virtualDavis

Sony WM-FX421 Walkman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Technology creates our needs faster than it satisfies them. (Kevin Kelly)

My Monday morning muse for your ruminating pleasure is actually not mine at all. It’s a quotation from Kevin Kelly’s 1998  New Rules for the New Economy. No longer new, of course, but if you missed out before you’ll find that it’s still relevant and eerily prescient. And did I mention that the blog version lives on his website? And that it’s free?

According to Kelly, we’re hurtling forward, inventing technologies to satisfy our desires and — in the process —  discovering new desires.

Our wants are compounding exponentially… technology creates ever new opportunities for those desires to find outlets and form. (Kevin Kelly

Although the illustrative example, a $50 Sony Walkman (remember cassette tapes?), seems practically ancient, I can’t help but transpose an iPad or even a Kindle Fire.

When a merchant sells a consumer a new Sony Walkman for $50, he is in fact creating far more demand than he is satisfying–in this case a continuing and potentially unlimited need for tape cassettes and batteries. (Paul Pilzer)

Transposed for the digital age:

When a merchant sells a consumer an iPad, he is in fact creating far more demand than he is satisfying–in this case a continuing and potentially unlimited need for digital products (ebooks, videos, games, apps, etc.), physical accessories (from practical screen protectors and card readers to fashion carrying cases), non-physical accessories (warranty extensions, maintenance contracts, customer support, etc.), software updates/upgrades, and–let’s be totally honest–hardware upgrades because sexy new models with more memory, faster processors, longer lasting batteries and retina displays are the MSG that keeps consumers coming back for more!

With writers, publishers, editors, agents and booksellers wandering the Wild West known as the Post-Gutenberg Paradigm, it’s more evident than ever that technology creates more demand than it satisfies. Increasingly tech-centric publishing and storytelling is catalyzing an avalanche of new non-book formats to satisfy consumer demands. New options are invented daily, and yet we’re only beginning to glimpse the world of storytelling possibilities around the corner. Technology is simultaneously sating and creating new demand, seeding storytelling innovation and inventing new consumer desires… Suppose I’m bullish on storytelling in the digital age?!?!

Related articles

• SONY and Apple Instructive Example for Publishing Industry (digitalbookworld.com)
• Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (virtualdavis.com)

After three days back at home in the Adirondacks I’m ready to wrap up my Abiquiu series about my month apart in a remote New Mexico desert canyon. A month of writing, revising and listening. This post is a freestyle retrospective in images, sounds and words. A digital scrapbook of sorts. If you’re interested, here are the previous posts:

• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu
• Productivity, Publishing & Apex Predators
• Rosslyn in the Desert

The video/slide show above was shot on my iPhone. Excuse the blurry images and the bumpy footage. The audio was not recorded among the Benedictines, though Gregorian chants were a part of my days at the abbey. All credit for this beautiful music goes to Medwyn Goodall, a musician and producer from Yorkshire, England.

Daily Scrape (listen to audio)

I’m shaving and all of the sudden a bearded fellow in black robes and hood is at my bathroom window. It’s Brother Hidalgo (name changed) from Monterey, Mexico. I’d met him on my second day at the abbey when he explained that he would pass by my hermitage a couple of times each week to pick up the garbage.

So I knock on the glass and wave. He recognizes me and waves back, then flushes crimson and turns away. He returns to the trash and recycling. I look into the mirror and continue shaving. I realize that – despite the towel around my waist – I must have looked naked to Brother Hidalgo. No wonder he was embarrassed.

Magpies (listen to audio)

When the weather is warm I sit outside and watch magpies, so many magpies gathering twigs and bits of fiber hanging in the sagebrush, gathering the ingredients for a cozy nest, I surmise, though I haven’t a clue if I’m right or wrong.

