Read some feeds... if you dare

I am writing, I really am!

Try these for size:

Not just writing, but writing-related...

A crawl through the web exposed these ideas... not all writing-related, but mostly...

A BBC account of the genesis of the Blooker awards. The LuluBlooker itself. Worth remembering: Google's book search. Spot your book and complain about breach of copyright, or enjoy the wider fame and possible fortune that accessibility confers? Evidence from Businessweek that it actually happens. An O'Reilly blog asks, are blogs and bloggers up the the task of becoming books and book authors? Lifehacker on how to turn your blog into a book. A good read. Poynter offers some excellent writing tips for journos. Problogger on - again - how to turn your blog into a... you guessed it! If you write a Livejournal blog you can convert it into a book with this tool. Burridge on how to turn a Roller blog into a book format... More evidence. Blurb's blogslurper will suck you blog into a book format and then publish it for you, if you want. And here's a blog-to-PDF tool that looks useful.

Have fun!!

Songware?

Songware? It seems odd that a great live band like the Who would find itself promoting software-generated songs, but apparently Pete Townshend has been working - nay dreaming - about this for 30 years. Who's next grew out of Lifehouse - Pete's idea of a connectedness that expressed itself through songs... and was for Pete a glimpse of a future world where connectedness was pervasive, electronic and creative. Which brings us to The Method, software that apparently takes personal data like a birthdate, a photo, an audio file and a beat and produces music.

Pete talks about it here on MP3.com... The legendary Who guitarist and songwriter said... that he is set to launch a new Web site that he has been thinking about for nearly 30 years. Dubbed The Method, Townsend said the site will use music composition software to take a person's physical attributes and compose a brand new, personalized piece of music for that person.

"I've been thinking about this for such a long time," he said. "The gathering that the Internet offers is meditation. You lose yourself when you're listening to good music." Townshend said he hopes the site will provoke more people to take advantage of the immediacy of the Web.

And Yahoo! says this: Rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalised tracks at the click of a button. The Who guitarist/songwriter said that with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new "Method" software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star. "You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It's as simple as that," said Townshend, a technical wizard who pioneered the use of the synthesiser more than 35 years ago on the classic tunes "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley." The project, which started percolating during his art school days in the 1960s, was developed by mathematician/composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon.

From May 1, users will be able to get free access to the Web site (http://www.lifehouse-method.com) for three months, and will be able to compose instrumental tracks that they can e-mail or post on their Web sites. From August 1, it will become a subscription-based service.

Sounds intriguing, anyway.

Another way to go... Tumblr

One more blogging-tool-with-RSS-aggregator is never enough. If you want a sure fire way to get a blog started and don't want to get your hands dirty with templates, try tumblr. (Presumably tumbler is taken.) Mind you, you can still play dirty, as I have done here: http://gtveloce.tumblr.com/

Philosphically speaking...

The 14th to 19th century humanists believed that the study of the arts, including philosophy, should be conducted in an informal, conversational style, through conversation, debate and gentle discussion. Let's look at the intellectual ideas of four of these philosophers - Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger and Camus - yes, that Camus, the writer (there had to be a link here somewhere!).

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote with a rare poetic beauty, while suffering from severe anxiety and depression. He worked through his troubles by developing his philosophic ideas. Indeed he came to see anxiety, rather than doubt, as the chief tool of philosophical questioning. He also rebelled against the abstract philosophy of Hegel, ensuring instead that his ideas - his underlying philosophy - is grounded in the concrete existence of the individual. He championed the idea that individuals are always in relationship with themselves, their environment and each other - for better or worse setting up anxieties that resonated within. It was this intermingling of challenge and change that Kierkegaard saw as the very basis for philosophical constructs. In this way Kierkegaard has influenced psychology and theology as well as philosophy itself.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), emphasises the freedom and responsibility of the individual over all else. His "existential" philosophy, that "man is nothing but what he makes of himself" - became increasingly popular after the Second World War. It expressed and supported the cause of freedom for human beings, to make choices and to assume responsibility for themselves in a post-war world of relativism. Existentialists believe that to treat people "objectively", one step removed as it were, as mere "victims" of physical, biological or environmental circumstance - is to rob them of their essential humanity. Indeed, in Sartre's view, individuals should be accorded the respect that accrues from their unbounded possibility, rather than straightjacketed into mere roles.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a controversial figure in the history of philosophy, if only for his commitment to German National Socialism, provoking the question as to how someone can be so philosophically insightful yet so blind at the same time. He is seen as a "systematic" existential philosopher but one whose influence extends beyond the bounds of existentialism alone.

