An interesting source of information

I have been slacking... yes, even I do it from time to time. But I thought you might be interested in a few things I managed to find in my last minute scrounged work before I go to bed-time:

The International Internet Marketting Association is a wonderful source of information on internet marketting, plus it is a not-for-profit organization, which makes the information not only easily accessible, but free!

Microsoft's research in usability will go into my site, and hopefully will help improve the overall design.

And, last but not least, the internet advertising bureau is, like the internet marketting association, completely free and not-for-profit.

These sites, used as tools, should help me create a better (more markettable) site, as well as create a better marketting plan for my site.

So, hopefully, a bigger, badder, monsterintern.com will result in my research.

God, I hope the old adage about hard work directly paying off in the end is true: no hard work is unrewarded. I hope to create a site that will not only foster my own strengths, but also heighten the storytelling community. It is becoming, as I work harder to instantiate this site/this company, not only a strong desire but an obsession-- to see storytelling garner the attention and academic nobility that it deserves.

We'll see... only time will tell. And though they say that 80% of internet businesses fail, all that tells me is that 80% of online businesses give up. That is the only way of guaranteeing failure.

Until tomorrow, I just keep moving on. Until tomorrow.

Does an angel hold a sign with directions for everyone?

Working on the page... working working oh so very hard on the page. I've developed an idea for an archive layout, and hope to integrate it soon... I am finding out the hard way how few hours there are in a day for ambitious people, and understand why business folk are constantly in a rush-- though my adage still is that the majority of people are in a rush to get nowhere.

I sent a short piece off to the cbc literary awards. It hopefully addresses the issue that has been on my mind lately, namely how storytelling can aide in the humanitarian efforts needed to shape our society into a more foreign-friendly and inner-friendly society, rather than the 'ignorance is bliss both here and afar' mentality of the masses. This is, I think, an important aspect of storytelling-- the aspect of storytelling, as it is by definition a fight against ignorance. To tell a story is to tell something someone never previously knew, or at least never knew that anyone else new.

So hopefully that will garner some attention, though I don't know... the ending was a bit rushed and I had a tough time meeting the deadline. But it feels good knowing that my stories are out there, at least trying to make me some success. And only time will tell.

I also am working on a short story themed around 'leviathan' for OnSpec, a canadian literary magazine. The 'leviathan' metaphor in my story is one of power relations amongst fantasy and reality, against dreamers and realists, and I hope it is an interesting dynamic. Again, the story is getting a bit rushed, but is benefiting I think from the few extra days that it is getting over the CBC awards.

So I'm working. And I firmly believe that hard work is at the essence of all success. They say that 80% of new businesses fail, but I say that means that 80% of new businesses either run their resources into the ground or give up-- both not necessarily mutually exclusive. Solving problems by throwing money at it will never work (*cough* Hollywood *cough*), nor will merely giving up, as there is no greater guarantee of failure than giving up. If you do not try, you will always fail.

It is exhausting, but I am not alone. I know there is a community of people at my stage, trying to find their niche, and I hope to attract them to the site. I already have on board a very talented artist who I am hoping to encourage to contribute to the site; artists are a self-doubting lot who are very secretive about their work when it isn't "just right", and I hope to at once stop being that type of artist myself, finally giving out work that needs circulation (art should not and cannot be smothered, like a child that never leaves home), and I also hope to encourage other artists holding onto their 40 year old sons and daughters (a bad metaphor for art that has been babied and kept too close to the artist for too long) to finally loosen the reigns and let their art, at whatever stage it might be, speak for itself.

At some point, Davinci stopped scrapping his paper and said "see my work!" It is at this point that he became a true artist, rather than a personal artist, a public figure rather than a hobbit. It is at this point that he became successful, and gave his art the success it deserved.

Is it easy? Hell no. I understand the self-doubt and worry that any artist has over his or her art. "Is it good enough? Will it be mocked? Did I get 'x' right?" But, the same can be said of parenting. "Did I teach him to cover his finances? Did I teach her to avoid 'bad' men?"

At some point, the production must step away from the producer and live its own life. This is the act of growth that is the western dynamic of success, and without it, there can only be uncertain identity. I am not uncertain. I know what I am: a storyteller, and I have faith enough in my stories to see them spread out; and if they are ridiculed, they will only grow from the ridicule, and like the phoenix, a greater beast will rise from their ashes.

Do I know what I am doing? Not really. Do I know what I want? Most certainly. And all the steps in between will be filled in as I go. The most successful people in history had no idea what they were doing, only where they wanted to go. Hence Harley and Davidson blowing up their parents' garage-- they had to try, and fail, and then try again in order to succeed.