According to the 1961 edition of Roger Tory Peterson‘s A Field Guide to Western Birds, Magpies, Pica pica, are “the only large black and white land birds in N. America with long wedge-shaped tails. In flight, the iridescent greenish-black tail streams behind; large white patches flash in the wings.” Long iridescent tails that vibrate in the unfiltered sunlight that intoxicated Georgia O’Keefe once upon a time. The black billed magpies natural habitat includes this high desert canyon along the shores of the Chama River in Northern New Mexico, especially the foothills, Peterson says, and “ranches, sagebrush, river thickets,…”

Story Threads and Knots (listen to audio)

I’m in bed, almost asleep despite concerns on the first day when I arrived and saw the futon on a raised tatami mat floor.

That will be my bed for the month of March? Will my finicky back let me sleep on that? For almost four weeks?

But, like camping on an even thinner mat in the wilderness after a hike, I sleep restfully. Briefly, but restfully, though I usually awaken after four hours and think, How will I ever make it through the day with so little rest?

And then I do. Without yawning. Untangling then braiding my stories. Or twisting them into a rope. With knots. That I try to cut out when they become too tight to unknot. I discard the knots outside the hermitage door where they collect in a pile next to a cow patty the size of a Thanksgiving turkey which was still shiny, moist and brown-black on my first day but each day grows flatter, drier, paler and more wrinkled.

When I first arrived there were cattle wandering around the abbey grounds, especially between the Chama and the dirt road from the hermitage to the church. Sleepy eyed cows ruminating and nursing new calves among the sagebrush.

On the second or third day – when the winds were starting but before it snowed – a rancher on horseback passed through with a skinny black dog. I haven’t seen the cattle or the rancher since, but the dog comes back to visit every few days and I give him a piece of dried salmon jerky. He likes the jerky and he begs for more, but settles for a scratch behind the ears.

The pile of knots grows bigger each day. Twice buried in snow that melted within a few hours of sun-up, the knots that were too tight to unknot have been loosed by the wind, not all of them, not yet, but threads blow around the yard and hang in the sagebrush like desert tinsel. Sometimes I see one that I like, and I bring it back inside to braid or splice or just to wrap around my finger as a reminder.

Coyotes (listen to audio)

A lone coyote yips then wails then barks at the base of the canyon across the Chama, a river too lazy to reflect the moon which is full and high overhead. Soon others join in. The coyotes are all around the canyon, surrounding the hermitage, yipping and wailing outside my windows, perhaps hoping for salmon jerky handouts.

Coyote. Canis latrans mearnsi.

In Southwestern tribal legends the coyote is often portrayed as a clever trickster. According to a Native American twist on the Prometheus myth, coyote stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, a welcome gift that made winters more tolerable and raw food more enjoyable. Perhaps the coyotes outside my window are singing about fire. Or outwitting the gods. Or salmon jerky. Perhaps they’re untangling and braiding stories. I hope they can find something salvageable in my pile of knots or among the threads fluttering in the sagebrush.

At this liminal frontier of waking and sleeping my own story – naked, iridescent and wrinkled – emerges among the moonlit thickets. At last!

Related articles

• Rosslyn in the Desert (virtualdavis.com)
• Productivity, Publishing & Apex Predators (virtualdavis.com)
• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu (virtualdavis.com)
• New Mexico Skies (natureofphotography.wordpress.com)
• Georgia O’keeffe & Maria Chabot | “Women Who Rode Way” (theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com)

Amazon is going to destroy the Big 6, destroy bookstores, destroy 95% of all agents, destroy distributors (Ingram, Baker & Taylor), and revolutionize the publishing industry by becoming the dominant force… Blaming Amazon for your eventual downfall is like blaming a lion for being king of the jungle. (Joe Konrath)

The Chama River Canyon Wilderness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m graced with one more week writing with Benedictines and coyotes in a desert canyon. What a life! It’s hard to believe that almost three weeks have already flowed past with the burbling Chama. Productive time, but it’s passed in a blur. Twelve to fifteen hours of writing, rewriting and editing every day except except for Saturday. Yesterday was an exception. I cut out late in the afternoon and drove in to Santa Fe to celebrate a friend’s birthday. An inspired and inspiring evening with new and old friends. When asked which of the trails I’d hiked and ruins I’d explored during my stay in Abiquiu I surprised myself by responding, “None.” Not a single adventure! And despite the missed opportunities (fortunately I’ll be back), I was amazed to realize that I’ve actually managed to stay focused and on task. Totally on task! For a change.

