Even as a tech guy, I marvel at how much the world has changed since the advent of the Internet. Whenever I read those articles suggesting that the Web is the final step toward Armageddon, I want to both laugh and scream. Without dusting off my soapbox, ANYTHING good can be misused / abused and people can get hurt. That doesn't mean the world has to stop progressing. Rather, we all have to be smarter.
A Tale of Internet Friendship #1
As I mentioned in my last post, there were a couple of online acquaintances of note from my early days online. I was a regular denizen of AOL chat rooms back then. I was single and thought that would b a good way to meet women without going out to bars (which I hated to do) or anything else that silly.
One person I met seemed nice enough at first. Her named was Carol. She was an accountant, older than me and studied French on her own like I did. She lived in the LA area, so we decided to meet in real life. I forget what we did that first meeting - probably went out to a movie or something.
Anyway, we both realized right away that we weren't going to have anything more than a friendship, which was fine with both of us. We had dinners, saw movies, went to museums - all of that. Eventually she met a nice guy, but still wanted to "hang out" with me even though I was sure her new beau wouldn't be happy.
Long story short, I felt uncomfortable going out with her when her boyfriend was busy with his other friends and slowly started to withdraw from the relationship. Honestly, I think she was taken with the idea of having two steady men friends. She was quite disappointed - hurt, really - that I didn't want to spend any more time with her. No matter how I tried to explain that I didn't want to mess up her real boyfriend relationship, she couldn't understand why she couldn't have both of us in different ways. My only response - I told her to ask her boyfriend how he felt about it. Needless to say, I never heard from her again.
One interesting story about Carol … one day, she called me to tell me her car was stolen. She had driven to a park near her house where she would go to walk/run some laps, then drive home. I felt bad for her as she had to go through that whole insurance mess. Since I had had that happen to me once before, I was able to give her a truly empathetic ear.
Two weeks later, she called me to tell me that the police had found her car. I thought that was great news - until she told me that the car had never moved from where she originally parked it, she just forgot where she parked it! She went through all that trouble with the insurance company and the DMV and in the end, she was just lost!
A Tale of Internet Friendship #2
One evening, I met someone in an AOL chat room called "Divorced Only," a place I frequented nightly simply because I was divorced and was looking to meet a woman who had been through that same rollercoaster. There was one person - new to the room - with whom I had an immediate connection. She wasn't divorced at the time, but had been divorced before her current marriage.
As it turns out, her second marriage was ending and she just happened to go online for the first time EVER. Her business was broken into and the crooks stole their computers. She had to buy new ones - quick, too, since she had clients to attend to. The new computers came with a free AOL account, so she decided to try it. She only went into the chat room on a lark, mostly to distract herself from her marital woes.
The story is rather long, but the upshot is this: we fell for each other online, moved to the phone, then she came to the west coast (from the Midwest) on business. We spent the whole week together and spent the next couple of years flying back and forth to spend time with each other. She moved out here in 1999 when we got married. The rest, as they say, is history.
Writing Contests
One of the ways one can get exposure is by submitting works to writing contests. So far, I've submitted "Ricochet Man" (formerly "The Rebound Guy") to Bluecat and Scriptapalooza. Even though I didn't even come in the quarterfinals in either, I was glad for the experience.
With Bluecat, by the way, you get feedback on your submission regardless of how you do in the contest. Not so with Scriptapalooza … so, if that's what you're looking for, try somewhere else.
I believe I mentioned in a previous blog, but my wife and I got as far as the semifinals in the ScriptapaloozaTV contest for a reality show treatment we submitted. I'm not mentioning that one by name for the time being; we're hoping that it will catch the attention of someone in the business. We're pursuing marketing efforts, though.
Writing Progress
This week, I finished editing "Prized Possession" and after getting feedback from my parents, I posted it online. Even though it's almost 50 pages - 11,200 words - the three people who read it thought it was a fast read and had very nice things to say about it.
I've only made a little progress on "The Cage Door Swings" and I've started a new poem as well (title to be disclosed when complete).
Speaking of poetry, I just posted all my completed poems to a new website called Poetry With Meaning (http://www.poetrywithmeaning.com/).
This week, I've started writing a character profile for a totally new character. I'm reading a book by James Frey (not THE James Frey of the recent book scandal) called How To Write a Damn Good Mystery Novel. He insists on using this profiling method - both as a third person bio and in the character's void - to learn about your character better. This will help in the backstory as well as the dialog, he claims. I believe him, too. I need to write one up for Lucinda Dreyer, the heroine of my short story, "Animal Control" and my novel (in progress), On a Gelding's Trail.
I admit that I've been procrastinating on starting the edit of my screenplay, "A Perfect Tenant." I SWEAR I'll get through some of it this week.
That’s all from here (no previews right now). May every one of you enjoy your week now that Spring is fast approaching.
Michael
http://www.editred.com/socalvillaguy
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/user_id/socalvillaguy
http://myspace.com/socalvillaguy
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