Anyone who knows me, knows Eco nuts drive me nuts. It's not that I want to destroy the environment--I don't even litter--its that I keep running into pop ecologists who've so lost their connection to reality that they do more harm than good. Seriously, for every greedy, corporate overlord who dumps toxic waste into a stream there are a hundred angry, vocal, ill-informed radicals bending the ears of ignorant politicians and activist judges. This later group comes up with regulations that stifle the economy, put people out of work and spend millions of tax-payer dollars to warp how people shop and do little to improve the environment.
Now I'll revisit this issue with some specifics later, but my goals is to keep this blog full of fun and amazing things (and whenever I rant about things like the billion dollar windmills in the gorge that have a lifespan of 20 years but won't show a return on investment for 25, people think I'm just anti windmill, which I'm not. I think they work great for pumping water and we should have them pump water from below the dams to above it.) Therefore I'll just point to people who are doing it right.
I've been following Trackers Earth for several years and I've read many of their manifestos. Standing next to me they are total hippies, none the less they are authentic to their passion. They aren't trying to convert you to some green religion where mankind is a disease and we must all have a zero carbon footprint or some ice melting ragnaroc will doom us all to the death we so richly deserve. These guys actually research their wilderness lore and believe if you actually spend time in nature you'll like it and respect it, and just maybe your stress levels will go down.
These are mind kind of nature nerds. They don't take themselves too seriously and that always garners my respect. So check them out.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Real Life Super Heroes
I had intended to interview a RLSH so that I could cover the movement, which I think is unique, imaginative, and just crazy enough to work. I couldn't find a local super so I decided to run with this story from Gizmag, and ask anyone who is or knows a real life super hero to contact me through this blog or at my facebook page. I'd love to talk to you about what you do, and what you use to do it.
http://www.gizmag.com/real-life-superhero-gadgets/16862/
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Great Band Great Cause
This is one of my favorite bands and one of my favorite causes. Consider checking them out, and buying a tee shirt. How often do you get to help a cause and get something in return that you can actually use. http://www.notforsalestore.org/store/free2rock/enation/?utm_campaign=nfs_store&utm_content=nbeeghly&utm_medium=Argyle+Social&utm_source=General+Use&utm_term=2012-02-29-20-10-06
Start of a New Thing
As I mentioned awhile back, this will become my primary blog as of this weekend. I'm in the process of closing out my other blogs, for several reasons--all good. I just want to narrow my focus in life. So I'll continue to post all the crazy and amazing things I run across, but I'll also be posting more content about being an Indie writer etc. My hope is that I can do this one blog right rather than the poor job I've done with having 5 (not to mention maintaining a website, 5 facebook profiles, 2 facebook fan pages, etc.)
So for those of you who don't know about NIWA, its a community some friends and I founded to promote quality Indie writing/publishing. 20 years ago their were 20 major imprints, now their are 5. Amazon isn't just killing Borders books etc. It's clobbering those giant inefficient publishers as well. What stands in the way of true Indie success is the perception that Indies are amateurs and only big, expensive, nepotistic publishers can help you find entertainment you demand. NIWA to the rescue. I'll talk more about that in upcoming posts but lets move onto my inaugural post for the newly launched Fun, Amazing, Etc. blog.
Learning what it looks like for Andy to write has been a challenge and a passion for many years and the fight is ongoing. We had a thread started about how to fit writing into your life and I recommend anyone who wasn't around during that time look it up in the forum if you are experiencing stress there.
I have discovered the hard way, that writing is a very sedentary and solitary experience. It's also a compulsion for many of us. Leads to a sort of writing bulimia where we get ass in chair time for awhile and make joyful progress, then all the other things that don't get done come crashing down around us just as our writing starts to go stale. I think the ideal solution is to discover a balance but in my life the muse is fickle. So I've developed a seasonal approach. I work really hard on my writing for a couple weeks and then take a break.
The biggest thing I've learned though, loops back to the nature of writing--solitary and sedentary. Writers must be intentional about getting exercise and maintaining their relationships. Make time for those two things even when you are writing heavy, or you will lack stimulation for the writing and the time you throw at it won't be productive. Double up some if you have to--dictate some notes on your novel while walking the treadmill. You gotta eat, schedule meals with friends and family so you can give them full attention for a bit before locking yourself away again. I'm sure I'll get back to this topic in the future, but to keep it short, I'll let it go at this.
Have a great day everyone, just above those clouds the sun is shining.
So for those of you who don't know about NIWA, its a community some friends and I founded to promote quality Indie writing/publishing. 20 years ago their were 20 major imprints, now their are 5. Amazon isn't just killing Borders books etc. It's clobbering those giant inefficient publishers as well. What stands in the way of true Indie success is the perception that Indies are amateurs and only big, expensive, nepotistic publishers can help you find entertainment you demand. NIWA to the rescue. I'll talk more about that in upcoming posts but lets move onto my inaugural post for the newly launched Fun, Amazing, Etc. blog.
Learning what it looks like for Andy to write has been a challenge and a passion for many years and the fight is ongoing. We had a thread started about how to fit writing into your life and I recommend anyone who wasn't around during that time look it up in the forum if you are experiencing stress there.
I have discovered the hard way, that writing is a very sedentary and solitary experience. It's also a compulsion for many of us. Leads to a sort of writing bulimia where we get ass in chair time for awhile and make joyful progress, then all the other things that don't get done come crashing down around us just as our writing starts to go stale. I think the ideal solution is to discover a balance but in my life the muse is fickle. So I've developed a seasonal approach. I work really hard on my writing for a couple weeks and then take a break.