That said, there’s still ample toil ahead. I habitually underestimate how much time projects will take, but I have the growing sense that one of the lessons I’m meant to learn during this sequestered month is to let go. To find closure. To move on. And with the storytelling and publishing worlds evolving faster than ever in history, I’m accepting that it’s critical to launch Rosslyn Redux and move on the the next project and the next and the next. Time. To. Move. On.

Time will tell whether Joe Konrath‘s much cited assessment of Amazon’s role in the future of the publishing industry above is clairvoyant or bluster. But the lesson isn’t just in his bold prediction. The lesson is in the jungle. And the harsh desert. And I’m learning to listen… Not just to the coyotes who sing outside my window each night. But also to the muddy old Chama.

Ol’ man river,
Dat ol’ man river
He mus’know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’,
He jes’keeps rollin’

He keeps on rollin’ along.

A quick post before I wind my way back into the Chama canyonlands. Thanks for your indulgence over the last few weeks. Anticipate me back to my noisy self in April. Cheers!

Related articles

• Rosslyn in the Desert (virtualdavis.com)
• More on Why Amazon Is Winning the Book Wars (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu (virtualdavis.com)
• Straight from the Writers’ Mouths: the evidence of how Amazon is disrupting legacy book publishing (johngaynardcreativity.blogspot.com)
• Amazon Get Serious About Book Publishing (idaconcpts.com)

About a month and a half ago I received a wonderful gift from my friend and research/editorial/blogging assistant, Katie Shepard. Before the hubbub of the 84th Academy Awards; before this fourteen minute long cartoon about the enchanting power of stories, reading and books won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film; before I would have comfortably volunteered that I loved watching an animated film, Katie sent me a microscopic email.

I think you would like this video… http://vimeo.com/35404908

Since then the video has become password protected at Vimeo, but The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is viewable on YouTube and you can download the short film at Moonbot Studios website.

If you’re a “book cynic”, then I join Bookigee in challenging you not to be inspired by Morris Lessmore. This bibliophiles fantasy was co-directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg in Shreveport, Louisiana. Here’s what they have to say about this tidy little masterpiece.

Inspired in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. (MorrisLessmore.com)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a timely reminder wrapped up in a “poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story.” Thanks, Katie, for bringing it to my attention (and for scooping the Academy Awards!) Everyone else, please accept my apologies for failing to share Mr. Lessmore sooner.

Related articles

• Oscar Winning Animated Short: The Fantastic… (geektyrant.com)
• Indie Culture: The Fantastic Flying Books… (debaird.net)
• Oscar-nominated animated short: The Fantastic… (dandyville.com)
• Oscar-Nominated Film Available To Watch Online (huffingtonpost.com)
• The World Was His for the Reading (thedarkglobe.wordpress.com)

Frosty Morning in Abiquiu, New Mexico (Photo credit: Princess Stand in the Rain)

As of tomorrow I’m at the halfway point for my desert retreat in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Eleven days in; eleven days to go. That’s 12+ hours/day, six days a week editing, revising, shuffling and rewriting. In silence. Without interruptions or distractions. Without internet access. Without excuses!

It’s been a productive stretch despite the fact that my manuscript is still bloated and desperate for a liposuction/stomach staple two-for-one… But I’ve discovered the heart and soul of my story, and the next two weeks I’ll perform ruthless, unsentimental surgery, cutting away all nonessential narrative. With luck and endurance I’ll return from the desert at month’s end with a svelte memoir.

