i'm working on my book and am inspired by Jenny Edbauer's recently-rolled-out book blog concept/practice (Jenny so often inspires me). i'm not sure i'll be posting stuff every day (as she wants to do), but i am motivated to a more profoundly hopeful and productive schedule. radical concept: write every day. so easy to forget or bypass it.
so my question about the book. i keep coming back to this: "New Media" is so often capitalized. i'm having trouble with the label, with the capitalization, and with how i should or should not be attending to convention when i use the term.
maybe i've missed some key piece of writing that complexifies or even clarifies (gasp!) the matter. if so, maybe someone could point me to it? or, more simply, give feedback on my near solid decision to write New Media in caps once and create an endnote to explain that i will do so only once and in every other instance simply write "new media," (w/out the quotation marks) which i'll be defining through several sources but mostly using to talk about digital filmmaking potential for Composition classrooms.
please post your thoughts! please (but be nice; if i'm an idiot for missing or forgetting some obvious resource, please be gentle).
also, maybe you'd like to post thoughts on the book blog idea. is this something one (I) should do? i'm not sure it's for me, but i like the idea of frequent feedback from the cool people who read and post in the circles i am wandering in to . . . but at the same time, it's a little frightening.
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7 comments:
"also, maybe you'd like to post thoughts on the book blog idea. is this something one (I) should do? i'm not sure it's for me, but i like the idea of frequent feedback from the cool people who read and post in the circles i am wandering in to..."
i started my blog for this very reason: as a way to keep notes on all the crap i was reading for my comps. it proved INVALUABLE!! i'm not sure if there's a superlative that can better express "highly", but i HIGHLY recommend doing that which you/Jenny suggest.
i heart the blogosphere. though i sometimes wish my network of readers were a bit bigger and i got more love in my comments section, even that which i do get is incredible. i credit blogging and many of those who visit my place with feedback for a lot of the growth that i've experienced as a scholar and professional in the field over the past couple years.
so, yeah, if your down, DO IT!
and about the New Media thing.
i can't point you to any sources. and i think your "near solid decision" is solid as it stands. the one thing i might suggest for consideration (just for consideration!) is this: explain your decision to not use quotes/not capitalize more than once.
maybe this is a stupid suggestion, but in a book-length project it seems that repetition will not only make your point more memorable (and urgent?), but it will stress to your audience that it's not a decision that you made lightly. footnotes can sometimes communicate this sense - almost like it was an issue that a reader or editor told you you should say something about so you just sorta slid it in passing - as a footnote. yaknowhatimean?
i have ZERO experience with writing /editing a book, but i did stay at a Holiday Inn last night!
j/k :)
you should def take my $.02 with some granules of sodium chloride.
thanks, Chris, for your encouraging comments. i see what you mean about going beyond endnotes, and i agree that sometimes they just feel weak. i'm not sure, however, that i'm making any kind of statement by not capitalizing NM (and i'm not sure i'll not capitalize NM; generally, i'm not a big fan of capitalization altogether, but there are conventions and expectations and whatnot).
still not sure about the book blog, but i did get a lot done yesterday. actual prose instead of simple notes (which are never simply "simple," but there is a sense of accomplishment in drafting that's different, right?).
i am getting inspiration from many sources these days, and most of them are telling me to write, to just write and stop over-planning and over-worrying and doubting and all that. one recent source of inspiration was Anne Wysocki's statement on the C's election ballot. her closing comment -- i don't think i saved the doc, so correct me if i'm wrong -- was something like "we know what we're doing." i took this very much to heart. she has a way of inspiring me, as does her lovely husband, Dennis Lynch, that is beyond my ability to articulate.
and you and your comments work similiarly, sort of cheering me on. i'm always so grateful to see your words. thanks :)
crap. i just sent you a note off-line about Anne's statement. wish i would have read this before i sent it. seems less appropriate now. oh well.
and ditto about the encouraging words! ;)
nice comment (the back channel one). i should post it here because i'm blushing w/ pride to read that you see me as an authority in NM.
i see myself as a filmmaker who works in digital film. NM seems more a disciplinary term; that's the distinction i'm seeing, and that's why i'm somewhat ambivalent about how i use the term. still, i don't want to offend NM scholars or diss the emerging field, so i'm trying to get feedback on that account. make sense?
absolutely that makes sense - both the not-offending and the feedback. perfect sense.
just seems to me that your experiences and expertise would supersede what another may or may not suggest in an article (or where ever). but, still, the acknowledging of another's contribution should go w/o saying.
though *normally* i refrain (or try to refrain) from posting email communications, if you're dying to post our off-line exchange, and don't mind being associated with such vulgar analogies...
oh no. leave it back channel :)
and, you'll see in my new post that i reference this conversation, trying to work through some things . . . not intending to dismiss your comments but to process them :)
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