I’m making a little entry here to let you know that I have a book coming out and it has just gone into pre-order! The book is called Abduction Etiquette and it contains about 50 or so monologues that I wrote to perform at open mic nights at coffee houses and the like. They’re all very short pieces and I have performed each and every one of them in public. So, these all come pre-tested for audience reaction!

I am incredibly excited about this. Right now it’s looking as though the publication date is going to be some time in August, but that may be subject to change depending on the number of pre-orders we get.

Now, the cover price of the book, when it’s published, is going to be $14 (plus S&H) but right now there’s a pre-order sale going on! Anyone who pre-orders the book right now will be able to get it for $9 (plus S&H).

Now here’s where I’m going to ask for a little bit of help.

If you’re interested in ordering the book, by all means, feel free to do so. I’ll be more than happy for you to. If you’re not so sure, then that’s okay. BUT I’d appreciate it if you let anybody that you know – who you think might be interested – know about the book. So if you have any friends who are into acting or comedy or who like strange poetry, people who are involved in theatre or in university theatre departments, actors, acting students or folks who just like silly character pieces, I would very much appreciate it!

Before this book can come out I’ve got a target of at least 100 pre-sales I need to make. If it doesn’t make 100 by August then the publication date may get pushed back. If, on the other hand, we make 100 pre-sales well before the publication date, then it may come out early! And of course nothing would thrill me more, and I’m sure anybody else who actually goes in and pre-orders it would be cool with that coming out to them early as well.

With your help, I think we can definitely pull it off.

The pre-order deal is currently available at:

http://www.mainstreetrag.com/JRyan.html

This is the first time I will ever have an actual book out. I am ridiculously excited about it and I thank you very much for having the patience to let me ramble about it a bit.

And now, if you’re curious about what kind of monologues these are, there are three samples on that site, but I’ve also recorded one  for you and will be putting it at the end of the audio file for this blog post.

Thanks again and I hope you enjoy it!

The monologue, Kingdom of Java, is at the end of the recording! Click below to listen:

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Music by Dave Girtman

I’ve got two answering machine messages. The first one used samples from Young Frankenstein and the second used samples from Return of the Jedi. And I know I have a couple of friends that I had told about these messages and they were wondering if they’d ever get a chance to listen to them.

So here they are, guys. Be kind!

The messages are at the end of the recording! Click below to listen:

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Music by Dave Girtman

I’m talking about taking a picture of yourself and another person and posting it as your personal avatar on an internet community.  Now, I don’t mean including a picture like that in a collection of photos – I have no problem with that.  I’m talking specifically about using a photo of you and someone else as the one identifying image that comes up on Facebook, MySpace or any number of other services when I go to look at your profile.  It’s your avatar – the one picture that’s meant to convey the essence of who you are to everyone who looks at your personal page.

I realize I don’t have a lot of room to complain, here, given that MY avatar photo is usually a close-up of my left eye.  At least in my case, though, there’s no doubt that what you’re looking at is supposed to be representative of only one person.  There are plenty of folks out there who post things just as abstract or bizarre, and I have no issue with that.  But when you’re posting a photograph for your avatar and there’s more than one person in it, things can get a bit confusing.

Me and another guy. Which is which?

Sometimes it’s you and your kid, which I can kind of understand – after all, a lot of folks are proud of their children and place them above all else in importance.  If you consider your kid part of your identity as a person, then there’s no reason not to include them.  I must admit that I find it a little bit disturbing when the photo is ONLY of your child – suggesting that your identity has been completely subsumed by your offspring – but that’s another topic.

There are folks who like to use pictures of themselves with their significant others.  Again, I completely understand if you’re proud of the fact that you’re in a relationship – especially since some of us go through what seem like entire ice ages between them.  If your name is fairly gender-neutral, though, I may have trouble telling which one of you is which.  That, of course, assumes that your significant other is of the opposite gender.  If not, then it becomes difficult to tell who’s who regardless of naming conventions.

When it’s a picture of you and your best friend (again assuming that we’re only talking about cases in which you’re both the same gender), I have no idea what to think.  If I haven’t met you before then I have no way of knowing which one is you.  This is a common problem, I think, and yet people persist in doing it.

Are you trying to remain anonymous… without remaining anonymous?  I know that the last thing I’d expect my best friend to do is use me as a decoy to throw people off of his track.  It’s kind of like a superhero moving his sidekick in front of a bullet.  (“I knew you’d come in handy one day, little chum!”)

I often hear someone say that they’ve used a picture taken with a friend because it’s the best picture they could find of themselves.  That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem of identifying you.  That’s what an avatar is for, after all.

