PocketWatch Romances

Archive for August, 2007

So I was looking at the links at the bottom of my WP Dashboard, because I never know what’ll turn up there. That lead me to the question “Should poetry be open-source?” from PhotoMatt. That in turn linked to a post of the same name, exploring the question, at Via Negativa. While I was reading -that- post, I came to this line:

[if you are a "serious" writer] it takes a hell of a lot of ego to create [...]

Firstly, I have to ask: “serious” means…what? A writer that never has any fun? A writer that is engaged in writing about things like AIDS and war and other “serious” topics?

Secondly, while I don’t -disagree- that some writers have egos the size of small planets — see King, Stephen and Cussler, Clive and their Editors, Disdain Of — I _do_ disagree with the idea that it takes a lot of ego to create something. All it takes to create is the need, the desire to do so — whether it’s knitting a pair of mittens or a collage or a story. To tell me that you like my collage I did in the tenth grade with its bright colors and odd assortment of pictures will give me a bit of an ego-boost, but I didn’t make it because I had a lot of ego (okay, okay, it was also an assignment. But still!).

I write because I need (and want) to tell stories. I write because I want to see my words on paper; because I want to see if I can write as well as the authors I enjoy. I’m a little reluctant to share my stuff because I know that the people around me won’t necessarily enjoy it… But since the internet is all about self-selecting groups, I can put what I write up online and the people that I -know- will enjoy it can find it.

I draw because… Well, because I have paper and pencil, not that I’m terribly successful in conveying the pictures that are in my head. I also draw because I actually enjoy it. It’s certainly not because I think that there’s any way I could be considered some kind of super-duper artist and that everyone should be on their knees, thanking God that they can experience my brilliance. (And seriously, if you think _this_ is brilliant, you should consider getting professional help. Link NOT SAFE for work, children, anyone with an appreciation for proportions and perspective, etc. Explanation of picture here.)

Really, creation doesn’t take ego. What it does take is desire, time, and the right supplies. There are people in my state who have entered artwork to the State Fair. Some of them, unfairly, do not even get Honorable Mention ribbons. Some of them get Division Champion ribbons, despite the fact that the piece lacks anything resembling artistic merit (but that’s a rant for a different post. Probably the next one.) If I were to ask each entrant in the art show what it takes to create, I’m pretty sure that very few, if any, would say ‘ego’.

As to the question of open-source poetry… I don’t know about pure open-source, but I don’t see why one couldn’t write poems and release them into the wild under a Creative Commons license that allows remixing. In fact… Hm. I wonder where my sestina about the sea is?

A very cute octopus necklace from Mod Cloth. This whale necklace is nifty, too.

Eeeeeee! I almost forgot that The Wheel Of Darkness comes out this month. I’d remembered a couple of nights ago, but then kind of pushed it to the back of my mind… And then there was a commercial for it on Court TV! Woot!

Hee. This is Mr. Hebig’s site, which is full of pictures of control rooms, factories, coal mines, and other places full of abandoned or soon-to-be-obsolete machinery.

Sorry.

http://www.gobignetwork.com/

http://www.insidecrm.com/features/Manager-Common-Sense-Rules-082207/

http://sixdisciplines.blogspot.com/

http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/

http://www.hacktheday.com/

http://www.venturehacks.com/

http://www.inc.com/

http://onstartups.com/

http://www.startupnation.com/

http://www.sme-blog.com/?p=311

http://lovethemup.com/

http://www.nolo.com/

http://www.nawbo.org/

http://www.athenafoundation.org/

http://www.springboardenterprises.org/

http://www.womanowned.com/

http://women-21.gov/

Heh.

The first is from BLDGBLOG, an interview with Michael Cook about drains in Toronto and other stuff; the other is to Mr. Cook’s website. Lots of gorgeous pictures!

Want to sound like Ognian, Dimo, And Maxim? Try the Jagerizer.

http://twitter.com/Othar

http://www.marketingsol.net/index.html

http://www.craciun.com/

http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1&pmenu_id=1

http://www.womenentrepreneur.com/

http://upandrunning.entrepreneur.com/

http://www.catosphere.com

The Art Of The Start

…I should really check to see how much it’d cost to get my computer fixed.

http://www.icv2.com/index.html

TwoP: TAR S5 Archive

http://www.animenewsservice.com/archives/velvet.htm

http://comipress.com/

http://www.licensemag.com/Publishing

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

http://www.smallbizbooks.com/cgi-bin/SmallBizBooks/index.html

more linkage for later. I need to stop being lame and start doing…something.

http://www.schnoogle.com/

– Huuuuuuuuuuungry. Oh well.

– Going back to sleep, now.

– I liked the Retro Mac theme, but it was really hard on my eyes. Maybe I’ll look in to changing the background… I loved playing with that feature when all we had was our old Mac. (We still have our 512K E, which only has 512 K of RAM. And the E, I believe, stood for Extended, which meant that it had an external floppy drive… I’ll have to ask mama. Also, I had to take Toulouse to the vet to get her teeth cleaned yesterday, and there’s a cellphone place near the vet’s office. On the door of the cell store, there’s an ad for some music-phone that touts the 128 megabytes of on-board memory in the phone… Amazing how far things have come in a mere 20 years, isn’t it?)

– I really need to write an update on the garden. Later.