Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights 01.008: How It All Got Started: Boy / Girl

Written on August 17th, 2009. Filed under How It All Got Started. Tagged with , , , , , , .

Previously: Alex Kent got a job! Lina Porter told her parents she broke up with Eric Finn. Not!

“Boy / Girl”
Lina Porter and Claire Glick lay on on the floor in Claire’s living room, propped up on their elbows, their respective high schools yearbooks open between them.

“What about this guy?” Lina followed Claire’s finger to a color picture of a senior (all the senior pictures were in color; everyone else rated only black and white.) He wore a suit on picture day, which Lina thought was a little presumptuous. His skin was pale beneath side-parted dark hair, brown eyes and bushy black eyebrows.

“You think he’s cute..?”

“Well… I don’t know.” Claire’s lips twisted. “He’s got nice eyes.”

“Nice suit, too,” Lina teased.

“Yeah… I know,” Claire conceded. “Your turn.”
“Okay.” Lina flipped through the yearbook. There were reasons she ended up with someone who didn’t go to O’Neil High; someone who had already graduated. These boys…

“Lemme see…”

Claire bumped Lina’s shoulder with her own. “Eric’s not in there, loser.”

Lina laughed. “Thanks, bitch. I totally didn’t know.” She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out. “Fine.” She jabbed a picture with her finger. “What about him?”

Lina chose a kid whose wardrobe choice for picture day was a rumpled striped dress shirt with most of the buttons undone. His blonde hair was sloppily spiked, he wore eyeliner and his smile was completely confident.

Lina saw her friend’s eyes widen. “That is totally unfair.”

“What?”

“Don’t you remember him from junior high? Fuck me sideways.” Lina smiled at her friend’s latest favorite curse as Claire shook her head. “I bet he doesn’t drag that backpack full of Dungeons and Dragons books around any more, does he?”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think so. I forgot about that. You think he’s cute?”

“Totally unfair. Totally unfair. Does he like you?”

Lina chuckled. “We don’t really hang out.”

“Lame! I mean, he’s right there…”

“Your turn.” Lina yanked her yearbook out from under Claire’s nose. “You’re getting it all drooly.”

“Fine.” It didn’t take Claire long to find the next candidate. “This one’s totally unfair, too. Mega.”

Lina looked. Long straight dark hair that flowed past the shoulders of a light tee-shirt. Gentle eyes. Full lips hinting at an uncertain smile.

“You confuse me,” she said. “This is your next choice after mister suit?”

“That was just a warm up. This… this is the real deal.”

Still not really Lina’s thing, but she could see the appeal. This guy looked like he was actually really nice, and maybe a little bit like he needed someone to take care of him. “So… why’s it unfair? Does he have girlfriend?”

Claire sighed. “He never will. That’s what’s so wrong.”

“You mean..?”

Claire probably didn’t know she was making goo-goo eyes at the picture. She sighed again. “Totally, totally gay.”

Lina giggled. “Aw, honey…”

“Yeah. I’m a lost cause.”

“Well… at least he’ll never break your heart.”

“He’s alive and he will never, ever, ever go out with me,” Claire moaned with exaggerated drama. “He breaks my heart every minute of every day.” She dropped her forehead to the book and jerked her shoulders. “Waaaaah!”

“Lemme guess,” Lina drawled. “You guys met in drama class.”

Claire’s head popped up. “Well, duh.” She resumed flipping; performance over.

Lina stopped her. “Who’s that?”

“These are the freshmen, Lina. As if.”

“No, seriously… what’s up with that one?”

“You mean the way he looks? Some bone thing he was born with. He hangs out with my friend Mel; they’re nerdy to the max, but they’re cool.” Claire closed her yearbook firmly and sat up. “I don’t think we’re going to find you a new boyfriend this way.”

The tiny picture of the strange boy lingered in Lina’s mind. She focused.

“Wait. Is that what we’re doing? Besides, don’t I have a boyfriend?”