Are you trying to co-op a second person into your identity?  Are you symbiotes?  If it’s your best friend I’m sure they don’t necessarily have a problem with being “part of you” but I have to wonder if that diminishes their own individual identity a bit.  Are they okay with being a gestalt entity?  Does the essence of all that is you inhabit more than one body?

Maybe it does.  Maybe you and your friend are so inseparable that to know you is to know them as well and vice versa.  If that’s the case, then more power to you.  But I just have to ask one little favor: if your shared identity allows you at least the tiniest sense of self, could you possibly make it clearer which of the two people in your avatar photo is you?  Be the one standing closer to the camera.  Do something funky with Photoshop — give yourself a halo of light or glowing eyes or something.

Because ultimately, when I look at your avatar – whether it’s a picture of a giant eye, a cartoon armadillo or an ordinary photograph – I’m meant to be looking at some facet of the person you believe you are, or at least the person you’d like to be.

Otherwise, why bother?

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Music by Kevin MacLeod

I expect some of y’all are curious about the art o’ Personal Brandin’.  Step on up to the fire-pit and grab a hot iron, if you think you’re ready.  It takes a brave one to do it, but once everybody sees that there emblem on you, the folks’ll flock to you like a flight o’ rabid condors!  It’ll only be a few seconds before you pass out from the pain, so come on!  Who’s first?

Okay, okay, tempted as I am to finish this whole article in character, I’ll drop the accent and get a tad more serious.

I’ve taken a few tentative steps into the wading end of personal branding and will probably need to try sinking or swimming very soon.  Something I’ve been learning is that writers – writers of pretty much anything – need to advertise not only their work, but THEMSELVES.  What that essentially means is that they have to find ways to make themselves memorable to their readership.

Mur Lafferty (author of “Heaven” and “Playing for Keeps”) talks about this fairly frequently on her podcast.  J.C. Hutchins is doing it all over the place – remember him, by the way?  The guy whose Kilroy2.0 character “hacked” this blog and a bunch of others on October 27^th to promote the release of “7^th Son?”  If you do, then he’s evidently getting it right.

I’m still working on it.  I really need to get in gear, though, since I may very well have a creative project to promote sometime next year (more on that if and when it comes to fruition).  I recently came across an article by the inimitable Miss Destructo that discusses the creation of a personal identity and an accompanying press kit.  All I can say is that when the time comes for me to put a press kit together, I’ll be referencing it heavily!  It also shows that there are clearly a lot of steps I have yet to take in defining my own “brand.”

But, that said, here’s some of what I’ve done so far.  Hopefully it’ll be helpful for someone out there who might just be getting started.

Who is this OtherDoc guy, anyway?

I use the handle “otherdoc” for things like instant messaging services, bulletin boards and various online community sites – basically anywhere that you’re encouraged to go by a cool pseudonym instead of your real name.  I’ve been using it ever since the late 90’s, when I needed to give my then-local ISP a user ID.  “Doc” was already taken, so I went with “otherdoc” instead – and it stuck.  And no, I’m not a real doctor in any sense of the word.  The “doc” aspect was a throwback to my fascination with both Doctor Who and Doc Holliday.  Merge the two and you get a cantankerous smart-alec trying to use his wits to make the universe a better place – which is kind of how I’d like to describe myself – well, an idealized version of myself, anyway.  The “other” aspect, while initially just a way to stand out, has come to represent that sort of “alien” vibe I’m told I tend to give off (if you’ve met me, you probably know what I’m talking about).  It also works nicely as a way for my humility to come out and prod me every now and then, reminding me that I’m not necessarily the idealized “Doc” composite to which I aspire – I’m the OTHER “Doc.”

Regardless of its origin, using the same handle wherever I go means that people will hopefully recognize me no matter what site I’m on.  If you’re picking a handle out for yourself that you’d like to use in a similar way, choose something that you won’t mind being remembered as because you’ll be stuck with it for a long time.

What’s with the eye?

So, you might have noticed that picture of my left eye that appears on my web site, as album art for this blog’s audio files and on virtually every web site and communication service to which I subscribe that allows the use of a personal icon.  Honestly, like my net handle, I stumbled onto the use of that, too.  I had a web camera at one time and tried to get silly and artistic with it.  That photo, showing my left eye in the light and my right eye in shadow, was probably the best of all the ones I took (which probably gives you a good idea of just how pathetic I am at photography).  I’ve used it – or at least the right-most part of it on those occasions when I have to use an icon that’s completely square – as another way people can recognize me.  If they won’t always know me by my face, then by thunder they’ll know me by my eye!

