It’s something that could never really be done with film, something unique to the written word. Herbert just embraces the medium and pulls in all these machinations and hints to warring factions and long histories. It’s something that can’t be enjoyed without keeping track of all the larger forces at play, otherwise you’re just lost in a maze; stuck in a room full of grown-ups talking nonsense.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend and I can fall in love with writing all over again.

Too Much of a Good Thing

First posted October 15, 2003

I’ve been crying, she says. She admits it so easily.

How is it that I can figure out you’re lazy and manipulative when we’re not even close and we don’t know each other that well? I never believed a person could be that lazy and that manipulative. And even though my kindness is wearing thin; I’m still kind enough to believe you’re working out of desparation and necessity rather than any wanton lust for power. And if I’m kind enough to believe that, then I’m generous enough to help you.

Throughout my entire childhood, Mother always said she would envy my future wife. I was always too forgiving and too understanding; willing to help, eager to please and too easily taken advantage of. Well here I am, Mum; I hate it how you’re always right about me.

So, like I said, I own a tablet that I can plug into my computer and draw things. I’d really like some sort of blogging software that did this:

1. I visit the web page and click “New Post”
2. I draw something into a box
3. This box is automagically converted to an image and saved on the server
4. This image is converted into a blog post

Why does this not exist yet? It seems like such a simple idea.

I got really, really close with the Ink Blog plugin for Windows Live Writer but it kept crashing on me before I could use it. Ideally, I could draw directly into a web page.

Mike Davidson wrote about the P-I and reflected on the future of long-form writing:

• Our attention spans are shrinking below even the levels caused by the television explosion of the ’80s and ’90s
• We are consuming more and producing less (no, sharing or reblogging does not count as producing)
• We value timeliness of information more than depth of coverage, or even truth in some cases
• We are driving most kids completely away from journalism as a profession
• We’re uncovering more of the who’s, what’s, when’s, and where’s, but less of the how’s and why’s

I think we all know who is to blame. The iPod and it’s fancy shuffle and letting you listen to songs in whatever friggin’ order you want. I remember the days when you had to listen to the entire album at least once. Mixtapes took some friggin’ effort. The “skip” button was never worn down to a faded nub.

Seriously though, these aren’t new concerns but for some reason they hit home a little harder when you see newspapers crumbling. I complain that I can’t crank out a decent blog post on a decent schedule but the real problem is that I don’t have the attention span to read it, let alone write it.

I really hope there’s some sort of counter-movement. Not a revolution but a band of advocates that help these twitchy children of tomorrow to find balance before we all die of heart attacks at age 30.

Merlin Mann at 43Folders is doing some really cool things. He’s just a schmuck that loves to create. He used to be obsessed with all sorts of productivity systems for managing his life but now he just wants to know how to tap into creativity and make something new and worthwhile without getting so involved in the meta of it all.

I’ve gotten busier at work and it’s given me new focus so I ignore a lot of the social chatter going on in my mailing lists. I’m skipping a lot of blog posts in my Reader. I don’t read every single Twitter message that is posted by the 40-odd people that I follow. I’m getting some momentum in this direction. I feel like I’ll have to make a big sacrifice soon if I want to keep any kind of attention span.

I decided to call the site “i read your blog”. Or maybe “i ready our blog” depending on how you want to read the URL. This is a very unimaginative name and I’m already starting to regret it but TOO LATE. It’s all-in from here.

Do any of you remember reading the About page of the Indie Bloggers site? I dug it up on the Wayback Machine and it’s actually a pretty great read. Ranty and idealistic enough that I would call it a manifesto (primarily because I don’t know what a manifesto is, nor have I ever read one). But the way the submission guidelines were written was actually pretty cool. See for yourself on the Wayback Machine link to Indie Bloggers.

Or view the PDF version I made.

There’s some smashing stuff in there. Like this succinct explanation of the site:

Indie Bloggers (“IB”) is only about writing well and reading others who write well.

Don’t you know, they’re talkin’ about a revolution:

IB is and will always be a corner of the internets where we can get away from all the bullshit and fluff and write our asses off without worrying about popularity or who links to whom or gets more comments.

Obligatory grammar nazi note (that I loudly applaud):

A note: You are not e.e. cummings. Use of proper capitalizations is required right along with spelling and grammar.

I don’t really want to know what spurred this:

I have no problem with sexuality in general if it’s not over the top and inappropriate. (NO ANIMALS.)

An appealing call to action:

Now go submit. Pretty please with a fucking cherry on top.

