Matthew Wayne Selznick

Many of us in the podcasting community learned this morning via Twitter that one of our most loyal and supportive friends and listeners, C.A. Sizemore, lost his wife suddenly and unexpectedly.

It’s an unimaginable horror, and our friend is in the midst of it. The next few days and weeks and months are going to be difficult enough… we don’t want the financial burden of this tragedy to add to it. So one of us set this up to help him.

Please consider giving whatever you can manage, and be close with someone you love, right away.

January is half over… should I feel an obligation to do that blogger’s tradition, the year-end look-back? Am I even a blogger, for that matter, or just one who blogs?

What the heck.

Even though I’m afraid to check the archives to see that I wrote this every other January…. I’ll say that 2007 was a year of transition.

I started the year with my freelance experiment drawing to a close. I actually went back to Borders for about three weeks. Every day spent there was like walking through muddy fog. Not that the folks who worked their weren’t real nice people in almost every case… it’s that I was back at Borders, after more than a year. It felt like a step backward (it was) and it felt like defeat. Sad Selznick.

Then, two friends threw me a rope woven from plumeria and mediawiki markup, and I joined Mahalo.com in April. This is a company I drive 175 miles every day for, getting to and from Santa Monica. That should tell you something. It’s engaging, challenging, enriching, and the people are awesome. If you haven’t done so already, check them out, join Mahalo Social, and friend me up!

That covers the work front in 2007. The creative front… hm. I completed exactly one piece of fiction in 2007 — one more so than in 2006. That was the short story “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf,” which was bought by Escape Pod, the science fiction podcast magazine, and read by soon-to-be bestselling author Scott Sigler. I’m a little frustrated and disappointed by my creative output last year, which is why I’m shooting for the unreasonable and grandiose in 2008… I want to write 200,000 words by January 1st, 2009. This should be mostly fiction, but can include essays, non-fiction works, and blog posts that are more than just “check out this cool link.” It’s really only 550 words a day, give or take… yeah… it’s a piece of pie! Wish me luck… and follow my progress by searching for the tag “200K IN 2008″, especially in Twitter.

I attended three conventions in 2007, and spoke on panels at each one — Balticon in Baltimore, Maryland, DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, and the New Media Expo in Ontario, California. It was my third NME, my first time for the others. Doing that much traveling was dreadfully expensive in many ways, and while it was great to connect with friends and fans new and old, I don’t think I’ll be attending anything in 2008 farther than a couple of driving hours away. It costs too much, and with both my wife and I working, it’s harder to leave the house for days at a time.

I did a lot of podcasting for other folks — mostly dramatic readings and a promo or two — and launched two new podcasts myself. Five Minute Memoir didn’t stick, but it may live again with a different host. Writers Talking was a success, and will return in 2008.

2007 was a pits and valleys kind of year. I guess every year is like that. The repercussions of both the high and low moments continue to ripple into this year. If this was an anonymous blog, I’d go into more detail… but it’s not. I’m grateful for the patience, love, support, understanding, and inspiration of all those involved, though. You know who you are.

This is the part of the post where I’m supposed to neatly sum up the entire year with some tidy phrase. A tag line that encompasses three hundred sixty five days. Yeah, sure, okay.

2007 was as much about moving forward with new opportunity as it was about stagnation. It was as much about bright optimism and excitement as it was about disappointment and self-sabotage. It was brilliant and dark.

That’s about as specific and universal as a horoscope — it was my year, but I bet it was your year, too.

And this is the part where I’m supposed to look forward, leaning into the sunrise with my shoulders back. In fact, I am excited… not about a new calendar on the wall, though. The turn of the year is an agreed-upon marker, but the real landmarks in our lives are noted by the events that matter to us. Each calendar year holds a number of these, and they overlap. April was one. May was one. October was one. And, sure, January is one, thanks to 200K IN 2008.

There will be more to come!

Just in the last month or so, I’ve reconnected with several folks I haven’t heard from since elementary and high school. This has been a special pleasure — a real treat. I realized I should catch these people up on what’s been going on with me for the last twenty to thirty years… and then I recognized that this is probably going to keep happening, so why not do it once, here?

