Networking

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that great at networking. It's not just that I'm a slightly technologically challenged teenager, it's also that I find it difficult to tell whether what I'm saying is interesting and I have almost no idea whether an online community will be good for me until after I get into it. I usually try something for a while and then drop off the face of the forum, either a week or a year later, and occasionally go back and look at my quiet page and think about what it's like to be an internet ghost. By the way, if anyone wants to write about an internet ghost, you can have that one. Like I said, technologically challenged here, and that idea frightens me because of the amount of research that could possibly be involved. Can spectral material travel over internet signals? How does chain mail feel as it zips through your entity? Are spammers really just ghosts that are as tech-illiterate as me trying to get our attention?

Anyway. Lately, when I go to join a writing site, it seems like it's either a big gaint community that intimidates me with it's connectedness, a giant community that really isn't very connected at all and isn't that great of a place to be, or a small community that intimidates me by its intimateness. And most WIP sharing sites have strict rules about what can be in manuscripts, and I break at least a few of them. This makes me kind of sad. I had no idea my book was too bad for the internet. The irnoy is cold and painful like a rusty scouring pad to my self-confidence.

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is I know it's not as easy as it seems to do social networking. People you meet over the internet can be just as, if not more, intimidating than real-life people. The pressure is all on you to be witty and charming without even having eyelashes to bat, and internet sarcasm has a nasty habit of going over peoples heads. So if you are a socially awkward struggling networker trying to find their place in cyberspace, don't be afraid to ask for help. Just not from me, 'cause I'm as clueless as the rest of you. I also use 'Anyway' way to much. I was just about to start another paragraph with it. I'll restrain myself.

...Check out these websites that have at least marginally worked for me!

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/
http://www.webook.com/home
http://fantasy-writers.org/default.asp

And fictionpress.com is okay, but you've gotta have a way to draw people in from other places, because that site is ginormous.

Til next time!

It's a New Year...

I should get some sort of award. "Latest New Year Post". Isn't there a wall of shame somewhere for people like me?

Anyway.

I'm not gonna do a list of resolutions, because I don't like to be disappointed or disappoint others. However there are a few things I'm planning. Tentatively.

1. I would like to blog twice or thrice a week. Because my current level of suck here is just ridiculous.

2. I want to read all the classics on my TBR list (To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, some Shakespeare, and finish Huck Finn and Dorian Gray).

3. I want to be more outgoing; comment more, interact, etc.

4. I want to query for Accidents and complete at least two first drafts.

That's all. At least, all the interweb related ones.

In other news, I finally found a beta partner. Her name is Writein and we met on Absolute Write (wonderful forums, an awesome query workshop and lively discussions) on a third party's beta reader request thread. I'll see if I can scrounge up a post about betas and editing after we've finished each others books.

And, with a B&N giftcard graciously given by my aunt, I've read Personal Demons, Ink Exchange, House of Many Ways, and am about a third through with Dorian Gray (I also bought Danger Days, new album of awesome, but I can't start talking about that or I swear I will gush). House of Many Ways was wonderful; even better than Castle in the Air, but not quite as good as Howl's Moving Castle, I thought. Ink Exchange was really neat, and I'll probably be reading more Melissa Marr soon. Personal Demons was great, but dunno if I'm gonna read Original Sin. Got a few funny looks carrying that book around, but it's worth it. Dorian Gray is an example of why I don't need drugs - a future favorite, I think. Probably all of these will show up in the English Journals posts eventually, but my journal is now being graded for the last quarter, which is why I didn't post one tonight. When I get it back, the next two will be for Pegasus by Robin McKinley. (Edit: I lied. They're actually about Living Dead Girl. I'll get to Pegasus eventually.)

Happy New Year. Anyone have any fun resolutions (or tentative plans) for 2011?