And onto the writer - this is a writing blog after all. Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French Algerian journalist, novelist and philosopher - and perhaps the most enduring novelist of his time. He used novels such as The Outsider, The Plague and The Fall to explore the consequences of existentialism, often taking things to extremes of absurdity to prove his point. The famous confrontation between Camus and Sartre dominated Parisian intellectual life for years and is sorely missed.

Books ain't going away

Book sales are climbing, despite the advance of online publsihing. Well so they say. I don't personally buy as many books. When I was in my 20s I used to buy 2-3 a week, and 3-5 magazines. Now I buy books in binges, for gifts (even for myself) about every 3-6 months. I've cut back about 70-80%. And magazines are down to 3-5 every 3 months. Now I'm no longer single, I have kids and I'm in my late 40s, so things are different. I've changed, and so have my habits. It's not just the Internet that has changed my ways, but it's a factor. I also don't send much mail. Most - almost all - of my writing is electronic and well, the computer is king. If I could carry the computer around as easily as the printed word then I think I'd just about stop buying books - except as gifts, I guess. I need the functionality of the book, not the book per se.

However I do treasure old books,and am loathe to let go of any of the thousand or so we have around the house. A really nice hardcover looks and feels right, and old tomes can be enjoyed in the hand in a way that the screen can't match. On the other hand when I want to read I do prefer to read online. Call me strange but the ability to call up references online, to cut and paste quotes, to add comments and to change font sizes at a whim are 'killer' advantages for me. Now as a 49-year old I'm probably odd in those habits, but how about the kids "growing up" online? What will they expect, books on their gaming consoles?

Forbes has an intersting article on this subject here.

Still slack.

Still slack after all these years. Well I have been busy at work! I have found some old manuscripts which I'll be scanning and re-writing - but that will take time. 2 plays and my unfinished novel - appropriately named The Endless. In the meantime I'm still blogging away.

Palimpsests

Occasionally I see a word that just has to be used, somewhere - anywhere. Today's word is palimpsest. According to Wikipedia a palimpsest is a document that has been wiped clean and used again (comes from the Greek to 'wipe clean', roughly speaking). Cicero and his fellow Romans used wax-coated tablets that - you guessed it - could be wiped clean and reused. Sounds like a technology we could (re)use today. Historically speaking palimpsests are especially useful when we are able to decipher what was written before. One 'original' document may have overwritten a previous version, like the Christian churches scrubbing out and writing over pagan beliefs (if not adapting them to suit their needs). It's a window into the past.

Blogs - useful or not?

This Wharton article can be summarised as describing a dichotomy formed from blog-readers (who believe that targeted reading in areas of speciality adds usefully to their own knowledge) and the blog-disbelievers (who don't recognise the credibility of bloggers and prefer the 'verified' accuracy of the established media). Take your pick. I'm biased. I write 'em. But I write because I love writing; and it leverages my personal learning agenda to research a topic and then write about it. That it is publicly accessible is a small yet significant bonus to me. If people read my work and get something out of it, great - I like to help. I also read blogs myself to get insights into other people's lives, interests and passions. I don't believe or embrace everything I read - certainly not in the established media, let alone the blogosphere - and I check the veracity of anything that matters with other sources. It's not rocket science, folks. It's just another channel. If you ignore or disdain that channel, so be it. It's not my loss, it's solely yours.

Yeah yeah I know

Yeah yeah I know - I really should follow my own advice and write more often. Sometimes it just doesn't happen... however I have updated this site!