The biggest thing I've learned though, loops back to the nature of writing--solitary and sedentary. Writers must be intentional about getting exercise and maintaining their relationships. Make time for those two things even when you are writing heavy, or you will lack stimulation for the writing and the time you throw at it won't be productive. Double up some if you have to--dictate some notes on your novel while walking the treadmill. You gotta eat, schedule meals with friends and family so you can give them full attention for a bit before locking yourself away again. I'm sure I'll get back to this topic in the future, but to keep it short, I'll let it go at this.
Have a great day everyone, just above those clouds the sun is shining.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
27 String guitar--Keith Medley
Seems like a hell of a guy too, I know some people acquainted with him.
http://youtu.be/lo5mvTfYSQY
On side note, I'm deleting my other blogs here in the next week or so. I'll be using this blog specifically to promote my writing. So I can focus on making this blog the best it can be. It does mean this blog will get a slightly higher number of announcements about activities etc. But it'll still be loaded with Funny and interesting things I find.
http://youtu.be/lo5mvTfYSQY
On side note, I'm deleting my other blogs here in the next week or so. I'll be using this blog specifically to promote my writing. So I can focus on making this blog the best it can be. It does mean this blog will get a slightly higher number of announcements about activities etc. But it'll still be loaded with Funny and interesting things I find.
Marketing: Unto thine own self be true...
I never saw sales out of FB, although I haven't worked the kinks out of advertising through there yet. It's really pretty cheap to do. Ron Gompertz uses both fb and twitter and does well by them. Anyway you slice it you've got to have a website to act as a central storage area of official info. The purpose of the other things, including blogs, is to drive people to your website and keep you're name in front of them.
Ok forgive the sudden circular trail I'm going to take, I'm not expert but I've got a theory forming in my brain so indulge me. I think its all about how you want to present yourself and your work. Fad's come and go in social networking, and they clearly work for some people and not for others. I think I can sum up the difference by asking, are you that type of person? Ron was a twitter kind of guy but he didn't know it. A friend sold him on trying it and he eventually liked it, and then it started working for him. I have yet to fall in love with it and I get no results from it, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it because maybe that's not how Andy the Author needs to interact with his customers/fans.
For example: I'm told Clint Eastwood is a fantastic jazz musician. I doubt he hides the fact, but he's not known for it. Somewhere along the line his handlers packaged him as a tough guy, and they reinforced that image to a point that he'd have to be very deliberate about getting people to see him outside that box. I doubt he sweats it though, as long as Clint the tough guy actor pays the bills.
As Indie's we don't have people to help us. We have to write and write just to find our unique writing voice. Now we are learning to promote ourselves and we are brand new to branding ourselves and our work. I believe there is a correlation between what will be effective and what we naturally gravitate to. If you're having fun it will promote you, if it makes you uncomfortable it probably won't promote you. I think it's important to state this at this juncture because we are all exploring ways to market ourselves, and sharing those experiments. It's likely that some of us will have fabulous success at something and when others try it they get zip. BUT like in Ron's case with twitter, you may not know until you try. I personally believe that as we grow as self promoters--like finding our voice--we'll gain the ability to say right off, that's not going to be an good investment of my time and money, that's so clearly not Andy Bunch that it won't work for Andy the Writer. That'll save time.
The other aspect of this, which I know but forgot until Blythe reminded me, is that at the end of the day "how can you spend more time writing?" Any promotion technique that eats your energy and time so much you don't get to write is not truly effective.
In Recap:
a) be true to yourself, frame your public portrait in a manor that compliments how you'd like to be seen
b) balance selling what you've written with writing the next thing.
Ok forgive the sudden circular trail I'm going to take, I'm not expert but I've got a theory forming in my brain so indulge me. I think its all about how you want to present yourself and your work. Fad's come and go in social networking, and they clearly work for some people and not for others. I think I can sum up the difference by asking, are you that type of person? Ron was a twitter kind of guy but he didn't know it. A friend sold him on trying it and he eventually liked it, and then it started working for him. I have yet to fall in love with it and I get no results from it, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it because maybe that's not how Andy the Author needs to interact with his customers/fans.
For example: I'm told Clint Eastwood is a fantastic jazz musician. I doubt he hides the fact, but he's not known for it. Somewhere along the line his handlers packaged him as a tough guy, and they reinforced that image to a point that he'd have to be very deliberate about getting people to see him outside that box. I doubt he sweats it though, as long as Clint the tough guy actor pays the bills.
As Indie's we don't have people to help us. We have to write and write just to find our unique writing voice. Now we are learning to promote ourselves and we are brand new to branding ourselves and our work. I believe there is a correlation between what will be effective and what we naturally gravitate to. If you're having fun it will promote you, if it makes you uncomfortable it probably won't promote you. I think it's important to state this at this juncture because we are all exploring ways to market ourselves, and sharing those experiments. It's likely that some of us will have fabulous success at something and when others try it they get zip. BUT like in Ron's case with twitter, you may not know until you try. I personally believe that as we grow as self promoters--like finding our voice--we'll gain the ability to say right off, that's not going to be an good investment of my time and money, that's so clearly not Andy Bunch that it won't work for Andy the Writer. That'll save time.
The other aspect of this, which I know but forgot until Blythe reminded me, is that at the end of the day "how can you spend more time writing?" Any promotion technique that eats your energy and time so much you don't get to write is not truly effective.
In Recap:
a) be true to yourself, frame your public portrait in a manor that compliments how you'd like to be seen
b) balance selling what you've written with writing the next thing.
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