Category Archives: Work

Why Make Stuff on the Internet? (Obviously Subjective)

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I have been making things on the internet for a long time. Not all of them were good things: for the first several years I made crappy videos on Youtube. In fact, I’d say I’ve only been making quality content for the last 2-1/2 years of my 7-year internet carrier. And that only started when I made a bunch of webcomics and then made a conscious effort to make my video and articles (blog posts) better. My videos might have been alright for some time before that, but other things I did weren’t.

Even so, I’m not particularly popular. I do quite a few things that get some views, but I am for the most part a background character on the internet. Sometimes I think about internet generations, and how I’ve actually survived through several of them. I haven’t quit since I’ve started, and during that time I’ve not been rewarded with tons of views or engagement, partially because a lot of it wasn’t the best quality.

That is not to say I don’t have people liking and commenting fairly regularly (less so on my main site). People do, but I do feel quite distant from them and like they are a minority. I do this because I like doing it. And even though I haven’t made enough money to cover the expenses of doing it, it’s highly likely that I will continue doing it in the future.

Especially considering that since I started, my viewers (readers, etc.) have only gone up (sometimes down suddenly, but up is the overall trend). While they haven’t exploded like many other people who put a lot of content on the internet, there is no denying that there are more people who read me now than there were before. And I don’t think that trend will reverse for quite some time.

Sometimes it does feel like I’m just talking into the void, which seems lonely. Bu I have confidence that if I keep putting things up, keep my accounts active, keep moving forward, that people, even a few, will see what I have previously done. Because, contrary to what many might say, it is quite possible for things to disappear on the internet, mostly due to neglect from creators. If one creates something, even if it is immensely popular, eventually fewer people will remember it, and there will be little to no chance of recovering it if the creator lets his domain registration lapse and the content is erased from its original servers. Because those who might re-post the content on their own Youtube channel, or their own blog, etc. are much more likely to lose the content later, whether they chose to, or their account was abandoned or deleted. Piece by piece, internet history (as all history) falls apart and we can’t remember it all.

I’ve been fortunate for my own drive to create, and keep creating even if no one is watching. I might even prefer it that way (though money to like, live would be nice). Many people can’t keep making videos, or drawing comics, or writing articles if no one is watching, if no one is engaging, etc. I can, and I made a conscious decision a long time ago that I would continue to do so, which I guess is quite vain. I keep creating so that my past creations aren’t lost forever, and to incrementally increase my chance of “making it”.

I enjoy it. I hope other people enjoy it and find it useful, and of course I hope it grows. There are plenty of project, large and small, that I wish hadn’t ended due to creators moving on in some way (having another idea, getting bored, changing lifestyle, etc) and maybe I’ll be one of those people in the future (I hope not). But for now, I’ll be here, plinking away into the endless stream of new and amazing things appearing all over the place. And even if it doesn’t work out that I “make it”, sometimes people like me just need to talk into the void.

Moving Mountains

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It feels like I’ve been moving mountains. I know I haven’t been, but it feels like it, at least it does now. In a few years I’ll look back and say ‘man that was easy, why can’t now be like then’. Of course, that’s what I think now about school. That was way too easy.

Anyway, you might wonder what I’ve been doing. Well, aside from my current schedule of providing from two to four pieces of content a day, I’ve been: Registering two LLCs with the state, getting DBAs for those two companies, working on advertising, and finishing up and publishing two websites, et cetera. (I also had to deal with some banks that wouldn’t let me get an account, so that failed.)

This may sound easy to some people, especially parts of it. But to me right now that was almost overwhelming. Okay, that might not be the right word, but I’ll go with it.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about the experience. It wasn’t actually difficult, it just felt that way, and it was very time-consuming. I guess time-consuming things are more difficult just based on premise. There were several hiccups, though not as many as I expected, being a few years ‘too young’ to be doing this kind of thing.

Everything has gone along smoothly as far as resistance is concerned though, most of the hiccups were easily gone around, though that was the longer path. The main problem has been that my work has suffered from doing these things. Paper work takes time, especially by mail, so between filling out forms, mailing them, and waiting for them I’ve used up a large chunk of time that I was previously using to create more content. Though most of the content is still eventually being created, it is sometimes late, and is really crunching my schedule. Most of these things are done, but things like the site meta-data are still works in progress.

