Importation

I’m trying to change this elegant and lovely blog from Blogger to Word Press, but Blogger is not cooperating. Or maybe the WP importer isn’t working. I’m not sure. Would anyone like to help? I’ll give a prize to the person who tells me an easy way to to this.

P.S. “Cut & paste one entry at a time.” Is not an easy way!

What Goes Around

Well it is that time of year again, and with school in the works and too many monkeys on my back I won't be participating this year. So, in an effort to help the cause anyway, check out National Novel Writing Month and some of the participants short stories. I 'll try to post my favorites as the contest progesses.

In the pre-race, here is Froborr d'Wiggy and his NaNo Sprint!

Web Fiction

Publishing on the internet is a slippery slope. Questions of ethics and copyrights are daily concerns. Many publications have exceedingly low pay, inconsistent profit sharing, or don't pay at all. Traditional publishers are skeptical of web publishing experience because it is such a different world.

The medium is tricky for readers, too. Reading long works on a screen is difficult. Free publications abound, but the quality of writing can be dubious.

Sometimes, however, an author makes the most of a tricky medium and a trickier genre to create a fabulous, intelligent body of work that is as addictive as any novel series I've devoured. Introducing I, Robo the personal journal of Nikola Tesla's atomic powered robot with complete, automatic intelligence.

Well done, Ben.

CORRECTION:

As I mentioned, the wonders of the "Interweb" are vast and dizzying. Atomic Robo's author is not Ben, but a hitero secretive person-thing who may or may not reveal an identity in the future. One more reason to be fascinated by this fine tale! (Thanks for the tip!)

In the meantime, check out Ben's stuff anyway. His character, Sir Reginald (Please Gods, don't make me post a correction to my correction!) is another entertaining creature of digital fiction, and the stories both characters share are hilarious.

Ghostwriting Ethics

It is interesting to read the information available about ghostwriting these days. The Counsel of Science Editors, an elite group to which I do not dare aspire, seems to believe that is of justifiable, if questionable, morality but no nurse or academic in his/her right mind would do it.

I personally believe that it is a standard part of the nonacademic world. Business Execs don't have time to do all of the writing they are required to do, and brilliant ideas are frequently brought to the page by someone with a better feel for the language that he-who-was-inspired.

In academic circles, be you a student, a researcher, or a previously published doc, it is completely unacceptable. It is a secret to be hidden from the world. It is a stain that will ostracize you from your peers until the end of time. Putting you name on someone else's work? Terrible! Even if the ghost only beefed up your outline or made your dyslexic ramblings into a readable essay.

Yet it is still a common practice. You can buy a prewritten essay only for 20-30 dollars a page or have one custom written for a little more. (Don't beleive me? Google "buy essay" to see the evidence!) How do we reconsile this? I don't see it as unethical to work for these companies, but I cannot because of the moral code of my university. Writing for a service that would have my clients expelled seems like a good sign that they would expell me too. Damnitall!

Is Ghost Writing Immoral? by Sallie Goetsch

PayPerPost - Rumor & Mystery

"Civilian journalists," such as myself, have recently become attractive to advertising companies searching for cheap, unique grassroots PR. PayPerPost.com has taken a radical new step. They contract with advertisers for specific subjects they want blogged about, and then pay bloggers to include the information in their personal blogs. I already have Adsence ads in here, so when it's subject appropriate, I'll be including their ads on blogs I'm writing.

What is their angle, I wonder? Perhaps they are agents of the black helicopters, using their tracking links to monitor our personal expressions while simultaneously regulating the advertising that receives the most exposure on the web. In that case, it would only be logical that the company' founder, Ted Murphy, is a CIA spook or an operative for the Department of Homeland Security.

Why We Write

I saw a review for a book about writing and I was led to wonder why my readers write at all. John Spivey of Blogcritics inspires me with his dilemma. How many of us give up the only lives that matter to us in order to make a living? Freelance writing, even a little, is the career that lets me hold onto myself. How can I expect my friends and colleagues to abandon their security when I am too cowardly to do it myself?

I have been flopping like a dying fish on land. I once dove along the great reef and swam through teeming life. I breathed underwater. I have to get back to writing, to my real life.

Writing is the ability to surpass ourselves; to be more than we seem. Don't turn away from your calling, for it is a vocation as holy as priesthood,with a history nigh as long. Embrace your art & live a joyful life!

Good Advice

Found on eWriteLife. Thanks Shai!

“You must write, not just think you’re going to.
And you must read widely, not in order to copy,
but to find your own voice.
It’s a matter of going through life
with all one’s senses alive,
to be responsive to experience,
to other people.”

- PD James