How to use this Page

Everybody talks about how great social networking is for writers, but very few people actually know how to make it work.

Last week, Larry Smith (founder of Smith Magazine) and Rachel Fershleiser (senior editor at Smith) were my special guests, discussing how they built an interactive storytelling community.

During their long interview, they showed us how they turned a network of friends into a brand new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning--using the magazine's community as a springboard.

I'm trying to put all my Five Easy Question interviews into an easy-reading form, so here's a quick and dirty index of that interview, for your browsing pleasure...

In my favorite segment, Larry Smith explained How Microblogging and Mobile Technology Can Help Fledgling Writers.

My web video feature took you inside the Smith Magazine book party so you could Meet the Twenty-First Century Writing Community.

After that, Larry Smith taught us How Your Writing Community Can Help You.

Rachel Fershleiser gave hints on How To Build A Reading Community.

Then, in a special double-header question, Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith showed us How To Balance a Writing Career and a Dayjob.

Finally, Rachel Fershleiser took us Inside the Mind of an Anthology Editor.

That's some video I shot over the weekend, just for you.

I've been in a cheery mood ever since the Smith Magazine book release party on Saturday. I met people from New Orleans, Los Angeles, and, as my friend observed, every writer from Brooklyn was there as well.

We work in a world where freelancers can spend their whole lives holed up in their bedroom, and it's easy to forget how much contact with other writers can help you. You need to get out of the house every once in awhile--that's my writing advice for today.

The party celebrated the release of Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. This week I'm interviewing Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, the Smith editors who compiled the collection. Be sure to check that out.

In no particular order, here are the websites of the good folks in the video:

Artist Jace Daniels; writer Nichelle; comic journalist Josh Neufeld; writer and editor Sari Wilson; Young Adult Maryrose Wood; and the editor of Galleycat, the Internet-famous Ron Hogan.

If I missed anybody, please chime in, the comment section is open...

Okay. So maybe there's not one site that can do all those things, but that would be pretty sweet. Luckily I found four different sites where you can do all that and more...

Start by going to Reporterist, a brand new social networking site where someday (hopefully soon) journalists can network directly with editors for stories. (Thanks, OJR).

Then sign up for the L Magazine short fiction contest, where you can perform your stories as well as writing them. 

Then go to Litpark for a sprawling interview with the great minds behind Smith Magazine and the new Six-Word Memoir book they compiled. It's a surefire way to make new writing friends. 

Finally, go see Tony D'Souza read at the Sunday Salon in Brooklyn this Sunday evening. D'Souza is our special guest this week, demystifying book agents for us. The reading will be an intimate, writer-packed way to meet our guest.

The holiday season has already pounced, and it's time to start plotting New Year's resolutions.

Here are three strategies for improving your writing intelligence in 2008...

First of all, figure out how to share your work on the Internet, building community without wasting your words. At Smith Magazine, Larry Smith has a very instructive article on this topic:

"A community of rabid readers found Shooting War, contributed thoughtful and intense comments and at times even shaped the story as it unfolded...I direct you to a huge piece from The New York Times’ notoriously tough book critic Motoko Rich, Crossover Dreams: Turning Free Web Work Into Real Book Sales. In it, Rich discusses different web-to-print models, including how SMITH brought Shooting War to its first group of passionate readers."

Secondly, bookmark and read the Top Ten Most Popular American Journalism Blogs. You will have a head-full of great ideas to carry around every day.  

Thirdly, stop writing like you are in grad school. Give us some scrappy, down-to-earth prose, and tell us a good story. That's what working writers do. But don't take my word for it; Gordon Hurd has a great essay on the subject.

Every litblog from here to Antarctica has published a mini-essay about a gloomy survey of 1,300 publishing professionals that predicts the looming death of the printed book. SF Signal has the bad news wrapped up in a nice post.

Over at Smith Magazine, Rachel has an equally depressing post about the future of literary magazines that should make most fledgling writers reconsider their options as well:

"And are literary magazines dead? A harsh but well-written blog polemic claims the answers are yes and yes. I’m curious to hear what our readers think, but for now I’m feeling my “campaign to save book reviewing” feeling—can’t we all just get along?? The rather terrific nonfiction lit mag The Crier is on financially necessitated hiatus. Hmm."