This is really more of a blog update than an article or something. I just thought it was sort of interesting considering it has been consuming my life for a little while now. I hope anyone who cares was interested and I hope I didn’t kill anyone else with boredom. This has been a long process, but it is still much more gratifying than anything I did in school. And I hope all reading this will get to enjoy the future things I create because of this process.

If You Can’t Write… Don’t.

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Articles are hard, just sayin’ that. Depending on the definition of article being used they can be even harder. What exactly makes an article is really up to either the author or the publisher. The same thing applies to when a short story becomes a novella, a novella a novel, and so on. But other than that they’re just plain hard. Writing is hard, every writer is the first to admit that (every high school “artist” wouldn’t in a “million” years). And contrary to popular belief, writing is becoming harder. While anyone can now become a writer, attention spans are becoming shorter. People who “write” write very little. Bloggers even have to force themselves to come up with interesting content. At least the interesting ones do. How many times have you come across a dead Blog with a promising start, that just disappeared. Or, more realistically, just sucked and piddled out. Everyone has a Blog, everyone posts words, or videos or something on the internet. However most just wither and die. Most “writers” don’t have the attention span or the drive to continue writing. Even people who are attentive to their Blogs fail because they can’t push themselves to continue creating content. Eventually preconceived ideas drain and nothing new comes. It seems cliche now to say that every writer finds it hard to write and most have to force themselves to start, but it is true. The difference is that most people say that to encourage people to write. I am not trying to encourage you: writing is hard, really hard and time consuming. But I don’t mean to discourage you either, if you write well then write, if you can force yourself to. Just because writing on a computer is easy, doesn’t mean you have great ideas, just because you have great ideas, doesn’t mean you can force yourself to write them, or that when you do it will be good.

Most writers that continually create content write as either their job or as a major hobby, and it works like any other hobby. Just like how the movie buff spends most of his free time watching movies, or that model collector you know spends his putting together little plastic pieces and painting them, writers spend theirs writing. It takes time and dedication to do, and if that is not applied, it is crap. And as much as the writer in me wants to say it’s hard because you’re continually being attacked by dinosaurs, going to parties, flying pigs around Mount Everest, and communing with the soul of William S. Burroughs, that is simply not the case. Any writer able to continue creating deserves commendation, but those unable to should not be concerned. The ubiquity of the Blog is unnecessary. Not everyone needs to be a writer. There are other ways a voice can be heard, or maybe it won’t even be your voice but your actions. Writers may be able to write more and arguably better then you, but you can do better than them at something. And if you are a writer continue to be so, the amount of dead Blogs grows every day from forgotten passwords to lack of content, don’t let yours fall into the same hole. But my intent is mainly a caution: do what you do, and not what the internet does.

 

On Deadlines

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Too much bluffing will make you show it,

Too much pressure will make you blow it.

-Guy Clark

By: Austin Smith

I love Blogging, and writing in general, and doing things. I’ve never turned and said to a person ” Man, you know what I hate. Doing stuff!”. But I’m also terrible at getting stuff done. I have so much to do and never end up doing it all. Like yesterday, I had three goals, and I got them all done… in the two hours before midnight.

That’s what I’m going to talk about, deadlines. People just do better with deadlines. And the ability to force yourself to meet a deadline is an awesome skill. Like right now, I’m forcing myself to get something done on friday before eight. Friday was my choice, eight was my friends’ choice. It’s not like I have to get anything done, but I want to. I could just not go out and do stuff, but then I would have no friends.* I could also just forget about it all together, but then I would let myself down.

Deadlines help us get things done, they give us a feeling of necessity. I have not seen one person do worse with a deadline then without. Sometimes I haven’t seen them do better, but that’s because they suck. And it doesn’t need to be a fast and hard deadline either. Some people work better under pressure and prefer that, but others crack. The deadline doesn’t have to be the end, though. I could stop now and still have “met” my deadline. It isn’t necessary to put all the pressure on, just some, just enough to make you get it done. Telling someone that they have to finish something or someone’s going to die doesn’t help, and I can guarantee you that if you told one of the novelist crowd to write a book in a week or the world would end they couldn’t do it.

A lot of people will say that you need time to create the masterpieces that your ideas were meant to be, and if you can write ” War and Peace” fine by me, but from my experience the best ideas come when you need an idea. Sometimes they are forced and bad, but sometimes you can overwork something to death, too. The deadline never has to be the end of something, just ask George Lucas. Everything you do will get the time you owe it.

 

* Not that I have any anyway.