Typecastin' journal: a technical specification

Q: "Hey Strikethru, whatever happened to that half-baked idea you had for a typecasting journal?"

A: Having been employed by a software development company for a decade, I tend to think of projects in terms of technical specs. There are a lot of ideas floating around out there about the typecasting journal, mostly marooned in the comments of this post (which incidentally explains the project if you have no idea what I'm talking about), and so I have moved them to a spec that will serve as the planning document for the journal.

If you are interested in this project:

1. Read the spec.
   
2. Send me an e-mail if you want editing permissions to the spec. I would like it to be a collaborative document.
   
3. Sign up to contribute to the first issue here. Please use the categories listed in the spec document when you fill out the category. Deadline to sign up is April 30, 2009. This is not the deadline to submit, it is just the deadline to commit to a submission for planning purposes.

Notes:

• Each issue will have a theme, and the theme is not yet determined. In other words, don't start writing yet. If you have already, let me know. This may give me an idea for a theme.
  
• I will use the submission sheet to gauge interest/feasibility in the journal-- if we have enough contributions, we'll go forward. Otherwise, we'll call this one a fine idea that had no wings, and move on to other harebrained schemes.

How to make books

How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-Of-A-Kind Book

I meant to relate the following story above, but have lost my stamina for writing much more than a page by hand. Sad, I know. I previously mentioned somewhere that a friend and I took a book arts class a couple of years ago. It was an experience that threatened to turn me off of book-making for good.

The teacher of the class was talented in the craft, of that there isn't doubt. Her teaching method, however, nowhere approached her skill at assembling bound documents. I know little about teaching, but I do know this: if you don't have boundless patience for people who are not as good as you at the thing you are teaching, DO NOT BE A TEACHER.

This woman grew irritable and snappish at anyone who didn't successfully imitate her increasingly difficult bookmaking techniques on the first try, to the point where a student fled the class in tears before the end of the first day. The rest of us sewed signatures in terrified silence, desperately trying to follow her instructions to the letter, lest she snarl and make a sarcastic example of our ineptitude to the other cowed bookmaking hopefuls.

At the end of day two, anxiety had completely overtaken any grasp I may have had on bookmaking fundamentals, and I turned my back on the craft for some time. But thanks to "How to Make Books," I'm back.

PS:

There were some interesting comments on the last post I meant to respond to, but houseguests compelled me to take a webcation. I've finally posted a comment, and enjoyed everyone's thoughts on that post. Which begs the question:

WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT SOMETHING TO THE THE RETROTECH REVIEW (or whatever we are calling it?) Speak now, and include the category of your submission in the comments (fiction, poetry, art, photography, nonfiction, all on the general theme of ephemera and retrotech). Submissions s/b no more than 2 8x11 pages and should not cover any topic not appropriate for youngsters.

Independent presses, Seattle Post-Intelligencer RIP, retrotech journal submissions needed

In thinking over this literary journal idea (which, by the way, has taken the latest form: a sort of best-of-retrotech collection, where YOU write/photograph a page or two, 8x11, with your typewriter/fountain pen/vintage camera, on the subject of retrotech. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever, which we will then collect and figure out a respectable way to bind. This is a call for you to begin your submission, by the way. This is quite an aside, isn't it?), I've been rummaging around in the world of independent presses. And I've discovered something.

For years, I've had trouble really being compelled by much that I've seen in the fiction section of local bookstores (but that aside, run, don't walk, to your nearest independent bookstore, as they are disappearing as we speak). A lot of it seems kind of Oprah-y or conventional or just dull somehow. I can't put a finger on it. The thing is, I like really contemporary stuff. Stuff written about now. Stuff written about cities. Stuff that is kind of weird and energetic, written by new authors. Just a personal preference. Well, as it happens, independent presses publish whole messes of this stuff. (Slaps self on head.)

So, I am going to start poking around in the independent press world for books to buy, starting with Featherproof books. Why? Well, they're doing some interesting things with digital publishing, like free printable mini-books, to interest you in their longer works. Now, I like this. It's innovative, which is exactly what publishers are going to need to be to make it. I am printing one of these suckers out, and then I'm going to buy a book.