“Oh, do you?” Claire frowned. “He’s creepy, Lina; I swear to god. And you told your parents you broke up with him, anyway.”

“I only did that so I wouldn’t be grounded.”

Claire pointed a finger. “But he is creepy! You don’t deny it! Ha!”

“He’s not creepy.”

“He worships the devil.”

“He does not!”

“He tried to get you drunk so you would suck his cock.”

Lina couldn’t deny that, but the sight of Claire nodding her head and saying, “Yep. Yep. Uh huh! Yep,” was too irritating for life.

“I wanted to get drunk! Besides, he didn’t force me, or anything.”

“Ugh!” Claire made an “L” with index finger and thumb and put it over Lina’s forehead. “He’s a Looo-zer, Lina. You could totally do better.”

“Oh, like falling for someone who doesn’t even like girls?”

Claire’s eyes narrowed over her smile and she shook her head slowly. “Oh, you are so gonna pay for that, bitch.”

Lina closed her own yearbook and sat up. She sighed. “So how could I do better, miss advice columnist?”

Claire got serious. “First things first. Break up with Eric Finn for reals and for true.”

“Why do you want me to break up with him so bad?”

“Honey, everyone wants you to break up with him. Wake up! Why isn’t he going with someone his own age? Why’s he have to go with a high school girl? L – O – S – E – R!”

Lina was so tired of everyone picking on Eric. Doubt nagged. Was that why she went out with him in the first place; because he was kind of an underdog? Or just to piss everyone off?

Damn it, she knew he was a dick. But…

Claire was doing the nodding thing again. “You know I’m right.” She got up and walked over to the telephone. “Do it. Be strong, woman! Rarrr!”

“No way. I’m totally not breaking up with him over the phone.”

“Ah ha! But you are breaking up with him!”

“I dunno…” Lina stood up. “I should see him. Talk to him. I don’t want to be a bitch.”

“Aren’t you going to that party thing on Friday with Car? Who you totally should be with, by the way. Duh.”

“Car? We’re just friends.” Lina couldn’t help but think of the very brief time in eighth grade when that was not quite the whole story. She shook her head. “We’re good friends. That’s it. Are you going?”

“Bizzaro girl,” Claire muttered, then said, “I can’t. I promised my sister I’d go see… gag… Pink Floyd with her. Whatever. See if devil-boy’s going to be there. You can tell him then.”

Whether or not she broke up with Eric, the party would be the perfect excuse to see him without her parents knowing about it. And if she did go through with it, they wouldn’t be alone.

The fact that she automatically took that into account confused and frustrated her. She crossed the living room to Claire.

“Fine. Give me the phone.”

Alex slept in. Alex lounged around. Alex worked on his painting. Alex watched daytime television. Alex noodled on his guitar. Alex read.

In other words, Alex spent the third day of summer like it really was summer vacation. He could do this and his father could say nothing. Alex had a job.

Granted, the idea of working at Hagar’s made him cringe every time he thought about it and the countdown to his first day felt like a walk down death row. But it was a job, and it didn’t have to be his last job. Once he had a little money, his driver’s license and the car in the driveway was officially his, he would find something… anything… else.

Eight days to go… eight days until polyester shirts and a hair net.

It would be worth it.

The phone rang. Alex lurched off of the sofa and picked it up. “Yeah-lo.”

“Is this Alex?”

He’d never heard this voice over the phone before, but he recognized it instantly. “Heather?” He grinned.

“Yeah! Hi! I hope you don’t mind that I called. I was just on my break and…”

“God, no, I don’t mind! I was gonna try you tonight; figured you’d be at work…” Did she think he wasn’t interested because she had to call first? He could have at least left a message… crap…

“No, that’s totally okay; I am at work,” she laughed, “so you figured right. I’m just on my ten minutes and so…”

“And so you called me! I’m glad. How are you?”

