A Warning About Meeting People Online...

(via Wil Wheaton)

WebLit Doings

You may have noticed me mention this the other day.

"WebLit."

Short for "web literature." That is, writing published directly to the web.

Since I'm part of that illustrious community (I like to think of it as an illustrious community), I thought it only fitting to do a shout out to my fellows.

Web Fiction Guide catalogs and reviews WebLit. As does e-fiction Book Club, though their focus is more on reviews.

Via MeiLin Miranda we now have WebLit.us, a spot where we WebLiterati can discuss WebLit cross-promotion strategies.

Want some starters? Try these stories for an intro:

• Strange Little Band
• Riders of Darith
• The Lighthouse Chronicles
• Space Slugs
• Nomesque Stories

Come join us for WebLit fun.

KAT AND MOUSE Updates

"Ghosts of the Past" is now posted at the site.

For those of you following the serial, a few notes:

Like the earlier episode "Life Goes On," this is another filler piece.

These will now take the place of the Interludes I'd been using. The Interludes were meant to be short, filler pieces, connecting running storylines. By the time I got to writing the later ones, they were getting longer than originally planned so I decided I'd give them their own installment.

Enjoy this one. Things are going to start getting even more complicated for our duo.

As if it weren't complicated already...

In Which The Serial Is Mentioned...

Over at quillsandzebras, fellow WebLit author A.M. Harte posted about heroes in WebLit works.

Our Daring Duo get a short blurb.

Thanks, A.M.!

KAT AND MOUSE Updates

Part 7 of "The Price of Vengeance" is now live.

KAT AND MOUSE Updates

Part 6 of "The Price of Vengeance" is now live on the site.

Enjoy!

KAT AND MOUSE Trailer

How's this for something fun?

KAT AND MOUSE Updates

Part 5 of "The Price of Vengeance" is now live at the site and marks Month #9 of the serial.

Why the Stigma?

I recently ran across this post from digital-media author MCM about self-publishing. It automatically brought to mind another post on self-publishing but from a perspective completely opposite MCM's.

I've heard this sort of thing before, that anything self-published is automatically crap.

But it got me thinking...

Indie musicians and indie filmmakers are typically praised when they don't bow down to the great corporate studio/production company juggernaut. People say "Good for them! They made the music they wanted to make and didn't turn into another cookie-cutter boy band." Or "Good for them! They didn't sacrifice their filmic vision for another cookie-cutter Hollywood piece of garbage."

Yet when people hear someone self-published a book, they immediately say "Oh. Couldn't get a real publisher. Must be because the book is crap. Loser."

Another medium that often self-publishes without any ill feelings: indie comic books. Not everyone out there writes/draws/inks/colors for Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse. Some folks do it all on their own. Just ask Dave Sim, for one.

So I ask: why?

Why is the indie musician praised for essentially self-publishing his album of punk-country-speed metal songs but the self-published novelist is criticized?

What say you?

Cyberpunk Opera?

Fantasy has sword and sorcery. SF has space opera.

How about "cyberpunk opera"?

I'd describe it as "cyberpunk action-adventure stories." Stories that simply accept the conventions of cyberpunk and just tell gritty adventures.

KAT AND MOUSE would be an example of cyberpunk opera.

Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Why?

What say you?