One of my goals this year is to get my writing published professionally. I called it “Paper-publishing” when I wrote down the goal at the beginning of 2004, but I include online publications in this definition as well. I’ve taken my first steps to publish a non-fiction article, by submitting a proposal to Digital Web Magazine. I received an email today from the editor, telling me they’re interested. So I intend to work on that over the next few weeks. The topic will probably be of interest to my weblog readers – it will be an analysis of web design trends in corporate websites over the last 10 years. I have some interesting theories on this which I think you’ll enjoy.
In regards to fiction, I found out today that it would be relatively inexpensive to self-publish my Nanowrimo 2003 novel – Dirtside to Spaceside. Erik Benson is thinking about publishing his second Nanowrimo novel, called ‘Disaster’. He said it only cost him US$450 to self-publish his first novel, which is a much lower price than I thought it would be. I purchased Erik’s novel Man vs Himself from Amazon at Christmas and I really enjoyed reading it. The physical book itself is excellent quality – hardy paper, professional layout, arty cover, crisp and clear font.
It would be nice to see my own name on the cover of a Real Live Book. However I’m not sure the world is ready for a book about telepathic aliens and humans trapped in a virtual world of avatars. I mean, I had trouble explaining to my brother what my novel was about! Is it a fear of my novel being thought of as silly or frivolous? Well I think the themes I explored were very interesting and ‘serious’, but on the surface the subject matter does seem rather silly. And remember a lot of people still judge a book by its cover. So ironically, for all my talk about the value of Subjectivity, I do need reassurance from other people before I’m willing to take the plunge and publish my novel.
Also on the fiction front, I’ve started a short story called Sylvian and the System. It’s set in the near future and the main character is a young woman called Sylvian. She is a star in an avatar-based next-generation blogosphere. The main theme is Subjectivity vs System, but I’ve also been trying to squeeze in a Greta Garbo complex and some David Sylvian allusions (I thought of the name “Sylvian” before I remembered there is a musician with the same name). I’ll be focusing on my Digital Web article over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll keep thinking about this short story too.
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)