I spent the first week focusing on the most enjoyable sections, and last week I dug into the darker sections. Death, depression, failures, violations. It was a tough week. A proverbial roller coaster ride. More like a bucking bronco ride. I’m feeling whiplashed and bruised today, but licking my wounds in Santa Fe.

Each Saturday I’ve driven two hours from the Chama canyonlands to the city where I lived from 1996-9. I re-provision, de-soil my laundry and pig out on delicious New Mexican food. And after a week without telephone or internet access, I spend hours on the phone with my amazing bride. My generous, understanding bride who’s tolerating my time at the hermitage. I offer my deepest gratitude to this woman who transformed my world over a decade ago, the woman who’s allowing me to share our sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing and always intimate story.

Thanks also to the Benedictines for use of their handsome hermitage and to my colleagues at The Depot Theatre and Champlain Area Trails for letting me vanish for sooooo long. The last couple of weeks have reminded how much I love Scrivener, so thanks to the good folks at Literature and Latte for simplifying my work on Rosslyn Redux. And thanks to all of you who’ve encouraged and pushed me. Now it’s time to jump in my jalopy and head back to the desert for another productive week. Cheers!

Related articles

• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu (virtualdavis.com)
• Remembering and Recounting (rosslynredux.com)
• Redacting Rosslyn v1.0 (rosslynredux.com)

Hats off to Patrick Ross (@PatrickRwrites) who’s blog The Artist’s Road chronicles his open road quest to live an art-committed life. His AWP post on immersion writing struck home note only because it reported on a panel I was sorry to miss on the final day of AWP Chicago (too many compelling, concurrently scheduled panels!), but because he reflected on a couple of familiar memoir writing/revising challenges.

I attended a Friday morning AWP panel titled “The Writer in the World: A Look at Immersion Writing.” As a sports fan I grew up admiring George Plimpton, who immersed himself so deeply in his writing that he even got to be a “quarterback” for the Detroit Lions. But as explained by Robin Hemley–a multi-published author and director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa–immersion writing should be viewed more holistically, incorporating “Memoir, Journalism, and Travel.” (OK, I cheated there; that’s the subtitle of his book A Field Guide for Immersion Writing.) ~ Patrick Ross in The Artist’s Road

Ross shared Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s story about being asked by editors to include more personal personal details in her first book. Include more of yourself, they told her. She did. And she promptly received two offers!

Ross apparently received similar advice for his memoir, and the overwhelming feedback I received from agents during the 2011 Writer’s Digest Conference was similar. I was pitching Rosslyn Redux as an Adirondack counterpoint to A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun. The memoir had already evolved dramatically since inception as a book about green renovation and historic rehabilitation. As the chapters collected and the page count rocketed to catch up with the national debt, I was drawn more and more to the social and historic narratives connected with the house. “But what’s your personal experience?” I was asked again and again.

Ross also sharedJoe Mackal’s (author of Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish and editor of River Teeth) advice to let interviewees read what you’ve written before publishing your work. Their feedback and perspective is valuable even if you ultimately decide what to cull and what to keep.

This advice was echoed in several memoir-focused panels I attended, but the reason was slightly different. By sharing your manuscript before publication, those represented are less likely to object, and the author has the opportunity to discuss and convince. If they only read the final, published work they stand a greater chance of being offended and angry. Unless your portrayal flatters the pants off of them!

Related articles

• AWP Nugget: Immersion Writing (artistsroad.wordpress.com)
• AWP 2012: Immerse Yourself (brevity.wordpress.com)
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I’ve been thinking a lot about theater lately. Even more than usual. A leadership transition at our Depot Theatre (@DepotTheatre) and a recent debate with Porter Anderson and Viki Noe about the relevance and roll of live theater in the digital age primed me to appreciate Susan Silver‘s post, “12 Most Fabulous Blogging Lessons from Les Miserables”. She’s distilled a dozen tips for better blogging from Victor Hugo‘s novel-turned-musical.