She had a throaty laugh, with a lot of breath behind it. “Rested, finally. I went to bed as soon as I got home from work yesterday; slept straight through to this morning.”

“Wow. Sorry if yesterday was rough for you…”

“Not even. I… it was totally worth it.”

That gave him a little thrill. “For me, too. That was… it was totally new for me.”

“Me too.”

They found themselves in a little eddy of uncomfortable silence. Alex shooed his butterflies and said, “So… we should, um, have a real date.”

“Yes!”

“Um… What about Friday?”

“Yes again.” Laughter.

“Damn, you’re too easy!” Alex winced. “I mean, not easy… I mean…”

“I know, I know! Are you… nervous?”

Hell yes. “I guess so. A little. I mean, we spent a whole night baring our souls to each other, but talking on the phone, it seems…”

“I know. It’s weird.”

“Yeah.”

Another silence threatened. This time Heather beat it off. “So let’s go see a movie.”

“That works!”

“How about that one with the guys from Saturday Night Live; the one with the blobby things..?”

Recognition clicked for Alex. “Ghostbusters? Yeah, I think it opens that day. That sounds like fun.”

“Fun is good.”

“Fun is good. See that? We’re in sync.”

Heather chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Before Alex could explore the subtext there, the phone clicked.

“Damn… I’ve got a call coming through. Do you…”

“Oh, it’s cool… I should probably get back to work, anyway. Call me on Friday afternoon with the times and stuff… I mean, you can call me before, if you want, but…”

“I will! Hey!”

“Hm?”

“I’m glad you called!”

“Me too!”

They said their goodbyes and Alex tapped the hook to switch over to the other line. “Hello?”

“Alex! Hey!”

Alex was surprised at how quickly his up mood flattened at the sound of Angel’s voice. “Oh… hey.”

“I haven’t heard a peep from you since you came by Monday, my friend.” She sounded cheery. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Talking with Angel was like a conversation with the anti-Heather. He should have ignored the call waiting, even if Heather did have to go back to work.

He could tell Angel picked up the vibe. “Oh. I just haven’t heard from you…”

“I’ve been busy. Trying to find a job.”

“How’s that going? Any luck?”

“I got one.”

“Um… okay. You gonna make me play twenty questions?”

Alex blurted one of his own. “How’s Mike?”

Angel’s voice was level. “Okay. He’s kind of a trip.”

“Really.”

“Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just busy.”

Angel didn’t say anything. Unlike the silences with Heather a few minutes before, this wasn’t awkward for Alex. On the contrary, it was coldly satisfying to know Angel was floundering.

“Hello…?” she said.

“Yeah. I’m still here.”

“I… I guess I thought you’d tell me what was keeping you busy.” She sounded hurt and confused. “You know. Like a friend does.”

“Sorry. I probably should go.”

“Yeah.” Full-on irritation now. “You should. Talk to you whenever, Alex.”

“Later.”

Alex hung up. He realized he was seething.

He also recognized that Angel probably thought he was a full-on asshole. If she didn’t understand…

Alex shook his head. If she didn’t understand, she was blind. How obvious could he be, riding his bike all the way to her freaking house just to see her? When had he ever done that before? Didn’t she get that it meant something?

Whatever. He had a date with Heather, a girl he’d known for a cumulative total of less than twelve hours that felt like twelve years. Let Angel have her surfer jock. Alex knew it wouldn’t last.

The phone rang again. Angel..?

“Hello?”

A man’s voice; relaxed, with a slight drawl. “Hi, can I talk to Alex Kent?”

“This is Alex.”

“Alex, this is Sam Martin, manager of the video department at Pinnacle Records. Do you think you could come in for an interview this week?”
…to be continued!

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Wanted: Custom RSS Feed Reader

Written on August 15th, 2009. Filed under Scribtotum. Tagged with , , .

