We're geairng up for our third episode of the podcast, and we wanted to get some feedback from you folks.
The topic we plan to discuss this time around is Internetting. Whether blogging and social networking is helpful for a writer, or distracting—is it important to develop an audience, or does it take away from the time you have to write?
Internet. Terrible time suck, or not a terrible time suck. Let us know!
Got any questions you want us to discuss? Want to let us know your opinion? Have it at, here, or by e-mailing podcast@litreactor.com.
And, hey, if you have any comments in general about the podcast, or there's stuff you'd like to see (or hear, I guess?), let us know that too!
In case you missed it:
Unprintable: The LitReactor Podcast Episode 1 - The Premiere
The internet is a tool. If used as one, it's invaluable. You get to meet people with common interests who are supportive of your writing. Lots of feedback. You can research amazingly strange topics, find strange news items from across the world that spark fiction ideas, and read other great stories from a number of sites (for free).
That being said, I spend as much time checking Amazon or my e-mail as I do researching a story or talking on forums. And on the forums, half the time I'm only talking about Averydoll or how awesome the Hulk and Batman are. So, time sink it is.
It's hard to say it much better than Howie.
I'm yet to branch out much on Facebook or Twitter. I have accounts for both. I use FB to keep in touch with friends and stalk people, which is it's divine purpose. I haven't yet started adding friends I don't know in the real, physical world.
Twitter - I have an account, but no desire to use it. I do suppose once I get to the point where I'll have some work I want to pimp out, I'll start using it more. But as a writer, I can't fucking stand internet lingo and the way Twitter has people communicate. We have the greatest technology in the history of man to keep us connected, and look at how we treat the written word!
How do everyone else here use twitter from a writers standpoint? Does it help? I'm guessing it's somewhat of a necessary evil, 140 characters at a time.
I'm also taking a break from writing right now to check my facebook and peruse the boards and see what kind of overhyped drama is going on in the NFL.
Time Suck
The Internet is a delicate balance, especially for a writer. It can be an invaluable tool or it can be a time-sucking toy, but I think what it comes down to is self-control...restraining oneself from being overly dependent on it--not only as a writer, but as a human being looking to form real relationships.
I've seen threads made in writers' forums where the OP basically wanted the work done for them. They not only wanted the pertinent information on the subject, but they wanted the forum to go into great detail on how it should be written. So I think the Internet has made us a little bit lazy, in that sense. Perhaps an even better example of that would be people who are currently in school, and instead of writing their own paper, find a paper online in which to clone or very closely copy. Bottom line: we know becoming an author is difficult, and it's seemed to have breed this sort of "let's cut corners" mentality.
I guess the question here is: has the Internet stifled our creativy and work ethic? Are we now depending on it too much to "do the work for us," so to speak?
That nails a big point I forgot. The 'let's cut corners' mentality Brandon mentioned is really important.
I remember reading some article/interview about Neil Gaiman spending hours researching Gods and the original myths about them and finding little things in the old stories that were never mentioned again (I think it was about how Thor's hammer gets bigger if he rubs it). He used that little bit to great effect in The Sandman.
Little details that you can only get from reading the original source material are often lost in the process of putting it on wikipedia. It's great if you want to know what year Mtn. Dew was created, but it doesn't tell you that the original recipe tasted more like Sprite than Mtn. Dew, or that the formula was changed to compete with Sun Drop (according to "Mountain Dew: The History").
(Those 'facts' are from memory, and my memory sucks... so I may be off about them, but that proves the point, too. You can't trust the internet to be reliable, consistant, or unbiased.)
Love the handy info, but yes it distracts. But we are all looking for distractions. it would be something else if not Internet, maybe something worse. You have to just sit down and write, be it long before the Internet or now.
Just expanding on this - does anyone follow another writer's blog?
Someone mentioned Neil Gaiman has a blog (think it was on my 'Jane Austen' article)
How about other well known authors?
Gaiman is the only one I ever followed. I've tried following Clevenger, but he doesn't post much. Nobody else I read has a blog that I've found (or they, too, post so infrequently that it wouldn't really be called 'following' it). I'm sure they have twitters, but I haven't looked into that, yet.
I want an Amy Hempel twitter feed.
I've read Gaiman's for a couple years, pretty good. I also read John August's, hollywood screenwriter who talks a lot about screen writing and has some interesting posts.
Author blogs I check once every few weeks or months, most of them I have on twitter too. Joe Hill, Nick Mamatas, and Joe Lansdale post shit all the time. Brian Keene, Tom Piccirilli, Stephen Graham Jones, a bunch of people from here/Velvet/Write Club/Booked Podcast. Mostly crime/horror writers. Haven't seen too many Literary writers offer their insights through blog form, they probably just send it to Harper's to run as an essay.
Out of all the time I waste on the internet, maybe 4-5 hrs a week, usually all done in one evening, are actually sending stories out or seeking writerly advice or researching new markets or, rarely, promoting shit. The rest of it is usally dicking around on facebook and watching basketball or something, which I can kinda justify to myself by keeping a writing document open in the scrollbar or on half the screen. Timesink, yes, but also pretty much required if you're hustling and promoting writing or music or art or anything in the world today.
Jonny Gibbings and Max Barry have both had me reading their blog from time to time. Both of them are very humorous guys and they put unique spins on the topics they post about. I'd recomend looking up both.
I'd never have the time to blog properly (my site is on a blog host, but we only post story and interview content so I don't consider it a blog). Not with any regularity. I have enough to do as it is, and I have a feeling nobody would read it.
For me blogging helps me focus or sort out my thoughts about whatever part of writing business is on my mind that day. I can clear out my head yammering away in one of my blogs and then get to work on whatever needs doing. I tend to use internet/other distractions to let one part of my brain screw off while I let something else simmer. Since I figured out how to do this in a way that lets me work I've had a better time not falling into time sucking internet holes.
My blog is completely screwed thanks to insistent attacks that no amount of security has managed to clear up. My host has had my account suspended for more than a month now. I really don't have time to fuck with it, but at some point I really need to. Though I'm really not sure what else to do.
Either way, I blog very little. I always have things I want to blog about, just never seem to find the time, and it never seems half as important as working on a story (to be fair, little does).
I started a blog (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) once with a friend (NOT SAFE FOR WORK), but it went off the rails almost immediatly and started being all fiction and meta. A blog can be a great place to work out some of the silly ideas that won't work in general, sellable fiction.
I'd like to hear from people who had a active writing career before the internet took off, and find out if back in the day they got distracted reading and watching TV or what not. For me I know the net feels like a distraction, and it can be, but mostly that is me needing time to think.