In other words, faces can be forgotten, but if you have some kind of logo – even if it’s just an extreme close-up on one particular feature – people are more likely to remember it.  Maybe not at first, but if you get it out there enough, they will!

Like I said, these are just a couple of small steps.  There’s a lot more for me to do to get where I’ll need to be.  In the mean time, I’d be curious to hear what you folks out there in the digital ether have been doing as a way of branding yourselves?  What do you do to shout your identity to the world?  Don’t be shy – mosey on over to the blog’s comments area and throw down some responses.  We’ll keep the fire-pit ready and the irons hot!

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Music by Kevin MacLeod

I do a fair amount of all that and more and I freely admit that I make use of emoticons.  You know, those little symbols people make out of their keystrokes to show that they’re smiling    , winking , frowning or that they’re Abraham Lincoln ==):-)= or Cthulhu (:€.

I’ve noticed that for the most part people tend to be divided into two camps over the use of emoticons.  Either they love them or they hate them.  Emoticon lovers tend to slather all their posts with little smiley faces, “leet” speech, acronyms and deliberately misspelled words and phrases (which are often called “lolcatz” for reasons it would probably take most of a second article to fully explain).  Haters of emoticons decry them as ignorant and childish and tend to characterize people who use them as annoying zeebs with cuteness fixations who don’t know how to properly express themselves in writing.

I’m not deeply enamored of emoticons but I do make fairly frequent use of them.  Why?  Because they’re handy communication tools.

The trouble with the vast majority of internet-based communication is that there’s no way to determine the tone of the person writing to you.  Let’s say you’ve just sent out a text message letting your circle of friends know you’re about to go on a date.  You immediately get a message back from Bob that says:

“Don’t stay out too late!”

Now I’m sure you see the problem here.  Is Bob actually telling you not to stay out too late or is he joking?  Does he actually think that you’re still a teenager and that you can’t take care of yourself or is he just doing some harmless ribbing?  Is Bob being a supportive pal or an overbearing jerk?

The fact of the matter is that Bob has made a perfectly innocuous statement.  But now it’s spinning around and around in your head.   When you go to meet your date you’re so angry, frustrated and nervous that you mistake them for a valet and toss them your keys, upon which they angrily get into your vehicle and drive off.  So, now, having no car and having realized your mistake there’s nothing you can do but sit at the bar drinking yourself into a depressed stupor until they throw you out.  Then you wander the streets drunkenly until you’re accosted by muggers and beaten to a bloody pulp.

But, fear not!  With the use of a single emoticon the whole nightmare scenario can be avoided!

Imagine if, instead of sending the message, “Don’t stay out too late!” Bob texts, “Don’t stay out too late! ”  You see that?  Bob is winking at you!  That means he’s just kidding around!  He’s really wishing you well on your date after all.  What a scamp Bob is!  Now you can go out on your date with a clear head and perhaps have sex later in the evening.

So that’s pretty much why I use emoticons.  Not only does it help prevent people from being beaten into unconsciousness by roving gangs of angry youths, but it also helps keep people from thinking I’m a total jerk.

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Music by Dave Girtman & John Philip Sousa

Back when I was living in Atlanta, Dragon*Con was something that I always tried to attend every year without fail.  To be fair, it was pretty much the law that if you were a geek and a resident of Georgia, you were required to attend or suffer the loss of your Geek Membership Card, but I enjoyed it anyway.  I would get insanely excited about it whenever August rolled around and would begin chanting the convention’s name over and over in an annoying fashion.  It was my way of paying tribute to the Great Dragon Spirit!  Or something like that.

Unfortunately, I had to break with this sacred annual ritual when I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and had to spend most of the next four years trapped in a cold, harsh, Dragon*Con-less world.

All of that changed when I decided to say, “Damn the torpedoes!” and find a way to go this year.  It was a last-minute decision and I only had the cash to manage to be there for a total of six hours on a Sunday, but I have to tell you those six hours were pretty freaking amazing.

So what did I do in those six hours?  Well, mostly I just hung around.  Sure, we all enjoy seeing the celebrities pressed into their rows of autograph tables like pheasants under glass.  We like moving slowly through the dealers’ room and standing there for minutes at a time looking for openings between the huge throngs of convention shoppers much like the drivers are always doing with their fellow motorists just outside on Atlanta’s city streets.  But for me, the best part of a convention like Dragon*Con is meeting people and hanging out with them.

photo by Benjamin Miller

I did get to go to one panel (the live episode of Mur Lafferty’s “I Should Be Writing”), but the rest of the time I spent with people I’m happy to call my friends.  Some of them were friends I already knew from when I’d lived there before and some were new friends I’d made online – fellow podcasters and even some folks I’d met on Twitter.