So… my family left Glendora for Mission Viejo in… 1978? I got there in time for sixth grade. I don’t recall much, except for having a crush on the little red-headed girl (Charlie Brown, much?) and experiencing the effects of one of my best friend’s parents’ divorce (he had to move away.) Junior high school was interesting — I broke both of my wrists (at the same time) and so spent a good part of one semester with casts on both arms. Awesome.

In the summer of 1981, between junior high and high school, my friend Matt Maxwell and I collaborated on a “novel” called “Devastator.” It took everything we loved about comic books and science fiction and, well, smeared it with fourteen-year-old enthusiasm and inexperience. Somewhere, I still have my copy. Matt has threatened to kill me if it ever sees the light of day. Fair enough… but the baby universe we created with that manuscript has expanded to influence a whole lot of my creative output since then. These days, Matt is actually in the comics industry, and I’ve written a novel and a bunch of other stuff.

High school… I went to Capistrano Valley High from 1981 - 1985. I remember Karen Wynn (journalism, yearbook, photography) and Paul Pfleuger (contemporary world problems) as my favorite, most positively influential teachers. I started playing bass guitar in high school, when I was sixteen, and picked up the acoustic guitar two years later. Me and my friends talked a lot about starting bands, but nothing serious ever happened until the tail end of my senior year, when me and Roger Huff started up an acoustic duo that had many names and incarnations over the next few years.

Of all my friends from high school, I still keep track of my best friend (though we are rarely in direct contact despite the fact that we have very similar interests and passions) and my longest steady girlfriend. Through the magic of blogs and other threads, we can trace each other’s lives even if we rarely get in touch. It’s comforting to know they’re out there, though.

My first job out of high school was at the Tower Records in El Toro at El Toro Road and Rockfield. I worked in the video department for a year and a half. That was an eye-opening experience. I met many people who would be very important in my life for years and years to come — people who, through the lines of connection hindsight gives us, truly changed my life. I go into that in more detail here. It’s enough for now to say that the eighteen or so months there went a very long way to making me the person I am today.

In the late eighties, I had played my first live gigs in real bands. Psychopathway was the first, with Theresa Copell, Tony Lekas, and Steve Harvey. We played around San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Doheney Beach, and a couple of parties in Los Angeles and Davis. I played bass and shared vocals and songwriting duties with Steve and Theresa. After that came Loveless with Gus Contreras, Kyle Hall, and Marco Solferino. We played pretty much all the same places Psychopathway did, plus the occasional gig in Costa Mesa and Anaheim. I played the legendary Linda’s Doll Hut while I was with Loveless, a place I would play many more times with other bands.

In the late eighties, I moved a lot, had a steady string of relationships, a series of jobs (mostly retail), partied a lot, played a lot of music, and lived several movies I have yet to write. In other words, I was in my early twenties.

In between bands, I played a lot of solo acoustic shows — singer / songwriter stuff. I also wrote, here and there, but didn’t have much discipline for it. I enjoyed creating the settings — what’s known as worldbuilding — more than the actual writing. I recognize it now as a form of procrastination, which is another name for not wanting to face the possibility of failure. Still, I was very creative in those days, if scattered.

At the beginning of the nineties, I met the woman who would become my first wife. We married in 1995. She was a good friend, but I think we both came into things with far too much baggage and I, for one, was not mature enough to properly deal with it all. It’s a long story, of course, but we separated in October of 1999 and were divorced by August of 2000.

From 1995 to 2005, I worked for Borders, a worldwide chain of book, music, and media superstores. It was, overall, a very positive experience. While they are a dying company as I write this, in the late nineties it was an amazing place to work — open, ambitious, and compassionate as a corporate culture can be. I wouldn’t take back the time I spent there for anything.

Music kept happening in the nineties. From about 1993 - 1995, I was in a band I formed that, to date, was my most satisfying creative experience. Called PIGBAT, it was a power trio featuring drummer Jon Strunk and guitarist Kris Shine. I played bass, sang, and wrote most of the songs — though it was, musically, a very collaborative effort. Our drummer left to take a job offer in San Francisco, and while we continued briefly with a different drummer (Jeff Senske, now with Bright Men of Learning) it just didn’t last. I played dozens and dozens of acoustic solo gigs, formed two short-lived duos (Widdershins and Wednesday In The Barrel) and, toward the end of the century, joined with Gary Fitch, Erin Foster, and Tony Dare to form the power-pop Running Erin. Running Erin lasted until 2002 or or so.