Here’s one for the programmers out there:

I subscribe to 141 RSS feeds. Some of them have new content every once in a while. Others have a double-dozen or more new posts every day. All of it is, of course, impossible to keep up with, but I have so many subscriptions because I thought it was a good idea to have them in Google Reader and therefore searchable.

Well, heck, they’d be searchable in Google anyway, wouldn’t they? So, that doesn’t really stand up for me. Also, reading them all would not only take an inordinate amount of time, it usually isn’t worth the time invested for the information returned.

Still… I like the little surprises found perusing my Google Reader every day — I don’t necessarily want to subscribe to fewer feeds. On the other hand, I don’t want to waste a bunch of time reading them every day.

So. Here’s what I’d love to see:

An RSS reader that pulls X number of posts at random from those that are unread and only shows those posts, and no others, in an X-hour period.

For example: I set up this hypothetical (for now?) reader to deliver 10 posts and for the time period to be 12 hours. I open the reader at 8:00 AM on Monday. It gives me ten posts chosen at random from all the feeds I’m subscribed to. I read those posts. If I open it up again at 11:00 AM, I get the same ten posts! If I open it at 8:01 PM on Monday, I get ten new unread posts.

What’s the point?

There are a couple:

  • Prevent the use of RSS feeds as a procrastination tool keeping me from more productive pursuits like writing or pursuing clients or mowing the lawn or what-have-you. Other than the x number of posts viewed in an x-hour period, everything else is out-of-sight and, therefore, out-of-mind.
  • Make my feeds a source of surprise and delight rather than information overload and that strange feeling of obligation to read every damn thing. Instead, I get x number of pieces of new information and stop, happy in the notion that x more will be waiting for me in x hours.

That’s that. I envision this as being something that could be either web-based (something in php + mysql or cgi or whatever — that’s for you to figure out) or a cross-platform desktop app (maybe an Adobe AIR app?) Maybe it even works with my existing Google Reader… but since part of the goal is to wean myself from the “river of news” that has breached its levy, maybe that’s not such a good idea…

Anyone who wants to run with it as an open source, / Creative Commons project, rock on. Just credit me with the idea.

Thanks, programmers!

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“Free,” Neo-Patronage, My Creative Endeavors and What’s In Store For You (and Us)

Written on August 13th, 2009. Filed under Scribtotum. Tagged with , , , .

Longest post title for me to date? Maybe. Gonna be a long post, too. Anyway…

Some weeks ago, I was one of a couple dozen people that each received four copies of Chris Anderson’s latest book, “Free — The Future of a Radical Price.” The deal was that I keep one to review and pass the others on to folks who would do the same.

The copies went to Paula Berinstein, Ginger Campbell and Mark Leslie LeFebvre, whose review has already appeared. Paula plans on doing a big episode of The Writing Show dedicated to the book, and I think Ginger’s going to actually try to get Chris on her Books and Ideas podcast.

What’s been keeping my own review?

Astute readers (at least the ones who actually visit my site when they read this blog) will notice that I’ve got a little “We’re Renovating” ribbon in the upper right-hand side of the site. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been slowly adding some new content, changing a few things around and doing some other structural adjustments that will culminate in a new look for the site to go along with all that other stuff.

Before I posted by thoughts about “Free — The Future of a Radical Price,” I wanted to have a few of those changes in place. What changes, you ask? Let’s talk about “Free” first.

The Big Idea

Chris Anderson’s “Free — The Future of a Radical Price” explores the trend that, as the price of online storage and bandwidth gets less expensive, so too does the price of digital goods. The point made is that the cost is so low, in fact, it’s “too cheap to meter,” and so the goods themselves are either offered for free… or, often, the marketplace demands them to be free in the form of illegal file sharing and piracy.

This is simple economics. For example, I pay less than $0.02 per gigabyte of monthly bandwidth and less that $0.30 per gigabyte of storage per year, and I’m not even on the least expensive plan my provider offers. My entire web site’s storage needs cost less than seventeen cents a month. I can store and deliver hundreds of thousands of words of content, plus dozens of megabytes of electronic media, for much less than pennies per day. For larger online entities, the expense per gigabyte sinks even faster.