Oh, wait. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Yes, it was my morning paper, and it died yesterday. The last paper arrived in the driveway yesterday morning with a sad note from the publisher affixed, and I realized my lifetime habit of reading a paper in the morning was now officially being retired against my will. I will profoundly miss criticizing the comics page each day (thank god for the Comics Curmudgeon, who has to be one of the funniest writers ever), and have to say that unsurprisingly, the whole thing just really sends me into a sulk, this careless massacre of our lifetime offline reading habits. Ugh. Ugh, I say! Which is why a print retrotech edition is all the more justified in these screen-based times. So, get cracking on your submission.

The six-month second draft: a challenge

Retrotech art, typecon, Alphasmart easter eggs, Wikipedia

I like Christopher Stott's paintings - esp. those of retrotech.

This is a hoax. Right? I could not get it to work.

Some of you guys were talking about Typecon over in Flickr. I can't seem to determine if this would contain anything of interest to typecasters, or whether it is just an industry event for typesetters. Anyone know more?

Speaking of Wikipedia, I was thinking one of us should do an entry on typecasting. Much to my surprise, one is already there. My name is in the footnotes...‽ I think we need to get a whole list of typecasters on there, so someone head over to Wikipedia and start editing.

Fauxlaroid

Now, there's just about one of the most search-unfriendly post titles possible.

I know *one* of you retrotechnical types out there already blogged about Poladroid. Please point me to that post, because I missed it.

Was poking around the interweb and found a link to it on Dearly Devoted. Poladroid, quite simply, turns digital photographs into digital Polaroids. Which is cheaper and less time consuming than:

1) Rummaging around the Goodwill technology graveyard bins for a functioning Polaroid camera;
2) Buying overpriced discontinued Polaroid film from an eBay reseller and waiting two weeks for it to arrive;
3)Shooting Polaroids, watching them ooze from the camera, and then waiting while they slowly fade into view;
4) Placing them facedown on a flatbed scanner;
5) Fooling with the resulting image on your computer.

It is however, not as cool as the above sequence of actions. Which I don't need to tell a bunch of typecasters, do I?

Note that Poladroid is a little bit quirky, as far as freeware goes. Not a bad thing, really.

Queryfail, nanoedmo, writing group, brainstorm. In that order.

Today is #queryfail day on Twitter. If you haven't been following this, essentially, literary agents make fun of lame query letters. I was going to paraphrase but I can't do it justice.

Searching #queryfail on Twitter will provide hours of authorial schadenfreude and I highly recommend it.

Speaking of manuscripts agents might laugh at, I have taken on the Nanoedmo challenge this year. Wait, you say. Speaking of fail, didn't I, Strikethru, fail to produce a Nanowrimo manuscript this year? That is correct. However, I have three of them from the early 2000's, languishing electronically somewhere in a poorly named folder on my laptop. And this year, my friends, I am rewriting one of them. I've already been at it for several days now, and I am learning some hard lessons about the perils of the second draft.

My question about virtual writing groups originates from this effort. I'm hoping to track down a few people who want to virtually trade and discuss Nano manuscripts after a round of Nanoedmo is complete. I'm looking in particular for literary fiction writers, and/or, genre fiction writers with a literary style. Who's with me?!

Still thinking over this matter of the typewriter journal. Everyone's comments on this idea have been intriguing, as to whether, and in what format, such a journal is worth creating. J. B. Rabin has called for a brainstorm-- so I plan to head back to that post and keep rambling about the project, if anyone wants to keep that discussion going.

Nanoedmo, people, Join me. Finishing a novel, lousy or no, is one of those things I need to do before I perish. I sense you might feel the same.

A writing group quiz

Please use a #2 pencil for the following quiz. When you have completed all the questions, close your workbook and raise your hand. This is a closed book test. You may not use supplemental material to answer the questions.

You may begin. Your answers will be timed.

1) Who among you out there is currently (or has recently been) in a writing group (or has facilitated one)?
2) How did the group form? (University or other affiliation, friends, internet, etc.)
3) Were all the persons in your writing group writing in the same genre? If not, how did that work?
4) What was the primary challenge of the group? (Lousy writer(s), attendance, unhelpful feedback, other)
5) Did you obtain any goals as a result of the group that you would otherwise have not attained?
6) If you have experience with a virtual writing group (that is, without in-person meetings), is this a format you (dis)recommend, and why?
7) In what genre(s) do you write? Who is a known writer that most resembles the kind of writing you want to create?
8) Do you feel that the experience increased the quality of your work, or was it merely randomizing?

Curious, antisocial writers considering joining or creating a writing group want to know. Ahem.