I’ve been thinking about it. The reason Indie Bloggers shut down remains a mystery but if I had to guess, it was because there was too much work involved in reading submissions and scheduling them. Either way, massive props go out to Stacy for making it such a worthwhile site stocked with rich content and no advertising. I’m sure it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get the site to where it was.

I’m approaching this idea from an engineering perspective. I’m slowly pulling together a site that rigs a submission form to post directly into WordPress. Then I can have moderators log in and approve whichever submissions are good enough to be published. The final part is the scheduling. I could either have a bot that comes in and schedules posts based on the date they were approved or I could just manually schedule things so that way we don’t get eighteen consecutive posts about revenge sex. TO BE DECIDED.

Anyway, drop me an email if you’d like to be one of the first submitters to the site. Or maybe if you want to be a moderator. No promises if this site will even get any readers but it will be a good exercise.

Don’t start freaking out though because I didn’t actually do work. I just sat there and performed my usual morning routine of checking email and blogs. When it came to that time where I would usually start work (around 11am), I instead fired up my laptop and watched Iron Man whilst tucking into my first cup of coffee.

Afterward the coffee and the movie, I was all buzzed. I wanted to be all badass like Tony Stark and create things and tinker and look really smart. Childish, I know but I was being driven by caffeine. I thought about when I was reflecting on my New Year’s resolutions and how Indie Bloggers no longer exists.

I’d like to run an Indie Bloggers-style site that features a curated set of blog posts from interesting but lesser-known writers all over the internet. I’d want it to basically be an homage to the original except with a happier color scheme and a well organized archive. But I see a number of huge obstacles in my way:

1. Ego

This would essentially be an exercise in boosting my ego. While a community organizer should certainly be proud of their achievements, I’m more cynical and I think that like most websites driven by ego, it’s been thought of a zillion times already and it would die a slow death once it no longer becomes fun.

2. Content

I’m probably too cynical about writing style; I’m no connoisseur of the literary arts. I roll my eyes at poetry, free form prose, giant slabs of text with no paragraph breaks, and lack of punctuation. Not to say that I expect everyone to be a perfect essayist on the internet, it’s just that these remind me of the horrible things I wanted to write in my youth. I cringe because I understand the sentiment all too well.

3. Updating

I do not read very many personal blogs. The ones that I am subscribed to, I tend to skim over. At work, I develop a short attention span and I just don’t have the patience to read through everybody’s personal diatribes. This would certainly be counter-productive to running a website that highlights excellent personal writing.

Perhaps I would be better served sticking to my older idea of making a free WordPress theme for people to download. That could be fun and simple.

Another thing, I bought a Wacom tablet back in November and I’ve barely touched it since. I never really allowed myself time to draw except when I was stuck in class and bored out of my mind.

Now, it looks like I need to simulate those conditions again in order to want to draw anything. I’m not sure I have the discipline to do this when I’m at my computer because it’s so easy to open a browser window and just numb my brain with inane crap.

Amongst the drafts are wonderful topics such as:

• My Top 5 TV Boyfriends (inspired by Tiff)
• I figured out why I’m still single
• I’m doomed to stay single forever
• Everyone hates drivers who break the rules but it’s ok to speed
• What exactly changed your mind about suicide?
• Long distance relationships scare the crap out of me

For all of them, I started writing a few paragraphs and then I lost interest. These are all very worth topics but, uh, I just lost the motivation to write about them. I’m reading more stuff than ever but I’m having trouble just finding the attention span to sit still and write something. I should write blog posts in the morning when I’m still and patient. At work, I am like a toddler being forced to sit still; I writhe and flail my arms and demand to go home and watch Nemo again. Work is boooooooring.

There’s actually a bunch going on in my personal life that I don’t want to blog about. It will probably come out as thinly veiled fictional posts. Because I’m really imaginative like that. Now that I think about it, I much prefer writing the fictional posts as opposed to an accurate account of a real-life event because what I really want to do is capture a feeling rather than tell you what happened. You don’t really care if I had a croissant this morning but maybe you’ll play along if I can conjure up visions of soft flaky pastry and melty butter and French people making snide remarks about my shoes in-between their passionate mid-morning make out sessions. And when they kiss, their cigarettes magically cling to the sides of their mouth so afterwards they stand up, straighten their clothes and continue to carelessly puff away at this tortured existence. Also, it’s very obvious that I have never been to France nor even met a French person. Well ok, my French teacher was actually French and we all laughed when the gym teacher locked him into a classroom.

An excerpt from If— by Rudyard Kipling

One day in high school, our English teacher started quoting some of this poem and we all stared at her blankly. The next day, she had printed off copies for the class and we sat there as she read it aloud melodramatically. This poem was not part of the curriculum, it was just something she liked and saw fit to share.