In the Web Writers event today there was a panel on what to call whatever it is that is published somewhat regularly by people on the WEB. I call this a daily journal. I put in whatever I think I'm comfortable being public that my lazy self will actually type and can get out of my old brain. No one stops me. I try not to promote traffic. No one insists on promotion just as no one stops you promoting. I couldn't see what it mattered what things were called. People read it or don't. I sensed some people wanted to make rules. They already give awards. Organizations have to have rules and that's what makes things click. That's what made the panels for this conference work. People showed up to moderate and be panelists, they followed time limits. I have to say that it was a very creative boost for me and only sixty-five dollars which included some free food, miscellaneous toys, program, etc.

Of course, I felt less creative faced with my journal page. (By the way, I skipped the technical makeover session to have a coffee on S. Congress with lisarock so I guess I'll just keep this stupid format until I take the time for a makeover and a little techie work on my own.)

But, um, gatekeepers....

In another panel WEB writers talked about getting books published and plays produced. Movies optioned. Lots of gatekeepers in that mix. The physical book, for sale on Amazon, is the mantra. Then the movie. Get by the gatekeepers and get it out to your public.

But, really, a lot of these journal/web log/diary/blog people are already reaching a public. They have created a community that has as a heroine Pamela Ribon who wrote a novel about developing popularity online. Who circular is that? Anyway, they've invented a culture where points are awarded for being funny and poignant especially if things are going well. A lightning speed culture, too. No years of waiting for feedback, albeit only in the tens or hundreds or thousands, about your wit and wiliness. Maybe the feedback will lose you a job or a boyfriend, but it is all, in the end, good.

We don't control much in our lives. Maybe I control these pixels. Everything else is chaos. But I'm not really looking for feedback. I'm trying to get myself writing, create a commonplace book of ideas, thoughts, events and (not so often now) quotes. A place to remember how I felt and what I read.

I try to control the traffic here by not seeking readers. I was surprised when I got home today to find a response to a pretty old archived entry where I showed a picture of my great-grandfather. I'm not into genealogy that much. I'd just scanned that picture and had nothing much else to write about. The message I received said that this guy who lived in my area had the same great-grandfather and that his mother had given him the same picture. Hmmm. My dad remembered this guy's grandmother (my dad's aunt) and his mother.

Sometimes you can't look at what you write in isolation but really look at it as a big web of stuff after all. Something bigger than your own entry. A fertile ground for the research of the future. Preserving a record of what you eat, how much you weigh and what you watched on TV may not be art but it may someday have some meaning. I once found a small diary my aunt wrote long ago. She didn't record much but I found the record of radio shows she listened to somewhat fascinating. Nobody kept her from writing it down but I wonder if she still has that diary? Certainly it can't be keyword searched. When I got this e-mail today I only vaguely remember writing anything about my great-grandfather. It was, after all, in July 2001. However, a search of my site with Dreamweaver turned it up. And, the second page of a google search as well.

Are those DJ's who scratch different records the wave of the future and will art be made from thousands of words typed by thousands of ordinary folks into WEB pages?

Yeah, maybe,...but just cause it gets googled doesn't make it meaningful or make it art either. I must do some real writing. Whatever that is. No one is stopping me. I may not be able to have a book publisher bless it. I should make that movie. I may not get distribution. But no one is stopping me.

 

 

 

 

 

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Digestion problems persist. Think I was slightly depressed because so many of the young and cool I met have their whole lives ahead of them. Or at least fifteen to twenty-five more years than I. Unless, of course, fate intervenes. I could have fifty years left. Better start using it wisely.