It may be true that 80% of businesses fail. Harley Davidson failed in its early inception. The point is that failure can be overcome, and the only true failure, the only "this business is dead" failure is giving up.

I will not give up on my dream. It will be a reality, even if I am not always certain how it will be so.

The Social Implications of Storytelling

A question I bring up in my forum is "exactly what good to society does storytelling accomplish?" This is based on the completion of the novel, Hope in Hell, a description of doctors without borders. The organization, and rightfully so, sees "raising awareness" as a last resort, often considered a sign of failure. The reason? If the doctors have to resort to storytelling, then it means they have to cease action-- one cannot safely stay in a place one is criticizing...

So, what good does storytelling do? I am trying to figure that one out... and the conclusion I am coming to is that it is a psychiatric therapy to either a despairing society (i.e., the societies that msf attempts to help), or a way of handling an overwhelming apathy to the societies outside of those in need.

How will this definition benefit society? We shall see...

An Insult to A Mighty Heart

I could not (and still cannot) believe that Daniel Pearl is being treated to such an abuse as to be associated with tabloid Queen (as well as queen of delayed reaction, aka queen of the obvious) Angelina Jolie.

The man stood for everything that is good and noble not only for journalism, but for storytelling. To be paired with a failing actress desperately trying to rekindle the dying flames of her career is an insult. If the movie does well in the box-office, it means people think of her as a hero, and whomever plays Pearl (I've heard rumors of Brad Pitt... to be honest, I'm too depressed to research the validity of these rumors) as a martyr... instead of Pearl himself.

I am not saying this is the first time Hollywood attempted to become its own hero in the place of a real one. You could probably have said the same of Robin Williams for Patch Adams, but the difference between Jolie and Williams is profound: Williams has worked hard to overcome a tarnished reputation. Jolie embraces it. Williams picked the role because of an obvious passion. Jolie is a hack-actress who has rarely, if ever, expressed any emotion on screen.

Harsh words? Certainly. But the story of Daniel Pearl is one of love, storytelling, narrative bravery, and the ability to see the importance of perspectivism. Pearl is an advocate for simple straightforward thinking: tell someone's story, and you can begin to understand even seemingly incomprehensible actions.

I can only hope that, at the very least, they preserve this message... though looking at Jolie's past, there is no sign of respect for storytelling. Her movie "Taking Lives" was an insult to the original story: her character was not even a PART of the original story! She was written in, added, tagged on... and all for the sake of marketting. This was a dark mark against hollywood, that they would sacrifice a story for the sake of marketting so bluntly. It was a dark mark on Jolie's character for even accepting a role in which the storyteller was bypassed so frustratingly.

Case in point: Johnny Depp refused to continue to do the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels unless they had the original writer onboard. This was a sign of severe and serious respect for the storyteller and the integrity of the storytelling world created by the storyteller. It showed deep respect for the art of storytelling, and his obvious passion for the movie was, I believe, not a small part to the movie's success.

Hollywood has, if you will forgive the expression, pissed on many precious stories. The story of Alexander was given a poor movie; Homer's epic The Oddysey was given the trite and dull 'Troy' (with a very lacking Odysseus, and gross historical inaccuracy).

If Hollywood continues to abuse the storyteller in this way, they will be sorry, and will see it in their sales. The sales from Hollywood have already reached an all-time slump only overcome by the likes of Peter Jackson and Johnny Depp, two people who have displayed publicly a strong appreciation for the storytelling arts, as well as a firm and immovable desire to be a part of said art.

This is a call to all serious storytellers... Hollywood is a sinking ship. This I foresee. But this also means that the masses will be starving for its replacement. If you want to be a part of the replacement force, you might want to contact me about being a part of monster intern, a creative company devoted and passionate about the storytelling arts, or visit the forum, and help foster a developing community of practice.

The tired and crooked beast of Hollywood is dying. Long live its new child, the true storytellers!

Storytelling

The trick of storytelling is a mixture of things. Any good writer is trying to do two conflicting things at once: attempt to have a place to escape for people, a fantasy realm, and attempt to have them see reality for what it is. In other words, a writer tries to make people turn away and simultaneously look toward the problems and quirks of our world.

Is it a balance? Does a writer choose one sometimes and another at other points in time? I'm not terribly certain. I think the mark of a lasting writer is the ability to meld the two contradictory effects into one story.

I'm still working on that...

Preparing for Halloween

Greetings and salutations,

I am currently working on a horror short for the website. I hope to finish it soon, and will hope to update regularly for halloween (my favourite holiday).