It costs me literally next to nothing to make my content available to you, and I lose nothing by making some of that content available for free.

Inviting Controversy

Anderson’s book examines Free as a marketing strategy both historically and in light of the economics of on-line storage and delivery. He also looks at some of the side effects, including an ecosystem that has come to expect digital goods be either very inexpensive or free because the consumer knows distribution and manufacturing expenses don’t enter into the equation when the goods are made of electrons.

Critics blame this expectation of Free on the decline of the music and newspaper industries, among others. Some folks extend the observations Anderson makes to being tantamount to expecting content creators not be compensated for their efforts.

Criticism, especially when it comes from high-profile friends of the author, drives discussion and no doubt sells books. Thing is, unless it slipped past my comprehension, I don’t remember Anderson advocating content creators work for free. More on that, especially how it pertains to my own work, in a bit.

Forms of Free

Anderson details a number of marketing strategies that include an element of free, and provides an example list, “Fifty Business Models Built On Free” that would make a handy .PDF giveaway (are you listening, Mister Anderson..?)

Many of my friends and colleagues embrace at least one of these to great effect: provide a podcast version of a book for free in the hope that folks will pay for the physical, print edition of same. This is what Anderson would call “Freemium (Some Customers Subsidize the Others.)”

There’s another way to look at this kind of thing, a model with a subjective, philosophical element. Known as neo-patronage, it is similar to the Freemium idea, but allows for the possibility that some consumers might assign a unique price tag to the same items, based on their personal assessment of value of that item. The consumer may even desire to subsidize the creator’s work as a whole.

More on that in a bit, too.

Not A Manifesto

Like “The Long Tail” before it, “Free — The Future of a Radical Price” isn’t out to influence what might come. Anderson’s not out to destroy mass media or take money out of the pockets of journalists — let’s face it, he’s a mass media journalist himself, after all. Rather, he’s written a book about what was and what is and extrapolated a bit. He’s provided a handy guide to creative entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurs whose specialty is creativity — like what Mark Jeffrey calls authorpreneurs, for example) on how to use Free to drive the success of their own careers.

I recommend “Free — The Future of a Radical Price” in that spirit. To those of us who have been doing this kind of thing for a while, the book is interesting and it fills in some historical blanks. For folks considering including an element of Free in their business, it may be educational and inspirational.

Now Let’s Talk About Me

As most of you know, since my layoff in October of 2008 a larger portion of my brain than I would like has been preoccupied with just how to make a living doing something challenging and enriching that doesn’t require me to ignore or compromise my ethics.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken some clients (and I’m always looking for more) that I help in a variety of ways that fall under the wide mandate printed on my business card: building on-line audience for creative endeavors.

Experiments

I’ve also explored ways to monetize my own creative endeavors.

Of course there’s my book, “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era,” available not just as a free podcast but also for sale in various e-book formats, paperback, MP3 CD, papyrus scroll, painting-with-light, skywriting and elder futhark editions. Late last year, I released the first in a series of short stories (three so far; more to come!) that I sell in e-book and limited edition chapbook formats. In January, I put on a “house concert” over live streaming video and gave MP3s of the set to folks who donated above a certain amount the day of the show.

The most ambitious of these experiments was “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” my ongoing episodic serial fiction series that, from May 1st until August 1st 2009, was only available via paid subscription. I wrote about how that went, and why I decided the best thing for the success of “Hazy Days…” was to convert it to a free-to-read model with compensation coming entirely from neo-patronage.

A few things happened during the “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” experiment.