I want you to learn how to blog out loud by following conventions drawn from musical theater. Open up and sing with the 12 most fabulous lessons from Les Miserables. (12 Most)

Here are my favorites from Ms. Silver’s list:

• Think globally: Just like Les Miserables, “your blog also has an international audience you can accommodate.”
• Sing it: Find your blog’s unique first-person voice and sweep us up in your song.
• Diversify: “To give longevity to your content utilize multi-media. Speak in the voices of all the platforms you have available; print, video, blogs & more.”
• Be thematic: Discover, define and refine your blog’s narrative threads.
• Epicosity: Like Les Miserables’ epic song “One Day More”, “every once in awhile it is fun to write a piece with a grand scope.”
• “Heart Full of Love”: Court a niche/topic/theme that you are genuinely passionate about.
• Write for longevity: Les Miserables’ endurance is inspiring. The novel is 150 years old, and the musical has been performed for a quarter century. Aim for nothing less!
• Bring down the curtain: My bride frequently reminds me about this one! “We need to take off our blogging hats at the end of the day. Make unplugging from the computer a routine. Enjoy the time you have with friends and family.”

Great tips! And I’d like to add one slightly less obvious, but no less important lesson that bloggers should learn from Les Miserables: Not everyone will love your blog! That’s okay. Despite Les Miserables’ storied success, it doesn’t appeal to everyone no matter how well it is produced, performed or attended. Know and grow your audience, but don’t get discouraged by those who neglect your niche or criticize your song. Sing better, sing louder, sing louder. And before long your audience will be humming along with you.

Related articles

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I started my morning with Dust, a poem by Sarah Salway (@sarahsalway).

More accurately, I started my morning with Sarah Salway. She read her dusty poem. Aloud.

You might consider starting your morning the same way. If it’s not already too late. Or even if it is…

I’ve listened to the poem — from her newest poetry collection, You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book — three times so far. In fact, I’m afraid I may have inhaled some of the dust while listening. The idea of hording and absorbing a bag of dust, all that remains of a departed spouse, won’t abandon me. Salway’s lines stride — cloying yet tear-jerkingly poignant — toward a horizon that never arrives.

At less than a minute and a half, listening to this audio clip just might be the best invested time of your day. But fair warning: you might listen three times. Or more.

[audioboo url=”http://audioboo.fm/boos/669900-dust-by-sarah-salway”]

I tip my sombrero to to Nik Perring (@nikperring) for his post “Dust. And Sarah Salway” which opened my ears to Salway’s bag of dust tricks. Want more? Recent stops on Sarah Salway’s virtual poetry reading tour include blog posts by Tania Hershman, Danuta Kean, and Lia Leendertz. Enjoy.

Related articles

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• My Life as a Creek (virtualdavis.com)
• The Cinnamon Peeler, by Michael Ondaatje (virtualdavis.com)
• Natalie Merchant’s Lyrical Poems (virtualdavis.com)
• Natalie Merchant Sings Old Poems to Life (virtualdavis.com)
• Sarah Kay: Seth Godin’s Last Domino (virtualdavis.com)
• Le Printemps des Poètes (vingtparismagazine.com)

Curtain Bluff from aboard Sentio.

Ready for a reentry rumination? After nine sublime days in the Caribbean, I’m swapping swim trunks and sunscreen for conference kit and desert camo. Here’s a sneak peak at the exciting adventure behind and ahead.

West Indies

Each winter I join my bride and in-laws for a pilgrimage to warmer climes, gentler rhythms and an extended opportunity to catch up. This year we escaped to Curtain Bluff, an intimate resort in Antigua that felt familiar from the moment we arrived. In fact, we were so smitten with the welcoming staff, the gracious guests, the understated decadence and the endless-but-effortless opportunities for recreation that we unanimously voted to return next year, locking in our reservations before departing yesterday afternoon.