I also managed to find a way to tighten my javascript even more due to the with(){} statement. Should cut down on the document.writeln's and shorten them up to simply with(document){writeln('asffasdfjk')}. This might not mean much to those who do not know coding, or for those in which this shortened form is obvious, but there it is anyway.

Also, in terms of marketting, I should be developing t-shirts shortly. I just have to develop a text-style for the words (logo is already decided upon).

Until next time, I hope to see you on the board to discuss my works or storytelling in general :)

Tight code = tighter content

I had a revelation. I knew the coding on my site could use a bit of an overhaul. I had a simple plan: I wanted to embed a list file so that the table of contents on my page would not necessarily need to be updated per page, but rather by updating one file.

As I took a look at the coding involved, I dived, rambo-style, into the javascript. I wrote miles upon miles of document.writeln's, clumbed in a handful of 'if' statements. And then it hit me: this was not only clunky, but it would possibly make a slow-ass program. I doubt it would have significantly slowed things down, but still... a good programmer should code smart and have coding practices that can be easily transferred into different scenarios. And my code would never have made the transfer to larger programs.

So now, my coding plan will be to make functions and use them in terms of obect-oriented programming, so that I can make function calls based on the specific link-type (an active link versus inactive). Though this still is a relatively clunky bit of code, it is an organized clunk, and should (in theory) only take the objects it needs, rather than having the objects contained within each if-statement.

The implications for the website are simple: more updates. This is because, instead of updating each page, I will only have to update the toc (table of contents) file.

I might be learning slowly... but I'm learning.

(props goes out to Special Edition: Using Javascript for giving me the easy reference I need to learn javascript)

Keeping up with Content

Ah, the wonders of attempting to keep up content...

I am trying to keep up my site as much as possible, but the updating is a little tiring. If I could do it full time, that would make for 1) better content and 2) more updates, but alas, someone has to put food up on the table.

Marketting my marketting site (my squidoo lens) is also tiring, though that I have, admittedly, let alone to pasture to some degree (updates as often as I can, which usually means about once a week).

All I can say is... can't wait till I get big enough to hire someone to help on the content...

Until then, I hope to have a new bit of material up on the site. I am currently attempting to brush up on my embedded javascript skills to have a menu-file rather than menu code in each page (can be a pain to update). Hopefully, that will work the way I have it in my head, but we shall see on that one.

I am also hoping to get some live content (i.e. updates) added by my site users, so I have put up a forum in which users can post up their opinions on my work, opinions on other works, chat about the weather... in general, I hope to have a community to help me keep the site content constantly fresh and updated even when I can't update as often as I would like.

Though I'm sometimes running on empty, there is always my favourite saying: you can't fail, you can only stop trying.

From Abstract to Tangible: Intellectual Capital turned Practical

In the long haul to develop an idea and a marketable product, I have come at a crossroads between tangible and intangible.

In his book, Intellectual Capital (which can be found on my squidoo lens), Thomast Stewart comments that the most valuable asset any company has are its intangibles; great minds make money more directly for a company in today's society than sheer resources once did for the business-makers of the past, and structural capital is becoming less and less important, with more and more a focus on intangible, intellectual capital.

However, it is hard to make money, or even to survive, off of pure intangibles. Take for instance the example of my site. At its current inception, the 'capital' or product of the site is purely intellectual. I am attempting to make money off of my passion for writing stories, and as such there are quite a few stories, articles on storytelling, film reviews, and as much as I can have concerning storytelling. I even have a message board where people can talk about storytelling, either within the context of my works or within a more broad context.

I hope to make money off of creating a hub for storytellers to gather. I hope to not only make money, but also to encourage a growth in the artistic industry that I see as increasingly necessary-- let's face it, the good storytellers nowadays are few and far between, and, dare I say, slightly less impressive than the halls of heroes from the canon. Though we have Neil Gaiman, we have no Charles Dickens. Though we have Stephen King, we have no E. A. Poe...

I hope to help by creating an invaluable service: hard, honest critical theory and interpretation of a text's storytelling abilities. Though perhaps each element of the site might be found elsewhere, it is the combination of theory and practice that I rarely see in the art of storytelling. I see English teachers abandoning the practice and focusing on critique and formal essays. While I see the importance of theory, I also see the importance of practice-- the two should be mutually supportive, and this is the environment I not only hope to foster, but hope to make necessary.

How do I hope to do this? Well, as my mission statement states, I hope to advocate, participate, and create, and I think those three things are not commonly found together.