The Internet, you will recall, happened in the nineties, too. I think I first got online in 1996 or so. I remember exploring Gopher and using the Mosaic browser, if that gives you some idea. Webcrawler was the search engine everyone swore by. I was entranced by the whole thing.

In 1998, I read a particularly bad tie-in novel featuring Marvel Comics’ X-Men characters. Now, as mentioned above, I’m a long-time fan of the comics, but this book was just… so… very… bad. I told myself I could do better, and set about planning a universe of my own wherein I could tell super-hero stories. Gradually, the idea grew to become a web-based magazine called Sovereign Serials. From 1998 until 2002, with varying regularity, I used Sovereign Serials to tell episodic stories set in the Sovereign Era, when “individuals with remarkable abilities change the course of human destiny..!” I also invited other authors to tell Sovereign Era stories in the magazine, and ran two or three.

By the end, I realized I had written more than sixty thousand words over the course of almost four years. I could have written a novel! I shelved the floundering Sovereign Serials to do just that. There were a few false starts. During this time, people wrote me to ask if I would ever finish the stories in Sovereign Serials — one story in particular. I began to write the book that would become my first novel, “Brave Men Run.”

In February of 2001, I married a second time. I know, that seems like tight timing, but we had known each other a few years, although not well, and had the occasion to spend a great deal of time together in a very short period of time. We fell in love — that’s how it happens sometimes..! We lived in her apartment in San Pedro for a time, and bought a house in Hesperia, a community in the High Desert of San Bernardino County in 2002. We’re here still, with our four cats, two dogs, and a turtle.

In 2004, driving “down the hill” to work in Pasadena, I heard an episode of Leo Laporte’s “The Tech Guy” call-in talk radio show. His guest was Adam Curry, and they were talking about this crazy new media thing called podcasting. I was inspired. In less than a week, on October 15th, I released the first episode of the MWS Media Radio Show. That podcast, now called the DIY Endeavors podcast, has had sixty five episodes to date. The first sixty were very nearly weekly. These days, I record one when the mood to create a mix tape of excellent independent music strikes me.

Podcasting is another one of those things that has changed my life in a major way. The people I’ve met, the things I’ve learned, the opportunities presented to me… let’s run down a few:

• When “Brave Men Run” was finished, I knew I would self-publish in keeping with the DIY ethic. I also decided to follow the example of the handful of people who put their books out as free podcasts. At the time, those people were Tee Morris, Scott Sigler, Mark Jeffrey, and Paul Story. “Brave Men Run” wasn’t the first podcast novel by any means, but I’m pretty sure it was among the first dozen. It’s been in two different top ten lists at Podiobooks.com perpetually since it came out, and donations from listeners — people who listen under no obligation to pay anything, mind you — have surpassed royalties from the print, e-book, and CD audiobook versions of the book.
• The day after Thanksgiving in 2005, I left Borders and embarked on fifteen months of promoting “Brave Men Run” and doing freelance work. I did some fiction editing, but my biggest clients wanted me to help them with their podcasting. While my first run at being a freelancer didn’t have long-term sustainability, if you will, it would have been a much shorter run if not for podcasting.
• I’ve become a recognized authority, which has led to speaking engagements at several conventions. I’ve been profiled in “Tricks of the Podcasting Masters” and on About.com , and interviewed on scores of podcasts and websites.
• Through my friendship with two podcasters, I was brought on at Mahalo.com , which is proving to be a challenging, enriching, and fun experience. We’re doing social search on the Internet in a way that hasn’t been done yet (or still.)
• The best thing podcasting has given me is a far-flung network of friends. Podcasting has given me my tribe, and that’s worth more than anything.

We’re pretty much caught up, folks. As I write this, I’m working at Mahalo.com, writing my second novel, “Pilgrimage,” and taking a hiatus from recording podcasts until the book is finished and ready to launch.

How are you? It’s very cool to hear from you again.

Whew.