The character of Curtain Bluff is truly unique among luxury Caribbean resorts. Its boutique scale and dramatic real estate (two magnificent beaches divided by an elevated promontory permitting accommodations and spa sensational ocean views) provide two important ingredients for their magic formula, but by far the most critical is the people. Simply put, the staff and guests at Curtain Bluff create the most compelling marriage of any resort I’ve ever known in the Caribbean.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/Curtain_Bluff/status/174168960839860225″]

It’s not a stretch to talk about Curtain Bluff as a “family”, and not just in the varnished, Technicolor brochure way either. I made new friends virtually every day, friends who work at Curtain Bluff and friends who vacation at Curtain Bluff, friends who have already been in touch and with whom I’ll keep in touch, friends who I look forward to seeing again. Fortunately we’ll see many of them again next winter on vacation. And some we’ll see even sooner. Two different members of the staff have already made arrangements to visit us in the Adirondacks this summer! Watch e-Marginalia for a more contemplative reflection soon…

Windy City

After trickle charging my batteries in Antigua, it’s now time to sharpen my pencil and get back to write write writing. To jump start my creative editing and revising juices I’m heading off to Chicago for The Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference which takes place from February 29 to March 3 and which boasted over 9,000 attendees last year. I’m hoping for a slightly tidier affair this year as it is my first AWP foray, but even if the ranks are once again swollen I am encouraged by the insights of friend and fellow scrivener Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson):

However Borgia-like academic politics in general can become at times, the AWP universe is genteel, tame, even sleepy by comparison to the sharp-edged high-stakes market-banging battles being waged right now between bricks-and-mortar bookstores and the rise of the biggest digital retailer-publisher in history; between traditional publishing and digitally enabled self-publishing; even between centuries-old paper media for reading and the burgeoning popularity of e-readers and tablets. (We Grow Media)

The literary orientation of the AWP Conference & Bookfair will be refreshing after the recent Writer’s Digest Conference, and an appropriate springboard for my monastic month in the desert.

Abiquiu, New Mexico

Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert (Wikipedia)

Remember St. George and the dragon? I won’t pretend saintliness, but I am heading off to the desert Southwest with my vorpal sword in hand to slay the manuscript dragon.

I’ve been honored with an opportunity to sequester myself for a month at the Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert, originally architected by another George, George Nakashima, the Japanese-American woodworker who inspires my brother’s furniture making creativity between diplomatic postings. Tucked into the rugged canyon lands that enchanted Georgia O’Keefe, surrounded by high desert wilderness in all directions, along the banks of the Chama River, in the company of web-savvy, self sustaining, solar power harvesting, beer brewing monks, I will dedicate myself to revising and editing Rosslyn Redux. One month of quiet. Of solitude. Of focus. I can’t wait!

Thanks for your patience during my Curtain Bluff hiatus. More of the same in March, I’m afraid, but I’ve scheduled some interesting posts to appear during my cenobitic Southwestern sojourn. Although I won’t have web access during the week, I’ll venture in to Santa Fe for a few hours each weekend for provisions, I-miss-you-telephone-calls to my bride, and a short wifi fix.

Related articles

• The Artist’s Road Leads to Chicago (artistsroad.wordpress.com)
• AWP Chicago: Call for Bloggers (brevity.wordpress.com)

I ordered my Kindle Fire late Thursday morning and it arrived Friday, charged, linked to my Amazon account and brandishing a batch of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Okay, so I made up the last… But my Kindle initiation was almost that perfect.

Of course, honeymoons don’t last forever, and three days of drive-my-bride-crazy-intensive-Kindle-Fire-field-testing later I’m ready to share my first impressions of the Kindle Fire. This post follows up on “Kindle Fire Pros & Cons, Part I” and “Kindle Fire Pros & Cons, Part II”, but my review doesn’t depend on first reading those posts, so if you’re heart is racing because you’re a mouse click away from investing two hundred clams in a K-Fire, skip the back story and scan, read, consider the following. Read the rest of this entry »