption.
Content scraping hurts.
A few months ago, another blog that I occasionally contributed to as a guest blogger alerted its blogging community to a stronger position on editing and producing original content. I applaud that choice, especially after sampling some of its blogging content over the past year. A prolific blog can rise in the ranks by sheer volume of material, but Google search crawlers can detect when novice bloggers are lifting material from other sites. Blogs can and do get banned for these kinds of violations, and in some cases, a fine can be assessed. I’m not saying these bloggers did that, but there was clarification that content scraping would not be tolerated.
BTW, thinking you can outsmart the system by simply copying excerpts with attributions and NOT creating original content is neither wise nor interesting. Readers can smell a fake, and despite the all the droll things we see on Youtube that go viral, readers can tell when your stuff is interesting and when it’s not. When I research a topic online, I skip over all the sites that look like regurgitations and content scrapers. I bet you do too. Or if you haven’t noticed, you will start to notice from now on.
[BTW, I do want to take a moment to say, "Thank you!" for reading my blog. Readership has been growing, and business is good.]
Original Content Inspires Creativity
Thinking and writing creative and original content keeps you in the creative stream. Songwriter and singer Pierce Pettiss shared with me his insight about creativity: it is a waterfall that never dries up. It’s eternal.
That’s a little secret, you know: once you’re in the waterfall, it just keeps coming, and you stay wet. If you step out of the creative act and start taking shortcuts, you lose your edge. I notice this when I take vacations from my creative work. It takes a bit to get back into the swing of things, unless I keep a toe in the creative process at all times, such as reading a good book, or viewing thought-provoking film. If I haven’t choreographed a new piece for a month, the next piece can sometimes have a few more unnecessary starts and stops before I hit my groove. The same can be applied to writing or any kind of content production.
If you steal other people’s ideas, you might get away with it. Artist Justin Hillgrove reminded me that most artists steal ideas (borrow might be a nicer way to say it) along their pathway of development, so much so that it is assumed an artist isn’t completely original. In that sense, all of us are little thieves of our own mind’s curation. But if you don’t focus on creating something in your own style and essential core, you’ll never understand what it is to stand in the waterfall of creativity that never ends.
I’ve had ideas, gigs, and business opportunities stolen from me over the years. I’ve even had work that is attributed to me to be rebranded with that attribution removed from its proper mention. While that makes me gnash my teeth lightly (no need to send myself to the dentist over it), there is a part of me that also says, “No biggee. There’s more of my original content coming.” Because I understand what it takes to be creative, I don’t worry that the ideas will stop coming. In fact, the other persons who steal ideas show themselves to lack the very flow of creativity that I find so tangible and abundant.
My sympathy goes out to Judy Dunn for the troubles she is going through to regain control of 2.5 years of content after content scrapers somehow managed to wrangle her posts and domain. She has taken the time to outline important steps you can take to guard your own content, and I encourage others to take action to protect their work.
[Editor's note: Judy wrote the reply, below, to my comment on her blogpost. Thanks again to Judy for sharing her experience so that we can all benefit].
Wow, Imei. Nice post you wrote. I think the more we get the word out about this, the more educated we’ll all be. This actually happened with my own blog (CatsEyeWriter), but, yes, it was because of the traffic I had built up.
Typepad’s response was a little irritating. They said:
“When you choose to close your Typepad account, you free up your domain to be used by new account holders…”
As if it was somehow my fault. And they didn’t tell me until after the fact that I could have kept that domain with a free account, so no one else could snap it up. Boy, that would have been helpful information, like 3 months ago.
Thanks again for helping to get the word out, Imei.
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