All that said, I also hope to gather up a few tangible assets. While I am sure it is possible, I am having a very difficult time creating a product and service that is completely intangible. I am not content to sit and wait, but I want to actively engage the storytelling community, taking them away from their years of comfort and hubris and turning the storytelling community into something epic...

Is it possible with but a few comic strips, a few comic pages, and a few chapters of two novels on the site? We shall see, I suppose...

The Benefits of Squidoo

I have a squidoo lens, called the storyteller, in which I am attempting to gain PR for my site. It is a long and arduous journey, this 'marketting', but I think I've become a bit better each day at it.

The squidoo lens is basically a place for hobbyists and specialists to expose their knowledge. People who have a passion for a particular subject matter can go on the site and basically talk about their passion/expertise/interests.

The only trouble is that it is a bit difficult to actually market anything with the site. I say 'difficult' and not 'impossible', because I do see how the site can benefit people attempting to market a service or product, but I have yet to figure out how to get high traffic to my squidoo, which would in essence be how it would market for me.

In other words, it is simply another site that I am trying to get traffic unto...

However, after perusing some of the other sites, I am seeing a specific growth in the content. It is, after all, a relatively new project, and I am seeing significant and consistent support. They have recently, for instance, opened up the site to groups, so that groups of "lensmasters" (people who talk about their passion/expertise/interests) can get together and (hopefully) trade and increase traffic.

I am still waiting on my own site-growth. We shall see, in the future, if it will increase...

I'm tired of waking up tired...

There are two perspectives on working hard: one is that it is the only way of getting what you want, the other is that workaholism is only good at wearing you down.

Sadly, I think both are true... which means that working hard is the only way of getting what you want, which incidentally also is extremely good at wearing you down.

But I'm not complaining. Personally, if I sat down and really thought about it, I'd rather be tired with a lot on my plate than feel limited and censored. I have the privilege of all the projects I begin, and I have the freedom to pursue my own goals.

It is actually a beautiful thing, made more beautiful by the fact that it is more rare than one would think.

When I think of the countries that do not allow free speech, it makes me sad. I read the news of a russian journalist shot dead for her reports, and I think to myself, even though my writings are rarely as controversial, would it ever really stop me if someone tried to censor me?

The answer would be a resounding 'no'. I am a storyteller, and as such, am not a journalist, and thus am not in as direct a line of fire. Journalism today has become a very dangerous past-time indeed, but if you look at the headquarters of monster intern, you will hopefully see the myriad of controversial things I am attempting.

I hope to bring back the storytelling art in its biblical form. That means my writing is not only about 'dream-worlds' but it is what I truly believe to be an interpretation of the afterlife. When I write, I close my eyes to some degree (and thus fantasize), but I also theorize, I also contemplate about what should be, what might be, and what will be. The Old Testament says, "and first was the word, and the word was with god". Without any intention of blasphemy, I see this as a liberation on the storyteller: any bible is in itself a collection of stories, and the intent of religion is never science but the intersection of fiction and nonfiction, the point in which metaphor becomes true and simile serves the artist.

Is this a blasphemous interpretation? I'm not sure. But the point is, even if others find it blasphemous, I have the freedom to continue on.

What a wonderful world I live in! And I hope to spread this wonder to those who currently have little sight of it... but that will be in due time.

SEO and internet marketting

The internet is a wonderful place. Ideas have a direct correspondance to potential income, and knowledge is the foundation for interaction (hence the term 'information superhighway'). However, as the 'net becomes overflooded, what becomes more and more difficult is convincing users that a site is unique, worthwhile, interesting, and original enough to warrant spreading word of mouth, repeat visits, and/or general acceptance.

This problem makes marketting websites incredibly difficult. In a world where there is very likely something to the order of 100 000 different sites under the same category as your new site, how do you convince others that your site is better or different than those 100 000 other sites? When those other sites have been established before you have, how do you convince others to visit your site when they already might have brand-loyalty to another?

It is almost as difficult as dating... which incidentally can also happen online.

There are many websites that offer advice on SEO (search engine optimization), but all of them will tell you the simple truth: content matters more than any 'trick' that you could discover. Though I am certain there are tricks that help place your site higher on the google search list, content will have people coming to your site and continuing to visit it.

So how do you keep that content? Well, that I do not know. But I am trying desperately to find out. I hope to have as much content on my site as possible, I hope to have as much relevant and important information, and basically, I hope to use my brain to its fullest capacity (whatever that is).

I hope that this "fullest capacity" gives me a chance to have a marketable product. Until then, you can visit www.monsterintern.com and judge for yourself.