A lot of people like to go to Dragon*Con and go absolutely nuts.  They burn themselves out trying to attend every possible panel, LARP, contest, party or concert.  That was me, too, the first couple of years I attended.  Then one year I decided that instead of trying to wrestle the monster that is the convention schedule, I’d just ride on its back instead.  I’d wander around from area to area and involve myself in whatever looked interesting to me.  And I have to tell you, I had more fun doing it that way than I can even begin to express.  That’s how I’ve done it ever since.

So, even though I spent three more hours driving that day than I did at the convention itself (eight hours on the round trip and the rest navigating the demonic web of Atlanta’s traffic system), it was totally worth it.  For me, Dragon*Con is all about the people.  And no matter how short your visit is to that mystical land that exists between those four downtown hotels over Labor Day weekend before disappearing Brigadoon-like into the draconic aether, there will always be people a-plenty.

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Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Hi, Jim!”

I’ve been addicted to podcasts since some time in 2008.  I’m not sure exactly when I started.  It’s all become a kind of blur, really.  I still remember that fateful day when that guy on the street corner waved an iPod at me and offered the first hit for free.

“Come on, you know you want to.  Everybody’s doing it.”

And from the moment I first plugged that rich, direct podcast feed into my veins, I started a horrifying downward spiral from which there was no escape.

I experimented with RPG podcasts at first.  Sure, they seemed pretty innocuous, but soon they weren’t enough.  I had to have more.  I started in on philosophical podcasts, then the downward slide to comedy podcasts and music podcasts was inevitable.  Soon I didn’t even need an iPod to listen to them.  I started to hear them in my head!

Granted, this would usually happen when I sat down at the computer, and started WinAmp, but there surely must have been more going on than just an MP3 file being played through my computer’s speakers.  Something much more ominous had to be occurring.  Clearly I’d connected with these podcasts on a level that defied all sanity and reason.

After a little while it seemed as though some of the podcasts I listened to began speaking directly to me.  They began responding to questions and concerns that I’d had as though they could read my mind!  No matter that I’d begun sending e-mails to the podcasters, who were then reading them on their podcasts.  That was far too simple an explanation.  There was clearly a much more sinister force at work.

My addiction had spun completely out of control.  My desktop had become littered with icons for downloaded mp3 files from top to bottom.  I’d started playing MMORPGs just for something to do while listening to the podcasts.  My computer was turning into nothing more than a glorified radio!

I tried to be good.  I tried to cut down on my listening and live some semblance of a normal life, but every time I’d abandon my podcasts to go out and visit friends or shop for groceries or pick up my mail, I’d inevitably find myself rushing back to the computer to find more podcasts to listen to than ever before!

In the end, I came to the realization that I had utterly failed to stay on the podcast wagon (or, indeed, get on it in the first place).  So I decided that if I was going to fail, I would fail spectacularly.  I began to produce my own podcasts.  Instead of chasing the demon away, I’ve embraced it and am now proud to call myself part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

So, why not come and take a listen to my podcasts?  The Great Debate! and The Every World News Podcast are just sitting there waiting for you.

Come on, you know you want to.  Everybody’s doing it.

And incidentally, if anyone out there happens to be curious, here’s a list of the podcasts I listen to.

If you have a podcast and I haven’t listed it, don’t worry, I’ll probably be listening to it sooner or later.

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Hey, I’ve got my reasons.  Here are a few of them:

1. Personal Branding. No, I’m not talking about scouring my flesh with a heated, iron emblem.  I mean that as my various projects progress it occurs to me that it would be nice to have something that helps link them together in some way and make them more accessible.  This way, now, if anyone wants to check out the different aspects of what I’ve been doing or thinking about, there’ll be a central place on the web for them to go.

2. More Writing. I’d like to start doing some freelance writing and in order to do that I need samples.  So, I plan to use this blog to produce lots and lots of nonfiction articles about anything and everything I find interesting.  If I can manage to do it regularly then maybe that’ll help get me into the habit of writing more, which can only be a good thing.  And hopefully I can make it entertaining to anyone who wanders by this little site of mine.

3. The Experiment. I’m all about media experiments.  You’ll notice a play button at the end of this entry (or at least you will if I can get everything working properly).  If you press it, you’ll get to hear me read the article to you, thus giving you the choice of reading through it, listening to it or both, if you’re so inclined.  It’s something that I saw one or two people doing on their fiction blogs and thought I’d give it a try.  I plan to do that with every article I post.  Let me know what you think!

4. I want to. I also never really had much of a sense of time management, anyway.

So there it is.  Let’s give this here article-writing thing a spin and see how it handles!

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