I’m back in the coffeehouse where I write in the morning before going to work. It’s in a town right next to Ontario, California, where the Podcast and New Media Expo was held. Ontario might be down the road, but the PNME, the Residence Inn, the Doubletree, the Marriott, Spires, Marie Callendar’s, and Stater Brothers seemed like they were five hundred miles from everything I know.

I’m experiencing some kind of rifting. I did not want the weekend to end. Every time I’m with my Tribe, particular members of my Tribe, the impact of separation is proportional to the depth of the connection made. My chest hurts, but there’s a soft edge of warmth on the cracks.

Ow.

Listening to Ryan Adams, Belle & Sebastian, and other earnest, heartfelt, melancholy music right now. Probably not making this any less maudlin. Suck it, it makes me feel good to feel this… bad? Nah. Full.

So. The Expo.

Smaller this year. Does that mean Podcasting is slowing down? Is podcasting “dead?”

Not at all. I think it means a whole lot of podcasters are not interested in what the Expo presents: an emphasis on monetization, metrics, and tech. Advertising networks, trade associations, hosting networks… and rivalries and posturing between same right on the Expo floor. However, there are still people who approach podcasting as an art form, a means of expression, or as just another way to distribute their open media / new media / multimedia content.

Also… I’m no pundit — look to others for that. I’ll just say that activists and lobbyists will one day be necessary to represent new media to lawmakers and legislators. The people who will represent new media are being chosen now. Choose wisely.

Now comes the time on Sprockets when we name drop and and provide little snapshots of special moments at the Expo.

• I started the weekend Thursday with a nice lunch with Steve Eley and Tee Morris, where we Old Boys of podcasting ate sandwiches (I think Steve had an actual dinner of some sort) and just yakked about stuff and things.
• My speaker badge and that of Matthew Snodgrass were merged together like a fly and Jeff Goldblum. I managed to get a fresh badge printed up, but I met Matt later Thursday night and he wore the “Matthew Wayne Snodgrass, MWS Media” badge. We laughed about it and I apologized for never getting him a paycheck for all the fine work he’s done for my company.
• Met Chris Moody, which was nice to finally do, since he lives about twenty minutes or so from where I work.
• Tee: offer I made during the Speakers Reception still stands, as needed.
• I spent the greater and best part of my weekend as an intern for Lulu.tv / Gnack.com and started it off picking up Mur Lafferty, Jason Adams, and Carol Housel at the airport.
• Nice to see Colette Vogele, if only for a little bit.
• I believe Eric Rice was the first person to tell me in person that he listened to any of my podcasts, during the first Podcast Expo in 2005. Since he’s always fifteen miles ahead of the rest of us, that obviously makes me an innovator and revolutionary. Or it could have been that there were only, like, eight podcasts back then. Either way, it was good fun spending some quality time with him this time around, riffing on this crazy fuzzy-boundaries multimedia world we live in.
• It’s a very small world, at that. Considering the overlapping spheres we float in, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Sean Percival walk into the super-secret “studio” we had set up to interview Eric. Sean and I know each other through his contract work with Mahalo.com, and it was cool to see him in a different setting. We’ll be trading brain cells in the near future, no doubt.
• Many of the usual suspects were there… a very special pleasure seeing you all again, and as usual, it’s never long enough or in deep enough depth. The Tribe knows its own; ’nuff said.
• I’ve become quite taken with spending the last night of these conventions / expos / conferences in a more quiet, intimate setting — someone’s hotel room, with a handful of friends. Sunday, Mur and Jason lodged with me, and our afternoon, evening, and early morning was in turns intimate, irreverent, revealing, hilarious, risque, revelatory, and above all, full of joy and joyness. Some of it was documented — look to a future Geek Fu Morning Show, and a new podcast from Jason.
• Finally… after this Expo, how you feel about Charlie The Unicorn will, for me, be a good barometer of the kind of person you are.

Next year… Las Vegas.

Due to lack of interest and initiative on the part of contributors and lack of initiative when it comes to promotion on the part of, well, me, I have put Five Minute Memoir on hiatus.

All seven episodes — let’s call it “season one” — remain available. If anyone is interested in taking on the podcast and continuing its mission, we should talk!