Do we throw in the towel and go to law school? I say no. In fact, I've lined up a guest next week who will help us all keep going---scriptwriter and non-fiction author Allen Rucker.

Rucker spent most of his career toiling away in television and film writing, and then one fateful Tuesday, woke up paralyzed. Next week he'll tell us how he survived that nightmarish event, and share secrets to surviving as writer--one of the toughest professions around, no matter what time you live in.

His interview is the closest thing we'll get to a manual on how to cope with the anxieties of our job. Tune in Monday for a fascinating week of interviews...

Believe it or not, I just spent an hour and a half stuck in a subway tunnel. As my twenty-minute commute stretched past the hour mark, I started brooding about what happens next in my life. It's a good question for writers to ask every once in awhile.

Welcome back to The Publishing Spot after a long, hopefully beautiful, summer. This week we'll be reviewing what you missed while you were traveling far away from the Internets. I think the best way to start is with this Smith Magazine post about asking yourself the hardest question.

Check it out:

"Strolling through the desert, I came upon a collage of photos in which each person held up a sign with a few words scrawled on it Bob Dylan Don’t Look Back-style. A note within the collage explained that I was staring at WDYDWYD?, aka Why Do You Do What You Do?, a project in which people where asked that simple question and photographed holding up their answer."

Click here to read more about the story of the project. Welcome back from summer vacation. Drop me a line if you have any suggestions for the coming year. 

I spent five years of my post-high school life hunched in coffee shops with other writers scribbling stories in battered notebooks. Now, years later, there is a place for folks like me.

Run, don't walk, over to Keri Smith's homemade journal creation project,  Wreck This Journal--a space for writers to play with their notebooks and find some community-minded folks as well. (Thanks, Jeffrey Yamaguchi)

Want to build a video to promote your book? Novelist Brenda Coulter is offering some down and dirty hints for building movies that will help you find readers for your book. Read "How To Build a Book Trailer" to get started. Heed her warning: "As I have explained to everyone who has asked, this is something that anyone can do, although not everyone will want to do it when they find out how much time and effort is involved." (Thanks, Galleycat)

If you have any time left over after wrecking your notebook and shooting a booktrailer, be sure to write a 500-word memoir--you could win $1,000 for your troubles. SMITH Magazine has the scoop: "For a chance to appear in Opium Magazine and win $1,000, you can enter its 500-word memoir contest. (Opium’s the co-obsession of SMITH’s wonderful World Tour Compatibility Test scribe Elizabeth Koch)."

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

Stop reading! You need to write.

We could sit here all day writing about writing, but who does that help? It's time to write. One thing that always helps me is a deadline. I now have two new writing deadlines for you. Let's do this...

First, you should write a 100-word story about your misadventures on a social networking site like MySpace or Friendster. Write over the weekend, and then send it to the PopuList over at Smith Magazine. They'll share your memories with the Smith community, a collection of writers and supportive people who love to hear new stories.

Secondly, write a few hundred words more about your misadventures on the web. Then (if you live in New York) come out to the monthly storytelling reading at the Black & White bar in Manhattan. You can tell your story to a roomful of supportive people. I'll be there to meet you.

Check it out:

"Space is such a lonely place. Come on out to the Fahrenheit storytelling reading on Sunday and share your story with your fellow space cadets. The Antagonists present the Fahrenheit reading on Sunday, May 6, 2007 at the Black & White bar ... The show begins around 9:00 at Black & White, located at 86 10th Street, New York, New York (between 3rd and 4th Avenues). For more information and virtual sign-up, email joe.antagonist [at] gmail [dot] com..."

How will the Iraq War change our theater? 

A whole new generation of veterans are coming home right now, and they are bringing scores of new writers with them. It's time we start paying attention to these new voices.

Smith Magazine has been working hard this week to share new veteran voices. They just featured a long interview with playwright Sean Huze.

While exploring his new projects, this young writer explained how he learned how to tell his own story, despite the fact that "as veterans we often get our experience defined for us."

 The story opened up a whole new world of veteran writers that I never knew existed. Check them out...

"In the past two years, he’s penned two raved-about plays drawn from his military experience, The Sandstorm and Weasel. He recently formed an all-veterans theater company in Los Angeles, VetStage, which boasts 22 members, including vets from Iraq and Afghanistan."