  • I noticed other authors (mainstream and otherwise) doing serial fiction, some of them absolutely for free, some on a donation model, some with advertising, others with a combination of apporoachs. I had a great comments thread conversation with one of them, Alexandra Erin, that kind of got my wheels turning.
  • In June, I announced the elimination of unaffiliated third-party advertising on this site and in my Twitter stream. I also announced some other changes I’d be making on the site “in the next few weeks” (turned into a couple of months) that involved my first real commitment to a neo-patronage model.
  • I read a few things, like some of the material on Chris Guillebeau’s The Art of Non-Conformity and, of course, “Free — The Future of a Radical Price.” I also read some of my own older blog posts, notes and stuff.

It’s all been percolating in my skull, until finally I made some decisions about my creative output, the potential audience for everything I do and my desire — no, it’s my belief — that I deserve to be compensated by people in exchange for the experiences I provide through my art.

It all gets boiled down to the new tag line in my e-mail signature:

Independent Creative Endeavors – Free To Experience – Supported By Patronage

Previously, the only things I really offered for free were the Brave Men Run Podcast, the e-book bundle edition of that book (with the option to contribute whatever you think it’s worth) and a few dozen MP3 music files.

Effective… well, several days ago… every short story, every serial installment, every piece of music and yes, every novel I create and make available to you will have at least one free version on this site.

Try it out — read every word of “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” Or my latest short story, “The World Revolves Around You.” Or listen to and download anything from my slowly growing music archive.

Enjoy these things I’ve made. Experience them. Tell others about them. And if the experience has value for you, I hope you’ll compensate me for it by either buying the for-sale editions or simply gifting whatever you like. I offer suggestions on minimum amounts (around $5.00 for a book-length work, $0.99 for a short story or song) but I urge you to arrive at an amount that’s appropriate to you, based on several factors including but not limited to:

  • How much you liked the book, short story, serial, song, what have you.
  • How much you would like to support my creative endeavors as a whole — in other words, what kind of investment you would like to make in future opportunities for me to create things you might like.
  • What you can afford.

This Is Neo-Patronage

I’ve explained the concept in the past. A brief re-cap: my idea of neo-patronage works like this:

  • My creative endeavors include some form available for all to experience with no requirement of payment.
  • A percentage of the people who experience my creative endeavors will have the means and the desire to compensate me.
    • Of those who do, some will pay the amount I suggest. Others will pay less. Some will pay more.
    • These people, together, are my patrons.
  • With the gatekeeper of price removed, I open my work to the largest possible audience. The larger the audience, the larger the number of individual patrons and the larger my potential income.

There’s another element to this whole idea: that some people will want to support the artist (little old me) and not so much a particular story, novel, song, serial, etc. I suspect these folks may be few and far between, but I’ll soon have a way for the willing to do that on a one-time or automatically recurring basis. I’ll no doubt work out some kind of recognition system for these people as well.

More on that to come as I continue with renovations around the site. Mostly, I wanted to tell you that if you wanted to read something of mine but didn’t want to shell out for it first… now you can.

Tying It All Together; Bringing It All Back Home

At the end of the day, reading “Free – The Future of a Radical Price” didn’t rock my world or blast my head off with revelations. I’ve been incorporating some form of “Free” since the first time me and a friend busked at the base of the Huntington Beach pier with our guitar cases open in expectation at our feet, more than two decades ago. Chris Anderson is way, mega, totally preaching to the converted in my case.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t strayed now and then from really counting on Free. Things have been a little desperate — or, to be less melodramatic, the potential for really desperate times is a whole heck of a lot stronger than it was eleven months ago. I admit that my faith in Free and neo-patronage lapsed as my time spent without a “regular job” continued to stack days and weeks and months.

I’m re-committing, people. Ideally, I’d like to one day see a nice even split between income from clients and income directly from my creative endeavors (and of course I’d like the total to add up to a living wage..!) We’ll see what happens.

As always, I’m grateful that you’re all there with me as the story unfolds! I look forward to your comments, ideas, suggestions and opinions on this whole gignormous post.

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